The Yeti

Jarred jabbed the snow covered ground with his stick. Stable. Stepping forwards, he pulled his furry cloak tighter around himself in a useless attempt to keep the wind, as well as the cold, out. Behind him, barely recognizable in the snow storm, were two other men clad in identical thick cloaks and furry hoods. All had large bags strapped to their backs and all carried walking sticks. At a first glance, the figures seemed almost identical; not an inch of bare flesh was showing, yet, despite their heavy insulation, it was still bitter, bitter cold.

The ground was known to be treacherous, though they had not yet come across any weak parts, yet. But they always tested the ground before they traversed across it. Jarred and his two companions, Tom and Arthur were trudging back to their camp. They had spent the day exploring and now all they wished was to return to the warmth and coziness of their camp. It, unlike their clothing, actually did a good job at keeping the cold out. The last man in the expedition was Harry, but he stayed at the camp for he was the cook and he disliked the cold. Well, all of them did, but he especially hated it. Pretty idiotic of him to try and climb the largest mountain in the world, but, then again, that was Harry. He complained almost nonstop, but he really was an excellent cook.

After a day of trudging through icy cold snow, Tom, Jarred and Arthur had also grown to dislike the cold almost as much as Harry did. The expedition, aptly named “Snow” was not a scientific one. It was not a military one. It was an adventure! The four companions were climbing the mountain to explore and to get a thrill. Besides, if they climbed to the peak they would be famous, and after fame followed endorsements. At least, this is what they told themselves.

The goal of project Snow was to climb to the very tip of the world’s largest mountain via its north side. Mount Everest. Mount Everest was roughly 8850 meters high. This is a very long way, especially since it is all uphill. And the fact that the whole mountain was covered in several layers of deep, deep snow didn’t help much when climbing it. Throw in all the cliff faces, icy cold, lack of decent air to breathe and, of course, the unstable ground, and you’ve got yourself one hell of an adventure. Jarred could almost sympathize with Harry’s fervent desire to remain at camp. Almost. But before this storm had started up…the view. The view made it all worthwhile. Jarred and his comrades had only climbed about a quarter of the entire mountain so far, and the view was simply terrific. The world lay at their feet. And the knowledge that only a handful of other people had seen what they had seen made the experience all the better. And there was so much to see! They were going slow, advancing a bit, then exploring, then advancing some more, then exploring some more. Mount Everest was the ultimate challenge for anyone. You’d have real trouble trying to find a spot on this earth that was deadlier, though.

As they headed back to camp Jarred was startled to see large tracks leading in the same distance.

“Hey, come over here!” he shouted over the wind, waving to his comrades. So excited was he, that he almost ran straight towards the footprints without testing the ground first, but it had become a force of habit since the climb and he restrained himself.

As he neared the footprints he saw that they were at least three times as large as those of a man.

“What are these?” he asked his comrades. Arthur, the “scientist” of the group inspected them.

“They are probably footprints of a large wolf. The largeness of the depressions indicate that the creature must have walked slowly, so that its body heat had time to melt the snow around the footprints,” he said after thoroughly inspecting them. Jarred was uneasy.

“Maybe one of us should keep a watch for the beast,” he suggested, “I’d not like to meet this one, it must be a huge brute.” The group looked around furtively and then quickly walked onwards to the camp.

The footprints also led in that direction. This was not good news. Eventually they faded away as the falling snow covered them, but Jarred was afraid that the wolf had smelt the cooking food that Harry had prepared. Perhaps it had attacked Harry! He walked even quicker, struggling against the wind. Ten minutes later they arrived at the camp.

“We’re back!” Tom shouted into the large tent that was their home. There was no reply. The three weary explorers entered the tent and found all in place, and the food almost done. But there was no sign of Harry.

“Where could he be?” Arthur asked the others, frowning. He walked back outside and shouted “HARRY!” into the storm. But there was no reply.

“Shut up you fool, or you’ll cause an avalanche.” Tom said heatedly, pulling his friend back into the warmth and zipping the door shut.

“Perhaps this is some trick he has in store for us.” Arthur said. But of Harry there was no sign.

“Maybe the wolf got him.” Jarred suggested, morbidly. Arthur shook his head.

“I doubt it. There would have been a mess if it had come inside. The door was zipped, remember? Besides, we don’t know for sure it was a wolf. Could have been a mountain goat, or something.”

“A mountain goat,” said Tom incredulously, “suuuure.” He grabbed his rifle and then added:

“If something comes in here now, it will dearly regret it.”

By this, Jarred could tell that he was worried about Harry.

