NO BEARS ARE OUT TONIGHT

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

NO BEARS ARE

OUT TONIGHT

By R. Peterson

We didn’t get many social calls to Burning Springs, the dirt-pile end of Clay County. Our neck-o-the-woods was so named because the stinky natural gas leaking into our creek could be ignited by a brawling muffler or by a tossed-away cigarette. This bit of deep woods witchery kept most folks sipping moonshine or tanking-in their drinking and washing water from some luckier spot in Kentucky. Those who drank the bad water were never the same.

I was happy to see all my relatives come raining-in the night before Thanksgiving. It had been powerful lonesome ever since Mary Louise and Henry David left. Papa said my brother and sister had growed into shoes …and moved off to school in the town. I had a baby brother or sister in Mama’s stomach … but he or she wouldn’t arrive until after Christmas.

Most all pa’s kin hitched themselves rides and then walked or crawled the seven miles from Manchester, but not Uncle John. He and his entire family, plus two dogs and a goat named Franklin, arrived piled onto the back of a barely-smoking Ford truck that papa swore wasn’t yet ten years old.

John Winston Clempshaw didn’t seem to take on any looky-heres. He hoisted up his store-bought britches and kicked at the chickens just like the rest of us.  We all stared at his spilling-over passel of young-ones wondering how it would feel to be so rich.

Mama was cooking a half dozen chickens for tomorrow’s dinner and she was getting plenty of help. I followed her to her special spot behind the barn right after she ran out the back door. She was crying and Papa was trying to coax her back inside. “There are too many cooks in my kitchen,” she said.

“There are too many hands on my plow,” Papa said. “But we host this gathering for our kin every year and there’s certain things that must be done.”

After a spell they went back inside.

Our house wasn’t big and it was getting dark when a couple of my uncles suggested us kids all play outside. “We grown-ups need to talk.”

“You can’t play games at night!” My cousin Ermine bawled.

“Sure you can!” Uncle Jack smiled. “Ever hear of No Bears Are out Tonight?”

“I want to play!” Mary Jane and Sue Ellen both squealed.

“You have to be shoe wearing age to play this game,” Uncle John snorted.

There were moans from the kids all around. I took Tommy Lee Clempshaw and my other cousins to a special box on the back porch. I don’t know why Mary Louise and Henry David left all their clothes behind when they went off to school … but they did. With help from some cotton balls we clomped back into the kitchen wearing shoes. Mine were Saturday night shoes, and they made me a whole-inch taller.

The grownups all laughed when they saw us, but I demanded they tell us how to play the No Bears game. Momma started crying and I heard her tell Papa “She’s too young!”

I begged and pleaded and Papa finally threw up his arms and said “Let her go!”

-------2-------

            We walked past the barn and into the orchard like we were told to do. I was the biggest so I went first. “No bears are out tonight,” I sang. “Daddy shot ‘em all last night!”

            “You sure he shot ‘em all?” Tommy’s eyes were as big as truck lights and he had ahold of my dress and wouldn’t let go. He kept gawking into the trees and after a while he had me and Sue Ellen both catching the creepers.

            “I didn’t hear any shooting last night,” I told them. “But the night before, Papa brought home a squirrel for our gravy.”

I sang again when we got close to the bridge. This time I made them both sing along. “No bears are out tonight … Daddy shot ‘em all last night!”

We weren’t supposed to cross the bridge, that land belonged to Grandma Moses and Mama said that Papa’s mother didn’t like kids pestering her at nighttime … even if they was kin.

We sang the song one more time just as we started back. We was just into the part where daddy shoots them all when we heard a snorting sound come at us from the ditch bottom. Tommy and I were too scared to scream, so Sue Ellen screamed enough for all. Whatever was chasing behind us smelled awful, like an outhouse that hasn’t seen lime for three years. I tried to look but all I could see was something big and black hunched over and occasionally running on all fours. I kicked off my shoes and so did Sue Ellen but Tommy wasn’t so lucky. He had on a pair of lace-up boots with plenty of cotton stuffed up inside and they made his feet get all tangled up. He fell and I was too scared to go back for him.

            I heard him scream my name “Ludenia!” just as we reached the back porch. I looked over my shoulder and saw the black thing lift him into the air … then we were back in the house.

