“Well, good luck, partner. Got any bait?”
“Bait?” The question had caught Milo by surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Need bait to catch a bear.” The gun salesman had shrugged. “How else you gonna get that close?”
Milo hadn’t thought about bait. He’d thought he’d peruse the forest that bordered Red River and hopefully pick up the garbage-sniffer’s trail. That was what the Youtube video had taught him to do. Bait hadn’t crossed his mind.
Now, in the tree, he looked down at his bait. It was a good choice, he thought, and he wondered if anyone else would agree. Probably not, he thought, smiling.
“Don’t worry,” he called down. “That bear’ll be along soon and this will all be behind us.”
His bait stifled a cry and called something back, words which were ignored. He’d heard something rustle amongst the leaves, and when he looked down in the direction of the sounds, he spotted a cluster of green foliage bouncing back and forth. Something had disturbed the shrubbery, something big.
Sure enough, a second later, a snout emerged from the forest. A massive, fur-covered cranium followed. Behind that, the bulk of the black bear came into view. It was bigger than Milo had expected, and, even from his vantage point, he could tell the beast was above average. In fact, he didn’t think black bears grew to be that big. Its girth surprised him. No wonder the neighborhood had been shaken; if he’d seen that thing digging through his trash, he might have given this bear hunt idea a second thought. Suddenly the bow and arrow felt weightless in his hands.
The black bear moved out from the brush and into the clearing slowly, waddling back and forth, reminding Milo of the Youtube video. The bear in that video had been equally sluggish and in no rush to go anywhere. Milo thought that might change when the arrows began to fly, but he wasn’t so sure. He didn’t know how many it’d take to down the beast, but he’d brought two full quivers, twelve in each. He was hoping to only waste one arrow—hit the monster right between the eyes.
The monster.
The bear.
Were they the same thing?
Then the screaming started.
“OH MY GOD!”
Milo wished he’d put duct tape over her mouth. It would’ve been better that way, but he had needed something to grab the bear’s attention. He couldn’t risk it passing by without noticing the bait. He needed it close. He needed it practically on her so all he had to do was look down and fire. Shoot. Release the arrow, and watch it penetrate the skull right between its eyes.
The bear spotted Tilda and Tilda started screaming, really letting him have it.
“GET ME OUT OF HERE, MILO! GODDAMMIT! YOU SON OF A BITCH! I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE LEFT YOU! YOU WORTHLESS, LIMP-DICK FUC—”
The bear jumped back on its hind legs and roared. The bestial vocalization moved birds from their positions in the trees. It silenced Tilda at once. It gave Milo a rush of adrenaline and coated his skin in gooseflesh.
All of a sudden, things felt real.
There was no going back now. He aimed with his bow and arrow. He held his concentration on the bear’s massive target of a head. The beast lowered itself down on all fours. It jogged toward the potential meal tied to the tallest oak tree in all of Red River.
Milo waited.
“HELP ME!” Tilda cried.
The bear approached, closing the distance with more speed than Milo had anticipated. The gap between his wife and the black bear slimmed. He looked down the arrow, picturing what it’d look like buried in the beast’s skull.
The beast.
The monster.
Which one?
When the bear was about five feet away from Tilda—Tilda who now screamed and cried and begged to continue on with her lethargic lifestyle—the bear roared again, pushing the hair back off the face of its next meal. The bear took the last five feet in a slow, calculated approach. It sniffed its food before attempting to eat it.
This is good, Milo thought. This hesitation on the bear’s part would allow him to adjust slightly, allow him to ready his shot, steady his aim. He did so accordingly, making sure he wouldn’t miss on the first attempt.
But when he was ready to release the arrow, let his fingers slip off the string, he found himself unable to do so.
The bear sniffed under Tilda’s blouse. She whimpered and turned her head. Then she screamed when the bear opened its jaws and bit down on her thick thigh. It tore away a section of meat, a slab of raw muscle.
Tilda screamed until her vocal cords broke.
Milo continued to sit in the tree, keeping his aim on the bear, but as time slipped, so did his view on the current situation. He’d come here to kill a bear. A beast. A plight on society. Something that terrorized and killed; something that must not live for the safety and well-being of others.
But that wasn’t the bear, was it?
The bear hadn’t hurt a soul, not until it had met Tilda Medlock, the real beast, the real monster in Milo’s life.
The bear ate a piece of the woman’s thigh and decided it deserved seconds. It lunged forward, snout first, and tore away another piece of Tilda’s leg, from her calf this time. She thrashed around and cried out, but she was no match for the all-powerful jaws of the woodland critter. It feasted on her muscle, wrestling with the blood and skin, digging its nose deeper into her, pulling away with more gore and muscle, more pieces of Tilda.
Milo thought he should look away. He thought he should do something, other than sit in the tree stand he’d made for himself, his front-row seat to his wife’s evisceration.
He decided he should end the beast’s life.
He readjusted his aim and let the arrow fly. It connected true with a wonderful THWACK!
He wouldn’t need another arrow.
The beast was dead.
And the bear continued to eat.
SIREN’S END
Clenching fistfuls of wet sand, the man climbed his way up the beach. Behind him, the waves clapped against the shore, sounding like the duel of distant pistols. Rallying against the pain, he forced his head around and glared at the ocean, the rocky sheet of endless gray. In that moment, somewhere beyond his vision, he heard his men scream, deck boards crack, and disturbed waters growl.
Was it the waters that growled? he thought, looking up, spotting the sky and noticing it held the same colorless hue as the ocean—here, the world looked dead. Was it really the waters?
Or something else?
When he couldn’t take any more of the dismal scenery, he returned to his long crawl. Up the beach, a stretch of dunes blocked his vision of the deserted coastal town, a place he’d been before, a place that ended up not being deserted at all. There was one place that had kept its lanterns lit—a small pub about two streets in from the dunes.
If I can make it, the proprietor will help me. He had to. It was the least he could do. He’ll nurse me back to health and then…
And then what? The survivor had no ship; that had gone down in a glorious battle with the sea and…
Those things.
Whatever they were.
He had no outs. He was trapped here. On this godforsaken edge of the world. This little island off the coast of the mainland.
The survivor managed his way up the beach, writhing like a worm through the sand, kicking his legs in rhythm with his upper torso. Surprisingly, the dunes weren’t hard to summit. He’d reached the top and scouted the first avenue he’d set his eyes on, located his bearings, and then decided which course to take.
He slid down the dunes on his bottom. When he reached the stony, uneven road below, he tested his feet. His knees wobbled with the slightest bit of pressure. He sat back down. Five minutes later he tried again. Better this time. Easier. Less wobble in his knees, less ache in his bones. Not perfect. He spent another quarter hour standing, allowing his muscles to acclimate. It felt like he hadn’t stood in years.