Sphore's TF Stories

[Sphore]

Hunter

CRACK!

The rifle shot lingered in the woods, coupled with a feral bellow and the sound of his quarry beating a path away into the distance. Mike pushed out of the depression in the earth which had kept him hidden for so many hours, and set out in pursuit. He was sure he’d hit the animal, but couldn’t find the blood. At the very least, he’d certainly given it a scare- it was on the run. Rifle firmly in his grasp, Mike raced down the path, freshly trampled by the retreating grizzly bear. However, the sound was getting more and more distant. Winded, the hunter slowed down to a walk and pulled out his walkie-talkie.

“Carl.”

“I’m here. I heard a shot!”

“Yeah, that was me. Beautiful grizz right in my sights, but I think I might have missed. Took off in your direction.”

“Bad luck. Thanks for the heads up, though.”

Mike clipped the radio back onto his belt, and continued on forwards, carefully keeping on the bear’s trail. He was frustrated- there was no way that shot should have missed! And now Carl would get to seize the glory, if-

Sklrch.

Mike froze, then looked down. He had stepped his hiking boot into a pile of bear dung… fresh stuff, at that.

“Eugh.” He groaned, stepping off to the side of the trail to rube the boot on some small plants to clean it off. He chastised himself internally for allowing himself to become distracted. Focusing back on his environment, he looked around. The smell of bear was very strong here, but it was more than the waste on his foot. Stepping off of the trail for a moment, he pushed through a few willows to find a circular hole in the ground, underneath a large pine tree. A burrow! Out of interest, Mike leaned forwards and took a look. It was empty- but it had the appearance of being very… lived-in. Mike could smell their presence here. A family might have lived here. Did they still? Curiosity bubbled up higher, and he hunched down, taking a look in. It went against everything he knew about safety around these animals, but Mike suddenly knew that he had to see inside. Settling down onto his knees, he reached in tentatively, then began to crawl in. The scent was very strong in here, almost overpowering. He could smell the animal musk, a faint scent of cleared-out waste… amazing. He was acclimatizing now, and breathed in deeply, nearly gagging. His nostrils swelled and thickened as he did, though Mike did not notice. He noticed details in the scent now, which he had not sensed before. There had indeed been a family… he inhaled again, a mother and two cubs. They were older cubs, perhaps they had just recently moved out? Mike stretched out to feel around the inside of the den. It was enclosed and somewhat claustrophobic, but roomy enough. The dim illumination from outside left it in a sepulchral light… it was soothing, and comfortable. Mike could almost imagine himself curling up and sleeping in here, when a troubling thought hit him. Perhaps the mother bear might have simply left the burrow for a temporary excursion with her cubs.

His brief foray into the bear’s den, he decided, was finished. Even as he began to awkwardly turn himself around in the small space, he began to wonder what had come over him to do such a foolish thing as enter the den… but then again, how many people could ever brag that they had been into the deepest, most guarded sanctum of the bear and escaped without injury? He grinned at the thought of telling the story to the boys at the bar- but this only reminded him that Carl, more likely than not, was going to get to tell an even better story of how he’d bagged the huge bear Mike had sent his way.

This train of thought was interrupted as Mike feared, for a moment, that he had gotten stuck. However, by unbuttoning his shirt and fly, he was able to bend forward enough to jackknife out of the bottom of the burrow and into its tunnel exit. He sniffed the air instinctively as he left the burrow, immediately noticing that the scent of bear was less intense outside. For an odd moment, this made him feel nervous, but he quickly overcame the feeling, noting how quickly he’d grown accustomed to the scent while in the burrow- after the first few seconds he hadn’t even noticed it. However, he did pick up another scent, which had a much different effect. Following it out of the comfort of the burrow, he stepped through a few bushes into a rich patch of cranberries. Suddenly, a huge hunger flared up, stabbing into his gut. Mike dropped back to his knees, and began to pick at the berries, stuffing them into his mouth the moment they were detached from the bush. His gut felt like it was draining, opening up and growing even as he gobbled down this feast before him. And indeed it was. His gut was slowly, but visibly bloating outwards. Consumed by a need to feed, he stuck his face straight to the bushes, chewing at the berries vigorously even as his hands pulled more off the plant and drew them into his maw. He snuffled around at any moment his immediate supply was exhausted, only having to crawl a short distance to find an uneaten section of the patch. As he slavered and worked his way through the berries, his mouth slowly extended further and further forward. His already-enlarged nose had grown wider still, and slightly darker in hue than the rest of his face, while the front of his jaw began to stretch forward, carrying his nibbling, berry-snatching teeth with it.

