Mike was in a fugue state, half awake, half comatose, if such a thing existed, when there came a soft rapping upon the door. Muted twilight was bleeding through the windows, a red lens flashlight was a beacon in comparison. The knocking became more furtive.
“Coming, shut up," he hissed, hoping the noise didn’t wake the rest of the group. He had a feeling it was going to be a long day—and not a good long day of drinking on a houseboat—but one of battle and survival.
Mike scooted the couch, threw the makeshift bolt on the door, grabbed hold of it, and made a narrow entrance to the side before stepping back, stifling a yawn. Tim had moved the mat to the side; he had a strange look on his face, something approaching gleeful regret.
“Tim?” Mike questioned.
Tim produced a knife, a heavy snort behind him cautioned the man against using it.
“Gus?” Mike was looking past Tim’s shoulder. The bear was standing on its hind legs, not two feet away.
Mike watched as Tim quickly sheathed the knife and turned to the side.
“What’s going on?” a bleary-eyed Linda asked.
“I found the bear!” Tim exclaimed.
Gus snorted at the lie.
“The bear can smell bullshit as well as anyone.” Mike had drawn his pistol. “Got a feeling Tim was planning on violently acquiring a gun, and my guard bear foiled his plans.”
“Foiled? Who says foiled? You fucking dolt. And I don’t know what you’re talking about. I came over to see if you guys had a change of heart since we talked.”
“And the knife?” Mike moved to the side as Gus forced his way past Tim and came in.
“It’s dangerous out here.”
“You pulled it out after I opened the door.”
“Are you sure? You were pretty out of it.”
“Gaslighting? I wouldn’t have thought someone as brutish as you would have the wits to wield something like that.”
“Gaslighting? How about we stick to using real words.”
“Got a couple for you: Fuck. Off. That clear enough?”
Tim curled his fists. “If you didn’t have that gun, I would fuck you up.”
“BT!” Mike called over his shoulder but didn’t turn his head.
“Right here, man.”
“Need back up? You little puke.”
“Not at all. I want him to hold my gun while I kick your ass.”
Tim cycled quickly between surprise and excitement. “To the death?”
“No, you fucking animal,” BT told him as Mike handed the gun over. “To the pain. Right?” He glanced at Mike.
“Outside, asshole. I don’t want to have to mop up your blood once I’m done,” Mike said.
“This guy serious?” Tim jokingly asked BT.
“I wouldn’t fight him,” BT told Tim as the man backed out into the parking lot. “What the fuck are you doing?” he whispered to Mike.
“Ever seen me fight?”
“No. We’re neighbors and friends, not bar brawlers. I’m assuming you fight horribly, fists backwards, shuffling your feet fast like Curly from the Three Stooges.”
“Seriously? That’s what you think?”
“Nothing personal, man, but I’ve seen you try to dance, and if that lack of coordination translates over to your fighting skills, he’s going to fucking kill you, or try to, anyway. I’ll shoot him before it gets that far.”
“I’m going to need you to hold off because, at first, I’m going to take a couple of shots from him, make him feel like he’s winning.”
“Is this just your way of laying the foundation for when you inevitably end up on the ground in a bleeding heap?”
“Are you coming or not? I mean, I get it if you don’t want to, I wouldn’t either.” Tim had stripped down to his Pikachu boxers and was flexing his arms and pecs.
“He is a big one. Remember, don’t shoot him, I mean, unless I’m on the ground and he’s about to grind my skull into the pavement, then yeah, I’d appreciate you shooting him.”
“Mike, what are you doing?” Tracy asked, she was getting ready to make a pot of coffee.
“Tim was going to stab me, take my gun and the sled with his Nonna and Stacy to the motorsports store. That about right?” Mike asked Tim, who was dancing around and stretching.
“I wasn’t necessarily going to stab you if you gave the gun over willingly. The rest is spot on.”
“Going to teach him a lesson.” Mike kissed the side of Tracy’s face.
“You’re just going to let him?” BT asked incredulously.
“He’s a big boy. Hurry up, I’m going to try and make some pancakes on top of the woodstove.”
“You’re not going to watch?” BT asked.
“No, I don’t like how much blood there usually is," she replied, going back in.
“Linda, the white people have all lost their damned minds!”
“Would you keep Gus inside? I don’t want her getting involved.” Mike went down the porch stairs.
“Can I go inside too? I’d rather not be involved, either.” BT kept looking around for someone with a rational mind to take charge of the situation. He came up wanting.
“You sure about this?” Mike asked Tim.
The larger man faltered; something about how confident his opponent was didn’t settle right in his stomach.
“Last chance, Tim.”
“Umm.”
“You mind if I keep my gloves on? It always takes so long for knuckles to heal up.”
“Errr.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. Well, let’s get this show on the road then.”
Tim swung the moment Mike squared off; he deftly avoided the strike.
“Sorry, sorry, I was going to take one for the team, but you’re a pretty big guy, and it’s early and cold out, that would have stung like a fucker. Time out.” Mike made the shape of a T with both hands.
“There’s no time-outs in a fight!” Tim barked.
Mike took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m ready. Hit me.”
“Huh?” Tim tilted his head in confusion, then swung. Mike bobbed out of the way.
“Nope, sorry, I thought I could do it. Shit, this is tougher than I thought.”
“What are you doing?” BT yelled.
“Are you planning on tiring me out?” Tim asked, glancing at his fist as if wondering how it had not struck home.
“Will it work?”
Tim charged, head down, arms outstretched, ready to encircle his opponent. Mike stepped aside and gave a savage strike to the side of Tim’s head; his steps faltered as he stuttered off kilter before standing.
“Ow!” Tim rubbed the side of his face. “That fucking hurt! Stand still so I can hit you!”
“That’s a no from me, dawg,” Mike said matter-of-factly.
Tim reached down and grabbed a handful of snow and ash.
“Come on, man, that’s the tactic of every cheap fighter everywhere. You seriously going to act out that trope?” Mike asked.
“You’re right, you’re right.” Tim contemplated dropping it. “Fuck it.” He swept his arm up and let loose the load. It missed Mike’s face by more than a foot.
“Seriously? You throw as well as you punch.”
Tim growled as he stood. He reached down and pulled the 9-inch Bowie knife free from its sheath.
“Mike?” BT asked.
“Scared, bitch?” Tim leered as he hunched over with the knife in front of him so it bisected his face.
Mike held his hand up in a stop motion. “So far, Tim, it’s just been a little mano y mano. A punch here or there. If you bring that knife into this fight, I will kill you.”
BT had the gun up and ready.
“What are you going to do, have your friend shoot me? Talk about dirty fighting.”
“You look like you have some experience with a knife; I’d say more in a stealthy manner, but for the sake of argument, I’ll assume you’ve used it in a fight. You’ll either come at me with an overhead attack or a straight thrust. Either way ends with me taking control of that blade and breaking through your chest plate with it, and that's a painful death. Quick-ish, but painful.”
“Why aren’t you scared?”
“Why should I be?”
“Because I’m double your fucking size, and I have a big shiny knife.”
“Meh. If I got scared for every time someone bigger than me tried to kill me, I’d have to travel around with a security blanket.”
“What happened to them?” Tim stood.
“If I’m here, you can do the math.”
“Shoot him or not?” BT was moving closer to get a better angle.
“Tim?”
The man hesitated. “Fuck this.” He put the knife away and stormed off.
“Fuck me.” Mike blew out the nervousness.
“Holy shit, Mike! What was that all about?” BT asked.
“Every Wednesday morning for the last few months, Tracy and I have been going to self-defense classes.”
“The knife thing? Could you have done that?”
“Fuck if I know. The instructor continually tells us that the best way to deal with these situations is to remain calm. People that panic are oftentimes the ones that get hurt or make fatal mistakes. Most of that fight was me trying not to throw up in my mouth.”
“Remind me never to play poker with you.” BT wrapped his arm around Mike’s shoulder as they headed back in.
“That worked?” Tracy had been watching through the window.
“I don’t think I like how surprised you are right now.” Mike hugged his wife. “I was paying attention most of the time in class.”
Gus was in the kitchen sitting down, a box of Cheerios in her front paws, cheerfully eating the contents. Trip was hovering nearby, grabbing at anything the bear dropped.
“Is this the best idea for our limited supplies?” Stephanie rightfully asked. “That’s a wild animal, much better suited to the climate and feeding herself.
Mike fundamentally agreed with her, but Gus was so damn cute. Plus, who was going to take those Cheerios away from her?
A knock came at the door. “This is what happens when you don’t hang up a no soliciting sign. I don’t want an extended warranty for my vehicle! Fuck they’re persistent. Wait, maybe I do; if they can get us out of here, it’d be worth it,” Mike said.
“Be careful,” BT said. "Tim might have had a change of heart."
Mike was ready, though he was not expecting the sight he saw when he pulled the door away. “Mrs. Bennilli.”
“Tell him," she said as she ushered Tim up the stairs, who very much looked like a six-year-old caught shoplifting and was dragged before the store owner to apologize.
“Sorry.” Tim’s eyes were downcast.
She smacked him in the back of the head. “Like you mean it!”
“Um, this isn’t necessary.” Mike was embarrassed for the man.
Tim looked up with pleading eyes. “I’m sorry for trying to kill you.”
“Okay, I guess.” Mike was completely unsure as to an appropriate response. It wasn’t often habitual murderers were kowtowed into offering an apology by their Nonna. “Just maybe don’t let it happen again.”
“We still have a problem, Nonna’s meds.”
“I’ll be fine," the obvious head of the family said. "Let’s go.”
“Will you be, Nonna?” Stephanie asked, coming to the fore.
“I have three more days' worth.”
“And then?” Stephanie was concerned.
“I will finally be with my husband, God rest his soul. Although, knowing him, he will have already moved in with Fellista! Pah! Bastardo.” She kissed her fist and raised it high, shaking it angrily, then, her face softened; she made the sign of the Trinity, and raised her eyes skyward, as if God, in a private understanding they had between them, would absolve her of her sins.
“Three days. I’ve got a feeling this is going to be over one way or the other by then. Tim, I promise, if we’re still standing on the third day, we’ll all trek out of here, come hell or high yetis. Deal?” Mike said.
“You're the man. Can we go now, Nonna?”
“Haha! You got in trouble!” Stacy was pointing at her cousin and laughing.
Mike slid the door back in place. “That is the weirdest fucking family ever.”
"Not so weird," BT said quietly.
“You really think we’ll be out of here in three days?” Tracy asked.
Mike had no idea, but he wasn’t going to dash the hopes of his wife. He gave a non-committal nod instead.
As the morning wore on, though, Mike’s patience waned. “Should have gone during the funeral," he mumbled, peering out the window, he was absently stroking Gus’ back as the animal slumbered.
“It’s not too late.” BT was at the next window over. Trip had somewhat fallen asleep on the couch, his back on the floor, and his legs on the cushions.
“Fuck it, you’re right.” Mike stood up like the chair he’d been sitting in repelled his presence. “Woman, let’s pack up some food, we’re going.” He was happy to finally be doing something, a chance to leave the accursed place, get back to his kids and fur babies.
BT wrestled the makeshift sled outside. Paul was slowly dressing for the weather.
“I guess I’ll go tell the Munsters.” Mike walked to the next cabin. The door opened before he could knock. It was Tim. He was chowing through something that looked like a chop; Mike hoped it was pork.
“Come to apologize?” Bits of food fell from his mouth.
“No, I came to tell you we’re going to make a go.”
“You know I didn’t mean that apology, right? I only said what I said because of the old lady.” Tim looked over his shoulder quickly before saying the last part, and even when he knew he was in the clear, he delivered the words softly.
“Yeah, totally I get that.” Mike wanted the conversation to be over.
Tim kept eye contact, attempting to detect deceit.
“So, uh, yeah, we’re going, you coming?”
“Everybody’s going?”
“That’s the idea. We want to leave this place as far behind as possible by nightfall.”
“You’re timing is for shit.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Mike told him. “We’re heading out in ten.”
Tim had already closed the door. Mike wasn’t entirely sure if he was going to show or not.
“I think I can walk a little,” Paul said as he came outside, he was moving slowly, his upper body rigid.
“That’s all great and fine in the flattened snow, but once we have to start high stepping, you’re going to change your mind,” Linda told him.
“I’ll let you know," he told her.
“Did you tell them?” Tracy asked as she looked over to the other cabin.
“I would have been within my rights not to, but yeah, I told them.”
“We’re ready to go.” BT glanced over toward Tim’s cabin.
“When did I become the official crazy whisperer?” Mike asked.
“You have the most experience,” BT urged him on.
“Dammit.” Mike strode over and knocked.
“Yeah, yeah, we’re fucking coming, so fuck off!”
“Always a pleasure,” Mike grumbled as he went back to the sled. “I wonder how many door-to-door salesmen ended up going missing when they had the misfortune of knocking on his door.”
“Probably deserved it,” BT intoned.
“Is this about the Kirby vacuum? You’ve got to let that go.” Linda was pulling on her gloves.
