March 15, 2010
Rain splattered in sheets in the balmy spring night, the street lamps gave off a yellow glow through the old windows of the same warehouse where several years ago the Country Bears had been held captive. Inside of the old office of the now abandoned building a single lamp illuminated the table where Reed Thimple, older and hair graying, tapped his fingers against the table surface while staring irritably at the newspaper that concealed whoever it was sitting opposite of Thimple. The only thing breaking the tense silence was the pouring of the rain and the tapping of Thimple's fingers against the table.
"Did ya call Holland?" A deep voice with a southern drawl said from behind the newspaper with a hint of a growl.
"Yeah, I did," Reed Thimple said in response.
"And?" The voice asked, getting a little more agitated, "did he find the documents in the old files?"
On the outside of the newspaper facing Thimple a large picture adorned the page, a picture of the Country Bears posed all together in front of their bus during their Summer Celebration Tour last year while in Indianapolis. The band's youngest member, Beary Barrington, the then seventeen year old cub stood in the middle of the group wearing a black hoodie and khaki short. Next to him was a much older bear, the manager Henry Taylor was wearing his typical green velvet vest and his infamous necktie with a brown hat. It was apparent that the elderly bear was exhausted as dark circles could be seen even in the picture, but he was smiling warmly with a paw on Beary's shoulder and Beary having a paw on his back and both bears were smiling at the camera as well as the others in the band.
Above everyone in the picture's head was a number written in pen on the picture. Above Henry's head was the number 1, above Ted Bedderhead was the number 2, Zeb Zoober had a 3 above his, above Ted's brother Fred was the number 4, above Tennessee O'Neil's head was a 5 and above Trixie O'Neil's head was a 6 while the word last was written over the seventeen year-old's head.
The paper was lowered and a bear with auburn fur with grey along his muzzle was revealed. He had cold blue eyes and wore a white dress shirt and a black suit jacket but no pants. His glasses surrounded his uncaring eyes that stared at Thimple across the table.
"Be patient," the bear said coldly and calmly while noticing Thimple's impatience and irritation, "if it wasn't for me, you would probably still be rotting in prison for attempted kidnapping and tax evasion." The bear said while folding the paper and putting it to the side.
After the Bears had gotten back together, Thimple was arrested after the bears pressed charges on him, but shortly before his trial the bear named Zacariah who was currently sitting across from him saw what he called "potential" in Thimple and hired very expensive and good lawyers to fight his case for him and got him only sentenced to one year in prison. But Thimple had grown impatient for Zacariah's plan to come into action.
"It's been SEVEN YEARS!" Thimple shouted while slamming his fist into the table and standing up in anger. The bear, Zacariah, didn't respond to Thimple's outburst but instead turned his head to another voice seemingly coming out of nowhere.
"Don't shoot," said the long haired Rip Holland holding his hands up sarcastically. Walking next to him in a business suit was essentially a much younger version of Rip: tall, lanky and red hair though his was done with a short business cut.
"Holland," Zacariah said getting up, "I take it that this is your grand-kid? Can he be trusted?"
"Yeah, he can be trusted." Rip said arrogantly, "As long as we keep our cut."
"Don't be stupid," Zacariah said "you both can bicker and bitch over the money, I'm doing this for what those Bears stole from me all those years ago," Zacariah said walking up to the twenty-three year old and scanned him up and down, towering over the younger human. He looked for any sign of weakness through his glasses. With a curt nod and a mumbling of "he'll do," after that he walked to the other side of the office to a table with several surgical instruments on it along with a bottle of chloroform and tranquilizer darts.
"The old man is first," Zacariah said bluntly, "what I need you two," Zacariah said turning around and pointing at Thimple and Rip, "is for you two to finalize a…partnership and start getting under Taylor's skin for the entitlements due to the copyright, thank God Taylor hasn't realized that the copyright still belongs to Holland, otherwise this would be over before it started." Zacariah said, "Kid, do you know your role?"
"Yes," Drake Holland said stepping forward, "I act like a 'salesman' and figure out if the Bears have any sort of daily schedule, and see when the old man is likely to be alone."
Zacariah nodded as an insane grin spread across his muzzle at the idea of finally getting his payback against the Bears, Taylor in particular.
"I cant wait to get started," Thimple said excitedly.
"Neither can I," Zacariah said while holding a bottle of chloroform, "and trust me, for those damned Bears, it's going to be a painful separation."