Dawn of the Yeti

Dawn of the Yeti

By Winchester Malone

Published by Brew City Press

Chapter One

It’s when the wind
isn’t howling in my ears that I can’t sleep. On the clear nights, when the
clouds are missing and the stars glare down at us with their faraway warmth and
the sounds of screams are unhampered by falling snow, I toss and turn, trying
to shut out the cries and pray for the wind to kick up and the world weep and
moan.

Tonight is one of
those nights. The sounds of rampaging monsters and screaming victims fill my
ears as I huddle closer to my pack. They shiver alongside me, thinking the same
things, wishing our ears would go deaf, wondering if the Jo-Bran will find us,
wondering when they will find us. Because they will. They always do.

“You asleep, Tom,”
Charles says, his voice hardly audible.

“Am I ever on a
night like this?”

Charles chuckles
without mirth. “No, I suppose none of us are.”

“Not with you two
yammering on,” Angelo says.

A quick snort of a
snore cuts off the conversation.

“Meredith is,” I
say. “She could sleep through the apocalypse.”

“Isn’t she already?”
Angelo says.

I nod my agreement,
though I know he can’t see me. I don’t want to admit out loud that this is the
way the world ends, frozen and dead.

Meredith snorts
again, this snore stretching long and loud, like a pig squeal.

“One of these days,
she’s going to get us killed,” Angelo says.

“That or your smart
mouth will,” Charles says.

“Shut up.”

This time it’s a
piercing scream that interrupts the conversation.

“We all should,” I
say, hardly more than a breath.

The others in the
pack listen, rustling in their furs and cloaks, the snow grumbling with every
movement. Another scream comes, followed by a raging roar, and I know the
Jo-Bran have finished, their chorus of snarls a discordant dirge. But there is
no lamentation for the dead, just the praise of blood, the taste of bone.

I close my eyes.

It’s going to be
another long night.

Chapter Two

The ravaged camp
spreads out before us like an exploded brain. Trails of blood, already turned
to ice, slick and solid to the touch, cover the small area, connecting the
scattered pieces of flesh like some twisted connect-the-dot. The sight still
makes me heave, no matter how many similar camps we’ve searched. And I’m glad.
I think I’ll start to worry when the sight of blood and muck and gore doesn’t
affect me, when I can take it all in like another snow covered hill.

“Did they leave us
anything?” I ask.

Angelo, crouched low
to one of the bigger lumps of flesh, grimaces. “Not unless you want to cook
this guy.”

“Looks like this
pack was on its way out.” Charles steps up to me, the crunch of snow and blood
under his boots. “I don’t see any food.”

“The Jo-Bran
could’ve taken their packs.” I rub my chin, my gloved hand almost as cold as my
face.

“I doubt it.”

I do too, but I’m
not about to say as much.

“Doesn’t look like
there is much more than skin on these bones,” Angelo says. His knees pop as he
stands. “They were walking dead.”

I glance behind me
at Meredith who sits silent and still on a distant drift, a dark spot amongst
the too-white world. I think of our own dwindling food supply and wonder if I
shouldn’t join her, away from this mess, and spend my time looking at something
beautiful.

Charles stoops down
and retrieves a small chunk of blood, then pops it into his mouth like a piece
of hard candy. I’ve told him before that I don’t like him doing that; it brings
us one step closer to becoming a Banjankri. But he doesn’t care. There are
nutrients in the blood, he says. A man can live for days on nothing but.

“One of these days
your gonna eat someone with AIDS.” Angelo takes a place beside Charles.

With a shrug,
Charles speaks, and I can see the hunk bobbing around his tongue. “If I do, I’m
just speeding up the process.” He looks over his shoulder to the rising ice
caps in the distance. The Jo-Bran’s home. “Better to die from a cold than being
ripped apart.”

“That’s fucked up,”
Angelo says. He follows Charles gaze, and Angelo’s face drops; he doesn’t want
to go there any more than the rest of us.

“And the best part
is,” Charles clasps Angelo’s shoulder, “It always will be.”

