Bearskin
by Andreas Britz
|
Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
part 2
Ned set his whiskey on the ottoman and lay down on the floor beside the bearskin rug, propping his head up with his elbow and staring wistfully into those beautiful glass eyes. After a while, he rolled onto his back and began absentmindedly tracing the bear’s jawline with his index finger. He imagined Judy’s lovely head clamped inside the animal’s mouth, blood running freely from the puncture holes. The rivening scream that wakes the neighbors and causes the throat to go hoarse. A final, desperate roar.
Ned eventually fell asleep. When he woke, it was early in the morning, and the first traces of daylight were beginning to filter in through the windows. He shuffled into the bathroom, brushed his hair and teeth and then went to the kitchen to fix himself a cup of Folgers. He hadn’t yet taken his first sip when the doorbell rang unexpectedly, and a familiar, grating voice called out his name.
When he opened the door, there was Rose Kellog standing before him, holding a casserole dish and smiling, crazily. “Hey, there, neighbor! Hope I didn’t wake you?”
Ned said nothing.
“Mike and I just feel terrible about what happened the other day and we wanted to check in on you.” She eyed him up and down, trying her best to conceal her disgust. “See that you’re alright.”
“I’m fine,” replied Ned.
“Great, well—”
“Unlike that bear your husband shot.”
Rose looked irked. She wanted to give Ned a piece of her mind, but managed to hold her tongue. “I made this for you,” she said, handing over the casserole dish. “It’s cheeseburger casserole with a Beyond Meat burger. I figured you were a vegetarian.”
Ned raised his eyebrows. “Why would you figure that?”
Silence.
“It’s really quite good,” she said through clenched teeth. “Give it a chance. You might like it.”
“Thanks a lot. You have a good day.”
“There’s just one more thing.” Rose quickly stuck her little foot in the door. “We’re having some friends over for drinks and hors d’oeuvres tomorrow at seven and we’d love it if you’d join us. It occurred to me the other day that we’ve never had you or your wife over. Better late than never, right?”
Ned felt his pulse quicken as his mind searched for the correct response. Sensing that a meltdown was imminent, he took a deep breath, smiled a fake smile and said as calmly as he was able, “We’d be delighted.”
“Really?” said Rose, taken aback. “That’s great. Really great. It’ll be fun. Seven o’clock and—”
Ned closed the door in her face.
That evening, after he’d returned home from the plant, Ned was in his living room vacuuming between the sofa cushions when he made an odd discovery.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he said to his father-in-law’s precious Swiss army knife, which had apparently slipped out of the old geezer’s pocket while they were watching Star Trek reruns the other night.
He unplugged the Dyson from the wall, then went and picked up the knife, holding it a few inches from his face. Unlike Bill and half the population of his little hick town, Ned was decidedly not a “tool guy.” In fact, every “do it yourself” project he’d ever attempted had ended in disaster. It was genetic; his own father was the same way. A shame.
He dialed Bill’s number and got him on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
“Bill, great! Glad I caught you before bed.”
“I’m on my way there right now, Bud. What’s up?”
“You missing anything?”
“Yeah,” Bill said, “the last ten minutes of Frasier.”
“I found your knife.”
“My knife? Hang on.” Bill stepped away from the phone and went rummaging through his jacket pockets in the foyer. A moment later, he returned. “Where’d you find it?”
“Slipped between the sofa cushions. You want me to drop it by tomorrow?”
“You know what?” Bill said. “You keep it. Might come in handy one of these days.”
“I got to be honest...” Ned’s voice was low and grave. “All this revenge talk has got me a little concerned. You sure you’re alright?”
“Never better, Bud. Just remember what I told you.” He swallowed audibly into the receiver. “About my run-in with Professor Dingleberry. I wasn’t lying, you know. I really feel years younger.”
Ned sighed and, without saying another word, hung up the phone.
