The bear was gone; perhaps for good, but at the very least for now. David wanted to go back and look, but Samantha gave a quick shake of her head and they kept moving. While they didn't watch the beast tumble down the side of the mountain, they certainly heard it. The crashing, smashing, rumble of its descent echoed all around as its impacts brought trees and boulders cascading into the river below.

Still moving at a quick but sustainable pace, David rode up alongside Samantha to discuss the options for the next leg of the trip. Their dirt road now joined up with the paved county access road, one of the most idyllic and scenic drives in the state. David used to find the winding curves and thick forest canopy here delightful, back before the end of the world. Now it played against them, limiting visibility and preventing the horses from reaching the speed that was their primary advantage.

More pressing still, the road wound its way down the mountain toward the river below, crossing at a bridge not far from where the bear had fallen. The slower and more cautiously they took this next portion, the more time the fallen bear would have to recover before they reached the bridge, assuming it survived.

Samantha argued they should rush it and never give the bear the chance, but also found herself conflicted with the fact that the horses were already so tired. If they ended up having to run for their lives, would the horses be able to pull out another amazing escape?

"You can only plan for what you know," David advised, "and we don't even know whether the biggest threat is at the bottom of the ravine or just around the next turn."

"That doesn't tell me what we should actually do," Samantha complained.

"Let's just go carefully, not slow but not rushing. Pretend we don't know what's out there. Because we don't."

Samantha scowled at that, but nodded after a few seconds and they proceeded down the road at a quick but careful pace, making as little noise as circumstances allowed.

Near the bottom of the road, as Samantha rounded a turn not unlike all the others, she came to an abrupt halt. She held up a hand for David to stop. Twisting around, she motioned with a finger to her lips for quiet. She made a similar gesture for Apollo after tapping the side of his neck to get his attention. Finally, in a display that left David practically dumbfounded, she did the same for David's horse, first quietly clicking her tongue to try to get Sock's attention, then whispering her name when that didn't work. After giving the horse the "quiet" gesture with a finger to her lips, she rolled her eyes with an exasperated sigh and did it all again, and then again. Apparently, Socks did something after that last attempt which convinced Samantha that the horse had gotten the message, because she smiled and nodded this time. She finally motioned for David to ride up next to her, and Socks obeyed Samantha's directions on her own, without David's command. Socks took each step with uncanny care and caution, moving slowly and rocking her hoof on each step to avoid making any noise.

"How the hell did you teach a horse to tiptoe?" David whispered when he got close.

"I'll explain later," she said, shaking her head. "Look at that."

She pointed to something further down the road, perhaps a stone's throw away. Whatever it was, it was definitely dead. The gore about it gave a distinct "road kill" appearance, almost eliminating the shock value. There weren't enough remains to identify a species, but the scene did tell a story. Around the unfortunate creature, the brush was too sparse to hide anything large and dangerous enough to be responsible for the scene, suggesting that this had not been an ambush. Furthermore, the predator had left extensive tracks showing that a significant amount of the victim's body had been dragged further down the road and out of sight. Most likely, whatever did this would be found further ahead.

"There's a shoe to the left," Samantha pointed as she quietly explained, "and then that's a hat, and I think that's a gun back behind it."

David took another look. He'd been so focused on looking for threats that once he'd concluded that the victim was already dead, he'd mentally moved on to trying to find the thing that killed it. In doing so, he'd completely glossed over one very important detail:

"That's a human," he commented, copying her quiet tone.

"I think it was, but most of the body is missing."

David examined the scene a little more carefully with the added context in mind, and relayed his thoughts:

"While I can't tell for certain from this far away, the guy was coming up this direction from below while being chased by something way faster than him. He likely saw it a long way off and tried to run, but he didn't make it far. It took his body right back down the road again almost immediately. Judging by how it carried the body, the animal was at least two or three times his weight."

"You've decided that the victim was male, huh?"

