Savage Beasts - 5. A Sleuth of Bears

It was the morning lull at Papa Bear’s Diner. The in-between hours when the breakfast crowd had already eaten and gone, and the lunch crowd had not yet arrived. Joshua and a couple other retired regulars sat around the counter gossiping and drinking coffee when the door opened, and four enormous men walked in. They looked like bikers, and indeed, they had arrived on motorcycles just a minute earlier. They were dressed similarly, in leather pants, biker boots, t-shirts and leather vests. Their hair and beards were long and braided. The tallest of the four had to be seven feet tall, and the massive arms sticking out of the sleeves of his shirt were solidly tattooed.

Vera gave them a suspicious eye, and the seven-foot leader of the group stepped forward to loom over her.

“Where’s the owner of this dump?” the giant asked.

“Dump?” Gunnar shouted, coming through the swinging doors from the back kitchen. “This coming from the man who called his own bar a ‘shithole!’

“Axel! How are you doing old bear?”

Gunnar walked around the counter with his hand extended and grabbed Axel by the forearm in the traditional werebear greeting.

“Doing good, Yogi!” Axel replied. “Where’s Boo-Boo?”

“Right here, brother!” Mike replied, standing up and walking around from behind the counter where he had been stacking clean plates. Mike clasped Axel by the forearm as well, but then Axel pulled him into a big hug.

“You’re getting better looking every time I see you, Cub!” Axel said and planted a big kiss right on Mike’s lips. He turned to the other three bikers still standing in the doorway. “Let me introduce you to my friends. We have Sal, Marty, and Rusty-Pete. These guys are my best friends in Atikokan.”

“What brings you down to our neck of the woods?” Gunnar asked.

“Ezekiel does,” Axel replied. “We’re just the first ones to arrive ‘cause we’re on our bikes. The rest are coming by car, truck and van!”

“The rest?” Gunnar said cautiously, “How many more are coming?”

“Oh, only about twenty or so for now. We’re the advance team to go down to the Smokies and check out the pest problem you mentioned to Ezekiel over the phone.”

“Twenty or so,” Gunnar repeated. “When are they supposed to be getting here?”

Axel looked at his wrist to check the time, but the only thing on his wrist was a tattoo of a coiled snake.

“Oh, right about… now.”

As he finished his sentence, the door opened again and twenty more werebears began piling through, elbowing for space in the doorway.

“Oh Lord,” Vera said, “It’s like Gunnar and Mike cloned themselves twelve times. Johnny! Battle stations! We have twenty-four Black Holes to feed, and they look hungry enough to eat the entire Budweiser Clydesdale team!”

Vera began seating the bears in groups of four, and then scrambled to begin filling carafes of coffee for each of the six tables.

Mike gave Vera a grin and let her know that these would probably be the most laid-back bunch of guys she would have to serve for the next month. All that mattered was that they got good food to eat, and plenty of it.

The door opened one more time, and a single man walked in and took as seat at the counter. He was shorter than the rest, but no less robust and muscular than the group who arrived just before him. He was dressed in clean well-worn blue jeans and a plaid flannel shirt.

“Ezekiel,” Gunnar said clasping him by the forearm and tipping his head in a slight bow of deference to the ancient bear. “Thank you for coming and bringing the first wave of support we’re going to need to take on this problem down in the Smokies.”

“When you have a great number of pests, the more feet to stomp them out, the better,” Ezekiel replied.

“Grand-Papa!” Mike exclaimed, trotting over and giving the old bear a big hug. “I didn’t expect you to come in person with the first wave. I would have completely understood if you wanted to manage this operation remotely instead of getting your paws bloody in another battle.”

“Well, Cub,” Ezekiel replied, “I may be older than everyone else, but I’m still young enough to have a taste for adventure, and this is one that will be talked about for millennia.”

“Are you hungry, Grand-Papa?” Mike asked.

“Always, young Cub,” Ezekiel replied. “Bring me a lot of whatever items on the menu are your favorites!”

“Everything on the menu are my favorites!” Mike exclaimed.

