After an hour of walking about and looking, he realized there was no way out. He thought about the key, but had no idea where the bear kept it. He feared if he went in the bear's room to look, he could startle the bear and that might result in getting his head chewed off. He decided to let it go. For now. Ultimately, pulling a greased bear weenie couldn't be as bad as being headless.
Jim went back to the couch, pulled the blanket over him, and almost slept.
Next morning, Jim, who thought he would never sleep, had finally drifted off, and what awoke him was not a noise, but the smell of food cooking. Waffles.
Jim got up slowly. A faint pink light was coming through the window. The kitchenette area of the tower was open to view, part of the bigger room, and the bear was in there wearing an apron and a big chef's hat. The bear turned, saw him. The apron had a slogan on it: If Momma Ain’t Happy, Ain’t Nobody Happy!
The bear spotted him, gave Jim a big-fanged, wet smile. "Hey, brother, how are you? Come on in here and sit your big ass down and have one of Mr. Bear's waffles. It's so good you'll want to slap your momma."
Jim went into the kitchenette, sat at the table where the bear instructed. The bear seemed in a light and cheery mood. Coffee was on the table, a plate stacked with waffles, big strips of bacon, pats of butter, and a bottle of syrup in a plastic bear modeled after Mr. Bear himself.
"Now you wrap your lips around some of this stuff, see what you think."
While Jim ate, the bear regaled him with all manner of stories about his life, and most were in fact interesting, but all Jim could think about was the bear biting the head off that hooker, and then slashing the other with a strike of his mighty paw. As Jim ate, the tasty waffles with thick syrup became wads of blood and flesh in his mouth, and he felt as if he were eating of Mr. Bear's wine and wafer, his symbolic blood and flesh, and it made Jim's skin crawl.
All it would take to end up like the whores was a misstep. Say something wrong. Perhaps a misinterpreted look. A hesitation at tonight's weenie pull. . . . Oh, damn, Jim thought. The weenie pull.
"What I thought we'd do is we'd go for a drive, dump the car. There's a ravine I know where we can run it off, and no one will see it again. Won't even know it's missing. Excuse me while I go to the shitter. I think I just got word there's been a waffle delivery called."
The bear laughed at his own joke and left the room. Jim ate a bit more of the waffle and all the bacon. He didn't want the bear to think he wasn't grateful. The beast Was clearly psychotic. Anything could set him off.
Jim got up and washed his hands at the sink, and just as he was passing into the living room, he saw the gun they had found in the car, lying on a big fluffy chair. Part of it, the barrel, had slipped into the crack in the cushions. Maybe the bear had forgotten all about it, or at least didn't have it at the forefront of his mind. That was it. He'd been drunker than a Shriners' convention. He probably didn't even remember having the gun.
Jim eased over and picked up the weapon and put it under his shirt, in the small of his back. He hoped he would know how to use it. He had seen them used before. If he could get up close enough—
"Now, that was some delivery. That motherfucker probably came with a fortune cookie and six-pack of Coke. I feel ten pounds lighter. You ready, Jimbo?"
In the early morning, the forests were dark and beautiful and there was a slight mist, and with the window of the car rolled down, it was cool and damp and the world seemed newborn. But all Jim could think about was performing a greased weenie pull and then getting his head chewed off.
Jim said, "You get rid of the car, how do we get back?"
The bear laughed. "Just like a citizen. We walk, of course."
"We've gone quite a distance."
"It'll do you good. Blow out the soot. You'll like it. Great scenery. I'm gonna show you the graves where I buried what was left of them fellows, the arsonists."
"That's all right," Jim said. "I don't need to see that."
"I want you to. It's not like I can show everyone, but my bestest bud, that's a different matter, now ain't it?"
"Well, I don't..."Jim said.
"We're going to see it."
"Sure. Okay."
