Yeti Unleashed Read online

  Nearing total collapse, she lost her fear of being devoured and accepted her predicament. She remembered the moment she realized she would not survive, because no one in the expedition had the faintest idea where she was. When the end came, she hoped it would be quick. She thought of her parents, her dead brother, and Harry. She would miss Harry and realized she was in love with him. Not overtly religious, but spiritual in her own way, she felt that there was some sort of soul’s existence after death, although exactly what it was she couldn’t say. But she knew it would be a good existence--of that she had no doubt.

  That and Harry were the only thoughts that gave her any comfort.

  By the second day of her imprisonment, the creatures hardly noticed her as they came and went. The excruciating pain in her arms was replaced by a numbness, a fact for which she was grateful. Sometimes the large male sauntered up to her, stared for a moment or two, then turned and left. He didn’t snarl anymore. None of them touched her, except one of the young females did feel her breasts, as if they were something she had not seen.

  By the third day, she developed frank hallucinations. Dehydrated and weak, she was near collapse with only short lucid periods interspersed with those of unconsciousness. At one point, there were bug-eyed snakes spewing from the cracks between the rocks and their tongues flicked at her, mouths hissing. When a tongue touched her, it burned and left a mark. She tried reciting the twenty-third Psalm but couldn’t remember the words...

  ***

  Dixie woke with a start, gasping for breath, pulse pounding.

  It was the nightmare again. The nightmare that would not go away. That time as prisoner of a group of Yeti deep in a Mongolian mountain cave now served as the womb of her sordid dreams, birthing nightmares that visited on a regular basis.

  She reached out and noticed Harry was not beside her. The clock read two a.m. She sat on the edge of the bed, filled a glass of water from the carafe, took a deep breath, and tried to quell her racing heart. Since returning from the ill-fated Mongolian expedition, she had finished her doctorate in anthropology, after which she and Harry were married. Harry had been her professor and mentor at California Pacific University. Now, she was an assistant professor in her own right, a position her new husband secured for her.

  Sitting in the dark bedroom, she noticed a small shaft of light emanating from their study on the far side of the house. She donned her robe and sauntered down the hall ,where she found Harry bent over his desk, a cluster of papers spread out before him. At the sound of her approach, he turned and smiled.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” he said. He sat in his pajamas, held out a tanned hand, took hers, and pulled her to him. “Did I wake you? I tried to not make any noise.”

  “No, you didn’t. It was the nightmare again,” she said, running a hand through her tussled hair. “I must look a sight.”

  Harry pulled her onto his lap and laughed. “You look marvelous, honey.” He kissed her on the cheek and smiled. “I love the way you look. Now, it was the nightmare again?”

  “Of course. It’s always the same. I’m back in that damned mountain cave and those creatures have strung me up and are pawing over me. I can see their eyes--like glowing coals--and smell their breath. The smell of rotting flesh and death.”

  “Baby,” Harry said, brushing a strand of blonde hair from Dixie’s cheek, “you had a horrific experience and were close to death. It’s no wonder you’re having nightmares. It’s called post-traumatic stress. But I think it will get better with time. I really do.”

  “You don’t think I’m losing my mind?” Dixie climbed off Harry’s lap and sat in a chair near the desk. It was quiet in the house, except for the ticking of the old grandfather clock in the hallway.

  “Absolutely not,” Harry said. “If I thought that, I’d have had you examined by a psychiatrist. No, Dixie, no. What you’re going through is a perfectly normal reaction, given all that happened.”

  “But it’s been almost a year,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. She didn’t want to break down and cry or become hysterical.

  “But the nightmares aren’t nearly as frequent. You’ve said so yourself. That speaks volumes.”

  “I hope so. I sure wish Professor was here.”

  “Me too,” Harry said, leaning back in his chair, the concern on his face relaxing. “His sudden death was quite a shock to everyone. I couldn’t believe it when it happened. The man was like a father to me.”

  “And me,” Dixie said. “I didn’t realize I could miss him as much as I have.”

  “His heart attack was completely unexpected. But I guess, when you’re older, anything can happen. I was glad that he was able to see us married. I know that made him happy.”

  Doctor Julius Kesler had been chairman of the Anthropology Department at California Pacific University and Harry’s boss. He was the lead scientist of the expedition, led by Harry, into the Altai Mountains of Mongolia in search of hominid fossils. Dixie had been Harry’s chief assistant. Dr. Kesler, or Professor, as his associates affectionately called him, took Harry under his wing, and Harry responded to the man’s tutoring by becoming a rising paleoanthropologist and heir-apparent to Professor’s position whenever the man decided to retire.

  But the expedition was interrupted and prematurely ended when a ruthless relic hunter and his band of armed security forces arrived on scene, intent on stealing what the team uncovered. However, everyone’s plans did an about face with the appearance of large creatures known previously only through legends. In the end, they turned out to be Yeti, akin to the Abominable Snowman, Almas, or Bigfoot, and terrorized anyone who came close to their habitat.

