Page 5 of Her Beary Spicy Valentine (Welcome to Bear Mountain #2)

5 /

a super-bad idea

holly

W ithin less than five minutes of walking, all the light from the main part of town disappeared behind me.

You know how every other reel around the holidays is some dude with a beard dressed up like a woman to parody how stupid it is for so many Christmas movie girlies to give up their former lives and boyfriends to move in with some rando small-town guy she met over the holidays?

Yeah, well, I’d like to submit an entry for what’s even stupider: Her grown, oughta-know-better sister following some vague instructions up a pitch-black road farther into the creepy mountain village where that sappy holiday movie cliche relocated.

Like I just wanted to live the stereotype of being the first person to die in one of those counter-programming holiday staples, the Christmas horror movie.

As much as I loved Noelle, this search to find her suddenly felt like a bad idea. Like, a super-bad idea. Look, I wasn’t the outdoorsy type. My happy place always featured a thermostat and reliable Wi-Fi. This? This was the opposite of that.

But I’d chosen my (scary, cold, forest-lined) path, and if it led to my sister…

Doing my best to suppress my growing unease, I brought out my phone. If it wasn’t going to give me even a bar of reception or Wi-Fi access, the least it could do was act as a flashlight.

However, the phone light didn’t help with the total horror movie vibes this scene was throwing off–like, at all. If anything, the little bit of light made it worse.

The shadows between the trees became even darker somehow, squeezing like a coffin around me. And the crunch of snow under my Hoka Ones sounded unnervingly loud in the eerie quiet. Yet not loud enough to drown out the feeling that the forest of barren winter trees was holding its breath. Watching me.

Also, the waterproof spray I’d doused my shoes with for Vancouver’s notoriously rainy winters completely noped out on this unexpected trek up a frosty mountain trail.

The snow seeped in, leaving my feet cold—both literally and figuratively.

I heard a scraping sound behind me. Like a car shifting into neutral to roll over winter snow. But quieter. And accompanied by the soft, menacing crunch of booted feet.

I froze.

Then slowly turned with my heart pounding in my ears. The wheels and boots came to an abrupt stop with my movement. Maybe I’d just imagined them?

Please let it be my imagination , I prayed as I completed the turn. Please let it be my—my …

My thoughts stuttered, then gave out when I saw two shadowed figures beside shapes I could only just make out as motorcycles.

It hadn’t been my imagination.

It was the other two bikers from the bar—the ones who hadn’t fought over me and gotten arrested. I couldn’t make out their faces, but I knew it was them. They stood between me and the road back into the main part of town, their eyes catching the dim light with an eerie gleam, almost like an animal’s night shine.

On their side of the path? Size, double my number, and an f-ton of silent menace.

On mine? One flashlight app, a pair of shoes better suited for walking than fighting, and a dimly remembered self-defense workshop I’d taken during nursing school—over ten years and twenty-five pounds ago.

Okay, no more horror vs. holiday movie comparisons. This had officially turned into one of those films where every Black woman in the theater starts yelling, “Run, girl, run!!!”

So I ran—ran like a plump rabbit that had just spotted two wolves in the forest.

“Where you going?” one of them called out, his voice a nasal whine behind me. “You didn’t even give us the chance to invite you back to our clubhouse!”

“Yeah, we’re always looking for girls like you,” the other one added, his voice sharp and gleeful like he was holding back a cackle. “Don’t you wanna keep us warm through the long winter?”

No, thank you! —I thought but didn’t say because I was too busy hauling butt to get away from them.

“Aw, guess you’re gonna make us do this the hard way…” the nasal one drawled, his tone only mildly annoyed.

Then came the clomp-crunch of their boots. Closer and closer. Too close.

Oh, God…

The snow wasn’t deep, but it was just enough to slow me down. My breath burned in my chest, and the icy air stung my eyes, blurring my vision. I didn’t dare look back.

Some primal instinct screamed at me to turn right, so I veered off the path and plunged into the forest. The shadowed depths might swallow me whole, but that felt safer than being run down in the open.

However, the open re-found me when I burst through a copse of trees into a snow-covered meadow overlooking a frozen lake. It would have been beautiful beneath the half-moon if not for the whole running-for-my-life situation—speaking of which…

A heavy weight slammed into me from behind. My phone flew out of my hand, and my leg twisted under me with a sickening CRACK as I hit the ground hard. Pain—blinding, excruciating pain—exploded up my thigh.

I screamed.

“Told ya not to run,” the nasal-voiced biker said, flipping me over with a jerk that wrung another shriek of pain from me. He just laughed as he climbed to his feet. “That’s what you get for making us do this the hard way.”

The half moon and the phone’s pitiful flashlight cast his face in harsh relief. A sharp widow’s peak and a thin, smirking mouth made him look like a cartoon villain brought to life.

“It’s gonna be a hell of a painful ride for her back to the clubhouse with that leg,” the other biker said somewhere beyond my sightline, his voice more amused than sorry. “Maybe one of us should bite her.”

Bite me? Pain and confusion swirled together in my brain, blurring his words.

