Chris Pourteau - Tails of the Apocalypse

I wonder, not for the first time, why she cares so much about me. Like letting me sleep beside her. Defending me against the hunters.

Maybe she needs me as much as I need her.

It’s strange, this feeling of need. I think of my clan, now dead. How have I come to this? How have I lived with a family and never felt this connection? How is it that now, after all this time, I want to feel it, to know it? Inside I see the truth: it’s taken a loss of connection to find it. Perhaps the bear’s loss has forged a similar path for her. Perhaps, in this way, we are also alike.

“There’s still meat,” I remind her. “Enough for both of us.”

She blows a noisy breath through her nose. “You eat. I need to wander.”

Now fear seizes me—that the bear might not come back, that she’s leaving for good, to let her sickness claim her alone. The hole that opened inside me when I saw my father’s blackened remains, aches in my gut like an ulcer.

She casts me a glance. “I won’t go far.” She says it with assurance, as if she knows my thoughts. I’m starting to think she does.

I watch as she plows a lumbering path through the deep snow. When she disappears past the rocks, I go back inside.

Our den is still stuffy, but cold, fresh air has wafted in. I curl up on the floor where the bear has slept. I still feel the lingering warmth of her body. I don’t feel hungry, only tired; a deep, aching fatigue I know will never relent.

I toss and turn, listening for the sound of the bear’s return. Worry chases sleep away—worry that the bear might die out there, leaving me all alone. After a while, I sit up and eat. Maybe a little food will soothe the knot in my gut.

There’s still a hindquarter left when I’m done. I hope the bear will eat it when she returns.

I wait until the light begins to wane. The fear that earlier pricked at the edges of my thoughts now becomes a frenzied animal inside me, and I can’t sit still any longer. Just as I move to search for her, she returns, crawling through the entrance. I sidle out of the way, and she flops onto her spot with a long, rumbling sigh.

She doesn’t shake the snow from her fur. I know right away something isn’t right.

She regards me briefly with those dark, appraising eyes. “Why are you there, and not here?” she asks.

I move next to her, nestling into her soaked fur. It makes me colder, but I don’t want to be apart from her. Not now. “Are you worse?” I ask, my throat tight.

“Yes,” she says, the word carried in a long breath.

I listen to her lungs rattle with each struggle for air. If she hadn’t attacked those hunters, thrown all her energy into one last effort to protect me, maybe…

She did it for me. And now there’s nothing I can do for her. Her weakness seems to seep into me, like the cold and wet of her fur. I feel myself sink into it along with her, as if we’re both being pulled under by it. Drowning.

“Tell me about your mother,” the bear rasps.

I want to ask her why but ignore the urge. “She died when I was young. So I don’t remember a lot about her. She was beautiful. She’d lost her hair, but kept her head covered in a scarf the color of the grass and the leaves.” I touch the scarf wrapped around my head. “This scarf. It’s the only thing I have left of her.”

I take a breath and swallow the lump in my throat. “She was gentle. Quiet. Didn’t laugh much. But nobody does… did. But she always had a smile for me. I remember that. I remember her smile.”

“How did she die?”

“Hunters killed her. Like your cub.”

The bear lets out a little groan that tells me she understands our mutual loss.

“And your father?” she asks.

The pain of his passing sweeps through me. “Flamers attacked our clan, right before I found you. He was killed in the fire.”

She doesn’t respond. Her brittle breath fills the silence.

“I wish…” I begin. Stop. Wonder if it matters if I voice my regret.

“You wish you’d been closer,” she says.

“Yes.” I swallow hard.

“There is a place,” the bear says, “where the food is abundant. Berries and roots and the streams full of fish. My mother is there. And my cubs.”

I close my eyes. The darkness tugs at me. Wants to separate me from her warmth. I want to acknowledge her own loss. I hadn’t known she’d had more than the one cub. Had suffered more than the one too-soon death. Instead, I ask, “Is that where you’re going?”

“Yes,” she answers. Her breathing is like dry leaves underfoot. I feel her heartbeat at my back, irregular and faint. “There is a place…” she says, and I wonder as she catches her breath if she’s fallen into confusion, repeating herself, “…where you can go. Beyond the river.” She speaks between shallow breaths now. “Beyond the next mountain range. You’ll be safe there. The hunters won’t find you there.”

“The hunters are everywhere.”

The bear grunts. “Not everywhere. Not there.”

“You mean, after I die?”

She draws in air, the sound like bubbles in her throat. “No. But does it matter?”

I consider the question. I don’t believe there’s anything after death. But if the bear believes, maybe I do too. Maybe we can share more than disease, more than need.

“I have to sleep now,” she says.

I press against her, willing her to keep breathing, to stay alive and connected to my life, to be my companion for the remainder of my days. But each breath grows weaker, each beat of her heart slower, until the air in her lungs escapes in one long sigh. This mother, this companion had been a strong and powerful creature. Now, she’s gone.

I have never cried in my life that I can remember. But all my anguish and regret and loss seem to churn inside and press up through my chest, seeking release, spilling out in hot tears. I surrender to sobbing, burying my face in the bear’s fur until the last of her warmth drains away and the cold finds me.

Numb, empty, I’m ready now. I want to leave this place for the one the bear has described beyond the river. I close my eyes. Darkness and weakness and sickness roil together inside me, an undertow I can’t resist, even if I wanted to. Maybe Bode will be there, and Gunther. I might have another chance to make things right. Maybe I’ll see her there. Maybe she’ll know me.

I open my eyes. A shadow, a phantom hovers over me in the cave.

Has the bear returned? For a moment I think I might be waking from the sleep I couldn’t find when she went wandering. Then I remember: she’s dead.

Am I dead too?

I draw a breath, feeling the bear’s cold body at my back. I’m not dead. A fresh wave of grief rolls over me. I’m still in the cave. Still dealing with phantoms. Cold and ache and disease.

And then relief surprises me. Relief at being alive. I’d been so ready to die. But now that Death has moved on, I don’t mind seeing it go.

The phantom is still there, now less colorful, dressed in the rags of the Feral. I blink through blurry eyes, try to focus.

“Anya,” the apparition says. “Are you okay?”

No, I think. I’m not okay. I’ll never be okay. Why are you asking? Why do you care?

“Anya. It’s me. Gunther.”

Shock pulses through me. I blink again, suck in a breath. The phantom’s features sharpen to reveal my brother’s face. “Gunther?”

“Yeah. Finally found you. What are you doing here, curled up next to a dead bear?”

“She wasn’t always dead,” I say. “I thought I was dead.”

Gunther stares at me, a puzzled look on his face.

“I’m dying,” I add.

“We’re all dying, Anya,” Gunther says. “But we’re not dead yet.”

I wince as I prop myself up on one elbow. The air in the cave isn’t as cold as I expected. Maybe a warm front has moved in.