Dawn of the Yeti (5 page)

Tension hangs
thick in the air, erupting from both captors and captives. You can almost taste
it in the air, salty, sweat from the neck of your lover combined with the
battery sensation of licking a wound. All of us are waiting for something to
happen, be it good or bad. We just want it to be done and over with.

The minute I think
this, I realize just how tired I am. How long I’ve pushed and pushed, trying to
stay alive one more day, push my luck just a little further, hoping that the
world will be saved, that someone can find a way to fix everything. Warm the
world back up, unthaw and destroy the monsters we’ve brought out from legend.
This hope feels so silly and worthless, and I wonder what’s been driving me on
for so long, to take in that next breath, to not just lie in the snow and
freeze and die.

There is nothing
left for me, I think. My pack is broken, my family long gone. And there is no
hope in the world. I resign myself to whatever fate has in store for me,
willing to take the bitter cup and drink long and hard until every last drop is
inside where it’ll eat me into oblivion.

I don’t even care
when I see the Jo-Bran come.

Chapter Twelve

Out of the
darkness, they emerge. They line every crevice and corner, standing in the
broken windows, the doorless doors, in the alleys, on top of snow drifts. Not a
one of them makes a sound. No growls. No guttural howls. No roars. They just
stand and stare at the altar, waiting.

This is the
closest I’ve ever come to one of them. I’ve seen them in the distance, lurking
or rampaging through the night. But never long enough to study them up close
and personal. It surprises me to see that they hardly look like monsters. They
aren’t mangled and twisted, covered in the fluids of their kill. They’re closer
to oversized stuffed animals, with their bulging stomachs, the oversized arms,
the stumpy legs and the copious amounts of shaggy fur that covers their bodies.

I almost laugh out
loud at the thought, but I know better. I’ve seen what they can do, the
violence and death they bring with each swipe of those elongated arms. I know
there are claws hiding amongst the different shades of fur, teeth ready to tear
and chew. Their eyes are the only things that tip them off as hunters, killers.
Each of their eyes glows gold, cats’ eyes, refracting the smallest traces of
light to pierce the darkness, scoping out their next victims. It’s like we’re
surrounded in golden stars that fell, in pairs, from the sky to nestle in the
broken bricks of our past.

This is the moment
to loose myself, to stow away in the space between my stomach and kidneys, to
hunker down within and become a hermit inside my own skin. It will make the fear
go away, the worry, the annoyance of waiting for everything to be over. All of
it will disappear as I shut down each and every one of my senses.

I start this
process, letting my eyes go vacant, disjointed. I start to feel warm, curled in
that inner space, the cold fading as I go. But as I start to wrap myself into
that cocoon, using the silence as a blanket, it shatters as the Banjankri
cheer, loud and long. Though there is a hint of fear in that sound, a tremble
in the praise that makes me wonder how genuine it is.

I unfurl myself.
Start to feel the cold once again. Taste the remnants of the stew in my mouth.
Open my eyes.

Standing behind
the altar, a huge Jo-Bran growls. It’s a deep bellied sound that starts way
down in its toes, building and building and building. The whole place quiets
but for the grumbling sound coming from the Jo-Bran—even the tears, every
eye, every face is fixed on the Jo-Bran.

And then it rips
through the air with its roar.

The sound bounces
off every sheet of ice, brick wall, the ground, the sky itself, amplifying and
bringing it into such a terrible sound that my chest vibrates. This is his
domain. Everywhere the sound touches is his: Everyone knows
this—subconsciously or not. Once the final traces of the echoes have died,
he beats his chest three times, a gesture echoed by every Banjankri. They
continue to echo his movements, the beating chest followed by a cheer. It
builds and builds and builds, a huge flurry of sound and movement, a frenzy.
The Banjankri have lost their fear, the fervor of the upcoming sacrifice easing
their apprehensions as they continue to beat their chests and chanting, until I
think that I understand their words. “Blood, blood, blood.”

