Chuck dove to Randall’s side. The wolves darted around him, skirting the control console’s force field. Clarence had no time to aim and fire the .357 before the wolves lunged at him and he went down beneath their growling mass.
Chuck drove a fist into Randall’s nose and clawed the console from its holster. He worked its controls madly, pushing buttons and throwing switches, but the wolves continued to rip into Clarence. Chuck tossed the console to the ground, grabbed the rifle by its barrel from where it lay in the grass next to Randall, and brought its heavy stock down on the console’s housing. The console shattered and the green diode light in its upper corner blinked out.
Instantly, the wolves’ growls died in their throats. They released their grips on Clarence, backed a few feet away, and stopped.
Clarence rose on an elbow and aimed the .357 at the nearest of the four wolves. The wolf, Stander Pack’s alpha, did not move. Clarence did not pull the trigger. The three other wolves spun and surged around Chuck and Randall and past the downed grizzly and their dead pack mate. The alpha held its position until the three wolves were out of the lantern light. Then it turned and loped after its fellows, headed for the cover of the forest.
At Chuck’s side, Randall’s eyes blinked open. He drew a deep, rasping breath that turned into a choked sob. “Help...me,” he gasped.
The grizzly, lying atop the wolf it had killed, struggled to its feet, a string of saliva dangling from its mouth. The grizzly huffed when its close-set eyes came to rest on Randall’s prostrate form.
“No,” Randall moaned. “Dear God, no.”
Keeping his eyes on the bear, Chuck dragged Randall toward the cabin by the ankles.
Blood dripped from the exit wound in the grizzly’s shoulder. The wound was on the same side of the bear as the rifle shot’s entry; Randall’s bullet had struck the creature’s scapula and ricocheted out of its body, stunning the animal but causing no lethal damage.
Clarence aimed the pistol at the grizzly as Chuck drew even with him.
“Don’t,” Chuck said. “If your shot isn’t perfect, you’ll only enrage it. It’ll rip us to pieces.”
Clarence set the pistol on the ground and held out his hands to the bear placatingly before shoving himself backward toward the cabin alongside Chuck and Randall.
“Faster,” Randall whimpered.
The grizzly pounced. It took Randall’s skull in its jaws, yanked him from Chuck’s grasp, and flung him from side to side. Popping noises issued from Randall’s flailing body as his neck and spine snapped.
Chuck tumbled to a sitting position next to Clarence. A cry rose from the cabin. He looked back to see Kaifong squirm her way past Janelle and the researchers crowded in the doorway. She scooped the .357 from the ground and strode toward the grizzly, extending the gun before her in both hands.
“No, Kaifong!” Chuck barked. “The pistol’s not enough.”
The bear went still, its eyes on Kaifong, its grip vice-like around Randall’s head. Kaifong aimed the pistol at the grizzly, then lifted the gun higher and pulled the trigger. The gun blasted, spitting fire, and the bullet passed harmlessly above the bear. Kaifong took another step forward and fired past the bear a second time.
The creature opened its jaws, dropping Randall. The grizzly looked at Kaifong without blinking, much as Notch had eyed the Territory Team camera after its attack two years ago. Then, the bear pivoted lightly on its paws and ambled away from the cabin.
Kaifong sank to her knees beside Randall’s unmoving body, her back to Chuck and Clarence, her shoulders bowed, the .357 clasped in her lap.
Blood seeped into Randall’s curly hair from a flap of scalp ripped from his skull. His open eyes stared upward, unseeing, at the smoke-smudged sky.
Chuck pushed himself from the ground and stepped toward Kaifong. She stiffened when a twig snapped beneath his foot with a subdued pop. She turned on her knees to face him and raised the pistol, centering it on his chest.