Ferocious

by Jeff Strand

  It had really damaged the floor. Not to the point of breaking all the way through, but he had some serious repair work to do when this was over. It felt good to know that he could think about something like this, rather than the idea of fleeing the cabin and never, ever coming back.

  He pushed the door against the frame. Though it left a little more of a gap than he wanted, he was worried that if he centered it any more it might drop right through. "Bear still sitting?" he asked.

  "Still sitting."

  He shoved the couch across the floor and in front of the door. It successfully kept the door upright. It wouldn't keep out hordes of invaders, but it was far better than nothing.

  "It's getting up," said Mia.

  Rusty picked up the shotgun. It took him a moment to remember if he'd loaded it or not. Yeah, he had.

  He no longer needed Mia to report on the bear's status, because it walked in front of the window again. It let out a snort, though he couldn't hear it, then pressed its mangled face against the glass.

  "Doesn't that hurt?" Mia wondered aloud. If Rusty had just had his lower jaw shot off, he wouldn't be pressing his face against anything. He couldn't deny that he felt kind of sorry for the poor animal. It quite clearly felt pain, but its brain was so messed up that it didn't care.

  It licked the glass with what remained of its tongue.

  The bear was free to lick the glass and do whatever other creepy stuff it wanted, as long as it didn't try to get inside. Eventually it would have to leave, to find a more convenient meal or to shit in the woods.

  It moved its head away from the window.

  Let out another roar—back to rage instead of pain.

  Then it smashed one of its paws against the window, shattering the glass.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Shards of glass rained down upon the floor. The bear lunged with its other paw, breaking even more of the glass. It leaned halfway through the window, apparently not caring about the jagged glass on the bottom of the frame that was digging into its underside.

  Mia screamed. Rusty screamed.

  Then they opened fire.

  Rusty's first shot removed the top of the bear's head, and the fact that it continued to climb through the window after this was evidence that the world had changed in a big bad way. Mia fired a couple of shots into it. It wasn't correct to say that they had no impact; the bear clearly felt them, they just weren't enough to kill it, severely injure it, or dissuade it from continuing to climb into the cabin.

  If it was still coming after them with part of its brain exposed, it was going to take a lot more than shooting it a few more times to make it stop. The squirrel had eventually quit moving, but it was in terrible shape before that happened. Doing that much damage to a fully mature grizzly bear was going to be quite a bit more difficult.

  Maybe a direct blast to the face with a shotgun would be enough.

  Rusty squeezed the trigger.

  It should've been an easy shot, considering that the bear was right there in his living room, but the bear dropped to the floor just as he fired. The shotgun cut a thick swath across the fur on its back.

  Mia fired two more shots. Both completely missed. Rusty suspected that she'd been aiming for its eyes. He had a lot of experience with guns and he couldn't hit a bear in the eyes, even at close quarters.

  Without either of them shouting, "Let's run for the bedroom!" they simultaneously decided that it was the right thing to do. Rusty scooped up the box of shotgun shells and they ran into Mia's bedroom. She slammed the door.

  The rifle ammo was still in the living room, but Mia should have a few shots left, and they weren't doing any good anyway. For right now they were in "flight" mode.

  Rusty could hear the bear moving around, knocking stuff over. An angry grizzly could really do some serious damage to their cabin, which was more than a little upsetting, but he'd worry about their property after they escaped with their lives.

  He reloaded the shotgun while Mia opened her window. They didn't have to worry that the bear might have snuck outside and was heading back there; the damn thing was making so much noise in their home that they'd have no problem at all keeping tabs on it. He was a little surprised that it wasn't trying to break down the bedroom door—it had seen them go in there—but he had blown off the top of its head, which was the kind of thing that impacted decision making.

  "Do you need me to help you get out?" Mia asked. Rusty couldn't really be offended by the offer. Climbing out of windows, even first-story ones, wasn't something he'd done since he was a teenager.

  "I will, yeah," he said. "But maybe I should try to get in a couple more shots, first."

