Bear Flames

1. Bear Flames-2

“My apologies,” Jesse said, looking at Richard. He nodded. “Richard, I’m sorry. That was –”

“He ain’t interested in your excuses, friend,” the man said, tightening his grip on Jesse’s shoulder. Jesse tightened his muscles, feeling the man’s fingers digging in even tighter.

When was the last time I’ve backed down from a fight? This isn’t like me.

Jesse had always been prickly, as his friends had put it. But he’d never been one to pick random fights for no reason. He’d never been one to drink himself into an early grave, either—but times had changed.

Now they had changed again.

He was going to get revenge on that man. He was going to get revenge on the man who had killed his friend and completely shattered his life.

“I’m sorry,” Jesse said again.

“Sorry ain’t gonna do it.”

“Then take your hand off me,” Jesse warned. He’d had enough. There was only so much a man could take, and he was past his limit.

“You don’t tell me what to do.”

Jesse looked up at the man and then reached a hand up. He grabbed the hand on his shoulder and squeezed. There was the briefest of pauses as everyone was unsure of what was going to happen—and then everything broke loose all at once.

The man screamed as Jesse tightened his grip and yanked him forward. The man was drunk, and before he could correct himself, Jesse had pulled him downward; his face crashed into the bar counter. Blood exploded out from his shattered nose.

Jesse pushed the man to the side and went to stand. His bar stool slid out behind him, crashing to the floor as the other men moved in. The second man reached him within a second and swung a flurry of punches. The first few connected with nothing. The next caught him in the chest, face, and throat. The man wasn’t trained, but he was big. His punches weren’t aimed anywhere in particular—but aiming at a man as large as Jesse, it was hard to miss.

They hurt—but not enough to bring Jesse down. He brought his forearms up to block his face and waited for an opening. Jesse wasn’t a fighter. He was a firefighter, of course—but it wasn’t the same.

So he didn’t expect the last man to come from the side and tackle him to the floor. Bar stools went flying and crashing as they tumbled to the ground. The man held him down, and the second man started bringing his heavy boots down on Jesse. He felt his nose explode in a shower of blood as the boot came down again and again.

Jesse roared in pain. All he wanted to do was shift. He wanted to turn into his true form and rend these men limb from limb, teach them a lesson about how they should never mess with men like him—but he knew he couldn’t. With another roar of pain, Jesse suppressed the urge and fought for his life.

He managed to free one hand and deflect the next boot stomp. When the foot connected with the ground instead of his face like the man had expected, the man stumbled, and Jesse seized the opportunity. He wrenched on the man’s ankle. Drunk and already unbalanced, the man went down. He reached for a bar stool that was still teetering, and together they both went down.

Jesse waited for the punches to rain down, but they never came. The man had decided to try to hold Jesse in place while his two compatriots got back into the fight. He heard the bartender yelling but was unsure of what he was saying.

Seizing his opportunity, Jesse grabbed the man by the throat and squeezed tightly. After a few moments, the man’s grip loosened and Jesse pushed him off and to the side. Jesse got to his hands and knees, blood dripping down onto the dirty bar floor. Next to him, the man lay on his back, coughing and trying to catch his breath.

The first man was recovering, now. The second was as well.

“Look, fellas,” Jesse said, raising his hands in front of him defensively. “I don’t want any more trouble.”

“You’ve found it, friend,” the first man said, wiping his bloody nose and flicking it on the floor. He spit blood and smiled through red teeth.

Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pocket knife, flicking it open.

Jesse stood, slack jawed, for the briefest of seconds.

He wouldn’t… He’s going to stab me all over this? He wouldn’t dare.

That moment of hesitation cost him dearly. The man lunged forward, and Jesse felt a hot flash of pain in his midsection. He stumbled backwards, looking down and seeing the pocket knife lodged in his stomach up to its hilt.

“You—you stabbed me,” Jesse roared. The men had obviously expected Jesse to collapse. Instead, he grabbed the knife and pulled it out with a scream and a gush of blood. He tossed it to the side, hand wet with his own red blood.

Then he attacked.

“Calm down, Mr. Reeves. Take it slow. What did you say happened? Here? In Cooper’s?”

Officer Kate Poole sat in her cruiser, listening in disbelief as the owner of Cooper’s Mill’s one and only pub, George Reeves, told her that there had been a stabbing.

Mr. Reeves repeated himself as Kate listened.

She knew the man was a booze hound. He probably drank more of his own stock than the locals did. But she also knew that he would never lie about something like this—and she was the only officer on duty, of course—so she had to respond.

A stabbing? When was the last time that happened? Twenty years? Thirty?

