Author's note: Sorry it took so very long! I took out a book on the [you'll see this later in the fic!] but I'm no expert. She encountered this only in a few of the bios I read, so according to some this may not be accurate but I thought it'd be a whole lot more interesting. :  ) Finally, as some of you already know, Jennifer SUCKS at writing fight sequences. Wince. So please, try to er, use some Barney imagination, whatever.

I do hope that I have the term brachycephalic correct too. I'm no expert on heads either.

Finally, enjoy the twelfth and probably second-last chapter of Lucky Lara. :  )

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I was wrong. It was still an awful long way to the village, and the snow I was wading in was up to my waist at least. And I wasn't a short person. It was so deep and obstructive, however, that I figured it might have been better to actually carry out my previous plan and throw myself screaming off the mountain. Still, it was too late for that.

I confess that after my experience of trying to devour the mountain civilization wasn't kicking in much. Thus, I tried to actually swim through the snow. It was probably the revenge of the snowmen - this simply added more snow to the useless inside of my amazingly durable pink blancmange of a coat. It was no use against snow, and snow, despite its masses, was no use against wind.

I'd screamed in complete frustration. Unfortunately an enormous bugger of a snowstorm had kicked up – I won't try to count how many scalpels it felt like scratching away at my throat.

There was absolutely no sign of the village. I was on a completely flat ground with no idea of where I was going. I still wanted to scream but instead used the few saved joules of energy to take another step. And another.

The blistering wind tore straight through me it seemed, and I could swear I felt my blood slowly freezing. Another step. Another step. I was so tired…

Certainly this was fate's game. Or perhaps fates' game – the three wizened, cantankerous old hags haggling over Lara Croft's thread of life. To cut or not to cut? They were pulling, tugging, fraying it, or more likely it simply slid over the rotting flesh of their time worn hands, sliding through the cracks of their chipped, yellowing nails, leaving bleeding lacerations on their bloody fingertips. Cackling and hissing at one another other through yellowing, grimy teeth. Backandforth and lifeanddeath… Or at least I hoped that my thread-self was putting up that kind of fight. I also hoped the three fates wouldn't be quite as I had imagined, or rather that I'd had stuck to Norse mythology rather than Greek.

Right now a really bad storm of swirling, slashing snow had built up again. It was The Snowmen's Revenge, straight out of a C-grade movie. But speaking of snowmen – what was that?

A… human creature? Far through the blinding dance of snowflakes a bulky, Neanderthal shape seemed to be waddling towards me. There was something very odd about it…

Not that it mattered.

I took off as never before. I tried to shout, but my voice once again froze somewhere along my throat. Never mind – the wind would have wrenched it from me anyway. Keeping my head down and eyes tightly shut I continued on towards it.

There really was something strange about the creature – especially the lumbering but alarming pace he moved at, plugging through the snow as if… as if it wasn't there. The blurry outlines of him got clearer and cleared, no longer hampered by distance…

A rind of dark crescent on the sugar frosted cake of the plain – the village.

Another step, another step, clearer, still clearer –

The man was very tall, I realized as we closed the distance between us to around ten meters or so. Brachycephalic, and he appeared to be wrapped snugly in some reddish-brown, fuzzy parka. In the distance, I thought I could see a straggly, bedraggled tree, and the snow was thinning rapidly.

And then I saw it.

That was no man.

It was some large, hairy ape on two legs, arms outstretched like a prowling zombie. It was covered with reddish-brown, shaggy fur from head to toe and only its face was visible. Only its expression was visible. And it was unmistakably hungry.

My first instinct was to run – where? Seeing how quickly it advanced – even now, and given my current constitution – I wasn't going anywhere. My second instinct was to try to hide. Of course. My third instinct was to scream, and that was definitely out. The fourth instinct wasn't an instinct, merely a choice. To fight back.

With what? My shoe?

Feverishly I dug around in my pack, searching for something of some use. It was tricky to avoid the snow in my eyes. My comb – it wouldn't penetrate that advancing hirsute hide. My broken discman – certainly not.

Come to think of it, my shoe was probably the best option.

My wristwatch? My crackers? My… stick? Some words caught my eye, shiny in the dimming twilight. I'd never noticed how one side of it was larger than the other – it'd been dark when I'd skied.

And suddenly, I knew what the strange boxes were.

I cracked open the first on my knee as I tried to run past BogeyMan, as I'd christened him. And then I slotted the clip in. And then I turned around the face the ape.

BogeyMan snarled at me – a thin line of saliva snapped between its menacing jaws. So close was it that I felt it damp, hot breath on my skin. Suddenly a clawed arm shot out and torn a long gash down the side of my coat. I cried out as they pierced my skin, dragging a long streak of blood from my shoulder to my elbow.

It didn't seem deep though. I clenched my teeth, took a large step back, and pulled the trigger.

The shotgun's kick made me stagger backwards, almost sitting on the snow. Chunks of sinew and bone spurted out as a streamer of blood tricked down its fur. BogeyMan howled but did not stop.

I was really, really terrified now. I squeezed my eyes shut, braced myself, and shot again. This time he didn't seem so peeved – kept coming.

I ran blindly backwards, firing off at random. At least three more of my shots wounded it, some severely, but Bogey just didn't seem to know the meaning of pain.

He pounced. Completely crushing me with his weight, he clawed at my legs and I took another wound to my ankle as well. I shot twice more, dry fired, but wounded it considerably. Somehow he got his teeth into my wrist. Before he could really chomp down I chucked the useless shotgun at him. He rolled off for the time being and the pressure on my chest eased slightly. I took in a great gulp of air – my mind cleared ever so slightly.

And then he was on me again, battering me like a rag doll, probably about to eat me alive. Dizzy with pain, I barely heard the human shouting, in English, or felt the tension suddenly withdraw. All I knew finally was a whole, benevolent darkness slowly creeping around the edges of my swaying vision, consuming me for a part of the shadow.