  "No. That's a shitty idea."

  "It's not like bullets are bouncing off of it. If I can get in a couple of good head shots, we might have a lot less of a threat to deal with."

  "What if you open that door and it mauls you?"

  "We can hear it! It's destroying the kitchen! We open the door, squeeze off a shot or two, then go out the window."

  "I don't agree with this plan," said Mia. "I'm not going to try to stop you, but I don't agree with it. I think we should just go."

  Rusty was willing to admit that his niece might be absolutely correct. But his plan seemed low risk and potentially high return. He wasn't going to walk up and smack the bear on the snout; he was going to shoot it from the "safety" of the bedroom. Then they'd immediately revert to the plan of getting the hell out of the cabin. If the bear ripped off one of his arms, Mia would be welcome to say, "I told you so."

  "I hear you," he said. "All I need is ten seconds."

  He stood by the door and listened. He didn't need to listen carefully because he could hear metal pots and pans hitting the floor. Unless the bear could teleport—something that, admittedly, seemed less impossible than it might have yesterday—he was at higher risk of shooting himself in the foot than being disemboweled by the bear.

  He opened the bedroom door just a crack, held up the shotgun, then kicked the door open all the way.

  An entire mounted cabinet came crashing onto the kitchen counter. The cabinet door fell open and broken dishes spilled out onto the floor and into the sink. This pissed Rusty off enough that he stopped feeling sorry for the bear's facial injuries. It was up on its hind legs, and its head brushed against the ceiling.

  It dropped to all fours and turned around to face him.

  Rusty took careful but quick aim, then fired.

  He got it in the shoulder, sending up a spray of fur and meat but not blowing off another chunk of its head like he'd intended.

  The bear ran at him.

  Rusty fired again. This time he was too scared to aim properly, and he knew before he even saw the impact that his shot had been worthless. It blasted a hole in the fallen cabinet, shattering some more dishes.

  He slammed and locked the bedroom door.

  Okay, he'd hoped to do quite a bit more damage to the bear, but at least he hadn't been mauled. For right now, he was happy with any action that wasn't a disastrous blunder.

  Mia seemed to have waited just long enough to be sure that his severed head didn't bounce across the floor. She leapt out the window, then leaned back in to assist him. He handed her the shotgun and the box of ammunition. Earlier, twenty shells had seemed like plenty. Now it seemed woefully insufficient.

  The bedroom door burst open.

  Once again, the bear was bigger than the frame. So they weren't in immediate danger. But this could turn into immediate danger pretty quickly, and Rusty wasn't convinced that the bear couldn't squeeze through the doorway if it was persistent. He definitely needed to stick with the plan of getting the hell out of the cabin.

  With minor assistance from Mia, he climbed out the window. As he looked back, the bear swiped at him with a paw that was about twelve feet away.

  "Should we hide in the shed?" Mia asked.

  The shed was much more vulnerable in the instance of an angry bear attack than the cabin, but it was safer th
an trying to get to the truck. If nothing else, it would give them a few moments to catch their breath and try to work out a plan.

  "Yeah," said Rusty.

  They ran into the shed. The door didn't lock from the inside, but if the bear wanted to get in, a lock wasn't going to do any good anyway. The shed was full of completed furniture, works in progress, lumber, and tools. A spare vehicle, a motorcycle maybe, would've been nice, but he'd never needed one. If they survived this, he'd get one for sure.

  "I think we can still kill it," said Mia. "We just need to get in a position where we can keep shooting at it without it being able to get us. If we hit it enough times there eventually won't be enough of its head left for it to find us. Maybe we should climb a tree."

  "Bears can climb trees."

  "But would it keep coming after us if we were shooting it? It wouldn't keep climbing if you kept blasting it with the shotgun. You might even blow off one of its legs. A three-legged bear can't climb a tree."

  "What if it does keep coming after us? We'd be trapped."

  "What's your better plan?" asked Mia.