“Perfect,” Ezekiel replied. “Two of everything!”

Twenty-five hungry werebears sat and ate plate after plate of food for two hours, until the early-bird lunch crowd started to come in. Gunnar didn’t want to charge the bears for any of their meals, but Ezekiel insisted that they weren’t there for charity, and they weren’t on a mission to eat him out of business. They eventually compromised on a tab with a big discount applied and they left Vera a very generous tip as they began heading out the door to make room for the lunch rush.

“Where are you staying, Grand-Papa?” Gunnar asked when it was just Ezekiel and Axel left in the diner, “Our place isn’t very big, but we’d be happy to put you all up in a hotel in town.”

Ezekiel and Axel looked at each other and laughed.

“Oh, you city bears!” Ezekiel chuckled. “We don’t need a fancy hotel, Gunnar, we’re Canadian bears! We’ve rented out half of the campground in Potawatomi State Park. We’ll have enough privacy there to have a pleasant evening in either human or bear form, and most of the group will probably be sneaking off into the woods for some playtime after dinner. We will need for you and Mike to come out this afternoon once you’re closed here for the day to discuss our plan going forward, and you’re welcome to stay for dinner any playtime as well!”

“Sure thing, Grand-Papa,” Gunnar replied. “We’ll get things closed up here and be out to the campground by 4:00.”

Ezekiel and Axel nodded and headed out the door to join the rest of the bears waiting to go back to the campground.

****

As Gunnar and Mike worked their way through serving the lunch crowd, Gunnar found a moment to pull Mike aside into the office and discuss what they would have to do. Once the rush had died down and Vera and Johnny began doing their side work to finish out their shifts for the day, they called their two employees over to the end of the counter for an impromptu company meeting.

“Vera and Johnny,” Gunnar began, “Thank you so much for all of the extra work you put in today feeding that crowd of our friends.”

“Well once we found out who they were,” Vera replied, “We sort of expected them to eat us out of house and home!”

Gunnar and Mike chuckled at that, and then looked at each other, not wanting to break the next news.

“They surprised us by showing up today, but their arrival was for a purpose,” Gunnar explained. “There’s a problem happening with our extended circle of friends living in the Smoky Mountain area, and some of them are in grave danger. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we can’t just trust the local law enforcement to handle of this. We have to go and tend to the problem ourselves.

“So, we’re going to be closing the restaurant for the next two weeks. We’re going to call it a ‘vacation’ to the town because they don’t need to know our business. We’re going to go ahead and give you your regular paychecks for the time that the restaurant will be closed, and Vera, we’ve taken an average of your weekly sales for the last two months, and we’re going to add twenty percent of that number onto your weekly paycheck since you won’t be getting any tips.”

“We’re really sorry to spring this on you two, but we’re going to have to leave town early tomorrow morning,” Mike said, picking up where Gunnar left off. “Is this time off going to be okay for you?”

“Boss,” Johnny said, “This is the busy season. You’re going to lose a lot of money if you have to close for two weeks and still pay us.”

“I know,” Gunnar replied, “But there’s nothing that we can really do about that. Mike and I will be fine financially. We’re far enough in the black that we can take a two-week loss of income.”

“You know what I think?” Vera asked, and the bears looked over at her. “I think that’s bullshit.”

“Vera…” Gunnar started to say, but she cut him off.

“Gunnar, the reason you hired the two of us is because we know our jobs and we know how to run a place like this with very little supervision. If you can’t go on a two-week vacation and trust us to hold down the fort while you’re gone, then why are we here in the first place?”

“I didn’t think it would be fair to you two to put you on the spot like that,” Gunnar said, looking at the floor.

“Boss,” Johnny said, “It’s busy here, and I’m not saying it’s going to be easy running this place without you two, but you guys have given us a better life here than we had all those years working at the truck stop. Picking up the slack while you go and do what you need to do is the least we can do to replay you for that.”