“He probably just went out for a piss.” Jarred said hopefully. They waited for five minutes and helped themselves to some food. The mood was tense. Eventually, Jarred sprung up.

“We’ve waited long enough. I say that he might be in trouble. Maybe he went out to take a piss and got buried by an avalanche, or fell down some glacier.”

“Or maybe the wolf got him. Outside, which is why there wasn’t any struggle,” Tom said matter-of-factly.

“Or the goat.” he added, grinning.

“But everything here is fine! Look, none of the food is burnt. Which must mean that he left just before we came in,” Arthur said, frowning.

“Then we have a bigger chance of finding him! I’m going out to find him.” He grabbed another rifle and opened the tent flap. Only to be blown back in by a hail of snow. It seemed that there was a blizzard in progress.

“You can’t go out there! You’ll freeze to death!” Tom shouted and grabbed his friend, pulling him back.

“So will Harry!” Jarred shouted back.

“Well rather just him then both of you!” Arthur shouted at him.

“Besides,” he added, lowering his voice,

“you can’t see a thing out there. Any tracks will have disappeared. There’s nothing we can do but wait.” This settled it. Jarred quieted down and they began to eat in earnest. They ate in silence, but all were thinking about Harry. Mount Everest wasn’t exactly the safest place to be. Especially during a blizzard.

About 120 corpses were still somewhere on the mountain and only half of those were actually officially dead. Some people got buried by avalanches, others froze to death. But sometimes bodies disappeared. In several cases, people couldn’t find any corpses anywhere. The assumption was that they had fallen into some glacier. No one knew for sure.

“We should take turns in watching, just in case there is a wolf.” Tom finally suggested, still clutching his rifle.

“I’ll go first, then I’ll wake Jarred, and then you can wake Arthur,” Tom continued, “once the blizzard blows over, we can begin searching for Harry, or his corpse.” And with this cheery thought, Arthur and Jarred went to sleep, leaving Tom on his own. He sat there for three hours listening to the wind without so much as a glimpse of the wolf, any other creatures, or Harry. Then, he woke Jarred up and went to sleep himself.

All was fine, until around halfway through his shift, Jarred heard a strange cry over the sound of the blizzard. He almost went to have a look outside, but then he decided that it was his imagination. In his heart, he knew that Harry was dead, unless he had managed to find shelter somewhere. A few minutes later, he heard the strange cry again. This time he knew he had not imagined it. He picked up his rifle and opened the tent flap. Outside, snow whirled around and everything was dark although the sun still shone high above them. Jarred took a few steps out and heard the strange cry again. He turned and saw a dark shape a few meters away.

“Harry?” he shouted, but his cries were lost in the wind. Jarred approached the dark shape, stumbling through the snow, forgetting the dangers of the unsafe ground. The figure raised its head up to the sky and cried once again. The cry, although muted, still reached Jarred’s ears.

“Harry!” Jarred yelled again, but the sound was instantly swallowed up in the blizzard. He raised his rifle and fired a shot into the sky. The sound echoed, and the large figure ambled off into the blizzard. A feeling of dread overcame Jarred as he realized that the figure was far too large to be Harry. Slowly, rifle held ready, he slowly approached the area were the creature had stood. There, lying to his utmost horror, was a red glove that unmistakably belonged to Harry. The footprints of the creature had already disappeared and Jarred grabbed the glove and ran back to the tent, shouting.

He burst into the tent to find both friends leveling their rifles at him. He stood still for a moment, breathing hard. They lowered their guns.

“What happened?” they both shouted simultaneously. Jarred panted for a moment, and sat down.

“I heard strange noises, so I took a look outside. I saw a large dark creature, standing on its hind legs. I yelled and fired my rifle, but it just shouted and then ran off.”

Both friends stared at him blankly.

“Was it Harry?” Tom asked confused. Jarred shook its head.

“No! It was at least two and a half meters tall, probably more!” Arthur shook his head. “You must have been dreaming. What are the chances of other explorers being in this exact area at the exact same time as us?” Arthur said.

“I wasn’t dreaming!” Jarred yelled, exasperated, and threw Harry’s red glove to the floor. His friends stared at it for one long moment.

“I found that in the snow. Where the figure was standing.”

“So it was Harry!” exclaimed Arthur.

“Why’d he run away from me, then?” Jarred asked, crossly. Arthur didn’t seem to know how to answer.

“That was no other explorer,” Jarred finally said, “it was too big.” He was silent for a moment.

“I don’t think it was human,” he added, darkly.

“So, what, the abominable snow monster kidnapped Harry, and conveniently left his glove behind for us to find?” Arthur snapped. When neither of his friends said anything he exploded.