  "I don't have a better plan. I just don't like that one." He glanced around the shed. "What about the chainsaw?"

  "What about the chainsaw?"

  "We could make a three-legged bear with it."

  "Yeah, if you wanna walk right up to it! Fighting it off with a chainsaw is what you do when every other plan has failed."

  "Well, it can't hurt to keep it with us." Rusty walked over and picked up the chainsaw. He supposed that it could indeed hurt to keep it with them, since carrying both the shotgun and the chainsaw would make it awkward to run. Still, he could always just drop it if they needed to make a hasty retreat.

  "There's also the axe out by the firewood," said Mia.

  "Yes! Axe, chainsaw, shotgun, rifle...that's more than enough to defend ourselves against that thing. We're in good shape." He wished that he was paranoid instead of just deeply antisocial. Then he'd have explosives and an underground bunker.

  "What now? Do we just hide in here?"

  That had been Rusty's original idea, but now he was questioning that decision. If it was a normal bear, sure, he'd feel confident that it wouldn't find them here, but who knew what a zombie bear or whatever this thing was would do? It couldn't easily get out of the cabin except to go back through the window, so perhaps he should take advantage of it being in a relatively confined space. He wouldn't go back inside the cabin, of course, but if he shot at it through the windows he might actually be able to blow its head or a leg off. Granted, this meant that the bear would not be able to find its own way out of his home; still, that was a problem that could be solved later.

  Though he wasn't fond of the idea of blowing holes into his beloved cabin, it was certainly less damage than what the bear was doing right now. He didn't think that the bear, left alone, could bring the whole structure to the ground, but it could easily make the place uninhabitable. He had neither the funds nor the inclination to bring professionals out here, so he and Mia would be making all of the repairs themselves.

  "I'm going back out to shoot it," he said.

  "That's—"

  "I'm not going inside the cabin. I'm only shooting it from safe spaces."

  Mia's progression of thoughts were clearly visible on her face: That's a horrible idea and I should talk him out of it....Actually, he's going to do it anyway so why waste time talking?...And if he's going to do it anyway, I might as well help. "How can I help?"

  "Hold the chainsaw."

  "Okay." She set down the rifle and picked up the chainsaw. She kept the flashlight in her other hand.

  Rusty opened the door, half expecting a horror movie jump scare where the bear was right there, jaws wide open, but of course it wasn't, and it didn't have a lower jaw anyway.

  He could hear the bear still inside the cabin, breaking more stuff. He waited a few moments, and the sounds of destruction never let up. He didn't know if the bear was confused and scared and flailing around, if it was trying to claw through a wall to escape, or if it was just being an asshole.

  They walked over to the bedroom window they'd climbed out of. Rusty set the box of shells on the ground and then rested the barrel of the shotgun against the bottom frame. If he was lucky, the bear would wander past the doorway and he'd get a perfect shot.

  "Do you want me to go see which room it's in?" Mia asked.

  "No."

  "Good."

  They waited for about thirty seconds. About two of those seconds were quiet.

  "Maybe we should call out to it," said Mia.

  "I want to catch it by surprise."

  "You'll lose the element of surprise after the first shot. If it hears us and looks into the room, there's more of a chance that you can get it right in the face."

  "You're very smart," Rusty told her. "Hey, bear! We're over here! Come and get us!"

  Mia joined in. The sound of things breaking stopped and was replaced by the sound of loud bear footsteps.

  The bear stepped into view. There were some shards of broken dishes on its back. It turned toward the doorway, looked at them, and let out as much of a roar as it could manage with its mangled face. The sound was pathetic yet terrifying.

  Rusty had a clear shot at its head, but he also had a clear shot at its two front legs. Should he try to blow away more of its skull, which might finish it off, or should he try to incapacitate it with a leg wound?

  He decided to go for the leg.

  He took careful aim, trying to unleash his inner cyborg and hit the target with robotic precision. The shotgun wouldn't blow its leg completely off but if he hit accurately enough he could render the leg useless. He squeezed the trigger.