I think of
Charles’ words. The keeper of life. Blood: the sustainer.

The chanting is so
loud that I hardly notice a small group of Banjankri approaching the altar.
They drag a woman behind them. She screams, but I cannot hear her over the din,
just see the gaping mouth, torn open, and her eyes almost as wide. Though she
shifts and twists and struggles, the Banjankri have no trouble hauling her up
to the altar. They take her by the limbs, one for each hand, each foot,
stretching her out, up and over the altar. She thrashes in terror, her mouth
still wide and screaming, but silent to my ears. Another Banjankri stands to
the side, right at the woman’s middle, shifting from side to side, uneasy.

I tell myself to
look away. But I can’t.

The scene unfolds
before me like some grand
guignol
of the past, a snuff film, and I keep watching, my eyes
waiting for the knife, the gun, the axe, the claw, something sharp and terrible
to tear this woman apart. I want to know my fate. Everyone should be able to
know their death before it happens, perhaps not the when, but the how. Once she
is spread across the ice sculpture, the Jo-Bran lumbers forward, his hulking
frame tilting with each step.

And the chanting
stops.

The woman
continues to scream—the only sound. Like the Jo-Bran’s earlier cry, her
shrill scream echoes throughout the ruined buildings, the broken pieces of our
humanity. It causes my whole body to shiver, the sound penetrating the
forgotten spaces of my lungs and bowels.

I want to tell her
that it will all be over soon and that she won’t have to worry about the pain or
her next meal or where she will sleep tonight. The cares of the frozen world
will finally drift away. It’s impossible though. Even if I screamed these
things, she wouldn’t hear me, her own desperate cries drowning out anything but
the sounds of her own death.

The Jo-Bran stops
in front of her and holds up one of his paws. Protruding from the very tip is a
long black claw, set off from the background by its pure darkness. The woman
continues to scream. The Jo-Bran’s claw dangles above her, holding, waiting for
some sign to drop, but the Banjankri and other monsters just watch and wait.
Above, the sky has turned to shades of violence, purples and blues, crimson,
fire. Within a few more minutes the sun will have set, and we’ll only have the
moon to light this bloody business. Meredith tilts, just slightly, hardly
enough to notice, but I see her move forward, though whether from concern or
anticipation, I don’t know. The look in her eyes says she’s eager, but I could
be wrong—and I want to be.

Then a beam of light
shoots from nowhere, a ray reflected from the spire, off a patch of ice,
somewhere, anywhere. It hits the altar and the whole thing glows, blood red,
too bright in this blackened corner, and I have to shield my eyes.

This is the
Jo-Bran’s cue.

Through my
squinted eyes, I see his silhouette drop the paw, the claw. The woman’s scream
changes from a long shrill cry to nothing. She’s still trying to scream, but
can’t, her mouth full of blood that spills and hits the large sculpture, grows
cold, freezes.

Still bathed in
the unholy light, the Jo-Bran holds something up, his paw covered and dripping
with the woman’s blood. In his fist is her stomach, her kidney, her heart. And
the Jo-Bran cheer.

I turn away to
find the source of the light but see only brilliance. A bright white that looks
and feels so far away that it doesn’t seem real, only a memory of the past.
That nothing good or beautiful has existed or ever will exist in this world.
The last shreds of the sun disappear and the world goes back to its black and
white existence. The night sky. The pale snow. Trapped between an inverted
heaven and hell.

Another,
cream-colored Jo-Bran takes the woman’s corpse and slings it over its shoulder,
the woman’s innards dragging to the snow and trailing after them. The four
Banjankri that held her in place fall back into the larger group. As they melt
into the rest of us, another group of six makes there way to the altar. This
time it is a man that fights their grip. The captive’s mouth is shut and he
doesn’t make a sound, just struggles against his captors. The man knows it’s
worthless but can’t stop fighting.

