Justice all but celebrated after they followed Glen back to his den. Not only was he reunited with his best friend ever but now they had shelter! It was a glorious cave, dry and cool, and in it was a lot of familiar stuff. “Unbelievable. My gear bag, my duffel, all of it’s here!” Justice crowed there in the cave. Glen had been quite eager to take Justice there and Justice wasn’t ready to part with his new friends. “My gunbelt … with my service pistol. Tarnation…”

“There any soap in there while you’re at it?” asked Matty.

“Actually … yes! And boy, howdy, both my sets of civilian clothes. There’s a stream right outside. I can get this nastiness all offa me!” Justice set about gathering stuff for a bath. In mere moments he was running to the outside to take advantage of the natural springwater flowing from the same foothill this cave was carved out of.

“So … Glen?” asked Doc Black.

“Humph?” grunted Glen.

“You’re a bear? What’s that like?” asked the old scientist as if expecting a spoken reply.

Glen gave a questioning grunt, unable to articulate anything but glad this new human was friendly. He hadn’t seen a human that didn’t stink of something unnatural for years. After too much eye contact though he gave a bit of side eye to these newcomers in his cave before averting his eyes completely. Getting up to all four feet he trundled outside, huffing a big sigh.

—-

As he walked outside Justice pulled at his clothes, attempting to ready for his bath. He’d seen the small waterfall that had carved a small pool that became a creek as they came in and was eager to make use of it. “The hell?” the cloth didn’t give at first but, as it did, it made a tearing sound as it separated from his skin. “Ow… That hurts a little.”

As some of it came away it tore, leaving scraps and fibers still stuck to him. “The hell now!?” As his pants came off, only the belt remaining in one piece, he realized, with horror, a terrible truth. “Oh no… What is all this? This crust? I … oh man. I done shit myself. Have I been shittin’ myself for five years!?”

Looking at the water he wondered how badly his presence would befoul the stream. “Runnin’ water … the filth should wash away, right? How did this not kill me?” The answer was obvious. “Oh yeah … magical hoodoo and an unwelcome guest in my body. Fuck.”

Finding a big, flat rock near to where the pool broke out into a stream, Justice took the ruined scraps of cloth, dwarfed by the filth that destroyed it, and hid it away. Quickly he made his way to the pool, right where it flowed out and away, trying to sweep away the crust before wading into deeper water. “Son of a bitch it stings. Just everywhere that rotten cotton touched me. Bleedin’ a little…”

As Glen came outside Justice was already waist-deep in the small pool at the base of the stream, right where the water dropped down, working a third application of soap over his rash-covered body. The pool wasn’t big or deep enough to be a swimming hole, except maybe to small children, but it made a great bathtub for one big man. “Hey Glen, miss me already? I just need like five more minutes, man, don’t worry.”

Glen huffed, grumpily, perhaps to object to the company still in the cave, but Justice couldn’t very well bring the other humans with him outside. They weren’t that friendly. The bear, having been left to himself for five years, wasn’t about to leave them alone in his home. The answer; bring Justice back in. Glen started to raise up with a mind to guard his cave but, not wanting to face the awkward strangers with their weird voices he flopped back down. Screw it, he was staying out here.

“So you’re stickin’ around? Okay.” The stream was beyond refreshing in the warm air. It must be summer, or so Justice assumed. He never got the exact date from the Doc. It all faded away into the background, however, as Justice started using the cotton cloth and honey soap his mother had packed for him all those years ago and the filth of ages washed away from his body, to the pool and out to the creek back towards civilization.

Looking back at the city it was bizarre. Justice slowly came to grips with the landscape; the Valley, AKA the “Mormon Corridor”. Likely known by the locals as something else now. When Young turned into someone else, something else, only those who remained loyal retained their humanity. He vaguely remembered some well-dressed men and women among the Servitor class, forced to work, unwilling to accept what had become of their former leader. Unwilling to accept even on threat of death.

With a grunt, Glen stood back up. He knew there were no fish worth eating here and Justice was taking too long. “So you are leavin’? Okay. I’ll be right in.”

Justice looked down at his hands as he wrung out the cloth. “Few thousand people left in the world. Plenty of animals though. What’d this ‘Prophet’ do to get rid of all the people everywhere?”

A sudden, high-pitched shriek broke Justice’s introspection, followed by the crack of a small-calibur round and a deep roar. Matty. Justice jumped out of the pool, grabbing his civilian breeches, cleaner than what he’d been wearing (and what wouldn’t be?), then ran to the opening of the cave. Inside, Justice found his giant bear pinning Matty to the cave floor by both shoulders, jaws agape over the little man’s face, drooling.

“Shoot him, Doc! Shoot him!”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The old Doctor was unusually calm, puffing on a pipe that smelled like it was used to seal peace treaties. “Now, Matty, you have to keep calm. Glen is a domesticated bear and he didn’t attack until you shot at him! If you’ll just remain calm–”

“Fuck that! He was coming at me!”

“He was coming in, Matty. Back into his home! Oh, Justice … do you mind?” asked the Doc.

