from The Antchrist of Stanley Park
by George Opacic
Pelly Bay, Nunavut
Spring 1998
Mark quickly slams the rough-hewn door behind him into total darkness. He stands as his eyes adjust. Faded green symbols come into view on a small electronic device. Two sharp, thin lines of light across the floor in front him make a distorted 90 degree angle. He steps forward, blocking off the horizontal line.
Something stirs nearby.
Mark stops. “That you Andrei?”
A Russian accent answers, “Yes, of course, my friend. You think maybe I’m bear?”
Mark snorts as he shuffles ahead toward the shadow of a chair. “Ha! You? You’re a pussycat, Andrei. Not anything like a friggen bear.” He catches a glimpse of gleaming teeth near the green light.
Mark plops down awkwardly into a flimsy chair, his thick fur coat catching on the armrest. “Did you get through to the Institute?”
The howling wind outside batters the door. As Mark’s eyes adjust better he sees that he did not latch the door well enough. Mini whirlwinds whip up the frigid snow-dust, framed by light coming in around the door. Mark gets up, again pulling on the armrest with his coat which lifts it up. The chair rattles back down as he shakes his coat, then he stomps to the door. Pushing hard against it with a shoulder, Mark gets the latch all the way down. It is darker.
The smell of musty dirt swirling around gets up Andrei’s nose. He sneezes.
“Mark, our tent survive? You see it through blizzard?”
Opening up his coat a bit before sitting back down, Mark shakes his head. “Nope. Couldn’t even see the tatters.”
He shakes his upper body and looks around. “If this muskeg cave, this pingo, wasn’t here, we’d be polar bear breakfast for sure!”
Andrei reaches for the electronic device. “Tried Oceanographic Institute in Vladivostok, and tried Mounted Police number. They are in different time zone, yes?”
An exasperated nod from Mark shakes his fur hood.
“So some person be awake now, yes?”
Rubbing his hands briskly, Mark reaches for a pot of tea to pour some into a metal cup.
Mark shakes his head, “This storm, I think, is being pushed by the jet-stream loop up through the Arctic. Could be disrupting reception.”
“Sense makes.” Andrei shrugs. “So what we do?”
Mark shifts under his heavy coat. “Our time zone.” He wrinkles his brows. “Vladivostok is, what, plus 12 Zulu?” A nod from Andrei. “And we’re at minus eight, no, minus six here. Vancouver is minus eight Zulu, right?”
Andrei reaches for his non-existent cellphone. “Yebem…” he mutters. “Don’t know. Sound good.”
The gale outside sends something slamming into the door and the dirt support. Snowdust gets kicked off the wall/ceiling again, slowly swirling with the eddies.
Andrei sneezes loudly. “Damn dirt! And mould! It stink!”
Mark smiles. “You can always step outside, my friend. Our tent is well past the airport, by now, heading for Hudson Bay if you want to follow it?”
He gets serious. “Andrei, we need to figure out the time zones so we can call at the right time. They probably figure we’re out tagging ptarmigans and friggen white foxes, playing in the bloody sand!” He kicks at the mixture of frozen dirt and blond sand on the floor.
Opening up his coat a bit more, Mark stares at the ceiling. “Ok. We’ve been in this dungeon for over 70 hours, so it’s Thursday, ah… afternoon! Andrei, give me the phone!”
As he reaches for the satellite-phone the door slams open blinding them both.
A polar bear settles down onto both paws, grins at Mark, then moves quickly through the doorway and is about to open her mouth over Mark’s neck when BANG!
Andrei shoots again BANG!
The bear roars and rises toward full high, banging her head against the ceiling BANG!
Reddened across her chest, she crumples onto the floor. Her left splayed-out arm pushes hard against Mark, sending him head-over-heels still in his chair over her paw and down hard against her head. Mark’s glasses are clouded by the final breath escaping from the great bear, as he and his chair edge closer to her huge teeth.
Snapping his body straight out of the chair, Mark frantically scrambles away, pressing hard into the wall as far away as he can from the mother polar bear.
Through the smashed door, peeking around a corner of the ramp that leads down to the cave, a very young cub gives a quiet yelp. He backs away out of sight into the gale.
Andrei is pressed against the wall on the other side of the cave. His rifle is held waist-high, ready for another shot at the reddening white mass on their floor. “B-bozhe moi!”
