The Madman of Black Bear Mountain Read online

  Max looked up from the fire, fear flashing across her face. Uncomfortable silence descended on the camp as she stared at me for a lot longer than I liked. When she finally spoke, she sounded dead serious.

  “In these mountains, it’s not the bears you have to worry about eating you.”

  5

  GHOST STORIES

  JOE

  IT WAS LIKE DUSK SUDDENLY got two shades darker as soon as Max spoke. She was the second person that day to reference hermits and cannibalism in the same sentence. I’d assumed Gonzo had only been joking on the plane when he’d mentioned hermits eating campers, but it sure didn’t sound like Max was.

  The rest of us shut up and sat down on logs around the fire. Max took her time, firelight flickering across her face, distorting her pretty features as she shifted her gaze from one Gecco to the next like she was sizing us up to see if we were ready to hear what she had to say.

  In the silence, the sounds of the wilderness around us seemed to come to life—and not in a good way.

  AARROOOOOOOOOO!

  Shivers shot straight down my spine as the high-pitched howl of a hungry beast pierced the evening. Randall practically jumped off his log, and the Ms clung to each other for dear life. The sun had set and the coyotes had risen.

  Max laughed, but there wasn’t any humor to it.

  “It’s not the coyotes you have to worry about either,” she said. “Take a seat. What I’m about to tell you just might save your lives.”

  We were already hanging on every word.

  “I love a good campfire ghost story.” Jim chuckled nervously.

  “Some stories are more than just legends,” she said, fixing him with a hard stare before shifting her gaze to me. “You know that plane crash you were so eager to see?”

  “Uh-huh,” I gulped.

  “Well, there’s a reason they never found any survivors.”

  “The Russian guy burned up in the crash, right?” Randall asked timidly.

  “That was the official story,” Max said. “What they wanted people to think so they wouldn’t be scared off. But not everything about that crash made the news. You see, in places like this, out here in the middle of nowhere, the local economy relies on people like you who pay good money to escape the city for a little fresh air and outdoor fun. Well, let’s just say the local authorities know when something isn’t good for business. And who wants to go camping or fishing or hiking when they know there’s a bloodthirsty—” Max stopped midsentence and took a deep breath.

  “But I’m getting ahead of myself,” she said, leaving us hanging so close to the edge of our seats, I nearly fell off.

  “What they didn’t tell the press is that they did find forensic evidence—just one small piece,” she continued. “A single charred bone fragment from a human toe. From the way the bone had been chewed on, they could tell that its former owner had been hungrily devoured.”

  “It was probably just scavengers getting an easy meal after the poor guy died in the wreck,” Frank said, trying to reassure us with the most logical explanation before Max got a chance to hit us with whatever awful punch line she had in store.

  “Sure, that’s what they thought too,” she said. “Until they got it back to the lab and examined the tooth marks more closely. The victim had been eaten by a wild beast, all right. Only this wild beast had human teeth.”

  All six of us gasped at the same time.

  “Locals had always suspected there were still mountain people living in the remotest parts of the woods. Hikers had been disappearing for years, and there were rumors that they’d fallen prey to a feral beast of a man known as the Mad Hermit of Black Bear Mountain—campfire stories, as you quaintly called them,” Max said, turning to Jim. “But it wasn’t until they found that gruesome piece of gnarled human bone that people realized the legend of the Mad Hermit was real.”

  There was a sudden snap as an ember popped in the fire, nearly causing us to jump out of our seats.

  “The reason they never found the victims from that plane crash thirty years ago?” Max continued as the sparks rose into the air. “The crazed mountain man who patrols the very mountaintop where we’re now camped roasted them over a fire just like this one, and then he ate them.”

  “Okay, uh, great story!” Jim cut Max off, trying to force his grimace into a strained smile. “Now, who’s up for singing some happy campfire songs?”

  Max ignored him, turning to us instead. “I promise you it’s not a story.”