“Fucker comes to our door, says how bad our vacuum cleaner is. It’s a Saturday, I’m just trying to relax. Linda lets him in. Dumps a whole bag of what he calls 'hypoallergenic dirt' on the carpet, then vacuums it up with our cleaner. He’s like, that’s not bad, but let me show you the sucking power of the Kirby 9000. Mike, a 1950 Ford was smaller and made less noise than this vacuum. I think if you paid for the deluxe package, it came with two donkeys to pull the fucking thing. Linda about lost her mind when he shows her the dirt trap after he vacuums again.”
“You saw it too! The thing was full of dirt. How could we justify leaving all that dirt behind every time we cleaned?” Linda said.
“Question: So did you check the Kirby to see if it was clean before he vacuumed?” Mike asked.
“What did you say?” BT’s head spun with the possibilities.
“I’m saying, are you sure that dirt wasn’t already there? And he vacuumed up nothing except your money?”
“I…I don’t remember. Mike, that thing cost twenty-four hundred bucks. We’re still paying for it!”
“You bought it? Was that like six months ago?”
“Yeah. We got conned.”
“He came to our house.”
“Did you buy one, too?” BT wanted to share in the misery.
“Fuck no. I told him if he didn’t get off my porch, I was going to make him squeal like a pig—in the Biblical sense.”
“I wish I’d thought of that. Want to know the kicker? She doesn’t even use it. Says it’s too heavy to get out of the closet, hurts her back. I end up doing all the vacuuming. You realize the set of golf clubs we could have bought for that kind of money?”
“You don’t golf.”
“Exactly, and now you know why.”
Linda smacked his arm.
Stacy had to help Mrs. Bennilli down the stairs. She had so many layers on it was likely that if she fell, she would roll.
“This is ridiculous!” she tried to yell, but it was muffled through two thick scarves.
“It’s Alaska, Nonna. It’s going to get cold.” Tim rushed down the stairs to nearly carry his grandmother to the sled.
Gus watched as the silly humans prepared to leave then bounded along as they began to walk. The sled creaked and bent under load but held together as BT pulled it along.
“This is gonna suck," he said not a hundred feet past the parking lot and into the deeper snow. “You did five miles in this shit?”
Mike nodded. “It was worse. At least this shit isn’t breaking away at the last moment.”
“Guys.” Paul had stopped short. He was standing like he was in traction, his hand to his ribcage. “I…I can’t do this.”
“Don’t worry, man, we’ll get you on the sled,” Mike told him.
“Something shifted. I don’t think I can sit. I have to go back.” Though he didn’t move.
“What about laying down?” BT asked,
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Paul was breathing shallowly, doing his best not to further disturb his ribcage.
“He’s not kicking Nonna off.”
“Tim, we’re all in this together. No one is kicking anyone off,” Stephanie told him.
“Damn straight.” His words weren’t quite as charged.
“Mike, help me out. Going to try and lay him down like a board.” BT had one hand on the back of Paul’s neck, the other on his lower back.
Mrs. Bennilli had moved up to the edge of the rolled-up aluminum.
“Okay, Paul, just going to need you to fall back. Mike and I have you.”
Paul looked to BT with desperation in his eyes. He was already in a bunch of pain; moving in that manner with the possibility of making a forceful landing kept him locked in position.
“Slow,” BT said soothingly. “We’ve got you, man, we’ll get you on the sled, have you in a hospital by tonight.”
Good words to say. Mike thought, but empty. Even if they got to the snowmobiles, it was unsure where they would go next. What had survived the earthquakes, fires and floods? Anchorage, if it still existed, would surely have some emergency personnel on hand, but that was no easy trek on an open to the air vehicle.
Paul rocked back, his breathing quickened, he cried out in pain as he leaned some weight into BT and Mike.
“Pussy.” Tim was watching, taking a measure of joy at the man’s struggle.
“That’s helpful,” Tracy told him.
Tim turned a savage gaze on her. His lips came together as he got ready to blurt out bitch. He quickly looked to Mike and then his Nonna before he let it drop. He plowed through the snow for a few feet, stopping to sulk.
“Hurts.” Paul could barely get the word out as they got him down onto the sled. The blankets provided some cushion, but anything harder than a bed of feathers was going to cause him discomfort. “I…I don’t know about this.” Tears flowed down the sides of his face as he stared up into the sky. Can’t breathe right. Please…need a minute.”
Mike and BT gave each other a knowing look. He couldn’t stand, walk or lay down, and the longer they stayed in place, the less likely they were to make their destination.
“Back?” Mike asked as they stepped away.
Linda had got down next to Paul and was gently stroking his forehead. “Slow breaths, in, out, calm," she said over and over like a mantra. Paul had his eyes closed and was doing his best to follow her directions.
“He might need more help than we can offer, and besides, we need meds for Mrs. Bennilli,” BT answered.
“We should get going.” Trip was looking up, his arms outstretched.
“When did it get cloudy?” Mike asked.
“Uh oh.” Trip grabbed his right knee and turned to his wife. “Barometric pressure is dropping, Steph. This is going to be a bad one.”
Mike wanted to call him out for his bullshit, if only to make himself feel better, but the dark gray and black clouds were on the horizon and moving fast toward them. The knee may or may not have been a gauge, but the eyes didn’t lie, not this time.
“Paul, we have to move now; are you going to be okay?” Linda asked.
He didn’t answer but squeezed her hand to signify his agreement. Linda nodded to BT as she stood.
“Can we fucking go now?” Tim moved to the front of the sled, put the rope loop over his head, and let it rest on his chest as he began to move. The frame was sitting lower in the snow, the added weight making it more challenging to pull. Tim cursed with nearly every step; Mrs. Bennilli had quit berating him after a half-mile or so when he wouldn’t stop.
Gus had spent an inordinate amount of time sniffing at or around Paul. Mike didn’t like that one bit; the bear clearly knew something but wasn’t saying anything. BT was in front of Tim by a few paces, attempting to furrow a path. Linda was doing her best to stay up with the sled to keep an eye on Paul, but this wasn’t Thursday afternoon Pilates, and she was beginning to suffer. Stephanie and Trip were immediately behind her; they looked like they were on a late fall afternoon stroll.
By design, Mike was bringing up the rear, making sure that nothing snuck up on them, though he seldom brought his head up to look around. The only warning he was going to be able to give would be his first and final scream as he was dragged down; he hoped that would be enough. Tracy had kept busy during their marriage, running around with the kids, gardening, even mowing the lawn, and she was in decent shape, but not many besides world-class athletes were in the kind of shape necessary to make this particular journey. As she slowed, so subconsciously did Mike, giving him the illusion that he was keeping pace, in a twisted way. They were a mile in when a flake landed on his nose. He looked up to see that BT was some hundred yards ahead; Tracy wasn’t more than five feet from him.
“How are you doing?” he asked her. The subtext meaning was she needed to move faster, but if he said that outright there was a good chance she’d rip his junk off and beat him with it, and, as much as this journey sucked, that would be worse.
She didn’t say anything, though, and for a few feet, she did, in fact, speed up before again slowing. She was rapidly approaching spent, and they were nowhere near the halfway point. He looked at the sled, wondering if there was any way she could squeeze on there like Jack should have the oversized door in the movie Titanic. Unlike the film, there wasn’t an extra inch. Paul and Mrs. Bennilli were already bunched up, and there was no chance either of them could be rotated out to give her a spell.
When BT turned to check on the group, he called for a "five-minute break" after seeing how far the Talbots were lagging.
“Don’t think that’s a good idea, Hoss.” Tim was pouring sweat even though the temperature had dropped and the snow was picking up.
BT could not help but think they were in serious trouble right then. If the temperature continued to fall, and the snow moved to whiteout conditions, the yetis would be the least of their problems. Mike helped Tracy slog up to the front.
“I need to sit.” Before Mike could protest, she plopped down in the makeshift path and leaned up against the created snowbank. He wanted to tell her that she should keep moving so that the lactic acid didn’t build up, making it even that much more difficult to continue or, barring that, the loss of body heat she was going to suffer by sitting in the snow. Instead, he kept quiet. If this was their last day on earth, he didn’t want his wife to be mad at him for the duration.
“Sorry,” Mike said, "I guess I’m not as rested from the first time as I thought," which was mostly true.
“Are you going to be able to keep going?” BT asked Mike, though his eyes had traveled to Tracy, who was staring off into the distance.
“Yeah, I’ve got this. No worries.”
Paul was moaning, but he was far from the only one in pain. Stacy was suffering from blisters, but she didn’t dare take off her boots to check. Linda’s hamstrings were so tight she was worried about pulling one and was doing her best to stretch the muscles out. Trip was hunched over, yellow bile that smelled like moldy feet dripped from his mouth. Tim had his hands on his hips, eyes closed, face upturned with a teeth-showing grimace as he fought through his discomfort. BT had a stitch in his side that would not subside. Of them all, only Mrs. Bennilli and Stephanie seemed unaffected, the former had good reason, the latter was apparently a freak of nature, according to Mike, anyway.
“Want me to take the reins?” BT asked Tim.
“Fuck off,” Tim growled.
“Shit, Trip, what did you eat?” Mike asked as he leaned down and extended a hand to his wife. A gust of wind had brought the bouquet of stench directly into his nostrils. He had to step back and turn his head away.
“The last of the Phritos," was all Trip offered as he stood and wiped his mouth.
Mike didn’t think he was ever going to eat that particular corn snack ever again, regardless of whether he made it through the day or not. Tracy had grabbed Mike’s outstretched hand and nearly pulled him over getting up. Her eyes grew wide once she stood. She placed a hand on his chest and leaned in.
“Seeing spots.”
“Dehydration. You need to drink some water.”
She took a sip; he watched until she drank more. “I’m fine, fine.” Though the last word evaporated into the air.
“Ready?” BT asked. Trip was the only one to respond with a thumb that morphed into a bird.
“I think he speaks for all of us,” Tracy told him.
They ventured forth. If the pain in his body was any indicator, Mike figured they were halfway there. The wind had gained speed, driving the already dangerous temperature even lower. Luckily, if the heavy snow was coming, it had thus far held off; also, the wind was at their backs, urging them on to their destination.
“Small favors," he mumbled. “What the fuck?” Mike caught a whiff of something distasteful. He looked up the line to Trip; the man was not purging his stomach again, and even if he was, he was upwind. “Fuck. Tracy, move!” A quick squeeze of his adrenal gland gave him the juice necessary to grab her arm and almost drag her forward.
“You’re hurting me!” She tried to wrench her arm free.
“They’re here!” he shouted, hoping all would hear and his wife would quit trying to get away from him. There was no question as to who they were.
“I don’t see anything.” BT had shielded his eyes and gazed about.
“Wait for it,” Mike told him. The adrenaline was already beginning to peter out, and he was more tired for it. A strong gust brought with it a musty swamp scent.
“Stand and fight or try to outrun them?” BT asked.
“Well, all I have thanks to you two fucks is a knife. I’m making a run for it.” Tim kept pulling the sled. Stacy hobbled behind, looking desperately at the sled and a way to get on it.
“Tim, we need to make a plan,” Mike called after the man. Tim tossed an eagle over his shoulder.
“Already made mine, fuck face.”
“We can’t outrun them. Better to kill one or two, see if they back off,” Mike said.
“And if they wait?” Tracy asked.
“Wait for what?” Mike asked.
“Until we freeze to death.” Linda had her arms wrapped around her chest.
“Let’s give it a minute or two. If they show, we do our best to send them running. If they don’t, we’ll catch up to Tim, or, who knows, hopefully he’ll get lost,” BT said.
“There are three people with him that aren’t bad,” Linda berated him.
“No, I’m just saying I hope he gets lost.”
“I sure could go for a cheesesteak,” Mike said.
“What?” Tracy looked at him like he’d gone mad.
“I’m nervous and I’m hungry. I’d rather concentrate on one over the other," he told her.
“Smart man.” Trip tapped his crotch.
The others stared.
Embarrassed, Stephanie explained: “He gets confused on which, umm, head to signify. Where his brain is…?”
“Where’s Gus?” Mike asked, finally noticing that his furry friend was nowhere around.
“Took off about a half-mile ago, maybe got the scent a lot earlier than us.” BT was checking his pistol. “The only reason I noticed was because for a while she was blazing the trail; almost made this walk bearable.”
“I thought it got tougher. Figured it was because I was getting tireder.”
“More tired, hon,” Tracy corrected.
“Seriously? Right now?”
“You brought up cheesesteaks. I think I can correct grammar.”
“I think I see something.” Linda pointed.
Mike brought his rifle up, tried to get a better view through the scope. The blowing snow was making it difficult.
“Oh fuck," the words more spilled from BT’s mouth than were spoken. Mike lifted his cheek from the buttstock to see that it wasn’t one yeti but rather a line of them spread out horizontally.
“What are they doing?” Linda asked as she took an unconscious step backward.
“They’re herding us. My dad said this was how they used to hunt deer. A bunch of guys would get in a line, make noise and drive the deer into the waiting bullets of a couple of hunters up ahead.”
“Paul and the rest!” Tracy exclaimed. They could be walking right into the quite literal teeth of the enemy.
