The Yeti: A Novel Read online

  The Yeti

  A Novel

  By Rick Chesler and Jack Douglas

  Copyright © 2016 Rick Chesler and Jack Douglas

  Cover art by J. Kent Holloway

  eBook Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please delete it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For more information email [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  Part 1: The Myth

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part II: The Mountain

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part III: The Mission

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Part IV: The Monster

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Bibliography

  About the Authors

  PART I

  The Myth

  Chapter 1

  Pangboche, Nepal

  The tracks were deep, the snow spattered in places with blood. In the dense morning fog, Pemba Sherpa followed the prints out of the hamlet. His friend Lobsang trailed a few paces behind.

  As they approached the southern tree line, Pemba stopped and listened. An oppressive silence seemed to stretch over the entire Khumbu Valley. Undeterred, he proceeded into the mist with Lobsang in tow.

  A few feet into the forest, Pemba’s chest tightened. Through the fog he’d spotted a second set of tracks, larger tracks, each at least a foot long and more than half that across. Inexplicably, they appeared to have been made by bare human feet.

  Moments later Pemba found himself moving swiftly through the trees, stepping lightly in the footprints left by the beast.

  He reasoned it was a bear.

  His pulse quickened. He now followed not the tracks themselves but a continuous trail of blood, a thin red line that wove around fir trees, over fallen branches and giant rocks. A peculiar smell filled the brisk mountain air.

  Lobsang saw it first. Pointed and yanked hard on Pemba’s coat, urging him back to the village. Pemba rooted himself among the trees but neither Sherpa spoke. As they stood there, frozen like monuments, staring at the bloodied form sprawled across the snow, they heard an unmistakable sound: the whimper of a broken man.

  Pemba scurried toward the fallen figure. As he closed the ground between them, his knees weakened. He wobbled and finally fell into the snow. Lobsang drew up behind him and helped Pemba to his feet. The man made another sound.

  It wasn’t a Sherpa, of that much Pemba was sure. He stepped toward the man, his arms now out at his sides to help maintain his footing. Lobsang remained behind.

  The man sputtered. Pemba didn’t know the words, though he assumed they were Tibetan. A refugee? Maybe. But if so, what was he doing this far south? Pangboche was days away from the Chinese border. Tibetans who made the arduous journey across the Nangpa La pass sought refuge first in the northern valley.

  Pemba lowered himself on his haunches. He took the man’s hand and locked on his eyes. They were not lifeless, as Pemba had expected, but filled with a dread he would later be unable to describe.

  “Yeh,” the man rasped. His lips were blue, his teeth painted a deep crimson.

  Pemba nodded. Yeh, he thought, was the Tibetan term for “snow valley.” At least the dying man wasn’t delirious. He knew where he was, knew he’d perish here in the Khumbu among Sherpas.

  “Teh,” the man said, his voice no more than a hiss, bubbles of blood inflating over his lips, popping, spilling scarlet down his chin.

  Pemba glanced over his shoulder at Lobsang, who grudgingly inched closer.

  Man? Teh was the Tibetan term for “man,” wasn’t it? Could a man have done this?

  He started to rise to his feet, but the wounded figure suddenly gripped his hand harder. Pemba gasped; his fingers felt as though they’d been crushed between stones.

  “Yeh,” the man rasped again. “Teh.”

  Snowman.

  A knot formed in Pemba’s stomach. His throat constricted. Behind him Lobsang cried his name, pleaded that they flee from the forest.

  “Yeh-teh,” the man said again, his voice calmer, his eyes now fixed on the sky.

  The man was delirious, Pemba decided. The Snowman was a myth. A myth believed by many in the Himalayas, including most Sherpas, but a myth nevertheless.

  Pemba recalled what his father once told him. Half a century ago, an American stole part of a relic from Pangboche’s monastery, where it had rested for hundreds of years. The relic was said to be the hand of a yeti, the ogre of the Himalayas – the hand of the Snowman itself. The American took the thumb and phalanx, and replaced them with human bones. The lamas of the monastery never realized.

  Back in the States, the American had the thumb and phalanx of the artifact analyzed. The stolen bones, scientists concluded, were also those of a human being. Maybe a Neanderthal. The Pangboche Hand, as it was called, was thus proven to be a hoax.

  Pemba had heard many tales of the yeti growing up, and as a child he’d believed. But no longer. The valleys surrounding the Himalayas held many creatures, large and small, but the abominable monster who stood over ten feet tall and snatched small children from their beds was not among them. The yeti was only legend.

  Pemba started, his body suddenly trembling like a prayer flag in high wind. But it was just Lobsang’s hand resting gently on his shoulder. Shivering, Lobsang pointed to the ground, to another set of tracks leading south. These were undoubtedly a man’s tracks. The prints most likely belonged to the companion of this dying Tibetan. Or perhaps to his killer.

