p dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;"A Bear for Dinner/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"She was getting torn apart, blood dripping from her arms and legs as the bear stood over her. Susie lied down on the cold, hard ground, shaking, and gasping for air. How did it all come to this you may ask? It all started with a weekend camping trip with her best friends./p
p dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;"* * */p
p dir="ltr"Susie Cooper had just turned nineteen years old last month. She was a freshman at the University of Idaho and loved traveling and hanging out with friends. Speaking of her friends, she had three close ones- Emma, Liam, and Noah. They had been best friends since highschool and were inseparable. They had been planning the ultimate camping trip since then, and it was finally going to happen this weekend. Susie and Liam had been dating up until last week when they broke up. They had gotten into a huge fight, but they were still going on the camping trip. They couldn't cancel, they had been waiting too long for this!/p
p dir="ltr"Susie, Emma, Liam, and Noah were all sitting around the campfire, the smoke of the fire made it hard to see each other on this cold, fall night. They had just made delicious s'mores, and had been talking for hours about the latest gossip from college./p
p dir="ltr""Does anyone have any scary stories?" Emma asked nervously as she hovered her hands over the fireplace and glanced at her friends. She was getting sick of the gossip and wanted to talk about something more exciting./p
p dir="ltr"Liam nodded. He flicked on his flashlight and shined the light under his face, making his pale skin even more ghostly than usual. This also cast an eerie shadow that gave the group an unsettling feeling as they all focus on him. Liam turned to the group and began to share a very frightening story that took place in these woods twenty years ago./p
p dir="ltr""It was a cold, fall night, just like this one... a man by the name of James Smith had been alone in these woods. James was a camp counselor back when this place used to be a popular kid's camp. He had decided to stay the night- one day after the kids had already left, but would regret his decision forever. He set up his tent for bed, but then things got bad. He heard a noise in the distance, but blew it off and went back to sleep." Liam paused and held his breath before continuing. "In the middle of the night, a bear broke into his tent, completely chewing up James' body. All that was left was a pool of blood. To this day, no one has ever found the remains of his body. That is why no one comes here anymore."/p
p dir="ltr""Wow, Liam, that story was so fake and you know it." Susie said as she rolled her eyes. "If that story was true, it would had already been all over the news!"/p
p dir="ltr"Liam sighed and shook his head at Susie. "The camp tried to cover it up, I heard about it from my aunt who used to work here. At first, she was against us coming here but after telling her how long we've been planning this trip, she agreed to let us go."/p
p dir="ltr""Yeah right! I totally believe that" Susie then smirked, flipping her soft, blonde hair, loosening the sky blue ribbon she had tied in her hair. "LOL! Are you sure you aren't just dumb?"/p
p dir="ltr""Really Susie? That was totally unnecessary... Just wait until it happens to you." Noah retorted, taking the side of Liam./p
p dir="ltr""What? So I'm not even allowed to say my opinion?" Susie glared at Liam and then at Noah./p
p dir="ltr""Just let him tell his story without causing a fight, jeez Susie." Emma uttered under her breath, annoyed with her friend./p
p dir="ltr""I'm out. There's no point in having this trip if it's going to be like this." Liam stood up. "I think there's something wrong with Susie today."/p
p dir="ltr"Emma and Noah agreed "Yeah, have fun getting eaten by a bear." They chuckled and walked away to Susie's white jeep that Noah had snatched the keys of./p
p dir="ltr""Hey, that's my car you know!" Susie screamed but they had already driven away./p
p dir="ltr""Whatever, I can stay one night until I get help." Susie headed back to her tent to sleep for the night. There was a rustling sound, coming from the woods. Susie sat up, startled. "Liam's story was fake anyway." She mutters to herself, pulling back her blanket to go back to sleep./p
p dir="ltr"Another rustling sound came from the woods. But this time it was closer. It was getting louder and louder. Susie was alone, and didn't feel safe anymore. Her heart started to race. She slowly sat up and peered out of her little tent hole. What she saw was a big, black eye staring back at her. Could it be the bear Liam was talking about? Susie squinted and realized that the eyes did not belong to a bear..they belonged to a human! He had cold, dark eyes, shaggy hair, and a big brown beard./p
