Tracy was two streets over when Linda’s screams had finally subsided, not so much subsided as cut short. She wanted to believe it was because she had got away and not that the more likely but unthinkable had happened. She was more rested than she felt she had a right to be. She knew part of that was adrenaline, and she was going to be careful not exhaust the very limited supply her adrenal gland had to offer. She pondered going back to see if Linda had indeed made it out so they could make their escape together. When she turned to look back, she saw that something had made it out, but it was not Linda. A yeti had found her tracks, and not just any yeti; it was the alpha, and it was looking to the second-floor window and the footsteps that led away. She began to run, knowing that the animal would be able to figure out what had happened soon enough.
“Think, Tracy, what would Talbot do?” She let out a stunted laugh. “You are a Talbot, you’ve spent enough time with crazy that some of it was bound to rub off and stick like wet cotton candy. Okay. Can’t outrun it; I need to find shelter and a place that is advantageous for me to defend myself.” She knew she was a fierce woman, but at a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet and an eyelash over five feet, she was as outmatched as David versus Goliath. “And yet David won, if the story is to be believed.” That spurred her on.
There were homes nearby, and she felt that at least one or two had to be occupied. Would they help? Could she justify putting them in danger? What if she knocked and a kid answered? But this was Alaska; it was likely that some, if not most, owned a gun. But would that do her any good if she stumbled across one? Mike was the gun enthusiast. She’d shot a few times, but usually small calibers, and her husband would load and make ready the weapon, showing her how to shut off the safety before stepping back.
“Please help!” She banged frantically against a door, constantly looking back the way she’d come, expecting the yeti to be right behind her. She thought she saw a curtain move, but there was no approach of footsteps to the door, and there was no indication anyone had come out within the last few days. She didn’t waste any more time. She left the porch and headed to the next dwelling some few hundred yards away. Part of the driveway had been shoveled, but it appeared that the occupant had given up halfway through, realizing they’d never be able to keep up with the accumulation. She banged on the heavy aluminum door to the garage. Again she got no answer. This time, when she peered behind, she saw the yeti had made it to the first house. If she tried to go for the next house, it was highly likely it would see her, and the short chase would be on. She grabbed the handle to the door and lifted. When it didn’t initially move, she was sure it was locked. She yanked up again in anger, and the ice frozen to the bottom released.
“Oh, thank god.” She opened the door just enough to bend down and enter. She let the door down as quietly as she could, though the unoiled rollers squealed in protest. She twisted the handle, sending the locking bar through the channels in the rail. She had no illusion the door would stop the beast, but it would delay it. To what end, she didn’t know. The garage was darker than it should have been; old newspaper had been stuck to the only window in the space. If the people that owned the place had owned an auto, it had never been housed in this garage. The side opposite the window was dominated by a workbench that spanned the entire length, stocked with every tool imaginable. On the right, hanging on pegs, were all manner of implements used for taming the land: shovels, pickaxes, rakes, hoes, a weedwacker, edge trimmer, and a lawnmower on the floor next to a John Deere rider mower. On the wall leading up to the house proper was the sports rack, replete with hockey sticks, baseball bats, and tennis and badminton racquets. The bats caught her eye, until she saw the bright orange housing of a chainsaw.
She shook away the murderous image. “Okay, bat for sure,” she said as she grabbed a small blue aluminum one. “This is a maybe.” She kept looking at the chainsaw. Tracy went up the two wooden steps that led in and turned the knob. She was surprised when it too was unlocked. “Hello?” she called out as loudly as she dared. “I’m not trying to break in, I need help.” She found herself in the kitchen. It was clean, but a lived-in clean; this wasn’t a summer rental, like most of the places in the area. The lack of any transportation outside led her to believe that whomever had been here had wisely sought out greener pastures. She had an irrational anger that they had abandoned her, that they should have had a prescient knowledge she was going to come here and need help.
The kitchen led into a tidy living room which contained over a half dozen animals stuffed expertly by a taxidermist. Tracy would have paid good money to have changed the antelope head into the shocked expression of a yeti mounted on the wall above the television.
“Dead animals mean guns, right?” she asked aloud. Off the living room was a short hallway with two doors to the right and one to the left; they were all closed. Again she called out her intentions of only seeking help, fearful that someone or ones were huddled behind a door with a gun, waiting for the opportune time the intruder opened the door so they could claim the castle defense. Weren’t many courts in the land that would punish someone for defending their home, especially not in Alaska, and certainly not during an unprecedented natural disaster. And what good would prosecution do her anyway? She’d be dead.
