CLAWS 2

by Stacey Cochran

  From the front seat, Carson reached back and grabbed Jordyn’s hair. She pulled back hard to keep her from the door, and Jordyn turned and started screaming and cursing at Carson. Todd kept pounding on the Ford’s horn.

  Suddenly, something struck the back left window. It was bloody, and it slid down the glass, leaving a streak on the darkly tinted window.

  “Let go of my hair!” Jordyn shrieked.

  “Don’t open that door,” Carson said.

  “If you open that door,” Todd shouted, “we’re all gonna die!”

  Jordyn grimaced and said, “Let go of my hair!”

  “You won’t open the door?” Carson said.

  “No,” Jordyn said. “Just let go!”

  Carson let go of Jordyn’s hair. Everyone tried to see out the windows, but they were fogged up. Todd rubbed his hand over his window, trying to clear away a spot.

  He saw something very large about ten feet outside the SUV. It looked like a bear on top of a body—Eddie’s body—mauling him. It kept sweeping its head left to right, but its back faced the SUV. Todd couldn’t see very well, but the creature looked huge.

  Suddenly, the back left door flew open. Todd heard a scream, and he glanced back. Holly lay on the ground just outside the door, and Jordyn stood there in the snow.

  “Let go of him!” she shouted.

  Carson yelled at her, “You crazy!”

  The back left door was wide open. Holly clambered to stand up, slipped and fell down in the snow. Acacia sat in the back seat just screaming. Erin tried to lean over her to pull the door shut. Holly’s hand came up and grabbed Erin’s hand. Carson reached into the back and tried to help her. They both gripped Holly’s arm and pulled her into the SUV.

  Todd shouted, “Hurry!”

  He saw the bear spin around, its teeth bared. It roared, shaking its head from left to right, then it charged. Jordyn tried to turn and jump back into the SUV, but the bear hit her. She slammed up against the back left corner panel just a foot behind the open door, then hit hard against the open door. Her head must have struck the glass because it splintered.

  She fell to the ground just below the open door. Todd could smell the bear, but its roar drowned out everything.

  Acacia and Erin screamed. Holly tried to pull the door shut, but Jordyn’s body was in the way.

  “Get her in!” Carson screamed.

  Then, the bear was in the doorway.

  Everyone screamed.

  Something struck Holly. She flew forward and hit the seat in front of her so hard that it knocked Todd in the front seat against the steering wheel. Carson sat there in the passenger seat just screaming her head off. She tried to grab hold of Holly, who was being pulled from the truck.

  The bear had hold of Holly’s shoulder, and she screamed.

  Carson managed to get hold of Holly’s leg, which was up in the air in the backseat.

  “Grab her other leg!” Carson yelled.

  But Acacia just sat there screaming. Erin knocked her backwards and reached across to grab Holly’s leg.

  For a moment, Carson and Erin had hold of Holly’s legs, but then the bear pulled hard, and Holly was ripped from their grasp and from the Explorer. She was still alive, and she screamed.

  They could see her out on the snow, her legs kicking and thrashing around. The snow was red. Jordyn’s body still lay on the ground.

  Carson reached for the door and tried to pull it shut, but Jordyn’s arm was in the doorway.

  “Grab her!” Carson shouted.

  Erin, who was leaning all over Acacia, tried to grab Jordyn’s arm. Suddenly, her eyes opened. Jordyn looked around as though dazed, then her body was yanked out of the doorway. Her mouth opened, and she screamed.

  The bear swung her around, and she skidded over the snow toward the trees.

  Finally, Erin managed to get the door shut.

  “Don’t anybody open any more goddamned doors!” Carson said.

  She looked and saw the splintered window. The glass looked like a spider web.

  They heard the large animal moving around outside of the SUV. It was over towards the back left corner, the direction in which it had flung Jordyn.

  “What is it doing?” Erin shrieked.

  “I can’t see it,” Todd said.

  “Shut up!” Carson looked from the passenger seat toward the back left corner of the SUV.