Four of them
stretch him out. A fifth stands to the side. The Jo-Bran’s paw raises. His claw
extends. Plunges. Screams. Another smatter of insides. The scene repeats.

Again and again
and again.

And I finally
understand what we’re here for. Some of the Banjankri mill about the rest of
the crowd, stopping at those with prisoners, speaking with them, their shark
teeth clicking and glinting in the moonlight. They’re bartering. Hands are
shaken and prisoners are led away from their original places, taken, kicking
and screaming, to become the next in line, the next to be sacrificed. We’re the
initiation payment for the new Banjankri.

With each death,
it comes that much closer to my own. Goatee has spoken to a few of the other
searchers, those looking for a prisoner to sacrifice for their newcomers, but
he always shakes his head in the end, holding out for a better deal or to just
kill us himself. Part of me wishes that I wouldn’t have to keep waiting, keep
worrying. And the other part cringes every time a new group of Banjankri
navigates the crowd, searching for their own sacrifices to baptize their
newcomers into the family.

The other Jo-Bran
still watch, noting each newcomer, perhaps memorizing their faces to be noted
as friends. Most of them have a hunk from one of the sacrifices in their grip,
a leg or an arm, part of a torso, some lump of bone and flesh to gnaw while
watching, their popcorn. I wonder how I’ll be divvied up, given like a treat at
Halloween. But I’m not allowed to dwell on this for too long. I see a searching
Banjankri zero in on Meredith and me, then point, one long mitted arm in our
direction, right at Meredith.

The group of
Banjankri approach Goatee, switching their gaze from him to me to Meredith, a
greedy look on each of their faces. One of them, wearing darker furs, his face
is covered by his hood. And I know that these are the ones. We’ll be sold. Then
sacrificed. Another number in a never-ending line.

Chapter Thirteen

After a few
minutes of gestures and hisses in one another’s ears, Goatee and the leader of
the new group strike a deal. Goatee nods and both Pug Nose and Unibrow untie
the ropes from themselves and hand them over to the already open hands.

Meredith’s eyes
are still focused on the altar, unaware of what’s going on around her, too
focused on the scene. Maybe she sees her own eminent death. Or perhaps she’s
just trying to keep her mind on someone else’s pain to avoid her own. She
doesn’t even look away as the Banjankri tug and start to drag us back to their
group. I don’t even know what we were traded for, some shotgun shells? Furs?
Who knew? It didn’t matter anyway. We were about to die, the price of which
would probably only worsen the situation. I’ve often wondered about the cost of
life, what someone might pay for me, but now that it has happened, it’s the
last thing that I want to think about.

“I’m sorry,” I
say, looking to Meredith. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. That things went so
wrong.”

She stays focused
on the sacrifice.

“I wish I could’ve
done more. Kept you from harm. Kept all of us from it.”

Her face remains
frozen, echoing the surroundings. I think I see a flicker in her eye, but I
probably just imagined it, wanting to see something change within in her, to
know that my apology got through and that she accepted. She’s always been, and
always will be, an enigma. She’ll die a puzzle, and I’ll just die, wondering
what she’s thinking.

The latest
sacrifice is being dragged away and our new captors tug us forward. I want to
retch. I want to fight. But I do neither. I stumble forward, casting glances
about the area, thinking that I’d never have been able to even imagine such a
place as this, let alone picture it as my death bed.

Up close, I can
see the imperfections of the altar. All the spots where the warm blood and
flesh have mangled what might have been beautiful. In other places, the blood
has built up like stalagmites, built from the floor up, layer upon layer of
frozen blood until the trickles and streams resemble candle wax. I have an urge
to reach out and break off a chunk of ice, but I suppress the urge.

Meredith is
equally stoic. We’re the best-behaved captives of the lot, going to our death
with what looks like courage and integrity, when it’s really just impassivity.
I’m ready to go. Fine, let this frozen pedestal of death be my resting place.
I’m ready.

