Worshiped By The Bear Kings - Complete (4 page)

 
CHAPTER
ELEVEN

The day wore on. An old gas barbeque
on wheels was pushed outside the cabin, and a number of deckchairs were set up
so they could sit in the shade and enjoy what was left of the day. It was still
a while away from nightfall, but it didn’t seem as though they were going back
home today. Dara appeared to be completely over her scare. She spent a full
hour and a half on the phone to one of her friends, talking about what had
happened, before the discussion seemed to evolve into which guy the friend
should hook up with tonight. So business as usual.

Jasmine sat
with them all, and continued to drink, even though she wasn’t at all
comfortable. One huge problem she realized, beyond all the other shit had happened,
was that she didn’t have any real friends here. Before today, Dara and Jake
were strangers, and her brother Dennis, just wasn’t the most reliable of sorts.
She knew if her friends were here, they would tell her to be strong, and to see
it through. Everyone had flaws, and everyone tries to do their best in spite of
them. She told herself that she should just put her hang-ups away and make an
effort when there was an effort to be made.

At one point,
she was sitting next to Dennis.

“I’m sorry,”
he said to her.

She was
surprised. “About us still being here?”

“I know you
wanted to go,” he admitted. “What happened before was insane.”

“Well, thanks
for saying that at least.”

“I know
you’re not really getting along with Dara on Jake –”

“Hey,”
Jasmine hissed, “they’ll hear you –”

“But I just
wanted to say I really appreciate what you’re doing for me here. It means a
lot.”

Jasmine
smiled. “You really like Dara, huh?”

Dennis
laughed. “We’re still new. I know … I like parts of her.”

“You mean you
like to shag her?”

“We haven’t …
as yet…”

“Oh gees. And
you think tonight’s going to be the night?”

“I don’t
know,” Dennis shrugged.

“Are you guys
even in a relationship? She’s always on the phone.”

“Yeah.
Hopefully the battery goes dead.”

Good talk,
Dennis. Jasmine had now confirmed his keen intent on having a night to remember
with his new girlfriend, and somehow she played a part in that. At least he had
the decency to appreciate her being here though.

Dennis got up
and went looking for Jake. He was just inside the cabin.

“Hey,” Dennis
said, still standing outside. “Do we want to get some of these hamburgers on or
what?”

Jake stepped
out of the cabin. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses, and his hunter’s cap.

He had his
rifle beside him.

“Maybe wait a
bit,” Jake said. “I’m going for a walk.”

“Umm…”

Jake walked
past Dennis and started heading towards the lake.

“Umm…”

Jasmine stood
up. “He’s going after the bear.”

Dennis
turned, biting his lip. “I’ll … I’ll go talk to him.”

Dennis
hurried over to where Jake was walking, and entered a conversation with him.

Jasmine
watched from a safe distance.

As the image
of the two boys became smaller and smaller, her eyes fell away. She took a deep
breath and reached into cooler for another drink. She took it and then walked
back to her chair.

Suddenly …
she heard a noise. A heavy rustling in the bushes behind her.

Jasmine
stepped away from the chair and moved in the direction the noise had come from.

“Who’s
there?” she asked. “Dara?”

Silence.

Ever so
faintly, she could hear Dara talking on the phone inside the cabin.

Jasmine’s
eyes darted around the trees, still searching for the what had caused the
noise.

Nothing.

Jasmine wiped
her forehead and moved back to the seating area. She looked out to the lake
again in search for Dennis and Jake’s return.

What she saw
blew her mind.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

CRACK.

The sound of
Jake’s rifle discharging, before he was swallowed by the stampede.

Dennis was
ahead of it, running as fast as he could. “GET INSIDE!” he shouted.

The leaves
were rustling even louder now. Jasmine turned and saw the emergence of several
bears swarming around her.

She gave a
yelp of panic and then fled to the cabin.

