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Authors: Robert Stallman
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Schmeling in the twelfth round. The crowd is going wild here in Madison Square Garden, folks. I wish you could see these people. They are in a frenzy."
I come all the way to consciousness and the pain comes rushing in again, duller than it has been, but very sharp in areas I have not felt before. It is night again. I extend my spatial sense at once, feeling for life and the source of the radio voice. An automobile is pulled off the road into the first trees about a hundred yards away. I sense two humans in it, and the radio is coming from it. The voice is still going on in its artificial hysteria about the two fighters as I seek some explanation for the humans being there. Are they aware of me? Why are they parked there when there are no houses about? I turn up my hearing to the limit, ignoring the raucous chatter of the radio, seeking for sounds from the humans.
"Please...."
"No. Now take me home...."
"I love you, Barbara. if you really loved me ..."
If I were not in such pain, I would laugh. As it is, a laugh would probably tear one of my broken ribs out again. Lovers. Young people parked in the darkness, fumbling about with their passion. I listen for a time to their mounting efforts to transcend the taboos of their society, and then, tired with the efforts they are making and aware of the great hunger in my stomach, I tune them out as best I can and begin seeking about for small game. The radio noise has about driven everything into hiding for a long ways around, but there is something sniffng about on the far edge of the woods. I concentrate on drawing it to me. As it responds, I realize it is a small dog. Well, better than nothing, although I particularly do not like eating too much of the terrible canned food humans give their dogs. I feel it coming closer in the darkness, and perhaps because my hunger is so great, I do not notice noises coming from another direction until they are very close. Then a shuffling in the leaves hits me with such alarm that I lose concentration on the dog, and it goes leaping away in fright. The sounds of feet in the leaves are almost at my shoulder. I scan quickly in that direction. The two young people are walking directly toward me!
I lie as still as stone. They have stopped at the same moment as the dog ran away. Now they are standing silently no more than ten feet from my hiding place. It is quite dark for them, so they probably cannot see me, although in these past days I have not been as sanitary as I usually am, and there is an unmistakable odor about my lair.
"What'd you come out here for, Stan? There's so many mosquitoes," the girl said softly.
"I dunno," her friend answered, puzzlement in his voice. "I just felt like walkin' around."
"Well let's go back. They're just biting me everywhere."
"Yeah. O.K. I just felt like walkin' around," he said again.
I heard one of them begin walking away, the other standing still in the dark so that I could hear the catch in his breathing as he scented me. At the same moment, I caught the first whiff of his own fear scent.
"Hey, Barbara," the boy said in a low, excited voice. "It smells like a bear out here."
"Stanley! Come on. The mosquitoes!"
"No. C'mere and smell this. There's a bear out here in the woods, sure enough."
I hear the girl shuffling back through the leaves. Her scent is covered with some sort of rank perfume that smells metallic, like a painted tin flower. She and the boy are standing even closer to the hole now. I am breathing silently, trying to decide if I could possibly get out and grab them before they ran away. But it would be useless. I could not move that fast without undoing much of the healing process. Only a direct danger could make me move fast now. I will wait them out.
"It sure does stink," the girl says. "Is that a bear? It smells like granddad's cowbarn when he hasn't cleaned it out all winter."
"That ain't a cow. That's bear," the boy says, excited and moving about near the stump of the
I come all the way to consciousness and the pain comes rushing in again, duller than it has been, but very sharp in areas I have not felt before. It is night again. I extend my spatial sense at once, feeling for life and the source of the radio voice. An automobile is pulled off the road into the first trees about a hundred yards away. I sense two humans in it, and the radio is coming from it. The voice is still going on in its artificial hysteria about the two fighters as I seek some explanation for the humans being there. Are they aware of me? Why are they parked there when there are no houses about? I turn up my hearing to the limit, ignoring the raucous chatter of the radio, seeking for sounds from the humans.
"Please...."
"No. Now take me home...."
"I love you, Barbara. if you really loved me ..."
If I were not in such pain, I would laugh. As it is, a laugh would probably tear one of my broken ribs out again. Lovers. Young people parked in the darkness, fumbling about with their passion. I listen for a time to their mounting efforts to transcend the taboos of their society, and then, tired with the efforts they are making and aware of the great hunger in my stomach, I tune them out as best I can and begin seeking about for small game. The radio noise has about driven everything into hiding for a long ways around, but there is something sniffng about on the far edge of the woods. I concentrate on drawing it to me. As it responds, I realize it is a small dog. Well, better than nothing, although I particularly do not like eating too much of the terrible canned food humans give their dogs. I feel it coming closer in the darkness, and perhaps because my hunger is so great, I do not notice noises coming from another direction until they are very close. Then a shuffling in the leaves hits me with such alarm that I lose concentration on the dog, and it goes leaping away in fright. The sounds of feet in the leaves are almost at my shoulder. I scan quickly in that direction. The two young people are walking directly toward me!
I lie as still as stone. They have stopped at the same moment as the dog ran away. Now they are standing silently no more than ten feet from my hiding place. It is quite dark for them, so they probably cannot see me, although in these past days I have not been as sanitary as I usually am, and there is an unmistakable odor about my lair.
"What'd you come out here for, Stan? There's so many mosquitoes," the girl said softly.
"I dunno," her friend answered, puzzlement in his voice. "I just felt like walkin' around."
"Well let's go back. They're just biting me everywhere."
"Yeah. O.K. I just felt like walkin' around," he said again.
I heard one of them begin walking away, the other standing still in the dark so that I could hear the catch in his breathing as he scented me. At the same moment, I caught the first whiff of his own fear scent.
"Hey, Barbara," the boy said in a low, excited voice. "It smells like a bear out here."
"Stanley! Come on. The mosquitoes!"
"No. C'mere and smell this. There's a bear out here in the woods, sure enough."
I hear the girl shuffling back through the leaves. Her scent is covered with some sort of rank perfume that smells metallic, like a painted tin flower. She and the boy are standing even closer to the hole now. I am breathing silently, trying to decide if I could possibly get out and grab them before they ran away. But it would be useless. I could not move that fast without undoing much of the healing process. Only a direct danger could make me move fast now. I will wait them out.
"It sure does stink," the girl says. "Is that a bear? It smells like granddad's cowbarn when he hasn't cleaned it out all winter."
"That ain't a cow. That's bear," the boy says, excited and moving about near the stump of the
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