The Bear In The Cable-Knit Sweater E-Book

Robert Jeschonek

• Herausgeber: Pie Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

The burly, furry members of the International Bear Brotherhood can't resist a pitcher of beer or a knock-down-drag-out bar brawl. But the fun's over when one of their own disappears without a trace, causing his lover, Angus, to set out on a quest to find him at any cost. Hairy as a real bear because of a medical condition, Angus roams the urban wilderness like a grizzly on the trail...until the trail finally leads him into a nightmare world where everything he knows and loves is on the line. Transformed in ways he never imagined, Angus faces a savage end unless he can rise up to claim the heritage that only a Bear like him could ever hope to master. Don't miss this surprising story by award-winning writer Robert Jeschonek, a master of unique and unexpected fantasy that really packs a punch.

Leseprobe

The Bear In The Cable-Knit Sweater

A FANTASY TALE

ROBERT JESCHONEK

Contents

Also by Robert Jeschonek

The Bear In The Cable-Knit Sweater

About the Author

Special Preview: Heaven Bent

THE BEAR IN THE CABLE-KNIT SWEATER

Copyright © 2023 by Robert Jeschonek

http://bobscribe.com/

Cover Art Copyright © 2023 by Ben Baldwin

www.benbaldwin.co.uk

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved by the author.

Published by Blastoff Books

An Imprint of Pie Press

411 Chancellor Street

Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15904

www.piepresspublishing.com/

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Also by Robert Jeschonek

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Bloodliner

Dolphin Knight

Heaven Bent

Six Fantasy Stories Volume One

Six Superhero Stories Volume One

The Return of Alice

The Bear In The Cable-Knit Sweater

I stand in the center of the coliseum, the pink sun blazing on my flesh, and raise the fairies I clutch in both fists.  Their tiny bodies squirm between my fat fingers as they struggle to break free, but they're not going anywhere.

I turn in a circle with the fairies held overhead, and the army of bears that surround me on the dirt floor of the coliseum stop snarling.  They stand on hind legs with red or pink tutus fluttering in the breeze, some balancing on beach balls, some perched on unicycles. They stare with wide eyes, claws twitching in the Faerie world heat.

And I wait for their answer to my question.  "Who deserves the crush?"  My throat hurts as I howl it at the top of my lungs.  "Me or them?  Me or them?"

I feel the bears' eyes upon me, bulging with wonder and hunger and fear.  The moment is upon them, a moment they never imagined.

This is for you, Stan, I think, and then I roar, demanding their answer.

* * *

I was roaring last night, too, in a very different place--my favorite bar in downtown Pittsburgh, called Boilermaker's.  I was surrounded by bears then, too, of the human variety.  My people, my family, not by blood but by love.  The only family who'd ever truly cared about me.

I let loose with a roar in the midst of them, right after I blew out the candles on my birthday nachos.  They cheered me with roars of their own, all of them strapping as lumberjacks.  Ten big boyfriends clapping and kissing and throwing back beers and whiskey shots with bold abandon.  Saluting our flag with the bear's paw in the top left corner and the stripes of brown, tan, white, gray, and black.  All of us card-carrying members of the local chapter of the International Bear Brotherhood.

My people.

"Welcome to your thirties, Angus!"  My partner, Stan, slung an arm around my shoulders and shook me hard.  "How's it feel to be over the hill?"

I punched him in the stomach.  "You tell me, Sluggo!"  That was my nickname for Stan.  A real term of endearment for the man I loved and still love more than anyone or anything in any world.

Stan looked like Ernest Hemingway with his bushy gray hair and beard, his barrel chest.  "Screw you, Angus!"  Laughing, he scrubbed the thick brown hair on my head in a brutal noogie.

"You wish!" said one of the guys--Horst or Louie or Al--and everyone cracked up.

"Another round!" said Stan.  "For Angus' birthday!"

"Last man standing gets to kick his ass!"  Big-bellied Horst shook his half-empty beer mug at me, jet black mutton-chop sideburns curling away from his ice cream grin.

Stan cracked his shot glass down on the table and stomped in front of Horst with shoulders squared under his red flannel shirt.  "You'll have to go through me first!"

Suddenly, a crash like a thunderclap exploded in the room.  We all looked toward it, though we already knew the source.

Sure enough, Pete the bartender/owner had brought the ol' baseball bat down on the bar again.  "No fighting, jagoffs!"

Who could blame him?  Last time the bears had gone ballistic in there, Pete had ended up with a shattered front window.

Not that we didn't love Pete or Boilermaker's.  Not that we didn't pay to fix that busted window.  It's just that that's the way we were. Rough and tumble.  Loud and proud. A real band of brothers.

With benefits.

Pushing past Stan and Horst, I did what I used to do best--deflect with humor.  "Who you calling jagoffs, pal?"  Rolling up the sleeves of my heavy white sweater, I charged the bar, smacking my hands down hard on either side of the baseball bat...glaring up at Pete, way up at Pete, from my four-foot-five-inch height.  "Take it back, Pete!  Don't make me climb up there!"

Pete's eyes twinkled with mirth.  He shook his head and looked away.

"Somebody get me a stepladder!" I said, and everyone laughed.

Crisis averted.

The guys chanted "Next round, next round," and Pete stomped off to fill glasses.  Left me staring at myself in the mirror behind the bar.

What a hairy S.O.B.  I might have been the shortest of the local bear brotherhood, but I was by far the hairiest.

Shaggy brown fur covered my head and my whole face except my eyes, lips, and the tip of my nose.  More of the same covered almost every inch under my clothes...even covered my hands except for my fingertips.  

How'd you like to go through life looking like a werewolf, right down to the hair on your palms?  All thanks to the miracle of hypertrichosis, the disease that blasts hair growth into perpetual overdrive.

Welcome to my world.

Imagine the constant ridicule and abuse I put up with from day one.  Imagine being abandoned by my parents at age three, then juggled like a hot potato from one foster family to the next.  Always the freak, always the outcast, always the dog-faced boy. Growing up to scrape by as a home-based telemarketer.  Hardly ever leaving my apartment, and then only with everything under wraps. Always just hanging on to life and sanity by the skin of my teeth.

Imagine living like that, and maybe you'll get it.  Maybe you'll understand just how happy I was with Stan and the bears.