Vera nodded in agreement. “And besides,” she said, “My daughter lives down in Green Bay going to college, and she’s on summer break right now. I’ll have her get her tail up here and earn herself a little extra spending money for the next two weeks waiting tables. Between the three of us, we’ll have it covered. So, the big question is, do you trust us to run the place while you’re gone?”

Gunnar nodded with a big smile, and Mike grabbed Vera and pulled her into a hug.

“Oof!” Vera cried, “I’m not going to be of any use to you if you break my ribs, blondie!”

“Sorry,” Mike said with a grin, and that seemed to settle the matter of how to handle the diner while they were off on their crusade.

Gunnar reviewed the inventory with Johnny and they discussed what he would need to order from their grocery, meat and produce suppliers while they were gone.

Vera pulled Mike aside after her work was done and made him sit down.

“You two won’t come out and say it but I can tell that this business in the Smokies is going to be dangerous, isn’t it?”

“I’m not going to lie,” Mike replied. “There’s a chance people could get killed.”

“And you can’t get the law involved because this is bear business, isn’t it?” Vera stated.

“Uh, what to you mean by ‘bear business,’ Vera?” Mike asked cautiously.

“Oh, come on, Mike,” Vera said, keeping her voice down so no one else could hear, “Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. Do you think I haven’t figured out that the two of you are werebears by now? Give a girl some credit.”

Mike tried to keep a straight face, but he slowly broke out in a grin.

“Clever girl,” he said. “What gave us away?”

“It wasn’t one thing,” Vera explained, “But a bunch of little things that all added up over time. One of which was Gunnar’s amazing ability to eat ten pounds of smoked salmon out of the walk-in like it was an afternoon snack instead of our entire Sunday brunch stock. Only a real bear could pull off that feat. But I will also admit that you aren’t the first werebears I’ve ever run across in my life, so I’ve had a little experience at noticing the signs.

“Today was the clincher. If all those huge men who tromped in here today weren’t a pack of bears, then I’m Marilyn Monroe!”

“Sleuth,” Mike corrected with a grin, “A group of bears is called a ‘sleuth’.”

“Yeah, well you and your sleuth better watch your bear asses. Johnny and I can cover for you for as long as it takes, but I’m not going to stand for it if either of you two ended up dead, you got me?”

“Loud and clear,” Mike replied, “Thanks again Vera, and also thanks for keeping our secret. Johnny doesn’t know, does he?”

“Johnny?” Vera laughed, “He wouldn’t know what a werebear was if one walked up and bit him on the ass!”

****

Gunnar and Mike sat at a picnic table with Ezekiel, Axel and two other werebears named Joel and Jacob, who looked so much alike they could have practically been twins. That was something common among werebears from the black bear lineage, they explained to Mike. Once a cub goes through his first change, he usually ends up looking remarkably similar to his Papa. Jacob’s human appearance was quite different before becoming Joel’s cub. Mike realized that this explained why Thomas and Sam wound up looking almost like brothers as well instead of mates.

A laptop computer sat at the end of the table, with Thomas and Sam on the screen, video conferenced into the planning session in progress in the campground.

“Thomas, has there been any additional sightings of the dababbi following the first incident?” Ezekiel asked.

“No Grand-Papa,” Thomas replied. “We have alerted the other known bears in the region, both to the north and south of us. We’ve warned them of the potential danger and asked them to call me the instant that any of the creatures are spotted.”

“Even if that call ends up being the last thing that they do on this earth,” Sam added sadly.

“Hopefully, it will not come to that, Cub,” Ezekiel replied to Sam. “What about the wolves? Gunnar, did you have any success with the Lycan Council?”

“No, Grand-Papa,” Gunnar replied. “I spoke with the Supreme Alpha’s Beta wolf and sent him the security video containing the dababbi, but the earliest they will possibly discuss the situation in Council is a little over a week from now.

“However, I called Alpha Apollo and his Beta Susie Banshee, and they are taking the initiative to reach out to all of the packs in the Appalachian region to warn them to increase patrols. I sent them the video as well, so they should have distributed it to all packs by now. The officers in each pack have instructions to call Thomas if any of the dababbi are spotted.”