“I don’t believe this! The Yeti is a myth! You – you’re grown men, for gods sakes!”

“Those footsteps in the snow before. They looked kind of like human footprints,” said Tom, after another moment of tense silence.

“That doesn’t prove anything!” exclaimed Arthur indignantly.

“So how do you explain me seeing a huge figure out in the middle of a blizzard that happened to drop Harry’s glove and ran off when I came closer?”

Arthur was silent for a moment. Then he spoke.

“Then we can draw three possibilities. One, Harry has a hidden base out there that none of us know about and he’s been hiding there for the last four hours and he came back here, got frightened when Jarred fired his gun – maybe he thought it was an avalanche, or something – and then dropped his glove and ran back to his base.”

“Two, there is another expedition out there that happened to have Harry’s glove and whose base happens to be really close to ours.”

“And three…this is so unbelievably stupid…three, the Yeti got him.”

The trio considered these options for a few moments.

“The figure I saw was clearly not Harry,” said Jarred resolutely, “so we can scratch possibility number one. Number two is very unlikely, unless Harry is in on some kind of conspiracy with another camp. But that’s stupid; it’s not like we’re doing important science research he can steal or anything. So that leaves…the Yeti.”

“I refuse to believe in some snow ape until I see proof!” said Arthur, his face reddening. Jarred indicated the glove on the floor.

“There’s your proof.”

“You can’t-“ he was cut off by the strange cry that Jarred had heard twice before.

I will not tell you about the legend of the Yetis. There are hundreds of different myths surrounding the supposed creature, and it would be wearisome to recount even a fraction of them. But I will say this: In 1921, a British expedition made an attempt to scale the northern face of Mount Everest. They saw dark figures moving up in the mountain and later they discovered large footprints not unlike the footprints that Jarred and his comrades discovered. The local Sherpas in the group instantly identified the creatures as Yetis, or “mehtohkangmi” which, in English, translates into: The Abominable Snowman. And so the myth was born. The people of Tibet and Nepal believe the creature to be a prehistoric ape that lives in the mountains and preys upon humans that are unfortunate enough to come across its lair. Some scientists even believe that the Yeti is the long sought Missing Link. A meat eating primate. This creature, the mountain Sherpas believe, was the cause of all of the missing corpses in Everest. And that is all I well say. And now, back to the story.

As Jarred, Tom and Arthur listened to the cry all doubt of the existence of the Yeti evaporated. That cry was definitely inhuman. Arthur may not like to admit it, but he grabbed his rifle just as quickly as the other two did. The cry sounded once more, slightly further away. It sounded one last time, and then the sound subsided.

“What the hell was that?” Tom said.

“It’s the Yeti.” Jarred simply said, grimly clutching his rifle.

“Well if it comes in here, it’s in for a surprise.” Tom said and raised his rifle.

“If we manage to capture it, we’d be famous.” Arthur pointed out, excited. He stared at his companions, but they said nothing, they simply stared back at him. But they weren’t actually staring at him, but the tent wall behind him. A huge dark shadow loomed behind Arthur through the tent material.

Suddenly the Yeti struck. It ripped straight through the tent and grabbed Arthur in one fluid motion. Arthur screamed and squirmed in the creature’s huge hands to no avail. He was powerless against the huge creature. Meanwhile, the snow swirled straight into the eyes of Jarred and Tom, effectively blinding them for a moment. Tom fired a shot, but he didn’t know whether he had hit the creature. The huge dark shape roared and turned and fled, still clutching their companion. Jarred caught a glimpse of dark black fur and he shouted. Arthur screamed again. Clutching their guns, Tom and Jarred both stormed out into the blizzard in pursuit of the dark figure that had captured their friend. But they did not make it far. As Jarred ran through the snow he forgot one important thing: His walking stick. With a shout he fell down as the ice below him gave away.

He fell with a shout and then came to a sudden, painful stop as the walls of the crevice narrowed and he was jammed, violently, between the two. And he would have remained there until he froze to death, were it not for his one remaining companion. Tom looked down at him briefly for a moment, and then he disappeared again. Jarred didn’t move. He was stuck to his waist between two walls of ice and he didn’t want to fall any more.

“HEEEEEEELP!” he shouted to Tom, but his comrade didn’t come.

“HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!!!” he yelled once more and suddenly a rope smacked him in his face.

“Hold on!” Tom shouted and Jarred grabbed the rope and wrapped it twice around his hand.