  Jim cleared his throat conspicuously, cutting Max off again before she could say anything else. “Okay, thank you, Max. I think that’s enough for one night.”

  No one else had uttered a peep. Randall looked like he wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear. Mandy and Melissa were gripping each other’s hands so hard, their knuckles had turned white. And even Frank, who’s usually the first one to chime in with a scientific myth-busting analysis of a tall tale, looked terrified. I think that’s what scared me more than anything. If my brother thought Max was telling the truth . . .

  “It’s just a campfire tale, guys,” Jim said, trying to reassure us. “It’s a scary one, I’ll give Max that, but I can assure you it’s just an outrageous story.”

  “Is it really so outrageous?” Max challenged him, her tone as serious as ever. “Black Bear Mountain is one of the most remote wildernesses left in the lower forty-eight states. A person could spend their entire life living off the land up here without anyone else ever knowing. Someone who was a loner. Rejected by civilized society. Unstable, maybe even deranged.”

  “I don’t think—” Jim tried to interject, but Max didn’t give him a chance.

  “But here’s the thing: live alone in the woods without any human contact for long enough and you start to go mad, even if you weren’t that way to begin with. And, well, if you live your entire life surviving on nothing but bush meat and berries, that kind of person might just get excited about a little variety in their diet. Especially something exotic. Like human fle—”

  “That’s enough!” Jim stood up. “This is incredibly unprofessional of you, Dr. Kroopnik. You’re taking this too far, and I don’t find it funny at all.”

  “Good. You’re not supposed to,” Max replied, calmly getting up from the fire and brushing herself off. “There’s a reason people tend to go missing on Black Bear Mountain, and you’d all do well to keep an eye out for him while you’re here. Better scared and alive than oblivious and dinner.”

  With that, Max grabbed the rucksack at her feet and turned to leave.

  “Sleep tight, kids,” she called over her shoulder without looking back. “I’ll be making camp right on the other side of that spruce grove. I’m in the middle of some field research that requires my observation all day and night, so I’m staying in the woods for a few days. If you need anything, just scream.”

  “Jim,” Mandy said softly once Max had left. “I want to go home.”

  Melissa nodded vigorously. “Can we have Max radio for the plane to come back? Please?”

  Jim looked crestfallen. “Come on, guys, it was just a story. Getting to experience the pristine beauty of places like this is what our club is all about. Don’t you want the chance to really take advantage of it?”

  “I want to explore and all,” Melissa said, “but maybe we can just go back to the lodge and tag along with that ranger guy Steven and Casey know instead. That would be just as good, right?”

  “There’s nothing to worry about, I promise,” Jim said, trying his best to sound confident. “It wasn’t very nice of her, but I think Max was just trying to scare you, that’s all. We’re not going to let a silly little ghost story ruin our whole trip, right, guys?”

  Jim looked at us expectantly. Randall was too busy being terrified and muttering to himself to voice an opinion. Me, I wasn’t sure what to think about the whole thing. Jim was probably right and it was likely just a story, but man, Max was one heck of a storyteller. My instinct was never to back down f
rom a challenge, and that included not running away from an awesome camping adventure just because someone told us a creepy bedtime story. But that someone also happened to be a credible world-renowned scientist with, like, twenty-five degrees, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t totally freaked out.

  “What do you think, Frank?” Jim turned to my brother. “Help me reassure the Geccos there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I . . .” Frank hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  Well, that sure didn’t help—now I really was worried. Frank was about to say something else, but then he looked over at the girls and seemed to think better of it.

  “Listen, guys,” Jim said. “Organizing this trip was a lot of work, and I’m not going to let a flaky scientist with a bad sense of humor ruin it. Trust me, everyone will feel a lot better when the sun comes up in the morning. Now let’s all try to get some rest. We’ve had a long day. We’ll be laughing about this over my famous flapjack breakfast in the morning, you’ll see!”

