Silence spread around us, as we looked down on the lifeless body in front of our feet.
"He... he's really dead, right?", Lynn asked in a whispering voice.
"Yup.", I answered.
I saw how she started to shiver. Maybe this was the right moment to-
"Will you marry me?", I asked her with a smile on my face.
Eyes wide opened, she kept staring at the corpse and slowly shook her head.
"Not now, John."
Alright, fair enough. Maybe next time.
I knew Collin would have raised his thumb and grinned if he had lived to hear me say that. And if his thumb didn't lie somewhere on that grassy spot near the trees over there. Alongside most of his teeth. And parts of his jawbone.

"John, I think I'm going to be sick."
I knew what she meant. The horrid smell that emerged from the corpse was truly disgusting. But it didn't really have anything to do with Collin getting his arse kicked and scattered around the whole place three minutes ago, no.
Collin had already smelled like that for the last three years.
You know, I honestly think that he was a psychic. Nobody could match his sense for future events. For instance, when I first met Collin, he could instinctly tell that I would soon be fed up with him for the obvious reason of him being an idiot weirdo. And boy was he right.
Yup, that was Collins, always ahead of the time. Even went so far as to smell like a disgusting, slowly decomposing, rotting corpse way before it finally hit him.

"It was bound to happen.", a manly voice behind me said. "Actually, it happens all the time."
I turned around and found myself facing one of the park's rangers. The little nameplate on his shirt read "Smith".
"A friend of yours?", he asked and pointed to Collin's corpse with a little movement of his chin.
Lynn nodded apathetically, I shook my head.
"Bugger. That's the eleventh this month."
Something in the look of Lynn's eyes changed as she turned to the ranger. Not sure if it was a change for the better. I mean, sure, that frantic look usually serves as a clear sign of mental instability-
"The eleventh?"
... but then again, it also denotes the perfect opportunity to take advantage of her, doesn't it?
"The eleventh!?", she repeated a little louder.
Well, I for one was sure that it did.
"Lynn, do you want to marry me?"
"No honey, not now. The bear already killed a total of eleven people!?"
"Eleven people this month.", the ranger corrected her with a smile. "All in all, he's slain about two- or threehundred now, I think. I lost track of the actual number somewhen during last September."
"But... it's August now..." Lynn's voice was barely audible anymore.
"Yes Ma'am, sure is.", Smith replied, still carrying a happy smile on his face.
It was obvious that Lynn was about to snap any second and so I thought-
"Sure you don't wanna-"
"No John."
"Oh, alright."
Bugger.

"Is this his hand?" The ranger picked up a severed hand from the ground. I took a good look at it.
"No." Of course it wasn't Collin's hand, anyone could see that. Collin had asthma.

"I told him he shouldn't poke fun at that bear.", Lynn said. It seemed as if she was close to tears.
"I think he crossed the line when he pulled his tie.", I added.
"What was all that 'here comes the punchline' talk about anyway?"
"No idea. But that salami sure did a number on the bear's crotch."
The bear had a punchline , too, but you wouldn't be able to make it out anymore, since it went from Collin's right shoulder to his hips and as of late, the distance between those two parts was rather... fair.

"You know, that bear's always been a problem. Always been a little smarter than the average bear.", the ranger explained.
"I put up signs reading 'Don't feed the bear' all around the park, so that mischevious bastard switched to stealing food from others."
Smith paused for a second.
"Until we had to close the park down last summer due to the rabies spreading in this area. No more visitors, no more food to steal, you see?"
I nodded.
"Shortly after, he snapped. Suddenly went all 'Hey there, Booboo!' on his little friend and started assembling visitors' limbs in his 'pic-a-nic baskets' when we opened again."

Lynn cocked her head a little in confusion.
"So why don't you just take the signs off and let the visitors feed him?"
"Can't be arsed.", came the reply.
"Ah."
Again, I nodded. Made perfect sense to me.

We left Jellystone Park Camp-Resort the same day.

Lynn and I never got married. In fact, she broke up with me shortly after that, but don't worry about me, I'm fine.

And I'm keeping her in the cellar until she changes her mind.