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It began popping its massive jaws, and from a distance of about twenty yards, it charged.
He did scream now, his voice rising high and sharp as he threw down the rifle and ran.
For just a second, maybe two, he had a wild hope that Angie would shoot the bear, that even after everything he’d done instinct would kick in and she’d just shoot the damn thing. He’d have a chance and that’s all he wanted, just a chance, he’d adjust his plans, maybe—
Then an avalanche of fur and muscle, teeth and claws, hit him and slammed him face-first into the ground. Claws raked like fire across his side and back, pain exploded through his entire body as the bear sank its canines into his shoulder and slung him through the air.
He landed with an impact that almost paralyzed him. He heard his voice sobbing, knew his nose was running with snot, but everything was kind of distant and blurry except for the sheer terror that somehow spurred him to roll over, fingers digging into the muddy ground as he tried to get to his feet.
There was a deep, growling roar that almost deafened him, and a stench that burned his lungs, his nose. A thousand barbs shredded his legs, caught, began dragging him backward.
“No, no, no.” It was the only word he could manage to say, over and over as he was pulled across the muddy ground.
He dug his fingers into the mud as if his grip on the earth might save him. On some level he realized that the monster bear had already killed him. The pain of claws tearing into his legs brought back the vivid memory of what had happened to Davis.
But Davis had already been dead. He wasn’t.
He felt himself being lifted again. Without warning the ground he’d been clinging to was gone and he hung there for a moment, helpless, caught in the monster’s jaws and shaken like a child’s toy. He tried to scream again but couldn’t. He had no breath, no strength. He couldn’t even say “No” anymore; instead he could hear pitiful, weak, mewling sounds that caught in his throat.
The bear slung its head and tossed him again. He screamed, flying through the air for what seemed like forever, screamed his frustration and rage and terror, his knowledge that this was the end and it was going to be horrible. He even screamed for help, though without hope, because there was no coming back from this. He bounced off the boulder. Bones broke—he felt them shatter, and he was left lying there, a limp body with no internal structure for support. Blood filled his mouth. The bear lunged, and Chad prayed for instant death.
His prayer wasn’t answered.
He wanted to pass out. He wanted to be unaware when he died. There was a moment, as his vision began to fade, when Chad was almost certain the bear was playing with him, purposely prolonging his suffering, making sure that he felt as much pain as was possible in his last minutes of life.
The bear bit into his stomach, slung its head, ripped his insides out. Detached, his brain shutting down, he was still capable of a distant surprise at the pointed accuracy of his last thought: “Survival of the fittest.”
Angie had just acquired Chad in her scope when he screamed; a split second later, he disappeared in a blur of motion. She jerked the rifle from her shoulder and stared in frozen horror at the nightmare taking place in front of her.
It was happening again, just as it had happened the night of the storm, the hellish images bombarding her brain and savaging it, swamping her with blind panic. She thought she screamed, but her throat wouldn’t work and the scream stayed inside, tearing its way through her heart and stomach and mind. She could hear Dare—she thought she could hear him, but she wasn’t certain, she couldn’t make out any words because something in her mind had simply disconnected.
The bear tore Chad Krugman apart. Time slowed to the speed of molasses and the attack seemed to last forever, though deep inside she knew only seconds had passed, seconds that were all such a powerful predator needed to kill its prey.
Then—God!—the bear tossed Chad’s remains aside and began coming down the hill toward them.
The horse. The bear smelled the horse, and maybe Dare’s blood, though how it could smell more fresh blood when its snout was covered with gore, she didn’t know. She didn’t know how she could think at all. She didn’t know how she could move.
But she did. Every movement felt as if she were caught in the mud she’d dreamed about, the stupid idiotic cake icing, but she lifted the rifle to her shoulder, looked through the scope, acquired her target, which w
as looming larger and larger as it padded down the slope. This was a bad angle, almost straight on; the perfect shot was heart and lungs but its head was down, swinging back and forth. She couldn’t wait for a perfect shot. She inhaled, let part of her breath out, and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. The firing pin snapped, but nothing happened. Shit! What had she done wrong? Hadn’t she completely locked the bolt home? Swiftly she worked the bolt, ejecting a cartridge, slammed the bolt home. The bear was closer, making a deep grunting, barking sound in its chest, forty yards away, getting ready to charge.
She pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
She heard herself swearing, heard Dare saying something and some instinct had her moving from behind the boulder, drawing the bear’s attention to herself, God, anything to keep him away from Dare—
“Angie!”
She heard the roar, jerked her head a little to the side just in time to see Dare’s blood-drenched face as he grabbed up his own rifle with his left arm and tossed it to her. The weapon seemed to sail in slow motion through the air toward her, sunlight glinting on the barrel, the glass lens of the powerful scope.
The bear was at thirty yards.
She caught the rifle, jerked it to her shoulder, took a split second to settle the crosshairs on the bear’s head, and fired. Before the powerful explosive crack of the shot had faded she ejected the spent cartridge, slammed the bolt home again.
The bullet caught the monster in the shoulder. It roared, spinning around, then abruptly charged straight toward her.