“The most important questions for me,” Axel said, “Are can they be killed, and if so, how?”

“They most certainly can be killed, the same as any werebear,” Ezekiel replied. “The issue is that they are incredibly strong, they have no mercy or sense of right and wrong, and they have no fear of death. Those factors make them incredibly dangerous and difficult to kill.”

“Are we positive that we have to kill them?” Joel asked. “It has been a long, long time since my days as the Spirit Bear for my tribe, but I do recall an Elder once passing on knowledge of a situation similar to this to his successor. It was a tale of a hunter who was saved by a Spirit Bear and lived with him in his cave for an entire winter. When spring came, the hunter had taken on the nature of the bear and had grown a bear’s fur all over his body, but he still walked upright like a man. The other hunters from the tribe found their friend living in the cave, and the Spirit Bear told them that they would need to shut him alone in a house where no one could see him, without anything to eat or drink for seven days and nights. If they did as instructed, the bear nature would leave him, and he would become a man again.”

“Interesting,” Ezekiel commented. “Did the Elder say whether it worked?”

“Well,” Joel said, “The story goes on to say that it would have worked, but after he was shut in a house for four days, the hunter’s wife showed up and demanded that the other men let her take her husband home, and both the wife and the hunter ended up dead.”

“So now we’re talking about capturing these things instead of killing them with the hopes that they can be cured?” Axel said with a note of scorn. “If any of these creatures harms one of my bear brothers, I’m not taking any prisoners.”

“I’m inclined to agree with Axel,” Mike said. “We can’t take additional risks with our lives based on an ancient story. At the very least, I’d want to get a second opinion from a tribal Elder who still has this knowledge.”

“I’m not sure there are any Elders left who still have knowledge of or believe in the Spirit Bears,” Ezekiel commented. “Many of the old ways are gone, which is why bears like Joel are no longer the protectors of their tribes.”

“There is one Elder who still believes,” Gunnar said. “Thomas, are you wearing your bracelet?”

“This one?” Thomas said, holding up his wrist and showing a handmade silver cuff engraved with the images of two bears facing each other.”

“About a year and a half ago, I visited a reservation just outside of Duluth, Minnesota, and the Elder there immediately recognized that I was a Spirit Bear. He gave me that bracelet to give to Thomas. If anybody would know if the story were true and can be used to cure these creatures, it would be him.”

“Dammit, Yogi,” Axel growled, “You’re always ready to go on a big noble crusade to rescue somebody, aren’t you? These aren’t kindred humans that we can save so they can be our hot little cubs this time.”

Axel paused, and glanced at Mike, but quickly looked back at Gunnar.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Axel continued, “If you are somehow able to capture and contain these dababbi and find a way to keep them submissive and under control without getting anyone else killed, I will personally escort you and your little monster pets to Duluth to meet this Elder.

“However, if any of those monsters harm or kill someone I care about, then I’ll personally separate their heads from their shoulders.”

“Axel…” Mike began to say, but the big, tattooed bear was already standing up from the table,

“No, I think we’ve talked enough,” Axel said. “Tomorrow we drive to West Virginia, and then we track down these things.”

After speaking this final assessment of the situation, Axel stormed off into the woods.

The rest of the bears looked around at each other uncomfortably, but Mike stood up from the table as well.

“I’ll go talk to him and calm him down. Okay, Papa?”

Gunnar gave Mike a wink.

“You’re a good Cub, Mike. Go help our friend.”

 ****

Mike tracked Axel’s scent through the woods until he spotted him sitting alone on a mound of soft green moss growing between four sturdy pine trees.

“What part of my actions at the meeting led you to believe that I was looking for company tonight, Boo-Boo?” Axel said as Mike approached the spot where he sat.

“The part where I saw through your big tough exterior and know that you’re really just worried about losing any of your friends in this fight,” Mike replied, sitting down on the moss in front of him and mirroring his posture.

