“I didn’t realize any of these were still operational.” Angelo prods at one of the lights with his fingers. “Thought the government shut ‘em down a long time ago.”
Charles knocks Angelo’s hand away. “Don’t touch that. Who knows what the fuck it might start.”
“Alright, alright.”
Meredith stands in front of a wall of blinking lights. It reminds me of Christmas morning, my wife standing at the tree and smiling, the greens and blues and reds shifting one after the other. I can see my daughter, sitting at our feet, tearing into her presents and giggling. I almost think I can hear the rustle of the wrapping paper. I take a step forward, ready to wrap my arms around Meredith as if she is my wife, but I stop just in time. She turns to me, frowning, her brows dipping into her aqua eyes, then steps away. I glance around to see if either of the others noticed, but they are too wrapped up in their surroundings. A loud creak breaks into the air; a metal on metal shriek that sounds like the whole Spire is shifting.
“What the fuck is that?” Angelo stands, knees bent, holding out his hands to balance on the solid ground.
“I don’t know,” I stride over to the door we still haven’t shut. I pass through and stare into the small porthole of a window on the front door. It’s a sphere of darkness, the moon either blocked by some clouds or something blocking the window itself.
“What is it?” Angelo’s voice is a hiss.
I just wave my hand behind me, edging towards the black circle. My breath quickens; my heart races. With every step I take, I wish more and more that I was heading in the opposite direction. I’m only a few feet from the door, the darkness hasn’t changed. The other three fill the door behind me, watching me with wide-eyed terror. Angelo shakes his head, begging me to come back. I take a deep breath, steady my nerves, shift another step.
I could reach out and touch the thing if I wanted. But I don’t want to. And I don’t reach out. I just edge closer. There is an indistinct ticking noise, almost like a clock, but there isn’t one in sight. Tick, tick, tick. The others hear it, too, cocking their heads, searching for the source.
The overhead light starts to fizz and flicker, acting as a strobe, making the world feel slower, stuttered.
Tick, tick, tick.
I inch forward, pushing my face with every ounce of strength left inside, every muscle and nerve and instinct telling me to back up and get out of there. With the flickering light, its hard to make out any of the details, but it looks like hair, though I can’t tell if it’s a Jo-Bran or human, it’s too close to tell.
Tick, tick, tick.
Slowly, I reach for the door’s handle.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Angelo’s voice cracks.
“I know what I’m doing.” But I don’t. My body seems to be making decisions on its own, doing its own thing, even though my brain screams at me to stop. It’s as if I’m possessed.
Tick. My hand grasps the door. Tick. I start to pull. Tick.
BOOM!
The door explodes backwards, carrying me with it, and sandwiches me between it and the wall. My sight blurs, and I can’t focus. Angelo is screaming. And I make out the colored blob of Charles running through the, now gaping, door. The last thing I see is Meredith bending over me, her shadow covering me like a warm blanket, an inviting wave, lulling me to the ever-increasing darkness.
Then it goes black.
Chapter Five
Shuffling boots, the crunching of snow. My skull feels like someone has embedded an ax into my forehead. And I almost wish someone would, make this pain end and the world fade for good.
I roll my eyes and can see Meredith, her hands tied, ropes wrapped around her legs, shuffling behind me. On either side of her are men I don’t know by name, but I know by reputation. The Banjankri. Their coats are covered in long white fur, made from the coats of the Jo-Bran. The one on the right of her notices that I’m awake and points to the other. He points at me and smiles, wide and full of his filed teeth. A shark’s mouth, I think, but then he hits me with the butt of his club, and it all goes dark again.
* * *
The next time I come to, there is a fire nearby, warm and bright. An odd smell fills the air, one that I haven’t known in what feels like forever, the smell of meat. It crackles and hisses, pops and spits. My mouth waters. My stomach growls.
Above the cooking sounds, faint whimpers drift my way. I catch them like tiny bubbles, fragile things that will disappear if I strain too hard to capture them. I look around, trying to find the source, while simultaneously keeping my movements to a minimum. My head hurts enough as it is, and the last thing I want is something else smashing into my skull.