Jim had a sudden revelation. Maybe there never was going to be a weenie pull, and as joyful as that perception was, the alternative was worse. The bear was going to get rid of him. Didn't want to do it in his tower. You don't shit where you eat. . . . Well, the bear might. But the idea was you kept your place clean of problems. This wasn't just a trip to dump the car, this was a death ride. The bear was going to kill him and leave him where the arsonists were. Jim felt his butthole clench on the car seat.
They drove up higher and the woods grew thicker and the road turned off and onto a trail. The car bumped along for some miles until the trees overwhelmed everything but the trail, and the tree limbs were so thickly connected they acted as a kind of canopy overhead. They drove in deep shadow and there were spots where the shadows were broken by light and the light played across the trail in speckles and spots, and birds shot across their view like feathered bullets, and twice there were deer in sight, bounding into the forest and disappearing like wraiths as the car passed.
They came to a curve and then a sharp rise and the bear drove up the rise. The trail played out, and still he drove. He came to a spot, near the peak of the hill, where the sun broke through, stopped the car, and got out. Jim got out. They walked to the highest rise of the hill, and where they stood was a clean, wide swath in the trees. Weeds and grass grew there. The grass was tall and mostly yellow but brown in places.
"Spring comes," the bear said. "There will be flowers, all along that path, on up to this hill, bursting all over it. This is my forest, Jim. All the dry world used to be a forest, or nearly was, but man has cut most of it down and that's done things to all of us and I don't think in the long run much of it is good. Before man, things had a balance, know what I mean? But man ... oh, boy. He sucks. Like that fire that burned me. Arson. Just for the fun of it. Burned down my goddamn home, Jim. I was just a cub. Little. My mother dying like that... I always feel two to three berries short of a pie." "I'm sorry."
"Aren't they all? Sorry. Boy, that sure makes it better, don't it. Shit." The bear paused and looked over the swath of meadow. He said, "Even with there having been snow, it's dry, and when it's dry, someone starts a fire, it'll burn. The snow don't mean a thing after it melts and the thirsty ground sucks it up, considering it's mostly been dry all year. That one little snow, it ain't nothing more than whipped cream on dry cake." The bear pointed down the hill. "That swath there, it would burn like gasoline on a shag carpet. I keep an eye out for those things. I try to keep this forest safe. It's a thankless and continuous job___Sometimes I have to leave, get a bit of recreation ... like the motel room ... time with a friend."
"I see."
"Do you? The graves I told you about. They're just down the hill. You see, they were bad people, but sometimes, even good people end up down there, if they know things they shouldn't, and there have been a few."
"Oh," Jim said, as if he had no idea what the bear was talking about.
"I don't make friends easily, and I may seem a little insincere. Species problems, all that. Sometimes even people I like, well... it doesn't turn out so well for them. Know what I'm saying?"
"I... I don't think so."
"I think you do. That motel room back there, those whores. I been at this for years. I'm not a serial killer or anything. Ones I kill deserve it. The people I work for. They know how I am. They protect me. How's it gonna be an icon goes to jail? That's what I am. A fuckin' icon. So I kinda get a free ride, someone goes missing, you know. Guys in black, ones got the helicopters and the black cars.
They clean up after me. They're my homies, know what I'm saying?" "Not exactly."
"Let me nutshell it for you: I'm pretty much immune to prosecution. But you, well... kind of a loose end. There's a patch down there with your name on it, Jimbo. I put
a shovel in the car early this morning while you were sleeping. It isn't personal, Jim. I like you. I do. I know that's cold comfort, but that's how it is."
The bear paused, took off his hat and removed a small cigar from the inside hat band, then struck a match and took a puff, said, "Thing is, though, I can't get to liking someone too good, 'cause—"
The snapping sound made the bear straighten up. He was still holding his hat in his paw, and he dropped it. He almost made a turn to look at Jim, who was now standing right by him, holding the automatic to the bump on the bear's noggin. The bear's legs went out. He stumbled and fell forward and went sliding down the hill on his face and chest, a bullet snuggling in his brain.