She knocked on the first door and opened it up, making sure the majority of her body was not in front of it. She closed her eyes, expecting to hear the roar of gunfire. When she was greeted with silence, she took a quick peek. Gorge involuntarily rose in her throat. The bathroom was bathed in a variety of pink colors, the toilet, sink and tub the same salmon hue. The floor and walls were tiled in what she figured had to be a factory rejected pink that Betty Boop would have found garish. Even the drywalled ceiling was painted in the same nauseating color.
“Someone has a problem.” Chrome was showing through the painted water tap where it had been chipped. “Pink toilet paper? Is that even a thing?” She knew the first words out of Mike’s mouth would have been, Whoa, it’s like I crawled inside a vagina. She smiled at the thought but shuddered, turning away from the train wreck of interior design. She was hopeful she’d be able to keep his twisted humor alive and to do that she would need to survive.
Tracy knocked on the first bedroom door and again gasped when she opened it. The small bedroom was full of dead animals in various states of preservation. She’d apparently found the shop of the artisan that had done the work in the living room. Squirrels, rabbits, two deer, and an eyeless wolf peered reproachfully back at her.
“The bathroom was better.” She shut the door. “Please no sex swing, please no sex swing..." She knocked at the remaining door. In contrast to the rest of the home, this room was relatively normal. A king-sized bed dominated with small end tables on either side. One side had a pile of Popular Mechanics magazines, the other a stack of Tom Clancy novels. But what caught her eye immediately was the big gun placed in a rack above the headboard. She put the bat down, jumped up on the bed, and lifted the gun off.
“Heavy.” She’d not been expecting the heft. “Shotgun, right?” She was looking at the dual, heavy-gauge barrels. She turned it over but could not see any discernible way to load it. She was about to go and look for something a little more user-friendly when she heard a heavy impact outside. It was the sound of thick aluminum bending and crinkling as it absorbed a yeti’s fist. “No, no, no.” She panicked. She left the gun on the bed, grabbing the bat as she headed back to the garage. Light was bleeding around the edges as the hammering hits pulled the door away from the walls and ground. She quickly went in and grabbed the chainsaw, retreating then into the house and locking the door.
Tracy was very familiar with two-stroke engines, Mike didn’t mind mowing the lawn, but absolutely despised weed wacking around the trees and bushes where the mower wouldn’t touch, and the uneven grass messed with her OCD tendencies, which she would vehemently deny having to him. His standard answer of "he’d do it tomorrow," invariably turned into a week later. Finally, she'd had enough. She watched YouTube tutorials on how to start the small engines and had done the edging herself for years. She wished she’d watched a few on guns. She ran back to the bedroom to take a fresh look at the rifle.
“What the hell is that?” She warily flipped a large lever at the rear of the barrels. She flinched, dropping the gun when the barrels swung down and nearly clipped her shins. Again she waited for the resultant boom. When she picked the rifle back up, she saw the brass of a cartridge. “What do they call these things? Breech loader?” She pulled both shells out. “Still look intact. Wouldn’t mind a few more than two shots.” She pulled open the drawers on both nightstands. She’d never seen so many sex toys in her life. She reasoned that there wasn’t much else to do in the dead of winter. “No shells, though.” She wanted to keep looking, but the sound of metal being bent and ripped let her know her alone-time was about to be infringed upon. She latched the barrels in place and went back to the chainsaw. This was it, the final showdown, and she was going to have as many weapons in her arsenal as she could. Either she died, or the Alpha did.
“On/off switch, choke, gas pressy thing," she murmured as she depressed the spongey red rubber node three times. She placed the machine on the floor, stuck her foot through the holder, and pulled on the starter cord. The engine cranked but did not turn over. Hold up. She thought, do I really want to do this? She knew that as soon as she started it, there would be no chance of hiding and hoping the bogeyman left her alone.
“Just as well," she said before pulling the cord again. “I’m about done with this vacation.” Before she did her third pull, she pushed the choke in. The engine sputtered twice and caught. She lifted it and revved the engine, watching the well-oiled saw blade spin rapidly. “Got a little something for you!” she shouted, wanting to be heard over the roar of the chainsaw. She stepped out into the hallway, placing the chainsaw on the ground by her feet, she was going to wait for the yeti to make it inside before she brought the shotgun to her shoulder; it was just too damned heavy to keep up for that long. She thought about propping the bat against the wall next to her, but she figured if it got to the point she needed it, the battle would already be lost. She'd left it on the bed. The beatings of her heart picked up pace as she heard the inside of the garage being trashed over the idling saw.
