The Disbanders

Chapter 11: The Bear

As soon as we hear the screams from Hayden, along with the roar of the ferocious bear, all other sounds blur out, as if my head's been submerged underwater. The main things running through my head are the following––this can't be happening, this isn't real. What do we do?

Everyone else begins to freak out, especially Evie, who is screaming at the top of her lungs.

"We need something to fight with. Anything!", I exclaim. Grabbing heavy pieces of wood and rocks, anything we can find, we head down the hill.

The mother bear is still standing over Hayden on her hind legs, roaring away. She notices us and turns her attention to us temporarily. As I look at Hayden, I can tell that he's been weakened, but he's still somehow fully conscious. He has a large scratch against his chest.

He tries to move away, which causes the bear to turn her attention down to him on the ground. He props himself up, even managing to throw a punch at her.

"Come on! Fight me, coward!", he yells recklessly. What is he doing? In retaliation, she scratches Hayden's leg, causing him to holler in pain. He falls down again, this time being unable to get up. "Damn it," he mutters, with pain in his voice.

As she lowers herself onto the ground, we realise that she's close to killing Hayden. We chuck rocks at her, which causes her to focus back on us.

"What do we do now?", yells Evie. I turn to her and see that she's the most scared out of all us. Looking to my left, Chuck isn't doing too well either. The bear gets quickly closer to us until she's only a few feet away. She lets out another growl, causing us to scream. She surprisingly backs away as she hears the screams. Chuck's face then lights up. He's got an idea.

"Make loud noise! They hate that!", says Chuck.

"How will that help?", asks Alexa.

"It's better than nothing! We need to try anything we can!", I respond. We hold up more sticks to defend ourselves, as we holler and make lots of noise. We can tell that she doesn't like the sounds. Her head is recoiling, but she isn't backing up yet.

"Make yourselves look big!", says Alexa. "Evie, hop on my back!" Without dispute, Evie jumps on Alexa's back in piggyback position, as we all continue to holler and stand our ground. Our noise is bothering the bear, but not enough. While her cub recoils and backs away, she sees through it and approaches us. We all scream even louder, desperately trying to scare her away, but it's no use.

She scratches Alexa on the arm, causing her to yell in pain. I take a split second to look at her arm, inspecting the damage. Fortunately, she's not in bad shape and should be fine, despite the bleeding. None of us, however, can say the same for Hayden.

Suddenly, we all hear Will yelling with confusion as well. He's come outside from doing the dishes and he must've heard the commotion.

"Oh my god!", he yells, running off into the house. Alexa puts Evie down. It's not helping at this point.

"What is he doing?", hollers Chuck.

"I don't know! If he wants to be a coward, he'll care if Hayden dies!", yells Alexa. Hearing that, Evie starts to freak out even more.

"How can you say that?", she asks. Alexa needs to know when to shut up sometimes.

We still need to defend ourselves from the bear. We've luckily made enough noise for her to stay away from us, but we're still not the main concern. Hayden is hardly able to get up, as he struggles on the ground.

The baby bear is starting to run away, however, that doesn't stop the mother. She turns to Hayden, who is lying still and heavily weakened. She starts to walk closer to him, while giving one final growl.