Page 3 of Such Sharp Teeth

There’s a lump. I squint, stepping deeper into the haze. My eyes adjust, and I can see that the lump is fur. A neat mound of fur. Beside the mound, staring up at me with dead glassy eyes, is a head. I was right. It was a deer.

How is this possible? I was not going over thirty-five. And even if I was . . .

Something possesses me to reach out and hover my hand over the carcass. It’s cold. There’s no heat coming off it, no warmth at all. I just hit it. If it just died, wouldn’t it still be warm?

I linger over the deer, wondering, until I realize I’m not required to turn in an autopsy report. It’s not a mystery I need to solve. I killed it. I feel bad; that’s it. My punishment is I’ll likely never be able to stomach meat again. I’ll be a vegetarian and a conscientious driver.

I sigh and straighten my legs.

I pause to listen. I hear something. Labored breathing. A sharp inhale followed by the slow rip of an exhale. It repeats.

I bring my hand to my chest. Its surf is steady. Rise, fall. Rise, fall. It contradicts the sound. But if I’m not making it, what is?

There’s an onslaught of darkness, confusing me for all of two seconds before I realize something has passed in front of the headlights.

Until I realize I’m not the one who killed that deer.

I turn around.

It eclipses the headlights, concealing itself in darkness. I can make out a vague outline, trace an enormous mass sliced from shadow. It suddenly shifts between the headlights, uncoiling itself. The light scalds my eyes, forcing a brief retreat into the refuge of my head. I’m tempted to let them stay there, to leave my eyes closed and maybe just never open them again, never face whatever it is in front of me. But something else—maybe survival instinct or curiosity—wins out.

I open my eyes, and at first they struggle against the brightness. All I can see is that whatever’s there, positioned between me and my car, it’s standing upright.

A bear. It’s a bear. It’s the size of a large bear. It’s got four limbs. A head. Fur.

I blink, and the scene comes into focus.

I’ve never seen a bear like this. Its proportions are weird.

It stands on the pads of its feet. They’re not really paws. They’re big but narrow, and they’ve got fur, only it’s sparse, and where there’s none, grayish skin is stretched tight over thin splinters of bone. Its toes are each about the size of my fist, and from them extend thick black nails, sharp, almost like talons. Its legs are long. Slim pale muscles slither around exposed bone, fur detaching in certain places, like around the knees. The legs have a disturbing bend to them. They’re not straight. They won’t straighten. They’re hind legs.

It’s slouched, concealing part of its torso. There’s fur missing there, too. Its skin has been pulled too taut; there are obvious rips where the thing is fleshless. I can see a sickening twist of ribs and spongy insides, but most of it is shadowed by the curtain of its arms. The thing pulls them forward but leaves them limp. They dangle down past its knees.

Its hands are marred. Leathery tangled mitts. Bones peek through recessions of fur. Its giant knuckles are bald. Its fingers have way too many joints; they bend and unbend and bend.

I look up at its head.

A whiteness escapes its wide-open jaws. Froth pours through its fangs. Beyond its snout, two red eyes bore into me. The color of them, it’s unreal.

It can’t be real.

Did someone slip something into my beer?

I feel the skepticism creep across my expression, my eyebrows sinking, eyes narrowing as I study the thing standing in front of me. My doubt releases me from my fear, and for a moment the creature isn’t real and I’m safe.

It must sense this, because it rears back, head up, opening its chest to the sky, arms wide. I can hear the awful creak of its jaw as it unhinges to an alarming degree, the separation between its teeth staggering. It begins to scream. The torturous pitch funnels ice into my veins. It’s agonizing.

The scream splits, harmonizing with itself. It’s like there’s more than one voice.

Animals shouldn’t be able to scream like that.

It’s going on forever. I don’t know if it’ll ever stop. Should I run? Why haven’t I already started running?

The thing finally stops screaming. It collapses onto all fours. It turns to me, and the clarity of its red gaze is unnerving. I understand.

It’s angry. I hit it with my car. I interrupted its dinner.

And it’s starving.