David shrugged. That was an odd detail for her to focus on, but he was pretty sure he was right. He'd come to that conclusion without even thinking about it, but now looked more closely to figure out why he'd made that observation.

"That gun isn't for hunting. In fact, that particular model of assault rifle has never been legal to own in this state. Plus, we know it's been useless since last Friday, and animals certainly wouldn't be scared by it. So he was lugging it around just to make himself feel powerful, like threatening other people made him feel safe. And the hat? Camo with a Punisher logo? While I'm not absolutely certain he was a guy, I'm pretty confident he was an asshole."

Samantha snorted out a quiet chuckle. "I guess I don't feel so bad about what happened to him, then," she whispered back. "Are you sure whatever got him is further down the road?"

"I'm not sure of anything at this distance, and I can only tell you which direction it went, not where it currently is. It seems likely, but let's have a look first."

She nodded and re-upped the silence command for the horses and they made their way down to the messy scene with quiet steps that blended into the background noise of the woods.

"This is pretty recent," David said as he examined the remains more closely, "if we left an hour earlier we'd have met this guy on the road."

"Or met his fate," Samantha countered.

"I'm guessing it was a bear again, perhaps the same one that chased us since it would be odd to have two bears hunting in the same territory. Still, it would be unwise to assume that whatever did this was the same animal that we've already sent off the side of a cliff."

"Forward, then? Or do we go back to the Cabin and try again some other time?"

"My vote is forward. Our odds are better now than if we wait for it to heal up and get hungry again."

"Do we really have to go to town at all, or can we just go back and stay at the house? This seems more dangerous than we originally expected."

David took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose, looking up at the trees before responding.

"This isn't just about getting the water pumps fixed. That's important too, but it's not everything. We were originally just going to wait out the apocalypse in the Cabin, but Gary and Evie are both confident that whatever's going on is permanent. There's nothing for us to even wait for."

"And that means we need to go to the city?"

"It means we need to know what's going on. We can't plan if we don't know what we're planning about."

"Fine," she sighed. "But I'm getting more worried about how to defend ourselves. It's bad enough to ride though dangerous territory, but we might be headed straight at some giant predator in the middle of the road this time." She inhaled to say more while running her finger across the hilt of the blade he'd given her, but then stopped and frowned, dismissing whatever she'd just been thinking. Then her eyes lit up with a different thought: "You did something back when the bear leapt for you, didn't you? Some sort of magic thing?"

"Yeah..." he said slowly. He wasn't even certain what he did, let alone how to explain. "You know those red barriers Evelyn can make? I think it must have been something like that."

"Ah, that would be perfect," she replied with a nod. "Can you make it big enough to let us just go around an animal? Once we're on the other side, we should be able to outrun just about anything."

"No, I'm not sure I can make one at all." He shook his head. "Plus, the bigger you make it, the weaker it gets. Anything big enough to look imposing would shatter like ice. And even if I knew how, I don't think I have enough charge."

"You mean mana?"

David scrunched his nose. "Yeah. Mana. I think I'm low. But you do magic stuff too, right? Some sort of invisible blades?"

Samantha made a show of examining the animal tracks, looking away as she responded. "Actually? I'm not comfortable using my own magic right now. Does that make me a hypocrite?"

Samantha had previously been pretty cagey about her own magic, but this was the first time she outright said it. He disliked the way she'd phrased her question, though. He didn't think it was his place to tell her what to do, but he wasn't going to call her names, either.

"Let's just do the best we can, right?" He hoped that came across sufficiently supportive without saying anything in particular.

They set out again at a brisk riding speed. All along the road, the unknown beast had left a faint trail of gore as it dragged its prize back to its lair. The streak of blood was bad enough, but the occasional globs of innards were all the more disturbing with the knowledge that they'd once belonged inside a human. What's more, the unshakable sense of foreboding grew ever stronger the further they rode alongside the endless streak of human chunks. If they ever needed a reminder that they were headed straight toward a beast that could rip them in half, all they had to do was look at the road.

