The bear stopped and batted at a low-hanging branch. He now had no desire to go near the man, to… hurt the man.
He watched as the other presence continued the chase.
Jake turned slowly, unable to resist any longer the fear and the dark tugging at him, the sound of rustlings, snappings, in the woods behind him.
“Come out!” he cried, raising the gun, sweeping it along the mass of trees, searching, probing. “I know you’re there!”
Tears were leaking out of his eyes, and he had no idea how to stop them. No idea. He was desperate. He wanted to scream. Alone.
Reed raised his head from the cloth toy he was preserving with plastic compound.
There it was again. A shout. Or a scream. Just over his shoulder, behind him. He gazed across the clearing. Nothing. Nothing. He found himself hoping he could be finished before dark.
Ben looked down through the crack formed when the mortar fell through into the interior of the slab. Damn thing had to happen someday; now he was wondering if any of the buildings erected on the slab were safe. But maybe it was only a temporary settling; things might be okay for a while. He’d best talk the others into forcing cement into all the cracks and hollow places in the slab to strengthen it, otherwise they all might find their stores collapsing someday.
But hell… sometimes he wondered what was the sense, anyway. He looked across the street at the abandoned hotel, then gazed down toward the railway station. Not a soul on the street. Everybody was locked up in their houses, and nobody was talking. What the hell was happening to this place?
Maybe they should move the town again, off the slab. Hell, maybe they should abandon the town altogether.
Clouds were gathering over Big Andy. Looked like rain. He wished Reed would call it a day and get himself back into town.
A whispering under his feet. He looked down, seeing nothing at first, sure it was just the sound of the mortar falling deeper into the slab, the powdered brick and stone shifting within the interior. Then he saw an eye looking back up at him through the crack.
He gasped, stepped back a little, then forced himself to his knees. He leaned over and peered down through the crack. Damn, he thought. A little girl… a dead little girl…
But the stare was so fixed, the features so waxen, he finally decided it was a doll down there. A doll with pale sandy hair and a plain dress and bright blue eyes. A pretty doll like his own little girl had. He was sure of it.
But he had no idea how it could have gotten there.
Jake shouted, almost dropping the gun, as the wind suddenly picked up, blowing branches against his face and letting the shadows loose from the woods. He squinted his eyes, trying to distinguish shadow from tree and tree from the darkness in between trees. The sky had gone dark, and he no longer had any idea in which direction he would find the old Taylor place.
Then the shadow was at his back; he turned, and fired. A tree limb split, and crashed.
“Reed!” he screamed to the shadow, and found he could not think of firing again. It hadn’t done any good… no gun would, he thought. But he wasn’t thinking right; he wasn’t seeing right.
“Reed!” he said again to the shadow with the black, black hair. He couldn’t make out the face, or most of the form… crowded with shadows as it was, moving so swiftly, leaving soot, or burnt leaves, or black mud… something… on the forest floor as it reached toward him.
Then the grin, that gleaming grin with the one sharp tooth showing, the rest hidden almost seductively by the too-red lips.
“Bear…” The bear was going to get him! He started to turn… to run… when it spun him around with a vicious slap. And Jake saw bright, gleaming blood falling, leaving ever-growing beaded patterns on the black backdrop of hair. Bright drops of crimson. His blood. Flying up and spreading there. Jake’s own blood.
Bear the bear the bear bear bear…
But even then, he wasn’t sure. It was so dark, and the figure full of shadows, and every shadow had a tooth or a claw.
“Reed!” he cried, knowing it would be the last word he would say, and wondering why he would call on him for help, the man he might have killed. “Reed!”
Jake saw the gun flying away, painted in crimson. Jake saw the pieces of shredded cloth between the teeth. Pieces of bloodied skin and pale broken skin suddenly gone blue and silver under the dark and silver clouds dropping lower over him.
Jake on the ground. How long had he been there? Being savaged. Savaged. And as his mouth stretched wide and wider still, soundlessly, matching the impossible extension of jaws that hovered over him, he looked into the shadowy mask growing dimmer, but still bright with its paint: the stretched lines and dripping starbursts of his own blood.
Far back in the woods, away from the screams and fury of movement, the bear watched, trying to keep still despite the agitation inside, the desire to run. He watched as the man was savaged. And wondered.
And was sick with his own fear.
When Joe Manors came in from work that evening, he was sure he saw old Mr. Pierce out in the side yard talking to a woman with red hair. But when he hurried over, he couldn’t find anyone there. He took the back stairs two at a time and rushed past the rooms on the second floor shouting. “Old man Pierce is out! He’s out!” he cried, and all the doors opened with a few of the occupants joining him as he ran up the steps to the third floor.
But Hector Pierce was lying in bed, babbling as usual. “She told me… she told me what’s happening. That poor boy don’t know what he’s in for… part of him stayed behind.”
Joe looked at the other tenants sheepishly. “Don’t understand it. I swear I saw him clear as day. With some woman.” Several of the men laughed and winked.
“Fire and flood and that boy’s ravening teeth!” the old man shouted, and they all shook their heads, bemused.
Joe thought he saw an orange glow at the window, but said nothing.
When everyone else had gone to bed, Joe stayed with the old man. Sitting in this old rocker by the bed, he listened to the delirium, making a point to remember later scattered phrases here and there from the monologue, as if he were listening to a preacher who talked too fast but had some sort of important message for him.
Several times he heard “little girl” and “the little girl.” That chilled him. It was as if Hector were trying to address Joe’s past mistakes directly, tell him where he’d gone wrong, let him know how he could make it up to his little daughter.
As the evening wore on, Joe started drinking and was completely drunk by the time the storm was in full force. He didn’t have to work tomorrow; the flooding of the sinkhole had taken care of that. He was wondering if he’d ever be going back to work the way things were going. He wasn’t even sure he would if he had the chance. Now he was afraid of stepping anywhere around the mine, afraid his foot would break through to some underground place or the rock would spring a leak right under his footstep. Lord, it was getting so he just hated the water, water of any kind.
He watched the lightning running itself to ground all over the head of the Big Andy, like flaming strands of hair.
Reed had waited much too long. Now the storm was in full force, and he had to dash through the dark woods to his uncle’s pickup, dodging fallen branches and hoping he wouldn’t be struck by lightning before he got there. He shouldn’t have stayed so long; he hadn’t found much of anything anyway.
He tripped on a half-buried log and sprawled into damp underbrush. The texture of the ground was repulsive here, and he raised his head quickly. Rain and mud spread down his face and he thought he would scream. He rubbed at his eyes frantically.