Falling is the best part

Bear Hugs

It was about a month after my ninth birthday and I awoke to a gentle breeze from my open window and the soft sun rays beating down on my morning skin. Daddy was in the nearest town getting supplies so he could take me hunting for my birthday, yes it was a month ago but he had been planning a train robbery as we were getting low on money. He robbed it and got a few hundred dollars. He had promised that as soon as we had money he'd go shopping for food and hunting supplies. He came home to birds chirping in the trees and the delicious smell of bread, that was the only thing my mother ever taught me. To cook. I think about her sometimes. But anyways, I had just taken a seeded loaf out of the oven and put it on the cooling rack along with the other savory tit bits I had baked, when the front door opened and dad entered with some crates in his hands. "Smells amazing dear" he told me as I helped him put the rest of the crates on to the table. "I bought a picnic basket for a laugh, pumpkin maybe we can have some nice sandwiches from the bread you made" he said whilst grabbing a fruit scone. I simply repled by telling him that that sounded lovely. I got changed into some of my Hunting gear which consisted of a thin black camisole, a red checkered long sleeve shirt, some blue jeans and my favourite riding boots and told my dad to get the horses ready. He came back into the kitchen just as I was finishing packing our food in to the picnic basket, we each had two big slices of rabbit pie, a ham cheese and tomato Sandwich, some tinned peaches tinned strawberries and canned salmon  and finally some scones and butter. I told him I was ready when he was and grabbed my new hunting rifle that he got me for my birthday. He told he to get on my horse while he handed me stuff to put on her. He handed me our picnic basket and stuff to make a camp and with that we set off, it took us about two hours to get to the grizzlies and another half hour to find somewhere to set up camp. Finally we found somewhere in a nice bit of forest somewhere safe from predators or wandering creeps and up went our camp, we ate our sandwiches and some tinned peaches and then got out our guns and hunting supplies. My dad had had his eyes on a bear for a while now. She was huge, "the big bear bastard" he called her it always made me giggle we had been tracking her for a few months now and we decided that for my birthday we'd go and kill her, sounds crule I know but we had been tracking her for months and she didn't have cubs or a male bear so no one would really miss her. We put on some cover scent when we found some of her shit and followed the paw prints in the mud and the berries and dead deer she'd killed all while having friendly conversation but it was slowly getting darker so we decided we'd go back to camp and try again tomorrow. We had eaten our pie slices and the salmon and strawberries for dinner the night before so when we awoke we ate the scones I had packed, dad drank coffee while I drank milk that I had gotten from our cow. We once again put on cover scent when we found the bears shit and went on tracking her, I liked to pretend she was called Geraldine I liked to name things and create little life stories for them, I had spotted Geraldine and told my dad but she had disappeared which was curious but alas we kept talking and laughing when suddenly we heard a branch snap behind us. And there she was in all her glory "the big bear bastard", my dad told me we had to retreat slowly so we did. But Geraldine looked straight at me let out a blood curdling roar and lunged at my dad. I started screaming and crying I tried loading my gun but my hands were all I could see and hear was blood and my daddy screaming I had finally loaded the gun and starting shooting Geraldine but it was too late daddy's screams had stopped and there were organs everywhere with my final bullet I shot Geraldine right between her eyes and she was out cold. I took out my hunting knife from my sock and skinned her. I lay her pelt on the ground and dragged daddy's clawed blood covered corpse onto it and folded up the pelt. I was crying hysterically while I dragged the bundle to the camp I said hello to the horses and somehow managed to put daddy's body and the bear pelt on his horse. I packed up camp and put it on my horse. I told daddy's horse to follow me and I went straight home crying the whole way I got back at two o'clock so I dug a hole in the front yard and buried daddy. I wandered mindlessly into daddy's bedroom and crawled into his bed and just cried. I cried and cried and cried until I had cried myself to sleep.