  The Tibetan gradually released Pemba’s hand. Pemba said a silent prayer and opened the dying man’s coat. A wave of nausea rose in Pemba’s stomach. An immense gash, like a crevasse, traveled the length of the Tibetan’s torso, exposing his intestines to the air.

  Pemba closed the coat and squeezed the man’s hand again.

  “Yeh-teh,” the man whispered, as he drew his last breaths. Then he lay still.

  Pemba lowered the lids of the Tibetan’s eyes and removed a small blood-smeared scrap of paper sticking out of the
man’s coat pocket.

  Without a word, Pemba stood and turned. Breathlessly, he followed the trail of blood over the branches and around the thick trees, this time back toward Pangboche. Lobsang stayed close behind.

  As he stepped, Pemba searched the ground for the oversized tracks he’d spotted before. But by the time he reached the area near the tree line where he’d seen the prints earlier, they were nowhere to be found.

  Pemba gaped skyward. Icy flakes moistened his face.

  It had started to snow.

  Chapter 2

  Bristol, Rhode Island

  Rubbing his hands together, Zack Hitchens took a deep breath, stepped around his desk, and addressed his evolutionary biology class at Bristol University for the last time.

  “Everest is her Everest, she tells me. Kind of like tenure is my Everest. How can I argue with that?”

  He smiled, conscious of the dimple on his left cheek, aware that it made him look significantly younger than his thirty-five years. He didn’t mind so much flashing his teeth in front of his students, but seldom shared his smile with other members of the faculty, and never with anyone in the administration.

  “Everest?” Danny Lansing called out from the back. “No offense, Dr. Hitchens, but I can see you losing your lunch on the Everest ride at Disney World.”

  Zack had advised the class of the reason for his upcoming sabbatical. He and his wife Nadia would be spending the spring in Nepal. In April and May they would attempt to climb the highest mountain on the planet.

  Zack nodded. “I knew this would get some laughs.” He stared out the window. Warm for December, the sun poked through the pine trees, painting the cement walks with light as though it were only the start of the fall semester.

  “With all due respect, Dr. Hitchens,” Chris Stanley said, “I’ve never once seen you at the gym. You’re really gonna lug fifty-plus pounds of mountaineering equipment twenty-nine thousand feet to the summit?”

  That was the plan, and truth be told, Zack wasn’t too fond of it. All right, he was downright terrified. Climbing, after all, was Nadia’s passion, as was scuba diving and paragliding and spelunking. But mountaineering was the one activity Zack indulged her in, because climbing, she said, was what she loved most – after him, of course.

  So they’d trained. Zack took lessons on how to scale mountains in Estes Park, Colorado, then together they bagged the peaks of each of the four-thousand footers of the Presidential Range in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. They reached the fourteen-thousand foot summit of Mount Rainier in Washington State. They ascended Denali in Alaska, making it to high camp at seventeen thousand feet before a blizzard turned them around.

  Now Nadia wanted her shot at Everest.

  In the classroom, everyone started talking at once. From the corner of his eye, Zack glimpsed movement through the slit of glass in the door. When he turned he spotted his department head, Arnold Peavy, pacing the hallway.

  Zack held up his right hand and the classroom quieted down. “Please,” he said, grinning. “One question at a time. And raise your hands.”

  At least a dozen of them reached for the low tiled ceiling. He called on Sara Kipling first.

  “Haven’t, like, a lot of climbers died on Everest? Aren’t you scared?”

  Zack pursed his lips. “Over two hundred. And yes. Next question.”

  Outside, the sky suddenly darkened, as though someone had adjusted the hue on their television set. He called on Andi D’Amelio but didn’t quite hear her question. Milling about in the hall with Arnold Peavy were two uniformed officers: Rhode Island State Troopers.

  “Actually, Andi,” Zack said, “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to cut this class short.”

  The students cheered, then with as much volume as possible, began packing away their things.

  “Let me just take attendance,” he added, moving back behind his desk.

  The class groaned.

  “But it’s the last day,” one student complained.

  “Typical Hitchens,” said another.

  Zack was aware of how well he fit the stereotype of the straight-laced college professor. He dressed every day in pressed gabardines and a starched button down shirt, always tucked in, always with a tie, the entire ensemble always in earth colors. His shoes were perpetually shined, his every hair neatly combed and immovable in a heavy windstorm.

  “Clay Anders,” he called out.

  Before Clay could answer, there was a light rap on the classroom door. Arnold Peavy poked his head in. “Have a minute, Dr. Hitchens?”

  Zack wasn’t sure if the oohs and ahhs from the class were on account of Arnold Peavy or the uniformed officers standing behind him.

  Then Danny Lansing said, “Don’t tell them anything, Dr. Hitchens. Ask for your lawyer.” The students laughed as Zack stepped into the hall.