-------3-------

            “A bear got Tommy!” Sue Ellen was bawling when we ran into the kitchen.

            “It did?” Uncle John and the others looked surprised but I saw smiles on their faces when they looked at each other. “Was it a bear?”

            “Was it a great big bear?” Uncle Jack was making his eyes big.

            “I couldn’t tell,” I said. “It was big and black and it carried him off!”

Uncle Jack slapped Papa on the back. “You sure you shot all those bears last night?”

            “I might have missed a few,” Papa said looking at the floor and trying not to smile.

Several of my older cousins seemed to know what was going on and they wanted in. “I’ll play!” Ben and his brother Dan both volunteered.

While the boys got ready, there was lots of talk about killer bears and such … they almost didn’t go.

            “Are you going with them, Ludenia?” Papa was looking at me and all I could remember was that big black shape and the smell. “Not this time,” I told him.

-------4-------

            Mama made ginger bread men while we waited for the boys to come back. Each one was as big as my hand and they smelled delightful when they came out of the oven. Mama sat the pans on the table to cool. Several of my cousins commented that it had been a long time and Ben and Dan still hadn’t returned. No grownups seemed to take any notice.

Finally Papa walked over to Mama and I could see him whisper in her ear. “No,” she bawled. I could see tears in her eyes. She didn’t look at me for a long time and when she did she looked like a ghost.

            “I need frosting for these ginger bread men,” she told me. Momma’s was a crying voice. “I’m out of sugar. Will you go borrow a cup from Grandma Moses?”

I didn’t want to go but when my cousins learned they could each have a frosted ginger bread man to eat tonight they drove me crazy with their begging.

Mama hugged me so tight … she almost forgot to give me the cup.

            “Take Sue Ellen with you,” Papa said when I was ready to leave.

-------5-------

            “It’s all part of their game they’re just trying to scare us,” I told Sue Ellen as we walked past the barn. I was making myself brave. We were supposed to sing the song right off but I held back. I figured this was a signal for Uncle John or whoever was wearing the bear coat to come out and chase us.

I’d never crossed the bridge at night. The moon was out but it was wearing clouds. Grandma Moses was stuck in a wheel-chair and usually had a blanket covering her head and body when she got pushed by one of her sons to family gatherings. I only remembered her face from very old pictures. She had a big nose with a wart on one side. Her eyes were black and what teeth she had was yellow.

As soon as we clomped over the bridge I started to sing. “No bears are out tonight …. Daddy shot ‘em all last night.”

My trick almost worked. The smell and the big black thing come up out of the canal on the other side of the bridge going the wrong way just as I planned but I wasn’t counting on how fast it could run. I held Sue Ellen’s hand and we tore through a corn patch and past a leaning rock-well. There was a bucket there full of water and I almost knocked it over. If we could make it to Grandma’s porch we’d be safe. That was the rules of the game.

I could see a tiny light from one of her windows probably just a penny candle. Papa bragged his mother was half-bat and could see in the dark. I thought we’d get onto the porch safe, but the black thing tore Sue Ellen out of my arms just before the first step. It reached for me too … but I twisted away.

-------6-------

            My heart was hammering and my breath was gone. I jumped inside Grandma Moses’s fallen down porch and found the front door locked. I looked behind but whatever took Sue Ellen must have slipped into the corn patch. I pounded on the door. There were clothes piled in one corner and I saw a dress just like the one Mary Louise used to always wear. It took a bunch of knocking before the latch finally moved … and the door opened.

            I pushed my way inside, the first thing I noticed was that same smell … I wanted to gag. The light from the penny candle in the kitchen made everything into shadows. One large black shape blocked out the light from the kitchen. It was moving away from me on feet … not on wheels.  Outside a dirty window, the clouds moved away from the moon and I could almost see. I blinked my eyes several times to be sure I was really standing barefoot on a carpet of bones. They weren’t from chickens; they were too large. They might have come from pigs … but I didn’t think so. I could see the empty wheelchair standing in a corner and I gasped.

The dark shape snorted then turned and came back. The hand that dug into my shoulder and tore my dress had claws or talons like a large bird.

I forgot about the sugar … I dropped the cup and I ran.

THE END ???