The Bear in the Cable-Knit Sweater (2 page)

 

*****

 

I drove to the address printed in gold letters on the satin finish card. The address led to a building on the edge of the Strip district, a deserted storefront far from the Strip's thriving markets and restaurants.

The windows were waxed, so I couldn't see inside. The front door was closed, but unlocked. Heart pounding, I let myself in.

Sweat ran down my sides and back as I entered the darkened place and looked around. I was totally unprepared, running on panic and adrenaline, not thinking very far ahead.

Though I don't think anything could have prepared me for what was waiting inside that dump.

 

*****

 

The place smelled like mold and fry grease. The front room was empty except for a single folding card table, but I guessed this had once been a restaurant.

I almost called Stan's name, but then I thought better of it. Walking as softly as I could, I sneaked toward the swinging door at the back of the room. I could see a dim light glowing underneath it.

Cracking the door, I peeked inside the back room, and a chill shot up my spine. I couldn't believe what I was seeing; didn't even know what the hell it
was,
exactly.

Some kind of swirling disk hung in midair in the middle of the room, glowing with pink light. Streamers of mist spun around a central core, crackling with tendrils of energy. Everything smelled like salt water and ozone.

Gazing into the disk, I felt a little dizzy. It was like hovering above a cyclone, a hurricane, staring down into its whirling, lightning-filled cone.

I cracked the door wider for a better look. Took half a step into the back room. Still saw no one inside.

Then, suddenly, huge hands grabbed hold of me from behind and lifted me off my feet. Someone swung me back and up, and I saw that side-of-beef face grinning back at me.

Yuri.

"Looking for your
daddy bear,
yes?" Yuri waggled his squirrely brows and hooted. "Won't
he
be surprised?"

"Put me down!" I struggled in Yuri's grip, but it was like iron. I couldn't break free. "Let go of me!"

"Your daddy bear has gone
home
, little cubby," said Yuri. "But I will
gladly
take you
to
him."

Next thing I knew, Yuri was walking straight for the swirling disk, the vortex in the middle of the room. Holding me out in front of him like a baby.

"Here we go," said Yuri as he carried me closer to the vortex. "Hold on to your breakfast!"

And then, he pitched me inside, and I went spinning like a leaf in a waterspout.

 

*****

 

I landed face down in the dirt with the wind knocked out of me. Head still spinning for long moments after the physical spinning had stopped.

When I finally looked up, I saw a dozen pairs of eyes gazing down at me. I was surrounded.

And each pair of eyes came with a fur-covered snout. And face. And body.

Because all around me were
bears.
The
animal
kind, not the
human
kind from Boilermaker's. These were big-toothed, sharp-clawed
bears,
standing in a circle on hind legs.

And every one of them was wearing a pink or red tutu.

Slowly, I got up on my hands and knees. Had I ended up in some kind of bizarre
circus?

Then, suddenly, a cloud of tiny flying creatures descended upon us...a swarm of winged people, male and female, each no bigger than five inches tall. Every one of them lashing out with showers of sparks that sent the bears backing away, swatting with black-padded paws at their snouts.

Fairies?
Where the hell
was
I?

Pushing myself up to my knees, I watched the swarm of fairies in action, spraying sparks from their hands in all directions. I was just about to thank them for driving off the bears when they all spun and converged on
me.

Like a swarm of bees, they stung me senseless, sending me reeling back down to the dirt. My body snapped and twitched with each new barrage, writhing under the whirling cloud of tiny attackers.

And then, all of a sudden, they lifted away and dispersed. Leaving me to gaze up at the huge pink sun blazing away directly overhead.

"Where
am
I?" I said it softly, to myself, not expecting a reply.

But I got an answer anyway. The roar of thousands of people all around me.

Thousands of people with blue and green skin, pointed ears, eyes like glowing gemstones. Thousands of people crowding the stands of a vast coliseum that looked like it had been built out of glittering flint and cotton candy.

 

*****

 

Yuri's voice boomed over the noise of the crowd. "Welcome, lords and ladies, to the
main event
of this splendid
tournament.
"

Getting up out of the dirt, I saw I was standing at dead center of the coliseum field. The bears were still keeping their distance, but they were circling me on all fours, heads bobbing. Ridiculous in their tutus yet as dangerous as any bear in any forest back home.

"I bring you a contest to
thrill
your blood!" said Yuri. "A human
cub
will face a true
bear.
..an escapee now returned to the
fold
for the ultimate
death duel."

The crowd roared louder than ever, agitating the bears around me. I turned in a circle, fearing they were ready to attack.

"Witness now," said Yuri, "the battle of
cub
versus
bear.
"

Just then, a huge cloud of tiny fairies burst from a gate along the wall around the field. They surged toward me and stopped suddenly just twenty yards away. And then they parted.