His first instinct was to throw the knife away. Just chuck it in the trash and forget about it, like it was a plastic picnic knife, destined to end up in a landfill somewhere. He quickly thought better of it, though. This was a little piece of family history he held in his hand. It was a piece of Bill, the father of the woman he loved and a true friend and mentor in times of great personal crisis. He was indebted to the guy. He’d keep the knife safe for him. For a while, at least.
After dinner, Ned sat in front of the TV, channel-surfing, his brain barely registering the flashing images and sounds that whizzed by at a hundred miles per hour on the flatscreen. He caught the end of The 13th Warrior, starring Antonio Banderas, quickly became bored and switched over to the 9 o’clock news.
Dana Galanis was standing on the front lawn of a palatial suburban home somewhere in Michigan, ambulance and police cruiser lights illuminating her dolled-up face, while she spoke breathlessly about a family of four who’d been slain in their beds early that morning. The victims’ faces flashed on screen while Dana continued her running commentary. This was followed by an exclusive interview with one of the paramedics on the scene. “In all my years as a first responder,” he sighed, “I’ve never witnessed such a—”
Ned had had enough. He turned off the tube. Then he dug Bill’s Swiss army knife out of his pyjama pocket and started unfolding all the tools housed inside the thick, plastic handle. There was a cork-screw, a nail file, a general-purpose blade, a can opener, wire stripper, wood saw, large screwdriver, scissors, toothpick, tweezers and multi-purpose hook, as well as a couple other implements he couldn’t identify.
For the next twenty minutes or so, he entertained violent fantasies involving his wife’s new beau, Rick. Rick the Prick. Rick the homewrecker. He pictured himself inserting the screwdriver into the man’s nostrils, plucking out his eyes with the toothpick and slowly removing each one of his fingernails with the tweezers. If only he could catch them during the act, at the climactic moment when — sweaty limbs entwined and mouths agape — both were at their most tender, their most vulnerable. They’d be two little, wiggly grubs in his mighty beak. They wouldn’t stand a chance.
He got up and fixed himself a drink in the kitchen, stood swishing the honey-colored elixir around in his mouth until he felt his cheeks begin to numb. Judy never drank, of course, except on special occasions, like birthdays, holidays and the day they signed the divorce papers.
He picked up the cordless phone, intending to call Bill again, but instead found himself dialing Judy’s number. It rang six times before someone answered.
“Hello?”
It was a man’s voice, groggy and deep. Ned could hear Judy in the background, ruffling the bed covers.
“Hello?” the voice repeated. “Who is this?”
Ned held his breath. For several seconds no one said anything. Then Judy piped up, asking who it was.
“I told you to stop calling here,” Rick growled into the receiver. “We’re through, Michelle. Why can’t you get that through your—”
“This isn’t Michelle.”
Silence. For a second, Ned thought the call had dropped, then Rick said, “Who are you looking for?”
“Judy.”
“Why do you want to talk—”
“Just put her on,” Ned said, losing patience. “I know it’s late.”
Rick was about to start arguing when Judy wrenched the phone out of his hand. “Who the hell is this?”
“It’s me,” Ned answered. “I want to talk to you.”
“It’s nearly midnight,” she said. “We can talk tomorrow.”
“So that’s Rick, huh?”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Who’s Michelle?” Ned took another sip of bourbon. “Is that Rick’s wife? Are you two having an affair?”
“Listen, Ned...” All the anger had suddenly left her voice and was replaced with something like pity. “Don’t call this number again, okay. I don’t want you in my life. Every time I see you, it makes me sad.”
Ned coughed, forcing down the tears. He didn’t know what to say in response. He never knew what to say. Eventually, he settled on: “We were invited to a party tomorrow night. The next door neighbor wants to show me his gun collection.”
“Ned, are you threatening me?”
“No, I—”
“Hey, buddy!” It was Rick’s voice again. “You leave us alone, or I swear I’ll kick your ass.” Click.
