Dawn of the Yeti (4 page)

Chapter Nine

Those same eyes
are staring at me now, as Meredith sips her stew. My eyes fix on hers, and I
can’t look away. It’s as if she’s trying to say something, but I don’t
understand the flecks of her irises. And before I can decipher them, we’re on
our feet again.

Our plod continues
for another few hours, the sun leaning to the west, sinking into sleep. My
captors hiss back and forth, laughing and pushing one another as we go. Goatee
shoves me in the back on occasion, just enough for me to fall on my face, then
be jerked upright be he and the others. I don’t say anything, or do anything.
It’s what he wants. A cat toying with a captive mouse. Unlike the mouse though,
I don’t keep running. I just walk.

From nowhere, the
Banjankri pick up the pace, something unsettling them. The leader stops every
now and again, searches the horizon, sniffs the wind. I do the same, but can
neither see nor smell anything that sets me on edge. Whatever it is, they look
worried.

Just as the sun
dips it toes in the horizon, I think I hear it, what’s put them on edge. A
howl. Long and loud and shrill. Not a Jo-Bran. Wolves.

We’re still a few
hours from the city and will need to find shelter for the night. In the
half-light, I can see the thorn of the Spire, the tip pressing into that of the
sun, popping it. It looks no more than a black pin.

Goatee forces me
forward, the lot of them starting into a jog. I try to keep up the best I can
but find it hard with the short length of rope binding my legs. After my third
fall, the Banjankri cut the strip and prod me along with a spear in my back.
They don’t press too hard though; they’re too focused on what’s outside our
realm of vision, behind the snow drifts and what lurks in the hills nearby. The
leader holds tight to the hills, searching for some shelter for the night. Even
in this predicament, I wish we were closer to the city, closer to the end, to
be done and over with.

The head of the
Banjankri is about 100 feet ahead, when he stops and turns to the rest of us
waving wildly with his hands and speaking louder than I’ve heard any of them
before. The rest of us pick up the pace, once again breaking into a run, the
guards talking in excited tones. I think about breaking off, figuring that this
is my chance to escape.

I wonder if
Meredith would follow, hope that she would. But what could we do? Where would
we go? What if she didn’t? We’re almost to the leader and my chance is all but
gone. I decide to break off. In five, four, three, two…

A terrible snarl
sounds from a few feet ahead and the leader of the Banjankri collapse under the
weight of a savage wolf. It doesn’t hesitate, not taking the time to look
menacing or snarl or howl over its kill, it tears into him. His screams quickly
turn to gurgles as the wolf rips out his throat. I freeze, as do we all,
watching in horror as the Banjankri is devoured. All thoughts of my escape
disappear from my mind.

The other
Banjankri run, screaming, towards the wolf, brandishing their spears. Goatee
even has a shotgun. Meredith turns to me, motions to the hills with a slight
nod. I follow her pointing chin and see a line of wolves cresting the snowcaps.
There are five of them, including the one currently tearing into the Banjankri.
Monster for monster.

The shotgun fires
and I see the first wolf drop in a spray of red, the top half of its head
exploding into shards and brain spatter. As if this were their cue, the wolves
descend, heading straight for the group of Banjankri.

I can’t help but
stare, watch in horror as they tear into one another, spears jabbing into eyes,
mouths, teeth rending flesh, tearing it away one maw-full at a time. And the
snarls and screams fill the air as the blood spatters the snow in rainbow arcs.
It’s Meredith that finally pulls me away, takes my arm, and drags me in the
opposite direction.

We head up into
the hills, trying to get away as fast as possible. My mind shifts to the
footprints we’re leaving behind, and I know that if any of the Banjankri
survives, they’ll be able to find us without much of any trouble. The gunfire,
screams and howls break the almost black night. We run.

The snow crunches.
Overhead clouds drift into the moon’s budding gaze, turning the black even
darker, making it hard to navigate. We stumble, but keep moving forward and
away, the sounds still seeming to come from just over our shoulders. I can hear
Meredith breathe, myself. Mine are shorter, more gasps than breath. And I
suddenly realize why she drank the soup. My strength is all but sapped, and we
can’t be more than 100 yards away. I stop, tearing away from her to catch my
breath.