They sit around the fire, the Banjankri, staring into the flames with religious fervor. A few of them smile and their sharpened teeth glint and shimmer in the dancing light.
I search for the rest of my pack, knowing that one or all of them are around. Moving at a snails pace, I tilt my head up and find Meredith huddled against the wall, but she is alone and doesn’t look my way. It’s then that notice where we are: a giant ice cave.
It opens up above me, tall enough for a Jo-Bran to stand upright. Icicles, thick as my arm, hang from the ceiling, but for the most part, it and the walls are smooth, slick, cold. I always figured that the Banjankri lived in caves, but I never figured I’d ever see the inside of one. At least, I never hoped to see one. This isn’t a place anyone wants to be.
A dialect, thin and whispery, fully of drawn out “sss” and breathy “h” sounds, creeps into my ears. I turn to see the Banjankri talking and gesturing to one another, their lips barely moving. One of them with a long goatee stands and pulls the spit from the fire, holding it up and examining the hunk of meat attached. I gag as I finally realize what it is that’s caused my mouth to water, my stomach to yearn. Goatee holds up a leg, eyeing it as if it were a roast chicken. His mouth opens and he tears into the leg with his shark teeth, tearing away a large chunk that stretches and holds fast to its remains. When the others pull Goatee down and begin to pass the spit, I turn away.
The whimpering continues, soft and even softer amongst the sucking and chewing of the others. I wonder again at the source and hope that it isn’t the loser of the leg, but I know it is.
Meredith still huddles against the wall. Unlike me, she stares at our captors, watches them eat. Her aqua eyes are fixed on them, trained like a hunter. And there is something within them that I’ve never seen before. Hate. Violence. A strength that I never knew she had. A strength that frightens me.
Laughter blooms from somewhere behind me. I leave it be. I don’t want to see. God only knows what the Banjankri find amusing. I shut my eyes, wishing I could shut my ears, close the chewing and the laughter and crying. It’s amazing how all these emotions can inhabit one space. And yet, the often do. As if pain and laughter and fear have always gone hand in hand in hand.
* * *
My wife cries. My daughter is silent. And the tears and screams fall from my eyes and mouth, rolling into one. Somewhere in the background, I can hear the laughter.
The memories and images shoot through my brain, splattering across my skull and the backs of my eyes. The kind of memories that need to be peeled away, flake after flake until your mind is numb and raw. It gives me something to do. And it changes my pain from a pounding to an ache. I peel and peel until every trace of them are gone, even though I know it will only take the slightest of jolts, the sight of a tree, the smell of lavender, the taste of a noodle soup—and it will all come back again.
When I finally open my eyes, the fire has died down to embers, but it’s still light in the cave. The Banjankri are curled up by the dying fire, hissing with each breath. I shift positions and see sunlight spilling through the cave’s mouth. It isn’t that deep of a cave, and the light fills the majority of it. Even Meredith is lit up, and she’s pressed against the back wall.
There are a total of five sleeping Banjankri, a small group, one that we should’ve been able to avoid, or o
vertake. What was I thinking, going to open the Spire’s door? I deserve to be in this position, to be captured. But not Meredith or Angelo or even Charles. The sudden remembrance of the rest of my pack makes me search for them.
Propped up, close to the wall, is a shape resembling a human, but there is something not quite right. It looks ragged, rumpled and unnatural. I squint. It doesn’t help, the back light from the snow and sun makes it too bright and I can’t tell if it’s Angelo or Charles or neither.
Turning back to Meredith, I become acutely aware of the silence. She should be snoring if she is asleep—as she appears to be. And I fear the worst. I whisper her name, trying not to wake the slumbering enemy. She doesn’t move. I whisper again, a little louder, and her tethered legs pop off the ground for a small second. I’m not sure if she’s giving me a sign or if she’s just twitching in her sleep. When I open my mouth to speak again, her eyes shoot open. The color washes over me in a powerful wave, warming me and sweeping the pain from my head, my limbs. She stares at me for a long time. She never blinks. And I understand the meaning of her eyes, the sentences of her iris, the words of her pupils.
