Whiteout: 6-7 (Manchester & Shangri La)

Another two-for today! 10,024 words and counting. 

6. Manchester

     The lodge was spinning circles around me. The torches felt warm and welcoming. Deep in the mountains I had found a temporary peace through the bottom of a bottle and an uncomfortable wooden chair. James stood and danced with some of the villagers, but I kept to my corner. The only time I feel at ease is when I’m blissfully unaware of the world that surrounds me.

     It’s never the killing that has bothered me. Most of the creatures wouldn’t give it a second thought if the tables were turned, and I never bother them if they haven’t come after someone first. The modern world needs people like me to keep them in check. Without us, there would be no explanation and a series of unexplainable deaths at every full moon. It’s a necessary evil and I’ve made my peace with it.

     What bothers me is the omnipresent feeling that there’s more. After one job there’s always another. Two dead wargs might lay on the slopes by base camp, but in a few days there would be another town, another creature, and more death. I try not to think about it often, but it creeps in every once in a while. In short it means that I’m not that fun at parties. I excel on raining on the parade.

     Good for him. I thought only half sarcastically, looking at James. He was a happy kid, he had just killed a pair of wargs, not an easy feat for an apprentice. Neither of us noticed the shadow looming in the far corner of the lodge. It wasn’t that big a place, but the steam and smoke obscured my vision quite heavily. The wine might have helped as well, but that’s not the point.

     I was happy to stay in my corner, drink my bottle and watch the celebration from afar, but I wasn’t alone for long. The shadow was sitting across from me before I had even noticed the movement. I was long lost in my own thoughts, far away from the moment at hand. “Hello Nick.” The voice was familiar, chastising, and charismatic all at the same time. I wanted very much to hate it, but I couldn’t.

     The shadow before me took place. A long black coat with a series of silver buttons running down either side of the split. A black, circular hat to match it, somewhat obscuring a scarred, but handsome face. Piercing blue eyes that could be seen even in the pitch dark. “Manchester.”

     “Having a nice celebration I see.”

     “Nice of you to notice.” My slurs must’ve been evident because a look of disgust crossed his face. He had never approved of drinking on the job, even in a time of celebration.

     “Pity.”

     He’s baiting me. Don’t bite, don’t bite… I’m of a curious nature. Probably why I seek out the things in the world that aren’t supposed to exist, but it does make me a tad predictable. “What is?” The bear trap snapped shut and the words that came from his mouth hit me like a bucket of cold water.

     “You killed the wrong beast.” I know the moment he says it that he’s right, but the implications take a moment to set in.

     “Piss off. I’ve got two dead wargs who would say otherwise.” The look of disgust is back followed by a glare that chastises me into silence.

     “Did you ever take a moment to consider any of the other possibilities? It’s the wrong time of year for wargs to be hunting. The only reason they attacked you is because you sat outside their cave and provoked them.”

     “How did you know?”

     “Your partner’s got a set of loose lips I’m afraid.”

     Damnit James! “Then I guess I don’t have a partner anymore.” It was a lie; I wouldn’t have gotten rid of James even if he had invited Manchester himself. He wasn’t the best, but training apprentices is hard, and he had stuck around longer than most. People can’t handle the life. Guts and glory only get a man so far before he snaps.

     “Don’t worry about him. I want you to think about what I am saying. The wargs didn’t kill those people, and you were smart enough to figure out that it wasn’t a werewolf.”

     “Yeah?” Clearly there was a point to his diatribe that I was missing, but some of my faculties had left and gone to mix with the fermented substance in my bloodstream.

     “You and I both know what killed them.”

     “I don’t follow.” He unbuttoned his coat and pulled from it a small leather-bound book similar to the one I carried in my satchel. Carefully he flipped to an earmarked page and slapped it down in front of me on the table. “It’s a myth.” I said casually, sweeping the notebook nonchalantly onto the floor. It was both insult and ignorance, a specialty of mine when I’m drinking.

     “The Yeti is no myth.” When the word dripped off of his tongue it became clear that the lodge had gone silent around us. No one moved, the dancing had stopped, and James was wincing in a corner waiting for me to yell at him.

     Good, at least one of us knows what’s about to happen. “A Yeti hasn’t been seen in over two-hundred years. They all died or left. They aren’t here anymore.”

     “Don’t you at least want to entertain the possibility?! All of the signs point to this. You can’t just ignore it and pretend you’ve solved the problem. If I’m right it’s not just going to go away.”

     “Do you have any idea the implications of what you’re saying?”

     “Yes, the gates of Shangri-La have opened…”

7. Shangri La

     “Now you must be joking. Shangri La?”

     “Believe me I thought he was at the time too. We’d all heard the stories at some point or another. Explorers in the mountains claiming that they’d seen the gates, and then later finding out that their oxygen tubes hadn’t been fully opened. That’s all they were, stories.”

     “But, Shangri La is just something out of an old James Hilton novel. It can’t possibly be a real place.”

     “Well James Hilton wasn’t exactly all what he seemed either.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “I mean he didn’t spend all of his time at Cambridge studying English literature. He took a little hiatus up in the mountains for a semester, and didn’t come out the same. Lost Horizon sold well, but it might not all have been a work of fiction.”

     “You’re telling me that Hilton’s Shangri La is a real place?”