“Shit, we have to move. Go. I’ll be right behind—I want to give them something to think about.” Mike got down onto one knee, wrapped the sling around his right elbow to pull the arm in tight, locking it in place as best he could. “Go!” he urged, fearful that once he took the shot the yetis would quite possibly charge instead of falling back. He waited, making sure they were actually moving, took a couple of breaths in the hopes he could calm the swarm of butterflies in his stomach. He placed his left cheek on the stock, closed his right eye, found the one following their trail, lined up center mass, and fired. He rocked back slightly from the discharge. He caught a splash of blood from where the bullet struck. A menacing howl pierced the air, the yeti placed both hands over the wound before falling over. Mike waited for a moment to see what they would do; two moved closer to check on the fallen, and he could feel the multiple gazes upon him. He had one more round and an easy shot; he decided to hold onto it. As he stood, so did the one that had been leaning over the body. It reared back and tossed a rock, Mike didn’t think there was any way on God’s green earth the stone would hit the distance, and he was right, as it sailed over his head and landed some twenty feet past.
“Always said I wanted them to be discovered. Would have been a fuck-load cooler if it wasn’t by me.” Mike double-timed back to catch up with the group. “Faster!” he urged, waving his arm at them. They didn’t stop to demand an explanation, for that, he was thankful. He wasn’t sure how long it would have taken to marshal up enough oxygen to sound coherent. When he had run as far as he could, he took a look behind him, fully expecting to see the close-up snarling face of a yeti. He didn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean much. The snow was coming down harder, and visibility had dropped off considerably.
“We…can…slow…down…” he managed. He had to reach out to steady Tracy; he was afraid if she fell over, it was likely she’d tell him to leave her there.
Great plumes of exhaust were coming from BT’s nose, making him look like a fire-breathing dragon. He first bent back to look up, then forward, as he did his best to catch his wind. Trip, who had done the first jaunt easily enough, was having a difficult time, and even Stephanie, who had seemed like she could do this for days, was mirroring BT.
“I…I don’t know…if,” Linda stammered. “Make it.”
“Of course you can,” BT told her, though he didn’t look up, the words spoken more out of habit than truth. Linda shot him a look that should have melted the nearby snow; Mike noticed that BT had, luckily, missed the withering glance.
“Did you kill it?” Tracy asked.
“Yeah. In hindsight, I should have wounded it.”
“Why? Now it’s one less that we have to deal with,” Stephanie breathed.
“They’re intelligent beings. I think two would have dragged it back for help, or maybe they would have stopped to comfort it as it bled out.”
“I counted ten before we left. You?” BT had finally stood.
“Dozen, maybe more. Gotta be the whole tribe, or whatever they call themselves, out here hunting us.”
“Takes a village to feed a child,” Trip said.
“I don’t think that’s how that goes,” Stephanie corrected him.
“We still need to catch up to Tim, let him know there’s a good chance he’s walking into an ambush. We ready?” BT asked.
Daggers again were pitched from Linda’s eyes. “How far?” she pleaded.
Mike felt terrible and a little scared even saying the words. “Mile and a half, maybe a little more.”
There was a momentary sag like the puppeteer had let go of the strings propping her body before she caught herself. “I’m going to get back-to-back body massages when this nightmare is over.” BT grabbed her hand as they headed out. Mike’s routine was to take two steps, stop and scan the area behind them, and begin again. They were out there. The smell still prevalent, though a little less so. They knew he could reach out and strike, but if they'd known it was only one more time, his group’s lives might already be forfeit.
“Motherfucker!” BT yelled, Mike was fearful the man had been injured, either by a thrown rock or a pulled muscle. When he saw him moving faster, he didn’t think either of those were the case.
From his vantage point, he couldn’t tell what was going on. BT and Linda both went to their knees. When he caught up, he saw Paul on the ground. Most of the accumulated snow had been brushed off, but he was cold, possibly hypothermic-cold. His lips were blue, his teeth were chattering, and his body was shivering uncontrollably, which was shaking his broken rib, causing him massive amounts of pain.
“Tim," the word came out of BT’s mouth as if it were a swear.
“Pa..pa..pulled me off.” The pain and cold were so intense Paul could barely speak. “St…St…Stacy.”
“We get it. We’ll get you out of here. Look, Paul, this is going to suck." BT shook his head. "Mike, help me get him into a piggyback position.”
Mike groaned in sympathy for both men. Paul being carried and BT carrying the whole next leg of the journey was going to be a torturous hell for both. Paul’s eyes were rolling around in his head like well-oiled ball bearings. “Gotta stay awake, man. I’ll take point.”
“I’ll do it.” Linda laid her hand on Mike’s arm. “You have to watch our backs.”
Mike nodded tersely.
“Jesus, I know Tim is an asshole, but this?” Tracy was exasperated. “And Stacy? How could she allow this to happen? Mrs. Bennilli?”
“I’m not so sure either was in any position to protest.” Mike sincerely hoped that was the case. He knew there was evil in the world; he’d seen enough of its aftermath up close not to believe beyond doubt Evil existed, but he chose to think that most people were inherently good. There was no other way to survive in this world. The notion that three of the aberrations could be together was far too repelling to dwell upon. He decided instead not to judge them just yet.
“But...they just left him in the snow. How?”
“I don’t know, hon, we’ll have to figure it out later. Right now, we still have us to worry about.”
Trip was right behind BT, doing his best to prop Paul up and to keep him awake. Mike steadily fell back to the point he could no longer hear the man’s suffering as BT walked on. Linda was doing her best to create a manageable trail for her husband to follow, but she’d already been on the edge of exhaustion; there was only so much more she was going to be able to give. Stephanie passed both of them by to take the lead.
“Hon,” Mike gently prodded. At five-two, the snow was nearly waist high on his wife; even with the trampling going on ahead of her, she had to pick up her legs higher than anyone else, and it was taking its toll.
“I know!” she shouted. His normally stalwart wife began to shed tears of frustration, fear, and fury.
Mike was genuinely terrified, and it was only partially due to the yetis. They were in a very real danger of succumbing to the elements. Paul was in horrible shape; he figured it was fifty-fifty whether the man would make it, but what would happen if Linda seized up? Would BT do what Tim had done? Family first? In that context, what the asshole clown had done seemed justified. Inhumane, but justified, at least on a human level, if not a moral one. With the same set of circumstances, Mike wrestled with what he would do. If it came down to Paul or his wife, there was no question who he'd carry. The difference was Mike would also carry guilt for the rest of his life, whereas Tim had probably already forgotten about it the moment he rolled the man off the sled. Not sure how one felt after the fact would matter much to the Pearly Gates keeper. “Oh, you felt bad about your shitty actions? Well, that makes all the difference, welcome to a glorious eternity in Heaven!”
Mike almost envied Tim for his psychopathic tendencies. Had to be kind of nice not to give a shit about anything you’d ever done. How many hours of sleep had he lost going over his transgressions, his regrets, the what ifs, late at night? Repeatedly. How often had nightmares of those actions and inactions prevented any sleep at all?
A sound like the firing of the world’s largest musket stopped them in their tracks, followed by a tremor. His legs, which already had the consistency of jelly, now moved like it. The earth had once again cracked its knuckles, releasing the pent-up energy. Mike couldn’t say what that was going to do for their present journey, but he figured it was safe to say it wasn’t going to make things any smoother.
Linda had moved to the side, her burdened, heavily breathing husband drove past. She fell back in line but slowed considerably until Tracy caught up with her. She grabbed her friend’s hand. “Let’s go.”
“Oh sure, she doesn’t get chewed out.” Mike made abundantly sure she couldn’t hear that. The snow had slowed some, allowing a greater range of view, and there they were, far on the horizon but visible, fourteen impossibly large, dark figures following. “What I wouldn’t do for a bench and a box of ammo. Pew, pew motherfuckers.” He turned and trudged after the rest.
“Gotta stop.” BT was staggering. Mike was moving as fast as he could, but it was Trip that was able to grab Paul and let him down relatively gently, although, anything more than the touch of a feather was going to cause him pain. “Fuuuuuck!” BT was listing to the side, one hand gripping the small of his back. Tracy and Stephanie seized that moment to take a much-needed break. Mike wanted to as well; instead he went up to the front.
“How you holding up?” he asked; his friend was obviously in distress.
BT stepped a few feet up to whisper, hoping Paul couldn’t hear.
“I’m done, man. I’m not going to be able to carry him any farther.”
Mike didn’t ask for clarification. If BT said he was done, then he was done. Knowing the why of it didn’t change that fact.
Linda had gone up to Paul and was checking on him. When she was done, she joined her husband and Mike. “He needs a hospital soon, or he’s not going to make it.”
“I’m not sure if any of us are going to make it,” Mike said absently. “Shit, I am really sorry I said that out loud.”
“What if one or two of us goes and gets a snowmobile? The rest of us will stay here and try to keep him warm,” Linda offered.
“Not a bad idea except for the squad of Sasquatches following us.” Mike pointed. “They stopped when we did, but there’s no guarantee they won’t start back up when someone leaves.”
“What are we going to do?” Linda had a hand upon her forehead as she thought about the problem. “Tim murdered him. Slower than the man in the RV, maybe, but murdered him all the same. He would have done a kindness if he had stabbed him.”
“I’ll try to carry him some more.” BT was listing heavily; he appeared to be the inspiration for the tower in Pisa.
“Can’t risk it,” Mike told him. “If you go down, there’s nobody that’s going to be able to carry you, brother. Trip and I will have to rotate out. Maybe the best thing we can do is all start off and send someone up ahead to get a snowmobile. I don’t think our furry friends are going to do anything until night.”
“That’s not that far off.” BT looked at his watch.
“Stephanie is the best choice for the runner. She’s in the best shape, or she’s the best actor, either way.” Linda motioned for the other woman, who was huddled next to her husband.
“We can help with half that plan,” Stephanie replied once they’d laid out their thoughts. “Trip won’t be able to carry Paul. He has two vertebrae fused together; if he puts that kind of strain on his back, it could be catastrophic. We can, however, trek ahead and get some snowmobiles.”
“That’ll have to do. Thank you,” Linda told her.
“Realistically, Mike, how long do you think you can piggyback the man?” BT asked as they watched Trip and Stephanie head out.
“On level ground with no snow, I can’t imagine more than a quarter-mile. In this shit, if I make it three hundred feet, I’ll give myself a high five.”
“It’s not worth it.” Linda looked over to Paul.
“What are you saying?” her husband asked.
“Not that. I’m saying it’s not worth it to hoist him up onto Mike’s back for that short of a ride; it will do more damage than good.”
“Looks about as good a place to defend as any. I think we should get off the road and into the woods a little bit, use the trees for cover.” Mike was turning from evacuation mode to entrenchment mode.
“Don’t we want to see them coming?” Tracy had joined the group.
“They have rocks and fairly decent aim,” Mike told her. “And I have one bullet for the rifle. I’m going to put this out there because it needs to be said; I’m merely stating it so that we’re all aware. Our survivability takes a serious hit just staying here. Waiting for the yetis to come is one thing, but we still have to deal with this weather and the chance of being stranded. There is also a chance that Trip and Stephanie never make it, and we’re waiting here for a rescue that isn’t coming. This is an exercise I did in my head every time I was on a mission. When we started out this morning, I had our odds at an eighty-five percent success rate, well within any parameters one could hope for on a dangerous objective. When the asshole Tim replaced Paul with his cousin and left us like this, we took a significant hit. Dropped down to sixty percent, best, but most of that peril lay with Paul. Now though, waiting for the yetis and waiting for the snowmobiles...?” Mike spread his hands. “I put all of us at somewhere around twenty percent. I, for one, am not comfortable with that at all.”
“And if we left Paul and headed out?” BT asked. “I’m just asking," he addressed his wife, who had glared over at him.
“Climbs right back up to eighty-five, maybe ninety, given how close we are and now that we wouldn’t be towing anything,” Mike responded.
“And the guilt? Don’t you think you’d be towing that around for a good long while?” Linda sneered.
“I’d be alive to feel something, at least," he told her. “Linda, this isn’t easy to say, but we’re not just risking our lives here, we are actively putting them on the line in the hopes that something intercedes to keep us alive.”
“We can’t just leave him," she exclaimed.
“I didn’t say that. All I am saying is this is the risk we’re at.”
“That’s just your opinion," she retorted.
“True, though I do have some experience, as do you. You’re a nurse; you can’t tell me you at one time or another weren’t dealt a large emergency and had to triage patients. Who stands the best chance of being saved and who you don’t have time to waste the resources on.”
Linda was quiet.
“Listen, I’m not trying to speak for the group, but we need to think this through.”
“I’m staying.” Linda was adamant and immediate with her answer.
The moment she said her answer, Mike knew the outcome without BT having to respond verbally. He wasn’t going to leave his wife, Mike wasn’t going to leave his friend, and Tracy wasn’t going to leave her husband.
“Then I guess we’re staying,” Mike said. Linda was contented that her stance had swayed the group. “At least you won’t have to live with that guilt for long.”
“Mike!” BT exclaimed.
Tracy pulled Mike away as BT posted up on him. He raised his hands and backed away.
“What the fuck are you doing, man?” BT asked.
“How are you doing, Paul?” Mike was looking down on the man.
“Been better," he managed.
“You all right for a minute? We need to get off the road, but I want to clear some snow away for you, maybe even see if we can get a small fire lit.”
“I’ll wait here.”
