Hunger of the Yeti Page 3

  “That’s not a real yeti,” added Cleo. “It’s Twonk!”

  The zombie pulled off his yeti mask and stared up at the furious Tracker. “Phew! Thanks, guys!” he grinned. “I thought I was going to get cobblered there!”

  “Cobblered?” said Zeal Chillchase, cautiously lowering the chair.

  “Don’t ask,” said Resus.

  “What are you doing here?” Luke asked the zombie.

  “I saw the mother yeti follow you down the mountain,” Twonk replied. “I wanted to try to stop her before she caught up with you, but I was too late.”

  “The mother followed us?” said Cleo. “Why would she do that?”

  Twonk looked sternly at the trio. “Because one of you has kidnapped her baby!”

  Chapter Five

  The Emporium

  “Are you out of your tiny zombie mind?” cried Resus. “You think one of us has kidnapped the baby yeti?”

  “It’s the only reason why a mother would travel so far from her nest,” Twonk insisted. He leant in to Resus and sniffed. “Besides, you smell like a yeti…”

  “And you smell like rotting flesh and ear wax,” retorted Resus, “but I’m not accusing you of having shoplifted Vein!”

  “Calm down,” said Luke. “I’m sure we can get to the bottom of this.” He turned to the concerned zombie. “The baby’s not here – just the mother.” As he finished speaking, a terrified scream could be heard in the distance. “And we’d better get her back as quickly as possible,” he added.

  “Right,” said Cleo. “You’re the expert, Twonk. How do we lure an adult yeti back to the Hex Hatch?”

  Twonk scratched his head, accidentally pulling out a large clump of hair as he did so. “The cries of her baby should bring her running.”

  “We’ve already told you,” said Resus. “We don’t have her baby!”

  “In that case I could try to sound like her baby,” Twonk suggested. “Perhaps that will trick her.” He screwed up his face and let out a series of high-pitched growls.

  Grrll! Grrll!

  “That sounds just like the little yeti!” exclaimed Cleo.

  “Thanks,” said Twonk, blushing. “I’ve been working on that for a while.”

  “But I’m guessing you’d have to be close to the mother for it to work,” said Luke.

  Twonk nodded. “She mustn’t see me, though. Yetis aren’t stupid – if she realizes she’s being tricked, it will only make her angrier.”

  “This could take some time,” sighed Resus.

  “Time we don’t have,” Zeal Chillchase stated, having finally stabilized the window to Tibet. “This Hex Hatch has already been open for twenty-three hours – another hour and its energy signature will automatically register itself at G.H.O.U.L. headquarters.”

  “Why would it do that?” asked Cleo.

  “To avoid Trackers forgetting to close Hex Hatches they’ve opened,” replied Chillchase. “And also to stop rogue Trackers acting without G.H.O.U.L.’s permission.”

  “Like you’re doing for us,” Luke put in.

  Chillchase nodded. “Should G.H.O.U.L. discover what we’re doing, they’re likely to take a dim view of my actions.”

  “But surely all you have to do is close this Hex Hatch and open another one,” said Resus. “That’ll start the twenty-four-hour countdown all over again and we’ll be in the clear.”

  “Unfortunately that’s not possible,” replied Zeal. “Holding this Hex Hatch open for so long has seriously sapped my powers. I can keep this one active for another hour, but it will be days before I have the strength to open a new one.”

  “OK,” said Resus. “Then we’ve got an hour in which to find the baby yeti and get him and his mum back through this Hex Hatch.”

  “We’d better get a move on,” said Luke, slipping off his thick jacket.

  Zeal Chillchase fished a silver pocket watch from his leather coat and handed it to him. “This will tell you how long you have left before the Hex Hatch needs to close,” he explained.

  Luke took the watch and studied it. “One hour and six minutes to go,” he told the others.

  “Then there’s no point us hanging around here,” announced Cleo, making her way over to the gap in the hedge. “Come on.” Luke, Resus and Twonk followed her out of the garden and into the street.

  Scream Street’s central square was packed with normals and residents alike. Everyone was clumped together in groups, talking in hushed whispers. Huge footprints could be seen on the ground and an old Transylvanian oak tree had a piece of trunk bitten out of it. Saliva still dribbled down the pale bark.