  Todd tried to see out of the cleared spot he’d made on the glass. He pivoted around in his seat.

  “Where is it?” he said.

  Acacia made a snuffling, whimpering sound. She moaned, “I want to go home.”

  Erin climbed up on her knees in the backseat and looked out the back window.

  “The windows are too steamed up,” she said. She wore a blue ski jacket unzipped on the front. She thought she saw the bear directly behind the SUV. It moved over towards the back right corner, down towards the lake.

  They heard someone outside the SUV, groaning. Someone was alive!

  “Nobody move!” Carson said. “Nobody!”

  “Chill out,” Todd said.

  Whoever had groaned from outside was on the ground.

  “Help me,” the person gasped.

  All four inside the SUV looked at one another.

  “Who is it?” Carson said.

  Erin shook her head. “It sounds like Holly.”

  Todd tried to move around in his seat to see out the back. He said, “The bear’s over on the back right. I’m going to open my door for just a second to see who it is.”

  “No, Todd,” Carson said.

  “Don’t,” Erin said. “I can’t see the bear.”

  Erin wiped at the window on the back right. She could see the campfire outside, and she thought she saw the pond. It was hard to see well. She kept wiping the glass, making a clear spot in the steamed up window.

  “Does anybody have a cell phone?” Todd said.

  “Cell phone!” Carson said. She felt around her pockets on her jacket.

  “I’ve got one!” Acacia said. She held it up.

  “Call the police,” Carson said.

  Todd grabbed it from her. “How do you do this?”

  He pressed nine, then one and one again. He hit send.

  “You’ve got a signal,” Carson said. “Tell me you’ve got a signal.”

  “It’s ringing,” Todd said. He held the cell phone to his ear. “Hello? Hello operator?”

  They all heard the tinny voice squawking through the cell.

  “Oh, my God,” Todd said. “We’re being attacked by a bear. Five people are dead . . . Marilyn’s Well . . . It’s a thermal pool ten miles north of Durango.” Todd looked around at Carson. “Does anybody no what the forest road number is?”

  “You’re the one who knows the place!” Erin shrieked from the backseat.

  Todd said, “It’s off of 550 . . . about three miles west of the highway . . . there’s a gate. You’ve got to go through a gate.”

  Acacia heard something outside the door to her right. Erin heard it, too. It sounded like a low grumbling sound, like the burbling they’d all heard before.

  “Hurry!” Todd said. “It’s right outside of our truck!”

  The bear struck the back right door, and both Erin and Acacia launched into another scream.

  “Shut up!” Todd shouted.

  The bear relented, but the door was now dented in. Acacia looked at it and howled. Carson reached back and hit her.

  “Shut the hell up!” Carson yelled.

  It sounded like the bear moved back around toward the back of the SUV.

  Todd said into the cell phone, “It’s right outside of our truck. It’s big. It’s a big bear. Hurry! Please.”

  He held the cell to his ear and tried to see out the back window. Acacia sat in the middle of the backseat crying like a baby. “I want to go home,” she said. “Let’s get out of here. I just want to leave.”

  She snuffled and whimpered, tears streaming down her face.

  Erin
was to her right. She was on her knees looking out the back of the SUV. The windows were too fogged up to see clearly, and she climbed over the seat and wiped the back window.

  They couldn’t see the animal; the windows were white. Todd kept talking into the cell phone to the operator, “Yes, ma’am, there are four of us left. There may be a couple still alive outside. It’s hard to see. The windows are fogged up.”

  Carson looked from right to left behind the SUV. “Shhh,” she said.

  Todd quieted. Everyone listened to the stillness. They heard someone cough outside on the ground. It sounded like Holly, then she groaned, and they knew it was Holly.

  “Where’s my leg?” she moaned. “Someone help me, please. Dear God, please help me. God, please!”

  All four friends looked out the opaque windows; they glanced at one another. Carson shook her head as if to say, Don’t even think about opening that door. She raised her index finger to her lips.