Another shot rips
through the sky. Then silence.

Both of us look
back, but there is nothing to see, it’s too dark, too far away. Meredith tugs
at my arm and drags me to the side of a hill, pushing me down into a divot.

“It doesn’t
matter,” I say. I point to the tracks.

Meredith’s
eyebrows knit over her fluorescent eyes. She doubles back and starts running
circles around the different hills. Though I appreciate her efforts, I know it
won’t matter. They’ll find us if they want to. If anyone is still alive.

She drops down
beside me and huddles close. It’s the first time we’ve ever been alone, this
close. Her arms wrap around me, pulling me tighter. And the world fades.

*         
*   *

It’s a Sunday
morning and I can smell pancakes drifting in from the kitchen. Krista, my
daughter, must be making us breakfast. Genevieve nuzzles into my neck, her nose
tickling the short hair. Sun filters through the cracks in the blinds, warming
us even further. I feel cooked all the way through, too warm and drowsy to
move. So I stay, breathing in the scents of flour and syrup, basking in the
sun, the warmth, the comfort of my wife’s arms.

Chapter Ten

 I come back
to a gun barrel aimed in my face, a frantic Goatee screaming at the two of us.
We put our hands up. Two spears point in our direction as well. We stand, the
three enemies yelling us, prodding us with spear point and gun barrel. They march
us back the way we came, and I realize how feeble our attempt was. It failed
before we ever started. I failed, being too stupid to not keep up my strength,
regardless of what the meal consisted of.

When we near the
cave, the aftermath of the battle oozes out like a wound. Blood and body parts,
both man and animal, are strewn across the area, connected by the thin trails
of red, almost black in the night.

From what I can
tell, the only Banjankri to fall was the leader, though the youngest, looks to
be in a bad way. He’s propped up against the cave’s entrance. I think of
Angelo, am reminded of his broken form, the limbless heap of cloth.

The mobile
Banjankri push us into the back of the cave, forcing us to sit. They scream at
us for another moment or two, but the spear-wielders soon stop and stoop to
start a fire. They talk in low tones. The shotgun is still in our faces,
shifting from one to the other. Goatee’s good eye fixed on the two of us. He’s
looking at us like this is all our fault, his eyes easy to read, a children’s
picture book about his feelings. Goatee is mad, they say. Goatee hates you.
Goatee wants you to die.

I don’t move,
hardly breathe, not wanting to set him off, make that trigger click. We finally
gain a bit of relief when the youngest moans in the corner. After a few glances
from the younger Banjankri to us and back, Goatee heads off to tend to the
wounded. Though he doesn’t leave until I get a few kicks in the ribs and the
still-warm barrel shoved into my cheek.

A fire starts in the
middle of the cave, and the light is blinding after the cloud-covered night and
the cave’s shadow. Even from here I can feel its warmth, my body finally
shutting down after the day’s stresses. I lean back against the cold wall, shut
my eyes, say, “We’re probably going to die tomorrow.”

I don’t even know
if Meredith hears me. As usual, she doesn’t respond, and I don’t look to see if
she acknowledges the comment. She probably doesn’t. Even if she heard me, how
does one respond to the cold hard truth? Some might cry, I suppose. Others will
boil over with anger. But I know she’s different. It’s just a grain of salt to
the woman found, birthed from the Jo-Bran’s middle.

I keep them closed
for another minute or two, basking in the respite of darkness. It allows me to
think of other things, dream of other places, other faces, and be with the both
of them. Soft hissing opens my eyes.

Goatee huddles by
the younger Banjankri, stroking his unhooded face. He’s hardly older than a
child, fifteen, sixteen, tops. His face is full of fear, discomfort, even with
Goatee stroking his cheek. But I can see why. Know why. The kettle is already
over the fire and a glint of light shoots at me from Goatee’s hand.

For one small
second, I think, no, don’t do it. But then I remember our situation, remember
that even as a child, this boy is a monster. He doesn’t deserve to live.

With a few more
words, Goatee eases the younger’s head back and slices across his throat in one
fluid movement. The gash opens and pours, a broken vase, flowing down the
younger’s front like a miniature waterfall.