After travelling far too long down Chunky Entrail Lane, the bridge finally came into view. It was nothing special, just a nondescript bridge in the middle of nowhere. But it marked roughly the end of the most dangerous part of the trip, as the highway was less than half a mile away and the visibility significantly improved.

Unfortunately, and yet inevitably, they also found exactly what they didn't want to find at the end of the trail of guts. Past the bridge and off to the right of the road something big and bear-shaped stood over a bloody mess of a body while fighting off a circling pack of five dogs of some sort. Perhaps they were wolves or coyotes, though the distinction hardly mattered at this point in the apocalypse. David decided to call them wolves at least in his head, since they certainly were acting the part.

Samantha took one look and urged her horse into a full-on sprint, not away from the conflict but directly toward it. This seemed to David like a truly horrible decision. He considered his options, but even the slightest delay at this point would mean splitting up from her, so he sped up as well and took his position in formation behind her. Following Samantha seemed the only reasonable option, he just hoped she knew something he didn't. Up ahead, the animals fighting over the human remains noticed their approach and started running to intercept them.

Of the animals, the bear quickly pulled ahead. Two wolves hung back and started eating the kill they'd been fighting over, while three kept running toward the horses. Judging by the distances involved, the bear would reach the bridge a little before he and Samantha got there, while the wolves would still be on the far side after he and Samantha had crossed, ready to meet them if by some miracle they managed to get past the bear's initial attack.

The wolves looked hungry, desperate, broken, and furious. They all bore cuts and torn flesh, they all had blood soaked into their fur and covering their faces. One ran despite a clearly broken leg, and the other two had eyes that glowed in the shadows with eerie, confusing light. One's eyes glowed blue and the other yellow.

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This whole situation was a disaster. David seriously considered shouting at Samantha to turn around and flee the other way. At this point it seemed unlikely that they could do even that, as it would take several precious seconds to get the horses stopped and turned around. Furthermore, they'd be trying to outrun a crazy mutant bear on an uphill road with comparatively tired horses, and David had just noticed one last, important detail: this was a different bear. While the one that attacked them earlier had been covered in blood and mud, this one had relatively clean, black fur. It was also quite a bit smaller and wasn't missing an eye.

He once again hoped Samantha had a better plan than, "let's run straight toward them and see what happens."

She held up a hand to get his attention. More hand signals. Alright, let's hear it, then.

She motioned diagonally off to the left in that same quick chopping motion she had previously used to indicate going fast. Okay then, that would mean something like, "run fast ahead and to the left," David observed. And then Samantha made a motion with her hand that he couldn't quite place. Two fingers pointing down, then she lifted her hand while curling those fingers. He thought for a second, but no translation came to mind.

He didn't have time to figure it out either, because she had moved on to her next hand signal. Now she held her hand up, palm facing forward, with all five fingers splayed out. A second later, she switched to holding up just four fingers. Then three fingers. Then two...

The bear was on the bridge now, running toward them at full speed. It was faster than he had previously thought. The two wolves with glowing eyes had picked up the pace as well, while the third with the broken leg had lagged behind. Samantha's countdown reached "one" right as a small, horribly narrow trail through the bushes became visible to the left of the road. She veered sharply off the road and began flying down the trail.

David followed, hot on her tail. Moments after they left the road, he heard the bear crash into the brush, crunching branches and snapping logs. He and Samantha both hunkered down to avoid getting clotheslined by low branches as they navigated the winding, unmaintained trail, dodging at high speed around boulders and over downed trees. They weren't going nearly as fast as they could on an open road, and they weren't going to maintain their lead for long.

He still trusted Samantha, but he didn't understand how this could possibly be her plan. That one remaining hand sign must have been the key that made this all make sense, because they'd never outrun their pursuers on a trail like this. Plus, they'd eventually need to come right back to the bridge, where the wolves would be waiting. Either that, or they'd have to find some other way across the ravine.

