JD VANCE: GREENLAND STRIKES BACK

PART 2 (satire)

THE FUTON

It was a shape in the distance at first — squat and rectangular, sticking out of the endless white like a shipwreck on a frozen ocean. The closer JD got, the stranger it looked. No tarp. No covering. Just a futon, of all things, weathered and dark against the snow. He limped toward it, one foot wrapped in frost-crusted fabric, the other trailing red with every step.

He collapsed beside it.

The smell hit him immediately.

Not mildew. Not damp furniture. This was something different. Heavier. Wetter. Wild. It slid into his nostrils like a warning — metallic and oily, with the unmistakable tang of fresh blood.

It was raw seal meat.

Not laying out in the open, but hidden. Concealed beneath the futon. Stuffed under its frame, wrapped in something that may have once been canvas or tarp, now torn and half-frozen into the ice. Whoever placed it there had done so carefully — intentionally. It wasn’t visible at first glance. You had to get close. You had to kneel. You had to commit.

Which JD did.

He crouched beside the futon, squinting against the wind, one bare hand reaching under the frame. And that’s when he touched it: flesh. Cold. Slippery. Still damp. There were tufts of fur stuck to the underside, and what looked like hairline streaks of blood trailing out from where it had been jammed under the base.

It was an ancient smell — something predatory and ancestral, the kind of odor that bypasses logic and goes straight to the amygdala. Some men freeze when they smell it. Others run. JD leaned in.

Maybe he was hallucinating. Maybe he thought it was part of the deal. Maybe, deep down, he knew this was wrong — and touched it anyway.

Because a second later, everything went black.

THE ATTACK

He never saw it coming.

The polar bear struck from behind — no warning, no growl, just a 1,200-pound wall of muscle and rage.

Three claws ripped through his back like a bandsaw. The parka shredded. Flesh opened. Blood sprayed in thick arcs across the ice.

He hit the ground. Couldn’t breathe.

Then the jaws clamped down on his left shoulder — crushed muscle, shattered clavicle. JD screamed once.

Then it dragged him.

Like a seal. Like a prize.

He kicked. Thrashed. Managed to grab a splinter of wood from the futon and stabbed backward. Blind. Desperate.

The bear reared back. Paused. And then… it left.

Not out of fear.

Out of indifference.

JD lay face-down in the snow, bleeding. Freezing. Alone.

And still, he crawled.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

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