p dir="ltr""...Um..Hi! My name is James. Sorry to bother you but I have something I need to tell you." Susie's jaw dropped. "OMG. James Smith?! From the story?!"/p
p dir="ltr""Story? Oh, yes! That would be me!" James grinned and pointed at himself./p
p dir="ltr""What are you doing here?! Aren't you...dead!?"/p
p dir="ltr""Oh that…. Actually, people got that story messed up." He scratched his head. "I honestly don't know how people changed the story so much."/p
p dir="ltr""What do you mean?"/p
p dir="ltr""I'm saving people from the attacks by the grizzly bears around here, you see. I live near this place and I realized that many campers don't know about the bears here so I usually come here to warn them."/p
p dir="ltr""What? Grizzly bears? What do I do then?! My car got taken and I'm stranded here. There's not even signal on my phone..."/p
p dir="ltr""Hmm…. Well, you can stay with me for awhile? At least until you get some help?"/p
p dir="ltr""Oh! Sure, I'd love to! Thanks James, that helps a lot." Susie exclaimed, her face brightening up./p
p dir="ltr""Alright then! Follow me, I'll take you to my place!" James held out his hand and helped Susie up as they both walked out of the tent and into the dark night./p
p dir="ltr"They headed off through a trail in the woods until they ended up at an old, rusty cabin. It had a horrible smell of rotting meat. Susie scrunched her nose but didn't say anything. She could survive one night, she thought to herself. James opened the door and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. Again he flipped the switch but there was no response. The lights were broken./p
p dir="ltr""Oh, all of the lights are out again. I'd have to go fix them from the basement.." James scratched his chin./p
p dir="ltr""Oh that's no problem. I'll just stay up here by myself." Susie replied./p
p dir="ltr""The thing is, I'm going to need your help. Do you mind holding the flashlight for me while I fix the lights?"/p
p dir="ltr""That's fine, I'll help." The smell was really bothering her. Maybe it'll smell better in the basement./p
p dir="ltr"As they descended the stairs the smell grew stronger and stronger. Susie had to plug her nose, but James didn't seem to mind, in fact, he seemed happy as he muttered about something under his breath./p
p dir="ltr"They walk down a long narrow hallway, with a small light at the end of the hallway, which confused Susie, since James said that all of the lights were out, but she wasn't concerned. She was more concerned about that awful smell./p
p dir="ltr""Hey James, do you mind me asking what that terrible smell is?"/p
p dir="ltr""Ah about that…. It's probably the neighbors. I heard they kept some kind of untrained pet that doesn't know how to clean up after itself …..so that must be it!" James pointed to the where the lights are. "We're almost there."/p
p dir="ltr"Before she could see what was under the light, two cold hands suddenly striked Susie's back, she felt a big shove and was launched forward into a deep, dug out hole. She began to fall down. She sees something dark move below her as she falls. Susie lets out a loud shriek as she hits the cement with a large thud. She is out cold. Moments later she wakes up on a cold cement pit of James' basement./p
p dir="ltr""James what happened!? Help!"/p
p dir="ltr"She glanced around only to see skulls and bones, along with bodies of what seemed to be the remains of previous campers. She sees a name tag on one of the corpses. Although faded, it read 'James Smith'. Suddenly everything made sense and Susie felt dumb for not realizing sooner. James wasn't who he said he was. The story was true, a man named James Smith was killed and never seen again. The 'James' she was talking to wasn't really named James. 'James' lied about the lights not working. There was a light on right above her. He lured her into the basement. The smell is coming from right here. 'James' doesn't have neighbors. There's no way he could, he lived in the middle of nowhere. She looked up and in front of her she sees three enormous grizzly bears hovering over her./p
p dir="ltr""HELP!" She screams at the top of her lungs for help, but it's no use. She is in the basement of a cabin in the middle of the woods. Susie knew that but desperately, she kept trying. "EMMA? NOAH? ..LIAM?" Susie gasped for air and her voice cracked "...anyone?"./p
p dir="ltr"No one answered her calls. Not even the shaggy haired man who peered at her from above. No, Susie realized. That's wrong, 'James' wasn't looking at her but he was looking at the creatures getting closer and closer to her, his eyes full of affection. The bears held her down and their mouths widen, showing off their sharp teeth. Susie tried to escape but she was frozen in fear. She heard 'James' laughing from above. He was no help. Susie was destined to die, there was no way to escape it./p