Revealing a gray-furred bear.

Barrel-chested and broad-shouldered, he stood before me, staring. Raising his paws, he roared, but I stood my ground. Because there was something familiar about him. Something in his eyes.

"Stan?" Could it be? "Is that you?"

The gray-furred bear roared again and nodded his head.

Somehow, this was Stan. An "escapee" of some kind from this place, turned human on Earth, now reverted to bear?

And now what? We were expected to
fight
one another?

"Let the killing
begin!
" said Yuri, and the crowd went wild.

 

*****

 

Stan backed away, but the other bears moved in and pushed him back. There were dozens of them now, loping along on foot or balanced on beach balls or unicycles. More were filing out of the gates all the time, driven onward by swirling clouds of fairies.

"Stan!" I moved toward him, though he tried to wave me away. "I don't care what you
are
, or
were
, or
weren't.
I
love
you, and I always
will."

Stan roared back at me, louder than ever, and I knew he agreed.

But the other bears were on a different wavelength. They started to close in around us, pressing in on all sides, cutting off all escape.

"One must kill the other!" said Yuri. "Blood will
spill
on the sands of
Faerie!
"

Taking a deep breath, I ran to Stan and threw myself into his arms. Pressed my furry cheek against the warm, gray fur on his chest.

The crowd unleashed a deafening round of catcalls. The other bears moved closer, roaring with ferocious intent.

"If
one
of you will not kill the
other,
" said Yuri, "
we
will end the impasse
ourselves.
"

Suddenly, the other bears lurched and rolled and pedaled toward us. Stan and I stood back to back and met their charge with steely glares, ready to die together.

"I
love
you, Stan!" A polar bear and a black bear lumbered toward me, both licking their chops. "We'll
survive
this and go home together!"

Just then, I heard a sound like hoof beats on the ground behind me...and Stan was gone. Whirling, I saw a grizzly tear his head off with a single swipe of his paw.

"
Nooo!
" Through my tears, I saw the other bears move in to finish off Stan. I felt my legs begin to give way under me.

And then, I saw another cloud of fairies boiling toward me. A thousand tiny wings flashing in the pink light like the wings of locusts on the move.

Sorrow turned to rage in my heart, and my thoughts suddenly crystallized. Squaring my shoulders, I waited for the cloud to descend. Waited to do what some bear should have done long ago.

As soon as the cloud engulfed me, I snapped my arms out to either side and grabbed at the fluttering creatures. Caught one in either hand and held them tight.

I used them to shoo the rest of the buzzing horde away, and then I turned to the other bears with hands held high. Realizing, even as I did this, that I should have done this or something like it long ago.
Decades
ago. That
this
was what being a bear was all about.

Harnessing fear.

 

*****

 

Now I stand in the center of the coliseum, the pink sun blazing on my flesh, and raise the fairies I clutch in both fists. Their tiny bodies squirm between my fat fingers as they struggle to break free, but they're not going anywhere.

I turn in a circle with the fairies held overhead, and the army of bears that surround me on the dirt floor of the coliseum stop snarling. They stand on hind legs with red and pink tutus fluttering in the breeze, some balancing on beach balls, some perched on unicycles. They stare with wide eyes over muzzles rimmed with black or brown or white fur, claws twitching in the Faerie world heat.

And I wait for their answer to my question. "Who deserves to
die?
" My throat hurts as I howl it at the top of my lungs. "
Me
or
them?
Me or them?
"

I feel the bears' eyes upon me, bulging with wonder and hunger and fear. The moment is upon them, a moment they never imagined.

This is for you, Stan,
I think, and then I
roar
, demanding their answer.

And all the bears roar back at me at once, voices joined in a fierce explosion like the launch of a rocket or the start of a war. Claws thrashing at the sky with unmistakable defiance.

My brothers.
I hear answering roars from beyond the coliseum, from the bears beyond those walls, across this world. I imagine all of them rising up at once, all the rejected, despised, and enslaved. All the ones who've had the power within them all along, lacking only the will to apply it.

And I know that this is where I truly belong. What my life has led up to. What I was meant to accomplish.

The bears turn their backs on me and gallop toward the stands. The crowd screams and stampedes for the exits.

Down in the dirt, I roar my lungs out, tears streaming down my face. And then I squeeze both fists as tight as they'll go.

 

*****

 

Special Preview:
Heaven Bent, A Novel

 

By Robert T. Jeschonek

 

Now
On Sale

 

Chapter 1

 

If I'd known then what I know now, I never would have gone toward the light. Seriously. This Heaven, I could've done without.

My actual life before death was much better. I was a
movie star
, for cryin' out loud. I had it all.

