Chapter 3

                                                                                                                   Chapter 4

Andrea woke early the next morning, humming to herself as she went through her morning ritual. She was always in grand spirits when there was a good book to read and a whole day to read it. She went about her housework, wanting to finish quickly and get back to Jack and Bowser. She had left them on the way to Jack's mother's house and wanted badly to rejoin them. She wondered if the thing in the trees was truly a bear or, as she suspected, something entirely different. She decided to put off the gardening that she had planned until after lunch and begin reading a bit early. She put her vacuum away in the large closet, slipping the pink, knitted cosy onto its large frame, and went to set up her reading spot.
When the book slipped from its envelope, Andrea let a small sigh of satisfaction issue from her throat. She sat back, pulling open the cover and flipping to chapter three. Pulling her feet beneath her, and twisting a strand of hair, she began to read.
Jack had gone to his mother's house. After a nerve wracking drive along dark winding mountain roads, he had made it, safe and sound. Andrea sighed aloud with relief for the book's protagonist. He was safe, for now at least. Jack's mother had been terribly concerned at his arrival, but Andrea was sure that he could handle it without worrying her too much. Donald Kingsley's protagonists always had a suave way about them. Despite the trouble they went through, they were always clever and sure of themselves.

John didn't know what in the world he was doing here. He should have stayed at home, or in a hotel room. It must have been a bear, he thought, what else could it have been? What about the calls? Was it truly just a prank or was it something more? He looked at the large stack of freshly made waffles, but his appetite had turned and driven the other direction last night.
"Eat up, sweetie. You have to preserve your strength, especially with all the renegade bears out there."
His mother smiled, a good natured, teasing smile that made him grimace. He had told her last night that a bear had scratched up his door and that the police had scared it away. He had spared her the information about the calls, and the figure in the shadows.
"How many claws does a bear have?" he asked, remembering the lids.
His mother looked up at him from the waffles that she continued to make, even though he hadn't yet eaten the ones on his plate.
"Hmm?"
"How many claw marks would you see if a bear were to maul something?"
"If he were clawing your door for instance?" She asked smiling.
He nodded, not wanting to get her going again. She had teased him mercilessly all morning, but then again, he had understated the event to an extreme degree. He knew his mother, however, and if he had told her the truth, she would either be terrified that he was going nuts, or she would just be terrified. He didn't want that if he could avoid it.
"Well, honey, when a bear's paw is out to swat or scratch something, it usually leaves four claw marks."
She brought out her newest painting, a bear at a stream, swatting at a trout mid air. The extended claws numbered four. He was once again amazed at the incredible talent that his mother had. The bear on the page made him feel as though he was looking into a window or a photograph that had been painted over with oil paints. He handed the painting back.
"Your sure?" He asked, feeling stupid the moment that he had asked it.
"How long have you known me?" she asked, waiting patiently with a smile that said he was stupid for asking.
"Ok Mom, I know. It was a silly question."
John spent the next twenty minutes trying to choke down the waffles in spite of his negative appetite, and trying not to notice the waffle bits that his mother kept sneaking to Buster, who was not allowed human food.
He finally finished his meal, to his own amazement, shoving all four waffles that his mother had placed on his plate, down his throat. He had even managed to convince her that the other eight that she had made were unnecessary. She ate one and put the rest in the freezer. While he helped her clean the mess Buster lumbered contentedly about the living room looking for a spot of sunlight in which he could lay. Being in her large Wrightwood home was like a vacation for Buster. He could run up the hill in the snow, eat all the human food that Delia could sneak him and lay in the sun for a contented nap. John wished he were a dog when he saw the way that his mother treated Buster, but then again, she spoiled him all the same.
"Are you going back home to fix the door?"
His mother asked as she slipped a hand cloth featuring a zebra striped chicken back into the handle on the oven.
"Not today, I decided that I want to spend the day with my mother. I'll go back home in the morning. I'll fix the door and finish my gardening then."
He loved his mother, and wanted to stay to make her happy. His mother and father, before he died, had gone to great pains to give him everything. They had helped him get his degree and had given him more house warming gifts than any man deserved when he had finally found his home. Five years back, when his father had passed from a long, consuming cancer, he had made it a ritual to come and stay with his mother once a month at the very least. In practice, he found himself coming to stay about once every week or two.
"Let's go down to the art supply store and then by the home store. I'll buy a new art book for you and a door for me. It'll be a grand old time."
He sounded very chipper to his own ears, but he still couldn't calm the goose flesh that had covered his skin since she had confirmed his fear.
Bears have four claws.