A faint smile builds
and crumbles on Angelo’s face. And I can’t help but think that he isn’t old
enough for this. None of us are.

“Come on,” I say,
putting my hand on Angelo’s other shoulder. “Let’s go get Meredith.”

The sun still hangs
low in the sky, watching us as we traverse the few drifts to where Meredith
sat. For a second, I think that I can hear her hum, but when I pause to double
check, there’s nothing.

“What’d you stop
for?” Angelo asks, annoyed.

“Thought I heard
something.”

“Probably your
stomach.”

It growls, as if
acknowledging Angelo’s observation. “Probably.”

Meredith turns to
face us as we come closer, her pink face half-hidden by the fluff of her hood.
Underneath, her hair lurks, dark and oil black, glossy, fluid. We rarely see
it, but I know that each of us longs for the next glimpse of that hair. When we
found her, over a year ago now—I think—I worried that having a female
in the pack would cause nothing but problems. The Jo-Bran hone in on the scent
of blood better than sharks ever did, and there’s not much of a fix for
menstruation. Plus, we all figured she’d slow us down, wouldn’t be able to keep
up with our fast moves or, at the very least, would cause division amongst us
that she’d fall in love with one, or all, of us and create a schism. We were
wrong on all accounts. She kept up without any effort, and her aqua eyes kept
us from ever trying anything, cold as the air around us. We may lust after her
hair, but none of us will make a move. Angelo had said, “She’s like Snow White
and the witch queen rolled into one.” There couldn’t have been a better
description.

“Think we should eat
something before we move on?” I ask.

Charles looks
towards the city, the bit of blood ice poking from between his lip looking like
a miniature tongue.

Angelo approves the
idea by unslinging his pack, and Meredith’s eyes light up even brighter.

“We won’t stop
long,” I say to Charles as I hunker down, forming a small circle with our pack.

Charles spits, the
glob staining the snow a bright red eye that stares at us as we crack open our
individual cans of fruit. It’s always half frozen, the semi-hard bits of
pineapple and pear and peach crunching in our teeth, their cold stinging deep
down to the roots of our mouths. It chills the bones but fills the stomach.

“I’ve always hated
peaches,” Angelo says between bites. “They always make everything else taste
just like ‘em.”

“Not as bad as
cantaloupe,” I say.

Angelo nods his
agreement.

The stillness of the
snow takes over, and the next few minutes fill with visible breaths and the
occasional whisper from the wind.

Charles continues to
stare into the distance, scraping his boots across the ground and grimacing.
“How long do you think it’ll be before we get there?” His eyes narrow a bit
further, their dark green all but disappearing.

“Two, three days.
Depends on the weather.” I want to say more, to ask if we’re doing the right
thing but don’t. I replace the words with a half-frozen maraschino cherry
instead. I feel the tension in the air, the fear thick and full in the thin
atmosphere. I know they’re wondering the same thing, but they’re good enough
not to voice their opinions. A blessing, for me at least, since they’d expect
an answer, and I won’t have one to give.

I finish my cup of
fruit and drop it to the ground, stand and stretch, and gauge the distance
between our breakfast and our destination. Jutting up from the ground, about a
day’s travel out, I guess, is one of the Spires. We’ve had luck at others,
finding a few missed cans of food, or sometimes full-on freeze-dried cuisines.
It’s as good of place as any to head for. Maybe we can make it by tonight.

And, as usual,
Charles reads my mind. “We’re going for the Spire?”

I nod.

“Think there’ll be
any food?”

“Don’t matter,” I
say. “Any shelter that isn’t a hole in the snow sounds good to me.”

“What about the
Jo-Bran? Don’t they check those places regularly?” Angelo stands and stretches.

I sigh. “We’ll just
figure it out when we get there and scope the scene.” I shift my gaze to
Meredith, who’s still holding her empty fruit cup. “You ready?”

She turns to face
me, those aqua eyes washing over me, a perfect crest of beauty and power, then
nods. She stands and takes the first steps towards our goal.

Chapter Three

The wind is gentle.
The sky clear. Bad days for traveling.

