Basket Case
"This is going to be awesome!" The slim teen said as he held the bear suit out for his friend.
"Sick, bro," his friend agreed as he stepped into the back legs of the costume and bent down to put his arms in the front legs and duck his head into the bear's.
Armen shifted from leg to leg, getting himself settled as Sergei zipped up the back of the costume. He swung his head back and forth, the bear's muzzle seeming to test the air in front of him. Sergei stepped back and gave his friend the thumbs up. "Great look, dude. You'd fool me if I hadn't just stuck you in there."
Armen turned and looked up at his friend. "You got the camera?"
Sergei held up the camcorder they'd packed. "Right here."
Armen turned back towards their neighbors' campsite and bounded forward, intentionally waving his brown-furred rear at Sergei. "Keep up if you can!"
***
Jeff sat down next to Tina, his metal lawn chair creaking slightly under his weight. "That ought to do it."
Tina looked up from her book. "The food's up a tree?"
"Yes, dear."
"Wood's piled up?"
"It is."
"Tent's pitched?"
"Yup."
Tina smiled and sat back. "Then you deserve some relaxation time."
"Indeed I do," Jeff agreed.
Tina grinned and got up. "Are you saying I'm not pulling my weight?"
Jeff smiled back. "Your words, dear."
Tina bent down and gently tickled her husband. "Well, I hope you forgot to take a sausage out of your pocket and get eaten by a - bear!" She shouted the last word and took a step back.
"What's wrong?" Jeff craned his neck to look in the direction Tina was staring. His gaze was met by that of a grizzly bear, not more than twenty yards away and slowly advancing on them.
Jeff was frozen in fear as his wife backed off, and didn't even get up when the bear reared up on its hind legs and rested its razor-clawed front paws on the back of his chair. He didn't take his eyes from the bear's as he told his wife, "Try to get to the car. Don't worry about me."
"But," Tina protested, "the bear's between us and the car."
"Try to go around," Jeff said calmly.
Armen silently laughed at what he was hearing from the previously happy couple. Moving slowly and trying to have one person distract the 'animal' while the other went for a vehicle might work on a real bear, but not on this one. He let them think their trick was working for just long enough so that the woman was almost past him and to their car when he swung his head quickly, fell back down onto all fours and galloped towards the poor woman, who screamed and began to run.
She tried to continue to her car, but Armen wasn't going to let that happen. She might get help and ruin the fun. He cut in front of her and forced her back to the camp site, where her husband had already climbed a low tree. "Grab on," he heard the man say as he hanged down from a branch and took his wife's hand. With his prey now treed, Armen sat on his wide bear behind and waited to see what they'd try next.
"Killer, dude," Sergei whispered as he watched the chaos unfold in the camera's view screen.
Armen had snuck up on them as quietly and with the same skittish curiosity a real bear might show. From there, he'd provided so much great footage that their friends would be praising their prank for years to come. He wasn't sure if there was much more that could happen, though, with the two campers up a tree and Armen at the base waiting for them.
It had been half an hour and the couple had barely moved. Armen yawned, his bear muzzle replicating the motion for the benefit of the couple looking down at him. The costume was getting hot and itchy, and nothing seemed to be going on. Sergei was likely to run out of space on his memory card, too. With a last swipe at the trunk of the tree, Armen got up and slowly waddled back towards the trees, knocking over their chairs for good measure.
He met Sergei where his friend had been secretly filming everything he'd done. "How'd I do?" He asked as he passed by.
"Brilliant," Sergei said, enthusiasm evident as he followed Armen. "We'll be legendary, dude."
When they arrived back at their own campsite, Armen arched his back and stretched. "Let me out of this thing, man. I'm getting a serious cramp."
Sergei bent down and grasped the zipper, but instead of cool air and freedom, all Armen felt was a pull on the fabric. "Uh, dude?" Sergei said. "I can't get this zipper to move."
Armen turned on his friend. "Well, pull harder!" He snapped.
Sergei took a step back. "Man, you really are scary." He took the zipper again and pulled as hard as he could, but it didn't budge. "I can't do anything."
"Cut me out, then." Armen said.
"I haven't got a knife, man. We were only supposed to be here a couple of hours, remember?"
Armen sighed. "Then we'll have to go home and find something to get me out with." He moved in the direction of the parking lot. "Let's go."
Sergei didn't move. "The parking lot is right next to those tools' campsite, remember, man? And even if they weren't on our way back, wouldn't it look suspicious if I was being followed by a bear who got into my car?"
Armen looked around, seeing the firecrackers they were going to set off to celebrate their triumph. "I have an idea."
Jeff and Tina had just gotten their camp back in order and relaxed again when they heard a bang from a camp nearby.
"What was that?" Tina asked.
"Sounded like a gun." Jeff replied.
They hurried in the direction of the sound. They reached the neighboring campsite to find a young man standing over the bear that had attacked them. There was a smell of gunpowder in the air.
"Damn bear tried to attack me," the youth said in explanation.
"Yeah," Jeff replied, "it just did the same to us. Must have been rabid or something."
The youth bent down. "I'd better get this thing to my car. I'll run it down to the ranger's station and they can have a look."
Jeff joined him, taking the bear's back end as the youth took the front. "I'll help you." He blew air as he straightened up. "Heavy beast, isn't he?"
He thought he heard the bear growl and the youth go, "Shh." But when he looked up, the youth was looking straight forward towards the parking lot.
Armen sighed in relief as the guy who he'd recently chased up a tree shoved his flank, pushing him all the way into the back seat of Sergei's car. He shifted to get an arm out from under himself and heard the man say, "Did it just move?" And his friend reply, "No." Sergei then slid into the driver's seat and started the car. As he drove away he said, "That was close, dude."
Armen looked at him. "You said it." Before they left the lot, though, Armen couldn't help himself and levered his body up so that he was looking out the back window of the car. Seeing that the couple was watching the car leave, he raised a paw and waved at them, savoring the look of amazement on their faces.
Once Armen was safely out of the costume, he and Sergei watched the footage, laughing their heads off at the antics of the couple they'd pranked.
"I still can't believe you got yourself stuck," Sergei said. "That whole thing was almost as priceless as what you did to them there." He getured at the TV.
"Fine," Armen said, "you can be the one in the costume next. I have just the prank." He got up and returned with a thick padded lycra bodysuit in one hand and the grinning, purple-haired smiling head of a kigurumi mask in the other. "There's a geek convention next weekend. I bet you'll have them doing backflips for you."
He didn't tell Sergei about the frilly skirt, high-heels, slender cat tail and other girly stuff he'd be wearing on top of the suit. Nor did he mention the tube of glue in his pocket. He'd see how Sergei handled being unable to escape the attention-grabbing costume and the retinue of anime dorks that would follow him around. That part would be caught on camera, just as he'd noted Sergei had caught his own distress.