Andrea put the book down and went into the bathroom, she hadn't wanted to stop reading, but when nature called, you either answered or the door got knocked down. When she was done she, washed her hands and looked at the clock, a small cat with eyes that wobbled back and forth as its tail twitched from one side to the next. This was a gift from her mother, the queen of bad taste. Her mother always gave her the most hideous gifts, and then would make her feel guilty if she came for a surprise visit, and they weren't around. Her eyed moved to the singing fish that hung on the opposite wall of the kitchen, another of her mother's infamous gifts. She found herself wishing that her mother had an artistic eye like Jack O'Connel's mother Donna did. Her eyes moved back to the clock and ignored the flurry of movement, trying to focus on the hands.
Ten-thirty.
She returned to her chair and to Jack as a car roared past her house and down the hill.

Jack's cell phone rang.
He stared at the little window that would have told him who was calling, it said ‘Caller Unknown'. A jolt of the unreasonable fear that he had felt during the attacks, hit him again. What if this was the thing again? What if it was coming for him? A shiver ran down his spine.
"What's wrong, sweety? You look pale. Aren't you going to answer your phone?"

John looked at his mothers worried face. Great, he hadn't told his mother the details, so that he could spare her any true fear for him, and here he was, acting like a frightened child. He remembered a song that he had heard years before about a girl who's mother had called to check up, and even though she was out of food and bleeding to death, she still told her mother that everything was fine. Now he followed suit.
"It's nothing, mom. I was just deciding whether I wanted to be bothered or not."
Before she could question him further he pushed the talk button putting an end to the Jamaican island rhythms that emanated from the phone's speaker.
"Hello?" A female voice that he had never heard before came from the other end of the receiver and he held in his sigh of relief, so as not to worry his mother. He let the air out as easily as possible as he heard the woman repeat her greeting and ask if this was John.
"You've got him, how can I help you?"
"Well," she began, sounding a little unsure. "I'm Julie, a friend of Martha and Paul. They have been calling me about every hour on the hour and asking me if I've talked to you, so I thought that I would call you before they decide to move in. I hope you don't find this too forward, but it is the new millennium after all."
John laughed, thrown momentarily by this extremely forward woman. He liked it, but he wasn't sure how to respond. He looked over at his mother, she would ask him endless questions and want to know every aspect of every date, if he talked about dating in front of her. He wasn't sure if this woman was for him, but he didn't want to talk to his mother about his love life, that he knew.
"Not at all." He answered, careful not to say anything too revealing.
"So, did you want to go to dinner sometime? Since I was modern enough to ask, I suppose I will be modern enough to treat as well. So how about it?"
He laughed again. She really was a modern girl, he had never had a girl both ask him out and offer to pay as well.
"How can I say no to that offer?" He asked, forgetting his mother's presence for a moment.
"How about tomorrow — noon?"
"That's not dinner, that's lunch." He teased.
"So it is. How about it? We can go to a dark restaurant, and have them pull the shades so we can pretend it's dinner if you like."
"Ok, tomorrow, noon."
"You know where Amanderos is?"
"Off the Fifteen in Hesperia?"
"Exactly, see you there."
She hung up without waiting for a reply. What an odd woman, he liked her already.
"Who was that?" Delia asked
"Oh, I was just setting up a meeting for work." He said, trying to sound nonchalant.
"What's her name?"
Her knowing smile made him cringe. He had been so obviously intrigued that his mother had known instantly, but he hadn't been able to help himself, she had thrown him. "Just a work meeting mom, nothing else."
"If you say so."