Goatee stays with
him until the body stills, after the convulsions and gurgling stop. I can’t
tell for certain, but I think I see tears in the corners of Goatee’s eyes. I
want to see them there. I want to know that he is hurting, that something in
him is broken and it’s all his fault. The instigator to his own pain—as
we all are. The fire crackles in the middle of the cave, popping from the few
bits of wood, lumps of charcoal feeding the flames. He sits beside the warmth
while the other two go to work, removing the furs, hacking, cutting, peeling.
Soon, there is nothing more than a blood stain at the cave’s entrance, a new
smell of meat wafting through the cave.

My mouth waters.

And I don’t mind.

Chapter Eleven

In the
daylight, the scene outside is even worse. The wolves, body parts, and blood
stretch across a few dozen yards, spatters of blood frozen in the snow. The
eyes are solid, glazed and milky white.

We had a
quick breakfast of the younger Banjankri. I forced my stomach to keep it down,
told myself I was just eating a monster, doing the world a favor, and choked it
down.

Goatee is
in the lead, his shotgun draped over his shoulder, ready for anything, be it an
attack or an escape. The other two Banjankri—a pug-nosed man with a rope
tied around myself and then he, and a unibrow, tied to Meredith and
himself—lead us a few paces behind, giving Goatee his solitude, his time
to mourn.

“Serves you
right,” I say. “You killed your own son.”

Pug Nose
raps me across the mouth, but with the padding of his mittens, it doesn’t feel
like much more than a light slap. Goatee continues to walk on, unfazed.

I raise my
voice. “He wouldn’t have died if it weren’t for you.”

This time,
Pug Nose elbows me in the chest, the blow still light in pain but forceful
enough to knock a bit of the wind from me. I wonder, while catching my breath,
if this is a group that doesn’t remember the words they’ve chosen to forget. I
know that many of the Banjankri speak English; they just choose not to. Others,
like the boy, are raised without ever hearing much of the original language,
forced to speak in the hiss and mumble of the Banjankri. Maybe English has just
gotten stale for this group, the words sounding familiar but without meaning.

“You killed
him,” I scream.

Goatee
stops, halting the entire procession. I ready myself for another strike from
Pug Nose, but the Banjankri freezes. If anything, he scoots further away from
me as if he knows what is to come, what evils and horrors Goatee can produce.
The four of us just stand there, watching him, waiting for him to move, either
forward or backward. The shotgun taps on his shoulder. It starts to snow, tiny
flakes that seem to be conjured up out of thin air. There are only the slightest
strands of clouds in the sky, scudding way up overhead, closer to the sun yet
colder than any of us. The tiny specs of frost may just be blowing off the
hills, giving the impression of falling, that they came from somewhere outside
and above the earth, but there is no breeze. Just the stillness of the too
bright snow, the distant sun, and the tap of Blue Eye’s shotgun padding against
his shoulder.

He turns.

His face
screws up into sadness and fury, the lines on his face crowding one another,
pushing to the front. And I wait for him to move, to say something, to pull the
trigger and blast me into oblivion. Crunching with every step, he steps up to
me, his boots stopping mere inches from my own. Pug Nose backs off. So does
Unibrow. But Meredith leans in for a better look.

Goatee
leans in, our hoods touching at the top, the fur mingling, his nose and mouth
so close to mine that I can see every crack, every pore, the fine hairs poking
out from in between his eyes. From this space, his eye looks translucent, as if
I can peer straight through him and into his thoughts and memories: the time he
broke his arm while riding a bike, hacking off the head of a dog, sitting on
the hood of a car with a girlfriend, slurping the last strand of spaghetti,
bullets in the brain. But these are not his memories.

They are
mine.

And I can’t
look away.

“You think
so?” he says, his voice a hoarse whisper, rusty, his tongue thick from its lack
of use, his language using lips and teeth to shape and stop the words. “You
think I killed him?”

I nod. “It
was your knife.”

“You mean
this one?” His blade is there, in front of my face, separating us, so fast that
I never saw him move, not even flinch. He turns it in the light, the glare
shining onto both of us in the same fashion, blinding us. “I may have slit his
throat, but it was a mercy kill.”

“Was it?”

“Would you
want to watch your son die after a long night and an even longer day of sitting
in pain, helpless and letting the life drain from you?” He drops the knife from
between us.