Mike huffed heavily through his open nostrils, as his mouth mashed up the huge number of cranberries upon which he gorged. All the while, his stomach was swelling up more and more- his belly was now grossly distended. As Mike’s breaths grew deeper and deeper, his ribcage began to expand as well, barreling forwards and outwards. More and more berries poured down his throat, as his torso grew larger and larger still. As he approached some of the last inviolate bushes in the area, his shoulders shifted backwards and rotated slightly along his sides. Mike noticed an increased ease in resting his weight on his front appendages, and nothing else as his tongue- slightly longer than it was before- drew the last few berries to their demise inside his juice-stained mouth.

The clearing now cleared, Mike rolled over onto his back and collapsed, exhausted. His stomach gurgled and churned, and his heart beat heavily. He saw puffs of steam coming out of his nostrils with every thick breath, and felt the perspiration all over his body. Weakly, he lifted his arms, which were sprawled off to his sides, and placed his hands over his belly, realizing only now its changes. The shock was enough to mute the additional discovery that his arms did not feel quite right, placed in a crossed position right in front of him. He struggled up to a sitting position, to look down and see his swollen belly and barrel-like torso.

“Whar tha hell?” he murmured, not noticing the slight difficulty in pronouncing the ‘t’. He looked around for a moment, dumbfounded at what he had just done. He caught himself moments later licking his cheek and the side of his nose. He knew that his tongue was not long enough to do that, but the relief of cleaning off his face and catching some of the extra cranberries was enough to calm him. Mike cradled his forehead in his hands, feeling the same strange feeling return in his shoulders. Then he felt his face. Something seemed distinctly wrong, but he couldn’t place his finger on it. Well, he placed his finger on it, his subtly protruding rostrum, but the change was not large enough to be obvious.

Pushing himself stiffly to his feet, he staggered backwards two steps and laid his back against a tree. Numbly, he reached forward to button up his shirt and pants, only to realize that they would no longer close due to his enlargement. For a nervous moment, he reached towards his radio, thinking of calling Carl- but he held off.

Carl… hmm.

Mike sniffed the air. The comforting scent of the burrow was still there, and more berry patches were present in the distance, but he noticed now for the first time the scent of another grizzly- the one he’d shot at, perhaps! His hunter’s instincts suddenly flared to life. It was not far off, he could still catch it!

Rifle in his hands once more, Mike returned to the trail of the bear and began to run once more. His eyes carefully followed the crushed brush and undergrowth, but his nose too was guiding, homing him ever onwards towards his target. He felt a great strength in his motion, but as he went on, even as he began to draw closer, he felt an increasing difficulty in his gate. Persistence forced him onwards, but the going was increasingly unpleasant. His feet were sweaty and uncomfortable. His pants were bunching up around his boots, but growing hot and tight around his thighs. What had started as a run had degraded to a half jog, then further to an slow, loping bound. Finally catching himself, Mike hunched over, resting his numb hands on his knees and panting, tongue lolling out of his mouth. He looked down at his arms, to see that the hair on them was quite a bit thicker and longer than usual. Their length would have made them look gangly, if it weren’t for their girth. Mike arched his back in a stretch to sooth his back, which had grown quite sore in the run, rolling his shoulders behind him. With a twinge, he arched his back forwards, holding his heavy arms out in front of him for a moment. Unused to his change in proportions, Mike began to stumble forwards, throwing his hands forward to stop the fall. The loaded rifle went off as he struck the ground. Shocked by the loud noise, Mike batted the weapon away from himself in a sudden instinctive motion. The damn thing had given his location away! He padded over to the location of the gun, not bothering to push himself up off of his hands and looked at it nervously. His own strength had surprised him, he’d thrown it through several meters of bush. Pushing himself up into a squatting position, Mike fumbled with the weapon. Such was his focus that he didn’t notice the strange deformation of his thumb, or the shortening of his fingers. His fingernails too were darkened slightly, as if bruised, and subtly longer than normal. He got a clumsy grip on it with his right hand and began to pull it out, when it discharged once more into the ground. Cold terror shot through his gut at the noise, and he threw himself backwards in fear, violently striking a tree.