Before
closing the door, she saw Dennis wasn’t going to make it. The bears chasing him
had almost caught up and the bears chasing Jasmine were already at the cabin’s
door.

She locked
it, bolted it, and then stepped away, her hands in the air.

Dara moved in
behind her.

“What the
fuck is going on?” she whispered.

“It’s the
bears,” Jasmine whispered.

“Bears?”

One of them
came to the window directly opposite them. His face pressed against the glass,
looking in.

“Oh shit,”
Dara exclaimed. “He can see us.”

The bear
moved its head back and then took a gigantic swing at the window with its paw,
causing the whole thing to shatter.

Jasmine and
Dara screamed, and then they ran into the kitchen and backed up against the
wall.

“Did you see
how many there are?” Dara gasped.

Jasmine
nodded.

“Where’s
Jake? Where’s Dennis?”

Out there
, Jasmine
mouthed.

As they both
listened, Dennis’s faint cries for mercy could be heard.

Dara grabbed
Jasmine’s wrist. “What are we going to do?”

Rap, rap,
rap.

A knock at
the cabin’s door.

“Is that the
bears knocking?” Dara asked.

Jasmine
frowned. “Couldn’t be.”

Rap, rap,
rap.

Still holding
Jasmine’s wrist, Dara led her just outside the kitchen. They looked at each
other a moment.

“Who is
there?” Jasmine called out in a quiet voice.

“Thunder
Brad,” the reply came back.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

Both their heads jerked back with
surprise. Finding the next words were even harder than ones that came before.
“What are you doing here, Thunder Brad?”

“If you don’t
want us to hurt your two friends here, you best come out now. It’s your only
chance.”

Jasmine
walked towards the door. Dara tried to keep hold of her, but Jasmine shook her
away.

She stood
directly in front of it.

“You’re not
going to hurt us, are you?”

Silence.

Jasmine
couldn’t make head to tail of what was happening out there. Why weren’t the
bears attacking Thunder Brad? Had he scared them away?

Jasmine’s
fingers began to slowly unlock and unbolt the door.

“Jesus
Christ,” Dara said, and ran from the room.

Snap.

The door
opened slowly. Jasmine peered out at Thunder Brad through the crack.

“We have your
friends,” Thunder Brad repeated. “This needs to be sorted out.”

He pushed the
door open and put his arm around Jasmine then he led her up towards the lake.

Two bears
were bounding over as they walked. Jasmine could hardly walk on their approach.
She could feel her heartbeat echoing through her chest.

“One more,”
Thunder Brad said to them.

Jasmine
turned her slightly and saw that as they moved past her and Brad, the bears
shifted into men who went on to enter the cabin.

“You’re
shifters,” Jasmine exclaimed. “Oh my gosh.”

“You know
about us, do you?” Brad replied.

“Well, not of
you exactly. Not of bears. I’ve just had some experiences in the past … that’s
all…”

“You seem
relieved.”

“I thought
there were real bears. I thought we were all going to die.”

“We are real
bears,” Thunder Brad said.

On the grass
just before the lake, the tribe of bears had gathered. Both Jake and Dennis
were on the ground in front of them. Jake had taken a very serious blow to his
face, causing a dark cut which was bleeding fluently.

Thunder Brad
threw Jasmine onto the ground with them.

She looked
up, pleadingly. “What are you doing to us?”

They waited
until Dara was brought to the centre with them, kicking and screaming. Upon her
approach, Brad backhanded her face and said, “One more squeal out of you and it
will be your last.”

She was
dumped on the ground next to Jasmine.

“We bears are
peaceful creatures,” Brad announced to the group. “But due to our extraordinary
nature of being part beast, and part man, it makes sense for us to be secluded
from the world.”

He moved
around the circle and brushed in with the bears standing behind the group. When
he resurface he had Jake’s rifle in his hand.

