“Mike! Mike!” BT had to halt his friend’s progress. “We have to stop!” The words were nearly ripped from his mouth. The snow was blowing horizontally to the ground, and the snowmobile track was as indistinguishable as the rest of the landscape.
Their odds of survival, which had already been dismal, took another turn downward. Even if Tim decided to come back out, which was by no means a given, he could pass within twenty feet of their location and miss them entirely.
“FUCK!” The word was drenched in anguish and despair.
“They’re all right,” BT offered.
“I’m going to kill him just out of principle,” Mike said.
“We’ll do rock, paper, scissors for the rights, provided we get the chance!”
“Let’s dig down some, create a windbreak!”
Within a couple of minutes, the hole was over two feet deep, and they had plenty of room to sit back to back, giving themselves a better chance to see anything that came their way. It had considerably cut down on the wind but had only delayed the inevitable. Without some real shelter or a fire, they would succumb to the elements.
Mike had pulled the drawstrings on his hood as tight as he could and tucked his mouth and most of his nose down inside his jacket. He turned slightly to his right and felt the full force of the stinging snow and ice, and he also caught movement. The fear in Mike so deep-rooted it was churning his gut, he was afraid he would throw up and subsequently choke, as it got stuck between his throat and hood. Moving slowly so as to not attract attention, Mike turned, reached around, and tapped BT, who was about to ask him what was going on when he saw that Mike had put a finger up to his lips before pointing.
The yetis looked more like their Himalayan cousins, the Abominable Snowmen. The thick fur was matted down with rounded clusters of snow, making them appear as if they’d been pelted with snowballs. They were marching with their heads down, apparently suffering nearly as much as the humans. The distinctive smell was muted, but still evident. A bit of luck had finally broken their way—the yetis were passing them upwind. Twenty feet the other way, and their brief life or death struggle would be all but complete. BT and Mike barely breathed as the column forged past.
“I counted a dozen,” BT said once they were gone from view.
“Baker’s dozen,” Mike corrected. He shivered but only partly due to the leeching cold.
“Tim’s going to drive straight into them.”
“We can hope,” Mike replied. “Unfortunately, it’s unlikely he’ll be able to kill all of them.”
“I do not want to freeze to death out here.”
“Would you mind if I used you like a Tauntaun?”
“A what?”
“Tauntaun, from Star Wars. Kind of like a scruffy, two-legged horse. They ride them on the ice planet, Hoth. Luke was freezing to death and Han saved his life by cutting open his dead Tauntaun and shoving his friend inside to stay warm.”
“You’re Luke in this scenario?”
“Of course.”
“Let me get this straight. You want to cut me open and crawl inside so you can stay warm?”
“There’s no sense in both of us dying. Could easily fit two of me in there. Nice big meat blanket.”
“You have problems.”
“Yeah, but freezing doesn’t need to be one of them.”
“What if I cut you open and crawled in?”
Mike laughed then BT joined him. In a few seconds they were coughing from hysterical laughter. Tears froze and blew off their barely exposed cheeks.
“That would look extremely funny in a grotesque sort of way. Look like a father trying to wear his kid’s clothes. I’ve got an idea; not sure how much you’re going to like it.”
“Is it better than being a Tauntaun?” BT asked.
“Marginally. The yetis have passed us by, and it's unlikely they’ll come back looking for us. And shit, man, even if they did, I don’t know what the hell we’d be able to do to stop them. No way Tim is coming back, not tonight anyway. We have to stay warm, or if not warm, above freezing.”
“I’m listening.”
They dug until they struck ground. The grass was remarkably green, given that it was under three feet of snow. They built up the lip of their enclosure, angling it inward as much as the structure could support before covering the opening up with one of the blankets, securing the edges by burying them under snow. Mike dug a small, sloped channel through to the surface, just to the side of the blanket, to make sure they had airflow. It would do no good to survive the storm only to die of suffocation. When they were done, they had a poor man’s version of an igloo.
“That’s not half bad,” Mike said as he opened up the remaining blankets. “Wanna snuggle?”
“Please don’t call it that.”
“You could do worse.”
“So you say. I feel like a burrito.” BT added. They were completely wrapped up in the space age material, which looked and felt suspiciously like aluminum.
“I always thought these things were a crock of shit,” Mike said, “but I’m actually warm right now. Like, not only am I not freezing, I’m warm.”
“These are made from mylar,” BT informed him.
“Like the balloons?”
“One and the same. It’s nice to not have my teeth chattering anymore.” BT had poked his head out from under to keep from sweating. “Now we just have to hope that the yetis don’t double back and stumble into our hole.”
“Or Tim plows his machine into us,” Mike added.
“I didn’t even think of that.”
“You’re welcome,” Mike told him.
“You think our wives are all right?” BT was worried, as was Mike.
“Mrs. B and Stacy keep him in check. He can’t let his full psychotic nature free around them,” Mike said. “Plus, my wife is fucking nuts. She will rip his balls off with a pair of vise grips if he tries to hurt her or Linda.”
“Speaking of which, I’m sorry about the way she’s been acting.”
“She’s just stressed out,” Mike said the words, but he wasn’t feeling them; it was more of a courtesy. Whatever the reason, Linda had said some irrevocable things. He didn’t believe their relationship would ever be the same, and that hurt to think about because if he and Linda no longer got along, it meant he would eventually lose his friend.
“We should probably still do guard shifts,” BT said. “To make sure the air hole doesn’t get snowed over and the blanket doesn’t cave from accumulation.”
“Not it,” Mike told him.
“Real mature.”
“I’m okay with it.”
“I’ll wake you in four.” BT’s face was illuminated by his watch as he held it up.
Mike stripped off a sweater and rolled it up to use as a pillow, he fidgeted around for ten minutes before falling asleep.