  In the middle of the square, Sir Otto was parading up and down beside the doorway to Luke’s world, shouting like a circus ringmaster. “Roll up, roll up! See the latest atrocious attraction Scream Street has to offer. You can believe your eyes – that creature was the real Abominable Snowman! While this dangerous display lasts, the cost of your visit is doubled – tripled if you’re lucky enough to be bitten by the yeti!”

  “Just when I think he can’t get any worse,” grunted Cleo. “Surely no one’s going to pay extra for the chance to be attacked by a yeti.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” sighed Luke as tourists eagerly surrounded the landlord.

  “Which way do you think the mother went?” asked Twonk.

  “No idea,” replied Resus. “But I can see someone who might be able to tell us…” He dodged through the crowds to where he had spotted his parents in deep discussion with Doug, one of the street’s resident zombies. The others trouped along behind him. “What happened here?” he asked.

  “It was such a shock,” said Bella Negative. “This thing just bounded across the square, knocking people over and biting anything it could reach!”

  Doug shook his head in disbelief. “That furry dude had a bad case of the munchies, man. What in the world was it?”

  “It was a yeti,” said Alston. “I haven’t seen one of those in Scream Street since – well, since I was first dating Bella.”

  Resus’s mum’s cheeks flushed slightly. “That’s right,” she giggled, fluttering her eyelashes. “You were so brave back then…”

  “I’m still brave now,” insisted Alston, putting his arm around his wife. “I could save you from that big, bad yeti any time I wanted!” He planted a kiss on Bella’s ruby-red lips.

  Doug grinned, revealing a family of woodlice squirming happily around his teeth. “The vampires are getting their love on, dudes.”

  “Yes,” said Resus, “and I’d be grateful if they’d stop before one of us throws up!”

  “Did you see which way the yeti went?” Cleo asked Doug.

  As if in answer, a loud crash came from the direction of Everwell’s Emporium.

  “Don’t worry,” grinned Luke. “I think we’ve found it!” And he, Resus, Cleo and Twonk set off at a run towards the general store.

  “Be careful!” Alston yelled after them.

  The group crashed in through the doors of the emporium and skidded to a halt. The place was trashed. Shelving units had been toppled and ornaments broken. Pictures had been torn down, and the shop counter had had a huge bite taken out of it.

  The yeti was nowhere to be seen, and neither was the owner, Eefa Everwell. In fact, the only person in the shop was an elderly banshee clutching a plastic carrier bag. Cleo hurried over to her.

  “Excuse me, please, which way did the yeti go?”

  The banshee glared down at her, brow furrowed. “WHAT?”

  “Did you see the yeti?” Cleo asked. “Which way did it go?”

  “WHAT?”

  Cleo sighed and raised her voice. “WHERE IS THE YETI?”

  “WHAT?”

  A younger banshee appeared timidly from underneath the counter, her wild, untamed hair bobbing. “She won’t be able to answer you,” she said. “My grandma’s stone deaf.”

  “You don’t say,” muttered Resus.

  “I’ve come to stay with her for a while,” continued the banshee. �
��I’m Favel.”

  “I would stop to say welcome to Scream Street,” said Luke, “but we’ve got a bit of a problem on our hands.”

  “I noticed,” said Favel. “We’d only come in to get a sleeping potion for my grandma, then a big, furry monster burst in and started eating everything!”

  “Where is it now?” asked Twonk.

  “The witch who was serving us chased it out the back way. That thing looked pretty dangerous.”

  “It is,” Luke confirmed. “You should take your grandma home and stay inside until we can get rid of it.”

  Favel nodded, and taking the elderly banshee by the hand she led her out of the shop.

  GRRRRAAAAWWWLLL!

  The sound came from the direction of the storeroom.

  “The yeti’s still back there!” exclaimed Cleo. “And Eefa’s alone with it!”

  Luke turned to Twonk. “Get behind the counter and start making baby yeti sounds. If we can draw it back into the shop, maybe we can keep it contained and away from the normals while we figure out what to do next.”

