I dropped to my knees, pressing trembling fingers to Lin Qiang’s wrist. Her pulse was weak, fluttery, but there.
“She’s....she’s still alive,” I stammered, looking up at Liang Yu.
He wiped his face a mix of tears and dirt streaking his cheeks and spoke softly, painfully calm.
“We should go.”
But just then, Lin Qiang’s fingers brushed my sleeve.
“Don’t....leave.....me....”
I hesitated, torn between hope and horror. But before I could react, Liang Yu pulled me up to my feet, his grip firm.
“She won’t survive,” he whispered, his eyes hard. “We can’t help her anymore. This is a trap.”
A chill slithered down my spine.
I stared down at Lin Qiang, her body battered, her clothes soaked through with gore, her eyelids fluttering as she fought to stay conscious.
A single tear rolled down her cheek.
Then she looked at us.
Not with anger, not with fear.
Just sadness, so deep it hurt to meet her gaze.
Liang Yu tugged my arm. I swallowed the lump in my throat, gritted my teeth and turned away.
I couldn’t look back.
Couldn’t watch Lin Qiang’s eyes glaze over with that silent plea.
So I stumbled after Liang Yu, the two of us running, running, until the clearing blurred behind us, swallowed by shadows and silence.
Nightfall
Moonlight filtered through the trees as we ran, lungs burning, feet aching.
“We’re not going to make it to town tonight,” I panted, breath coming sharp and fast.
We both knew the risk if night caught us here, in unfamiliar forest, the bear the thing could easily track us by noise, by scent.
But stopping meant lying down to die.
Liang Yu lit a torch, the flame flickering in the damp air, and passed me the flashlight.
“Use it only if you have to.”
We stopped hiding our tracks and started making real time, crashing through brush, snapping twigs, stumbling downhill toward what we prayed was safety.
But as night deepened, as my legs grew heavy and my pulse thundered in my ears, I realized...
There was another sound.
Shuuush. Shuush.
Not us. Not the wind.
Something moving in parallel, shadowing our steps.
And then
the smell.
That same, unforgettably rancid stink, the scent of death and rot and something hungry.
Liang Yu smelled it too. Wordlessly, he pushed me aside.
“We split up.”
He shoved one of the axes into my hand, his voice barely audible.
“Go through the woods. I’ll take the path. If it follows me, you’ll have time.”
He didn’t finish.
I stood there, frozen, mind spinning. But the smell was growing stronger, and I realized.
We weren’t alone anymore.
The thing from the campsite was right behind us.
Liang Yu squeezed my hand once, eyes locking onto mine for just a second, there was a silent promise there.
Then he let go, turned, and ran not toward safety, but away, drawing the danger after him.
I didn’t have time to cry, or to think.
I just ran, axe clenched in my sweaty grip, vanishing into the dark, dense thicket, praying with every step that the black shape behind me would follow Liang Yu, not me.
I couldn’t grip the flashlight without risking the axe.
The smell grew fainter, but I could see the distant torchlight flickering through the trees, moving farther and farther away.
Liang Yu made plenty of noise crashing footsteps, snapping branches, even shouting, as if daring the thing to follow him.
As the stench disappeared completely, I started to cry, silent sobs shaking my shoulders.
I knew what Liang Yu was doing; saving me, luring the bear away.
I didn’t know if he’d survive.
I didn’t know if I would, either.
I ran for what felt like hours, the forest now eerily quiet.
No screams.
No sounds of struggle.
If Liang Yu had been caught, I’d have heard it.
But there was only silence so I clung to hope.
Liang Yu was strong, smart, experienced.
He had to have made it.
Just as my legs were about to buckle, I spotted a faint glow ahead not torchlight, but the steady haze of a lit window.
A log cabin rose out of the trees, smoke curling from its chimney.
I stumbled toward it, tripping over roots, my boots caked with mud and blood.
“Is anyone there? Help..... Please, someone”
I pounded on the door, raw desperation in my voice. After a few bone-shaking moments, the door creaked open.
