Jack James and the Tribe of the Teddy Bear

by J. Joseph Wright

“Historic events,” she shifted to the other heel. “I said your life will be distinguished by historic events.”

  “That’s right. Do you still believe that?”

  “Yes, of course. But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Amelia, I think it’s happening. I think what you predicted is coming true?”

  “Already? Listen, Jack. I meant someday…in the future.”

  “Well, today does qualify, technically.”

  “Jack, I intentionally missed the bus, waited outside, in the rain and wind I might add, and now I get the feeling you’re not being very truthful with me. What’s going on?”

  “No, no, no. Please. I’m not trying to prank you or anything like that, believe me. What I have to show you is real. I just want to make sure you’re ready for it, that I’m ready for it.”

  “Are you ever going to tell me what the heck you’re talking about?”

  He swallowed hard, his gulp plainly audible above the chattering children at the crosswalks, and the last two buses rumbling from the curb.

  “You’ve got to promise me. No matter what you see, don’t tell another soul, okay? I mean it. Not another soul.”

  “Jack, you’re scaring me.”

  “Just promise.”

  “Okay, okay. I promise.”

  “All right. Do you believe in, well, for the lack of a better term, monsters? Not like werewolves or vampires, but real monsters, animals we have all kinds of anecdotal evidence of, but no proof. Like the Loch Ness Monster, or around here it’s Queenie the River Dragon and Bigfoot.”

  “Cryptozoology, yeah,” she answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “I love that stuff. Bigfoot is cool.”

  “What if I told you I had one in my backpack right now?”

  “A bigfoot?” she frowned. “In there?”

  “No, not a bigfoot,” he giggled uneasily. “That would be silly.”

  “Oh that would be silly?” she snatched the pack and flipped it open. “But not this…”

  She reached in the bag, hastily at first. Then she paused and went blank. Obviously she felt something odd. All of her skepticism vanished, the doubting leers replaced by quiet, careful deliberation, as if she was handling a precious artifact.

  “This is strange, isn’t it? What is this?” cautiously she removed it. “A teddy bear? Uh, no. Look at its hands and feet. See how realistic they are? And what’s with these strange, green markings under its eyes? They’re ridged and colorful, kind of like a mandrill. This is uncanny. Definitely not a normal stuffed animal.”

  She examined it further, studying, searching deep into its unresponsive gaze for some kind of clue, a shred of evidence that might have shined light on its origins. Jack was impressed at her thoroughness, how methodically she combed over every inch, something even he didn’t take the time to do.

  “It’s so realistic,” she let out a big sigh. “It’s, it’s…” she turned it over and inspected underneath. “Whoa!”

  With a quick flinch, she handed the creature to Jack, her skin drained of color.

  “That’s very realistic!” she professed, then lowered her voice. “Jack, where did you get it?”

  “At Winmart. I found it yesterday. Actually, Dillon saw it first. But I’m the one who cleaned it up. It was pretty messy, like someone dragged it through the garbage.”

  “Yeah, it does smell kinda funny,” she grinned. “But that’s not what bothers me about it.”

  He waited for her to explain what she meant. Instead, in a trance, she continued investigating the creature up and down.

  “Amelia,” he said sharply. “What is it?”

  “Jack,” she blinked at him. “I think you might be right. I think that thing may be real, that it may be alive.”

  “Oh, man,” he felt dizzy. “I was afraid you were going to say that. You really think so?”

  “Yeah, yeah I do,” she nodded. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s got, like, skin, and real fingers and toes and…” she lowered her voice to a whisper. “And it can go to the bathroom.”

  “What!”

  “I know. Weird, huh?” she continued. “But the weirdest part is the feeling I’m getting from him. I’m telling you, when I hold him, and it’s a him by the way, I get this really odd sense. It’s like, I don’t know, like he’s trying to communicate with me, with us.”

  Jack should have been skeptical. He had every right. Yet he wasn’t. Not even a little.

  “I think most people would be saying you’re crazy,” he held up the mysterious little beast. “But they’d be saying the same thing about me. We’re not, though, are we Amelia? We’re not…”

  The roar of a powerful motor drowned out his last words.