  “Jim’s right, guys, we’ll all be laughing at his cooking in the morning,” I joked to Mandy, hoping to lighten the mood—and hoping I was right!—as we went back to our tents.

  “Thanks, Joe,” she said with a little smile. “I don’t know how much sleep I’ll be getting, though.”

  Back in our tent, Frank dropped a bomb on me.

  “I didn’t say anything before because I didn’t want to freak everyone else out even more, but I overheard something back at the lodge that I think you should hear too.”

  I sat there with my mouth open as he relayed the snippet of muffled argument he’d overheard about a crazy hermit in the woods and us being in danger.

  “You’re usually the one trying to convince me monsters aren’t real!” I said.

  “There’s probably a perfectly rational explanation,” he said wishfully. “I could barely make out what the person was whispering over all the noise from the plane. I could have misheard or they could have been talking about something else altogether, but after what Commander Gonzo said and now Max, well . . .”

  “The coincidence is too great to ignore,” I agreed, finishing his thought.

  Frank nodded. “I’d feel better if we slept in shifts tonight so one of us can keep an ear out, just in case.”

  “So do we try to talk Jim into leaving again in the morning?” I asked.

  “No, I’m with him on that one,” Frank replied. “I’ve been too excited to see Dr. Kroopnik’s research ecosystem to just turn around, even if I do have to study it on my own without her help. Besides, my detective senses are tingling, and I kinda want to stick around to see what happens next.”

  “I’m with you, bro. I’ll take first shift. You try to get some rest.”

  Jim had been right about at least one thing—it had been a long day, all right. I barely made it ten minutes into my watch before I was sound asleep, dreaming of zip lines and white-water rapids and motorboats and . . . wait, what?

  I woke up to Frank snoring so loudly it was like listening to an outboard engine in need of a tune-up.

  “Dude,” I mumbled groggily, elbowing his sleeping bag. “Wake up, bro. If you snore any louder, you’re gonna give the whole camp tinnitus.”

  “Whuh?” he grumbled. “I thought that was you.”

  “No, man, I . . .”

  Wait a second! Now we were both awake, and the snoring sound had only gotten louder.

  “What the—?”

  “AAAHHHHHHHHHHH!” The girls’ screams tore through the campsite before I could finish my thought, jolting us out of our sleeping bags.

  “Mandy! Melissa!” I yelled, yanking open the tent flap.

  That’s when I realized it wasn’t snores we’d been hearing. Silhouetted against the first light of dawn in the center of camp stood an enormous black bear.

  6

  BEAR RAID

  FRANK

  JOE AND I JUMPED INTO action at the same time. We dashed out of the tent hollering and waving our hands over our heads to make ourselves look as intimidating as possible. Well, at least as intimidating as a pair of teenage guys can be while facing off against an apex predator that weighed nearly twice as much as both of us combined!

  When we got out of the tent, we saw more than just a giant bear. We also saw all our food—or what was left of it. The bundle we’d carefully hung in the trees had been torn open, and the food that hadn’t already been devoured by the bear was now scattered around the center of camp.

  The bear looked up from its early breakfast and let out a ferocious roar. Every bone in my body told me to run in the opposite direction, but I forced myself to stand my ground.

  “Go get your own grub!” I yelled, waving my hands high over my head to make myself seem bigger, like we’d been taught.

  “Back off, Bear Boy!” Joe added, picking up a stick and waving it in the bear’s direction.

  Black bears are fearsome predators, but we were counting on the fact that they rarely attack people. They usually go out of their way to avoid them, actually. But they love free food as much as the next guy and aren’t afraid to invade a campsite for an easy meal. By trying to make ourselves seem as threatening as possible, we were hoping to convince our uninvited guest that this meal might not be so easy after all. Besides, running away is just about the worst thing you can do when confronted with a hungry predator—it triggers the animal’s chase instinct and makes you seem like prey.