“Might be for the best,” Mike told him with a smile.
Linda and BT were together talking animatedly; it would have been impossible not to hear them.
“Hon, stop, please,” BT begged.
“No, he’s not like us! All he knows is how to take lives, not save them.”
“That’s not fair, he was a Marine.”
“He’d leave him here, you know that.”
“We don’t know that. He was just telling us his thoughts.”
“Oh, so now you’re on his side?”
“I’m here, aren’t I? And there are no sides.”
“Aren’t there?”
“You done?” Mike was sick of being talked about like he wasn’t there and not in the most flattering of ways.
“I’ll be done when I’m done,” Linda replied unabashedly. “I always thought you were a little too loud, crass and egotistical, but what I didn’t realize was your lack of humanity.”
“Seriously?” Mike was genuinely hurt.
“Who the fuck are you to talk to my husband like that? Tracy looked as if she’d been shot from a cannon as she headed toward Linda. “You stuck up bitch. You’ve always thought you were better than us, better than everyone, really.”
“I am,” Linda shouted. “Your kind don’t belong in our neighborhood. You’re a war mongering piece of trailer trash. A murderer! Writing a book doesn’t change who you are!”
BT interceded before Linda and Tracy could go to blows. Mike knew stress could bring out the worst in people, but much like alcohol, it could also reveal the genuine person underneath the civility. He’d always considered Linda a friend and was now realizing the outburst was more along the lines of who she was, whereas at home it was all an act on her part to appease her husband, he hoped. If BT felt the same, he wasn’t sure if there would ever be another human he could trust.
Mike went and placed a hand on Tracy’s shoulder. “Hon, it’s not worth it.” She was glaring at the other woman. “And you?” Mike looked at BT.
“I always liked the loud, crass, and egotistical parts about you,” BT shrugged.
“Trace, come on, we don’t have time for this. Let’s dig a fighting hole-slash-shelter; we’re going to need both.”
“Bitch,” Tracy said before turning.
“Grab any low branches you can. We need to make a fire; maybe that’ll keep them away, and plus, heat. We’re going to definitely need that.” Mike propped the rifle up against a tree and began to move armloads of snow, digging down while simultaneously using the extracted snow to build up a parapet. After a few moments, BT came over and wordlessly began to help. When they were nearly done with their ten-foot across hole with walls roughly five feet tall, the big man finally said something.
“I’m sorry.”
“I figured you’d go with the 'she didn’t mean' it spiel.”
“I knew you’d realize it for the bullshit it was.”
“She’s never liked us?” Mike asked.
“She adores Tracy.”
“I don’t get it, BT, I’ve never been anything but decent to her. I loved, shit, I love her. She’s my best friend’s wife. Not once have I ever felt animosity between us.”
“I don’t know if it’s so much you as what you were.”
“A Marine? I’ll never apologize for that.”
“I’m not asking you to. Just, as a caregiver, can you see where she’s coming from? Her job is to make people feel better, to save them after injuries, nurse them back to health.”
“And my job was to protect her way of life so she could do just that.”
“Mike, I’m not arguing with you.”
“Don’t you think I already suffer enough for what I’ve done, what I’ve seen? Do you want to know how long it was after I got home before I could look in a mirror?”
BT held his hands up.
“Six months and twelve days. Before that I couldn’t stand the fucking sight of myself. It took me a long time to be all right with myself again, and most of the time, it’s still a daily battle. What has helped me most along the way is my family and my friends. And to now find out that was all a lie.... I don’t even know what to do with that.”
“Not all of it is a lie.”
“If we survive, which, I’m not kidding, BT, is very much in jeopardy, I’ll never be able to set foot in your home again, to go over to your house for a barbecue, we’ll never go on another vacation together. Eventually, you and I will drift apart because now that Linda has made her stance clear and aired it, she’s not going to want you to be around me.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“You say that. But even when I gave my assessment of the situation, you didn’t even take my words into account when you made your decision; you didn't even attempt to change her mind. I’m not blaming you; you don’t live with me. It’s always going to be you and her against the world. In this instance, I’m the world.”
“Fuck.”
“We’ll worry about the future if there is one. Let’s get Paul in here.”
Linda stepped back from where she was helping Paul as Mike approached.
“They’re running!” Tracy shouted, dropping her armload of wood.
“Jesus,” Mike said as he raced back to the hole. They’d seen that he didn’t have his rifle and were charging. BT grunted loudly as he scooped Paul up off the ground. His back, which had slowly begun to unwind, knotted up instantly. He swore and groaned with each step.
The yetis had closed to within fifty feet by the time Mike skidded to a stop next to the tree where his rifle was. His heart was pounding against his ribcage, some from exertion, but much more from fear. If he shot now, his remaining bullet would fly fast and furious for a mile and a half before falling harmlessly back to the earth. He braced the rifle against the tree, the barrel rising and falling with his pounding pulse. He knew he was never going to get his racing, runaway heart under control in time to take a well-aimed shot. Luckily or unluckily, the target was large enough to make up for a great swath of inaccuracy.
Thirty feet away, the barrel of the rifle came back down. He would not have another cycle, and he still had to hope the rest peeled off after he shot. The thundering feet of the yetis and the whoops they made were loud enough Mike never heard the shot being fired.
“Holy fuck," was all he could manage as he watched the left side of the lead yeti’s face dissolve into a ragged, loosely held together mass of blood, bone, and tissue. It let out a wretched scream, a strangled sound coming through misfiring brain waves and a bisected tongue. It was enough. Ten more feet and the yetis would have overrun the position and killed them all; instead, they curved away deeper into the woods. Mike watched the retreat for a moment before letting his head sag. BT had just made it to the hole and slid in, lowering Paul gently to the ground.
“You okay?” he asked Mike.
“That was close. I think I shit my pants.”
Mike stayed where he was as a small fire was started. The heat was welcome in the enclosure. It had been two hours since Trip and Stephanie had left, and night was right around the corner.
“You think it’s possible they left without us?” BT asked.
“Huh?” Mike was peering into the darkening woods.
“Trip and Stephanie, do you think they got there and said fuck it? Grabbed a couple of motor sleds and bailed?”
“Well shit. I didn’t think that until now. Thanks for that.”
“Nice shooting, by the way.”
“Did you do that on purpose?” Linda asked.
“What?” Mike turned to look at her.
“That yeti. It was coming straight for me. Is that why you shot it? To make a point?”
“I honestly don’t even know what you’re talking about. I shot it because it was the first one I saw and, best I could tell, the closest. And even if that wasn’t the case, are you angry I saved your life now? Like I somehow did it for spite? Does that even make sense?”
“Okay, Mike.” BT was attempting to make peace.
“This. This is what I was just talking about, bud. You’re asking me to calm down after your wife gave me shit for saving her life. How could I possibly compete with that? Better yet, why would I want to?”
BT was in a no-win situation, and he knew it.
“Goddamnit, that thing fucking stinks,” Paul blurted, referring to the dead yeti. He had some color, although that could have been attributed to the fire he was nearly lying upon.
“Should we move it?” BT asked no one in particular, and no one in particular responded. “I, um, guess I’m going to get some more firewood." BT climbed out of their makeshift bunker.
Mike kept the rifle visible, though, at the moment, it was merely a prop in the play he was performing in. Without bullets, the best it could become would be a club
“Hey, get some sticks that are roughly rifle size,” he called out. "Let’s let them think we have a bunch.”
“Good idea,” BT told him.
“Don’t stay out there long,” Linda called out.
Mike realized that some of that was her concern for her husband, but he’d be an idiot if he didn’t think part of it was just so that BT couldn’t fulfill his request, a way to assert herself. He could only shake his head.
BT made five trips, making sure they had enough wood to make it through the night. Four branches were perfect as far as looking like weapons. “Dinner," he said as he pulled granola bars out of his pockets. He gave a pack to each of them, even under the scrutinizing eye of his wife as he handed one to Mike.
Shit. We should really move that body, Mike was thinking. “Our best way of knowing they’re coming is by that stench, but that thing out there will probably mask it.”
“Would you be able get it far enough away? Or even move it?” Tracy asked.
“Going to have to try, and we can bury it in the snow a bit. Hopefully that'll cut the worst of whatever that reek is down.”
“You’ve already gone out once.” Linda wrapped her arm around BT’s waist.
“Didn’t realize there was a limit on the number of times someone should help when trying to survive. I’ll keep that in mind,” Mike told her. He looked at BT, who seemed trapped by his wife's small arm.
“I’ll come with you,” Tracy said.
“This has gone far enough, Linda. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but you need to stop,” BT told her once the Talbots had exited. He extracted himself from her and headed out to help.
“Fuck me.” Mike’s eyes were watering as he got closer to the dead yeti.
“It’s huge.” Tracy had her hand over her mouth and nose as she spoke. “How can there be something so big in this country and never discovered before?”
The animal was nearly ten feet tall, covered in thick, oily, white fur. Its head was almost conical, like a gorilla's, but its posture had been more human. Its cheeks and chin were the only parts of its face not covered in fur, but that only highlighted the fact that it did not look remotely human, as opposed to a chimpanzee, which could look very human. The yeti’s features, in contrast, were too large, too broad, and the low-hanging shelf above its eyes made sure it would never be mistaken that way.
“Sure am glad I have gloves on for this part.” Mike grabbed an arm and leaned back, straining. If the body moved, he wasn’t aware of it.
“I’ve got it,” BT told Tracy just as she was reaching down to grab the other arm. “You ready?”
“No,” Mike answered truthfully. “On three?”
“Sure.”
“Three.” Mike began pulling back, as did BT. At first, he figured it was his spine sliding or his arms stretching, then the yeti began to shift. Once they got it unstuck, it moved pretty easily.
“I can hardly believe this.” BT was pushing piles of snow atop the beast. “I know you’ve brought yetis up before, hell, you bring up all sorts of weird shit, but I would have believed alien crocodile thingies over this.”
“Lends a lot more credence to the things I say, doesn’t it?”
“Not really. You’ve brought up maybe a hundred things; law of averages says one of them had to be right. Zombies, werewolves, aliens, ghosts, vampires, demons...your mind is a scary place, Mike. We should get back.”
Mike was looking at the large, rounded mound. The smell had been greatly reduced but was far from erased. “I don’t want to die like this.”
“No one said anything about dying,” BT replied.
“Pretty sure I did. Only been a couple of times where it might have been worse.”
BT said nothing as his friend traveled across time and space in his mind.
Mike looked up. “There were a few times in Afghanistan it got…pretty hairy. The worst was when we were sent up this mountain, looking for some leader of a cabal—just another one of the dozens. The helos dropped us off smack dab in the middle of a trap. It was set up so perfectly it was like someone high up in intelligence was in on it. We’d maybe climbed a thousand feet up this stony crag of a mountain when they sprang it. First thing I heard wasn’t bullets or explosions but whistles; I don’t know if they didn’t have radios or were fearful we’d been monitoring them, but they were communicating through little metal fucking whistles, something not much better than used to be in Cracker Jack boxes.
“I still don’t where they were hiding. There was no place to hide, like, seriously man, this place looked like the surface of Mars. But there they were, in a classic three-pronged attack. One of my friends, Dewey, he was right next to me bitching at how bad the Lions were doing, when all of a sudden he wasn’t. Tough to say much of anything with a sucking chest wound. I dropped on top of him to keep him from getting shot any more, then I started returning fire. I don’t remember much about the gunfight. The thing that sticks out the most is how much blood my uniform soaked up. It was heavy with the weight of it.”
“You’ve never said anything about this.”
“It’s not something I like to relive by speaking about, already get to revisit it frequently with the hauntings. Anyway, my point is even though we were outmanned, outgunned, and we had the enemy advancing on us and our indefensible position, and even though I’d said my prayers and goodbyes, there was still hope. The LT was pretty good, as far as officers go. He didn’t cave, trust me, I’d seen a couple go full-on babbling brook or shut down completely. This one, though, he was giving coordinates. A couple of minutes, that was it, that was all we had to hold on for. Sure, that can feel like days, but it's doable. Then two of the ugliest, most beautiful warplanes, the A-10 Warthogs, came in and tore that shitty hill up into chaff. Ended up taking out over a hundred of them.”
“The lieutenant sounds like he knew what he was doing.”
“He did; he got some posthumous award or some shit. He took a bullet five seconds before the planes showed. Five motherfucking seconds. I skated out of the award ceremony. Not really the point I’m trying to make here, but I think that was why we were sent on that mission. They knew those fighters were there; they knew we were going to be in a shitstorm."
"They used you as bait?"
"Yep. Expendable commodities. A potential loss of twelve Marines to a hundred of theirs. Fair exchange, right?” There was a pleading in Mike’s eyes. “I always wondered how those A-10s got there so fast, like cops waiting around the corner from a bar at closing time.”
“Fuck, Mike. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too. The point that I took the long way about getting to is that I felt more confident in surviving then, than I do now. Even if I thought I was going to die, I figured some of the squad would be rescued when the avengers from the sky came and wiped the enemy from the earth, and I was okay with that. But here, now? No one’s coming. We’re on our own, and we’re all going to die. And again, I’m okay with it for myself. A part of me died a long time ago, but my wife? You? It makes my chest hurt thinking about it.”