“Fruck!” he growled, pushing himself vertical once more. He stepped up towards the thing once more and picked it up carefully between the palms of his two hands. Lifting it free of the small plants below, he spun around and smashed the implement against the tree. Once, twice, three times, four times! With a final movement, he threw it to the ground, inspecting the bent and battered piece of metal. On a whim, and out of a wish to finish it off, he stretched his head down and bit at the wooden butt, shaking it as he held the rest of the gun down with his hand. His canine teeth sank into the wood, and his jaw grew thicker still, extending out from his face. The bite hurt Mike’s mouth, but felt greatly satisfying. With this done, he rose back to his two rear feet and staggered out back towards the trail. The damned weapon was a hindrance and liability to him; he’d take down his target with his own bare hands if necessary.

Ah, what a story that would be! Getting his bear without a weapon… hell without any equipment at all? With a toothy grin, Mike continued his awkward walk along the path, pulling out his hunting knife and stabbing it deep into a tree trunk. He rubbed at his face with the back of his hand, noticing for the first time its weight. His normal light brown arm hair now extended well onto the back of his hands, and possessed some significant body to it. His fingers were shorter and wider, while his nails were now dark and extended nearly half a centimeter from the tips of his digits. A look down showed that his chest hair was spreading across his torso, growing in thickest around the center, while coming in at a slight delay more off towards his sides. His nipples were darkened, and he noticed two other pairs of dots further down his torso. He stared in surprise for a moment, before a familiar scent wafted suddenly into his nose, complemented with a corresponding stab of hunger deep in his belly. Mike fell to his stubby hands and bounded towards the scent, somewhat awkwardly on four feet. His pants chafed unpleasantly and squeezed at his thighs, while they sat in a heavy, loose bunch around the top of his boots. His rear legs were continuing their slow transition, as length was traded for girth. A welcome sound arrived with a ripping noise from the knees, but relief was temporary.

Ah! Here it was! Mike beamed as he saw the bush before him. He reached forward to pick some, but they slipped out of his clumsy hands. He struggled for a few seconds to accurately pick single cranberries between his thumb and forefinger, but the two were growing less dexterous and more similar by every moment. Efforts to stab them with his long, pointy fingernails- or rudimentary claws- were fruitless. At last, powered by a renewed stab of hunger and impatience, he simply reached into the bushes and pulled them with his thick, hairy hands towards his mouth, which eagerly gobbled them down, along with much incidental foliage. With every sweep, his thumb became harder and harder to recognize, until it was little more than a hairy fifth finger. His paws were useful for pulling berries towards himself, but they alone were not quite enough. With a cool, tingling ache, his jaw pushed out ever further, to better accept the incoming fodder. His canines were growing to many times their initial size, while his teeth were altering to fit their changing environment. While his incisors remained largely the same, he felt a large gulf of gum developing between his canines and premolars, while his molars grew into heavy gnashing implements at the back of his long mouth. His wide, dark nose was losing the last semblances of human appearance, turning up and opening outwards as it was carried forth on his jaw. Hair from his beard, which had been shaved only a few hours ago, was now spreading down his neck, keeping pace with the dribbling berry juice, and expanding across his cheeks and face.

