This ballsy stranger is standing inside my house. His hand moves with casual grace, flipping the deadbolt back into the locked position.
He stands there looking at me, all of his panic and anxiety seemingly gone.
I step away, my back bumping into the tall table behind me. It stings, but nothing can get me to take my eyes off the man who just forced entry into my home.
He stands with his back to the door for a second before taking a smooth step forward. His gaze sweeps around the room. He’s not acting like prey anymore. Now, he’s keen on seeing what I’ve got. Maybe this is a break-in and I’m just too stupid to see it? If so, the joke’s on him. I’ve got nothing of value for him to steal. At the most, my aging laptop might get fifty bucks.
I try to pick back up with the bear conversation to normalize the situation. “Which direction did the bear come from? Do you remember?”
He jerks his head around to look at me. “Up the ridge.”
The ridge sits behind the cabin, but it’s dense with spruce and uneven rock. Bears pass through from the creek side more often. “Did you happen to see cubs?”
“Yeah,” he says too fast. “Two. Maybe three of them.”
His response makes me doubt him even more. Mama bears are defensive. They’re more interested in scaring you away from their cubs, not chasing over long distances. Also, cubs aren’t born this time of year. Still, I play along. “What color was it?”
“Brown,” he says, then quickly changes his mind, “Black. Kind of in between.”
Nothing about this man’s words makes any sense to me. The color of the bear chasing me is not something that I’d likely forget. Bears don’t typically sprint in full daylight towards the one house hidden behind a wall of pines unless something provoked them.
“You weren’t hunting bears, were you?”
“Hell no. Of course not!”
He doesn’t have a rifle, but he might have lost it in his mad scramble to get away. My best guess is he never had a weapon. I see his cell phone sticking up out of his shirt pocket. I remember him saying he dropped it and needed to borrow mine. Another lie. Everything about this man is shady as hell.
“You need to leave,” I tell him. Anxiety twists in my stomach, but I push through it. “It’s winter here, bears are hibernating. I’m almost sure there was no bear. They don’t give birth until around January or February, so I doubt there were cubs. In any event, I’ll alert the ranger station. They’ll check the area to be sure.”
He tilts his head, and his polite expression shifts into something else.
He steps away from the door. Just one step in my direction is enough to feel intimidating. “You seem to know an awful lot about bears,” he says casually, like he’s just having a polite conversation.
“I live here, I know what’s in the woods,” I answer. Then add, “I can drive you into town.” Working any angle that might move him back out of my house. “Or you could just call whoever you need to on the cell phone in your pocket there.”
“Or I could stay and talk for a while,” he counters.
“No,” I practically shout. “If you don’t go right now, I’ll call the police.”
His cold smile falters for a second when I reach over to pick up my phone from the charger.
I manage to get my hand wrapped around it and I’m about to make the call when his hand shoots out, and the brazen bastard rips my phone right out of my hand. He lifts the phone to his face, looks at it for a second, and then does the last thing I expect. He drops it on the floor then grinds the heel of his shoe into it, shattering the casing.
My heart is hammering as I realize what danger I’m in—I need to run, to get away from him. But for some reason, I can’t move.
My laptop sits open on the table, still glowing with unfinished work. When he reaches for it, I find my voice pretty damn quick.
“Stop!” I say, louder this time. “What are you doing?”
He doesn’t listen. Instead, he grabs the laptop, pulls it off the table, and slams it onto the floor. Before I can make sense of what’s happening, he stomps on it, shattering it to pieces like my phone.
I make a sharp sound of exasperation. I feel like my entire world just got turned upside down.
“Why would you do something like that?” I ask, hearing the shock and anger in my own voice.
He looks at me as if he expected this reaction, like maybe he’s done shit like this a lot in life.
“No one’s calling the ranger station or any damn place else,” he states flatly.