BT noted how Mike had left Linda out of the equation. He couldn’t blame the man; even he had not known the depths of her distaste for his friend, bordering on outright loathing. He could try to justify it, but that would be more hollow than cheap, chocolate Easter bunnies.
“Not dead yet," was the best he could offer, though it was far from a comforting phrase; it implied that the end was already on the way, just not officially timestamped.
The glow from the fire outshone what remained of daylight. It wouldn’t be long until that was the only source of light in the woods, a spotlight on them. But it would do no good to extinguish the flame; the enemy knew they were there, and Mike was convinced that even if they couldn’t see them, the yetis would have no trouble smelling them, which did seem odd, given their own pungent scent. Paul was asleep, and Linda and Tracy were pointedly not looking at each other.
“Glad to see he’s asleep, though it’s not like the slug did anything,” Mike said jokingly to his wife, hoping to alleviate some of the stress they were all feeling.
“He’s sleeping because it’s the best way for his body to heal. I can’t even imagine the level of discomfort he was feeling today,” Linda said.
“Hon, he was joking. We’re all aware of how much pain the man is in.”
“Not that he cares.” She wanted the last word. “He wanted to leave him here.”
“No, Mike.” BT put up his pointer finger as the other man was about to retort.
“Um-hmm,” Linda gestured.
“That goes for you too. I’m not going to play mediator, so just stop this shit. And he never said we should leave him, he said we needed to think about it due to the facts at hand. He was giving information, not mandating. Right now is when we need to be at our strongest, this high school shit is not going to fly.” He was pointing at each of them.
Mike put his hands up to signify he was done. Linda turned to the side. The snow started up again, but thankfully the temperature had increased. The fire and the windbreak kept the climate within the hole fairly decent, given the circumstances. Conversation was nonexistent; the only noise the crackling of the fire and Paul’s occasional moans from pain and loss.
Hours passed. Sometimes they would catch wisps of the earthy, yeti scent, then it would dissipate with the wind.
“They’re probing,” BT said as he stood next to Mike against the snowbank.
“That’d be my guess.”
“How long before they attack?”
“I’m thinking right before the dawn, preferred time of opposing forces for ages untold. We’ll either have been up all night and weary, or we'll be fast asleep, exhausted, unwary.”
“I wish you were giving them too much credit.”
“I just hope I'm giving them enough.”
“Want me to take first watch?” BT yawned.
“Might be better if I take this one,” Mike told him. “I’ll wake you if or when I get tired.”
“Don’t stay up all night.”
“Got a feeling sleeping is going to be difficult. I really like having a pillow now. Years back, I could sleep on rocky ground, concrete even. These days, shit, I need comforters and proper lumbar support.”
“Yeah, I get it.” BT clapped Mike lightly on the back.
Mike pulled his jacket tight around him. This far from the fire, he wasn’t feeling much of the benefit from it. He could feel Linda’s eyes blazing on his back for a while, though he never turned to check. He was certain he’d have a few choice words for her if he did. BT was lightly snoring. He heard Tracy shift, looking for somewhat of a comfortable position, and she too fell asleep. If Linda had slept, she’d been so quiet about it he wasn’t aware, either way, he found he didn’t care.
It was roughly three in the morning. His head was nodding when he was jolted awake by a smell that punched him flush in the nose. He was positive the last thing he would see in the world of the living was a massive hand swiping his head off. “Shit.” He fumbled, looking for his pistol, which had fallen from his slackened hand. When he finally found it, a foot in front of him on the snow shelf, he abstractly wondered what had taken the yeti so long to strike. “Up,” it came out little more than a croak. He figured he must have been out for more than a few minutes. “UP! Everyone up!” he shouted. The sound of thunderous feet retreating nearby let him know just how close to disaster he’d brought the group.
“What! What!” BT sat up, his gun held out in front of him.
“They’re close!” Linda had clutched her husband’s arm. Tracy stood next to Mike, willing herself to see something through the darkness of the night, without any luck.
“Shhh.” Mike had heard something; he pushed the palm of his hand backward to Linda.
“Don’t you dare tell me to shhh, who do you—”
A loud crashing sound cut off Linda's anger. A rock slammed hard into a branch and broke it free from the tree it had adamantly been clutching.
“Stay close to the walls.” Mike ducked down as a rock whistled overhead.
“Should I fire a shot? Maybe it’ll scare them away.”
Mike shook his head. “We don’t have the ammo to waste. Got a feeling we’re going to need every bullet.”
More rocks banged into trees, and two made their way into the hole, but only after they’d rolled.
“We should get Paul closer to the wall,” Linda said as she crab-walked over to the man who had yet to awaken. She grabbed an arm and began to pull before BT joined in the effort. The smell wafted in and out like the beat of a subwoofer from a neighbor that did not understand boundaries.
“What are they doing?” Tracy asked Mike like he’d all of a sudden become the resident expert on all things yeti. The only piece of prior knowledge he had over any of them was that he had half-believed they were real.
Before Mike could answer, the tree next to their hole exploded, that was the best way he could have described it. The noise so thunderous, the concussion so persuasive, bark, leaves, wet pulp, it all showered down upon the group. The boulder that had been launched had to, at the minimum, been five hundred pounds. It had dug a divot a foot deep into the side of the tree. They were ranging them in. Mike was about to tell them to run when another struck, this one landing on the far side of the hole.
Paul could not have been dragged into a worse place. The entire upper half of his body and head were crushed into oblivion. His legs danced around wildly as all the signals to the nerves misfired at once, cut off from the source. A spray of blood ringed their entire enclosure like a drained dirty bathtub. The worst part, if one could be determined, was that his arms encircled the boulder in a bear hug, as if, for one horrifying moment, Paul had been aware enough of what was happening to attempt to remove the boulder.
“Sweet Jesus.” BT turned away. Linda stared in abject horror. If she’d left Paul where he was, he would have been fine, at least, for the time being. Mike thought he might be going mad, until he let the dark humor in the irony keep him sane.
“We have to leave.” Mike fired a shot with his pistol. He’d meant it as a distraction, something to pull the yetis' attention away, give them something to be worried about. There was an oomph not more than ten feet away; his blindly shot bullet had struck. “Now! Go!” He grabbed his wife’s hand and headed to the far side of the circle. He climbed up and out, more dragging her along than letting her propel herself. BT and Linda were immediately behind them. Enormous stones bombarded the hole, one struck the fire, sending a shower of sparks into the air some twenty feet high.
“Let me go, Mike.” Tracy was stumbling forward as Mike pulled her.
“Faster, we have to move faster.” The Stone Age bombing was still happening, but once it stopped and the troops came to investigate the damage and realized their intended victims weren’t there, the pursuit would be on. He had no illusions they could outpace the yetis. Their only chance was to find a place of cover and concealment and hope whatever casualties they could inflict would force the yetis away, to make them realize the losses were too high a price to pay.
“I can’t go any faster.”
“No choice.” He didn’t let go. Mike angled back to the road. The area was sparse but not desolate. He thought he remembered a small general store and some homes along the roadway, but if he was asked to swear on it, he wasn’t sure in which direction or even if it was all just an unhealthy dose of wishful thinking. They were plodding through the snow, each step a torturous repetition of pulling the entire leg high, breaking through over two feet of snow, and doing it again, endlessly. The amount of energy expended was easily ten times what it would have been on dry terrain, and now it was pitch dark. They would not be able to go far.
The sounds of rocks colliding reached a crescendo before finally subsiding. This was immediately followed by the knocking of logs on tree trunks then the fevered pitch of echoing whooping.
“Move,” Mike urged not only the group, but himself. His thighs burned. One of two things was bound to happen. Either his legs would spontaneously combust or the muscles would snap away from their anchor points. The pain was unique, indescribable. They'd reached the roadway when, finally, the yeti cacophony stopped. He imagined a circle of them looking down at their handiwork and realizing they’d not destroyed the group. Or they were busy dining on the appetizer and would be coming for the main course soon enough. Neither image offered a modicum of comfort.
“Can’t.” Tracy was done. Sweat from the exertion, from the pain, coated her face.
“Have to," was all Mike could manage as a response.
“Fuck you.” She lifted her leg almost waist high and plodded on.
BT and Linda weren’t far behind. She was sobbing; Mike didn’t care enough to ask why.
“Rest, please.” Tracy had stopped short. Mike’s hand fell away from hers. She went to her knees, the snow keeping her propped up. Mike swayed, the muscles in his legs twitching randomly. The group stood physically together, but mentally, they were leagues apart. They suffered through similar physical trauma, but emotionally...each was alone. Facing your mortality is one thing, but having it actively pursuing you quite another.
More knocking from the woods. “They’re coming.” BT sighed, “Here?”
It was dark out, but the first signs that the sun was finally getting its lazy ass out of bed were in the making. Mike couldn’t be sure when he looked off to his left whether there was an area darker than the rest, but it merited a look.
“House," he managed as they got across the street. He knocked on the door. “Please,” he begged, checking the knob.
“Not home.” Tracy was leaning against the wall of the A-frame. He knew she was right, the snow in front hadn’t been disturbed.
“Locked,” he said before he broke out the sidelight window and reached in to open the door. He’d not realized he’d had his full weight against the door until he fell onto the foyer floor. It was used as a mudroom, a place to take off dirty shoes and clothes before going into the house proper. The coat racks and shoe holders off to his left were empty. The inhabitants had either fled right after the emergency or had never made it home. Tracy stumbled past Mike then bent down to help him up.
“Good, good," he told her as he stood, allowing BT and Linda to come in. He swept the snow back out so he could close the door.
“Not going to stop them.” BT had one extended arm out against the wall with his head hanging down.
“Kitchen. We need to look for vinegar, coffee, anything with an overpowering scent.”
“Bleach?” Tracy asked.
“Yeah, let’s be careful we don’t make some sort of deadly gas.”
“Ammonia. Don’t mix bleach with ammonia. Been on a couple of calls because of it,” BT panted out.
Linda had slumped onto the couch in the living room. The far end of the house was dominated by enormous glass windows that Mike assumed gave a beautiful view of a mountain range. The entire floor plan was open, with exposed beams and a thirty-foot high vaulted ceiling. From where Linda was sitting, she was looking into the kitchen.
“We’re all going to die," she sobbed, burying her face in her hands. “Because of me, we’re all going to die.”
For one beat of his heart, Mike wanted to tell her, no shit.
“We’re going to make it.” BT went to comfort his wife.
She continued, not acknowledging his words. “I killed Paul. Pulled him right into the path of that rock.”
“We both moved him, hon, that's not all on you.”
Mike was rummaging through the pantry. “Ah.” He held up a large bottle of white distilled vinegar and a smaller but more intense smelling bottle of apple cider vinegar. He went to the front and poured it all over the floor. “Fuck me.” He turned away as his eyes began to water.
Tracy was tossing ground coffee around the main living room. Mike was pleased with their scent snuffing efforts until he spent a good long time looking around and realized there wasn’t any place to hide. Wouldn’t matter if the yetis couldn’t smell anything if all the people were standing in the middle of the room with lampshades over their heads.
“We have to leave.”
“No!” BT and Tracy yelled at the same time.
“There’s no place to hide.”
“What about the bathroom?” BT pointed behind them. With the sun beginning to come up, the layout of the house was better revealed.
Mike checked it out. The four of them would fit, if just barely, but the door was of the hollow core variety, and there was only a high-set, small window that none of them would be able to fit through, should the need arise.
“It’s not ideal.” He was shaking his head.
“You know we can’t run anymore. We make our stand here.” BT grunted as he stood. He patted his pocket, patted it again, then spun around while simultaneously patting down his entire body. Other than running away screaming, he looked very much like a man being attacked by an entire hive of angry hornets. “Fuck. I, uh, I lost my gun.”
Mike had not once in his life wondered what swallowing one’s Adam’s apple would be like; he could now confirm it was not a sensation he wished to try again. Not that their odds had been great to begin with, but halving their weaponry was a step in the wrong direction.
“I’m…I’m sorry.”
“Can’t do shit about it now,” Mike said.
“Accept his apology!” Linda shouted.
“Excuse me?”
“Accept his apology!”
“Why? Our best chance of staying alive rested on the two guns we had. You’ll excuse me if I can’t find it in my heart right now. If we live and we make it to a bar, I’ll buy him a beer, but will forever rib him about the time he lost a weapon while we were facing giant man-eating apes. Will that work?”
“I wish it was you under that boulder.” Her finger was pointing; BT had to physically restrain her.
“God, Linda, I hate when you sugarcoat things. You really should work on properly expressing yourself. Holding things in can be bad for your health.”
“Okay, Mike, if you could please not goad her, I’d appreciate it.”
“Goad? Huh. I thought I was defending myself, but sure, I’ll be quiet if she will.”
“Enough.” BT was speaking to Linda; he had completely shielded her off from Mike’s view.
“But he hasn’t apologized!”
“You can’t force someone to apologize, Linda. You can’t. And if I was in his position, I’m not so sure I’d be able to either.”
Mike had gone to the front of the house and looked out a window when Tracy came up beside him.
“She’s losing her mind.”
“Combat fatigue. I’ve seen it take down seasoned vets before. Only so long you can run at a high threshold of stress before something gives.”