  The fate of their expedition made international news and catapulted Harry’s reputation into the stratosphere. Early one morning, one of the Yeti seized Dixie and carried her to their lair deep within a system of mountain caves, where they kept her bound and imprisoned. In a desperate bid to find and rescue Dixie, Harry, along with aid from the Mongolian Police forces, tracked the Yeti to the cave system. After fending off several attacks by the large creatures, Harry and the police found and rescued Dixie and began their exit from the large underground cave.

  But the Yeti followed.

  In a daring escape that involved blowing up part of the cave system, Harry and Dixie made their way to the surface. The final, violent confrontation with their pursuers ended with one man dead and their leader arrested.

  Back in the States, Harry’s fame spread through academic circles. He appeared on talk shows, lectured at various universities, wrote a paper with Dr. Kesler. Amidst all the hoopla, he and Dixie were married and she finished her doctorate. After a honeymoon and some much-needed rest, Dr. Kesler argued that they should return to the Altai and bring back tangible evidence of the Yeti’s existence. After receiving a call from the monastery abbot, informing them of the Yeti’s whereabouts, they once again mounted an expedition to locate them.

  They were successful beyond their wildest dreams. Not only were they able to find a group of the creatures, with the help of local labor, they managed to capture a pair of Yeti. They returned to the States with a male and a female, which they kept at a special facility in the Nevada mountains. It had been dangerous work but sedating the two animals, using tranquilizer darts, made the work easier and somewhat safer. They secured cages and placed the Yeti on a freighter going to San Francisco. Sadly, a few months later, Professor Kesler succumbed to a fatal heart attack while working in his university office. Harry and Dixie were stunned.

  “He was a great man,” Dixie said, her voice near a whisper. “And a good man.”

  “One thing is for sure,” Harry said, “it won’t be easy to replace a man like him. He was a giant in our field. And so well liked. With all the competition, that’s unusual in academia.”

  “I remember him as a kind person, always patient with students and faculty alike. I miss him, honey.”

  “Me too.”

  The couple sat in silence for a few moments, th
en Dixie sighed. “I tell you this, sweetie, two trips to the Altai are about all my nerves can stand. I’m not sure I’m up for another. I couldn’t believe Professor left you his house here in San Mateo. It was unbelievable.”

  “Yes, it was. I was overcome. I never suspected anything like this and Professor never spoke about it.”

  “He had no other family?”

  “Not that I am aware of,” Harry said. “He spoke once of a lost love but he never married. Never had any children.”

  “No brothers or sisters?”

  “I guess not. If he did, they have died, quite possibly. What little money he had accumulated he left to the university.”

  “It’s such a lovely house,” Dixie said. “I love the view of the bay.”

  “More than I ever could afford.”

  “Well, now that you are chairman of the department, you deserve a house like this. I’m glad the president followed Professor’s wishes and made you chairman. You’ve worked hard for a lot of years.”

  “I never expected to get the job under these conditions--with him dying, I mean. It’s an honor, to be sure, but I’m finding out that there’s a lot of work involved. And internal politics.”

  “Yeah, that new archeologist wants his own lab. What’s his name?”

  “Bernard Wickingham. That’s Dr. Wickingham, excuse me.”

  “He does seem to be eaten up with self-importance,” Dixie said, now offering a smile. “Pretty stuck on himself, I’ve noticed.”

  “I’ve told him time and again that there’s no available space for a lab. And being the newest faculty member, there’s no money either. I’ve told him, ‘get a grant and we’ll see.’ But he doesn’t seem to understand.”

  “Well, honey, he’s new. Time may mellow him. It did you.”

  Dixie laughed and winked at her husband. She loved poking the bear now and then.

  “Very funny, my dear. Very funny.”

  But she could see the corners of his mouth turn up in a faint smile. She stood. “Coming to bed soon?”

  “Yeah, in a little bit. I’m about finished here.”

  Dixie bent over his chair and peered over his shoulder. She put a hand on the back of his neck and massaged his tense muscles. “What’s all this?”

  “Something I found in Kesler’s files,” Harry said. “Something profoundly unusual.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It has to do with the Primate Research Facility. You know how Professor and the woman who is the head of the DNA lab, what’s her name?”

  “Dr. Rawlings,” Dixie said. “Chloe Rawlings.”

  “Yes. Professor and Dr. Rawlings took on a long-term project to decipher the Yeti’s complete genome. It was one of a number of things we were studying with the animals.”

  “So?” Dixie said, leaning farther over his shoulder to study the papers on the desk.

  “If I’m reading these notes correctly, they may have discovered a segment of mitochondrial DNA identical to that found in humans.”

  “Harry, are you serious?” Dixie’s tone was now clipped with an anxious edge.

  “I can’t be for sure, but I need to speak with Dr. Rawlings then make a trip to the facility and check it out. It’s been over a month since we’ve been up there.”

  “You’re saying that there is a segment of Yeti DNA in our own genome?”

  Harry nodded. “I don’t know. These notes aren’t that obvious. It seems that there are two identical segments of DNA, one in the Yeti and the other in the human genome.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What would that mean?”

  “I’m no genetics expert, honey, but it might mean we are related to the Yeti in some way. Similar to the way humans and Neanderthals interbred thousands of years ago.”