  “Hey, New Girl! You missed your bus. You wanna ride?” Dillon shouted from the backseat of Mike’s older brother’s candy apple red muscle car. Next to him, Mike tried to hold back one of the biggest dogs Jack had ever seen. A Rottweiler. Jack knew by its enormous jaws. And, for some reason, its snarling and barking seemed aimed directly at him.

  “No, thanks. I’ll be fine,” Amelia declined politely.

  Mike scoffed. “I see. You’re gonna walk home with Jack and his—whatcha got there, Jack? A teddy bear?”

  The Rottweiler barked louder, spewing a slimy mixture of foam and snot while Mike feebly clutched its collar.

  “That’s none of your business,” Amelia answered for Jack.

  “Hey!” Dillon pointed. “That teddy bear was supposed to stay at the store! My mom said!”

  “No, Harley!” Mike strained to control his canine. Dillon joined him. The two were no match for its strength. “Down, boy. DOWN!”

  Harley shook off his handlers and squeezed his brawny frame through the car window. In two quick, deceptively long strides, it reached Jack, chomped Takota out of his hands and ran, growling and frothing, toward the alleyway behind Winmart.

  “NO!” Jack and Amelia shouted in unison. They gave chase, though the dog had an insurmountable lead.

  “Harley! Come back! Harley!” Mike jumped out of the Monte Carlo. Dillon followed, moving fast.

  Snarling, Harley carried the tiny animal out of sight behind the building. The group of children raced and called for him to come back in unison. He didn’t obey. He was on a rampage for the taste of delicious, exotic meat. Jack heard the angry, ravenous dog back there, rumbling and thrashing. Just before they got into position to see for themselves, the dog let out a short, agonized YIP! Then another, louder one. Finally, Harley released one last cry of agony, so tortured it made the kids go from a full sprint to an immediate, dead stop.

  “Wha…what was that?” Mike faltered.

  “That was your dog, man,” Dillon was trembling. “And he’s in trouble.”

  Then the loudest, meanest, most terrifying roar ever uttered made the ground shake. Harley, the formerly voracious Rottweiler, returned, whimpering and running with his tail between his legs. He catapulted past his owner’s welcoming arms, past the rest of the amazed kids, and dove into the Monte Carlo where Wade, Mike’s older brother, waited unaware, bouncing to the Thump! Thump! of his car stereo.

  The two boys made a beeline for the vehicle, screaming and tripping over each other twice while struggling to get inside. Jack might have thought it funny if he weren’t so scared. Then he found himself running, too.

  “Something big’s back there!” he led Amelia to Winmart’s front entrance. “Let’s get my mom, come on!”

  “MOM! MOM! SOMETHING TERRIBLE’S HAPPENED!” Jack raced to checkout counter three where Liz was busy scanning grocery items. A bundle of fresh asparagus, Beep! A five pound bag of flour, Beep!

  Amelia hurried behind him and he yelled again. “You gotta come with us, quick!”

  Beep!

  “Not now, Jack. I’m busy.”

  Beep!

  Liz smiled at the elderly woman waiting to pay the bill. “Sorry ‘bout that, ma’am.”

  Beep!

  “That’s all right,” the
old lady smiled at the kids. Despite being gray, her long hair gave her a youthful appearance. She wore a colorful, cotton tunic dress and golden sandals on bare feet. “I just adore children. And Teresa Tree’s my name, but please, call me Teresa. ‘Ma’am’ makes me feel so old.”

  Beep!

  Jack pleaded. “I’m sorry, ma’am—uh, Teresa. But I need my mom right now, it’s a matter of life or death!”

  Beep!

  “Oh my,” Teresa’s forehead wrinkled. “Then she’d better go with you.”

  Beep!

  “No, no,” Liz glared at her son indirectly, then flashed a grin at Teresa. “That’s very nice of you, but I can’t. Anyway, my boy has a pretty wild imagination and…”

  “It’s not my imagination, Mom,” Jack interrupted.

  “No, Mrs. James,” Amelia added breathlessly. “Something happened behind the building.”

  “Well, what was it? Someone was hurt?”

  Jack glanced at Teresa. He didn’t want to say anything that might have sounded peculiar in front of a total stranger, yet the woman’s warm smile made him feel at ease.