  Apparently, no one had told Randall that, because he was sprinting as fast as he could toward Max’s campsite. Luckily for Randall, the bear was too bewildered by the scene we were making to pay any attention. It gave a snort in our direction and wandered back out of the camp.

  “And don’t let the door hit you in the bear butt on your way out!” Joe added for good measure.

  The Ms ran out of their tent toward us.

  “Thank you so much,” Melissa said. “I thought for sure that bear was going to eat us next!”

  My mishap on the zip line may not have impressed Melissa, but judging from how tightly she hugged me, our standoff with the bear sure did the trick.

  “You must not have done a very good job of tying your food up,” Max commented. Randall cowered behind her as she walked into camp and eyed the mess left by the bear.

  “But we did!” I said. “I double-checked the knots myself. Everything was securely tied up in the trees when we went to sleep.”

  Melissa and Mandy seemed a lot less concerned with how the food had gotten down than they were with getting the heck out of there.

  “Can you go call the plane back now?” Melissa begged Max. “I don’t want to wait until morning.”

  “Yeah!” Mandy agreed. “Get us as far away from that bear as possible!”

  Max looked at the first signs of dawn lightening the sky through the treetops. “Fine by me. Tell your teacher to come out of hiding and I’ll head up to the station to radio the lodge while you break down camp.”

  “Where is Jim, anyway?” I asked, realizing we hadn’t seen him at all during the whole bear ordeal.

  “He’s probably still cowering in his sleeping bag,” Max snickered.

  “That doesn’t sound like Jim to me,” Joe said. “He may not be the most graceful guy in the world, but he wouldn’t just hide while we were in danger.”

  “Hey, Jim,” Max called out. “The big bad bear is gone. You can come out now!”

  When no one replied, Joe and I shot each other a look and headed for his tent. I started to get a sinking feeling when I saw the open flap swaying in the breeze.

  “Jim?” I said, pulling back the flap the rest of the way.

  “He’s gone!” Joe gasped as we peered inside the empty tent.

  “City slickers,” Max muttered derisively. “Figures he’d get scared and run off.”

  “His pack is gone too,” Randall cried. “He left us!”

  “No way. Jim wouldn’t have . . .” Joe paused and pointed to something on the tent floor. “Hey, what’s that
?”

  I turned on my flashlight to get a better look—but only for a second. Choking back a gasp, I quickly switched it off again. I just hoped I’d been fast enough to keep our classmates from seeing the dark red streak of what looked like blood on the floor of our teacher’s tent.

  7

  STRANDED

  JOE

  THE BEAR GOT HIM!” MANDY cried, grabbing hold of Melissa’s arm.

  Frank had tried to turn off the light in time to prevent anyone from panicking, but the one quick glimpse of red had been plenty.

  “It ate Jim!” Melissa wailed.

  “I don’t think so,” Frank said grimly, turning the flashlight back on and shining it at the ground around us. “There are plenty of human footprints, but no bear tracks anywhere near the tent.”

  Frank’s light swept over the campsite, illuminating the giant paw prints among the scattered remains of broken eggs and flapjack mix and the chewed-up bundle that used to hold it all. I walked over and picked up an end of the cord we’d used to hoist it into the tree. I expected to find the cord chewed up too, like maybe the bear had outwitted us to get at the food. But it wasn’t chewed or even frayed at all.

  “It’s severed cleanly.” I held up the end of the rope for Frank to see. “Like somebody sliced it with a knife.”

  “Why are you guys wasting time worrying about the stupid rope?” Randall whined. “We need to find Jim!”

  “Because somebody could have cut it on purpose,” Frank said, drawing the same frightening conclusion I had. “Almost like they wanted the bear to come into our camp.”

  “But why would anyone want to do that?” Mandy asked in disbelief.

  The Ms and Randall looked perplexed. Max seemed to get it, though—our close call with the bear hadn’t frazzled her at all, but when she realized Jim was gone, she started to sweat.

  “A bear rampaging through camp might create a heck of a diversion,” I theorized, really hoping I was wrong.