John had never been happier to pull into the parking lot of an art store in his life. He had never been particularly interested in art irrespective of the fact that his mother raved about his abilities, claiming him to be ten times the artist that she was. Mother's had to say that sort of thing. They were mothers. To him, his artwork had always reminded him of a four year old's finger paintings, but to some, he supposed, so did Picasso.
They left Buster in the front seat of his mother's truck and went into the store. The Arterium, a large, overly bright art store had a large mural on the ceiling. An artists hand held a dripping paintbrush over a canvas that had some of the most interesting shades that he had ever seen. The walls were covered with art given to the store by loyal customers or painted by the staff. Supplies of every variety covered the shelves throughout the store. Delia moved to the aisle that held the paints, holding a small basket that the store had placed at the end of the aisles for the customer's convenience.
Watching his mother shop for oil paints was like watching a fisherman who was trying to find the perfect bait to catch that prize fish. She would stare at the tube, reading every word on it. Then she would open the cap and smell the paint as intently as the wine connoisseur would smell the cork of a vintage wine bottle. Next she put a small amount on her fingertip and smear it around and finally she would wipe her finger on a small piece of canvas that she always carried with her.
Once, John had asked her why she continued on with such a ritual, instead of simply finding a brand of paint that she liked, and sticking with it as most artists did.
‘You must insist upon perfection in all the things that truly matter to you John, otherwise you are just the same as everyone else.' He was pretty sure that wasn't true. At least not with a mother like he had.
He crossed to the aisle next to hers and picked through the books, intent on finding the best ones for her to choose from. A book filled with Monet's water lilies, another with Botticelli's laddies and a third containing Da Vinci's masterpieces were set aside in moments and he was looking at the self portrait that Picasso had painted sans ear, when something caught his eye.
A man in a clown costume passed through the long aisle perpendicular to his own. When the bright color caught his eye causing him to turn from the art book, he caught a glimpse of the man's face before it went beyond the large shelf behind him. The make-up, at least he thought it was the make-up, was made to look like giant yellow teeth covered half of the large head. The red paint around the lips gave a snarling effect to the clown's visage.
Just as he was thinking that he was imagining the make-up and that it was an ordinary clown, it passed by again, on the other side. The make-up was definitely a fierce growling sneer, but it was the eyes that truly bothered him. The eyes were large black holes with a thin line of red at the edges of where the whites should have been. His heart began to pound and the goose flesh raised on his arms. He shook his head and looked around, listening to a tube drop back into a stack. His mother must have found one that she hadn't liked for some inexplicable reason. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself as his palms became clammy and then damp. Several large bottles of paint stood on the top shelf beyond the shelf of books where he now stood, shaking and sweaty. A bottle with the words blood red written on the label drew his eye. He looked at it for a moment before realizing that it wasn't the bottle that drew his attention, it was the large clawed hand that slowly moved up and closed around it. The hand looked skeletal with a greyish-green hue that made him think of old monster movies that he had seen as a boy. The claws that stood out from the tips of the fingers, no that was wrong, that the fingers tapered into, looked razor sharp.
The book fell from his shaking hands and landed on the floor. He stared at the claw as it closed around the bottle and pulled it from the shelf. His hand moved involuntarily to the spot where his gun sat, concealed snugly between his jeans and his back. His mother! The thought shot through his mind like bullets. She was in the aisle next to the monster thing. He ran around the corner, wanting to end this. He wanted to catch the unsuspecting beast off guard and kill it, before it could kill him or anyone else. He spun around the corner, tripping on the books that he himself had set aside and in his groping to stay on his feet he lost the grip on the gun before he was able to pull it free from his pants. He skidded around the corner and grabbed blindly at the clown thing, jumping on it and falling to the ground in a tumbling mass of books and paint bottles. He pulled back his fist, ready to pound the thing before it could claw him to death.
"Wait, please! I have money in my wallet!"
This froze him. In his blind hurried rage he hadn't noticed that the man beneath him was just that, a man. Beneath him, still clutching the bottle of blood red face paint lay a small man with a big red wig and a red nose. The red paint that generously encircled his lips was complete all the way to his regular lips. His gently blue eyes had a frightened and watery look to them. The man pulled his wallet out and held it open to John, offering him money in exchange for his safety. John rolled off the man and sat up. No greenish yellow teeth, no black hole eyes, no claw like hands.
"Sorry man." he said as he ran a hand through his sweat moistened hair, feeling abysmally stupid.
"I thought you were someone else."
The little man still sat there, holding his wallet open to John, tears streaming down his face and holding the bottle of blood red face paint in the crook of his arm.
"Get out of here." he said.
The firmness of his speech made the man in the clown costume get up and run. He looked around, everyone in the store was staring at him and his mother had come to stand above him, her basket filled to the brim with paint choices. Two large smears of paint just above her mouth made her appear to have a moustache. The finger and thumb that had unknowingly applied the paint in her moment of surprise were now held out to him. If his heart weren't still hammering in his chest, and if he weren't so embarrassed by his irrational behavior, he would have laughed. She looked like daffy duck had come out from one of his early cartoons and painted a mustache on her. "Sorry." He said to the sales girl, who was looking as if he had just shot her dog.
"I will pay for the bottle that he ran off with."
He picked up the bottles that had fallen from the shelf and rose under his own power. Everyone in the store continued to stare at him, as the man had done. He wished that he could yell at them and make them stop, but this was his fault after all. Perhaps he deserved a lot more embarrassment than he was feeling.
After returning the books to the shelf, and taking the Picasso compilation with starry night on the cover, he walked up to the register. Things had slowly gone back to normal in the store as he had replaced the books and his mother had gone up to pay for her purchases. The sales girl must have informed her of her unorthodox makeup because she went off toward the restroom as he paid for the book, and the bottle of paint that he had run out of the store.
"Really sorry about the scene." he said, explaining that he had thought that the man was someone who had been bothering him, but not going into detail.


Chapter 5