A few minutes of feasting passed, but the hunger had not subsided. Mike still needed nutrition, as every bit of the massive amount of material he consumed was taken up by his body, swelling the muscular hump behind his shoulders, expanding the potent musculature of his limbs, and building his growing, changing skeleton. The berries here had already been taken by another, and there was nothing left here for him. Worse, the discomfort in his legs was now being felt in his arms and across his back. He reached backwards, but could do nothing to pull off his badly stretched mackinaw coat. With a roar of frustration, he pushed himself back against small tree, bending it entirely backwards and to the ground. Rolling off of it, he turned around and pushed his back against a sturdier, larger specimen, bending and straightening his knees to scratch vertically against the rough bark, flexing and stretching his arms as he did so. With a satisfying rip, he felt an opening form between the two halves of fabric on his back. Rolling over onto the ground, he slid along the earth, pulling off one half of the ruined garment. He sank his fearsome teeth into the other, tearing off the sleeve with a jerk of his neck. Along with it flew the crushed remains of Mike’s backpack. Curiously, he approached where the brown sack had landed. He briefly tried to open the zipper with his claws, before simply holding the pack down and ripping it open with his mouth. The scent of food led him to a rich find, a paper bag of trail mix. He dug into it immediately, also taking down two apples, an unwrapped multigrain bar, some beef jerky, and the paper bag holding some of the remnants of the trail mix. Cleaning out the rest of the bag with his tongue, Mike nosed through the rest of the bag, but found nothing of interest. The hunger, however, persisted. He was about to follow his nose to the next source of potential food when the tight pain in his legs caught him again. With an angry growl, he kicked his legs and ripped at the denim. On one side, the tear opened up, to his immense relief. The other side was less cooperative, and was shortly thereafter torn to shreds by Mike’s black, curving claws. The skin underneath was barely visible under thick leg hair, which spread over his groin and up to his belly, where it met with the hair of his chest. Now came the time to deal with his acursed boots, which were painfully restricting his feet. He pulled at it ineffectively for a few moments, before reaching his mouth over and biting into the material. He smelled that this was the boot that had stepped in the dung earlier, and was momentarily repulsed- but he’d do anything to get the damned thing off. With a tearing sound, he ripped the sole off the shoe, giving a rumbling sigh of relief as he placed his bare foot on the soft ground. He continued to chew at the rest of the shoe, trying to release it from around his ankle, while simultaneously flexing his toes. After a few moments of work, one foot was free, while heavily clawed toes burst out of the front of the other.

Only a small remnant of coat remained, caught around his shoulder. His pants were torn apart on one side, and split down the seams on the other, hanging down below his muscular rump. His white briefs were stretched, but intact, and one torn shoe remained loosely around his right foot. Hair covered almost all of his body in varying thicknesses- thickest around the neck, chest and limbs, thinnest around the belly, sides and back. His front and rear limbs were muscular and each terminated in heavy, clawed paws. His face had human features and shape, but his mouth was thrust forward into a heavy muzzle, while hair was creeping up as high as his eyes, threatening to meet up with the hair growing downwards along his forehead. His ears were higher on the head than before, though otherwise unchanged. He could still be recognized as a human being, but only barely. Hairy, burly, barrel-chested and comfortable on four feet, Mike was ready to set out to quell his terrible hunger, when he heard a quiet, metallic clicking noise. His ears twitched as hair began to overtake them, homing in on the sound. He snuffled and shook his head around in the air as he picked up a new scent mingling with the others.

Human.

Slowly, a series of thoughts flowed like syrup into his brain. Carl… getting hunt… killing bear…

Mike bristled at the thought. The hair stood up on the back of his neck, and his lips curled up in a snarl, revealing berry-stained teeth. The bear was his! But there was danger. Slowly, he began to stalk through the woods, padding carefully on the ground, not making a sound. The scents were growing ever stronger, both ursine and human. Suddenly, he caught a flash of colour. The man, dark skinned… Carl, was exposed from behind, his attention directed forward. The scent of the male bear was intense as well. It distracted Mike for a moment, as he felt some confused feelings. He rubbed his rear legs together, noticing both the stub of a tail beginning to form, and a strange feeling of contraction in his testes.

But there was a target, and no musk, however intriguing, would be allowed to distract him. Mike crept closer and closer, the back of his target’s head coming ever closer. He pushed himself up to vertical and took two awkward steps towards Carl- somehow, it seemed appropriate.

