Sect of Bears

"It seemed that some supernatural force chained them for life to these open mouths, and they, on pain of horrible death, had to feed and feed tirelessly insatiable, voracious monster..."

— Kuprin A. I., Moloch, 1896

Chapter I: A Woman's Scream Is Heard From the Forest

Captain Michelson's report: 

On 17 August 1891 a young woman of 20 years of age from the peasantry disappeared in the village of Malye Luzhki. She went mushrooming and did not return. An investigation has been launched. Interviews with relatives and local residents were conducted.

In the words of peasant Fyodor Lukin: ‘That forest is cursed, all sorts of devils are going on there. My grandfather used to say that a demon lives there. I saw him myself. He walks on two hooves and kills people who enter his grove. I told Masha, stupid, that she shouldn't go there for mushrooms... She didn't listen, naive.’

(A few days before that.)

It was a sunny, windy day in 1891. The peasants were working tirelessly in the fields, reaping the fruits of the last harvest in this favour. Their small children were running and frolicking between the fields and the stacks of millet. Pesky flies tormented the cattle and they swatted them away with their tails, slowly munching wild grass. From the forest came the quiet howling of the walking wind and the singing of birds frolicking among the branches of the fir trees. Egor Matveich, an old soldier who had been released after being wounded in the ongoing Russo-Turkish war, was returning from a campaign. A Turkish cannonball had torn off his leg and he had miraculously survived, having walked from the outskirts of Istanbul to Moscow and now to Malye Luzhki....

Russia has remained the largest country in the world for more than two hundred years. Its vastness and latitudes were incomprehensible neither for its own population nor for foreign invaders. The unprincipled power of nature could be traced everywhere. The western part of Russia was actually cut off from its East. There were no railways, nothing that could connect these distant poles in the shortest possible time. And this created the impression that people living beyond the Urals were completely far from the world and were taken by surprise by the possessions of the Russian forest. 

Yegor Matveich was met by the village headman, Sergei Kuzmich. An unambiguous dialogue ensued.

- It's bad, Yegor. 

- Has the imp returned?

- And not just one.

- How did it multiply?

- Who knows, Matveyich, who knows?

Evening was approaching and the sun was beginning to hide behind the clouds. Night was approaching and all the peasants gathered after the clay stoves in their poor wooden huts and began to heat them up, so that they would not die of cold at night. The headman and the old soldier went into the only inn in the village. At a remote table in the western corner of the inn sat a young man in an officer's uniform, too clean and tidy to be typical of the local types, who every day were up to their elbows and calves in mud and muck. 

- Who do you belong to, young man?

- Captain Michelson, from Moscow.

- Well, what have you forgotten in our backwoods?

- People are disappearing here, so they sent me, or rather exiled me to you, to sort it out.

- It's nothing, Captain, this monster has been here for 200 years, it's already killed so many people.

- It can't be so, old man, how can anything live so long?

- I tell you, it's a demon spawn, not a man at all. The women say they saw it at the watering hole when they were washing laundry on the Mezha River.

The inn was filled with the smell of hops and wheat. The sound of the clay cooker crackling hardly interrupted the silence that hung in the air. The few people in the inn sat and watched with a heavy heart as the wood crackled. The old innkeeper Ivan Maksimych Lich filled their wooden mugs with fresh mead, sighing heavily and glancing at his guests each time. Michelson was alarmed; he had never before encountered anything like this. The matter seemed to be at an impasse. The captain didn't even realise how worthwhile it was to start looking for the mysterious murderer. Send to Moscow for reinforcements? Long. Gather the militia? Too few clues, and who knows, maybe one of them would turn out to be the mysterious murderer, then everything could turn out to be irreparable.

Suddenly there was a piercing female scream from the deep darkness of the forest.

The whole inn squirmed in horror at the tables and chairs. Captain Michelson sprang outside. 

- Where did that sound come from?!

- Oh, from the forest, sir, from the forest!

- A horse, quick, a horse!

Pavel Nikiforov, a peasant, brought his horse to the captain, and without wasting a moment he saddled it and galloped off into the forest grove. All alone. What was he thinking about?

 Chapter II: Master of the forest

It was getting dark. Heavy clouds covered the moon with their stretching celestial cloth. The moon shyly, rather fearfully looked at the silence hanging in the forest, hiding behind its indifferent cloud sisters..... Meanwhile, Captain Michelson was breaking through the thick and mighty forest. The horse was rushing at full speed along the narrow path, hitting the rider's face against dozens of branches and treacherous sticking wooden bars. There he was, caught in the arms of the forest. Was it really a man who had screamed? A wild thought popped into Michelson's head. At the same moment the horse tripped over something and flew forward, breaking his own legs. 

The man flew forward, flying over his horse's head for several metres, eventually crashing face first into the dirt. The horse continued to let out sobs and groans, bleeding slowly, kicking fearfully, unable to move. The captain was coming round, continuing to lie in the mud. Slender rivulets of blood ran down from his mud-covered forehead. A menacing silence hung in the forest. There was not a sound except the groans of Michelson and his horse. But suddenly...

There was a crunch of twigs.

Someone was approaching. Surrounded by the forest, the captain began to rise hastily from the ground. When he came to his senses and remembered about his horse, it had disappeared.... How could this animal, which had been moaning and bucking a moment ago, have disappeared so quickly. Michelson was overcome by a primal terror. He stirred and his eyes widened. Frantically he swung his naked sabre. There was not a soul to be seen in the darkness. Then there was tension in the air, a few moments of silence..... The crunch of twigs sounded behind Michelson's back. As soon as he turned round, a huge paw slashed his face with its claws. The captain staggered back and collapsed to the ground behind him. A real monster was looming before him. A two metre long bear standing on two legs like a man! No, it was definitely not a bear! But it couldn't be a man either! A demon, the inconsolable Michelson thought to himself. The beast loomed over him, staring at him indifferently with its dark, colourless whites. A moment more and it would finish him off.... The beast took a cold-blooded swing ...

GUNFIRE! 

The bullet grazed the monster's shoulder and it howled, not like a bear, not like a human. A strange agonistic sob came as if from the meat suit of the beast's huge figure. 

- Your meat swishes deliciously. Bear likes human meat. I'll gnaw you. 

The beast only stiffened for a moment, making a disgusting, vile chewing sound accompanied by the grinding of teeth. And then, just as instantly, it disappeared into the darkness, running away on its own two feet at such a speed that the gunner and the peasants could not move to fire a second shot.

To be continued...