  Luke, Resus and Cleo ducked behind the counter with Twonk, and the zombie began to growl softly.

  Grrll! Grrll! Grrll!

  GRRRRAAAAWWWLLL!

  The adult yeti’s cry was louder this time.

  “It’s coming!” hissed Resus, pulling the metal poker from his cape. “And I’ll be ready for it— Eurgh!”

  “What’s the matter?” asked Cleo.

  “The poker’s covered in some sort of sticky goo,” groaned Resus, wiping his hands on his trousers. “And it’s got teeth marks in it!”

  Twonk ran his finger through the clear slime running down the poker and sucked it clean. “That’s yeti drool.”

  “Impossible!” cried Resus. “The only way that could be yeti dribble is if there was a yeti actually inside my…” His voice faded away and there was a pause as everyone looked at him, the truth dawning. “I think I might know where the baby yeti has got to,” Resus said quietly, swallowing hard.

  Then a giant hairy paw appeared and dragged him over the counter.

  Chapter Six

  The Exit

  Luke jumped to his feet. “Resus!” he cried. The mother yeti was clutching the vampire to her chest, sniffing at him furiously.

  Eefa Everwell dashed in from the storeroom, a magic wand directed at the yeti’s back. “I’m right behind you, Resus!”

  “I said he smelt like a yeti!” Twonk proclaimed.

  “Well, if he didn’t before, he will do now,” said Cleo.

  “It doesn’t matter what I smell like,” croaked Resus from the yeti’s fierce grip. “Will one of you do something before fur-face here takes a bite out of me?”

  “She won’t hurt you,” Twonk assured him. “You smell like her baby. If anything, she’ll try to mother you.”

  “Mother me?”

  Twonk nodded. “You know … groom you, feed you, teach you to do your business outside the nest…”

  Luke and Cleo tried to stifle their giggles as the yeti began to stroke Resus’s hair. “Get me away from this thing!” he exclaimed.

  “We will,” Luke said, “but if we don’t get her baby back to replace you, she’ll go on the rampage again. Eefa, what spell is loaded into that wand?”

  The witch glanced at the words scrawled along the handle. “Levitation.”

  “Oh, brilliant,” scoffed Resus. “The sharp-clawed yeti’s not quite dangerous enough, let’s give it the power of flight as well!”

  “I just grabbed the first wand to hand,” Eefa retorted. “You don’t have long to choose when a snarling Bigfoot is on the rampage.”

  “Actually, levitation could work,” said Luke, glancing up at the ceiling. “It might scare the yeti enough to make it drop Resus.”

  “This just gets better and better,” wailed the vampire.

  “We’ll catch you,” Luke promised. “Now, are you sure the baby is inside your cloak?”

  Resus reached his hand into his cape and pulled out a rubber duck. That, too, was chewed to pieces and glistening with drool. “Yep,” he said. “It’s in there.”

  “Then that’s where we have to go,” said Luke.

  “Inside Resus’s cloak?” exclaimed Cleo. “Will we fit?”

  “He once pulled an entire marching band’s worth of instruments from it,” Luke replied. “I reckon he could fit the whole of Scream Street in there if he wanted to.”

  GRRRRAAAAWWWLLL?

  The yeti held Resus at arm’s length and studied him.

  “She’s beginning to realize that Resus doesn’t look like her baby,” said Luke. “We have to act now.”

  Eefa muttered a spell and fired a long purple spark from the end of the wand, straight into the yeti’s back. Instantly, the creature began to float off the ground, kicking its legs wildly.

  GRRRRAAAAWWWLLL!

  As the yeti’s head reached the ceiling, Luke, Cleo and Twonk hurried to stand directly underneath it.

  “OK!” yelled Luke. “Try to wriggle free while she’s distracted!”

  Resus pressed hard against his captor’s chest. With a final glare at the squirming vampire, the terrified beast decided he wasn’t her child after all and hurled him across the emporium, where he tore through the threads of a giant dream-catcher and crashed to the ground in the middle of a display of cuddly unicorns.

  “You said you’d catch me,” Resus groaned, sitting up.

  “We didn’t know she was planning to go for the slam-dunk approach,” said Luke, hurrying over. “Now, take off your cape.”