“Carrrl…” came Mike’s deep, grumbling voice.

Carl turned, slowly at first, and then with a terrified jerk.

“Holy Shit!”

There was a long pause as both figures wrestled with internal confusion.

“Mike?”

Mike blinked, as the name processed. He felt confused.

“Hrryah.” Came his barely intelligible response.

“What the… what hap… ah…”

Carl was shaking, breathing irregularly and mouthing half-spoken words. His hand began to slowly extend towards his rifle.

“Wair… Wrait.” Mike huffed out the words, and held out his hands. The gesture came across a terrifying threat rather than a plea to wait, but Carl froze nonetheless.

“What happened to you?” Carl’s face was frozen in awe, confusion and fear.

“Arh… I… Hrr.” Mike referred vaguely to himself, but couldn’t draw the words of a sentence to his lips. The idea of Mike itself was becoming strange. He still felt a confusion, but the scent of the male bear was overpoweringly strong, and a sharp, twisting discomfort was building in his belly.

Carl once again started to reach towards his weapon. With an angry snarl, the beast that had been Mike lunged forward. Carl snapped his arm out towards the rifle, but he was not fast enough. The huge figure of Mike crashed into his body, breaking his arm against a log and pushing the air out of his lungs. Carl cried out and the bear lifted his paw from the broken arm, swiping it at the human’s head. A resounding thud and following slick noise dealt a brutal, bloodying blow to the man’s skull. The small figure’s undamaged arm was scrambling around, causing the bear to lunge at it, viciously biting at the arm and prompting a scream. The bear’s sensitive ears rang, and he roared, turning around and swiping at the man’s head one more time before sinking his teeth into the creature’s undefended throat. In a few seconds, the struggling stopped, and Mike began to calm from his rage. It was safe now, he knew. He looked at the mutilated body before him and again felt a kind of sickly confusion. He sniffed at the body, then noted the taste of blood in his mouth, sweet and salty. Mike hesitated for a few more moments, but the hunger commanded his head downwards, as he began to eat away the torn neck of his prey. The bear’s claws felt a stretching sensation, he looked to see them sharpening and extending into hooks, now each over six centimeters long. He tore open the belly of his meal, and switched, digging into the viscera. He pulled out the intestines, taking a moment to shake the waste out of them before chewing down on the nutritious material. Hunger drove him as he feasted more and more on the flesh of his erstwhile comrade. Hair all over his body thickened until his skin was entirely obscured, and his muscles completed their prodigious growth. Now, a healthy layer of fat was building up over his frame. Hair covered his face, as his skull changed its shape further, hiding any remaining resemblance, beyond the soft brown of his eyes. A snapping noise alerted him to the bursting of the white fabric which had previously covered his rear, now haphazardly off of one leg. Air flowed over his groin, bringing sudden sensation to the region. He raised his head into the air and breathed deeply. He sensed blood, the forest, its plants and animals, the dead creature before him… but above all, the male bear. Its scent was overwhelming. He felt a strong sense of arousal, and his penis rose up towards his hairy belly. However, the sensation was not the same as it had been before. His organ was smaller, and his testes were entirely absent, nestled away into his bodily interior. Mike shook his rear as his small, yet aroused penis nestled inwards, and his feelings of arousal shifted. She realized now the nature of her attraction of the bear, and the importance of its proximity.

With a soft grumble, she turned around, licking some of the blood off of her muzzle, to see the large male approaching. He grumbled in return, then approached the eviscerated carcass before her. The female bear took a bite of the remaining abdominal wall, while the male began to dig into the thigh. She squirmed inwardly at the strange feelings of emasculation, as the remnants of her erection sank away to a single point, and the final feelings of change localized themselves inside her. As they completed, she breathed deeply, knowing now her own scent and all that it entailed. She was healthy, fertile and without cubs. His scent showed his strength, age and good physical state, an enticing aroma for any female. She knew that she would rather keep this carcass for her own. It was late in the season, and she knew that she needed both to breed and to bulk up enough for the coming winter hibernation. However, she was willing to sacrifice for this mate.

