Inside a Bear and Other Dark Places
Special Edition
by Martha Hood

Page 1 from Inside a Bear
Food Chain Fandango

"Good Food Is Good Health"

The bar gives on an enormous dining room, undivided but for rows and rows of those high-backed booths so comforting to the human form. The half-circular booths, side-by-side and back-to-back, form wedges and diamonds where they join. Upon each wedge or diamond sits a small incandescent lamp adorned with a cunning mauve shade. Light bounces softly from the gray walls in an ambient glow. Music, soft and tuneless as falling water, wafts over the waiters' mechanical (but sensitive) antennae. The various ambient parts combine to produce a certain sensory deficiency that whets the appetite, that provokes it into a frenzy.

They come with their drinksótall, frothy, fruity concoctions in hues of peach and kiwi and aqua. The waiters smooth their aprons over their energy readouts and go to work. They take drinks from hands, set them gently down. They pull tables out from booths to facilitate entry. They bring out a dozen sweet-laden carts, which they begin to roll, slowly, up and down the aisles.

These sweets—pastries, tarts, tortes, cakes, gateaux, coupes, and truffles—any one would cause a healthy, red-blooded human to salivate most unseemly. But first they are fed dinner. They are given moules and patÈ and pasta and salad and tournedos and potatoes and tomatoes. Vino and al dente and paella and sushi and a little loaf of cornbread for each. Yet, while one waiter with its many arms might bring fritters or chai or enchilada, another will be rolling by with a cartful of sweets. Depend on it.

They can roll by all they want—no one has to eat any.

Ah, but it is so enticing. Too much so. It is a plot to make you gain weight. It is a trap. It is a devious trick.

Finally, after many courses, bottles are drained dry and platters eaten clean. The waiters—those not engaged in pushing sweets—scurry about to collect the empty dishes, which they carry off in great piles on their hard metal backs.

When the last plate is gone, the carts stop. One dozen carts, one for every four tables. The humans lean forward to see.

In the center of the top tray of one particular cart sits a Dark Chocolate Macadamia Nut Mousse Cake that is a little bit larger, a little bit chocolate-ier, a little bit more irresistible than the cheesecakes, profiteroles, and cream puffs surrounding it.

A finger points. That one, a voice says.

The cake leaps off the cart and stings the human with a yellowish, syrupy venom. Then it eats him, chomp-chomping with gusto, spitting out (but delicately) toenails and contact lenses.

Not a single scream breaks the air, for all of the other sweets follow the first one and, nanoseconds after the first sting, eat up everyone in the room. There are exactly enough to go around.

Page 135 from Inside a Bear
Old Nick and Rodolpho

Old Nick swept clumps of hair from the floor, flicking his tail in irritation as he went.Rodolpho—elbows akimbo like some great bird of prey—made busy with a client.His muscular and silk-clad self hid his progress from Nick's curious peeks, as did the shrouds that hid the mirror. Rodolpho liked to treat the client to a sudden and complete revelation of the "do" he had created for her.

Nick had swept the last of the debris; he was about to go dump the dustpan in back when Rodolpho tossed his tawny mane and turned his amber eyes on the poor old devil, his part-time worker.

"Are the towels ready?" Rodolpho asked.

"Towels?" Nick echoed, with a slight frown of confusion.

"Towels, yes."

"Are we speaking of some particular towels, or just towels in general?"

Rodolpho looked as though he might spit locusts. "We are speaking of the towels you put in the dryer an eon ago! Are they ready?"

"Oh." Those towels. "Yeah. I guess so."

"Well, get them, you numskull! Do I have to tell you everything?"

Old Nick had had enough of Rodolpho's arrogance. "It isn't nice to speak to a person in such a nasty tone of voice! It's uncalled for! I have feelings too, you know! I have my pride, just like anyone else."

Rodolpho raised a brow. "Pride? Oh yes, my dear Nick, we know all about your pride, don't we? Shall we talk about pride and its consequences?"

Old Nick hung his head.

"Good. Then we shan't mention the subject, ever again." Rodolpho pressed his lips together and minced off another centimeter of his client's "do." "Now, chop chop! Let's get those towels out here, on the double!"

Nick was pulling the last of the towels from the dryer when he heard the client scream. He grabbed the basket and hurried back.

The mirror had unshrouded itself. The client—whom Nick had never heard referred to by any name other than Sweetheart—stared at her reflection as though her eyes were held open by toothpicks, and screamed. Her screams choked off into sobs, but her eyes never closed. Her hair—curls of snakes, bangs of maggots—writhed. She started to bring a hand up, as if she could pat her hair into place, then shrieked as one of the serpent-heads snapped at her fingers.

Rodolpho observed her hysterics with a cool eye. "I don't know why I bother," he muttered. "None of them appreciate me. They wouldn't know a fashion statement if it bit them."