  Beep!

  “Not someone, something,” explained Amelia.

  “What’s she talking about?” Liz raised an eyebrow.

  “Mom, remember that teddy bear I told you I thought was real? Well it is real, and I think it was in some kind of fight behind the store. Mom, please come with us to see if it’s okay! Please!”

  “Well,” Teresa perked up. “Seems you have quite an emergency on your hands.”

  “Yeah,” Liz let out an airy cough. “Like I said. Imagination.”

  Beep!

  “Mom, please!”

  “Go for it,” Teresa nodded to Liz. “I’ll wait. It’ll be okay. We employees have to stick together.”

  Liz tilted her head. “You work here, too?”

  “Yes, yes,” Teresa beamed, pointing over her shoulder. “I’m the storyteller back in Kids Kastle,” she winked at Jack and Amelia. “You two should visit sometime,” she leaned in and brightened even further. “My stories can be quite magical.”

  “Mom!” Jack danced on his tiptoes. “Come on!”

  “Go, go,” the aging woman reached and put the Register Closed sign on the conveyer belt behind her groceries. “I’ll cover for you if Al or Roberta show up.”

  “Thank you,” Liz touched her hand.

  “Closed! This register’s closed?” a short, plump woman with a stubby nose and frizzy, black hair waddled to the checkout carrying a full basket. “Why do you have to close this register all of the sudden? What’s going on, huh?”

  Behind her were two other women, both taller, and one freakishly so. She was skin and bones, with fine, grayish hair falling to her knees. Similar to their diminutive leader, the third woman was also overweight, yet possessed the height to make it less obvious. She had reddish hair set in waves reminiscent of a style Jack had seen in old-fashioned movies.

  The three women peered at Teresa, then at the children.

  “Oh, Gert,” Teresa smiled. “How’ve you been?” she nodded at the taller women. “Claudette, Vivien. How are you ladies?”

  “It’s you we’re concerned about,” Gert answered. “You haven’t been by for quite some time.”

  “I apologize. I’ve been so busy with the new job,” Teresa explained. “That reminds me. Gert, ladies, meet uh…”

  “Oh, sorry. Liz. Liz James. And this is my son, Jack, and his friend Amelia.”

  Gert bent down and wrinkled one eye. “Jack, huh? Tell me, what’s this talk about a teddy bear being real?”

  Jack figured if the women were Teresa’s friends, they must have been respectable. “Oh, yeah. It was…”

  “It was nothing,” Teresa interrupted. “I forgot my handbag, and they were just going out to my van to fetch it for me.”

  “Really?” Gert stooped closer. “I swore I heard something else. Hmm. Must be hearing things.”

  “That’s right,” Teresa agreed. “You must be.”

  “Uh,” Jack addressed the women. “We’d love to stick around and chat, but we-we have to go,” he tugged his mom’s hand.

  “I’ll be back in one minute, okay?” Liz followed the children outside.

  JACK HESITATED AT THE SPOT where, minutes earlier, he, Amelia, and the other two boys had heard that skin crawling roar. What kind of violent scene were they about to encounter? What bloody mess strewn across the asphalt? The images his mind painted were gruesome.

  “It’s right over here,” Amelia told Liz while urging him with a poke in the shoulders. “C’mon, Jack.”

  He let them go ahead of him. With his hand over his mouth, he watched them reach the corner of the building, imagining he saw what they saw in the back lot, envisioning the grisly evidence of a deadly struggle.

  “Uncanny!” Amelia shouted.

  He dashed to catch them. “What! What!”

  “It’s amazing!” she announced. “It hasn’t even been touched!”

  Perplexed, Jack saw no bloodstained blacktop, no severed, strewn body parts or bits of shredded fur. No scene of destruction at all, just an empty alleyway, clean except for some oil streaks and a few random cigarette butts. Then he discovered what Amelia had meant. On the ground in front of them, out for a leisurely picnic, the little creature sat without a single mark, cut or scratch.

  He wanted to collapse. His mother’s harsh words perked him up again.

  “Jack James, you really are pushing it, buster. You heard my boss. That thing’s supposed to be in the Lost and Found. What’s the matter with you? Are you trying to get me fired? Lying, stealing, making up crazy stories. I—I just don’t know what to do. Maybe we should get you some help.”