  “Wow,” was all Dixie could say.

  “That’s why I need to get up to the research facility soon.”

  “Well, when you do, I want to go along. I want to look at our Yeti again.”

  “I would have thought--”

  “I need to, honey,” Dixie interrupted. “Each time it gets easier. It’s just in my dreams that they come for me, that they take me away.”

  Harry turned in his chair, pulled her onto his lap, and caressed her cheek with his hand. Her blonde hair fell in tussled curls above her shoulders and her dark eyes were moist.

  “I understand, sweetie. Let’s go to bed.”

  He turned off the desk lamp, and Dixie followed him into to their bedroom where she fell into his arms and a contented sleep.

  Chapter 2

  The Primate Research Facility was an extensive compound, located in the East Humbolt Mountain Range in Elko County, Nevada. It was an isolated part of the state, far from any major roads or highways, towns, or other conveniences. The nearest town was Grant, thirty miles to the south. The facility itself, perched atop Cinder Mountain, was reached by a one-lane dirt road and consisted of several buildings containing research laboratories and living quarters. The Primate Research Facility was Professor Kesler’s crowning achievement, his last erection, Harry loved to joke. From the outset, the facility, built as a place where scientists could process their archeological and paleontological specimens, grew and became a state-of-the-art hominid research laboratory, doing genome and DNA sequencing projects on all sorts of primates and hominid fossils.

  The huge teaching and research laboratory had ten research laboratories, including one that also functioned as a darkroom. The laboratories were outfitted with four-foot hoods, chemical resistant counter tops, and seamless flooring, and had its own hot and cold water, gas, compressed air, vacuum, and both 110v and 220v electrical outlets. Laboratory facilities included multiple two and three-room suites, each with a dedicated procedure room and animal holding room and a dissecting suite with its own procedure and animal holding rooms. The building also contained two biosafety level three laboratories for in-vitro work. BSL-3 labs were suitable for work with infectious agents that might cause serious or potentially lethal diseases as a result of exposure by the inhalation route. The BSL-3 laboratories were located away from high-traffic areas. In those labs, air moved from areas of lesser contamination to areas of higher contamination, such as from the corridor into the laboratory. Air movement was single pass--the exhaust air not recirculated to other rooms--and was HEPA filtered. In addition, there was a freezer room, autoclave processing area, decontamination air lock, storage space, and shower-out facilities.

  All electrical outlets in the building were centrally protected from voltage surges and spikes, and some outlets in each room were on the building’s emergency generator. The building also contained a room designed for the processing of field samples that was outfitted with silt traps and special sinks for washing and sorting samples. A lecture room and general laboratory and a class analytical chemistry laboratory supported teaching operations. The building contained a small library, a computer laboratory, a conference room, and administrative offices.

  The main building was a self-contained, stand-alone facility--all materials, including waste products, were managed on site for increased safety. The specially designed structure had its own steam plant, two sources of water and power, a backup generator, autoclaves, and an effluent decontamination system. There were also redundant systems for both supply and exhaust air with inward directional airflow.

  Primate Research Facility scientists possessed unique expertise in gamete biology, reproductive toxicology, lifespan health, regenerative medicine and gene therapy, the application of in-vivo imaging tools and technologies for translational research. Investigation of the genetic basis of human diseases had been a major focus of effort at the Primate Research Facility since its inception. Nonhuman primates made outstanding models for the study of the genetics of disease because they were so similar to humans in their biochemistry, physiology, anatomy and behavior. As researchers in many areas of biomedical research focused greater attention on the genetic basis of disease susceptibility and rates of progression, the use of non
human primates as animal models for these genetic processes became standard procedure. The value of nonhuman primates as models for human genetics and genomics, and as tools for comparative genetic analysis, was now recognized throughout academia. This was one reason why the National Human Genome Research Institute had already approved the complete whole genome DNA sequencing of nine species of nonhuman primates--chimpanzee, rhesus macaque, marmoset, baboon, squirrel monkey, tarsier, mouse lemur and galago--and was considering others.

  The facility dormitory and conference center provided a large space for year-round housing and conferences. This building had two floors, on which all rooms were fully furnished. The first floor contained an apartment for the facility director, along with a kitchen and dining area. It also contained a large TV/conference room with a capacity for twenty-four, a pool room, laundry facilities, and storage space. The second floor contained numerous bedrooms and bathrooms.

  The Animal Care Unit held caging, bedding change stations, and sinks and was organized as individual rooms accessed from a corridor system. The Procedure Rooms were located next to the housing rooms and were a primary setting for research activity within the unit. The animal care area contained barrier elements--airlocks, lockers, pass-through autoclaves--that provided the primary barrier and access control that separated the controlled animal care environment from external influences. The cage washing area was the hub for all cleaning, sanitizing, and husbandry activities, duties that were performed by the animal care technicians. These areas were dominated by equipment-generated heat and moisture. The major equipment items included pass-through rack washers, pass-through autoclaves, bedding dispensers and dump stations, and bottle washing and filling stations. A quarantine room for suspect and incoming animals that could be a source of infection was located in this area as well.