  The vampire unclipped his cloak and laid it on the shop counter.

  “We’re really going in there?” breathed Cleo.

  Luke pulled Zeal Chillchase’s watch from his pocket to check the time. “Fifty-three minutes until the Hex Hatch closes – we don’t have a choice,” he said. “Have you ever done this before?” he asked Resus.

  The vampire shook his head. “Never.”

  “Why not?” asked Cleo.

  “For the same reason you don’t unravel your bandages and go bungee jumping with them,” he retorted. “You know it could be dangerous – but you don’t know exactly how dangerous.”

  GRRRRAAAAWWWLLL!

  “Still, I can think of worse things…” he added.

  Luke looked up at the mother yeti, now bouncing off the ceiling like an abandoned helium balloon. “How long will the spell last, Eefa?”

  “A couple of hours,” the witch replied.

  “Perfect,” said Luke. “But Twonk, you stay here with Eefa in case the spell fails for any reason. You’re the only one around here who knows how to deal with yetis.”

  The zombie saluted, accidentally smacking himself in the forehead. “You can rust me!” he announced. Then he produced his yeti mask and gloves and passed them to Resus. “These might come in handy,” he said.

  Luke stood as close as possible to Resus and Cleo. “Ready?” he asked. They nodded, and Luke grabbed the cloak and dragged it over their heads.

  The cape fluttered to the shop floor as the trio disappeared.

  Luke, Resus and Cleo made their way cautiously along a corridor lined with soft, blue silk. Open doorways on either side led to spacious rooms, piled high with everything from slide whistles to sofas.

  “This,” said Cleo, “is officially weird!”

  “You’re telling me,” said Resus, peering into a room filled with paint rollers, crockery and bicycles. “I thought I’d lost half this stuff!”

  “I’m amazed you can find anything in here,” Luke declared. “How do you know which room everything’s in?”

  “I don’t,” admitted Resus. “I just sort of think about what I want – and there it is.”

  They reached a junction at the end of the corridor. Three identical routes disappeared into the distance ahead of them.

  “This place is huge!” exclaimed Cleo. “It could take us ages to find the yeti.”

  “The problem is, we don’t have ages,” sa
id Luke, checking the watch again. “The Hex Hatch will be closed in less than fifty minutes.”

  “We could split up,” suggested Resus. “Three corridors, three of us…”

  “My instincts tell me we should stick together,” Luke replied. “I don’t like the idea of one of us getting lost and spending the next few months stuck in here.”

  “It’s a shame we left Twonk behind,” said Cleo. “He might have been able to smell which way the baby went.” Her eyes lit up as something occurred to her. “You could transform your nose and follow the scent – you’ve done it before!”

  “I already thought of that,” said Luke. “It might have worked if we hadn’t just passed several rooms full of rotting vegetables and body parts.”

  “It’s not my fault,” said Resus. “That’s all my pet leech will eat!”

  “Well, it’s likely to turn my nostrils inside out if I try to use my werewolf nose in here,” said Luke. “Although I might be able to hear which way the yeti went…”

  Closing his eyes, Luke concentrated on transforming just one part of his body – a trick he had increasingly been able to master since moving to Scream Street. Cleo and Resus watched as his ears stretched and slid up to sit on the top of his head.

  “Brilliant!” exclaimed Resus once the transformation was complete.

  Luke clamped his hands over his furry brown werewolf ears. “Not so loud,” he hissed. “These things are sensitive.”

  He gestured for his friends to stay silent, then stepped into each blue silk tunnel in turn, listening hard. “That’s where Dave the leech is at the moment,” he said, pointing down the left-hand corridor. “I can hear him sucking on something squelchy…”

  “You’ll hear someone being sick if you don’t shut up,” groaned Cleo.

  “Nothing down the middle one…” continued Luke, ignoring her. “There!” he proclaimed, pointing down the right-hand tunnel. “I can hear the baby yeti’s growls echoing at the far end.”

  “Then let’s go,” said Resus, leading the way. Luke and Cleo followed, and room by room they searched their way along the corridor. Eventually they came to a dead end – a wall of blue material blocking their way.