Abruptly, the male bear withdrew from the carcass. The female turned and looked to him, rumbling deeply. The male approached, he was a fine specimen. Large, bulky, emanating an impression of physical ability and burly strength. His size was intimidating. He approached along her side, nibbling at the side of her head. Then, he suddenly swung his forepaw around her flank, pulling his weight onto her back. She braced herself at the weight, feeling him pulling his bulk ever closer. His claw scratched at her rear, tearing off the remaining scraps of underwear and the last remnants of her pants. His smell was overwhelming, and she was as ready as she would ever be. With a powerful thrust, she felt him enter. She staggered forward in surprise, but he held firm and thrust again. Her mate held tightly onto her back as the thrusts repeated rapidly. She breathed heavily, absorbing the crackling, numbing, energizing sensations inside herself. She moaned, the sound coming out as a rumbling roar. Moments later, the male gave a rippling bellow, and she felt a foreign flood within herself. The embrace lingered for a few more moments, then the male withdrew, pushing himself off her back. The female stumbled, then looked briefly back at her mate. Wandering forward for a few moments, the bear thought in some sort of wonderment. She had never experienced mating before, and knew in a strange sense that it never should have happened. Nonetheless, she felt great satisfaction. She had found her target, and he had taken her. It had been a successful hunt.

Turning back, she saw the male back by her kill. She quickly headed back, not willing to let him take the rest of her much-needed sustenance. The two wrestled with the cadaver briefly, pulling it this way and that, before the male decided that he’d had enough of the flirtation, releasing the body and seizing her, mounting her for the second time.

At the end of the day, the female found herself wandering back through the woods. She had coupled three times with her mate, before parting ways. He was stubborn and virile, and too strong to be competed with for the rest of the kill. She was retracing her trail, following her nose back to the place she knew as home. Behind some willows, and underneath a great pine tree, she found it. The burrow was a bit of a squeeze, but that could be improved in time for winter. She knew that she had only a few weeks left before first snowfall, and only a short while beyond then before she would have to fall into her annual winter torpor.

Satiated for the day, she curled up in her den, comforted by its scent. Deep within, she felt contentment at the warm glow of life blossoming within.

*****

The remainder of the fall passed quickly, and the unconscious times of the winter slipped by even faster. The female dreamed deeply, dreaming of confusion, of another life. Was it her own, or that of her children? She dreamed of humans, animals and her own kind. She awoke only briefly and groggily, at one point arising to find her three young, tiny and helpless, huddled along the now-swollen row of teats on her belly. By the coming of spring, sleep became fitful, and she left her cubs for the first time. Starved and haggard, she followed her nose on a strange instinct, a hunch, perhaps. Only fifteen minutes away was a strange thing in the forest. Gentle prodding revealed it to be soft, but strange and inviting smells called from inside. She had little difficulty in tearing through the fabric, and soon found herself in a small room. A small yellow object was making an irritating, static hissing noise, while several pieces of coiled metal rested on pieces of wood. With a careful thought, she recognized these things. A radio, a stove, some sleeping bags. And she remembered, somewhere deep in her mind, where the food was hidden. Sliding back a piece of wood, she reached in and struggled to pull out a large, white box of unnatural construction. Flipping it over onto its side, the thing’s top fell open, revealing an assortment of icy things, with the faint smell of meat. The bear’s mood improved considerably as she dug into it, gnashing through the frozen packages. Within half an hour, the entire camp was emptied of food, as far as she could tell. She had a conception of the cache, anchored by a yellow rope, but she could not determine how to remove it from its location, hanging high from a tree. At any rate, it looked like the ravens and other scavenging birds would get to it first.

Nourished once more, she returned to her den to find her cubs, mewling for her return. They were growing quickly off of her rich milk, and would soon be strong enough to follow her forays into the outside. But not quite yet. She settled herself down into the insulated den, and her children gathered around, huddling against her warm body.

*****

“Well, that’s that. I suppose we can call off the search.”

“What little there is left in the search, perhaps. We’ve found Mister Crosby’s remains, but Mister Shaw remains elusive. Odds are if he hasn’t turned up by now, he’ll never turn up.”