When the yeti had obliterated any possible hiding spot, its next assault was launched upon the entryway door. The lock and jamb, having never been designed for such a force, broke apart after the first hit. If Tracy thought she had been terrified before, it had nothing on what she was experiencing now. Then she remembered that her fate rest solely in her own hands, and she made peace with that.
The enormous female tore through the kitchen. When it got to the small living room, it smashed the television and furniture with ease. To Tracy, it appeared to be more of a display of power than an actual search, and as far as she was concerned, the point was made. Her resolve was melting faster than a sundae in July. She had the rifle up, but the barrel was shaking. She was thankful that if the female wanted to get her, it was going to need to come down the narrow hallway; she couldn't miss that target. The alpha’s massive head swiveled as it caught Tracy’s scent. It stood in the living room, looking down the darkened hallway and to the slight figure waiting for her.
The alpha let loose a loud, wailing sound that harkened back to the prehistoric times of great canopied rain forests and early Man. When these two species had fought for dominance of the world, the yetis had been decisively winning the conflict until a viral agent had reduced their numbers by three quarters, forcing the survivors into hiding. As the human encroachment spread, the yetis' habitat and numbers rapidly dwindled. On a fundamental level, the Alpha knew this and had decided that she would single-handedly do what she could to thwart the extinction event. She roared again. Tracy, expecting the great beast to charge, had jerked her finger on the trigger. The twelve-gauge loudly barked and bit hard into her shoulder as it sent a spray of birdshot rocketing out. Most struck the wall harmlessly, but a few of the stinging pellets found their mark high up on the chest of the Alpha. It somehow made her angrier, if such a thing were possible. If she could have spoken, it would have been along the lines of, How dare you!
The Alpha spent no more time posturing. She charged. Tracy’s heart attempted to escape through her throat. She pulled back farther, engaging the second trigger. What came next was a full strike to the yeti’s chest, ripping through the flesh of her breasts, making a mangled ruin of the area. The Alpha paused, rubbing furiously at the intense pain. Tracy tossed the rifle into the bedroom then bent down to get the chainsaw. As she revved the engine, the yeti looked at her warily. The injury, as severe as it was, was not life-threatening; she sensed she would heal from it. She had a decision to make: charge now and risk everything for the victory or withdraw, live to kill another day.
“Nope,” Tracy said aloud before retreating into the bedroom. The yeti, who might have withdrawn, felt her chase mechanism engage when she saw her prey flee. She was instinctively compelled to follow, a slave to her genetic programming. Tracy quickly shut the door, depressed the locking mechanism, and moved to the side, the hollow core door was unlikely to stop the yeti, and she wanted to be ready when it entered. She had to take the advantage of the animal’s reach and strength out of the equation. The thunderous approach of the yeti shook the entire house. The animal punched the door hard enough to rip it from its hinges; the edge caught Tracy’s elbow and spun her to the ground.
The yeti stepped in and looked down at Tracy. The woman did the only thing she could and brought the saw down onto the top of the yeti’s foot, hacking through the dense fur and splintering the thick bones underneath. The yeti kicked out; blood shot away, along with the saw that was ripped from Tracy’s hand, snapping two of her fingers. The yeti withdrew, falling back hard into the hallway and smashing an enormous hole into the drywall. Tracy spared the briefest of glances at her mangled fingers as the saw sputtered and died. She wondered if she could get it started again, but saw that the chain had been knocked free from the guide bar. A butter knife would have been a more effective weapon at that point. She grabbed the bat and demanded her broken fingers that they grip the hilt. She cried out in pain before running toward the yeti, who was looking down at her bleeding foot. Tracy’s first swing struck the top of the yeti’s head; her howl was mixed with Tracy’s cry as the bones in her broken fingers ground together from the movement.
The yeti pushed Tracy away, which would have sent her sprawling if she hadn’t struck the doorjamb, hindering her flight. As it was, Tracy struck the bed with the back of her legs, her top half folded down onto the bed. She wondered how long it would take for the yeti to kill her while she lay upon the comfortable mattress. She sat up quickly, the monster even now bending low to get in. While she was in that vulnerable position, Tracy went for its wounded chest. She came in from the side, swinging the bat as hard as she could, ignoring the pain in her hand as best she could. The yeti went into shock as an electrical current of pain traveled throughout her entire body, making a coherent thought or a coordinated move impossible. Tracy struck again. The alpha’s eyes first grew wide, then began to roll backward. She pressed the attack; blood and tissue erupted with each strike, coating her entirely. She was losing her grip on the bat, and before she could wipe the fragments free, the yeti again reflexively struck.