They tell me to wait. That everything will be okay. To sleep. And before I realize what’s happened, the world has gone dark once again, though this time I’m eased into the darkness, lowering myself into the midst and finding a warm place to curl and dream.
Chapter Six
The world is a lush green. Snow is a thing that merely comes in winter, and even then, it can be avoided.
I’m in the middle of an open field, green hills, green grass, and green weeds surrounding me, the overwhelming greenness broken by the spattered flecks of the wild flowers, the constellations of white and purple and pink and yellow buds. The sun shines high in the sky, playing a soft duet with the breeze for a perfect concerto of warmth. I turn to take the whole place in, memorize the softness, the safeness, the sanctity of this world. But when I survey the land, I realize that I am not alone.
On a nearby hillock, a figure stands, a woman dressed in a translucent robe that wraps around her body and lets me see every facet of her womanhood. The only thing shrouded is her face, hidden by a dark hood.
“Come to me, Tom,” she says. But I don’t know for certain whether or not it is her. I can’t see her lips. “Come to me.”
I do, taking my sweet time, letting my bare feet slide across the blades of grass.
The closer I get, the more beautiful she becomes. Every inch of her smooth skin, glows in the light. My pulse quickens and I long to embrace her, to let her embrace me, to wrap me in her arms and choke the last breath from my body. She doesn’t say another word as she lets the thin shroud of cloth drop from her shoulders. It wavers to the ground, floating too smooth and too slow for air, as if it’s been dropped into a pool of water and sinks to the bottom of the ocean. I watch the ripples it makes, the fluid folds. And she pulls me to her.
My clothes have vanished and we stand, holding on to one another, naked, but for the hood still covering her face. Her hands slide down my back, up my stomach then congregate at my crotch, where she starts to pull and tug. Soon, she’s wrapped around me and I’m lost inside her.
But then she disappears. I can still feel her, but I’m no longer in the middle of an open, grassy knoll. I’m hovering in darkness, flames and screams filling the air. I can still hear her whisper. She tells me that the world will not end in the silence of snow. She tells me that everything always ends with a bang. She tells me she’s about to cum.
Then I see a flash of blue-green from beneath her hood. Ocean eyes, that glare and flare. It’s not the eyes that wake me though. It’s the screams.
Chapter Seven
At first, I think it is the howling wind, because a blizzard rages outside. But these are different screams. They are the stretched screams, the ones that continue for so long that I wonder if the voice will snap, break and die from overexertion. The screams are so high pitched that I automatically think it’s Meredith. She still huddles against the wall, her eyes focused on something behind the both of us.
I don’t care if they realize that I’m awake or not, I turn. The crumple of rags that used to be near the caves opening has been dragged closer to the fire. It’s Angelo. Instantly, I know why he didn’t look right from before. His arms and legs are gone, bloody stumps replacing his appendages. All that’s left for him to do is scream as they pull his intestines from his stomach and stuff them into a pot over the fire. I gag. Retch. Wanting to help him, I struggle against my bonds, but they are lashed too tight. I continue to fidget though, the ropes digging into the flesh of my wrists. I keep at it until I can feel the blood trickling down into my palms. Angelo’s screams are dying, fading with each new breath, his voice ragged, his life disappearing.
“You bastards!” I scream. “Mother-fucking cowards!” I spit at them, though it doesn’t even clear the fire. The last shreds of my restraint dissipate with Angelo’s beating heart. I kick. Scream. Threaten. Bleed. Cry. But the Banjankri pay no attention to me, too involved with their work, their dinner.
Angelo finally stills, and the Banjankri hack into him like a slaughtered pig, pulling of strips of flesh, tearing out his insides. Meredith watches the whole thing, her eyes wide, never blinking.
I drop into silence, listening to the fire crackle, the water bubble, wishing I could seal my nostrils, my mouth and not have to taste my friend in the air. And I wonder who will be next, me or Meredith to simmer in the pot. Then hope it’s me. Not because I want to save her, give her an extra chance to escape, it’s because I don’t want to see that again, because I can’t deal with another death. It’s because I can’t watch.