p dir="ltr"She was getting torn apart, blood dripping from her arms and legs as the bear stood over her. Susie lied down on the cold, hard ground, shaking, and gasping for air. She glanced at the pieces of flesh that been forcefully ripped off her, flatten, under the the weight of the bear and before she knew it, everything went black and the pain disappeared./p
p dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;"* * */p
p dir="ltr"Two weeks pass by, and the group had not heard from Susie ever since the fight. Liam dials Susie's number as Emma and Noah nervously watch- but there was no answer. They start to panic. They call Susie's mother- but she was just as worried. Susie had not talked to her mother since the trip and her mother too, had no idea where Susie had been. Feeling a mountain of guilt build up in his stomach, Liam decides to revisit the camp, thinking that Susie must had stayed there because she was still upset with how he had acted./p
p dir="ltr"During the two weeks, Liam decided that the reason for their break-up was childish and wanted to make up with Susie. After stopping by the flower shop, he drove back to the old camp. He pulls up in Susie's white Jeep, and reluctantly walks towards where he had seen her last. A sigh of relief comes when he sees all of her stuff at the campsite. He walks over,/p
p dir="ltr""Susie?"/p
p dir="ltr"After getting no response, Liam peers into the tent. His heart drops and the bouquet of roses he had planned to give her slips out of his hand. Susie was gone, and all that was left was a skull, neatly wrapped with a bow by a sky blue ribbon that held traces of dry blood. Cold sweat runs down Liam's back as he feels a shadow creep up behind him./p
p dir="ltr""So, which one are you? Liam or Noah?" An unfamiliar voice calls out./p
p dir="ltr"Slowly turning his head towards the direction of the voice, Liam catches a glimpse of a cold set of black eyes before he gets knocked out./p
p dir="ltr""Well, it doesn't matter. You'll make a nice breakfast for my precious, little children..." The man lets out an eerie, evil laugh as he throws Liam over his left shoulder, trotting through the woods towards the same cabin that Susie stayed in./p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"She was getting torn apart, blood dripping from her arms and legs as the bear stood over her. Susie lied down on the cold, hard ground, shaking, and gasping for air. How did it all come to this you may ask? It all started with a weekend camping trip with her best friends./p
p dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;"* * */p
p dir="ltr"Susie Cooper had just turned nineteen years old last month. She was a freshman at the University of Idaho and loved traveling and hanging out with friends. Speaking of her friends, she had three close ones- Emma, Liam, and Noah. They had been best friends since highschool and were inseparable. They had been planning the ultimate camping trip since then, and it was finally going to happen this weekend. Susie and Liam had been dating up until last week when they broke up. They had gotten into a huge fight, but they were still going on the camping trip. They couldn't cancel, they had been waiting too long for this!/p
p dir="ltr"Susie, Emma, Liam, and Noah were all sitting around the campfire, the smoke of the fire made it hard to see each other on this cold, fall night. They had just made delicious s'mores, and had been talking for hours about the latest gossip from college./p
p dir="ltr""Does anyone have any scary stories?" Emma asked nervously as she hovered her hands over the fireplace and glanced at her friends. She was getting sick of the gossip and wanted to talk about something more exciting./p
p dir="ltr"Liam nodded. He flicked on his flashlight and shined the light under his face, making his pale skin even more ghostly than usual. This also cast an eerie shadow that gave the group an unsettling feeling as they all focus on him. Liam turned to the group and began to share a very frightening story that took place in these woods twenty years ago./p
p dir="ltr""It was a cold, fall night, just like this one... a man by the name of James Smith had been alone in these woods. James was a camp counselor back when this place used to be a popular kid's camp. He had decided to stay the night- one day after the kids had already left, but would regret his decision forever. He set up his tent for bed, but then things got bad. He heard a noise in the distance, but blew it off and went back to sleep." Liam paused and held his breath before continuing. "In the middle of the night, a bear broke into his tent, completely chewing up James' body. All that was left was a pool of blood. To this day, no one has ever found the remains of his body. That is why no one comes here anymore."/p