On days like this,
when you can stretch your sight for miles and miles, it isn’t safe, because
although the Jo-Bran mainly attack at night, it doesn’t mean they aren’t on the
lookout. And, there is always the Banjankri.

We stop often,
checking the horizon through Charles’ cracked binoculars, searching for any
dark specs, anything with teeth and claws. We trudge on, the sun making its
slow swoop across the sky. After a few hours, we stop for lunch, sharing a can
of kidney beans, enough to keep us moving, but not enough to keep our stomachs
from growling. They are the only sounds heard across the frozen landscape, our
mouths shut, our words and thoughts to ourselves.

I can’t help but
think this is crazy, this whole fucking thing. The things we do to survive,
digging through every abandoned building in hopes of a few scraps of food, some
leftover cans, trying not to be ripped apart by something twice our size, and
attempting to find something to smile over.

Flashes of my wife
and child inevitably come. Their grins plastered across each face, full,
bright, warm. I push them away. They don’t make me smile anymore.

“We’re not going to
make it,” Charles says, interrupting me from my thoughts, something I silently
thank him for. 

“We have
to,” I say. “We need shelter for the night.”

“Then we’ll
dig a cave.” Charles stops. “Do what we always do.”

“We’ll make
it.”

“No. We
won’t.”

The whole
group has stopped by now, both Meredith and Angelo watching our every move.

“Just think
about it,” I say. “Inside, we can find shelter and security. We’ll bar the
doors and get a good night’s rest for once.” I think about last night, hear the
screams, feel the lack of wind and know that tonight will be a repeat.

“I am
thinking about it,” Charles says. “We’ll have to travel after the sun has set,
and we’ll be stuck out in the open for the whole goddamn world to see.”

“Then we
better make it there.” I step off, leaving Charles fuming behind me. I can feel
the hate in his eyes boring into the back of my skull, but I ignore him.

“Why is it
that we always have to follow your lead?”

I stop
again, turn. It’s not like I haven’t heard this before, though the growing
frequency of its recurrence starts to get to me. I never asked to be the
leader. They never asked me to be the leader. I just look at our needs and try
to fill them. They follow, with or without my consent. “Fine.” I hold up my
hands in surrender. “We’ll see what everyone else has to say about the matter.
We were and still can be a democratic society.”

“Who wants
to stay put for the night?” Charles asks. “Start work on a shelter and just
avoid the Spire altogether.” He puts up his hand and stares hard at the other
two.

Angelo pans
from Charles to me and back, his eyebrows furrowed. I don’t say a word. Don’t
even catch the younger man’s eye. No one else raises their hand. And the sky
and snowy plains seem to extend further beyond Charles, making him look smaller
and smaller against the world.

“Those for
the Spire?” I raise my hand. So does Angelo. Meredith just stands and blinks.

“What about
her?” Charles says, pointing an accusatory glove Meredith’s way. “She didn’t
vote.”

She doesn’t
say a word, or does she put up a hand, but she answers him just the same; she
heads towards the Spire.

Angelo
turns to follow her. I hesitate, watching Charles to see how he’ll react. I see
his eyes darken, his upper lip twitch, but he says nothing as he falls in line.

We’ll have
to pick up the pace, especially with the lost time. Luckily Meredith knows this
and she speeds up, almost to a jog. Our breath puffs in front of us, small
clouds chugging upwards and out, like an ancient steam trains or exhaust from a
car on cold days. What I wouldn’t give for either one—and a place to use
them.

The sun
continues its arc across the sky, dipping down lower and lower. The world
softens, changing from the harsh white to a dull yellow. Soon the snowcaps will
glisten and glow the colors of the rainbow, the sunset reflecting off each
hillock. Regardless of the situation, the image never grows old, and I always
think of the same thing: We’re walking on the sunset itself, traipsing across
painted sky. There is still another hour before the light starts to dwindle and
the snow changes color and the Spire is more than a ways off. I think Charles
is right; we should’ve stopped. Though instead of stopping the pack and making
due with the distance we’ve traveled, I jog along behind them, silent, panting
and praying that we’ll make it before night falls.

We don’t.