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 an
swer, 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.
Chapter Four
Meredith senses the urgency and moves even faster, our breath and the crunching snow competing with one another to be the loudest. The sun disappears behind the horizon, letting the world wake up from its heat induced slumber. And the cold sets in. And far off, I hear a Jo-Bran bellow. We keep running, even after Charles mutters, “I told you so” and something else that I can’t quite make out. The Spire is still too far, at least another half hour—if not an hour at our current pace.
We run. There is nothing else to do. I keep an eye out for any sign of the Jo-Bran or the Banjankri, but in the dark, it’s impossible to tell the difference between the shadows and the monsters.
We run. I think that I can hear the Jo-Bran coming, loping after us on all fours like gorillas, pounding the snow deeper into the earth, making sure the layer of frost never disappears, securing their rule. But when I turn my head, the vision clears, the sounds lift. There is only our pack.
We run. The full moon guides us. For once, the illumination works in our favor, allowing us enough light to keep moving at our pace without stumbling. The Spire is close now. We’re almost there.
We run. It looms before us, dark and black, a thorn protruding from the ground. I can already smell the gas, the unused fuel, and my heart skips a beat. The live ones are the best chance of us finding food. They are still ready to fire, like-new, but were abandoned long ago.
We run. This time I do hear the pounding of the Jo-Bran, a band of them on patrol, searching for the stragglers. Their next meal. Us. We are so close that I can see the door, and it looks solid. It isn’t hanging from the hinges or torn off them. And we press on even harder.
Meredith reaches it first, grabbing the handle and throwing her weight into it. At first, I am afraid that it is locked, another pack already holed up inside and secured for the night, because she bounces back, the door unshifted. She tries again, this time with Angelo’s help, and the metal door screeches open, screaming like a beacon for the surrounding predators. In the space between the dying sound of the door and my heart beating, I hear another call from the Jo-Bran. The low gravel growl of success, of dinner, of death.
They’ve found us.
* * *
; With the door closed, locked and barred, we’re safe—for now. We stand in the small foyer, making a small circle, the four of us panting like sled-dogs that have been pushed too hard. I gulp in the air. Swallow the traces of saliva my body can still produce and wait for the inevitable.
Charles pants. “What did I fucking say?”
I return his gaze but keep my mouth open for breathing alone. I take in a few more breaths, staring at him all the while, until he finally breaks my gaze. The room is cold and sterile, same as the other Spires we’ve come across, like an old hospital room. Though this one is cleaner than others, no blood on the walls, no claw marks or bullet holes or scorch marks, just dark metal walls, slick and smooth, and the smell of gasoline. Across from the entrance is another door, a large wheel attached to the front, reminding me of a submarine hatch.
“We should get further in,” I say.
Charles, his jaw clenched so tight that I can see his temples pulsing with each flex, nods. Angelo’s face is pale and glued to the front door as he backs up with slow steps. And Meredith, her eyes darting around the room, shuffles along the back wall. I amble over, trying to let my confidence seep into the others. “They won’t get us,” I say. “They’ll forget we’re here. The gas will mask our scent.”
“They’re not blind,” Charles says. “They could’ve seen us.”
“They didn’t,” I say.
“They could’ve.”
I wait until he meets my gaze. I can feel the others staring at me. “They didn’t.”
Charles and I continue to glare at one another while I hear the door’s wheel groan under Meredith’s strength. Again, Charles is the first to look away. I turn to the now open door. There is a faint red glow coming from a small army of red lights, fluttering and flitting from one console to another. But it is the only light in the room, casting few shadows and a deathly color across each of our faces.
“This is new,” Angelo says.
I nod.
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