  “Mom, I’m not making this up,” he insisted. “Amelia heard it, too. So did two other kids.”

  “You heard?” his mom nodded skeptically. “Amelia, did you see anything?”

  Amelia gave Jack a worried look.

  “Well, no. Not exactly.”

  “Just as I thought,” Liz continued. “You didn’t see anything because nothing happened. All this stuff about the teddy bear being alive, you’re imagining it, honey.”

  In tears, his mom knelt and held him by the shoulders. She pulled him close, burying her face in his sandy blonde hair.

  “Jack, I’m so sorry,” she blubbered. “You’ve got to understand. I miss your father, too. I love him so much. And I love you so much. I guess I didn’t realize how much this was affecting you. Sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision.”

  She lifted her head, her cheeks red and puffy. “We’ll get through this. And then, who knows, maybe we’ll all be stronger for it.”

  Jack smiled through his own tears. He had no defense. The mere sight of his mother bawling got to him.

  “Promise your mom something, okay?”

  “Sure,” he sniffled.

  “Just talk to the school psychologist for me. You only have to see her once if you want. It would make me feel a lot better. You understand, don’t you?”

  “Sure,” he didn’t know what else to say.

  “Amelia,” Liz stood. “I’m sorry you got caught up in this. I never meant for our family’s troubles to affect anyone else, especially a sweetheart like you.”

  “That’s okay, Mrs. James,” Amelia smiled.

  “Okay,” Liz grabbed the supposed teddy bear off the ground. “I’ll take this to the Lost and Found myself this time. Jack, you go and wait in the break room for me. I’m almost done. Amelia, if you need a ride home, you’re welcome to wait with him. Come on, you two,” she started toward the store’s main entrance.

  The children exchanged curious glances while searching the area. Amid the crushed cardboard, the empty, stacked pallets and the stray, flattened aluminum cans, nothing stood out as unusual.

  “What just happened here, Jack?” Amelia seemed concerned, but not overly so.

  “I don’t know. Did you hear that noise?”

  “Duh, yeah,” she cr
inkled her nose. “Do you think it’s possible for that cute little teddy bear thing to make such an awful sound?”

  He shrugged, once again not sure what to say.

  “That noise was sick!” she snickered. Jack giggled, too, setting off a cascade of laughter between both of them. It felt good to release some of his nervous tension.

  The moment passed, though, when Jack noticed something strange in the corner of his vision, staying just out of sight. Amelia must have perceived it, too. She stopped laughing and perused their surroundings.

  “Do you see that?” she whispered.

  “Y-yeah.”

  Then the unusual vision became still, allowing him a brief glimpse of its faint outline. He remembered what he’d encountered earlier that morning—the long, flowing, translucent rags drifting in midair. Out of focus and distorted, it seemed to be in some deep water or behind thick glass. Silently it disintegrated, fading into the shades of color and light and shadow that surrounded it. The entity didn’t stick around long, though it was enough to give him shivers.

  “Let’s go!” she snatched his hand.

  She almost sprained his wrist darting off, a sprinter from the starting blocks. He didn’t mind. Partly, he felt relieved to be getting away from that ominous place. Mostly, he was astounded Amelia had hold of his hand.

  NINE

  THE HEATED WATER soothed Savage’s tense shoulders, forcing him to surrender to its tranquil embrace. He breathed in the steam and allowed the warmth to melt away any sense of unease. Whoever had kidnapped him, they couldn’t have been all that bad to have placed him in a spa the size of an Olympic pool.

  He let his eyes climb high along the stone walls, skimming the indecipherable carvings. His awareness cleared. Finally he went over what had happened.

  He’d been standing in his office, poring over the latest on the search for the Tanakee, when his knees buckled and both feet became one-ton lead weights. Then the heavy sensation migrated up his thighs to his abdomen, chest, neck. He’d felt it invade his cerebral cortex and had no way to fight it off. Paralyzed, he must have went into shock and passed out on the table. He recalled the rush of rapid movement while he was taken. Whatever it was, it went fast. Then he woke up here, in a Jacuzzi built for about a hundred.