Bear Attack

This is another assignment for my Fiction class. The idea was to write something very hot (dramatic and climactic), but in a way that is cold (detached and "not fully there"). Also, the first sentence of the story had to be, "When I looked up, I saw the bear". It could only be a page in length.

When I looked up, I saw the bear. It ran at him so fast that I couldn’t help but admire the speed of the large creature. How could something so fat and heavy run so awfully fast? Its speed gave my husband no time to defend himself and also no time for me to do anything to help him. My arm instinctively reached out to my son beside me and pushed him into the tent. As soon as I did, the first splatter of blood hit my face, some flying into the flame of the fire we had just started for very early breakfast.

One giant paw had flown through the air and landed on the side of my husband’s face, claws ripping through his flesh. His high cheekbones became clearly visible, white bone against red blood. I halfway watched the scene while gathering our cooking gear. I could save our stuff, even if I could not save my husband. I looked up again to see my spouse trying to kick the bear off of him with his skinny legs, his left hand reaching up to try and hold the skin onto his face. I couldn’t decide if I was nauseated or intrigued.

The bear grew more angry as my husband kicked him violent with his metal hiking boots and used his weapon of a paw to plow right through my husband’s shin, snapping the leg clean in two. I heard a scream erupt from my husband’s throat, but I lost its sound when I zipped up the tent and felt around in the dark shelter for my son’s body. I heard a few more roars from the bear and some painful grunts from my husband before all went silent. I waited a good while before I exited the tent once again to see if Richard was still alive.

He was very still and eerily quiet. His neck was bent sideways, skin dangling off the bone into the dirt below. His shirt was stained red and his body was mangled in a way that I had never seen before. I wasn’t sure how to feel.

“Go get in the car,” I told my son. “It’s time to go home now.”