“Why aren’t you breaking down then?” she asked.
“Already broken," he offered. “There they are.” Mike instinctively moved to the side, though the creatures were too far away to see him.
“Where?”
Mike pointed to a place down the roadway. The woods were lightening up, and it was possible to see the figures moving through them, following the same path they had.
“They’re going to come right to this door.” Tracy was right; how could they not? They’d left a distinct trail.
“We need to get up onto the crossbeams.” Mike was staring up at the eight-inch-thick timbers supporting the roof.
“They’ve got to be twenty feet high; we’d need a ladder. What about there?” Above the flatscreen television mounted to the wall was a decorative nook; it contained half of a canoe, the other half hung in a mirrored version across the room.
“Holy shit! Great find, woman. Let’s drag the table underneath.”
They walked the piece of furniture over. Mike quickly climbed up and grabbed the lip to pull himself into a position where he could see; he inadvertently put his foot through the screen. “Shit. Someone is going to be pissed off when they get home.” When he was sure he had seen everything, he let himself drop the six inches. “There’s some boxes of stuff stored behind the canoe. We get rid of them, should be just enough room for us to hide.”
“And us?” BT asked.
“Not a chance,” Mike told him.
“That’s fucked up. I didn’t think it would come to this.”
“I’m going to stop you right there before you say something you’re going to wish you hadn’t.” Mike pointed across the room.
“Asshole.”
“Me or you?” Mike asked.
“Usually, it’s you; this one is on me.”
“Come on, help me get these boxes down, then we’ll check the other side.”
Mike pushed the canoe against the wall, affording himself just enough room to crawl up and in. When he peered into the first box, a giant smile spread across his face.
“Guns?” BT asked hopefully.
“Not quite, but almost as good.” Mike tilted the box just enough so BT could see.
"Legos? How is that better?”
“This would make more sense if you had kids. Just hand them off to Tracy. Woman, these boxes are heavy, but I think you’ll know what to do with them.”
BT handed the box off, and Tracy proceeded to shake the contents over the floor like she was liberally applying salt to some under-seasoned food. Linda grabbed the next box and did the same. Luckily for the big man, the other side was somewhat larger and was devoid of any boxes.
“They’re getting closer.” Tracy said softly, looking through the window.
“Time to hide. Come on.” Mike motioned for his wife. She didn’t hesitate. “How do you want to do this?” Mike asked BT once Tracy was up in the nook.
“Get your ass up there, I’ll take care of my end.”
“You can’t leave the table in place.”
“I’ve got it.”
“Good luck.”
“You too,” BT told him.
The moment Mike swung his leg up and was crawling in, BT picked up the table and headed to the other side of the room. He more launched his wife than she climbed. Once he'd pulled himself up, he grabbed a paddle out of the canoe.
“Sit on my legs," he told Linda as he got on his stomach with his upper half bent down. He placed the paddle between the wall and the tabletop and shoved it away. With a hard cranking, he knocked the furniture over. It was loud, especially as it crunched down onto the building blocks. They could only hope the yetis weren’t close enough to hear it.
“I didn’t realize how bad vinegar smelled until that was all I could smell,” Mike whispered to his wife. He had to say something; the expectant silence was entirely too suspenseful. Action in the face of danger was one thing, but you felt as if you had some control over the outcome. Inaction, though, just waiting for events to unfold as they may with absolutely zero control or input, was many degrees of difficulty worse.
“I want to go home, Mike.”
He felt as if his chest was going to cave in from her words. They were a partnership in every sense of that word. She strengthened his weaknesses, and the same could be said of what he did for her, even if the tally were less on his side. He knew he’d married up, and he would forever be fine with that, as long as she was as well. But now, this was what he was supposed to be good at, protection. And yet here he was, hiding. Waiting.
“We will," he told her, even if he had a briefly flashed image of their caskets being pulled from a plane as their kids watched. He shuddered, shaking his shoulders in the hopes of shattering that dark thought.
They were all startled when a heavy impact hit the side of the house. “Honey, I’m home.” Mike couldn’t help himself. Tracy wrapped an arm around his midsection. Linda had turned, so she was facing the wall. It was unlikely the tactic would work; just because you can't see them doesn't hold true in the reverse. BT had pushed back, driving Linda farther against the wall. If she objected, she didn’t voice it through her quiet whimpers. Mike was on his side, holding the pistol against his chest. He had six surprises for whomever found them. After that, he and Tracy became shelved snacks.
“I love you," he told her.
“Same.” She squeezed him tighter. She was so close to his ear, it should have been an intimate moment. It wasn’t. Another smacking against the house from the seekers, another accompanying jolt from the hiders. BT had the paddle up against his chest, it wouldn’t nearly be as effective a weapon as the pistol, but there was comfort in having something to defend himself and his wife with. He was ashamed to admit, even to himself, that there was a second where he'd thought about taking Mike’s gun away by force, if necessary. He would justify his actions by saying he needed it to defend his wife. The will to survive was a powerfully selfish force. He was happy he hadn’t done it; there was something to dying with his honor intact.
Linda had to clamp a hand over her mouth when the door was torn from its hinges, a hundred-pound stone taking care of it in one stroke. Splinters were sent across the floor; the handle came to rest on the far side of the home. Linda was shivering so hard BT was fearful the yetis would hear the rustle of her clothes. For a long while, nothing else happened. Mike thought, or hoped, perhaps, that the animals had decided there was nothing of interest in the house. Then another rock, not quite as big as the door buster, thumped into the middle of the living room. They were trying to startle the prey out of its lair and being cautious upon approach. This particular food source had proved to not only be dangerous but deadly. A pounding came from the back of the house on the French doors. The glass flexed with each hit until finally it gave. Small fragments cascaded inward. They were effectively surrounded, cut off from escape, even though running had never been an option worth exploring.
Loud chuffing came from each end of the house as the yetis sniffed; this was immediately followed by explosive sneezing as the vinegar, bleach, and whatever else they could find, screwed with the yetis' olfactory senses. It just wasn’t enough. Human scent was still present, and not just any humans but the ones that had dealt damage to their clan. The ones that must pay for their transgressions. The alpha female of the group nodded for one of the younger males to explore inside the domicile. The juvenile was quick to do what his leader requested; the impetuous hot blood of youth flowed through his veins. He let out a tortured sound as his foot came down on the jagged glass and sharp-edged Lego mixture. His next step elicited a louder response. After the third, he turned and quickly vacated the premises.
Mike could only hope that was the end of it; he would have been perfectly fine with it being too easy. It was unlikely, though, as their trail ended here, but maybe the yetis would decide it wasn’t worth it. He wanted to peer out and look but knew that for the folly it was. The alpha female was having none of the youngster’s disobedience. She screeched and beat him about his shoulders until he again headed in. He was angry and in pain and made sure to transfer all of that energy to the surrounding furniture. He smashed, tossed, and ripped apart everything he could get his hands on. The fridge was pulled over and forced into the hanging rack, where it caused the juvenile to cry out when all the pots and pans clattered loudly to the floor. He proceeded to smash most of the cabinet doors and all the contents within, even going so far as to rip up the granite countertop as if it weighed no more than its low-budget cousin, Formica.
Tracy had pulled so tight against Mike’s midsection he was having difficulty catching a full breath. With each footfall, the hairy monster was getting angrier. He did more damage to the home in five minutes than an out of control fraternity keg party could do on a three-day bender. Each extremely loud noise elicited an involuntary response from those hiding. They had to actively suppress the urge to jump down and run away and get as far from the destructor as possible. Mike was afraid that if they weren’t found outright, they’d still die when the house came crashing down. A grunt and a nasally whistle emanated from the front door; the juvenile stopped what he was doing and responded. It was clear enough they were talking to each other, which Mike found incredulous, though it would have been great to know what they were saying. The juvenile took two stomping steps out of anger then more gingerly picked a path of least pain before exiting.
Then came nothing. Dead silence.
The sneaky bastards are trying to lull us out. Mike thought. He hoped BT and Linda realized that as well. The first fifteen minutes went by easy enough, the fear, the adrenaline enough to override the discomfort of the cramped space. After that, the rough surface began to wear against their bodies. Bent legs first asked, then begged to be stretched. Mike’s left arm, which was partially underneath his body, had fallen asleep, but he didn’t even dare stir enough to pull it free, fearful the noise of his jacket would start the yeti search frenzy again. All of that was bad enough, then the cold from the open doors and smashed windows began to blow in. If they started shivering, the noise would certainly alert the enemy. Mike hated that the monsters were so intelligent.
Linda’s nervous system had been running in the red for so long she’d not been able to stop herself from falling asleep as the demands of her mind proved too much for her body. BT felt better when her heard her regular, soft breathing, he could tell she had been getting ready to fidget around; sleeping was a much better outcome. Until the yetis tossed another large rock onto the living room floor, startling her awake, accompanied by a short scream. She clamped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late to put hell back in its cage once it broke free. Two of the beasts stormed in, disregarding any discomfort their pounding feet were taking.
Mike held the gun in front of his face, waiting for the canoe to inevitably be ripped away, exposing them like bugs hiding under a rock. One of them went into the bathroom and ripped free the four-hundred-pound cast iron tub. It shattered as it was slammed down and broke through the floorboards.
Mike was pissed at Linda. She’d been giving him hell, and now had threatened his entire world with her outburst. The man she had been so hellbent on saving was dead, at great sacrifice to the group, and it wasn’t looking so good for the rest of them. Self-righteous bitch. He was fuming in preparation for the fight for life that was sure to come. Another chuff, whistle, and whoop. Mike was getting used to the vocalizations; he was positive this was the alpha again, as those inside quieted down, though they did not leave. More calls, and the three inside moved furtively. No, Mike thought, that would imply they were creeping to avoid detection. This was what, methodical? That was worse, way worse. Instead of beating the bushes to see what came out, they were now taking their time, actively seeking them out.
He was somewhat surprised they’d not been found yet, considering they were just above eye level, but maybe when you spend your whole life looking down to find the things you eat, this was the safest place to hide. What cabinets were left in the kitchen were being systematically checked. The fridge was flipped back over and opened. Closet doors were ripped free from their hinges, the contents pooled in the center of the room.
Then it came, but still, Mike hadn’t expected it. The canoe half was wrenched free and callously discarded. It was a relative tie as to who was more surprised, though ties go to the weapon wielder, in this instance. The sound from the pistol being fired in that small enclosure was deafening. It wasn’t anything the yeti had to worry about, as the bullet punched him directly in the forehead. Mike thought maybe the bullet had ricocheted off its thick skull as it raised its arms and reached inside. Mike shot again. If the first bullet was lodged in bone, the second shot had forced it all the way in. The yeti’s eyeballs rolled up as if he were trying to follow the trajectory of the round. He stumbled backward two steps and fell over. Instead of charging straight for him, the two remaining ran out opposite sides of the house.
“We’re fucked now,” Mike said. It was only a matter of time until the alpha came up with a plan. He’d bought them some time, but there was no Plan B to activate.
“Now wh...what?” Tracy was shivering.
Mike’s fear dug deeper than he could ever remember it burrowing. It was one thing to be afraid for yourself, a whole worse thing to be worried for another. He’d once read about a study regarding muggings. Individuals were not as likely to defend themselves as they were others, if they thought the person they were with was being threatened. There was no doubt in his mind that was an absolute truth. He didn’t like being in the tight cubby, with little room for maneuverability, but going into the living room with no cover was worse. His mind rapidly sought ways in which they could survive and kept coming up empty. He could not reconcile that it was likely they were going to be killed in the next few minutes.
This can’t be happening, the thought raced around the corners of his mind, trapped, just like he was. A flutter began deep in Mike’s midsection before rippling out to his chest and legs. The alpha female gave a series of whistles and clicks. They all could hear the movement as yetis began to file back in.
“Fuck this.” Mike pulled away from Tracy’s hold. “Hey, ass faces!” he yelled.
“What are you doing?” BT hissed.
“They know we’re here; no reason for stealth!” Mike shouted. Didn’t matter the words he spoke, only that he sounded intimidating, and so far it was working, as those that had been coming in withdrew. How long he could keep them leery was a different story. Mike dropped down from the shelf, landing atop the body of the yeti he’d shot. The smell of the animal was so pungent his eyes involuntarily watered. Mike noticed the yetis took another step backward, an expression of what he read as abject horror upon their faces.
“Ah! Don’t like someone messing with the body of a fallen comrade, huh? Don’t blame you. Absolutely hated that shit when I saw it overseas. Still not going to feel bad about this, though!” A savage grin spread across Mike’s lips as he grabbed a fistful of the fur atop the yeti’s dome and lifted the massive head. “Check this shit out!” Mike yelled. He cringed from how close to hysteria his voice sounded as he proceeded to punch the yeti repeatedly in the face. His fist ached as he cracked it into the already flattened nose, breaking the cartilage first and then the delicate bones around its eyes. Blood from his busted open knuckles mingled with what leaked from the post-mortem injuries, along with the sweat that dripped from his brows.