p dir="ltr""Wow, Liam, that story was so fake and you know it." Susie said as she rolled her eyes. "If that story was true, it would had already been all over the news!"/p
p dir="ltr"Liam sighed and shook his head at Susie. "The camp tried to cover it up, I heard about it from my aunt who used to work here. At first, she was against us coming here but after telling her how long we've been planning this trip, she agreed to let us go."/p
p dir="ltr""Yeah right! I totally believe that" Susie then smirked, flipping her soft, blonde hair, loosening the sky blue ribbon she had tied in her hair. "LOL! Are you sure you aren't just dumb?"/p
p dir="ltr""Really Susie? That was totally unnecessary... Just wait until it happens to you." Noah retorted, taking the side of Liam./p
p dir="ltr""What? So I'm not even allowed to say my opinion?" Susie glared at Liam and then at Noah./p
p dir="ltr""Just let him tell his story without causing a fight, jeez Susie." Emma uttered under her breath, annoyed with her friend./p
p dir="ltr""I'm out. There's no point in having this trip if it's going to be like this." Liam stood up. "I think there's something wrong with Susie today."/p
p dir="ltr"Emma and Noah agreed "Yeah, have fun getting eaten by a bear." They chuckled and walked away to Susie's white jeep that Noah had snatched the keys of./p
p dir="ltr""Hey, that's my car you know!" Susie screamed but they had already driven away./p
p dir="ltr""Whatever, I can stay one night until I get help." Susie headed back to her tent to sleep for the night. There was a rustling sound, coming from the woods. Susie sat up, startled. "Liam's story was fake anyway." She mutters to herself, pulling back her blanket to go back to sleep./p
p dir="ltr"Another rustling sound came from the woods. But this time it was closer. It was getting louder and louder. Susie was alone, and didn't feel safe anymore. Her heart started to race. She slowly sat up and peered out of her little tent hole. What she saw was a big, black eye staring back at her. Could it be the bear Liam was talking about? Susie squinted and realized that the eyes did not belong to a bear..they belonged to a human! He had cold, dark eyes, shaggy hair, and a big brown beard./p
p dir="ltr""...Um..Hi! My name is James. Sorry to bother you but I have something I need to tell you." Susie's jaw dropped. "OMG. James Smith?! From the story?!"/p
p dir="ltr""Story? Oh, yes! That would be me!" James grinned and pointed at himself./p
p dir="ltr""What are you doing here?! Aren't you...dead!?"/p
p dir="ltr""Oh that…. Actually, people got that story messed up." He scratched his head. "I honestly don't know how people changed the story so much."/p
p dir="ltr""What do you mean?"/p
p dir="ltr""I'm saving people from the attacks by the grizzly bears around here, you see. I live near this place and I realized that many campers don't know about the bears here so I usually come here to warn them."/p
p dir="ltr""What? Grizzly bears? What do I do then?! My car got taken and I'm stranded here. There's not even signal on my phone..."/p
p dir="ltr""Hmm…. Well, you can stay with me for awhile? At least until you get some help?"/p
p dir="ltr""Oh! Sure, I'd love to! Thanks James, that helps a lot." Susie exclaimed, her face brightening up./p
p dir="ltr""Alright then! Follow me, I'll take you to my place!" James held out his hand and helped Susie up as they both walked out of the tent and into the dark night./p
p dir="ltr"They headed off through a trail in the woods until they ended up at an old, rusty cabin. It had a horrible smell of rotting meat. Susie scrunched her nose but didn't say anything. She could survive one night, she thought to herself. James opened the door and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. Again he flipped the switch but there was no response. The lights were broken./p
p dir="ltr""Oh, all of the lights are out again. I'd have to go fix them from the basement.." James scratched his chin./p
p dir="ltr""Oh that's no problem. I'll just stay up here by myself." Susie replied./p
p dir="ltr""The thing is, I'm going to need your help. Do you mind holding the flashlight for me while I fix the lights?"/p
p dir="ltr""That's fine, I'll help." The smell was really bothering her. Maybe it'll smell better in the basement./p
p dir="ltr"As they descended the stairs the smell grew stronger and stronger. Susie had to plug her nose, but James didn't seem to mind, in fact, he seemed happy as he muttered about something under his breath./p
