The Nature of the Beast

Both hunters remained awake the entire night, tentatively standing guard in case it should awake and decide that it was hungry. As dawn's first light broke through the thick forest ahead of their camp, it was decided that they should try to take it back to their village. It had not awakened and it had not moved, and in their experience, this meant that it was dead. If it was dead, it was safe.

Through the thick pine forest and the virgin snow - they carried the creature on their shoulders.

They were hungry and they were tired, but they dug deep into their reserves and marched forward, all the way - picturing the scene as they would walk through their little cave village and parade this monster before all of their people. They would become a part of history.

There would be dancing and festivities through the night and their names would be chanted by male, female and children.

Hour after hour, the two hunters carried the beast through the deep valley and out of the other side: to where their home lay hidden against the picturesque backdrop of the beautiful, but haunting, Himalayan mountains.

By sunset, they had arrived, but what they found, was not what they had been dreaming about on their gruelling trek through the forest. What they found was more horrifying than anything they could possibly have imagined.

Bodies lay strewn across the village: everyone was dead!

Dead females still held their dead infants in their arms. Dead males clutched thick branches of pine and large stones as if trying to defend themselves against whatever form of monster had done this.

The hunters knew instantly what had happened here. They knew that there was only one creature on earth, that could inflict such barbarism, and they understood what had caused the wound on the leg of the beast they had found.

They threw the creature from their shoulders and as it fell onto the blood stained snow beneath, it made a sound.

The creature began to moan - it was still alive.

As he opened his eyes, he saw two of the mythical 'Yetis' standing above him - two of the very creatures that he and his hunting party had come here to hunt and capture: with the intention of bringing it back to the civilised world of man!

Then he saw the stone being lifted above one of the Yeti's heads, and then he saw nothing.