Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2015 20:49:14 -0500
From: John Evans <housecubct@gmail.com>
Subject: Life Journey: A Werebear Tale. Part 0: The Crumb Trail

Life Journey:  A Werebear's Story.
By.  Housecubct
housecubct@gmail.com

Authors Note: This is largely autobiographical in nature, written as
catharsis. Its the readers job to decide where the fiction stops and
starts.  Special thanks to a Furry Family that I am now a part of.  I could
not have done this with your help.  Sometimes the hardest step is the first
one.


Prologue

It's often said that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  In this
case we would tend to agree.  What has always haunted us is that if
something does not kill you, should you have been in the situation to begin
with?  No worries though, let us tell you ,the reader that this book is a
journey through time, pain, love, and the joy of two guys who found each
other, and then lost each other.  It's a joy that I get to tell you, the
reader, what this book is about.  It's the account of a life, or better
yet, the lives of two people and their journey together.—Marty, Pat,
Alec, David, and George


"All men may, if their will is strong enough, walk in a Beast's shape, for
in their hearts there sleeps a Spirit of the Wild. Come then, if you have
the strength. Come see what manner of Beast waits within yours." -G'Harron


The Crumb Trail: Part Zero

In life, people are prepared for different things. Fate, destiny, everyone
has a different name for it.  Parents attempt to prepare their children,
hoping to give them the skills they will need to survive.  Matt had often
thanked his father and mother for those skills, sparring with his father
and meditation with his mother.  Working out for long hours on Saturdays
and being taken to the local pub, he would "play fight" with his father's
friends.  He never found it strange that he was sparring with men his
father's age or much older.  Most of them were British, French, Polish, or
Canadian expatriates that hung around after the WWII, married local girls
and started families.  Those men formed Matt's extended family, and he
mourned each of their deaths.  Those skills saved Matt's life, and the
lives of others on more than a few occasions.  The young man had used those
abilities to become an asset to his co workers. This had earned him
accolades throughout his military career.  However, that career was now
over, merely falling sand in the hourglass of time and life.

His last injury had placed him in the unable to deploy category and forced
his exit from active duty much faster than expected.  The send off at his
retirement had been nice enough, but it still left a hole in his life.
Matt always knew he could not stay forever, but he loved what he did and
the difference that he made.  He protected people; he saw to their needs
helping them through whatever they were dealing with.  That had been enough
to motivate him through multiple severe injuries including twelve titanium
screws, several plates in numerous major bones, more stitches than he could
count, and so many sprains it became a running joke with coworkers, family,
and friends.

From outside, the squeal of tractor-trailer brakes snapped Matt out of his
reverie and back to the present.  The semi-truck he had hitched a ride on
stopped at the Petro Canada truck stop in Chase.  The driver let Matt out
of the trailer and wished him well. He had been riding in an empty
cattle/livestock car since the cab was full of the driver's family.  The
driver and his family were taking a vacation after he dropped the load of
cattle; Chase had been his final destination. In a short stroke of luck,
the driver was also a retired military veteran and had noticed the sage
colored fleece Matt had been wearing.  They had actually been deployed to
the same locations, although at different times.

As Matt moved after sitting for so long his whole body cracked and snapped,
the cold air cut through him all the way to his bones.  The pins that held
most of his limbs together ached.  The cold reminded him of every fall,
bruise, break, or sprain he had ever had.  After grabbing his pack, and
slinging it over his shoulder he made his way across the street to the
service station office.  The area around the station was pretty enough;
fairly typical of what he had found in the other Canadian towns he had
visited.

"Hi, I'm looking for maps of the area and lands to the north of here," Matt
asked the very burly, hairy attendant.

"Over there under the coffee counter," remarked the attendant, not even
looking up from his texting as he pointed.

"Thanks!" Matt smiled and walked over.

After looking over several of them, he chose a forestry map that showed
logging roads and trails.  This would be very helpful.  He also picked up a
small tube of toothpaste and a bottle of hand sanitizer while he was there.
"Hey, is there a local job board in this area and a shelter I could crash
in for the night?" he asked the clerk.

