“There’s only the two of them. We’re a match for them.”

“There isn’t just two, Jack. If there’s another world beyond that O, then there could be a whole worldful, another whole worldful and not yours or mine.”

“You don’t know what’s there and you won’t know until we’ve gone through and found out. Those monsters that are impersonating us have killed your kind, Eddie, many now of your kind. They’ll return and kill more if we don’t stop them.”

“We’ll lie in wait, then,” said Eddie.

“You can walk,” said Jack, “of your own accord, or else I’ll carry you.”

“You wouldn’t!” Eddie drew back in alarm. “You wouldn’t treat me like that.”

“All right, I wouldn’t, but I’m pleading with you, Eddie. Let’s go after them now, before the scent goes cold. We’ll be careful and I’m damn sure that they won’t be expecting us.”

“You don’t understand,” said Eddie. “You didn’t grow up here.”

Jack looked down at Eddie Bear. The bear was clearly shivering.

“You are afraid,” said Jack. “You really are.”

“Yes I am, Jack. I really am.”

Jack cocked his head from one side to the other. “You knew,” said he. “You’ve known all along.”

“Know what?” said Eddie. “What did I know?”

“You knew what the phrase meant. Beyond The Second O. If you grew up here and you were told you’d be lost if you went over that hill, you had to know what the phrase meant.”

“Well, perhaps I did. But it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“Look,” said Jack, “whatever is out there, I’ll protect you. I’ll protect you with my life.”

“I know you will, Jack – you’ve done it before.”

“Then come with me.”

“I can’t.”

“Then I will go alone.” And Jack turned to do so.

“No,” cried Eddie. “Jack, please don’t go up there alone.”

“Then come with me, Eddie. Come with me, Mister Bear.”

Eddie dithered and dithering wasn’t his style. “Let’s go tomorrow,” he said. “In the daylight.”

Jack hefted his mighty Mini-gun. “I’m going now,” he said, “and if you won’t come, if you can’t come, then I understand. You’re brave, Eddie. I know you’re brave. But if this is too much for you, then so be it. Wait here and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Jack, please don’t go.”

“I must.”

And with that Jack turned away, looked up the hill, up at the letters TO TO LA, and then Jack set off up the lonely hillside, and Eddie Bear watched him go.

And Eddie Bear made faces and scuffed his paw pads in the moonlit dirt. He couldn’t let Jack go up there on his own, he couldn’t. There was no telling what kind of trouble he’d get himself into. Eddie would have to go, too. No matter how great his fear.

And Eddie took a step or two forward.

And then a step or two back.

“This is ridiculous,” said Eddie. “I can do it. I must do it. I can and I must and I will.”

But he couldn’t.

The figure of Jack was diminishing, as is often the case with perspective. Eddie watched as Jack climbed higher, bound for that Second Big O.

“Come on, Eddie,” the bear told himself. “Jack is your bestest friend. You would never forgive yourself if he came to harm and you could have protected him from it.”

“I know,” Eddie now told himself, “but I’ve been hoping against all hope that there was another solution. That the murderers were simply spacemen, or something. Something not of this world, but not something from Beyond The Second Big O. Because beyond there lies a terrible, dreadful something. That’s what I was taught and that is what I believe.”

“And you’re letting your bestest friend wander into that something alone,” Eddie further told himself. “What kind of bear are you?”

“A terrified one,” Eddie further, further, further told himself.

“Oh, what do I do? Tell me, what do I do?” And Eddie, although no devout bear, prayed to the God of All Bears. “I don’t know what to do,” Eddie prayed. “Please won’t you send me a sign?”

And perhaps it was the God of All Bears, or perhaps it was not, but a sign was made manifest to Eddie. Manifest in the Heavens, it was, as such signs often are.

And Eddie looked up and Eddie beheld. And he beheld it on high.

The moonlit sky was studded with stars, but one was brighter than all the rest. Eddie Bear peeped through his button eyes. “There’s a new star in Heaven tonight,” he said.

And the new star, the bright new star, grew brighter still.

“Is that you, Mister God?” asked Eddie.

And brighter and closer grew this star until it was all over big.

And Eddie looked up at this very big star.

And Eddie Bear said, “Oh no!”

For this star, it now seemed, was no star at all. This star now grew even bigger and hovered now overhead. For this star, it seemed, was no star at all. It was a spaceship instead.

A proper flying saucer of a spaceship, all aglow with twinkling lights and a polished underbelly.

And the saucer now hovered low above Eddie and Eddie could make out rivets and tin plate and a sort of logo embossed into the underside of the brightly glowing craft. And this logo resembled a kind of stylised, in-profile sort of a head. And this was the head of a chicken.

And a bright light swept down upon Eddie.

And Eddie Bear took to his paw pads.

And onward scampered Eddie with the spaceship keeping pace, and the light, a sort of death-ray one, he supposed, a-burning up the grass and gorse and briars and nettles and stuff.

“Wah!” cried Eddie as he scampered. “Wah! Oh, Jack. Help me!”

Jack, a goodly way up the hill, turned and looked over his shoulder. And Jack saw the spaceship and Jack saw Eddie.

And Jack was frankly afeared.

And when Jack had managed to summon a voice, this voice cried, “Eddie, hurry!”

“I am hurrying.” And Eddie was, his little legs pounding beneath him. And Jack now hefted his great big gun and flipped off the safety catch.

The spaceship, keeping pace with Eddie, burned up the hillside behind him. The gorse and briars and nettles and stuff took all to blazing away. A goodly fire was spreading now, fanning out to Eddie’s rear.

“Hurry!” cried Jack. And then he let rip. Let rip with the Mini-gun. The clockwork motion hurled projectiles through six revolving barrels. Barrels spat flame and bullets, bullets that tore tracer-like into the moonlit sky.

And the craft moved onward, bullets bouncing from its hull. And the light swept onward, raising fire in Eddie’s wake.

And the bear rushed onward, bound for his bestest friend.

“You’re a really bad spacecraft,” cried Jack, and he flung the Mini-gun aside and brought forth a grenade from his trenchcoat pocket. “Come on, Eddie, faster now,” and Jack pulled the pin and wondered how many seconds ’til Boom!

“Ow!” went Eddie. “Ouch!” And his heels took fire.

“One,” said Jack. “Two. How many? Ten, I suppose, so three, no, that would be four now, or maybe six, or seven, or … damn.”

And Jack hurled the grenade.

And it was a good hurl, but it fell short.

And a big chunk of hillside exploded.

And some of that hillside rained down upon Eddie.

“Don’t do that, Jack!” cried the bear.

Jack pulled out another grenade and once more pulled the pin.

“One, two, three, four,” Jack counted. “Hurry, Eddie, hurry, eight, nine, oh!” And Jack did another hurling and ducked his head as he did so. For the spacecraft was very near now, as indeed was Eddie.

“Quickly, Eddie.” And Jack snatched up the bear and ran very fast indeed.

And next there came an explosion, an explosion on high. And the spaceship swung about in the sky, flames roaring from its upper dome area. And then it began its plunging down, in Jack and Eddie’s direction.

“Oh no!” shouted Jack, and he ran and he leapt, a-clutching Eddie tight. And as the spaceship smashed down to the hillside with a mighty explosion, which far exceeded that of the falling chandelier and probably had the edge over even a car chase when it came to exciting spectacle, Jack leapt for his life, leapt with Eddie, up and through and beyond.