It was Christopher. He knew it. Jerry could see his face and it needed to be punched immediately.
He closed the distance to the market in no time and leapt over a table scattering jars of beard oil and mustache wax across the campus grounds as the owner of the Face Place dove out of the way.
The Librarian slid across another table breaking records at the Deep Cuts booth and sent a stack of flannel shirts into the air at the Plaidipus as the owners shouted for the authorities.
The shouts drew the attention of nearby officers, but Jerry kept running. He knocked over a booth full of knit hats, scarves, and cardigans as the shopkeeper of Knit Shit tried to stab him with a pair of needles.
He cleared the market, leaving shouts from the authorities, vendors, and counselors behind, and closed in on Mr. Christopher who was deep in a shouting match of his own with a small, obviously angry woman on the steps of the former English building.
From what Jerry could tell, the woman was winning the match. She yelled so loud that Jerry was on the steps before they saw him. Mr. Christopher barely had time to turn before Jerry tackled him through the glass door and knocked the stupid white hat from his head.
The two men spilled into a hall of higher learning and slid across the marble floor in a mosaic of broken glass.
Jerry could feel the cuts on his hands but smiled knowing that Christopher had gotten it worse. He landed on top of the bounty hunter and punched him right in the eye. “Where is she?”
Mr. Christopher said nothing.
The Librarian had begun to punch again when the small, angry woman grabbed his arm and tried to pull him off the bounty hunter.
She screamed, “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Determined to punch Christopher in the face again, Jerry followed through with the swing.
The woman refused to let go and flew across the foyer, swearing the entire way.
Mr. Christopher drove the heel of his palm in to Jerry’s chin.
Jerry backed away from the strike, but it gave the pinned man enough leverage to wriggle free. The Librarian fell away and caught a foot in the chest that sent him back into a pile of broken glass.
Mr. Christopher ran and the Librarian followed. The woman swore at both of them and called for the police all in a single breath.
Jerry caught a handful of the white jacket as his prey rounded a corner. “Where is she?”
The weasel slipped from his jacket but twisted himself off balance doing so. He careened off the wall, ducked into a lecture room, and slammed the door shut behind him.
Jerry dropped the jacket and crashed into the door. And instantly bounced back. Locked against him, he threw his shoulder into the door twice more and did little more than bruise his shoulder in two places.
A stream of swearing erupted from the other end of the hall where the small woman was getting back to her feet. The war had wiped away countless cities, lives, and social norms, and it was true that swearing seemed more prevalent than ever before after the world blew up, but the string of obscenities from the woman’s mouth was enough to draw his attention away from the door. She composed a string of profanity that was both obscene and strangely beautiful. Like an undisputable master of art, one could find objection to her work but they could not deny her genius at that craft. She said terrible things. Horrible things. Sexually impossible things, but she did it all with a love of her craft that had to be applauded.
A crash drew his attention back to the door. A window had shattered on the other side and Mr. Christopher was making a break for the outside. The Librarian surrendered to the classroom door and rushed for the exit doors a little farther down the hall.
Exploding from the doors, he sped down the steps as Mr. Christopher landed outside the window and tripped over the desk he’d put through it.
An arm closed around Jerry’s throat and began dragging him backwards. He grabbed the hand and spun. Lifting the attacker’s arm over his head, he wrenched the wrist back before punching the Freedom Officer right in the beard.
Mr. Christopher made the most of the attack and ran off into the campus grounds towards the front gate.
Jerry released the officer’s broken wrist and pursued. The fuzziness in his head had faded with rage and he gained quickly on the bounty hunter. He caught him quickly in a small commons dominated by a massive sculpture that had been in place before the end of the world.
Steel girders implanted in the ground looked less like intentional art and more like an industrial accident. Abandoned and left to rust, they would have been a liability lawsuit in waiting, but they had been painted red and given the name “Aspiration” so it was art instead.
The people of Tolerance had co-opted the space to create their own artistic displays. Banners strung between the girders declared “peace will rule” and “violence is not the answer.” On the ground, they flew the same flags that welcomed people to their town.
The Librarian dove and caught Mr. Christopher by the ankle, sending the bounty hunter stumbling through a flag and eventually to the ground wrapped in a banner bearing a dead cow that stated, “I’m not loving it!”
Jerry scrambled back to his feet as Christopher untangled himself from the fabric and grabbed the broken flagpole from the ground.
The bounty hunter charged, splintered end first, towards the Librarian, screaming as he came.
Jerry jumped behind a “Love will set us free” flag and intercepted the thrust with the fabric. He wrapped the flag around the end of the makeshift staff and struck at Mr. Christopher with a right cross.
The man in white tried to pull away from the punch, but with his arm entangled in the flag, he caught it with his shoulder and twisted to the ground. Rolling away, he freed himself from the banner and got to his feet before grabbing a “Nothing is stronger than love” flag and snapping the post into a replacement weapon.
He came at the Librarian again swinging broad strokes that Jerry managed to dodge several times as he backed away farther into the field of flags.
Jerry pulled a “hugs are the strongest weapon” flag post from the ground and swung back.