“I’m on it, Doc!” shouted Justice, having just shoved his sausage and meatballs down past the lacings of his breeches. “Glen, dammit! Get up!” he shouted, sternly.

Half-turning his head, Glen showed then stowed his teeth when he realized it was Justice, no longer threatening anyone with a massive, deadly bear bite. He didn’t let up on the teenager though. “Can’t breathe!” whined the boy as he was rapidly being crushed.

“Dammit, boy, why ain’t you listenin’? I raised you up from when … what the…?” at that moment Justice noticed something that triggered a dark rage inside him. Glen dripped blood from one of his forelegs and, in Matty’s right hand, the boy clutched his .22 pistol. “Are you shitting me, kid? You shot my bear!?”

“He was looking at me and breathing funny! I didn’t wanna get eaten!” shouted the brat.

“I ought to eat you for what you done you little shit!” Justice briefly considered ripping Matty’s head off but thought that might queer the deal with Doc and his weird, supernatural contraptions. Justice needed help, if not with saving the world (too tall an order, probably) then leaving it since things were, apparently, different where they came from.

So, against his better judgment, Justice stepped on the gun hand briefly, eliciting another shout of pain from the brat who released it, then Justice kicked the gun away, got Glen in a headlock and pulled him up and away from Matty.

“Doc, we gotta go! I almost died!” whined the brat again, showing again how immature he really was, even for a teen. “This damn caveman threatened my life! You heard!”

“You need to shut your fat bazoo right now boy.” warned Justice. “This bear is like my son and you just put lead in him.”

Matty shut his mouth, alright, clear terror marring his face as he moved shakily across the cave, recovering his gun.

“Doc.” started Justice. “Can you get this bullet out of my bear?”

“Sorry, Justice. I’m not that kind of doctor. More of a … do you know what a scientist is?”

“Forget it. Let me at your toolbag.” Justice stormed over, grabbing the satchel beside the old man and digging through. “Aha, Foreceps. Knew it.”

“Oh, that’s what you needed.” nodded the Doc lazily before puffing on his pipe. Justice stifled his anger again. Just when he thought the old fool had a brain in him he had to go and shake Justice’s confidence.

“Uh, yeah.” Justice said, grabbing the bear, massaging one ear before starting in on the wound. “You gotta be cool Glen, okay? Papa’s gonna make the hurtin’ go away, okay?” Glen grunted but otherwise didn’t object. “So what’s the plan, Doc? You said you can’t go home without fixing things, right?”

Exhaling a cloud of smoke the Doc coughed before replying. “That’s right. Right now, I think the best plan is to get at Brigham Young and chase whatever’s in him out just the same way we did with you. After that we have to assume that the rest of the people will come back to their senses. What people there are…”

“How we doin’ that? I can’t read that weird writin’ anymore and you never could.” Justice stood up, flinging the .22 bullet aside to be forgotten on the cave floor.

“Well, about that. Justice, I have here in my satchel a recording device. It just so happens that I’ve been recording everything since we first arrived. Between that recording and following along in the scroll, I believe we can do it.” Doc tapped a wire going into his ear to illustrate. Justice about half got it.

“So you’re gonna … read it right there in front of Young? And how you gonna get the salt around him?”

“That’s where you come in, Justice. You’ll have to hold Young in place. Seeing you in action I have no doubt that you can do it. Even possessed by a superior outsider, if you can hold him for a few scant minutes, we will succeed.”

“Shit, man. Maybe you’re right.” Justice paused. “Just to be safe though we better bring the bear.”

“Yes, yes. Just in case.” muttered the Doc.” Puffing again he chuckled. “Say, we’ll have to sleep anyway, all the action’ll be in the morning at earliest. You want a puff of this? Opens up your mind!”

Glen bellowed as Justice dislodged the bullet. “Don’t think I ought to there, Doc.” Holding the bullet and forceps up for Glen to sniff Justice made sure the bear knew everything was okay now.

“Please. If it were a beer I bet you’d be drinking it right now. It’ll help you sleep. Just look at what the second-hand smoke did to Matty.” Matty was, comically, laying in a twisted, twitching pile on the stone floor of the cave. “I’ll have to put his pack under his head before I pass out myself. Wouldn’t want his mother mad because he came home with a stiff neck.”

“Yeah, uh, why the hell you draggin’ around a kid what ain’t yours then?” asked Justice.

“Well, Justice, funny story-short story. See, Matty has terrible parents. I joke about his mom being mad but she’s too busy playing the field to even know he’s gone. As for the dad, well, they did figure out who it was. He played the part for all of a week before stealing everything they owned and disappearing. Matty’s just stopped whining about how he lost his Commodore computer.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Hm?”

“A Naval commander’s what now?”

“Naval … oh! Ha! No, Commodore is a brand like … uh … ah! Old Overhold’s Bourbon!”

“Oh! I understand completely. Except that you said computer, which I thought was a math guy, and I ain’t never seen no Commodore Bourbon.”

“Hm.”

“Yeah?”

“You sure you don’t want a puff?” asked the rough-voiced old man.

“Yeah, fuck it. Might die tomorrow.” And they shared the pipe until passing out on the cave floor.