Mega-Bear vs. The US Air Force, Part Two

The police didn’t even bother showing at first; they left the job in the hands of the supposedly-capable animal services. Armed with beltloads of tranquilizers, and some reserve firearms in case of problems, they certainly seemed to be more than up to the task of one bear. As they hunted through the forest, the feelings of dread began to build regardless of this. The tracks, easy enough to follow, seemed to follow a shifting pattern that denoted – at best – extensive neurological damage. Realizing they would be lucky if they were dealing with a mad bear, many of the team began to ready their pistols.

Among these nervous men was one Hunter Nash. Many people tried to tell him his name was ironic, given his position, but he either openly or inwardly corrected them – his name was coincidental. To be ironic, he would have to be the hunted. This thought went through his mind at the moment and he knew, desperately glancing into the woods in search of this crazed bear, his name might actually become ironic.

At last, though, the tracks lead to a clearing – one of the grilling zones in a larger picnic area – and the bear is spotted, slumped over with dozens of empty picnic baskets surrounding him. Silently taking aim, the team deploys as it has been trained: two agents get in position with a heavy net as three more members take aim with their tranqs. The shots are fired, bringing the bear out of his gorge-induced stupor, and he panics and begins to run, knocking over the grill, embers spreading on the ground. As the animal control agents make chase, the embers grow into a steady flame which winds to the woods. The bear turns at the smell of smoke, more tranqs being shot into him. Standing on two feet, a roar, as terrifying for its contents as its volume, erupts:

“Only you. Can prevent. Forest fires.”

Stunned by this impossible event, the team nevertheless finds their bodies moving, driven by a will deeper and more primal than their own, going through the proper measures to put out the small blaze.

Hunter, having fallen behind, comes upon the scene with no small amount of bewilderment. Not one to ask questions, though, he races on after the bear, now switching to the live rounds. As he takes running shots, at best grazing the bear, he begins to lose sight of the animal until he has to resort to slowly tracking him, knowing the bear has to be several hundred feet in front of him now.

A whirring sound grabs his attention. An engine – impossible, he thinks, there’s nothing out here but woods. Paying no respect to this detail, though, a bush plane lifts off into the sky within view of Hunter. Flying the plane, and breaking the man’s view of what is possible and not, is a bear, wearing a scarf, aviator jacket, and hat.

As the plane flew into the sky, the stunned Nash stood still for some time. It’s not every day that your reality is broken. Finally, seizing upon some last vestige of stability before his psyche truly fell apart, he radioed to the police. Quietly, he explained the situation, assured the man it was in no way a prank, and eventually got him to do what he had called for – the National Guard was alerted. The Air Force began their first-ever bearhunt.

Mega Bear Vs. The US Air Force, Part 1

It was a beautiful day when Shawn Clay walked into the office. In fact, it was the first truly pleasant day of the summer, having, till then, been a mostly drab affair. Judging by the haggard look on his face, Clay’s mood had not yet caught up with the weather. “Any more sightings?” he called into the park office without looking to see if anyone could answer him back.

“Yeah, some hikers came in a little shaken a few minutes after I opened,” answered Ursula. Some people liked to joke about how fitting it was for a woman named Ursula to be working as a ranger at Bear Trail park, but she hated those people almost as much as she did her overly coincidental name. “Sounded like it was B-17 again.”

“B-17? You know, up until this last month he was always an average bear; he never cared to be around people much. I wonder what’s gotten into him?”

Ursula frowned at the numbers on her screen. Clay was a man given to worry, so she didn’t want to bring this to his attention yet, but not only had overall bear sightings increased 300% in the last month, but they were virtually all either unknown bears or almost certainly B-17. They hated having to put an animal down, but if this were to continue, their options were limited. Clay collapsed in his chair, wondering to himself if those two hunters from last month had had anything to do with it. They had come to the station, rambling and screaming about the perfect bear, and from he had been told when checking in on them had hardly stopped since. The story had caused some local commotion, but had been mostly forgotten already. “The perfect bear...” he muttered softly.

“Don’t start in on that nonsense again,” hastily spoke Ursula. “Bluejay’s wild stories never haunted you before and I don’t want you turning superstitious on me.” Bluejay was one of the few local Native Americans left, and he was also Clay’s best friend. Though Bluejay was not given to superstitions himself, his grandfather had been something of a historian and folklore collector and had prided himself on distilling nearly all of the old legends and stories into Bluejay from a young age. One of these stories concerned the perfect bear, or, more accurately translated, the all-bear, and his pact with humans to leave them be if they were to do likewise with him. The story had stuck with Clay due to the bear sightings and the boredom that comes with being a park ranger during a rainy season. Ursula continued her interruption of his meditations: “Did you get all the picnic areas ready? It looks like we’ll finally have some today.”

“It wasn’t tough. The storms hadn’t done much but drop a branch or two, no real damage. It’ll be a great day for people.”

The rest of the morning passed without incident. Neatly at 11, several families began to arrive, colorful tablecloths and blankets aplenty, making their way to one of several designated areas in the park for a nice afternoon lunch. However, almost as rapidly as they had shown up, people started running back to the station, panic in their eyes. The complaint was universally the same: as soon as they’d set up, a bear came out of the woods right at them. Knowing this time B-17 had crossed the line, Ursula and Shawn told the people to go wait in their cars or go home, after they had collected their information, and that they’d make sure to get any abandoned possessions back to them. Leaving Ursula to deal with the panicked picnickers, Clay surreptitiously grabbed a shotgun and walked out to the picnic areas. What he saw their caused a knot to grow in his stomach, knowing he wasn’t dealing with your average bear here. Picking up his walkie-talkie to contact Ursula, he viewed the scene before him: every single picnic basket was gone.