  No noise.

  No sound. . .

  The bear was gone. They heard Holly groan outside on the snow. They twitched their heads one way then the other, listening for any other sound. Acacia cried but tried to suppress it.

  “Quiet,” Carson whispered.

  They could hear the operator’s tinny voice squawking through the cell phone: “Are you still there? Is everyone okay? Just try and remain calm. We have an ambulance on the way.”

  Todd didn’t even want to think about an ambulance’s having to make it up the steep, snow-covered forest road that led to the mineral pond. He remained silent. Everyone listened for anything outside that sounded like the bear.

  They heard nothing.

  The wind picked up, and they could actually hear snow falling on the truck like sand falling slowly through a sifter. They looked right and left out of the SUV.

  Acacia whispered, “Is it gone?”

  Carson said, “Shhh.”

  Acacia turned and looked at the window to her left. It was splintered outward in a spider web of cracked glass where Jordyn’s head had struck it hard. It wouldn’t take much to go right through that window.

  “The window,” she whispered.

  “Hush,” Carson said harshly. She thought she heard something moving around out on the snow.

  Then silence.

  Everyone froze. They realized that the bear was right outside the truck. Panic-stricken eyes looked right and left inside the SUV. Then, Todd heard it.

  The siren.

  It was a mile in the distance, maybe more, but he heard the siren. They were going to be okay. They were going to be saved. The ambulance would arrive and scare away the bear, and they would all make it through this horrible nightmare. There may even still be a chance to save everyone outside. The siren grew closer, less than a mile away now.

  Acacia’s eyes widened. She heard it, too.

  They were going to be rescued. They were going to be saved. She started to smile. . .

  And that was when the window on the left exploded in a thunderstorm of glass. The bear’s roar filled the SUV. Everyone screamed. Erin saw the giant bear’s head fill the window. Its skull was nearly the size of the whole window, its mouth wide, its teeth bared. The head came in through the window.

  Acacia went nuts, screaming, arms flailing all around, beating dumbly at the giant creature. Erin struck the door handle to her right and fell out into the snow. She looked back up through the open door and saw that the bear had hold of Acacia. It swung her back and forth, and her screams dropped dead silent.

  Todd was struck in the back of the head, and the cell phone clattered to the dark floor. The Ford’s horn erupted. Carson screamed, leaning as far toward the door on the passenger side as she could. She looked back and saw Acacia Santos pulled out through the window on the left side of the SUV.

  Carson heard her hit the ground. The bear mauled her, then flung her towards the woods like a paperweight.

  Outside the SUV, Erin was on her feet. She turned and ran towards the water. Carson swung around and saw the bear charge her. It plowed into her back, and Erin fell down hard onto the ground. She splashed down into the water. The bear was on her.

  “Oh, my God,” Carson said.

  Erin’s screams filled the air.

  The cell phone lay on the floor near the brake pedal. Todd was dazed but fighting to clear his mind. He was aware of the back right door being wide open. He heard the sounds of Erin’s screams and the bear mauling her down by the water. He turned and saw Carson open her door and step out into the snow.

  Carson threw the back right door shut. It slammed loudly, and the bear swung around from Erin’s body which lay lifeless between its legs. The steam on the water swirled behind it, and the bear looked up toward the SUV, the sound of the slamming door, and Carson standing out in the snow.

  “Get back in!” Todd shouted.

  The bear charged.

  Carson climbed back in and pulled her door shut, just as the massive bear slammed into the side. The whole SUV rocked to the left, the door denting in wildly, the glass of the window splintering in one long crack right up the middle.

  Carson screamed and clambered over toward Todd.

  The bear roared right outside the window. Todd yelled at it. Carson grabbed at him, trying to get away from the window. The door looked like a small car had run into it at thirty miles per hour. Todd’s eyes went to the long thick crack in the glass.

  Though the window was fogged, he could see the bear’s contours standing outside. It was up on its feet, and it was huge.