“Fuck no,” Widow’s Peak growled. “I’m not risking a bond bite on club meat.”

Club meat? That didn’t sound good.

I propped myself up just enough to see the damage—and instantly regretted it. Even that small movement sent a sharp jab of pain screaming up my leg, and the sight of my limb bent at an unnatural angle turned my stomach.

Pain and nausea wrestled for control. My head swam, my throat tightening as I fought the urge to throw up.

“See? Look at the way her eyes are rolling,” the biker above me said with grim satisfaction. “All we gotta do is wait. She’ll pass out. Then we’ll strap her onto the back of my bike. By the time she comes to, you, me, and the rest of the club will already be having fun. I was getting tired of hookers anyway.”

The thought of being strapped to the back of a motorcycle like some kind of trophy kill sent a fresh spike of terror through me. And whatever “fun” he was implying… My stomach cramped nearly as much as my leg throbbed.

No! I wanted to scream, but pain locked the sound in my throat. All I could do was gasp silently as I clung to consciousness.

And then it happened.

A roar shattered the still night air. Deep, primal, bone-rattling.

“Who’s that—” Widow’s Peak started to ask.

Before he could finish, something black and massive streaked into my periphery. And suddenly, Widow’s Peak was gone. Yanked out of my line of sight. The disturbing gurgle that followed was paired with wet, squelching sounds I couldn’t place.

Not until something landed beside me with a flat thunk . Like a ball. But… my breath hitched.

It wasn’t a ball. It was a head.

The metallic scent of blood filled my nose as I stared into Widow’s Peak’s lifeless, wide eyes. His face was twisted into the same smug expression he’d worn seconds ago, frozen in death.

Seconds. That was all it had taken for the thing—whatever it was—to eviscerate him and rip his head clean off.

“Oh, fuck, you killed our vice prez!” the second biker screamed, his voice pitching high with panic. “The Iron Claw’s gonna make you pay for this, Horse!” Horse?

Was that thing a horse? Beneath the terror and searing pain, my muddled brain struggled to piece together what was happening beyond my field of vision.

A male scream tore through the air, followed by the sound of retreating footsteps—fast and frantic. The second biker had clearly decided he wasn’t sticking around to keep fighting whatever had just decapitated his buddy.

The sound of his boots faded into the distance, leaving only me.

And it .

The beast stood just out of my sightline, its breath coming in quick, snarling pants.

Like it was angry. Looking for something else to kill.

Someone else to kill.

Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!

I held my breath and squeezed my eyes shut, literally playing dead like some cartoon must have taught me when I was a kid.

More crunching snow under what sounded like extremely heavy feet. Then came a hot snort of breath, so close it brushed over my closed eyelids. I waited for the claws, the teeth—whatever terrible thing was coming next.

Instead, the beast… licked the entire length of my face. Its tongue dragged across my skin, soft and weirdly sticky, leaving a streak of warmth against the biting cold of the night.

What in the…

My eyes snapped open, and there it was. Hulking. Black as midnight. Glowing red eyes glared down at me. The beast was so large, it blotted out the moon.

It stared at me, unblinking.

I stared back, my breath hitching as I tried to process what I was looking at.

Not a horse.

And definitely not a human. It sounded too feral, too primal.

A bear.

That tiny iota of deductive reasoning fought its way through the fog of pain and panic to insist that the creature standing above me—the one that had taken out the biker in seconds—was one of the ursine predators this mountain town was clearly named after.

The beast pressed its wet nose into my face, then dragged it down to my neck.

My heart hammered against my ribcage as my mind scrambled for some response—any response. But all I could do was lie there, helpless, as it audibly sniffed along my body.

Like I was something it planned to savor… before eating for dinner.

“Please,” I whispered, though I didn’t even know what I was asking for. “Please don’t…”

Some last-minute burst of adrenaline let me start to sit up, despite my mangled leg—but the bear’s massive paw pressed against my chest, pinning me back to the ground with terrifying ease. Its razor-sharp claws pricked my skin through my coat as it raised its head to freeze me in place with its glowing red stare.

A beat of cold, suffocating quiet.

Then...

Its jaws opened to reveal a mouth of gleaming white teeth.

“What are you doing? No... no... no!!!”

I instinctively threw my arms over my face—only to have all those teeth close around my forearm.

Not a random mauling, but a precise, purposeful bite. Like it had chosen this particular place to start its meal.

A spin on an old adage suddenly dropped into my panicked mind: What’s the best way to eat a human? One bite at a time.

A new pain shot through me like lightning, sharp and electric. It lit up every nerve in my body.

I screamed. The sound broke into a sob as the world tilted and darkened around me.

This was it. This was how it ended.

Not in a hospital. Not even at the hands of those bikers.

A bear.

I was about to be mauled to death by a bear on Bear Mountain.

Well, I guess that tracked .

Darkness clawed at the edges of my vision, but even as the world tilted, the pain and terror suddenly faded away, and a new scent overwhelmed me. Sweet, warm, and comforting—like hazelnuts.

On a dessert I’d never get to finish.