  The officers stood straight as lampposts, one with his hands clasped behind his back, the other with arms folded across his chest. Both looked younger than Zack, each probably still in his mid-twenties. Zack tried to read them, but if faces were books their stories were scribbled in ancient Greek.

  Probably one of his students was involved in something nefarious. Maybe Tim Shockey from his morning microbiology class.

  Arnold Peavy placed a hand on Zack’s shoulder. “Dr. Hitchens, this is Officer Jay Lake and his partner Keith Stinson.”

  Zack acknowledged them with a nod, then his eyes were drawn to the ceiling, to a flickering fluorescent light. Had to be his newly leased Prius in the faculty parking lot. It’s been egged, he thought. Or someone slashed his tires. Maybe Eddie Park from his afternoon molecular biology class.

  “Dr. Hitchens,” Lake said, “your wife is Nadzia Hitchens, correct?”

  Nadzia? No one used that name other than her family back in Krakow. Zack was all but certain he’d never heard it used in the States.

  “That’s right.” Zack‘s mind still struggled to grasp how this kid could know Nadia’s given name. It wasn’t on their marriage certificate, wasn’t on her U.S. Passport. It wasn’t on her driver’s licen...

  But wait. Yes, it was.

  “Dr. Hitchens,” Lake said again. “I’m sorry, but...”

  The flickering fluorescent light grew brighter, whiter, warmer, more intense, edging first Arnold Peavy then Officer Stinson out of the picture. Lake was still there, but the glowing white frame around his face was advancing inward, clawing, gnawing, chewing away, consuming his uniform, his short brown hair, his cleft chin, his brows, his nose, everything but his lips.

  “...I’m afraid, sir, there’s been an accident.”

  Chapter 3

  Newport, Rhode Island

  Minutes after the last of the mourners filed out, Zack poured himself two fingers of Glenlivet and sat in front of the empty fireplace. Grateful for the solitude yet unnerved by the sudden silence, he tapped his foot, glanced at his watch. It was only half past five, but a thick darkness had already blanketed Aquidneck Island. Staring straight ahead, he bit down hard on his trembling lower lip, and finally plucked the pill bottle from his pocket.

  As he looked at the label, Zack lifted his rocks glass, put the cool rim to his lips, and let the single malt scotch slide down his tongue. He coughed, the harsh unfamiliar liquor burning the back of his throat. Last drink he’d had was in graduate school. He set the glass down and twisted the childproof cap off the pill bottle. Peered inside at the thirty or so Ambien that Arnold Peavy had given him to help him sleep. It was Arnold’s wife Melinda’s prescription. She’d needed sedatives, Arnold told him, ever since they lost their twenty-two year old son to leukemia.

  That was eleven years ago.

  Zack emptied half the bottle into his palm. He couldn’t live like this for eleven years. Not for eleven days. He hadn’t eaten since he’d identified Nadia’s body. Hadn’t slept since he fainted outside his classroom earlier that same day. His thoughts were spinning, the accident he hadn’t even witnessed playing in an endless loop in his head. H
e pushed at the pills with the tip of his finger. Then he clenched them in his fist.

  The doorbell sounded. Zack rolled his moist eyes and sighed heavily. Dropped the pills one-by-one back into the bottle, then dragged himself off the couch. He set the pill bottle down, picked up his glass and took a few tentative steps toward the door. Ten feet from it, he stopped and took a long hearty sip. Chewed on a small cube of ice. He glanced at the lamp, wishing he’d turned down the lights. He waited until the bell rang again before finally treading toward the door, unlatching the lock and opening it.

  “Forgot my hat.”

  Marvin Combs, professor of politics and African American studies, stood in the light but steady cold drizzle until Zack took another pull and invited him in.

  Marvin stepped past him. He had a good thirty years on Zack, but remained nearly as fit, his long lean frame crossing the length of the living room in just a few graceful strides. He headed toward the stairs. Paused just before he reached them and turned around, beads of rain water dripping off his charcoal trench coat onto the hardwood floor.

  “You know, Zack, I’ve been thinking.”

  Marvin had the deep soothing lilt of a Morgan Freeman or a James Earl Jones. His close-cropped hair had turned salt and pepper in recent years, complementing his meticulous posture, precise timbre, his impeccable taste in clothes.

  “You should go,” Marvin said.

  “Go?” Zack set his glass down on the side table and sat down. “Go where?”

  Marvin stepped back into the living room, shedding his trench coat and neatly folding it over his arm. He took the recliner directly across from Zack, carefully crossing one long leg over the other.

  “To Nepal.”

  “Nepal?”

  “You don’t need to summit Everest,” Marvin said, apparently reading Zack’s face. “Hell, you don’t even need to trek to Base Camp. I’m saying, go to Kathmandu and lose yourself in the city for a few months. Clear your head. Everything will be here waiting for you when you get back.”