Ned tossed the cordless phone onto the bearskin rug at his feet and sat staring at the ceiling. His face burned hot as he drew in big lungfuls of air, trying desperately to avoid an explosion. He could go for a brisk walk or a bike ride. That sometimes helped. He hadn’t ridden his Schwinn in months and was out of practice. He’d make a fine moving target for a psycho like Mike Kellog, who was probably itching to pop off a couple headshots from his front porch before going to bed. Best to stay inside until morning.
Ned threw back his Jack Daniels and got up to empty his bladder. On his way back from the bathroom, he noticed something strange about the bearskin rug. The cordless phone was sticking out of its mouth! Had it bounced and landed in the bear’s jaws without Ned noticing? What were the chances of that? He reached over to grab it, then instantly froze.
“What the heck?” he muttered to himself, noticing that the phone’s keypad and antenna glistened with what looked like saliva. He snatched it up, its slipperiness causing him to nearly drop it, and held it under the light of the chandelier overhead. All along the side were these tiny indentations in the plastic reminiscent of bitemarks. “This doesn’t make any sense,” he said, wiping the phone on the leg of his jeans. “I’m losing it. I’m frickin’ losing my mind.”
He pressed a button and raised the phone to his ear, listening for a dial tone.
There was none.
He was turning to walk away when he felt something latch onto his ankle. His body stuttered, jerked and then twisted into a heap on the floor. A blistering pain ran up his right side and he could hear himself hyperventilating. Looking down at what used to be his foot and was now a mound of minced meat, he almost fainted at the sight of the bear in mid-chomp. It growled a deep guttural growl, its enormous, sharp teeth still gripping the loose tendons.
Tears ran freely down his cheeks and bloody spittle flung from his mouth as he whipped his head left and right in agony. He kicked the bear head with his free foot, causing it to temporarily loosen its grip on his leg, then flipped onto his belly and started crawling in the direction of the kitchen.
“Please,” he hollered. “I’m being attacked! Someone call the cops!”
He made it as far as the dining room table when the beast suddenly clamped onto his thigh and wouldn’t let go. He screamed until his voice went hoarse, his hands frantically smacking the animal’s hairy ears and snout while his gnarled foot continued to squirt blood onto the carpet.
The remains of his microwaved dinner came up, staining the front of his shirt and blue jeans and sending the bear into an even greater frenzy. But while the beast’s head was clearly alive and in the throes of hunger, the rest of it — the body and legs — was still just a nasty, lice-infested pelt.
After managing to free himself again, Ned crawled into the kitchen, leaving tipped-over chairs and stools in his wake and barricaded the door with his own mangled body. The sounds of his heavy breathing and chattering teeth filled his ears as he fought to remain conscious and alert. He’d lost what seemed like gallons of blood and was beginning to see double. He was running out of time and had to act fast.
He struggled to his feet and limped over to the marble counter where he started rummaging through one of the utensil drawers. Silverware rattled as he weeded out the dull knives, forks and soup spoons until all that remained was a pair of old herb scissors. He picked them up and snipped the air a few times. There was no safe way to hold them, he realized, except closed. He raised the scissors above his head and brought them down again and again in swift stabbing motions like Norman Bates in Psycho. On the final downward strike, he heard the sound of glass breaking in the living room.
Afraid but unable to flee, he returned to the kitchen door, bent down and put his eye up to the keyhole. No activity. Nothing. Keeping his eyes fastened on the ground, he opened the door one inch at a time until it was fully ajar, then cautiously stepped out.
There was no sign of the rug.
Gripping the scissors firmly, he walked out into the living room, his head on a swivel, the interval between heartbeats growing shorter and shorter and yelled, “Are you still here?” When no response came, he tried again: “I’m warning you. If you’re hiding somewhere, I’ll find you...” As the threats dribbled out of his mouth like creamed corn so, too, did his resolve. He suddenly felt deflated, built out of weak stuff, like straw or Waterford crystal. Another minute of this and he was liable to shatter.
Standing in the middle of the living room, amongst the debris, his hands shaking and his voice wobbly with terror, he called out once more: “Leave me alone! I didn’t do anything to you! I’m innocent, dammit!”
Copyright © 2025 by Andreas Britz