“Hunting is
prohibited in this area. Now, perhaps if this was an accidental case of self
defense, then maybe, maybe we could let this go. But the callousness today, the
cold, wicked nature of this young man has proven that restitution is required.”

Jake gave out
a groan. He appeared to be rising from unconsciousness.

The two men
who had taken Dara from the cabin now moved to bring Jake up to his knees. They
held him place while Brad moved a few yards from him.

When he
turned, the rifle in his hand was aimed at Jake’s head.

Jake’s eyes
fluttered. He stared at Brad disbelievingly.

“I…” he
began. “I don’t think –”

CRACK.

The rifle
fired a deafening explosion and struck Jake with a bullet right between the
eyes. His body slumped, then crumbled. Brad walked over him.

Dara started
screaming: “You bastard! You bastard! You bastard!”

The two men
then ran to her and held their hands of her mouth as she pointlessly struggled.
Only when she appeared to have descended into a silent mass of tears, did they
release her.

Brad stooped
over Jake’s body and took a small knife from his pocket. Jasmine watched as he
pushed the blade right into Jake’s nose and proceeded to hack it off.

Although it
was sickening, Jasmine understood the message.

Brad threw
the nose away into the grass.

Then he
pointed the blade at the remaining three.

“The bear he
killed,” Brad said, “she was my wife and queen of our tribe. If you wish to
live, one of you females, will be required to fill in her stead.”

There was a
long pause.

Jasmine and
the others were waiting for more.

When more
didn’t come she said, “I don’t think we understand.”

Brad knelt
down on his knees so they were at eye level. He planted the knife into the
grass beside them.

“Two of you
may go now, and never come back. If you do return, with or without the
authorities, I promise you, we will hunt you and your families as you are so
adept at hunting us.”

“Okay,”
Dennis said. “Okay, we’ll go.”

“One of the
girls stays with us. She never gets to go back.”

“Is that
absolutely necessary?” Dennis asked. “Jake was the one who killed … your wife.
We were just with him. We had nothing to do with it.”

Thunder
Brad’s mouth went wide, exposing his teeth.

The bears
around them started to growl.

“Uh … sorry…”
Dennis murmured. “So … very sorry…”

Thunder Brad
looked to Dara and then to Jasmine.

“Which one of
you will it be?”

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

Jasmine knew at once it would be her.
Not only because she wouldn’t hide behind the sniveling Dara who had just lost
her brother, but also because she knew it to be her destiny. It had been a
strange day for sure. But perhaps there was no moment stranger than the moment
she had first laid eyes on Thunder Brad across the riverbed. She knew he had
felt it too. There was an unparalleled force between them, almost like a
magnetic field. An energy. Right or wrong, better or worse, this was clearly
the beginning of Jasmine’s adventure.

As she
thought all this, it was as though Thunder Brad could read her mind. She could
tell just by the look on his face, that he also knew she was the one to be his.
What that would entail, Jasmine could only contemplate and imagine.

She stood
from her place. The bears’s eyes followed her as she did so.

With one hand
on Dennis’s back, and one hand on Dara’s, Jasmine said, “Take me. I am yours.”

Thunder Brad
immediately reached out and pulled her into his chest. With her held in place
against him, he signaled to the two men to pull Dennis and Dara up off the
ground. Once they were on their feet they were pushed to run in the direction
of the cabin.

“Don’t come
back!” Thunder Brad shouted at them. “Don’t ever, ever come back!”

That was the
last Jasmine saw of them. Running away.

The two men
morphed into their bear forms, and then Thunder Brad morphed into his bear.

Not only was
he the same bear that had attacked their car earlier, but he was also by far
the largest of all the bears here.

As Brad
allowed her to climb on top of him, and ride with the rest of the bears back
into the forest, Jasmine found herself thinking about the bear Jake had killed.
Brad had described her as not only being his wife, but also the queen of the
tribe.

Jasmine
realized that if that was true, it could only mean one thing.

Brad was
king.