Or so I think.

The second they
start pulling me towards the altar, I’m wishing that it isn’t me. I want a few
more seconds to live. My mind races for any sign or place of escape, but all I
can think about is the relatively undamaged house that resembled my home. The
only way to escape is inside myself. I try to leave, to re-shutdown my system
and forget the world and everything in it, build my own out of the memories of
grass and flowing water and warmth. It’s then that I notice who the initiation
is for. Whom I am a sacrifice for.

Charles.

He stands to the side
of the Jo-Bran, wearing different, darker furs. He’s hardly recognizable in the
new gear, since I’d grown so used to him wearing the same things day in and day
out. One of the Banjankri claps him on the shoulder and whispers something in
English to him, though I can’t make out the words amongst the clatters and
cheers. The others in the group heft Meredith onto the altar and ready
themselves for the slaughter.

As they pull my
arms out, I scream to Charles, “What are you doing?”

As they stretch
out my legs, I scream, “Tell them to let us go.”

The Jo-Bran steps
forward, and Charles’ face tilts into the moonlight. I expect to see a look of
horror on his face. I expect his mouth to be opening, unable to speak from the
shock. I expect his arms to shoot out and stay the Banjankri. Instead, he
simpers, a sneer that reminds me of every time he lashed out at me, at Angelo,
the pack, our ways, everything we’d done.

My blood boils. He
wanted us.

It was he that
fingered us amongst the other prisoners. And I use my final moments to pray an
untimely death for him as the Jo-Bran’s paw descends.

Everything goes
slow-motion, and I hardly see the sequence of events. There is a burst of
blue-green light that flares up from Meredith, her eyes burning, glowing like
the Jo-Bran’s but brighter, radiating light. Her captors rear back like
frightened horses. The Banjankri she’s tied to drops and drags as she moves,
too fast to follow. She bolts to Charles, reaching for his boots. His knife.
And there it is, gleaming in the moonlight, her eyelight. Like cloth in air,
hair in water, she flows, ducking under the Jo-Bran as his paw descends, ready
to plunge into my chest in a gory spray. She buries the knife in its stomach,
all the way to the hilt, even her fingers disappear inside. Then she tears,
gashing across its bulging stomach, spilling its insides in a steaming pile.
The Jo-Bran screams. And Meredith slides from Banjankri to Banjankri, slitting
throats, stabbing chests, necks, eyes.

The blood flows,
but it is not mine. Only Charles is left standing, the rest of the Banjankri,
including the Jo-Bran, have all tumbled in their own pools of blood. Meredith
works at her ropes, then cuts mine.

By now, the
crowd’s cheers have turned to screams of anger and disbelief. They are so
dumbstruck that not a one of them moves, gaping at what has just happened. It’s
the Jo-Bran that act first. They drop their snacks, the bloody hunks thudding
against the ground as the creatures break into a roar. And I know that they
will be descending any moment to come after us.

With our bindings
cut and a lack of guards, my brain fires into action, weighing out the best
route, the best direction to run. My eyes fall on Charles, and all the anger
and hostility bubbles to the surface, the surprise and shock of Meredith’s
actions wearing off. I know we need to move, to get out of here, but not yet.

The whole area is
filled with screams and growls, the sounds echoing and bouncing until there is
so much noise, I can almost reach out and grab the individual tones. Some of
the Jo-Bran have descended and rip through the crowd, rampaging their way to us
without regard to anyone or anything around them.

I scrape along the
altar and break one of the frozen streams of blood loose. It feels heavy in my
hand, but it doesn’t stay there for long. With a quick glance, I see that it’s
exactly how I want it, pointed, jagged, solid. The carnage builds around me:
the cries of the Banjankri, the howls of the Jo-Bran, the blood spatters and
rending flesh. I step up to Charles, his face falling, mouth drooping, the
color fading. I grab the back of his head. He tries to squirm, and I hear a
muffled cry come from lips. I fill them with the bloodspike, driving it up and
into and through his mouth. His eyes light up as I press harder and harder
until the spike pops through the back of his skull. His shattered aria is
muffled by the spike, now protruding from both sides of his head.

