Earth Man by Richard Paul Evans Page A

you see him? Is he okay?”
    Danny just nodded and placed a finger to his lips for silence. He suddenly realized he was still holding the can of Coke in his hand. There was no where he could put it and after having spoken to the Earth itself, he felt it would be disgusting to throw it on the ground. Instead of littering, he held onto it and circled back around the rear of the van. Danny had duplicated the bear’s abilities once he’d seen it and he knew it was chasing him. They had each other’s scent but Danny used his senses to stay a step ahead. The bear was alone and hungry; it had lived off human garbage for so long it no longer knew how to hunt. Such a proud beast, forced to live off refuse. The smell of fried food from inside the van was enraging it. Danny felt sorry for the bear but he also knew its power. The energy in his fingertips was almost buzzing, eager to duplicate the bear’s powerful claws. He understood how easily it could kill because he could feel its strength pumping through his veins. Red energy wanted to burst from him but he did not want to hurt the bear. The animal was so lonely and Danny knew why it had been alone so long; the beast was dying. It was rotting slowly from the inside. A blockage that had burst was now causing the rest of the organs to fail. Danny knew it was fatal because he could smell the sickness of it; the bear’s scent was putrid with the smell of death. There was no way he could describe the smell in human terms other than that it was the smell of rot itself. No words could describe it but it was obvious to the other animals. The bear had been abandoned to die by its own kind.
    Danny leaned against the windshield and whispered to the two adults inside. The woman had long curly black hair that was plastered to her face and Danny couldn’t tell if she was listening to him or not.
    “ When I say go, you two run,” Danny pointed back to where he’d left their son.
“Your son is there, head straight from there to the highway.”
    The two parents nodded vigorously and Danny knew it was the best he could hope for from them. The bear went back to prying at the side door and Danny walked into the headlight beams, backing away from the van. As soon as it saw Danny the bear turned toward him, shaking its head as it bound toward him.
    “ GO.” Danny shouted as he walked backwards away from the bear.
    He heard the doors of the van open but he did not dare take his eyes off the giant predator in front of him. The bear turned around and spotted the two frightened adults running away from the van, the doors left open behind them.
    “ Keep your eyes on me, over here. Come on!” Danny said to the bear.
    It charged at him again but he scampered backwards, keeping his hands up in front of him. The bear was not sure how to continue, it was reluctant to leave its meal behind to pursue a human but it did not wan t to give the appearance of submission to its challenger. It stood on its back legs and roared at Danny. It now had to prove its dominance and he smelled like a rival. Suddenly Danny realized that with all his new-found powers he could not control the bear. Even though he could match the bear, that he could read it and duplicate it, he could not influence it in any way. The words of the stranger from the gas station suddenly came back to him.
    Sometimes an act of kind ness makes all the difference.
    Danny looked down at the can of Coke in his hand and he threw it at the van. The bear turned around and Danny kneeled slowly in front of it, keeping his eyes on the bear’s feet. With Danny in a submissive position, the bear confidently looked around. It could smell the sticky sweet soda in the air as the can hit the windshield and covered the hood with fizzy foam. Danny couldn’t see the bear enough to get out of the way if it took a swing at him, it was now up to the bear if he lived or died. Danny had no intention of making the animals’ painful existence any worse and while he