David let his mind work on their river-crossing predicament as they flew down the trail, while also trying to figure out what that two-fingered hand signal could have meant.

Quite suddenly, the trail opened up to a wider, circular area just large enough for the horses to maneuver. It was well hidden from the road by all the trees, but here the plants had been repeatedly torn up, leaving the ground a mess of rocks and dirt, crisscrossed in all directions with dirtbike tire tracks. All around lay discarded bottles and cans; mostly energy drinks and cheap beer. From the circular clearing, a perfectly cleared, perfectly straight path ran slightly downhill directly to the ravine, dead-ending at the rocky cliff that ran alongside the river. A similar track resumed the path on the other side of the ravine, with tire tracks covering every inch.

Oh.

David finally got it, and he wasn't sure he liked the answer.

"Jump." That last hand signal had meant: "Jump."

Samantha didn't pause or even slow at the clearing. She quickly shifted back into her racehorse jockey stance, made that two-toned whistle sound to get Socks's attention as well. Then shouted her emotion-laden, unmistakable command for the horses to hear; more complex this time, but still a wordless set of syllables. Somehow the meaning felt even more urgent, more imperative, more vital, but with an added component suggesting that even mere hesitation would bring the death of horse and rider alike.

Apollo shot down the run-up path, timing his stride and settling into a rhythm that would get him to top speed right before he reached the jump. David slowed Socks to give Apollo several strides of lead, then he slackened the reins and let his horse explode into action with the intense fervor that Samantha's pep talk had inspired.

Samantha guided her horse not up the natural stone ramp that the dirt bikes used, but instead slightly off to the left, where the ground was a bit more flat, the path less stone slick, and the distance across a bit less extreme. Apollo cleared the distance with half a dozen feet to spare, and continued his run up the trail. Behind them, David's mount picked up speed, lengthening her stride a bit to time the jump, while also quickening her pace. He felt an upward jolt as Socks pushed off the ground, then a burst of acceleration as she kicked off with her hind legs, and finally a moment of weightlessness as they soared above the gap. Far below, the river churned and roiled, a misty, roaring abyss of white on black and clear dark blue. And then it was over. With a "clop, clop" his horse reached the other side, having cleared the gap by... oof, not a lot. She had a few feet to spare at least, but a slip would have meant disaster.

On this side of the river, the dirtbike deathwish track had run much closer to the road, so it was only a dozen seconds or so before the trail ended in an open space. David watched as Samantha emerged into the relative light, glanced around, and then twisted in her saddle to look at David, a surprised and urgent expression on her face.

"Go! Go! Go!" she shouted to him, then took off at a run, turning sharply to her left.

David didn't hesitate. He didn't need to know what she saw in order to know what to do. And before even leaving the trail, Socks had already accelerated to a full sprint.

They emerged just past where the wolves continued to savage the human remains. Back along the road, the bear had given up on following the horses and instead was returning to take back its prize, just now crossing the bridge as David looked. However, when Samantha and Apollo had come into view, all six of them took note, then dropped what they were doing to claim the easy, meaty prey instead.

Back on the road and headed in the right direction, the riders settled in for a long run. The bear and the wolves weren't far behind them, but now with a straight and flat road, none of the followers were catching up. All Samantha and David had to do now was outpace and outlast them; nothing would chase them forever.

Or so it seemed, until another, seventh animal appeared in front of them, still off the road to the right.

"Another one? Seriously?" he vaguely heard Samantha shout in disbelief. "Is everything turning into bears now?"

She took preliminary evasive action, speeding up as much as possible and moving to the far left side of the road. David accelerated as well and stuck to her tail. He smelled the same lavender scent as before from Samantha's soap, and he idly wondered whether he'd unconsciously begin to associate lavender with running from bears. Actually, running from one bear in particular.