Marks starts to shake, sending a light halo of snowdust off the wall behind him. “Andrei! K-keep your gun on him!”
A widening pool of blood soaks into the floor around the bear.
“I think is dead, Mark. Move paw, see if he lives.”
Pushing even harder into the wall, Mark’s eyes glare. “HELL NO! I ain’t touching that thing! Watch out for the other one outside!”
Andrei quickly swivels the rifle. “Where! Other one?”
Mark points hesitantly up the ramp. “I saw.” He restarts, trying to lower his very high-pitched voice, “I saw a smaller one up there around the corner. Make sure it doesn’t come down.” He clears his dry throat without moving his wide eyes off the doorway.
The gale is now clearing to the point where some visibility of the tundra beyond the ramp can be picked out in the arctic noon. Another plaintive yelp comes from the cub, hiding around the corner of the ramp wall. Hearing it, Andrei steps forward, points his rifle up the ramp and lets off a shot, startling Mark.
“JESUS FRIGGEN CHRIST! What’re you doing!”
Andrei smiles then breaks into giggles, looking at Mark then outside and back again. “Mark! You want I should ask next time to shoot at bear?”
He starts laughing uncontrollably. Marks joins him.
Outside, the cub yelps again then backs away. He turns and runs, stops, half turning back, then runs away over an embankment.
Time passes.
Later, working outside, Andrei and Mark are pulling on a wire that is drawing a long pole up to vertical. Atop the pole is an antenna. A thicker loose cable slithers around the pole and guy-wires, attached to the antenna. It smacks Mark on the cheek.
“Get the…” He waves the cable away from his face with one hand, pulling on a guy-wire with his other gloved hand. “If it ain’t one thing up here it’s a friggen ‘nother!” He rubs his cheek where a welt is forming.
Grinning, Andrei answers, “You want I should shoot it, Mark?”
Still pulling the pole up, Mark recites, “I cordially invite you to go forth and auto-proliferate! Profusely!”
“What you mean, auto prof… What this mean?”
“Ain’t telling.”
Andrei stops, letting the wire slip back through his gloves and nearly pulling Mark off the ground. “Andrei! Stop farting around! We need this thing up for reception!”
Andrei grabs the wire again, steadying the swaying pole. The cable slaps Mark in the head. And again.
“Ah for chrissake!” He ducks his head down into the collar of his fur coat, still pulling the guy-wire. It taughtens. He pokes his head up, looking for the wayward cable. Andrei has it in one hand, while the other is holding his side of the wire.
“Thanks Andrei. Ok, hold on while I tie this end down.”
A turnbuckle has already been attached to where they calculated the length of the wire should be correct to hook into a metal stake driven into the ground. Mark slips his hands down toward the turnbuckle.
“Good. Just loose enough so’s I can attach it.” He puts the turnbuckle’s hook through a hole in the stake. “After I get your side in, we can tighten the turnbuckles to keep the pole vertical.” He adds, “And yes, I still think we need four wires to hold against the Arctic hurricane.”
Andrei nods.
A familiar yelp picks up both their heads.
Anxiously, “Andrei, stay there. Where’s the rifle?” Mark spins to scan the rolling tundra.
Andrei points, “Is there.” He nods toward a box with tools on it. As he does so, his hands slide down the wire and he quickly attaches the turnbuckle to his stake.
Mark points a gloved hand away from the flat area of the little used airfield called Pelly Lake Airport. On the tundra, about a hundred metres away can be seen the young bear cub. It is ranging with its head back and forth, moving its little legs quickly, but stumbling every once in a while. The cub is heading right for Mark and Andrei.
Reaching the rifle, Mark shoulders it, aiming for the cub. As the little fellow gets closer, Mark sees that it is very thin. The cub heads right for a mound of fur and flesh that used to be his mother. Blindly yelping as he nuzzles against some the fur that is left, he stumbles again, going down over folded front legs, his head sinking onto the snow.
The rifle lowers off Mark’s shoulder. Silent tears swell his eyes.
Andrei walks up, takes the rifle, aims and BANG! shoots the cub. Mark slams against Andrei, pushing him onto the snow. The rifle stays in Andrei’s hands, dry, above the snow.
“What the hell did you have to do that for? Goddamnit! It’s just a little cub!”
From the snow, Andrei shakes his head slowly. “Was dying. We killed his mother.”
He carefully gets back up, putting the rifle down on the box, muzzle pointed away from the wind.
Time passes.