“Suppose he was washed downstream?”

“Could be. Might have gotten attacked by the bears, might have starved and gotten more thoroughly scavenged than Mister Crosby… there’s really no way to know.”

“I see.”

“So, this is your first season working in conservation, so I’m going to let you write the report for this. What are you going to tell us.”

“Well, Misters Michael Shaw and Charles Crosby were hunting independently in this extremely isolated region, at the very end of the season… their last physical contact with their supply pilot was on October 4, and their last radio contact with the outside world was on October 9… their supply pilot came back twice on the 17th and 20th, only to be unable to land due to poor conditions, but he couldn’t find the tent from the air due to heavy snowfall. By the time of our search, May 12, the campsite had been ransacked by bears, and we discovered a body with the accoutrements of Mister Crosby. It showed signs of blunt injury from fracturing in the skull, a broken arm, and numerous signs of large predation and scavenging from damage to the bones. Possible causes of death for Mister Crosby include misadventure, drowning then scavenging… to explain the recovery of the corpse from the water perhaps? And predation. That’s my best guess, I think. Is that good?”

“Well, you don’t want to speculate too much on the cause of death. What about Mister Shaw?”

“Oh right. He was… not recovered. We found several unidentifiable scraps of clothing throughout the forest which may have belonged to him, but the only conclusive thing we’ve found was the second walkie-talkie, which was located in the immediate vicinity of Mister Crosby’s remains. For all we know he could still be alive-”

“You don’t want to say that… gets their families’ hopes up.”

“I see.”

The two conservation officers began walking back towards their float plane, landed on a nearby lake.

“So if it was predation, what would we do?”

“Not much out here, these guys either knew the risks, or should have known them better. You don’t do animal control this far away from civilization, it’s pointless. Anyway if you-”

The younger officer put his hand on the shoulder of the other.

“What-oh.”

A short distance away from them was large bear, with three cubs nestled around its stocky legs.

“Whoah bear!” said the senior officer, backing up, “Hey bear, we don’t want any trouble. We’re going away.”

The two officers backed up, arms out and facing towards the bear until they were out of eyeshot.

“That was close.” Commented the younger officer.

“Bad time of the season to run into bears- they’re hungry, and that one was a mom, so she’ll be doubly hungry. They can be desperate in the spring. Still, it’s odd to see a momma bear out with her cubs like that, they’d usually lead them away at the first sound of outsiders- I don’t need to tell you how protective those things are. She’s a bold one, and that can be bad for us.”

“Yeah… but did you see something strange about that bear? Other than what you said?”

“No. Did you?”

“Well… I thought I saw some fabric on the bear, like around her shoulder. Red and black plaid?”

“You sure?”

“Might have just been my eyes. I dunno. It looked kinda like some of the fabric we found around the bodies.”

“Are you suggesting she killed them?”

“Not exactly… just that… well, I don’t… I don’t know. Maybe it got stuck on her when she was scavenging, maybe when she was eating?”

“If it really was there. But even if it was, and she was a man-eater… we’re about as far from anywhere as you can get. She’s not likely to ever come into contact with another human again, so there’s no case in having to put her down- again, even if we had information suggesting that she killed and ate two heavily-armed and experienced hunters while pregnant.”

“Yeah, maybe… but it would be good if we could ask.”

“Heh… well, you can go and interview momma bear and her little cubs if you want to. I’ll be in the plane, watching from a safe distance if you do.”

The two shared a small chuckle, and made their way out to their transport out. The remains of fabric and bone were encased in sealed black bags- the only souvenirs they’d be bringing from this site. Hopefully it would bring a bit of closure for their friends and kin, at the very least. Maybe it would help to reinforce the oft forgotten fact that man really is at the mercy of nature, or some other such moral or cautionary tale.

*****

From the waterside, the mother bear and her cubs were drinking. She looked up to see the buzzing thing in the sky disappearing, and knew, somewhere, that it was a sort of closure for herself as well. With a content grumble, she returned her attention to her children. For now, they were all the closure she needed.