Inside stood a tall, weathered old man wearing a thick bearskin coat, a pipe clenched between his teeth.
His face was lined with years, his eyes sharp as a hawk’s.
He took in my wild hair, my torn clothes, the blood and dirt streaked across my face, and the axe clutched in my white-knuckled grip.
“What in god’s name happened to you, girl?”
He waved me inside, and I nearly collapsed onto the rough wooden floor.
The cabin was warm, stuffed with animal pelts and rows of hunting rifles. The scent of woodsmoke and cooking meat curled through the air a small pot simmered over the stone hearth.
“Sit, catch your breath. Start from the beginning.”
With shaking hands and a voice thick with tears, I told him everything the campsite, the bear, the deaths, the chase. His face darkened as the story went on.
When I finished, he breathed out a long, slow stream of smoke.
“Sounds like you met what the old folks call the Face Bear.”
I shuddered, my voice barely a whisper.
“What’s..what’s a Face Bear?”
The old man he said his name was Old Song, the hunter settled into his chair, pipe smoke wreathing his head as he began;
“My family’s been hunting this mountain for generations. I remember hearing about a village, nestled in these hills. Wasn’t much there no jobs, no crops, just poor folk. But city folk, they’d pay good money to see curiosities. So the villagers, they trapped a bear cub, killed its mother, and raised it in a cage, right next to the children.
"That cub, it grew up watching people, learning from them. Got clever learned to walk upright, to recognize faces, even to understand speech. Sometimes the villagers would take it down to the city, put on a show. The beast was all scars and sores, but nobody cared so long as the coins kept coming in."
"Then, one day, it broke its chains and ran. At first, the villagers laughed what could one bear do? Until that winter, when the snow came and the roads closed. The bear came back but it wasn’t a cub anymore. It was a monster, and it remembered every face, every cruelty."
"That winter, it killed everyone. Seventy-six people. Every one same way, guts spilled, legs gnawed to the bone. That bear, see, it doesn’t kill like a tiger or a lion. It eats you alive. Keeps you fresh."
Old Song paused, staring into the fire.
"The village had cattle, pigs, chickens. Didn’t touch one. It wanted people. Only people."
Those animals the chickens, pigs, cattle every last one of them was untouched. It was only the villagers who were slaughtered, their bodies scattered through the ruined village.
“That bear wasn’t hunting for food,” Old Song said, coughing into his gnarled fist. “It was revenge.”
He shook his head, the firelight carving deep lines into his face. “After that, the bear haunted these woods. If it catches someone alone, it takes its time eats them alive.”
“Your friends.....I’m sorry, girl. They’re probably gone.”
I slumped in my chair, stunned by the bear’s backstory horrified, yes, but also aching for the creature’s suffering, even as I remembered the mangled bodies of the people I’d known. My chest felt hollow, scraped raw.
Swallowing hard, I managed to ask, “Do you have a phone? Can we call the police?”
Old Song glanced at me, then shook his head. “No, no phones up here. But the local cops know about this cabin. If they’re out looking for you, this is where they’ll come. Just sit tight, get some rest.”
He patted the worn stock of a hunting rifle propped against the wall. “And I’ve got more than enough firepower. That bear’s tasted my bullets before it won’t come near this place.”
I nodded, but I couldn’t eat. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Liang Yu’s face his quiet courage, the way he’d turned and run into the dark, just to give me a chance.
Maybe I was crying too hard, because Old Song sighed, gruff but not unkind. “At first light, I’ll go out there, see if I can find your boyfriend.”
He looked out the window, where the night pressed black and endless against the glass. “But not now. Night belongs to the Face Bear.”
That night, I didn’t sleep. I sat by the window, staring into the dark, jumping at every shadow. Old Song snored on his bed, rattling the cabin walls.
Then, just as my eyes were starting to sting with exhaustion,
Knock. Knock. Knock.
A sound at the door.
Chapter 06
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