Page 107 of Bears Behaving Badly
NO.
And there was no time, no time, and it took too long to shed the fake salmon skin so she just shifted on the spot and everything ripped and it hurt wonderfully it was pulling the tooth that was hanging by a bit of flesh it was biting nails too close to the quick it was scrubbing the dead skin of a sunburn leaving new pink, gleaming flesh beneath and she was on the
(cub killer)
were-elk she wasinthe were-elk she wasdrinkingthe were-elk she’d opened up the prey’s throat and pulled and pulled and the other bear
(protector)
had the wolf who was still a man, a wolf too slow to change and now he’d never change and that was good
and there was a crash and a burning smell and somehow a big hot needle drilled into her shoulder but it didn’t matter the cubs mattered and another bang and another needle and she surged to her hind legs and bit off the top of that bad man’s head
and then two wolves hit her from behind and there were gnashing jaws and howls and yowls and she slashed at one of the wolves she knocked him away knocked his guts out they were trailing like wet ribbons and she roared as the other wolf bit down she swung she slashed she bit and told them and told them and told them
(LEAVE MY CUBS ALONE)
and everything was blood and bone and guts
(I WILL EAT YOUR HEARTS)
and it was terrible and it waswonderfulbecause the beasts can’t hurt the cubs if they’re down if they’re dead if their hearts stop their everything stops
and it would stop it would all stop which was good which was right because it had to stop before she could save anyone
and that was fine that was worth the drilling pain of a hundred needles, it was, it was and that good bear, that David, he was hurt, but there were only two left one for each and she turned to face the last and then heard nothing, nothing but thunder.
Chapter 34
Carnage, it was literal friggin’ carnage and it would’ve been cool except this was real life, so it was mostly horrifying.
Also, Dev decided that Pat was an evil genius. They hadn’t roared up with guns (well, gun singular) blazing. They hadn’t snuck into the warehouse for an ambush. They hadn’t tried to drive over any bad guys or crash into the warehouse for a noisy distraction at the exact right time.
No, Pat had simply led them out of the studio, had a quick chat
“Fine, we’ll leave your precious car here so bad guys won’t scratch it and I won’t accidentally pump three shotgun shells into your engine block, can we get the hell gone now?”
with Oz, who was doing a lot of yelling about warehouses and floodplains, drove them to the river, let Oz out
“Don’t forget to tell Annette I wanted to leave the kids behind!”
to do whatever the hell he was gonna do (something about a perimeter?), kept going, drove up to the guard, parked, and yelled that he had Caro Daniels with him, all ready to testify to anyone who’d listen, and cops were coming and shouldn’t the guard go tell his boss? Or something?
And waited. Waited while Caro and Dev traded What the hell do we do now? glances while Pat hummed under his breath, calm as a clam, and after a few seconds Caro scribbled (on the small pocket-pad Pat had given her).
He’s humming the theme from the Pink Panther movies.
Because the whole thing wasn’t surreal enough, apparently?
Dev should have placed the humming a lot quicker, because last night Pat had watchedThe Return of the Pink PantherandThe Pink Panther Strikes Again, and they were old and boring as shit. Except for the fight scenes between Clouseau and Cato. Those were kinda balls-out awesome.
But anyway, so Pat was humming and waiting and he and Caro were just sitting there, also waiting, and Dev was thinking that if social work was just a bunch of parking and waiting, why was Net so tense all the time? And was he gonna have thePink Panthertheme in his head the rest of the day? Because that would suck to the extreme.
And when the guard didn’t come back, and the roars and gunshots started up,thenPat had gotten out of the car and gone right into the noise and blood. No hesitation. Justran. And then more noise, and the shotgun blast wassosatisfying (provided it hit a bad guy).
“We’d better go find out,” Dev said, and he and Caro wasted no time. And there was no one to stop them. All the guards had run into the warehouse. So in they went. Which was how he and Caro came to be dead center in the middle of the carnage. And there in the middle of a whole bunch of maimed/dead guys, some shifted, some not: David and Annette. David had already shifted back. He was streaked with blood and sweat and didn’t care or didn’t notice, because he was running his hands over Annette’s fur, peering into her eyes, patting at her snout, and Dev knew why, because poor Annette was bleeding from just about everywhere. But one of the werewolves was still trying to get up and get away, and Annette wasn’t having it, was growling and glaring with her red, red eyes and she was trying to get to the wolf without hurting David and it was all just a great big bloody friggin’ mess.
Dev cupped his hands around his mouth. “Play dead, dumbass!” Becauseduh. The werewolf either (a) took his excellent advice or (b) died, because he quit moving. Not that she was satisfied, because the growling hadn’t let up.