Jim took a deep breath. He went down the hill and turned the bear's head using both hands, took a good look at him. He thought the bear didn't really look like any of the cartoon versions of him, and when he was on TV he didn't look so old. Of course, he had never looked dead before. The eyes had already gone flat and he could see his dim reflection in one of them. The bear's cigar was flattened against his mouth, like a coiled worm. Jim found the bear's box of matches and was careful to use a handkerchief from the bear's paw to handle it. He struck the match and set the dry grass on fire, then stuck the match between the bear's claws on his left paw. The fire gnawed patiently at the grass, whipping up enthusiasm as the wind rose. Jim wiped down the automatic with his shirt tail and put it in the bear's right paw using the handkerchief, and pushed the bear's claw through the trigger guard, closing the bear's paw around the weapon so it looked like he had shot himself.
Jim went back up the hill. The fire licked at the grass and caught some more wind and grew wilder, and then the bear got caught up in it as well, the conflagration chewing his fur and cackling over his flesh like a crazed hag. The fire licked its way down the hill, and then the wind changed and Jim saw the fire climbing up toward him.
He got in the car and started it and found a place where he could back it around. It took some work, and by the time he managed it onto the narrow trail, he could see the fire in the mirror, waving its red head in his direction.
Jim drove down the hill, trying to remember the route. Behind him, the fire rose up into the trees as if it were a giant red bird spreading its wings.
"Dumb bear," he said aloud. "Ain't gonna be no weenie pull now, is there?" And he drove on until the fire was just a small bright spot in the rearview mirror, and then it was gone and there was just the tall, dark forest that the fire had yet to find.
LONG DEAD DAY
She said a dog bit her, but we didn't find the dog anywhere. It was a bad bite, though, and we dressed it with some good stuff and wrapped it with some bandages, and then poured alcohol over that, letting it seep in, and she, being ten, screamed and cried. She hugged up with her mama, though, and in a while she was all right, or as all right as she could be.
Later that evening, while I sat on the wall and looked down at the great crowd outside the compound, my wife, Carol, called me down from the wall and the big gun. She said Ellen had developed a fever, that she could hardly keep her eyes open, and the bite hurt.
Carol took her temperature, said it was high, and that to touch her forehead was to almost burn your hand. I went in then, and did just that, touched her forehead. Her mother was right. I opened up the dressing on the wound and was amazed to see that it had turned black, and it didn't really look like a dog bite at all. It never had, but I wanted it to, and let myself be convinced that was just what it was, even if there had been no dog we could find in the compound. By this time, they had all been eaten. Fact was, I probably shot the last one around: a beautiful Shepard that, when it saw me, wagged its tail. I think when I lifted the gun he knew, and didn't care. He just sat there with his mouth open in what looked like a dog's version of a smile, his tail beating. I killed him first shot, to the head. I dressed him out without thinking about him much. I couldn't let myself do that. I loved dogs. But my family needed to eat. We did have the rabbits we raised, some pigeons, a vegetable garden, but it was all very precarious.
Anyway, I didn't believe about the dog bite, and now the wound looked really bad. I knew the real cause of it, or at least the general cause, and it made me sick to think of it. I doctored the wound again, gave her some antibiotics that we had, wrapped it and went out. I didn't tell Carol what she was already thinking.
I got my shotgun and went about the compound, looking. It was a big compound, thirty-five acres with a high wall around it, but somehow, someone must have breached the wall. I went to the back garden, the one with trees and flowers where our little girl liked to play. I went there and looked around, and found him sitting on one of the benches. He was just sitting. I guess he hadn't been the way he was for very long. Just long enough to bite my daughter. He was about her age, and I knew then, being so lonely, she had let him in. Let him in through the bolted back door. I glanced over there and saw she had bolted it back. I realized then that she had most likely been up on the walk around the wall and had seen him down there, not long of turning, looking up wistfully. He could probably still talk then, just like anyone else, maybe even knew what he was doing, or maybe not. Perhaps he thought he was still who he once was, and thought he should get away from the others, that he would be safe inside.