     “Not exactly. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows like he wrote it. Beyond the gates is something a little more chaotic, a battle between entities that don’t belong in this world. It’s a violent place. Gods, demons, creatures unknown, all battling for supremacy in an unending paradise. If you believe the stories that is.” I sit back and take a sip from my drink. It’s always interesting watching people react to their fantasies suddenly becoming reality.

     I have no idea what James Hilton may or may not have seen, but he was close to something, that much was clear. There was an air about that place though, too dark for his work, too dark for anyone. It was better just to leave it out and delve into the realm of fantasies. We all have our ways of lying to ourselves when things get too heavy, his just happened to play well with the popular media of the time.

     “If such a place exists how have explorers not found it?” The simplest question of them all.

     “Because they weren’t looking in the right place. You can have explorers travel all over the world, canvas every blank area on the map, and there will always be more. No two people see the world the same, and what one person sees as nothing could be something completely different to the next man. Look at the Bermuda Triangle.”

     “You can’t be telling me that’s real too.”

     “Oh no of course not. Aliens aren’t sinking the ships, it’s sea-monsters. The electro-magnetic disturbance is how they communicate over distances, but that’s a really boring story. You want to hear about the yeti, and you’ve paid damn good money for it.”

     “Yes, of course. Sea monsters?”

 

     “How can the gates be open to a place that only exists in your fantastical little head?” My insults tend to decline with my wit, which tends to decline with mountain wine. It’s a slippery slope leading to incomprehensible gibberish and more often than not, embarrassment.

     “There weren’t any werewolves until you saw one with your own eyes. Is it really so far-fetched to believe that there is something out there? These mountains are impossible to properly explore. There are huge tracts of land that have never been touched by humans up there!”

     “And what? You want to be the one to touch them? Look, first off, it’s autumn. We know damn well why the locals don’t go up in autumn. Blizzards, beasts, and boredom.” Alliteration does happen to be one of my drunken skills, even if it is irrelevant. “Two, if I didn’t kill the beast then it’s still up there. And three, if it really is a yeti, a beast that no one has ever managed to trap or kill, then why the hell would you want to go after it?!”

     I’ve never understood the motivation behind suicide missions. In most action movies the hero takes  on odds that in most situations would leave him dead, and usually doesn’t even get paid for them. In the real world there isn’t room for such stupidity. Everything runs on a simple game of dice, and when your number is up, it’s up. Why risk it by rolling more times than you have to?

     “This may be the only chance for us to see this in our lifetimes! Hell, maybe even in the human race’s timeline!”

     “What makes you so sure that the gates are even there, and if they are that they’ve opened?”

     “The locals tell a story.”

     “Course they do.” I took a swig from my wine. Every local had a story about a beast that was unique to their geographic area. For the most part they were just uneducated interpretations on monsters that had already been classified years ago. There was no point getting worked up on the word of one person. He had a pained look of exasperation on his face. He was really trying to get through to me that night, but I was well beyond his reach. Cynicism and alcohol, hand in hand for centuries, standing in the way of any and all progress.

     “When the world is in times of great change and turmoil the lines between this world and others become blurred. During this time the gates to these other realms open briefly and creatures from the other side are let out. This would explain why citings of yetis are so few and far between. Members of their species are only let out on the order of hundreds of years, or millennia.

     “Don’t you see? This is an opportunity to explore something completely new. Even if there’s nothing up there it’s worth the chance.”

     “Back up. You said that the world has to be in extreme turmoil. What separates this period in history from any other?”

     “Not a whole lot. There are still wars, there’s killing all over the world, but there is one thing that is new. Climate change.”

     “Oh get off your high horse!” I spilled my wine on to the floor. James jumped quickly to retrieve it, perhaps hoping to atone for his previous blunder.

     “It’s  a fact, the glaciers are shifting. It’s not much up there, but if a big enough piece broke off it could have uncovered something.”

     “Sounds to me like your jumping at shadows. Look I’ve got my money, these villagers think they’re safe, I’m going home. I want to get pissed in a country where I can read the signs.” The villagers had all gathered around by that point to hear the argument. I made a conscious effort to hide the small satchel of money I had been given. As far as I was concerned I had completed the job I was there for.

     “If that’s what you want to do, I can’t stop you. I will be leading a team up the mountain in two days’ time. I had rather hoped that you would join us. The rewards could have been great for both of us, but if you want to slink back into the mediocrity that is your ‘business’, fine by me. Enjoy your night.” He snapped his fingers and a group of men that had remain unseen stood and moved out of the lodge with him.

     A light snow blew in through the darkened doorway as they left, sucking the remaining warmth from the room. “James, I think it’s time we retire for the evening.” We made our way quickly to the room so as to avoid any lingering questions. Once there I began to pack quickly. We would have to leave at first light. It would be impossible to get down in the dark, but I was not keen on resting in the village any longer than I had to. People who feel that they’ve been swindled all-too-often want their money back.

     “What if he’s right Nick?”

     “He’s not.”

     “Didn’t it seem a little odd to you? Wargs killing an entire climbing team?”

     “No, it didn’t, you questioning me does though.”

     “But he’s Manchester!”

     “And he’s a bloody idiot! I don’t want to hear another word about it. Pack the gear, we leave at first light. Get some sleep, it’s going to be a long trip down, and you need to start thinking of reasons why I shouldn’t fire you.” It might have been a little mean, but he needed it sometimes. With that we each silently packed our bags and I fell into an uneasy, drunken sleep…