  Carson screamed, “God help me! God! God! God pleeease!”

  The glass exploded inward, and the bear’s head came in through the window. Carson was almost completely in the driver’s seat with Todd. Todd yelled at the bear, “Get out!”

  But the bear came in the window powerfully and quickly. Todd batted at it with his left hand, and the bear clamped down on his arm. He screamed.

  He felt the bones in his arms crushed, and then the bear started swinging wildly right to left with his arm in its mouth.

  Carson was thrown up against the dash.

  Todd screamed, but the bear had hold of his arm. It yanked powerfully, pulling him toward the window, and it felt like his whole arm dislocated from his shoulder. Somehow he was pulled over Carson out the window onto the ground. He hit the ground hard and skidded towards the campfire.

  Sparks exploded up into the air.

  Dazed, Todd felt the fire burning him, but he was unable to move. His hair burned, and he thought he saw the spinning red lights of an ambulance struggling up the last bit of hill through the trees. For a moment, he was unaware of where the bear was, but then he felt something powerful sink into his left thigh. It felt like a lawn mower on his leg, and then everything was a blinding white blur as he flew over the snow towards the SUV.

  The bear flung him. Todd’s head struck the metal back quarter panel of the truck.

  Inside the SUV, crouched down on the front floor under the steering wheel, Carson stared up toward the wide open window on the passenger-side door. Snow blew in the open window, a breeze cutting through the SUV.

  The back right door was wide open. The window on the back left was shattered and wide open. The window on the passenger-side front door was shattered and wide open. There were dents in the door, in the hood, in the back left fender. The Explorer looked like it had gone twelve rounds with an earth mover.

  The smell of burning hair and smoke filled the air.

  Carson stared at the open window.

  Ten

  Angie reached State Route 145 at a quarter past two and had a decision to make. She looked south up the deserted two-lane, which was coated white with snow, and then she looked north. It was eight miles to Telluride.

  “What are you doing, girl?” she whispered to the night.

  The snow fell gently on her ski jacket. Her face felt red with warmth, shining out against the cold. She had gloves on her hands, and she just prayed that a car would come along and g
ive her a lift into town.

  “Come on,” she said, as though willing a car to come around the bend from the south end of the road. “Just one car. . .”

  No car came.

  Nobody would be driving from Dolores to Telluride at this time of the night. She was going to have to walk it.

  She looked back to the north one more time and saw the road stretching away into the snowy night. She listened to the wind in the treetops at the side of the road. She realized that her best footing in the snow would be right along the side of the road, but she looked back up the forest road from which she’d come. She couldn’t see her cabin through the trees.

  “You’ll get there by dawn,” she said, and she stepped out onto the side of the snow-covered pavement and began walking north towards Telluride.

  • •

  A half hour later, the first car she’d seen since leaving her cabin came roaring around a bend in the road behind her, and she stepped over to the shoulder and raised her arms up to flag it down. She watched the headlights growing brighter, the car coming towards her. It didn’t look like they were slowing down, but Angie thrust out her thumb in classic hitchhiker pose and watched the truck roar past her.

  It was a beat-up old pickup with room in the back, but the driver must not have seen her because he raced past her and continued onward to the north. Angie watched its red taillights fade into the distance and then stepped back out onto the road and continued walking.

  She thought she heard something in the woods up to her right, and she glanced over in that direction. The snow was falling pretty heavily and it was too dark to see very far, but she was sure that she had heard something. She continued walking north towards Telluride.

  She felt very alone, and she thought of Robert Gonzalez.

  It had been two years since she’d last seen him, her top graduate student when she was at the University of Arizona. Robert had finished his Ph.D. and married a girl closer to his age, a brunette that worked in a bookstore near campus, and in the end, Angie had been happy for him. He had chosen wisely.

  She thought of John Crandall, her own ex-boyfriend who had been killed by a mountain lion. She thought of the last time she had seen John alive, when he had run her down with an ATV.