“Who wants some of this!” He stood up with raised fists. There was a portion of his mind that stood apart, aghast, witnessing the insanity of the act, but another part, from a more conscious view, took a great measure of satisfaction in seeing the despair and anxiety of the enemy. Maybe they weren’t human, but there was a close enough resemblance that those expressions communicated their shock and dismay clearly. It was the Alpha that brought Mike’s hastily erected house of cards crashing down. Realizing that her clan was on the verge of panic, she began to speak in her whistle and whooping way, snapping her subjects out of the terror trance they were under. She was stomping on the ground, slapping and pushing against those nearest to her.
If Mike could kill her, it was likely the rest would break and run as the matriarchal glue that bound them was dissolved. He didn’t know what the rules for succession were within the clan, but it was highly likely they would be in disarray long enough that the four of them would be able to get far away before a new queen was crowned.
“Yeah, you have to die.” A glint came to Mike’s eye as he pulled the gun free from where he’d holstered it. He stepped up onto the yeti’s chest and down the other side, raising his arm and advancing. He was down to four rounds and could not afford to miss, plus, he really wanted to be up close and personal when he killed the bitch.
“What are you doing!?” Tracy yelled, watching her husband. He barely heard her and acknowledged her less. He was on a mission, a mission to save her, save his friends, and finally himself. The Alpha, to her credit, did not run but rather stood taller, regal, even. She wasn’t going to run, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to do anything. Sounds rapidly chittered from her mouth. Very much like Mike, the yetis had been hesitant to do anything when it was only their lives on the line, but as soon as the Alpha was threatened, all bets were off. They weren’t rushing toward him; they were stooping to grab projectiles. The piss-or-piss-off timer was running down. Mike stopped walking and aimed in, his finger upon the trigger. As he depressed the bang button, he was struck on the shoulder with a foot-long section of two by four. It was just heavy enough and hit with enough force to push his upper half forward. The bullet struck the Alpha low on her leg, not anything that was going to cause fatality unless he’d been lucky enough to strike a major artery. He didn’t feel overly hopeful.
Before he could get another shot off, debris began to rain into the home. Most thankfully missed, but it was enough of a deterrent that he needed to pull back. His only avenue was the bathroom, though that was leaving Tracy exposed, should they come back in. One problem at a time, he thought as he carefully avoided the larger chunks of the broken tub. For a solid five minutes, the yetis had thrown every possible thing they could get their hands on into the house. Mike waited for them to storm in; he was going to do his best to take a couple with him before he fell. He was saddened, believing he was about to die, but appreciative, at least, that he wasn’t going to have to watch the ones he loved go first.
“Small fucking favors,” he said grimly.
“I hear something!” BT yelled.
“Shut up,” Mike said, more to himself.
“It’s an engine!”
“Fuck, man, just put up a sign that says open for business!” Mike popped his head out to make sure his friend heard him. The yetis were no longer looking inside; something had drawn their attention elsewhere.
“Help me down.” Tracy was moving toward the edge.
“No,” he told her.
“I’m no safer here now than I am down there.”
“Shit.” Mike grabbed her legs as she dangled over. By the time her feet were on the ground, there was no mistaking the high whine of a small engine.
“Trip?” Tracy asked.
“Has to be.” Mike ushered Tracy into the bathroom. A whistle louder than the approaching vehicle was followed immediately by a blindingly bright red plume.
“Fireworks?” Tracy asked as a large report followed her words.
The yetis hesitated, unsure of the new threat or what to do next. Another firework sent them running in various directions. The Alpha gave Mike one last glare before bounding off; he was happy to note she did so with a slight limp.
“They’re leaving.” Mike finally felt as if he were able to take his first full breath in over twenty minutes. He was startled when the canoe half BT and Linda were hiding behind was pushed to the ground. BT bounded down and helped Linda.
“How are you doing?” BT asked him. Mike nodded.
“Fucktards!” Tim shouted as he pulled up to the front of the house. “Didn’t expect you all to be alive.” He was smiling ear-to-ear, one hand on the snowmobile controls and the other wrapped around a mortar tube.
“No thanks to you!” Linda shouted. Tim ignored her.
“Where’s deadweight?” Tim’s eyebrows furrowed. “Didn’t make it?” he surmised when no one answered him. “Shocker.”
“You left us! We could have died! What chance did he have?” Linda was advancing on him.
“Whoa, think this out, girlie.” She hesitated when Tim stood up to say the words. He was not a man to be trifled with; he’d already shown his proclivity for violence and disregard for others. “If I hadn’t left him, we’d all be in this very situation, and who at that point would be coming to save our asses?”
“He’s right,” Mike said softly. “The psycho's right.”
“That’s not the point!” Linda was fairly shrieking. “We don’t plan our lives on what-ifs, we work with what we have at the moment!”
Tim cocked his head to the side. “Is she all right in the head?" he asked the general company. "Everything we do is with a nod to the what if. Sheesh. And I’m the one labeled as crazy.” He swirled his finger near his temple. “Bitch is loco.”
She was close and raising her fist.
Tim growled. “You so much as swing at me, lady, and I will put you down in the most violent way I can muster.”
She stopped mid-stride and let her hand fall, BT was quick to catch up and grab her shoulders to stop her advance.
“If you could keep your pet on a leash, that would be great.” Tim made sure to keep eye contact with BT, almost urging him to do something.
Mike wanted to deescalate the tension as quickly as possible. “Tim, thank you, man! You saved our asses!” He was heading over.
Tim’s head turned; eventually his eyes unlocked from BT’s and followed. A smile so fake it looked painted on pulled up the corners of his lips. Mike couldn’t help but notice that Linda was looking at him as if he’d betrayed her. He honestly didn’t care. Linda had already shown her true colors; this was about keeping BT from getting into a fight that he may or may not win, and the likelihood he would suffer some sort of injury he couldn’t afford was almost a guarantee.
“Saved our asses? He put us in this predicament!” Linda spun her ire onto Mike.
Mike ignored her. Otherwise, he would have had to tell her that it was she that had put them in this position, insisting on the needs of the one over the many.
“Your grandmother and cousin safe?” Mike asked.
Tim was amused by Linda’s outburst but confused about Mike and whether this was some sort of ploy. “They’re fine. Could you shut her up, GT!” Tim pointed a finger at Linda. “That shrill voice is shredding my eardrums. Must be brutal trying to maintain an erection when she has an orgasm, although I don’t know, anything wound that tight isn’t likely to loosen up enough to enjoy themselves anyway. But if she does, you must have to take Viagra by the fistful.”
“It’s BT.”
“Like I give a shit,” Tim told him.
Mike didn’t necessarily have the desire to defend Linda from the verbal attack, not now, maybe not ever, but he did want to make sure this didn’t escalate, and that they got out of there before the yetis came back. “Can we do the blaming and finger-pointing game later? Tim, thank you for chasing them off, now what’s the plan to get us out of here?”
“How’d he die?” Tim asked.
“What? What do you care?” Linda yelled.
“Curious is all. I’ll tell you what you want to know when you tell me what I want to know.”
“You fucking asshole.” Linda turned away.
“Nothing quite like it. Tighter than OJ’s gloves in there. I recommend a good lube; the friction burns can be tough on both partners. Uh.” Tim thrust his hips. “But speaking from experience, make sure she doesn’t eat corn the night before.”
“Great, I was hoping to taste some bile today.” Mike spit.
“I can keep going,” Tim sneered.
“A rock crushed him,” Tracy interjected.
“Whoa, what a shitty way to go.” The words implied he cared, the smile said otherwise. “How big?”
“She told you what you asked for,” Mike told him.
“And now I want to know more. Or, you know.” He revved his engine, implying he would take off.
Mike pointed his handgun at Tim. “Not really.”
The gears were spinning so quickly within Tim’s mind there was a real danger of smoke pouring from his ears. “You won’t shoot me.”
“I think you might be wrong.” Mike moved closer. “You can try and take off if you want, see which one of us is right. But if it comes down to killing one to save the rest, well, Tim, we already know how you'd vote on that. It’s a tried and true method; why change it up now?”
Tim grunted. “Not sure if I like you or want to pull your spleen out through your belly button.”
“Funny. My wife said the same thing earlier today.” Mike’s gun never wavered.
“It would be a different story if you weren’t pointing that thing at me.”
“But I am, so let’s not play the what-if game.”
“Damn, look at you bringing everything full circle and with a quickness. Fine," he said, removing his hands from the snowmobile’s handlebars. “You win.”
“I don’t want to win, Tim, I want to get the fuck out of here. Can I put this away now?”
“I don’t care if you shove it up your ass and blow your brains out,” Tim told him as he pulled a walkie-talkie free from a side travel pouch. “Hey, Stacy, I found the idiots.” There was a pause. “Oh yeah, he’s dead. Get this; apparently, he was crushed by a rock. Bummed I missed it. The rest are fine, as far as idiots go. Had to chase off some furries; figure they’ll be back soon enough. No, no, I don’t want you out here, way too dangerous. I’ll start shuttling the ass wipes.”
“Is this how people get complexes?” Mike asked his wife.
“I’m sure it doesn’t help," she told him.
“Hey!” Tim shouted. “Can you keep it down? I’m trying to coordinate a rescue here. Fucking assholes.”
Mike turned. “Why do you think he came back? It certainly isn’t his desire to help his fellow humans.”
“Either Stacy or Mrs. Bennilli put him up to it.” Tracy had kept her gaze fixed on Tim, studying him like an entomologist might a previously undiscovered bug, trying to decide just how poisonous its bite would be, and whether the world would be better off if she just squished it.
“That makes sense.” Mike could relate, abstractly. Tracy had put him up to a great many things he’d had no desire to do.
“You!” Tim pointed at Linda. “Let’s go.” He made a come hither motion.
“Are you mad?” BT asked.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Linda protested.
“Suit yourself. You then.” He pointed at Mike.
“What’s going on?” Mike asked.
“Fuck, did all of you ride the short bus? How did you get to Alaska? Must have had a travel guide or something. Okay, I’ll pretend you’re all foreigners, and I’ll speak clear, loud, and slow. This ride, one seat, one passenger, go to safe place.” He pointed in the distance. “Come back, do again. Chop, chop! We have to go, savvy?”
Mike couldn’t figure out a way this worked out safely. There was no guarantee that once Tim drove off with someone, they would be safe or that he would come back.
“I don’t think so.” Mike again aimed his gun at Tim.
“Here I am trying to help, and you’re going to shoot me? I figured this might be a problem. Smell that?” Tim tilted his head back and took a big whiff, Mike expected to smell the swampish odor of the yetis; instead, it was the sharp stink of gas. “After you threatened me the first time, I opened up the fuel purge. Leaking like a sieve right now; might have just enough fuel to get back to where only I know how to get to and get refueled.” Tim bent down and turned the valve to close it. “Ready now?”
Mike didn’t know what to do; he was on the verge of locking up.
“I’ll go.” Linda strode toward the snowmobile.
“No!” BT told her.
“Someone better get on this fucking thing, or I’m leaving everyone, and I don’t give a shit how much cajoling and scolding my grandmother sends my way, I’m not coming back. I’ll tell her it’s too dangerous. She wouldn't want anything to happen to her little bambino.” Tim smiled as Linda shrugged BT off and got astride the seat.
“Linda, what are you doing?” BT asked.
“Starting the evacuation," she told him.
“All right, sweetheart, you’re going to have to wrap your arms around me. Tighter," he told her. “Yeah, that’s nice.” He revved the engine. “Oh yeah, in the saddlebag...you dipshits should take a few tubes and mortars.”
BT grabbed the fireworks and kissed his wife. “Be safe," he told her.
“I sure do hope I make it back.” Tim smiled before taking off, spraying snow over BT’s legs and boots.
“I fucking hate him,” BT said, turning to watch them depart.
“Should we follow or wait?” Tracy asked.
Again Mike felt like he was an auto with vapor lock and was unable to do anything. If they followed and Tim came back a different way, he might not find them, but if they stayed, it was a good bet the yetis would come back, and would definitely find them. BT stopped the hamster wheel in Mike’s head when he followed the tracks the snowmobile left.
The previous evening's deep freeze and the weight of the machine compressing the snow made traveling easier, but none of them had got much sleep the previous evening, and exhaustion was becoming an issue.
“I’m so fucking worried right now,” BT blurted out as if he’d been thinking upon it so hard it had no choice but to burst out of his mind and into the air.
“She’ll be fine,” Tracy offered.
Mike wasn’t quite so confident but wisely decided to keep that thought to himself.
“She left voluntarily with a confessed murderer.” BT was working himself up, and the more he thought on it, the faster he walked. For a while, Tracy tried to keep up, but Mike hadn’t bothered, knowing it was a losing cause, and it might become necessary to use what little energy he had stored in a desperation run for life. They were stretched out, BT a good hundred yards ahead of Mike, Tracy close to the middle but falling back steadily.
“Do you think she’ll be all right?” Tracy asked when she was within range.
For a flittering of a synapse, he didn’t care. He was going to blame that on the stress and how tired he was. “Odds are she will be.”
She turned to look at him. “What kind of odds?”
“Sixty-forty?” he answered her with a questioning lilt.
“That’s not great.”
“Better than ours.” Once spoken, he wished he could pull the words that hung between them out of the air.
“What are ours?”
“I…I don’t know; I just said it, didn’t mean it.”
