THE LORE OF THE BEAR WALKERS

They say the Bear Walkers were hunters once. Not the kind who missed shots or begged forgiveness from the forest. These men took more than they needed. Skinned bears for sport. Left carcasses to rot. They laughed when the elders warned them that bears were not animals to the old tribes, but kin—watchers, teachers, sometimes gods.  So the forest corrected the imbalance. That’s what my grandfather told me the night before he disappeared. I didn’t believe him then.

I was staying at the fire lookout for the summer, cataloguing wildlife sightings for the state. No cell service. No nearby towns. Just trees layered so thick they swallowed sound. Bears were common—black bears mostly. Smart, curious, always watching from just beyond the treeline. On my third night, I heard footsteps outside the cabin. Slow. Heavy. Bipedal. I grabbed my flashlight and rifle and stepped onto the porch. “Hey!” I called. “You need help?” The footsteps stopped. Then I heard breathing—deep and wet, like lungs pulling air through fur. Something tall shifted behind the trees. The smell hit me next: rot, iron, damp earth. A bear rose into the beam of my flashlight. At least, I thought it was a bear—until it kept rising. Its shoulders split and reshaped, bones grinding like stones. The head elongated, jaw cracking as it stretched into something closer to a human skull, but the teeth stayed wrong—too many, too long. Its eyes were human. Dark. Intelligent. Familiar. It stood there on two legs, fur hanging off it like a badly worn coat. Then it spoke. “Go inside,” it said. The voice was broken, like it hadn’t been used in years. I ran.

The next morning, I found tracks around the cabin. Bear prints. Human footprints. Sometimes overlapping. Sometimes melting into one another mid-step, as if whatever made them couldn’t decide what shape it wanted to be. I radioed in, but the signal crackled uselessly. By nightfall, the forest felt closer. The trees leaned inward. Every sound echoed twice—once real, once delayed. That was when the knocking started. Not pounding. Not scratching. Polite. Rhythmic. Knuckles against wood. I didn’t answer. “Please,” a voice said from the other side of the door. “It hurts to stay like this. ”I recognized the voice then. My grandfather’s. I opened the shutter and looked out through the glass. He stood in the clearing, naked except for patches of dark fur crawling up his arms and spine. His face sagged wrong, bones pressing against skin as if something underneath was rearranging him piece by piece. Behind him, shapes moved between the trees. Dozens of them. Some more bear than man. Some almost human again. All watching. “They come when you take too much,” he said gently. “They teach you how to carry it.” “What did you take?” I whispered. He smiled, and his teeth were already changing. “A bear,” he said. “Then another. Then their time.” The forest roared. I don’t remember leaving the lookout. I only remember running until my legs failed and waking up at the ranger station two days later, dehydrated and half-mad. They said no one else had been assigned to that lookout in years. They said my grandfather vanished hunting forty years ago. They said bears don’t walk on two legs. But sometimes, when I’m deep in the woods, I hear footsteps pacing mine—heavy, patient, protective. And when I smell iron and pine and old fur, I know the Bear Walkers are still there. Watching. Waiting. Making sure the balance holds.