I think of
my wife. My daughter. Shake my head.

“It was a
mercy.”

“Slitting
his throat wasn’t a mercy. Neither was cooking him.”

“You didn’t
seem to have problem with breakfast.”

“Because he
wasn’t my son.” I expect the words to penetrate him, sink deep down into his
core and rattle the cages of his secret heart.

His face
never changes. “He’d rather have lived his life as he had than scavenging and
starving like your tiny rabble.”

“Did you
ever ask him?”

“I didn’t
have to.” He steps back. “It’s not wrong to want to live.”

“Eating
people? Servants to those god-forsaken beasts?”

“It’s
better than what you do. Looking for scraps, choking down half-frozen fruit and
vegetables. I can have all those things, a hot meal, and protection for me and
my family.”

“And a lot
of good it did, too.” Then he does something I don’t expect him to. He smiles.
His sharpened teeth in full view, zig-zagged like “v”s or “w”s that never end.
“You just don’t get it do you.” He shakes his head. “You’ve never seen what the
Jo-Bran are capable off. And besides, they’ve won. We humans are on the way
out. You know it. I know it. More importantly, they know it. So, curse me all
you want. Judge me. See if I give a fuck. I’m living and that’s all that
matters.” He steps further away. “I did the best I could for my son. I only
hope you did the same for your family.”

I picture
the blood on their faces. Fixed. Drying. Freezing.

Then he
says something in Banjankri and turns around, taking the lead once again.

No one else
says anything as we press on. We listen to the snow fall. We listen to the
boots crunch. The continued tapping of the shotgun.

Meredith
troops on, not showing any sign of emotion. What could be going on in that mute
head of hers? If I only had a can of pears for every time I’d had that thought,
I’d be feasting for life. She turns her face to mine, kidnaps my eyes with
hers, then lets me go, without even the slightest hint of a smile, a frown.

Her captor,
Unibrow, is much jumpier than normal; the attack last night must’ve spooked
him. But as we near the city, I notice that Pug Nose, too, keeps his eyes on
constant search, his head bobbing around like a doe in the middle of the field,
watching for any signs of danger. Even Goatee drops back closer to the group.

It won’t
matter how many sacrifices they bring or how often they deal with the Jo-Bran.
They’ll always live in fear. The thought pleases me, reaffirms my own belief
that they live nothing more than a sham of a life. That this isn’t living. Fear
is no way to live—especially if it is by choice.

The group
tightens closer and closer as we come to the city’s edge. The sun still hangs
high, just past noon. It’s on its way out but we still have a few hours until
darkness overcomes us. I figure that the Banjankri hope to dump us off, collect
whatever reward it is that they receive for their treachery, and get the hell
out of Dodge before night fell. I can’t blame them either.

To think
that we were headed here of our own accord… Hopefully, I would’ve come to my
senses, and we would’ve turned around, ran as fast as we could and be off and
in search of other packs, other surviving buildings.

Meredith
marches, her head tilted towards the snow as if she can read the tracks Goateee
leaves behind, forming some indication as to what he might be thinking. It
strikes me that not only has our group been broken so quickly, but also who is
left. In the whisperings of the nights, under the protection of her constant
snore, we’d discussed such things, what could happen, what we should do, when
and if it did. And in all of our plans, Meredith was the first to go. I
should’ve known all along that she would be one of the last—and probably
will be the last. It was such a rarity to find a survivor from a Jo-Bran attack,
let alone a survivor that was left in the open.

Before us,
the city looms higher than the hills and snow drifts, the mock mountains built
up and torn down constantly by the shifting winds. Buildings stick up from the
snow like rotten teeth, cracked, discolored, the cavities open for all to see.
Huge drifts have piled up along the west side of the buildings, so that anyone
willing could walk up them and end up on the twentieth or thirtieth floor. The
whole place is dark and silent. You’d think it was a ghost town if it weren’t
for all the littered footprints.

A shiver
slips down my spine, tripping at the top of my neck and rolling down the rest
of me. I’ve seen Jo-Bran tracks before, but never so many. They outnumber the
bootprints ten to one. Even if I have no respect for their lifestyle, the
Banjankri have bigger balls than me, walking in and out of death. I take
consolation in the fact that they don’t do it without fear though; Pug Nose and
Unibrow mumble some forgotten incantation, a prayer to an ungodless god.

