HELP! A Bear Is Eating Me! - Mykle Hansen [14]
But that’s assuming that the Rover lawsuit settles early out-of-court, so my neurosurgeons are getting paid. That’s the important thing: I want the best treatment. I want the Tiger Woods of Neurosurgery working on my feet. I want —
Shh!
Someone’s coming!
5
I heard it. If you were real you would have heard it too. Someone stepping through old twigs and undergrowth, someone coming through the trees, they are coming to save me they are coming RIGHT NOW! All right! About fucking time, too! I’m trying to yell HELP but my voice is a little stuck. But I hear it.
It’s not just me. Mister Bear hears it too. He’s up on all fours now, waving his nose in the air and growling low from deep in his hairy guts. I’m yelling OVER HERE and no sound is coming out of my mouth. I’m screaming BEAR! Can they hear me? I’m so close! Why can’t I speak? I can cough at least. Cough cough cough! COUGH!
Mister Bear is scampering away. Is that his fear-scamper or his hunger-scamper? I’ve got to make some kind of signal. I’ll rap this empty beer can against the tailpipe. Rap rap rap rap rap! Cough cough cough! Three coughs means I’M OVER HERE. Five raps means BEAR WARNING!
Did I hear it again? Yeah! There, I heard it. Definitely coming closer, this is working, I’m a genius, rap cough rap cough rap rap rap! If I could just figure out how to scream … over here, yes! Follow your nose to the smell of human blood, gasoline, shit and fine Oxford leather upholstery. You are getting warmer. I hear you, you are getting very toasty. Hot, you’re hot! You’re on fire, baby! I see you! Over on my right, at the edge of the clearing, peering in! You are down on your hands and knees, carefully checking for predators. You must be a Forest Ranger. You are wearing a large fur parka … and a furry hat …
No you’re not. You’re a bear. Another fucking bear. A second, separate, extra, additional fucking bear.
Great! You know I almost ran out of fucking bears for a second there! I was down to just the one fucking bear, and when he ran off I didn’t know how I was going to meet my fucking bear requirements, my being attacked and eaten requirements, my savage predator from hell requirements. But three cheers for Alaska, they’ve got 24-hour hot fucking bear delivery.
Note to self: Nuke Alaska.
Now this new bear is standing up, I can’t even see his head from under here. He’s big. A grizzly, this one. Big and brown. Quiet, though, not an asthma sufferer like Mister Bear. He’s looking around, he’s sniffing, he sniffs the car, does he sniff me?
He sniffs me.
I’m going to take an OxySufnix now.
He’s coming on over. Shit, he’s just enormous. Smelly, too. He’s sniffing the ground but his head alone is so large that I can’t see the top of it. I wonder if I have another Spicy Chorizo Jerky Twister in this box.
Now he’s going around behind me. Where is he? What’s he doing?
No! He’s peeing on the Rover! Goddammit, I think I might actually be losing my placid inner balance here. Squirt squirt squirt, I hear the stream hitting the mudguard and dripping on the ground, and surprise! It reeks, utterly, of bear.
Fucking bear the second: you may rule nature but this Rover is mine. It is my castle and my kingdom, and you shall rue the day you urinated upon that which is Mine. Come on over here and try the Spicy Chorizo, you stupid fat northern handbag.
I wish I had some poison in my pillbox, something really deadly like botox or botulism or sarin that I could dose a Slim Jim with and feed it to the bears. I read that raw meat can develop botulism just by being left out for one day. I’ve been left out two days; maybe my legs will develop botulism and Mister Bear will be poisoned by them.
The big brown furry fuckwad’s over on my left now. His paws are so much larger than my head. Toes the size of my hands. He’s got some reach.
C’mere you … what bear can resist Texas Pete’s Spicy Chorizo Jerky Twister? Here, I’ll unwrap it. There, I’ll toss it where you can see