As recently as twelve hours ago, I had it all.

"So tell me, Stag, how does it feel to be nominated for your third Academy Award?" That's what the perky blonde morning show host asked during the live interview.

"Unbelievable." I said it with my patented humble-yet-confident grin, letting the bright lights cast a glare on my teeth. Down-to-Earth, salt-of-the-Earth, salt-and-pepper hair parted on the right. "It never gets old."

"What a track record." She, Susan F., was in a New York City studio. For reasons that weren't clear to me, I was in a separate studio across town, watching her on a monitor. Doin' the ol' split-screen tango. "And with two Best Actor wins under your belt, how do you feel about chances for a third?"

"Crossing my fingers, Sue." I flashed my bright whites and showed my crossed fingers to the camera. "It would be an indescribable honor."

"We wish you the best," said Susan with her most endearing smile, as if I were family.

"Thank you, Sue." Nod and a wink. "I hope to see you at the after-party."

Aaaand cut!

"On a cold day in Hell," I added after the red light on the camera went dark.

"Screw you, too, Stag." That's what Susan F.'s voice said in my earpiece. Looks like my mic was still hot.

Not that I cared. "Love and kisses, S.F.," I told her as I unclipped the mic. Reaching under my gray sweater, I pulled the mic down and out by the cord.

As I popped out my earpiece (to the sound of her angry cursing), I saw someone open the studio door and stroll in. It was a guy--six-three, six-four--with broad shoulders, dark business suit, and red tie. High roller maybe?

"Hello?" I was irritated, because the only one walking in on me at that point should have been my manager, Shisha M. "You know I have to be at a film shoot in fifteen minutes, right?"

The guy cleared his throat. He was standing with his hands folded over his lower abdomen. "Hello." I couldn't make out his face in the shadows beyond the studio lights. "Hello, S.L."

I hopped off the stool, squinting for a look at him. "Very funny." More than a little pissed off because he was riffing on my call-people-by-their-initials routine. "What do you want?"

At that instant, somebody switched off the lights, and I saw the guy's face. For a moment, the pissed-off-ness poured right out of me.

My breath caught in my you-know-what. A cold chill rushed up my you-know-where.

That guy...

"About the film shoot." He shook his head. The hair wasn't salt-and-pepper, it was solid silver. But otherwise...identical.

To me. He could've been my twin.

"What about it?" I said, but my head was tingling. I had a feeling like very strong vertigo, like being stoned.

"Don't go back," said my twin. "Not today. Not ever."

As the initial shock wore off, I started thinking this through. I had no twin, so... "Who sent you, pal?" I straightened my back, squared my shoulders, copped a sneer. "Was it Brad? Was it Morgan? I've gotta say, you're the best Stag Lincoln impersonator I've ever seen."

My twin walked toward me, looking intense. As he got closer, I swear I could smell the ocean. "I'm begging you. Don't go back to the shoot, Willy."

My sneer turned into a frown. How could he possibly know that ancient nickname? The one I paid
millions
(conservatively speaking) to bury forever? "Whatever was remotely funny about this just stopped being funny." I yanked the phone out of my pocket and started punching 9-1-1.

At which point, my twin charged up and smacked the phone from my hand. "Listen to me!" Next, he hauled off and slapped me across the face. "If you go to that shoot, it's all over! Can you get that through your thick
head
, you arrogant
ass
?" He slapped me again, harder.

Where the hell was Shisha while this was happening? Where the hell was
anyone
? "Get your hands
off
me!" I pushed away from him, planning to plow my fist into the middle of his copycat kisser.

But that was when he started glowing with bright golden light. I thought I could hear a bell chiming somewhere far away.

"Last warning!" His voice was beyond urgent, beyond serious. "I'm telling you...
you're
telling
yourself
...stay away from the shoot!" He glowed brighter with each passing second. "And whatever you do, Jerry..."

He flared so bright, it was blinding, and then he was gone.

I stood there, blinking at the spots in my eyes. Wondering what the hell he'd been trying to tell me before he disappeared.

Just as I thought that, he popped back into existence in front of me, still roiling with golden glow. His voice crackled, and the bells I'd heard earlier were louder than before. "Whatever you do...don't...toward..."

I thought I heard screams between the chiming of the bells. The screams of not a few, but a multitude of people.

"Jerry!" Suddenly, his voice grew clear and strong. "Don't go toward the light!"

This time, when his glow flared and his body vanished, he didn't come back. I was left there with the echo of his words, the lingering smell of the ocean, and the tingling in my head, asking the one question that kept circling in my mind again and again.

"Was it Cameron?" I stared into space, my mouth wide open with amazement. "That was some serious 3-D, man. That
had
to be Cameron."