Looking up at him, the clerk smirked, "Up the street six blocks, take a
left.  The job board is part of the shelter."

"Thanks, hey one more thing ... have there been any bear sightings recently
or within the past year?" Matt locked eyes with the clerk.

"Bears, you say?  No ... no, I've lived here for a long time; we haven't
seen any bears in this area for some time. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I'm searching for a location mentioned in several stories I read.  I
guess I'm on a fact-finding journey," Matt said, never breaking eye
contact.  They smiled at each other; the clerk wished him well and told him
to be safe as he exited the store. Matt turned and looked back at the
clerk.  The guy was husky, to say the least, looked to be in his late 40's
maybe early 50's, and wore a red button down shirt with black
suspenders. He was handsome and reminded him of Luke.

As Matt walked he thought back to the argument with Luke a few months
before.  It was bad, the worst they had ever had.  Luke was upset with
Matt's obsessions over finding locations and people mentioned in the
stories.  Luke dismissed the stories as online-fiction and passed the whole
thing off as coincidence.  He thought Matt's focus needed to be on their
business, not this silly search. Finding these locations and people had led
Matt to call in favors and shrug off his household responsibilities.  He
would spend hours online looking over the data and cross-referencing every
fact he could.  It would have been easy with the tools and resources he had
before he retired, but being a civilian had its drawbacks.

Matt gathered land sale data from open records searches across the United
States and Canada.  He even cross-referenced animal sightings in relation
to the mentioned locations, using them to determine bear movements.  He
poured over aerial photographs and forestry survey charts.  Matt contacted
a friend that worked at the CDC in Washington to gather death statistics
for missing persons.  Matt went further; contacting park rangers and animal
control officers to inquire about bear sightings and unexplained deaths.

Matt did as he was trained to do; he extrapolated the data into core facts,
adjusted for human error and displayed the data out into a visual model
format.  Even after seeing all the evidence and validated data that Matt
gathered, Luke would not even consider believing him.  He had begged Luke
to come with him during their seasonal work break to visit the locations to
see if it was fictitious or if Matt had really followed a trail and found
something.  Luke had harshly refused.

A passing police car snapped Matt into the most painful of the memories
from the last few months.  He remembered Luke telling him to leave, saying
he was going to take his daughter, Susan, and raise her since her father
was a nut case.  Luke told Matt that he had lost his mind and that the
military should have committed him two years ago, and then told him to
leave.  Luke had exploded, shoving Matt into a wall.  A momentary flash of
anger had crossed Matt's face.  Luke yelled again, told him that it was
only a matter of time until he cracked.  Matt, as a defensive mechanism,
shut off his emotions, became stoic and gave in.  Luke was everything to
Matt.  Luke was the reason he survived his last tour.  That night, Matt
left.  He took his laptop, bug-out bag, passport, all the cash he had and
walked out.  Matt knew he would return eventually, vindicated or dead, but
either way he was going to find the truth and see where the crumb-trail
ended.

Matt arrived at the shelter and checked in.  The attendant was nice, and
Matt had another light conversation about why he was in the area.  After he
grabbed a bite of hot food he was shown to his cot where he slept fully
clothed, with his pack strapped to his chest.  It was peaceful, but still
he felt vulnerable in this space.  It reminded him of so many transient
deployment-holding areas.  Lines of cots, no security, and people piled on
top of one another.

When Matt slept, the dreams came.  The dreams had been more and more
intense since Matt left home.  Matt had rationalized it was the separation
and intense focus on survival and discovery.  Although it had been a
horrible experience, it was a liberating one as well.  He was becoming
self-confident again.  Matt was gaining back his physical prowess, and it
felt good.  His mind and senses had sharpened, and he actually felt his
body being re-tuned.  In the dreams, bears of all shapes, sizes, and colors
would walk past him, look over at him and then continue walking. They were
always walking away from him, leaving him behind.  As the bears passed, he
heard the jingle of bells.  The bells would become louder and louder until
Matt woke up.