Tracy’s upper arm was broken. Her hand with the broken fingers immediately went numb, and the bat fell to the floor. Any semblance of a chance she had stopped with the inability to hold the club. The alpha leaned back against the wall panting heavily; she was attempting to work through the pain to gather herself up to conclude the fight. And once that happened, Tracy could think of no way to stop her.
Kitchen. The thought popped into her mind unprompted. The yeti took up most of the hallway but not all of it, and for the moment, she wasn’t completely aware of her surroundings. Tracy brushed by the monster as she made a dash; the yeti reached out and grabbed at her damaged arm, but she twisted her shoulders in time and got away. She’d shrugged the hand off, but the pain from the contact sent red hot spikes flaring throughout the entirety of her left side. White spots burned through her vision; she couldn’t see anything. If she’d not already sent the message to her legs that she needed to run to the kitchen, she would not have had the presence of mind to do so. Her hip clipped the edge of the small ell of the countertop, spinning her enough that she was now pointed into the kitchen. With her good hand, she fumbled around the countertop, feeling for the knife stand.
She heard the loud chuffing of the yeti and the creak of the floor as it slowly made its way toward her, and still, she was as blind as if she’d been locked in a windowless basement. She first cried out in anguish when her efforts were coming up fruitless, and then she cried out in triumph when she struck the wooden block. In her haste to get a knife free, she knocked the entire piece to the floor. She could hear knives skittering away. With her injured arm pulled close to her body, she went to her knees and bent over, fumbling around. The spots had begun to diminish in size, but not enough to keep her from sticking the point of a blade into her middle finger, and it went straight to the bone. Instead of tossing her further into painful oblivion, it clarified her thoughts, clearing away the spots like a windshield wiper across fat raindrops.
She wrapped her hand around the smooth wooden handle and, on her knees, spun toward the living room just as the alpha’s foot stepped onto the linoleum floor of the kitchen.
“I hope this fucking hurts!” she screamed as she raised the blade high and brought it straight down into the sliced open portion of the yeti’s foot, and, for a moment, pinning the animal to the floor like the world’s ugliest butterfly. Tracy had severed the peroneal nerve, causing the yeti’s foot to go numb and her toes to curl. She lost all ability to keep her balance and began to fall backward. Tracy ripped the blade free before it went with the body. The resulting thump from the impact caused Tracy to rise off the floor.
Her following actions never traveled through the region of the brain responsible for higher reasoning because, if they had, they would have been vetoed with extreme prejudice, and the portion responsible for the idea in the first place would have been banned from ever having a say again. She landed hard on the alpha’s stomach, forcing fetid breath to be expelled. She’d not even processed the stench in the air before she plunged the knife repeatedly into the yeti’s chest, neck, face, and hands as she weakly tried to shield herself.
With every pull of the blade, blood sprayed. To an outside observer, it would have been difficult to determine where one body ended and the other began. Sometime after the forty-eighth strike, the yeti had stopped moving. It was thirty-two more before Tracy couldn’t even discern what she was knifing. The thing in front of her had been reduced to a pile of shredded meat with no more definition than an old pile of pulled pork. Tracy, her heart pounding, slipped off to the side and lay on the cool floor, staring up at a water stain on the ceiling. When she could finally catch her breath, she began to laugh and wept at the same time, a wet, choking sensation that brought her some mental relief. She’d won; she’d beat the alpha. The cost had been undeniably high, but she was alive. She’d be able to see her children again. With her good hand, she pinched the bridge of her nose, the stunted, mixed laughter turning into full-blown sobs.
“Tracy! Linda!” was shouted from the garage. Footsteps she couldn’t begin to register were, impossibly, running into the house, up the stairs, and to the kitchen.
“Tracy?” It was Mike; somehow, it was Mike. She could only reason that her battle had happened within the confines of her mind; that the yeti had got the best of her, and she was dead. She didn’t think Heaven, or even Hell would be so bad if she got to spend all of that time with her best friend.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“Seriously?” she asked. “How can you be hurt more than dead?”
“We’re not dead. BT confirmed it earlier,” Mike said as he slid down to his knees next to her.
“Careful then. If I’m still alive, my arm is broken, along with a couple of fingers, and that’s only what I’m aware of.”
Mike tenderly gave her a kiss, his tears mingling with hers.