Horror Library, Volume 5

by Boyd E. Harris R. J. Cavender

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He yanked the girl away from them, then expelled their leader’s intensified terror into them. The girl fell to the ground behind Oliver. The herders inhaled, then reacted like they’d been electrocuted. Shrieking, babbling, soiling themselves as they struggled to escape, pouring more and more delicious fear into the air.

  The fright was perfect. Orgasmic. Ambrosia.

  Oliver turned to the girl.

  “What do you want?” she cried, her voice trembling with tears, her knees drawn up before her.

  He was full. He couldn’t ingest any more terror tonight.

  “You’re safe,” he told her with a sigh. “Go home.”

  As she disappeared into the darkness, he realized that he wasn’t completely full, after all.

  Her stunned relief was delicious.

  For the last 19 years, Dev Jarrett (also known as CW4 William D. Jarrett) has lived wherever the US Army has sent him: Texas, Afghanistan, Arizona, Korea, the Philippines, Thailand…and the list goes on. Currently he and his family live in the Washington, DC area.

  He’s had dozens of short stories published in a variety of venues over the past few years. His first novel, Loveless, was recently published by Blood Bound Books, and his next one, Dolly, is coming soon from Bad Moon Books. You can find him online at www.devjarrett.weebly.com

  -Follower

  by Danny Rhodes

  It was already the end of November, and Morris understood the risks of what he was about to do. His plan was to hunker down overnight in the bothy at Helm’s Pass and set out for Fell’s Edge the following morning. The sun was shining when he set out from Black Fen but there were reports of storm clouds accumulating in the West. If the forecast was to be trusted, he’d have most of the day to complete the ascent. He’d return to the bothy afterwards, wait for the storm to pass and then head home. There were posts on the message boards saying he was a fool for tackling Fell’s Edge so late in the season, but none of the others had been through the six weeks he’d endured. They’d not had to deal with it all.

  He would negotiate Fell’s Edge, complete the ‘Fifty Peak Challenge’ in a single season and gain recognition amongst his online peers in a way nobody had managed before. His name would be legendary.

  He left his car and started his trek upward. When he looked back over the landscape there wasn’t a sign of man’s mark in any direction, save for the ribbon of road that stretched away towards Saddlemoor. And even that looked different from this height, more downtrodden earth than tarmac, as if he’d stepped out of the present into another time. He shrugged his shoulders and pressed on over the escarpment. The test, as always, was to access the peak in the traditional style, to be able to look back at this conquest when he was an old man and know he’d done it the hard way, having truly earned it. He couldn’t dream of Everest anymore, but he could still find his own little place in history.

  Morris trudged on, trying not to think about the accident of six weeks earlier, and the lingering pain in his torso. He’d been lucky, that was the long and the short of it; lucky to escape with just a cracked ribcage, though he hadn’t felt that way at the time. The pain had been excruciating.

  He’d been in the Cairngorms, descending Ben Macdhui in driving sleet. The terrain had become uncertain underfoot, like greased glass. He’d not been careful enough.

  He reached Middle Beck and stopped to rest. His side was aching. He took two painkillers with a swig of tea and munched on an energy bar. The vista presented him a view of the valley all the way to the sea. Clouds were still massing over the water but they were not threatening. Not yet. A shaft of sunlight pierced the gloom. He watched it sweep across the landscape, casting its beauty on the estuary, on Saddlemoor, forever onwards until, for a few brief moments, he was warmed by its glow. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. Wasn’t that why he did this, to experience moments where the hum-drum act of living was interrupted by some greater understanding, to experience moments of, dare he even think it, grace?

  He took his planned ten-minute break, letting the tea warm him through, sucking in great lungsful of air. He popped a dextrose tablet into his mouth and let it dissolve on his tongue, then checked his map. The route he’d chosen, rather than confound him as many had suggested, seemed to be a tame enough beast, even in November.

  He was tightening the straps at his waist, standing upright and shifting his position to get everything comfortable, when the man first came into view. He was way down in the valley, following the route Morris had taken some three hours earlier. Morris took out his binoculars and asked himself the usual questions. Hiker or climber? Amateur or serious? The stranger had his hood up so Morris couldn’t see his face. He studied his gait instead, the speed of his ascent, the equipment he was carrying, the clothes he was wearing. It was possible to understand so much about a man from his clothing, especially in a sport like this. But, accounting for distance and magnification, the man’s clothes were hard to pin down. They looked a little heavy, a little cumbersome. His boots looked bulkier than necessary, the leggings thicker, the jacket stiff and inflexible. The colours, sombre hues, brown and beige, suggested another era.