Meredith takes my
hand, and we run.

All around us, the
Banjankri and Jo-Bran fight. Limbs fly; explosions of blood paint the snow, the
walls, the monsters; death descends. We weave through them, Meredith dragging
me along with a superhuman speed. Her hand shoots out, slicing through oncoming
enemies, spilling their blood and making them erupt in agony. We hop over bodies,
dodge gunfire, run.

My lungs and legs
cry for me to stop. I don’t have the energy for this, but the adrenaline keeps
me going. I spot a darker alleyway, one that doesn’t look to be inhabited by
anything other than the night itself. I break from Meredith’s grip and head for
the cover. Her feet skid on the snow as she changes direction and catches up
with me, both of us running full-out.

We duck into the
shadows and keep running until we reach the end of the tunnel. I collapse into
the wall and try to catch my breath, the things I’ve just seen, pile them all
into some semblance of a picture, something that makes sense. I can still hear
the wails coming from the fight: Banjankri hisses mixed with English curses and
Jo-Bran snarls. The Jo-Bran must blame the Banjankri for bringing Meredith to
the city and killing their leader—it’s the only reason I can think that
would bring them into a full on war. It’s what they deserve. Serving monsters
for protection or survival never works. Truces are always too shaky between bad
and evil. They should’ve seen this coming, the end of their world. We should’ve
all seen it coming.

I scoop a handful
of snow and stuff it into my mouth. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was until
the cold flakes melt and slide down my throat. It’s so soothing that I take
another handful. Meredith’s eyes still glow, shifting around, on the lookout.
She’s uneasy being trapped in this small space.

“Who are you?” I
say.

Those flashlight
eyes turn to me, enveloping me with their eerie glow. I think she might
actually say something. I can’t see her mouth for the brightness of her eyes,
but I think it opens. Instead of speaking though, she presses up against me,
covering my mouth.

I almost choke on
the melted snow and cough. Her eyes widen, and I can read in them a simple
command: Shut up.

At the alley’s
entrance, there is a group of Jo-Bran, standing at the mouth, filling the
entire width from crumbled building to crumbled building. Their heads are
tilted forward and slightly upward, and I can hear their great snuffles. A
black one steps into the alley, scraping his claws along the side of the
building, sounding like nails on a blackboard but more violent, more like the
screech of someone slitting open their own stomach without anesthesia.

The Jo-Bran comes
further and further in, the others trailing after him. Meredith’s hand presses
tighter over my mouth, the blood from her fingers dripping down the sides of my
face. I can feel a cough coming on. I try to hold it back, to swallow it down,
but I make the slightest choke. Even amongst the death rattles and barks, the
Jo-Bran still hear it. The slight sound jolting every one of their heads to the
back of the cave. They spread out, fill the gap and come closer, a line of
searchers scouring for a lost child in the forest. The shrieking wall continues
as the black Jo-Bran keeps his claws dragging across the wall, tiny sparks
jumping from the claw-tips.

Meredith leans
closer to me, her face passing mine, pushing back my hood, tickling my ears
with her lips. “Run.”

It’s so faint that
I wonder if I’ve actually heard anything at all.

But she rips away
and rushes into the Jo-Bran’s midst, her eyes trailing faint ribbons of aqua
light. The Jo-Bran roar, and I see them crash into each other. I scoot along
the wall, my arms outstretched, searching for an opening. I almost fall into a
larger patch of decay that opens into the decrepit building. I take one last
look Meredith’s way, see the Jo-Bran’s blood spray against the wall, the rest
of them crumbling onto her. I duck into the hole and heed her advice, running
for everything I ever was or will be.