  Much of the bear's front leg blew apart. It let out a...scream wasn't the right word, but that's sure as hell what it sounded like. It lost its balance and fell, doing further damage to the floorboards.

  The bear had landed perfectly for Rusty to take a shot at its other leg. He fired again. Its other leg tore open, right at the joint. The bear's agonized sounds made it impossible to enjoy any sense of victory, and after he put it out of its misery they'd still have a dead bear in the living room to contend with, but at least the immediate threat was over.

  "Uncle Rusty...?"

  Mia was not looking at the bear in the living room. Rusty spun around and saw that she was looking at the other bear running toward them.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Mia scrambled back through the open window, taking the chainsaw with her, then immediately turned around and helped pull Rusty inside. He slammed the window shut. A moment later, the new bear, up on its hind legs, was right there. It wasn't as if Rusty had escaped being disemboweled by mere inches, but this was way too close.

  He scooted away from the glass, chest tightening, unable to breathe, feeling like he was on the verge of an all-out panic attack. The bear moved out of sight. Rusty didn't know if it had left or merely dropped to all fours. Though it wasn't as big as the other grizzly inside of their cabin, it was still a fully-grown bear.

  Mia, to her credit, could at least breathe well enough to talk. "Oh my God..."

  Rusty wanted to reassure her that they were going to be fine, but he'd have to wait until he was no longer suffocating. He might even be having a heart attack.

  He glanced back. The bear in the doorway was trying to bite at them, even though all it could do was lunge with its upper jaw. How could an animal in this condition still care about getting at its prey? It was in no condition to continue its rampage inside the cabin, but Rusty sure as hell wouldn't try to get past the thing without putting a few more bullets into it.

  At the sound of something scraping against glass, he returned his attention to the window. Not surprisingly, it was the bear's claws. The bear was looking right at him with its bloodshot eyes, leaving thick trails down the window. If it weren't a bear, Rusty would've thought that the creature was making a conscious effort to be frightening, like Freddy Krueger scr
aping his finger knives along metal.

  Rusty forced himself to calm down and take a breath. Yes, this was a remarkably shitty situation, but the new bear probably couldn't get into the cabin, and the old bear couldn't get into the bedroom. And he still had...

  He cursed.

  "What's wrong?" Mia asked, because it was clear from his tone that something was wrong beyond the obvious problem of them being trapped between two bears.

  "The shotgun shells are outside."

  It took Mia a moment to respond. "Oh."

  This was pretty bad. One thing Rusty most definitely did not want to do was fight these things up close. He supposed he could be forgiven for accidentally leaving behind the ammunition when there was a bear charging at him, but still, this was going to make matters significantly more difficult.

  He wished the injured bear would go silent. He didn't want to pity it.

  The outside bear placed its paws against the top of the window, and then again slowly dragged its claws down the glass, creating a new set of deep scratches along with small cracks along the way. The glass held, but Rusty didn't think it would if the bear did this a third time. It was the slowness of its action that gave him the feeling, preposterous as it was, that the bear was doing this on purpose to be scary. And it was succeeding.

  The bear put back its head and roared at them, showing off lots and lots of teeth. Then it stared at Rusty as if daring him not to look away in terror.

  We're safe, he tried to tell himself, even though he wasn't convinced that the bear couldn't simply start prying the boards off the cabin wall. We're safe. We're fine. It's all cool.

  The bear scratched a third set of claw marks down the glass. The window miraculously held, though it was harder to see through now.

  Okay, they couldn't just stand here cowering. They had to go on the offensive.

  Rusty set down the shotgun and picked up the chainsaw.

  "What the hell are you going to do?" Mia asked.

  Rusty's arm plus the chainsaw was not longer than the bear's reach, so he'd be putting himself at risk for joining the first bear in the "missing half your face" club. But a whirring chainsaw blade across the snout might dissuade the bear from entering the cabin, or he might even be able to lop off its front paws.