The VIP Room(135)

I darted as for the stream, zigging and zagging through the woods as I did, almost stumbling on more than one occasion as I worked down the steep incline. The bear was nearly tearing at my heels, and I could almost feel it as it beat down upon the dirt behind me. Panic began to set in and the adrenaline that had propelled me from the cave to here was beginning to die out. If something didn’t happen, I’d be dead in minutes.

Without thinking, I slipped my backpack out from over my shoulders and tossed it over my head back toward the bear. With any luck, it would go after the bag. At the very least, I’d be significantly less encumbered, which should make fleeing somewhat less difficult. For a moment, it seemed like that had done the trick. The sounds of the bear chasing after me fleeted for a second as the predator attacked and destroyed my bag, emptying its contents almost instantly. Once the bear was satisfied that nothing of quality was in the bag, however, it resumed its pursuit.

When I heard the bear clambering after me again, I felt the first real pang of hopelessness claw its way into my mind. I’d encountered bears before - basically everyone in town had - but I’d never been pursued as heartedly by one before. Never had I felt in any real danger. I must have done something to seriously piss this bear off, then, because it was dead set on dragging me across the rocks.

Just then, I heard another sound approaching from behind me, off in the opposite direction of the bear. It sounded similar, in fact, to the bear pursuing me, but somehow larger and more ferocious. Without thinking, I turned my head toward the sound, just in time to see another, even larger black bear speeding across the mountainside toward me. Cursing my luck, I doubled down on my speed and sprinted down the mountain as quickly as I could, my breath all but lost in the activity.

My foot suddenly hit something hard and my body jerked forward and toward the ground. Almost by reflex, I curled up into a ball and rolled forward, head over heel, as I crashed down the mountainside. My body bounced and collided with dirt and stone as I continued rolling forward, my world transformed into a swirling spiral of tree-sky-dirt-tree. I found myself unable to breath, the air long since knocked from my lungs, and I knew, in that moment, that I was going to die. If the fall didn’t kill me, the bears would.

That’s when I collided with large boulder, my head slamming backward against the rock as my back came to a rest against it. Sheer agony wracked through my body, and I felt a trickle of blood flowing down the back of my head. My vision swam, and in the distance I could make out a large figure racing toward me.

The world faded into black.





Chapter 3





Chase





“She’ll be alright?” I asked the woman at the nurse’s station, gesturing with my thumb toward the room behind me.

The woman looked at me suspiciously for a moment before nodding. “Should be fine. A few scrapes, scratches, and bruises, but she’ll be fine.”

I thanked the woman then walked back toward the door to the hospital room, peeking in from just beyond the doorway. I thought back to how I’d found the woman, being chased by a massive black bear down the mountainside, and shook my head. Had I not been out there exercising my own bear, she’d be dead. Hell, it was a wonder she wasn’t dead anyways. Most people don’t take a tumble down the mountainside and live to tell about it, much less resume consciousness. And yet, here she was. Alive, awake, and surrounded by family.

After I’d chased off the woman’s pursuant, I’d raced after her down the mountain, hoping to stop her tumble before she reached the stream below. I’d figured that, in her condition, she’d probably have drowned in the waters while still unconscious. Through a stroke of ill luck, however, she’d ended up slamming into the solitary boulder along the stream’s bank. By the time I’d gotten to her, she was already unconscious. I’d immediately shifted back into human form and checked her for any life-threatening wounds, before sweeping her into my arms and rushing her as quickly as I could to the local hospital. If I hadn’t been able to tap into my bear’s reserves of strength and speed, I’m not sure I could have made it. The nurses had recognized the woman immediately, identifying her as Andrea Sloane, and had reached out to her family. As far as I knew, the woman was completely unaware of my presence, or of my role in her rescue. Which, honestly, was probably for the better.

I turned away from the room and started toward the hospital’s exit. Ever since arriving in Boone, I’d felt more free and relaxed than I had in ages. My bear seemed pleased for the first time in over a decade, and I could feel the mountain air working its wonders on the stress that had built up so intensely back in New York City. Even one run through the mountains had been enough to detox every bit of pent up rage that I’d been building up over the years. It was, to say the least, satisfying.

Just as I was nearing the exit, a woman’s voice called out to me. “Hey, you!”

I turned to see the woman standing in the hallway, her hospital gown clinging around her body. Even in the gown and with the head bandages, the woman was unmistakably gorgeous - something that I hadn’t noticed in my rush to get her to the hospital. She had brilliant and piercing emerald eyes that almost melted me where I stood, and a body that curved in absolutely the right way. My mouth watered a bit as I stared at her, and my bear rumbled a silent roar of desire.

“You think you can just walk away after this?” The woman called out, storming toward me and turning heads all around the hospital’s narrow hallway. A pair of heads peeked out from the woman’s room, that of her parents, and stared at me with widened eyes.