"First bear, second try," David shouted back to her. The missing eye was unmistakable.

The bear was moving oddly. He'd never seen a bear limping before, but it was clearly favoring its front right leg.

Probably broken from falling off the cliff. David mused. Serves that monster right. Claws twice the size of railway spikes shouldn't be allowed.

It was going to be close once again, as the bear was already in front of them and had just reached the shoulder of the road. If it just ran straight for them, they'd be toast, but that didn't exactly happen. The fall damage must have been significant; broken ribs perhaps, or a broken back? Either way, animal wasn't exactly running. It was definitely positioned to intercept, but its movements were unpredictable.

The riders couldn't afford to slow down to figure out what the bear was doing or dodge in some fancy way, as the pursuit from behind wasn't slowing either. Their most solid hope was in how weirdly the bear in front of them was behaving. It seemed... thoughtful? Confused? Even though it was angry and hateful and could move in quick bursts faster than any reasonable creature should be able, nevertheless it kept pausing, considering, adjusting, like it was trying to figure something out. An animal that size and that temperament making a plan? That didn't bode well.

Then when they were only two seconds away, its remaining eye began to glow fiery, bright red. Red like looking at the sun is red, all shifting, piercing, painful colors with only the glowing halo of the indirect image to tell you what color you must have seen.

In half a second, the animal reached the middle of the road, then swiped at the air with its massive paw. With the bear's gesture, red light splashed across the air above the road in one fluid burst, like a bucket of sparkling, glowing blood splattering against a vertical pane of glass.

The globby, streaky barrier was far from elegant and anything but straight, but it was huge. It covered nearly the width of the entire road, down to a foot above the pavement, and up to nearly eye level. If they'd had a few more yards to prepare, the horses probably could have jumped over it, probably. But the barrier went up way too fast for anything to prepare.

David was too far back to see exactly how it happened, but a series of waves shot forward from Samantha's position. He had trouble making out even what it was, but he saw the ripples in the air and the dust kicked up by the force. It looked like a shimmering heat-haze in the shape of a series of v-shaped snow plow blades stacked one behind another. When they hit the barrier, the barrier blew into little pieces that rapidly dissipated. First it shattered into shards like glass, then those coalesced into glowing drops like mercury, and finally the globules boiled off into glowing red vapor, all within a fraction of a second before any pieces even hit the ground.

As the barrier was smashed into nothingness and the horses moved through it unimpeded, the bear lunged to intercept their path. It had a decent chance of critically injuring Apollo with those cheater-length claws, but more seriously still, Socks was about to get torn to shreds, especially if the bear focused his attention on David instead of Samantha.

This time, rather than simply evading, Samantha looked to her right as she approached and flung out her hand, palm first toward the monster. She had her head turned slightly to the side, enough that David saw the same flash of green in her eye that he'd seen so briefly yesterday.

In that same moment, as the bear took a step, the space around the shoulder of its left front leg shimmered with the same heat-haze distortion as before. As the monster came down to put weight on that arm, it all just kept moving. The arm continued forward no longer attached, while the bear continued downward, smashing chest-first and then face-first into the road.

Less than a second later, both horses passed by the stricken monster, and continued on the road without further impedance. David ventured a glance back before the next turn in the road to see that the fallen bear had taken the undivided attention of all six of their pursuers.

The road quieted as they slowed back to normal their travel speed. Having lost sight of the pack of beasts, they relied more on sound to determine whether pursuit had resumed. Within five minutes, they reached the four-lane highway. They kept moving until they were certain they were in the clear, then stopped to check the horses for any hidden injuries.

David hopped down and began the shortened inspection he'd done thousands of times during his time in Alaska. He visually inspected for blood, he ran his hand over the horse's fur where the skin tended to bunch and around edges of the saddle. He checked the bottoms of her hooves for cuts, watched her gait for signs of pain as she walked a few steps, and a dozen other little checks. They'd do more thorough inspections when they got the saddles off, but finding problems early was always preferable.

