The Not-Bear [Part 2] | novella
Four summer campers find themselves lost in the woods of Northern California. It soon becomes clear that something else is watching over them. Part 2 of 2.
3. You met a bear,
Henry’s eyes stayed half-open until dawn. The scent of damp earth met his nostrils. Alarm was his only alarm.
He had spent the night listening to his own heartbeat racing inside his small chest. He waited for the bells to return. Anticipated the slow approach of whistling from unknown lips, but they never came. He stared for hours up at the mocking stars in the sky through the mesh tent until they faded to gray.
Tidé’s arm was eventually no longer draped over Henry’s chest. Instead, their bodies were balled up beside one another in their sleeping bags, their spines pressed together. Mirrored fetal.
Henry gently stirred, creeping the zipper to the tent’s front door along its track and popped his head outside. The fire from last night was smoldering, all but snuffed, with a thin curl of white spoke rising from it. The clear night had given way to a thick morning fog that clung to the boy’s sleeping bag and skin.
Henry heard Tildé groan beside him. No sooner had he did he hear movement coming from Rus and Myles’ tent. Swiftly, Myles popped his head outside of his tent too, about a foot beside Henry’s.
“Hey,” Myles said, whispering. He looked wide awake.
Henry gave him an upward nod.
“Did you hear that last night?” Myles asked.
“Yeah,” Henry said, excited to not be the only one, yet mortified. “Yeah, I heard it.”
“Yeah,” Myles nodded slowly, eyes wide. “Yeah, me too.”
“Did… Did you—”
“Hell no!” Myles scowled. “I wasn’t sticking my head out to see what it was. Are you crazy?”
Rus wiggled around inside the tent. Tildé stretched and sat up behind Henry. There was a pregnant pause as the group realized that they had hardly slept at all.
“Rus heard it too,” Myles said.
“Yeah,” Rus confirmed, still inside the tent.
“Me too,” Tildé added with a stretch.
Henry looked back into the tent at Tildé. They looked tired; he wondered if they had only been pretending to sleep the night before. Or if somehow they had all had the same dream.
Both seemed plausible.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Cross My Heart And Hope To Write to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.