Hugs and Love collided in a flurry of strikes and blocks, and it was quickly apparent that Mr. Christopher hid behind others as a matter of convenience instead of necessity. The man was quicker and more capable than Jerry had assumed. In every encounter with Mr. Christopher, the man had been surrounded by hired muscle. It was easy to think the man was a coward and incapable of fighting his own fights, but that wasn’t the case at all.
Jerry intercepted an overhead swing and swept Christopher’s legs out from under him. The man might be good with a club, but, excepting a tremendous coincidence, he knew the bounty hunter had not spent several months swinging a broomstick around a library’s fallout shelter out of pure boredom.
The battle continued, and it wasn’t long before Jerry’s knuckles were bloodied, his arms were bruised, and the two combatants were surrounded.
“They’re desecrating the Pavilion of Peace!” the small angry woman screamed. “Get those motherfuckers. I want them in the cage.”
Several Freedom Enforcement Officers responded to the swearing and rushed into the flag garden with outstretched hands.
Jerry blocked a strike from Mr. Christopher, backed away, struck one officer in the neck and sent another to the ground with a twist of the Hugs stick.
Mr. Christopher took the opening and knocked Jerry off-balance. He followed through with a shove that sent the Librarian to the ground and raised the Love stick above his head to strike.
One of the officers stepped in front of the man from Alasis and ordered him to stop.
The flagpole shattered over the officer’s head and knocked the man to the ground on top of the Librarian.
With his opponent pinned, Mr. Christopher pointed the shaft at the Librarian’s throat and whispered, “Finally!” He raised the stick above his head with both hands and prepared to spear his bounty when an officer dove into him at full spee
d. Two more rushed in to help subdue the man in white while three more jumped on the Librarian and forced his hands into cuffs.
TWENTY-ONE
Erica’s scream faded when she realized the three bears were seated at a large wooden table in the center of the cabin around a woman with unkempt gray hair who didn’t seem to be freaking out at all. All four were staring at Erica, but not one of the bears, or the woman, made any attempt to maul her.
“Hello, dear,” the older woman spoke with a soft British accent. “Is everything all right?”
Erica gasped for breath while she thought of where to begin. Her story of her kidnapping, her escape and the chase through the woods seemed to pale in comparison to the fact that she was now in a wood cabin with three bears and a woman who didn’t seem in the least bit phased to be in a cabin with three bears.
Erica began to answer the question and quickly derailed. “I was kinda—I got—there was a bear—now there are three bears—why are there bears here? How are you not being eaten by bears?”
“Oh, my poor thing.” The woman stood from the table. The bear on her right began to get up as well. This caught the woman’s attention. “No, Paddington. Stay.” She rattled a silver bowl in front of the bear. “Eat.”
Erica gasped as the bear settled back into place at the table.
The older woman walked around the table. She grabbed a throw hanging on the back of an empty chair as she went. “You seem agitated. Please come in and have a seat. Are you in trouble?”
“There’re three bears here.”
“Yes, dear.” She placed the throw over Erica’s shoulder and guided her to an easy chair near a wood stove. “Sit here and I’ll get you something warm to drink.”
The cabin had only one room, but it was larger than it had appeared from the outside. She tried to look around the cabin, but it was hard not to focus on the bears. It wasn’t until she sat down that she realized they were all wearing some article of clothing. One had a hat, one had a vest, and the other had a flower on its chest. For their part, the bears seemed disinterested in her. They remained focused on the food before them.
“I don’t have to ask if you’re in trouble,” the woman said as she removed a kettle from the wood stove. “Anyone soaking wet and out of breath in these woods is in trouble. But you don’t have to worry. You’re safe here.” She tipped the kettle and poured the steaming liquid into a cup.
Erica took the mug and realized for the first time that her hands had begun to shake. The cup warmed them and she looked inside at the brown liquid. She could not identify it by sight and a quick sniff didn’t help either.
“It’s rabbit broth, dear,” the woman explained. “It sounds like a terrible idea, but it’s really quite delicious. And it will help warm you up.”
Erica smelled the drink again and took a sip. She felt the heat hit her stomach and took a larger drink. “That is good. Thank you.”
“I thought you’d like it. I like it. And the bears never complain.”
As the heat returned to her body, she suddenly realized how cold she had been. Erica took another sip and leaned back into the throw as far as she could. “Can I ask about the bears?”
The woman laughed and one of the bears turned. Her soft voice took on a stern tone. “Focus on your food, Paddington.”
“Paddington? He must love marmalade.”
She smiled. “I don’t know. Never had any out here. But I doubt he would. He’s my picky eater.”
Erica watched the bear turn back to a plate of food and grunt. The woman paid no attention to it. “How are you doing this?” Erica asked.
The older woman stuck out her hand and shook Erica’s. “I’m Martha Rainford. I am an ursinologist. I was out here studying these marvelous creatures for years before the world went to shit.”
“Were you out here alone?”
“Oh yes, I always quite liked being alone.” She laughed. “I never had much use for people until all the people were gone. It wasn’t until after the war that I actually began to even feel loneliness.” She gestured to the bears. “They must have felt it to. Not long after it all happened, they moved in. We’ve been keeping each other company ever since.”