A few feet away, Samantha dismounted as well. Not the acrobatic vault she did so often, but a cautious, slow slide down to her feet. She took two careful steps, then her knees buckled and she was down on her hands, heaving heavy breaths.

Apollo was there in an instant, and she leaned back on her knees and sat on her feet. He pressed his head to her face and chest and nuzzled her up and down as if to lift her spirits by sheer physical force if necessary. She threw her arms around the horse's head and whispered something into his ear.

"Are you hurt?" David asked, dropping to one knee on the side of her not already occupied by a huge horse.

"It's just..." she said, breathing fast and shallow, "I'm fine, just a little shocked is all."

"We're in no rush right now. Want me to look Apollo over while you catch your breath?"

"I'm a badass, remember?" she said, looking up with an impish grin, "badasses don't need to catch their breath."

"Okay, little miss badass," he chuckled, "you go on and ignore physiology with your bad self."

"That's Mistress Badass to you, sir."

"Oh," he leaned back, "and what sort of Badassery might the Mistress be interested in today?"

"The kind no mortal may dream, my good sir," she grinned.

"Yeah, that was really something," David observed with a chucked, standing back up and taking a step back to give her some space. "I wasn't expecting to do half of those things today."

Her impish grin dropped and her entire cheerful front shattered for just a moment. The smile came right back, but it looked forced and incomplete, like she was trying to drag her emotions by the nose.

"I messed that up, didn't I? What the hell was I thinking?"

"We survived," David shrugged, "All's well that--"

"Apollo trusted me," she interrupted. "He didn't even once question my instructions. He's such a good boy." She gave the horse's head an extra squeeze, and for a moment her sad smile glowed with genuine joy, then it cracked again. "But I could have gotten him killed. It's a miracle I didn't break one of his legs with that stunt. That was all so stupid of me."

"The situation was impossible." David shook his head. "There weren't any right answers. Every choice could have been deadly, but we survived. Which means--"

"It was all happening so fast!" Samantha's voice took on a hint of panic. "I didn't have any time to think! I had to make one decision after another without a second thought, and I just kept doing whatever seemed best in the moment without even stopping to think if it really was a good idea to begin with. I didn't even think about who could be hurt. I didn't think. I couldn't think. Sure, it all happened to work out, but what if--"

"NOPE! None of that."

Samantha blinked. She opened her mouth to counter, then cocked her head to the side. She'd been interrupting him at every step, but the confusion from David interrupting her apparently left her brain in a stun loop. He didn't know how to help with half of what she was talking about, but this was a point he was clear on.

"No what-ifs," he asserted. "That's the rule. We'll debrief later and see what we could have done better. There's usually at least something. But we don't ever what-if while we're working, okay?"

She processed for a second, then her eyes focused on him and she nodded.

"Help up?" he asked, holding out his hand for her to take. She shook her head "no" and David shrugged and nodded, giving her some time to think.

The sun had risen completely now, no longer casting the sky in orange and purple. Still, the day had barely begun, and the morning mist still filled up the lowlands on the far side of the highway, like small, frightened clouds hiding between the trees from the encroaching light of dawn.

Few birds sang anywhere nearby, though he didn't know whether that was due to the apocalypse or simply because birds didn't normally hang out near the interstate. He'd never stopped here before. It felt weirdly irresponsible and transgressive to just stand there in the middle of the highway. It went against all the training and instinct he had developed over his life. What if a car came speeding around the corner? "What if," indeed.

"A few more minutes maybe and then we probably should get going," David said as Samantha got up and started looking around at the scenery. "It's still a ways to Cedartop, and we'll want to get there while it's still quiet."

Samantha looked over toward the west and crinkled her nose in concern. "Yeah. I sure hope it's not still on fire."