p dir="ltr"They walk down a long narrow hallway, with a small light at the end of the hallway, which confused Susie, since James said that all of the lights were out, but she wasn't concerned. She was more concerned about that awful smell./p
p dir="ltr""Hey James, do you mind me asking what that terrible smell is?"/p
p dir="ltr""Ah about that…. It's probably the neighbors. I heard they kept some kind of untrained pet that doesn't know how to clean up after itself …..so that must be it!" James pointed to the where the lights are. "We're almost there."/p
p dir="ltr"Before she could see what was under the light, two cold hands suddenly striked Susie's back, she felt a big shove and was launched forward into a deep, dug out hole. She began to fall down. She sees something dark move below her as she falls. Susie lets out a loud shriek as she hits the cement with a large thud. She is out cold. Moments later she wakes up on a cold cement pit of James' basement./p
p dir="ltr""James what happened!? Help!"/p
p dir="ltr"She glanced around only to see skulls and bones, along with bodies of what seemed to be the remains of previous campers. She sees a name tag on one of the corpses. Although faded, it read 'James Smith'. Suddenly everything made sense and Susie felt dumb for not realizing sooner. James wasn't who he said he was. The story was true, a man named James Smith was killed and never seen again. The 'James' she was talking to wasn't really named James. 'James' lied about the lights not working. There was a light on right above her. He lured her into the basement. The smell is coming from right here. 'James' doesn't have neighbors. There's no way he could, he lived in the middle of nowhere. She looked up and in front of her she sees three enormous grizzly bears hovering over her./p
p dir="ltr""HELP!" She screams at the top of her lungs for help, but it's no use. She is in the basement of a cabin in the middle of the woods. Susie knew that but desperately, she kept trying. "EMMA? NOAH? ..LIAM?" Susie gasped for air and her voice cracked "...anyone?"./p
p dir="ltr"No one answered her calls. Not even the shaggy haired man who peered at her from above. No, Susie realized. That's wrong, 'James' wasn't looking at her but he was looking at the creatures getting closer and closer to her, his eyes full of affection. The bears held her down and their mouths widen, showing off their sharp teeth. Susie tried to escape but she was frozen in fear. She heard 'James' laughing from above. He was no help. Susie was destined to die, there was no way to escape it./p
p dir="ltr"She was getting torn apart, blood dripping from her arms and legs as the bear stood over her. Susie lied down on the cold, hard ground, shaking, and gasping for air. She glanced at the pieces of flesh that been forcefully ripped off her, flatten, under the the weight of the bear and before she knew it, everything went black and the pain disappeared./p
p dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;"* * */p
p dir="ltr"Two weeks pass by, and the group had not heard from Susie ever since the fight. Liam dials Susie's number as Emma and Noah nervously watch- but there was no answer. They start to panic. They call Susie's mother- but she was just as worried. Susie had not talked to her mother since the trip and her mother too, had no idea where Susie had been. Feeling a mountain of guilt build up in his stomach, Liam decides to revisit the camp, thinking that Susie must had stayed there because she was still upset with how he had acted./p
p dir="ltr"During the two weeks, Liam decided that the reason for their break-up was childish and wanted to make up with Susie. After stopping by the flower shop, he drove back to the old camp. He pulls up in Susie's white Jeep, and reluctantly walks towards where he had seen her last. A sigh of relief comes when he sees all of her stuff at the campsite. He walks over,/p
p dir="ltr""Susie?"/p
p dir="ltr"After getting no response, Liam peers into the tent. His heart drops and the bouquet of roses he had planned to give her slips out of his hand. Susie was gone, and all that was left was a skull, neatly wrapped with a bow by a sky blue ribbon that held traces of dry blood. Cold sweat runs down Liam's back as he feels a shadow creep up behind him./p
p dir="ltr""So, which one are you? Liam or Noah?" An unfamiliar voice calls out./p
p dir="ltr"Slowly turning his head towards the direction of the voice, Liam catches a glimpse of a cold set of black eyes before he gets knocked out./p
p dir="ltr""Well, it doesn't matter. You'll make a nice breakfast for my precious, little children..." The man lets out an eerie, evil laugh as he throws Liam over his left shoulder, trotting through the woods towards the same cabin that Susie stayed in./p