“Pull!” he yelled, and Tom pulled as hard as he could. There was a moment of intense pain, and then Jarred was yanked upwards. Breathing hard, he held on for dear life as Tom slowly pulled him upwards. Finally he scrambled out of the frozen crevice.

“Thanks.” Jarred breathed. He stepped forwards and the ice below him gave away again and he almost fell in again.

“This field is full of them.” Tom explained.

“It was a miracle we made it so far.”

“Well how do we get back?” Jarred asked. Tom pointed at his footsteps.

“Use those,” he said and then stepped into one of his own footprints. Then he sprung to the next and retreated back along the safe path.

Jarred hurriedly followed him and once they had arrived at the camp Jarred immediately wrapped a blanket around himself, shivering.

“We have to go after Arthur!” Tom said once they had settled back in and regained their strength.

“But how will we pass the field?” Jarred asked his friend, miserably. Tom pointed outside.

“I managed to wound the creature and we can follow the trail of its blood. The blizzard has died down and we can track it.” He said. Jarred nodded, and silently grabbed his rifle and his walking stick. He was going to do this properly.

“We have to hurry,” Jarred said urgently, “every second we waste is one more second closer to Arthur’s death.” He didn’t say that Arthur was most likely already dead, and Harry before him. In fact, the smartest thing for them to do would be to run like hell until they were a safe distance from the bloodthirsty Yeti. But it had taken two of their friends and they had to be avenged. And maybe, just maybe, Jarred thought, Arthur is still alive.

And so they went. The trail of red went straight through the treacherous field, but using their trusty sticks they managed to pass it without incident. Despite the snow, the blood remained visible.

“The snow beast must have a lair. We will find it and slaughter it.” Tom said viciously. Jarred simply nodded. The creature had already taken two of his friends. It would take no more.

They followed the trail for perhaps ten minutes until they saw, in the distance, a small cave mouth. The blood led straight into it. The two comrades raised their guns and slowly approached the cave. As they neared, they saw that it was dark as pitch within the lair of the creature. Once they reached the mouth of the dark cavern they stood still.

“Shall we proceed?” Jarred asked. It was then that a drop of blood fell straight onto Tom’s glove. He looked up. It was the last thing he did. The Yeti sprung silently down from a ledge. It landed squarely on his shoulders, crushing his spine and instantly killing him. Jarred leapt back towards the cave and fired his rifle at the beast. The bullet struck the creature’s shoulder. With a howl, it ran off into the snow.

It was then that Jarred first managed to get a proper look at the snow beast. It was roughly two and a half meters tall, had black fur and huge clawed feet and hands. It indeed resembled an ape. Or more specific, a giant gorilla. It had a flat nose and small black beady eyes. Jarred backed away into the cave, keeping his eyes constantly in front of him, still too shocked to think about anything. He eventually hit a wall. He sat down and whimpered. For the moment, he was safe. If the creature arrived again it could only come from one possible place. And by the time it would reach him he would be able to shoot it. Jarred turned to his left and screamed loydly. There, lying dead, was Arthur. His neck hung at an odd angle and his expression was one of pure terror. Jarred backed away into a corner and began to weep. But he still kept his gun aimed right at the entrance. The creature wouldn’t kill him. It had killed all his friends, but it wouldn’t get him. He waited half an hour. Then an hour passed. Then two. He was starting to feel numb.

He realized what the Yeti was doing. It would wait until the cold killed him and then it would devour him and Arthur and Tom. As it had already devoured Harry. Jarred pulled out pen and paper from his jacket and he began to write.

The Yeti has gotten all of them, except for me. It has killed all of my friends and now it has me trapped in its lair. I hope, whoever finds this paper will hunt down the creature and kill it. It has already taken at least 3 lives. The Yeti is roughly two and a half meters tall and has jet black fur. It eats human beings and has clawed feet and hands. It is very intelligent. I will now activate my GPS emitter and hopefully someone will detect it and find me. It will already be too late, for the cold or the Yeti will have killed me by then. But know this, reader, the Yeti is out there and it must be stopped.

Goodbye,

Jarred the Explorer

He included the names and details of his companions, and then pressed a button on his watch, activating the signal. It would alert any satellites of his whereabouts. He had arranged with his contact back in civilization, should he be in mortal danger, he would activate his GPS signal, so that his body would be able to be found for a proper funeral. He pulled off the watch and he buried it under some snow so that the Yeti would not find it. He then lay the piece of paper on a ledge and placed a rock on it. He stood. He could not make the return trip on his own. But he would not die all alone in some cave! He would hunt the Yeti even though it would probably kill him.” Clutching his rifle tightly, he exited the cave and stepped out into the snow.