She’d lived in Cooper’s Mill her entire life and couldn’t recall a single instance of a stabbing, shooting, or robbery. She’d had to break up plenty of bar fights in her days, sure, but never anything like this.

It was bittersweet: she was ready for some action, yet for this to happen in her hometown… It almost made her sick.

Cooper’s Mill was nothing like the big NYC up north—it was a quiet little place, nestled up in the mountains, surrounded by forests, lakes, and wonderful people.

And that had all been ruined, now.

She activated her sirens and tore out of the parking lot where she’d been watching for speeders. There weren’t much of them around these parts, either, so it had been a slow night.

She radioed in backup, even though she was sure she wouldn’t need it—she was sure George Reeves had probably meant someone had probably stabbed themselves with their own pocket knife while trying to crack open a beer.

But when she pulled up to the bar, she saw that this wasn’t the case whatsoever.

George Reeves was outside the bar and he looked stricken.

“George, what’s going on?” she asked, getting out and drawing her sidearm. She’d never had to fire it before, and she hoped tonight wouldn’t be the first time she’d have to.

“They’re inside.”

“Who’s inside?”

“Max Higgins, his two buddies, and some out-of-towner. It’s bad, Officer.”

George Reeves was shaken up. It took a lot to do that—there wasn’t a weekend that went by that his rowdy bar didn’t have some kind of fight, one that usually involved her or any of the other officers getting called out to drive the loser home.

That’s what most visits to the bar amounted to—driving home people who were too drunk to drive themselves home. It was something that Kate was more than happy to do. Cooper’s Mill wasn’t the most exciting place on earth—but she did her job and she did it well.

And because of this, she decided to go into the bar and see what had happened.

It was like walking into a war zone. Stools and small tables were scattered everywhere, some of them torn to shreds, nothing more than pieces of wood and metal laying here and there. One of the chair legs had evidently hit the TV above the bar; the screen was shattered and flickered a myriad of colors. Bottles of shattered liquor lined the back of the bar. The big mirror behind the bar was shattered, too.

How did that happen?

There was blood everywhere. She found one of the culprits—a man she recognized from around town, though she didn’t know him by name. He was collapsed in a booth, dazed, his face and cut off tee painted red. One of his arms was draped over the table, which was turned at a crazy angle.

Was he... thrown? Impossible.

She heard a groan from behind the bar. Stepping on broken glass, she peered over the counter top and saw Maxwell Higgins lying in a pool of blood, broken glass, and liquor. He looked at her with a dazed look in his eyes. He was covered in blood, too—more than the other man, if possible.

In the middle of the floor, surrounded by nothing but wreckage, was another of Max’s friends. He looked better than the first two, but not by much.

“What happened?” she asked, kneeling beside him. Her eyes scanned the room for the out-of-towner. She didn’t see him everywhere.

The third man just looked at her and closed his eyes.

“Backup and an ambulance are on their way,” she told the man, patting his shoulder. What else could she do? None of the men appeared to have any life-threatening injuries, though she feared for George Reeves and how he would put his bar back together.

Her immediate goal was finding the last man.

There was a pool of blood, there, near the bar. Her eyes followed it and blanched. While the first three men didn’t seem too badly hurt, whatever had happened to this man was bad. There was so much blood. She was no doctor, but she knew enough to know that whatever had happened to him probably was life-threatening.

She followed the trail of blood towards the back of the bar. It was dark here, so she took her flashlight out and pointed it at the floor. The trail of blood led to the back door. She took a deep breath, hoped that backup was near, and opened the back door.

It was dark outside, too, but the moonlight was enough for her to see by.

She saw, in the shadows next to a dumpster, a man leaning up again the wall of the bar. He looked like hell.

One hand was pressed against his midsection. She saw blood leaking out from between his fingers as he grimaced and tried to staunch the wound. His long hair and beard were matted with blood. He moaned—almost growled—in pain.

I took him a few moments to notice her.

Then his eyes flashed, catching the moonlight and glinting golden—though she knew that wasn’t possible.

He looked angry, almost feral. She took a step back. Then she realized she still had her gun. It was pointed directly at the man.

Then he moved and she screamed, aiming the gun—but not pulling the trigger. But the man was going the opposite direction, pressing against the chain link fence, and then she realized something was happening.

She blinked rapidly, unbelieving her eyes. The man was transforming! She raised the gun and trained it on him again.

What was going on?

And where he had been there was no longer a man but a bear, a huge brown bear, pressing against the fence and then tearing through it. She screamed again and the bear turned and she fired, once, twice, and she expected the creature to turn on her and shred her limb from limb…

She heard footsteps and closed her eyes, ready for the hot breath to find her neck—and when she opened them again, she was alone.