I bolted upright, heart hammering. Maybe the firelight had guided Liang Yu here. Maybe he’d survived. Maybe, against all odds, he’d found me.
I scrambled to the door, fingers trembling on the latch and then Old Song’s hand clamped down on my wrist, yanking me back.
“Don’t open it.”
He’d woken without a sound. Now he stood beside me, eyes fixed on the door, as if he could see through the wood.
Knock. Knock.
The sound came again, insistent, almost polite.
Old Song reached for his rifle, loading it with quick, practiced motions, barrel trained on the door.
“Who’s out there?” he barked.
I dug my nails into my palms, fighting the urge to shove past him. “It’s my boyfriend. You said yourself if he’s out there at night, he’s dead unless we let him in.”
Old Song didn’t look at me. His voice was low, ice-cold. “That’s not your boyfriend out there.”
I glared, voice rising. “Then who else could it be? The police? You’re really not going to let them in?”
He didn’t answer, just racked the slide, finger resting beside the trigger. “You. Outside. Who are you?”
For a long, breathless moment, there was no answer.
Just silence.
Then, from the other side of the door, a voice low, guttural, almost human, but with a thickness to it, a strange, wet clicking in the throat.
“Open....door.”
It didn’t sound like Liang Yu.
It didn’t sound like anyone.
Old Song’s grip on the rifle tightened. “Get back, girl. Get back now.
The silence dragged on so thick, so eerie, that I felt sweat pricking down the back of my neck.
Nobody answered the door.
Nobody moved.
Then, finally, a sound outside soft, shuffling, almost furtive.
And then....laughter.
A strange, bubbling chuckle “Gígí....gígí....”mockingly human, but just wrong, the way a parrot mimics speech without understanding a word.
My skin crawled.
What the hell was out there?
Just when I thought my nerves couldn’t get any tighter, I heard more soft scuffling slow, deliberate footsteps padding away from the door.
Old Song didn’t lower his rifle for what felt like an eternity.
Only when the yard outside was dead quiet again did he finally ease his grip and exhale, long and slow.
Rubbing my arms to keep from screaming, I whispered, “Uncle Song....what was that?”
His face was grim, his eyes dark with fear. “The Face Bear.”
I felt my jaw drop. “A bear.....that knocks? That laughs?”
Old Song gave me a hard look. “That thing was raised by people. It watched, listened, learned. Some say, in these mountains, when a creature lives too long, or kills too many, it starts changing....becoming something else. The Face Bear.....it’s both.”
He spat on the floor. “By the time it wiped out the old village, it could already stand on two legs, walk like a man, even wave at the survivors before it chased them down. Those people, the ones who got away? They didn’t last long.”
Old Song’s voice dropped, low and rough. “It’s eaten your friends now, girl. A few more, it’ll start talking clear as you and me.”
A sick, bitter taste filled my mouth as I remembered Liang Yu saying there were no scrapes, no fight, no signs of struggle. That whoever went into the woods with Shen Jun walked in of their own free will.
We could never figure out why.
Now I could see it, plain as day Shen Jun, waking in the dark, seeing a tall, human shape just beyond the camp, waving. A bear would’ve scared him, but at night, in the woods, a man, a friend calling him for help, he’d have gone without a second thought.
“If the bear tried, why didn’t it just break in?”
There were only two of us in the cabin. If it got inside, even with Old Song’s guns, we wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Old Song sighed, finally letting the rifle rest across his knees.
“It’s not dumb. It knows waited till I was asleep, tried to trick you. When I woke, grabbed the gun, it backed off. Not worth getting hurt.”
He shook his head. “Bears aren’t stupid. But this thing? It’s not just clever. It’s got a plan.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. The tears came hot and fast.
I already knew, before Old Song said it out loud, what had happened to Liang Yu
“I’m heading out at first light,” Old Song said, strapping on his boots by the fire. “Stay inside the whole time. Don’t open the door for anyone. And this rifle ” He glanced at me, eyebrows raised. “You ever fired one before?”
I just stared, numb and hollow.
Old Song took the time to show me how to load it, how to shoulder it, how to aim.
“If you see the Face Bear,” he said, his voice low and rough, “don’t you dare let it smell your fear. That thing, it likes fear. Tastes it in the air. The more you’re scared, the better you smell, the longer it’ll take its time with you.”
As dawn crept through the windows, Old Song rolled his shoulders, ready to leave.
I grabbed his sleeve. “Don’t go. That bear it’s not something anyone can fight. Just stay with me. Wait for the police.” My voice cracked. “He’s my....he’s my boyfriend. If anyone should go after him, it’s me.”
Old Song looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “You? You don’t know the first thing about tracking. You can’t tell a bear trail from a deer track. You’ll just get lost or worse.”
He buckled his hunting knife to his belt. “Besides....me and that bear got a reckoning to settle. I know what the village did, killing its mother, caging it, making it dance for coins. What happened to them, that was justice. But now it’s killing anyone who wanders into these woods. That changes things. That bear’s got to be put down.”
He picked up his rifle, gave me one last hard look. “I mean it. No matter who comes knocking don't open the door.”
Then he was gone, swallowed by the misty morning trees.
I watched the woods all day, pacing, jumping at every sound. No gunshots. No screams. Nothing.
Old Song didn’t come back.
As evening painted the sky purple, I heard it
Knock. Knock. Knock.
My whole body went rigid.
I remembered last night’s eerie laughter, the thing that almost sounded human.
I clutched the rifle, backing away from the door.
The knocking didn’t stop. It couldn’t be Old Song his voice carried through walls.
Then, a voice , hoarse, thick, muffled by the door:
“Open up.....help me....I’m hurt.”
My heart leapt. That voice it sounded almost, almost like Liang Yu.
He’d made it. He was alive.
I took a step forward, hope surging, but something nagged at the edges of my mind. Liang Yu’s voice , it wasn’t quite right. The syllables were slurred, as if the speaker’s mouth didn’t fit the words.
And then, faint but unmistakable, the smell.
The stench of rot, the ghost of something long dead.
Fear and grief crashed over me. I forced myself to breathe, to think.
“Liang Yu?” I called out.
The knocking grew louder, insistent, like a confirmation.
I swallowed. “Liang Yu....what did you promise me before this trip? What were we going to do when we got back to town?”
Silence.
Just the wind, the creaking trees, the slow, sickening realization that whoever whatever was outside, it didn’t know.
It wasn’t Liang Yu.
It was the Face Bear, trying its hand at speech, at mimicry, but it didn’t have memories, didn’t have a heart.
Old Song had told me it was getting smarter, learning words, learning lies. But it could never know that Liang Yu had promised to marry me when we got home.
Tears spilled down my cheeks. I wiped them away with the back of my hand, staring at the door, rifle braced against my shoulder, finger trembling near the trigger.
The Face Bear was out there, waiting.
And Old Song....
I didn’t know if I’d ever see Old Song again
Chapter 07
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