It was amazing none of the others had forced their way in. Then again, the longer they were what they were, the slower they became, until finally they quit moving altogether. Problem with that was, it took years.
I looked back at him, sitting there, the one my daughter had let in to be her playmate. He had come inside, and then he had done what he had done, and now my daughter was sick with the disease, and the boy was just sitting there on the bench, looking at me in the dying sunlight, his eyes black as if he had been beat, his face gray, his lips purple.
He reminded me of my son. He wasn't my son, but he reminded me of him. I had seen my son go down among them, some—what was it?—five years before. Go down in a flash of kicking legs and thrashing arms and squirting liquids. That was when we lived in town, before we found the compound and made it better. There were others then, but they were gone now. Expeditions to find others, they said. Whatever—they left, we never saw them again.
Sometimes at night I couldn't sleep for the memory of my son, Gerald, and sometimes in my wife's arms, I thought of him, for had it not been such a moment that had created him?
The boy rose from the bench, stumble-stepped toward me, and I shot him. I shot him in the chest, knocking him down. Then I rushed to him and shot him in the head, taking half of it away.
I knew my wife would have heard the shot, so I didn't bother to bury him. I went back across the compound and to the upper apartments where we lived. She saw me with the gun, opened her mouth as if to speak, but nothing came out.
"A dog," I said. "The one who bit her. I'll get some things, dress him out and we'll eat him later."
"There was a dog," my wife said.
"Yes, a dog. He wasn't rabid. And he's pretty healthy. We can eat him."
I could see her go weak with relief, and I felt both satisfied and guilty at the same time. I said, "How is she?"
"Not much better. There was a dog, you say."
"That's what I said, dear."
"Oh, good. Good. A dog."
I looked at my watch. My daughter had been bitten earlier that day, and it was almost night. I said, "Why don't you go get a knife, some things for me to do the skinning, and I'll dress out the dog. Maybe she'll feel better, she gets some meat in her."
"Sure," Carol said. "Just the thing. She needs the protein. The iron."
"You bet," I said.
She went away then, down the stairs, across the yard to the cooking shed. I went upstairs, still carrying the gun.
Inside my daughter's room, I saw from the doorway that she was gray as cigarette ash. She turned her head toward me.
"Daddy," she said.
"Yes, dear," I said, and put the shotgun against the wall by th
e door and went over to her.
"I feel bad."
"I know."
"I feel different."
"I know."
"Can anything be done? Do you have some medicine?"
"I do."
I sat down in the chair by the bed. "Do you want me to read to you?"
"No," she said, and then she went silent. She lay there not moving, her eyes closed.
"Baby," I said. She didn't answer.
I got up then and went to the open door and looked out. Carol, my beautiful wife, was coming across the yard, carrying the things I'd asked for. I picked up the shotgun and made sure it was loaded with my daughter's medicine. I thought for a moment about how to do it. I put the shotgun back against the wall. I listened as my wife came up the stairs.
When she was in the room, I said, "Give me the knife and things."
"She okay?"
"Yes, she's gone to sleep. Or she's almost asleep. Take a look at her."
She gave me the knife and things and I laid them in a chair as she went across the room and to the bed.
I picked up the shotgun, and as quietly as I could, stepped forward and pointed it to the back of my wife's head and pulled the trigger. It was over instantly. She fell across the bed on our dead child, her blood coating the sheets and the wall.
She wouldn't have survived the death of a second child, and she sure wouldn't have survived what was about to happen to our daughter.
I went over and looked at Ellen. I could wait, until she opened her eyes, till she came out of the bed, trying for me, but I couldn't stomach that. I didn't want to see that. I took the shotgun and put it to her forehead and pulled the trigger. The room boomed with the sound of shotgun fire again, and the bed and the room turned an even brighter red.
I went outside with the shotgun and walked along the landing, walked all the way around, came to where the big gun was mounted. I sat behind it, on the swivel stool, leaned the shotgun against the protecting wall. I sat there and looked out at the hundreds of them, just standing there, looking up, waiting for something.