The morning came, and Matt woke rested, but somehow deeply restless.
Something was tugging on Matt to go faster, to go search, to be anywhere
but where he was. After thanking the shelter supervisor, he left to find an
ATM.  On the walk over to the local bank, he was struck with the feeling he
was being watched or followed.  Matt pushed that thought away, looked
behind him a few times and kept walking.  Finding the ATM he withdrew his
last $20.  It would be that way until his pension hit the bank.  He would
have to buy staples, and stretch the funds as far as he could.  It would
seem that trapping, catching, or scavenging the remainder of his food would
have to suffice.  It was going to be a long nineteen days.  Taking out the
local town map, he oriented himself and started to make his way out of
town.

Along the way, he stopped at several diners and service stations, asking if
anyone had seen the pond he was looking for; or if any Bears had been seen
in the area.  At the edge of town he spied a coffee shop nestled beside a
service station, almost unnoticed except for the sign, which was a tree of
life with two Bears walking under it. Curious!  Entering, the waiter looked
up and motioned for the small man to sit at the end of the counter.
Walking up, the waiter looked directly into Matt's eyes and asked if he
needed to eat.  Matt nodded but said nothing.  The waiter brought back a
large bowl of cereal, whole milk, fruit and coffee.  The waiter asked a few
more questions about Matt and why he was in such a remote part of
Canada. The waiter's voice was soothing him, calming him, putting him at
ease; the scent in the shop was inviting and somehow nearly intoxicating.
Through the conversation, the waiter was pulling much more information out
of him that he would have usually given up.

At the end of the conversation the waiter grabbed Matt's hand tightly
locking eyes with him, "Whatever you are looking for, I hope you find it."
Matt nodded smiling but kept his silence.

Matt noticed that the waiter was actually the owner and was an average
height, hairy guy.  His beard was closely trimmed, and his hands had just
as much hair as his chest and face.  Something about the man put Matt at
ease.  Matt's crotch twitched, and he had to reposition himself, blushing
as he did so.  In the months since Matt left Luke, he had not had a single
orgasm.  He only had eyes for Luke, but something about this man piqued his
interest. Before his mind distracted him further, he finished his food and
quickly got up to leave. Grabbing a pen from the counter, he wrote "Thank
You!" on a napkin, laid $10 under it and left.

Outside the air was cool and crisp; which brought Matt back into focus.
While making his way out of the town and toward the mountains, Matt passed
a grocery store where he noticed that he was being watched by a local
police officer.

"Hello Sir, do you have a few minutes to talk?" Matt asked, bending forward
so he could look into the window of the cruiser, deciding to make the first
move before the officer could question him.

"Yes, let me get out so I can talk to you," replied the officer. Matt
noticed two things; the man was just as hairy as the men he had met in the
diner and service station, and just as attractive.  He was at least six
feet tall, broad shouldered, and had a belly but he carried it well.  "So
what can I do for you?"

"Um ... I'm looking for a pond, stream fed and clear, with a sand beach
around its perimeter ... it might be on someone's property.  Also, I'm
curious if there have been any Bear sightings over the past year or so?"

The officer looked Matt in the eyes silently, before answering his
question.  "I don't recall any location fitting that description, but I'm
not an outdoors kind-of guy, so I wouldn't be the best to ask.  Bears
... well, we haven't seen any close to town in a long time," said the
officer.  He was about to speak again when his radio chirped to life.  The
officer hastily excused himself, climbed into his patrol car, and sped
away.

As he left, Matt watched the car intensely.  He was struck that the answers
he had gathered through the day were similar and expected.  What bugged him
was that of the three places he visited the answer's seemed to match almost
exactly, like they were rehearsed and part of a cover story.  A car honked,
and Matt realized he was standing in a daze, in the way of parking lot
traffic.  Blushing, he excused himself and walked into the store.  His last
$10 would not go far; hopefully it would be enough for some dried meat and
beans.


Please feel free to comment and give me some feedback: at Housecubct on
Bearforest.com or direct email at housecubct@gmail.com

____________________________________________________________________________