* * *
I try to sleep over the next few hours, but it doesn’t work. The smell of Angelo stew too strong for me to ignore, to give me any peace. I throw up two more times in the passing time, but nothing comes up. And it sickens me even more that the cooking meat makes my mouth water and my unsettled stomach long for a bite.
It’s even worse when they bring us the bowls.
One of the Banjankri, he hardly looks older than 15, hands a bowl to Meredith, her hands bound in front of her. She doesn’t even hesitate. She tips the bowl to her mouth and takes some of it in. I gag again, but don’t have the proper strength to bring anything up.
Goatee grabs me by the shoulders and props me against the wall, sitting on my hands. I try to kick at him, but he only laughs then slaps me across the face. He leans in, his face close to mine, and I can see that one of his eyes is an opaque blue, almost clear. His mouth opens, the smell of his stale breath, the rotted flesh, brings another tsunami of nausea.
In the Banjankri’s whispered tones, Goatee says something to me, full of hissing, new waves of breath brushing against me with every syllable. I turn away, but his hands catch me, force me back to look at him. When his words fade, he breaks into a smile, then rolls his eyes towards Meredith, so slow that my own eyes shoot from his to Meredith and back before his linger on to her crouched figure.
I spit in his face. And he hits me this time, and I can taste the blood trickle into my mouth.
He takes the bowl from the younger Banjankri and puts it to my lips. I tighten them, seal them off to a thin slit. He pushes my mouth with the bowl, but I don’t open. He presses harder, the bowl’s edge sandwiching my lips between it and my teeth, but I still don’t give in. He knocks my head against the wall, but I turn my face, causing some of the stew to spill out and hit my cheek. It burns as it slides down my neck.
He brings his face to mine again and bears his teeth in a large smile. Each one a tiny triangle, pointed and ready to rend flesh from bone. With a quick gesture he summons the younger Banjankri who takes the bowl in his outstretched hand. Goatee’s hand goes for my nose, the other to my chin. He plugs my nose and starts to push down on my jaw. I try to resist, but his hands are strong, vices that hold me in place. I can’t take in any air or shake free or catch a breath through a crack in a nostril. The younge
r Banjankri stands, holding the bowl over my face, ready to dump its contents in the second my mouth splits. I shake. Shake. Shake. Weaken. Need to breathe.
I crack the corner of my mouth, thinking and hoping it’s small enough to breathe but not enough for them to pry it open. Goatee acts as if he’s been waiting for me to do exactly this, forcing a finger through the small gap and wrenching my mouth open.
Then comes the taste. The meat. Angelo.
Sputtering, I try to spit and drool the gruel from my mouth, but Goatee keeps my head tilted up like a small chick. He the mother, dumping the stew down my throat. It burns, still too hot, and I finally swallow in quaffing gulps.
They leave me soon enough, my face turning red from where the concoction spilled, my stomach full, coughing, half-dead and wanting to die. Try as I might though, my stomach won’t obey, too hungry for the sustenance it now holds to let it go so soon; I can’t puke.
I hear them slurp their soup. Listen to them devour my Angelo. Wait for them to hunger again and come for me.
Chapter Eight
We’re packed and ready to go.
After another sleepless night, I’m hauled to my feet. I’d spent the night listening to Meredith’s snores, surprised that she could sleep in such a situation—especially so deeply. It was a comforting sound. I tried to close my eyes and imagine that my pack was still whole and that we’d found a cave for the night. But the ropes around my wrists, my bound legs, remind me of where I am, what’s happened, who I’ve eaten. I stay awake until dawn, watching the sun creep into the cave like a fearful cat, on tip-toes, hesitant steps. The Banjankri rise with the sun and go about packing their few things, stowing the soup in old thermoses, their cookware, the furs they used for pillows.
The only thing they leave behind is the half-frozen, mostly bone corpse that was once Angelo. I try not to look at it as we pass.
Dawn of the Yeti Page 2
