Beth D. Carter

 

Copyright © 2017

 

 

 

Chapter One

 

Gabrielle Thorpe ignored the crash of the downstairs door as she focused on the latest series of photos on her laptop. She’d been back in the States a total of thirty-six hours from Bhutan, sixteen of which had been devoted to sleep, and she still felt like death warmed over. What she desperately needed was a hot meal and a carafe of coffee, but she was too eager to study the photos to concentrate on anything else.

“Kenny is here,” Mark said casually. He sat at the other desk, labeling all the photos once she was done inspecting them.

“Mmm,” she said, not really caring.

“You think he finally changed clothes?”

The question distracted her enough to blink at him confusingly. “What?”

“Remember? Before we left for Bhutan, he’d worn the same clothes two days straight.”

Footsteps echoed up through the stairway, gaining in volume with each floor passed. Gabrielle and Mark looked at the door expectantly, and a second later, it smashed open as Kenny bounded through. His stringy hair touched his shoulders and the sporadic growth on his face needed a trim.

Mark wrinkled his nose. “Nope.”

“Dudes!” Kenny cried. “I’ve got a fantastic hypothesis!”

Gabrielle raised an eyebrow. “Does it include showering somewhere between here and your parents’ basement?”

“Huh?” Kenny looked down at himself. “What’re you talking about? I wiped myself down.”

“Wiped?” Mark asked, aghast.

“Yeah,” Kenny said. “With those disposable cloths. You know, the baby ones.”

“Oh my God,” Gabrielle muttered.

Kenny waved his hand dismissively. “Never mind that. Let me ask you … what if the Yeti was actually located in the Arctic?”

He clapped his hands and then drew them apart as if he’d just performed a magic trick. He looked back and forth between Gabrielle and Mark, apparently waiting for their reaction. It was obvious, by the expectation on his face, that he waited for her to be as amazed as he seemed to be.

Instead, she began ticking off her fingers. “One, shut the door behind you. Two, you will properly bathe tonight because there’s no telling what type of infestation you’re growing. Three, the Yeti is somewhere in the Himalayas, hence my recent expedition into Bhutan.”

Kenny kicked the door shut with his foot and then hurried over to her desk. He pulled out his laptop from his backpack.

“Yeah, I know, but I think I found something,” he said, so rushed his words strung together. “No, no, no, I’m positive I found something. Yeti or Big Foot, I’m not sure but the damn thing is too big not to be investigated, Gabs.”

He fired up the laptop and turned it around so she could see what he was rambling about. Gabrielle watched as he scrolled through his blog site until he landed on a photo where something big and blurry was framed by the white backdrop of trees, snow, and ice. She pulled the laptop closer and stared through her glasses at the large, upright creature captured in the photo.

“I’ve never seen this photo before,” she said. As a cryptozoologist, she’d seen and studied every single photograph taken of the legendary Yeti and his supposed footprints. “Where’d it come from?”

“Got emailed to me from someone who visited my blog.”

Gabrielle frowned. Kenny ran a site devoted to their study of cryptids, and he was always getting emails and photos from people who swore they found one of the many undocumented creatures she was searching for, although the majority of the pictures were fake.

She scrolled a little further down, searching for more photos, but paused as she came across a picture of herself several years ago, being given permission to hold a sacred pelt belonging to a nomadic tribe in the Himalayas. It had been when she, Mark, and Kenny had broken off from their expedition to follow a story of a skinned Yeti, only to be included and embraced by the leader. He had said her hair color resembled the holy relic so she must be a divine messenger. His blessing had given her access to take a sample of the fur.

“Tuaq, Alaska,” Kenny said, bringing her out of her memories. “That’s where the photo was taken. It’s the northernmost edge of the Gates of the Arctic National Park, right under the Boreal-Arctic transition zone where vegetation begins to thin out. What if the Yeti is actually located there? Oh, wait! Or better yet, what if he migrated there?”

Gabrielle scrolled back up to the photo in question as Mark came over to stand behind her.

“Oh wow,” he said. “It’s up on two legs. And white. You think it could be the Yeti, Gabs?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m positive the Yeti is somewhere in the Himalayas. This is … I don’t rightly know what this is. I wish it wasn’t so blurry.”

“That’s the kicker, though,” Mark said. “Photos are always blurry. Or obscure. Just once I’d like a clear picture. Maybe with a big sign that says, ‘Yes, I’m a cryptid.’”

“Did you do any tests on this?” Gabrielle asked, ignoring Mark. “Photoshopping? Man in a costume?”

“I would need to see the original to rule out any photoshopping,” Kenny admitted, “but I did do a little research. Seems like the man who took the photo went out illegally to hunt moose, since hunting season was over at the end of September. It was near twilight and he saw this creature running through the woods, going fast. He brought up his camera and took as many pictures as possible. This was the best one of the bunch.”

“It would be interesting to see the rest of the photos,” Mark said.

“I’ll have him send them to me,” Kenny said. “There’s a place in Tuaq called the Frosset Lodge located just north of the town, and it’s the closest building to where these photos were taken. And low and behold, they have rooms available since it’s now off season.”

“I just got back from a trip, Kenny,” Gabrielle said with a sigh. “There’s still a lot of data Mark and I have to sift through, not to mention the college will want a report of our trip—”

“I believe in this photo, Gabs,” Kenny said, interrupting her. “We need to check this out. I feel it in my gut. This could be the Yeti we’ve been searching for, or at least the missing link.”

She pursed her lips as she stared at the photo. She couldn’t help but be extremely curious about it. “And I’m positive this isn’t a Yeti. This creature has a snout. And it’s white.”

“So it’s the Abominable Snowman?” Mark asked.

She scowled at him. “No such thing.”

“Well, Gabs, most people think there’s no such things as cryptids,” he pointed out. “And although our grant is about hunting for the Yeti, maybe this creature is part of that legend.”

“Maybe,” she hedged. “But we can’t be rushing off to check out every picture that turns up blurry images of humanoid creatures walking upright. That’s unrealistic, not to mention impossible.”

“Aren’t you the least bit curious, Gabs?” Kenny asked.

Gabrielle studied the photo again. Of course she was, though she wouldn’t admit it out loud. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, taking the moment to think. The trip to Bhutan had been exhausting and time-consuming, and so far, yielded no definite proof of the Yeti. Just some random tracks and unusual scat, which would have to be sent to the college lab for analysis. Perhaps it was time to consider outside-the-box thinking.

“Okay, listen,” she said. “First, we have to examine the rest of those photos, and if they seem in order, we’ll go.” When the two men high-fived each other, she held up a hand. “But only for a few days. We’ll interview Kenny’s source and search the area for any proof of this creature. If we come up with nothing, then we’ll come back home and I’ll present our findings to the college board and hope they give us more money to keep going.”

“Thanks, Gabs,” Kenny said.

“Don’t thank me. We’ve got to find something proof positive, Kenny. Otherwise we’re out of money.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I have a good feeling.”