“If I had been smarter, or braver,” Axel said, “I would have helped Gunnar rescue you from those wolves when they were raping you in my bar, but I was afraid of their retribution and didn’t want to lose my home or even my shitty wereboar employees. Gunnar had to make a plan to rescue you without my help, and you very nearly died as a result.

“And even though I didn’t help him back then, he still came back and saved me from being arrested by the Lycan Council and found me a new home in Atikokan.

“Now he’s getting into his head that these monsters that have already killed twelve werebears are somehow worthy of being rescued too? I want to believe that he knows what’s right, but once again, I can’t put my faith in him when the risk in doing so is losing everything I have.”

“I think what Papa is trying to say,” Mike began carefully, taking Axel’s hands in his, “Is that the real monster is whomever is responsible for creating these dababbi in the first place. It’s not likely that any human willingly volunteered to become a monster, which makes them just as much a victim in all of this as the bears that they’ve killed. These were human men with lives of their own, and if there’s even a glimmer of saving and curing them, Papa is going to hold onto that bit of hope with both paws.”

Axel looked up at Mike with tears running down his cheeks into his beard. Mike reached up and held the big man’s cheek in his palm, and then leaned forward and kissed him deeply on the lips.

Axel responded to Mike’s kiss, and parted his lips, allowing Mike to explore his mouth with his tongue. Mike slid his hands along Axel’s chest and pushed his leather vest off his shoulders. Axel broke their kiss and the two bears sat looking into each other’s eyes for an endless minute, deciding if this was the right time to do what their bodies desperately wanted.

Mike gave Axel a sly grin, and they both began to shed their clothing, tossing shirts, boots and pants all around the mossy knoll. When they were both naked, they sat facing each other again. Axel looked at Mike and felt unworthy of the attention of such a stunningly beautiful bear. Mike looked at Axel’s massive body, covered in tattoos from neck to ankles, and felt like a small, inadequate human again compared to the big man’s raw masculinity, but he pushed that feeling aside so that he could show Axel how much he valued his friendship and love.

Mike laid his hands on Axel’s shoulders and pulled him back into a passionate kiss. This time, it was Axel who explored with his tongue, and he eventually wrapped his muscular arms behind Mike’s back and laid him down on his back on the mossy ground.

Axel kissed his way down Mike’s neck, chest, and stomach. He briefly licked at Mike’s rigid cock before licking and sucking Mike’s balls into his mouth one at a time. After releasing them, he pushed Mike’s legs in the air, raising his ass off the ground, and attacked Mike’s tender hole with his tongue. He licked and poked at Mike’s entrance with his long bear tongue for what seemed like an eternity as Mike writhed on the moss with pleasure. When Mike couldn’t stand the overwhelming sensations anymore, he found his voice.

“Please Axel, I need you inside me.”

Axel raised his head and spit into his hand, rubbing it onto his giant cock to provide some lubrication to go with the spit already coating Mike’s hole. He positioned himself over Mike and slowly began to slide in.

Axel was larger than Gunnar. He was the biggest man that Mike had ever seen let alone taken inside himself. When Axel’s mushroom head popped inside past his ring of muscle, Mike cried out and pulled Axel’s head down into another kiss, which also pushed Axel’s cock farther inside.

Axel kissed Mike passionately, and slowly continued to work his entire thick length inside of him until he finally felt his balls resting against Mike’s ass cheeks.

He looked at Mike with happiness in his eyes,

“Mike, nobody has ever taken all of me inside them before. I’m too big.”

“You feel just right to me, big bear. Go ahead. Fuck me.”

Axel pumped his hips slowly, dragging his thick length in and out of Mike’s tender hole with each stroke. He was in no hurry and wanted to make this last for both of them. Despite his size and rough demeanor, Axel proved to be quite gentle and sensual in his lovemaking.

They climaxed at the same time, Axel roaring with his release, and gripping Mike’s shoulders tightly as he spilled his seed inside of him. Mike came in between their hairy bellies coating both with his thick semen.

Axel pulled his softening pole out of Mike and hugged the smaller man tightly against his chest, snuggling with him on the mossy knoll until they both drifted off into a pleasant sleep.