“Bullshit, ever since your time in the service, you assess every situation. I’ve watched you case a Chuck E Cheese for exits and places to hide once.”
“I was making sure they had hand sanitizer.”
“Again, I say bullshit.”
“Of course I was casing a way out! Did you see the sheer number of little germ factories running around that place? Knowing a quick way out was me being a responsible adult.”
“Stop running around the question.”
“Tim’s the wild card in all of this. If he comes through, we’re in much better shape.”
“Let’s pretend he’s the worst version of himself,” Tracy said.
“Yeah, real stretch that is.”
“Mike!”
“Sorry. Okay, if he doesn’t come back, or if he’s taking us out of here individually to kill us I don’t give us a much better than one in ten shot of what's left of us getting the hell out of here.”
“That low.” Tracy looked crestfallen.
“I’ve been in worse," he offered as a way of hope. “We’re out in the open, with basically no weapons. We have to deal with the elements in addition to our furry friends and potentially a lunatic clown; it’s not the best set of circumstances.”
“Worse?”
“What?” Mike asked.
“You said you’ve been in worse. When?”
“We should keep moving.”
"I’d like to know."
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Was it Afghanistan?”
“Let it go.”
“Iraq?”
“Tracy.”
“I have a right to know.”
“Why?” Mike asked. “Why do you have a right to know? How does this affect you?”
Tracy was taken aback. “When we wed, it meant that we were going to walk this life together. Yes, I know I wasn’t with you overseas, but it has left an indelible impression on you, something that affects you to this day and, subsequently, me.”
“Can we maybe talk about this if we make it out?”
Tracy stopped walking.
Mike stepped to the side to avoid running into her. “Seriously? Are we doing this?”
“Good a place as any to take a break.”
“Not really,” Mike told her.
“Either way, here I am.”
“Fine. I was in a small convoy, three hummers. Fourteen of us were heading out of Fallujah to some remote mountain village. We were supposed to talk to some elder about enemy troop movements. More than likely, the entire thing was a set-up, but my LT was all about trying to find out where the Taliban were going. I was in the shotgun seat in the lead vehicle. Corporal Tennyson was driving; we were talking about where to get the best hamburger. I was loading extra magazines; he hit a bump, and a bunch of the rounds spilled down onto the floor by my feet, he thought it was hilarious. Yeah, that was until I bent down to pick them up, and the sniper’s bullet tore my helmet off, left a huge groove in the back of it. With me out of the way, it had nowhere else to go but into Tennyson. Fucked up thing was he was still laughing, but he was dead.
“The hummer jerked violently to the side of the road and flipped. I think that’s when the rockets started flying, but I was a little disorientated. By the time I pulled myself out through the window and past the broken in half body of our gunner, Private Fisk, the second hummer was a smoldering wreck. The third hummer was taking heavy fire; I watched two Marines get shot repeatedly, and still, I didn’t know where exactly the enemy fire was coming from. In less than three minutes, we’d lost twelve of my fourteen-man squad. Knew them, lived with them; most of them were my friends.” Mike was looking away as tears fell from his eyes.
“I’m sorry.” She wished she’d never had him pry the lid off that memory, she could see the pain and anguish in his expression.
“Most firefights don’t last more than a few minutes, either you’re dead, they’re dead, or one side disengages. Fifteen minutes we were still alive, and they wouldn’t fucking leave. Never seen them quite that bold. They generally fought like the Revolutionary Americans, quick strikes and melt away. But they had a real hard-on for wanting us all dead. I was down to one fucking bullet when that AH—”
“A.H.?”
“Apache advanced attack helicopter, showed up. In less than a minute, it had dropped enough ordinance on the Afghani position, destroyed every single one of them. I survived that day, but there was a fundamental shift in my brain. I knew even back then I was never going to view the world in quite the same way. I’d given myself a one percent chance of walking away from that situation; I didn’t say zero, because even death isn’t fully guaranteed.” Mike smirked at the irony. “So you see, I’ve been in worse scrapes.” The smile he gave was a grim one.
“I wouldn’t mind an AH showing up now.” She grabbed his hand.
“Me neither. Can we go now?” Mike gently withdrew his hand before the tremors began. He couldn’t help but watch the offending appendage tremble as Tracy began to walk.
“Are you coming?” BT asked, he’d stopped only long enough to shout his question before turning back around. Mike couldn’t even begin to imagine what the man was going through. If it had been Tracy on the back of that machine, he would have been running.
“What do you think happened to Trip and Stephanie?” Tracy asked after a while. Mike remained quiet, remembering to heed his mother’s advice about if you didn’t have anything nice to say.
A light breeze swirled a single snowflake past Mike’s nose. “Not again.” On a whim, he turned around. He had fully expected to see the smudge of a yellow/white against the skyline, and still, it gave his heart a start. “Trace, we need to catch up to BT.”
“Why?” She had gone about as far as she could. If Tim came back, it was definitely her that was catching the next bus out of town.
“I need some of the fireworks.”
She turned to look past him, her head dipping ever so slightly. “You catch him, I’ll keep up.”
Mike figured he could get to BT and be back without incident but still wasn’t going to do it; the stakes were too high. “We’ll get to him together.” He grabbed her elbow.
The looks she shot him should have set him ablaze; he blamed the lack of ignition on the cold weather.
“Yeah, you can keep looking at me that way, don’t care.”
“My mother told me I should have married Barry Endels.”
“Her accountant? He’s like a hundred and five, and no, she didn’t, your mom loves me.”
Tracy sighed. “You’re right, dammit. My legs are starting to cramp.”
“BT!” Mike put as much force into his words as he could, but between how winded he was and the wind picking up, he feared it wasn’t going to be loud enough. And it was quite possible that BT was so focused on the mission he would ignore the entreaty altogether.
BT hesitated before turning. Mike and Tracy were fifty yards behind, and a line of yetis a quarter mile behind them. He was torn; his wife was out there, but Tracy looked about ready to fold in half.
Mike, seeing the distress, spoke. “Just need some fireworks," he managed.
BT looked the way he needed to go before backtracking. “Relentless motherfuckers aren’t they?”
“So it would appear.”
“What do you think about the weather?”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a humdinger of a storm,” Mike told him.
“Any reason why?” BT wanted to know.
“I don’t know, fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, murders, mythical animal attacks...I figure there’s no reason to think this isn’t some sort of perfect storm, a convergence of supercells.”
“I wish I could say you’re full of shit, but," he sighed. "What’s the plan?”
“The plan is to keep moving. I just wanted to have something to shoot at our friends when they get closer.”
“How long have we been walking?” Tracy asked.
“Twenty-six minutes,” BT told her in no uncertain terms.
“Go, man. We’ve got this,” Mike urged.
“I can’t leave you.”
“Tim should be back soon.”
“You think?” BT asked hopefully.
Mike could only nod. He hoped so, but who could tell. The yetis had stopped some three hundred yards away; Mike flipped them off.
“No, we stick together. Nothing changes with Linda whether I’m here or there.” BT was looking at the same thing they all were, though his heart was somewhere else.
“You ready?” Mike asked.
“Definitely should have married the old accountant, he wouldn’t be out hiking around in Alaska.” Tracy began walking anew.
"You're right. You and your numbers man would be at a spa in the Florida Keys. How about that visual?"
"Oh. Low blow, mister."
“Huh?” BT was confused.
“Tracy’s less than enthused with her current spouse,” Mike told him.
“No shit, what else is new.” BT let Tracy lead the pace. He knew if he got back in front, he’d once again start double-timing.
The wind and snow had picked up to the point the trio had their heads down to avoid the worst of the driving storm.
“I hear something!” Tracy shouted.
Mike hadn’t, but between his love of loud live music and his time in battle, that was no great surprise. BT had cupped an ear and was desperately looking. Mike figured he’d just wait until visual confirmation. He did take a look behind him; the yetis had made up some distance but seemed to be waiting for the storm to intensify or for nightfall, either of those conditions would benefit them greatly.
“It’s him. He’s alone.” BT sounded resigned.
“He’s supposed to be.” Mike laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“I don’t trust him. What if he hurt Linda? Shoot him, Mike; we can follow the tracks from here.”
“You sound serious right now.”
“I am.”
“I’m not sure what you want me to do with that.”
“Give me the gun. I’ll take care of it.”
“No, BT, I’m not going to let you murder him. If we do somehow make it out of this, I know you. You’ll turn yourself in, and I can’t afford to have the best barbecuer on the block be incarcerated.”
“That would be the only reason?”
“What more do I need? You’ve eaten your ribs.”
“True.”
Tim was barreling straight toward them in what looked to be a game of chicken.
“He’s not slowing down.” BT had grabbed Tracy and Mike in preparation to toss them out of the way of the speeding maniac.
Mike raised his pistol; BT might get his wish after all. This trip had presented them with a lot of ways to die; he’d be damned if he'd be taken out by Krusty on a snowmobile. He moved to the front to make sure Tim could see him. Mike had his finger in the trigger well and had close to three pounds of pressure on the four-pound trigger; if he didn’t shoot within the next second, it might be too late. Tim turned the vehicle ever so slightly and sped by, close enough the front ski scraped against the toe of Mike’s boot. He gently eased off the trigger, afraid that he'd been so close to firing that any sudden movement would send one of his last projectiles flying harmlessly away.
BT spun to watch as Tim zipped past. “His back was red.” He moved as Tim took a wide arc up and beyond the yetis before turning back around.
“What is the idiot doing?” Mike asked, relieved that, as Tim headed back, he’d decided not to come at them head-on.
“What the fuck is that on your back?” BT stormed toward the man who sat ten feet away, the snowmobile idling. As BT neared, Tim pulled ahead, like a pranking teenager will do to a friend trying to enter the car they’re driving. If it were possible for steam to emit from a skull, BT would have been in full tea kettle mode. BT ran, Tim again jetted forward. “Shoot him, Mike!” BT roared.
As much as Mike hated that particular shitty prank, it didn’t rate a bullet.
“Relax, you big pussy.” Tim stopped and dismounted. BT swung, Tim deftly avoided the strike and counterpunched with a straight jab. Mike didn’t think it was possible, but BT looked stunned. Not stunned that he’d been hit, okay, maybe partially that, but stunned as if he’d had his bell rung. “Done? Before you take another sucker shot, I’m compelled to warn you, because of my last incident, that I was a Junior Golden Gloves recipient. Could have gone pro, but Nonna didn’t want me to fuck up my good looks. Said she didn’t want ugly great-grandbabies.”
“That’s not really how it works,” Mike said.
“Not now,” Tracy told him.
BT roughly grabbed Tim’s shoulders and spun him partly around before wiping his hand on the other’s back. “What the fuck is this?” BT sniffed at his coated hand. He smelled again. “Is this….is this ketchup?”
“You should have seen your face when I passed!” Tim was pointing and very near to guffawing.
“Why? Why would you do that?”
“Why wouldn’t I? You were all paranoid I was going to stop up ahead, force her off before I punched her so hard in the kidneys she would fall to the ground—that would make her puke up blood. When she finally looked up with a pleading stare, wondering why I was doing what I was doing, I’d hit her just hard enough in the temple to stun the shit out of her, then I’d repeatedly kick her in the abdomen, rupturing her stomach and maybe her intestines. But don’t worry, I didn’t do any of that, no matter how fun it sounds.”
“Hon, I think you should take the pistol.” Mike was deeply concerned with how vivid Tim’s dark fantasy was.
“Relax, big man. She’s fine. Probably drinking not poisoned hot cocoa with Stacy and Nonna right now. Well.” He clapped his hands. “Who’s next?”
Tracy strode toward him stoically. She looked more like a brave prisoner heading toward the gallows than a person on the verge of rescue.
“Nice.” Tim leered. “The carpet match the drapes, sweetheart?”
“I will shoot you and just follow the tracks back the way you came,” Mike told him.
“My nonna might look relatively harmless, but if she sees you pull up without me, I guarantee the big man’s wife will end up a lot like Chuck, you know, knife to the throat and all.” Tim tilted his head to the side and stuck his tongue out. “She’s very protective of us.”
Mike had a feeling that it wasn’t so coincidental that Mrs. B had been in the same vicinity as Chuck’s RV. It was likely she’d been following him for a while. That was a family reunion he wanted nothing to do with.
“Let’s go. The quicker we get out of here, the quicker you can pick them up.” Tracy got on.
“How far is it from here?” BT asked.
“Few miles...who can say? For sure too far to walk,” Tim said as he got on. “If the storm gets worse, I’m not going to be able to venture back out. Sure hope that doesn’t happen.” He smiled. “You better take these.” He tossed a handful of thermal emergency blankets. “Stacy’s idea. I don’t know what the hell tinfoil is going to do for you, maybe the furries can pack your leftovers in them. Anyway, if I came back with them, Stacy'd be pissed, and that girl can hold a grudge. I suppose I could have thrown them out anywhere along the route...never thought of it. Oh well, too late now. Hold tight, Red.” Tim clicked his tongue and took off.
“I fucking hate him,” BT said as he bent down and picked up the small packets.
Mike’s heart dropped. He could not believe he’d entrusted the one person he loved most in the world with someone like Tim. He’d had an idea of what his friend had been going through; now he knew explicitly. “Let’s go.” He started jogging.