Goatee stops his
tapping.

When we step in
between the buildings, into the man-made chasm, the sun disappears, lost behind
the dilapidated structures, an instant sunset, instant darkness. I feel like
the Jo-Bran will come out roaring and growling, dropping from the windows and
empty doorframes like droplets from icicles. They will tear us limb from limb,
and we’ll soon resemble nothing more than the scene from last night, a pack of
wolves ripped to shreds.

But nothing comes.

We press on
further between the buildings, deeper into the decay, the ice, the snow. My
heart beats so I fast, I feel like it will burst at any moment, just pop and
spare me the terrors of what awaits at the end of this journey. Meredith is the
only one that doesn’t seem fazed by what’s before her. She studies the
surroundings like someone revisiting a forgotten home. Her calm helps steady my
heart. I try to focus on the lack of malevolence, even the Banjankri’s anger
has been tempered. But when I start to notice the true quiet of this place, the
lack of wind, the lack of words, screams, anything, and it restarts my heart,
throwing it into a tantrum. This is a place of death, a place of nothing.

A strip of
buildings, a line of townhomes reminds me of my former house. The life I once
had. The family the world destroyed. One of the buildings looks to be in decent
shape, no cracks or crumbles to show its troubles, the things its seen in these
streets. Maybe the stairs are right inside the doorway. You open the door and
are greeted with a footstool and a full mirror, a space for your shoes. You can
walk through the short hall, passing pictures and shelves with Hummel figurines
and enter the kitchen. Or you can take a right, head into the living room, sink
into the leather couch and flip through the 200 channels or what you’ve
recorded or what can be watched instantly. Then you head upstairs to the
bedrooms, find your daughter on her bed, studying and listening to her iPod,
find your wife curled up with a trashy novel, one of those cheap paperbacks
that you don’t mind if the spine breaks or if it’s lost. And you smile, basking
in the comfort of your own home, secure, safe from the things that go bump in
the night, the made up monsters from fairy tales and movies and fiction.

We round a bend
and the strip of house disappears from my sight. So does the vision. That
perfect sense of security and happiness is so wrong that it boils up within me,
a stew of lies. Luckily, my angry tears evaporate before they ever reach my
face.

A few blocks away,
a group of people, more Banjankri, gather together and wait for something.
There are hundreds of them, more Banjankri than I’ve ever seen—or ever
wanted to know existed. They stand in a semi-circle, surrounding something
towards the end of the street, where the ice and snow has built up and filled
the space between the building, acting as a huge wall to shield the city from
the light, block it out, board it up and bathe the space in darkness.

Mixed amongst the
group are others like Meredith and me. Smaller packs devoured by another group.
They are easy to pick out, not just because they are the bound ones, but they
are the one’s whose heads droop, eyes closed, praying and wishing the world
away. Tears stream down some of their faces as we walk along the outer rim of
the half-circle. They know, as well as I, that their lives will end in blood
and pain. Their existence snuffed out merely because they were in the wrong
place at the wrong time and discovered by the Banjankri. I don’t know which is
worse: killed by the Jo-Bran in the middle of the night or brought here to
their city to be their sacrifices in a place that was once ours.

Not far from the
back wall, there is a large ice sculpture, carved crudely from claw. The gashes
along the side form intricate patterns, swirls and spirals and skulls that are
almost beautiful. I imagine what it might look like if the sun was ever able to
shine through it, the arcs and blue carvings that would make the thing glow, an
oversized fluorescent light. But then you’d just notice the blood that
surrounded it.

All along the
bottom, the altar is covered in blood. There are small paths that the warm
fluid has carved down the sides of the sculptures, melting it, mixing the blood
with ice to stain the ground. How many heads have been rended from their
bodies? How many slit throats? Disembowelings? Everything done in the name of
their rulers, to appease the addiction to violence.

Again, I turn to
Meredith, to see what she’s feeling, to see any sign that she’s worried or scared
or anything at all. She stares at the altar, stone faced, cold as the ice and
blood at the base of the carving.