“That’s incredible.”
She shrugged. “It’s shot my work all to hell. I can’t really be an impartial observer of nature when I have to use the toilet in front of it every morning, now can I?”
“I ... I guess not.”
“But it’s all for the best. It wasn’t easy teaching them manners, but once we got past that, things have been pretty simple.”
Paddington turned and grunted again. This grunt was gentler. It almost sounded like a question.
“Did you clean your plate?” Martha asked.
The bear grunted again.
“Then, yes, you may be excused.”
The bear stood up from the table and crossed the room to the kitchen. The massive paws worked a pump over the sink until a stream of water began to flow. Paddington ran his paws under the water for a moment before dragging them across a towel.
“That’s incredible,” Erica said.
“It’s a friggin’ miracle is what it is,” Martha said. “I usually have to remind him several times to wash his paws. He always fights me on it.”
Erica just shook her head and the woman laughed. She stood up and pointed to the bear in the kitchen. “That, as you surely know, is Paddington.” She walked over to the table and put her hands on one of the bear’s shoulders while it ate. “This is my Winnie.”
Erica smiled.
Martha moved around to the other side of the table and put a hand on the largest of the three bears. The one in the hat. “And this ...”
Erica giggled. “Let me guess. That’s Fozzie.”
“No, dear. This is Murderbear.”
Erica felt the heat run out of her again. “Why do you call him Murderbear?”
“Because he likes to murder things, dear. A lot.” She scratched Murderbear on the head and adopted the voice of a doting mother. “Donchoo, Murderbear? Donchoo like murdering things? Yesh. Yesh you do.”
Erica pulled her legs up into the chair with plans to hide under the blanket if Murderbear should act up. “You’re ... you’re training Super Smart Bears.”
To Murderbear’s dismay, Martha stopped scratching his head and turned to Erica with folded arms. “Oh, no. You’re one of those people.”
“One of what people?”
“Idiots, dear.”
Erica felt the room grow colder despite the blanket and the rabbit broth. “I don’t understand.”
“Idiots usually don’t, dear. That’s why they’re idiots.” Martha smiled warmly, gave Murderbear one last scratch, and took a seat across from Erica. “I don’t mean to be cruel, dear. You’re obviously quite intelligent. It’s just that we ursinologists, well, any of us that are left, I guess, get our hackles up when we hear that term.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you. Or Murderbear.”
Martha patted her knee. “Of course you didn’t. You didn’t know any better. And that’s the problem. You see, there are no Super Smart Bears. No such thing. Now some bears are dumber than the average bear. Some are smarter. But most are just as average as the average bear. But there is no such thing as a super smart bear.”
“But people have seen them doing such amazing things.” Erica had seen them do such amazing things.
“Of course they have, because bears are amazing creatures. Let me ask you this: how many bears did you run into before the world ended up in the shitter?”
“Not very many.” Erica thought about saying she’d seen them in the zoo before, but Winnie was giving her an odd look that made her decide it would be a bad idea. “None, actually.”
“Right. And most people are just like you. Your ursine interactions were profoundly limited. All you knew of these magnificent creatures was what you saw on television or read in books or heard in the lies that the Forestry Service propagandized to you all throug
hout childhood through that bastardization of nature.”
“Smokey?”
“Yes,” Martha spat. “That’s the bastard I’m talking about.”
As Martha’s anger grew visible, Erica bit back the Pavlovian urge to spout out how only she could prevent forest fires.
Martha forced a smile. “But the truth is, bears have always been remarkably smart. They are far more intelligent than people ever gave them credit for ...” She turned to address a noise coming from the kitchen. “Paddington! I’ve told you to stop chewing on the plunger.”
Paddington growled a protest, but dropped the plunger and sat down on the kitchen floor with a huff.
Martha turned backed to Erica. “Many people had never seen a bear until they were forced out of their precious cities and tossed back into nature.” She shrugged. “They’re just bears. Doing things bears have always done. And people have gone on being stupid just like they have always done.”
Erica didn’t know what to say. As far as wasteland threats had gone, Super Smart Bears were a constant concern. Knowing that they were just bears didn’t make her worry any less about an encounter. But, it did make her feel like more of a coward. They had just been regular bears all along.
Martha continued. “At first I thought the bombs would wipe out all the bear ignorance in the world. Oddly enough it just made it worse. The only thing it ruined was my career.”
“Your career? But you still get to work with bears.”
Martha smiled. “Of course. They are my passion. But, dammit, if I wasn’t this close to being the Jane Goodall of bears. I spent years blending in with the bears, and I was only weeks away from launching my YouTube series: Bearly There with Martha Rainford. Do you like the name?”
“Um, sure.”
“It’s a pun.”
“I got the pun.”
“Oh. Well, it was about to launch and make me famous and then Meryl Streep would have played me in the movie. But instead, I’m here. Living with three bears and, dammit, Paddington, put down that plunger.”
Pursuit of the Apocalypse Page 13