  There it was again, that feeling of lacking anchor in the world, of time shifting in this most timeless of places. Morris touched the outcrop beside him and stroked the cool stone.

  It spoke to him, as it always had.

  II.

  The bothy was situated halfway up the mountain, a small wooden structure at odds with the barren world around it. There was no smoke coming from the chimney. Morris turned to look behind him along the ridge, and raised his binoculars. Sure enough, his follower was there, a dark silhouette against the blazing sunset. Morris imagined the stranger’s gaze falling upon him, and oddly, felt a tiny shred of fear whittle its way into his bones. He took solace in the fact that there would be others at the bothy.

  But, when he arrived, it was quiet. The door opened with a gasp. A musty smell met his nostrils. The wood burner was cold to the touch. As he set about making a fire he thought of his follower.

  He shivered.

  He had imagined this room filled with others, men like him who lived for the outdoors. Men with stories to share.

  He picked himself a bottom bunk and hung his jacket from the bunk above so that he could cocoon himself from the room. He poured some tea from his flask, munched on a biscuit and waited.

  He pondered the silence and sullenness of the place: the coarse blankets, the stained sinks, the cracked and warped furniture. Where there might once have been a map there was now just a rectangular outline on the wall, a mark to suggest something longstanding had been removed.

  Intermittently, he moved to the door and looked out to see if his follower was approaching. But the man did not materialise. Morris wandered around to the side of the building and looked towards Fell’s Edge, hoping to see a posse of men coming back down.

  The trail was empty in that direction as well.

  As dusk passed he started to wonder if something might have happened to his follower, if the guy might have fallen or injured himself. But, what could Morris do? Should he go out looking for him? Put himself in danger? No. It was best to stay put, tend the fire, keep the place warm for others in case some should arrive.

  It was pitch black outside when Morris completed his final recce. Seeing nothing, the feeling of absolute isolation set in. Unusually for him, a man experienced in detachment, he also felt the silent chill that accompanied it. For whatever reason, despite what the hostel association had told him, he would be alone on this night. No brash Americans, no quiet Scandinavians. There would be no company at all.

  He thought about the man on the ridge, his follower. Perhaps he’d found himself a place to hunker down. He contemplated this man, who wore such strange attire. The guy could be ex-special forces, who preferred solitude, or perhaps just a recluse, someone who couldn’t interact. Might his follower be sleeping on the mountain purely to avoid having to sha
re the cabin with another human soul? Morris sat on the steps at the entrance for a long time, staring out at the hulking shadows of the mountain and the grey hue of the clouds.

  The silence was all-encompassing.

  Etiquette suggested he leave the door accessible, but before bed, convinced as he was that nobody was coming and full of irrational fears, he propped a chair under the handle. He later felt foolish for doing that, and couldn’t sleep, so he took the chair out again. He lay staring at the door. The flames flickered. Shadows danced on the ceiling. He climbed off the bunk, took out his map and studied it inanely. There was nothing he didn’t already know. When the flames of the fire started to die, he propped his flashlight against the wall to create a tiny alcove of light in the bottom bunk, a place of refuge.

  Just for a little while, he told himself. Just until I’m ready to sleep.

  He tried to get comfortable, but now his injured ribs protested. Whichever way he laid he could not shake the pain. He took two painkillers from his pack, swallowed them and waited for the numbing effect to kick in.

  He closed his eyes.

  It was later, somewhere in the dead of night, that he opened them to find the electric torch still on, its power diminished to virtually nothing. He switched it off. The room was overtaken by darkness. Morris, for all his years and all his mountains, had never known pitch black like this. The sound of a creaking floorboard dragged him into wakefulness. He stiffened, too terrified to breathe. He lay like that until his muscles started to ache and his chest burned. Then he exhaled slowly and drew in another deep breath. Pain shot through his ribs, causing him to wince and grit his teeth. The floorboards creaked again. Had somebody entered while he was sleeping? Had he been sleeping? He couldn’t remember.

  He smelled something different, something old and waxy. He told himself it was the blankets, the sheets, anything at all, but he knew it was none of these things. It was the smell of whatever had entered the bothy. Morris didn’t dare move. He had the torch in his grip but he couldn’t bring himself to switch it on.

  He did not want to see.

  And so he lay under the sheets with his eyes closed, telling himself he’d imagined it all, that there was nothing there, that the creaking floorboards and waxy smell were in his head. He started to drift back to sleep. That was when the breathing started–the harsh, gravel-like sound of a man struggling to inhale and exhale. Morris pulled himself up into the corner of his bunk, grabbed the torch and turned it on. For a while it blazed bright. He guided the beam around the place. There was nothing. He climbed out of the bunk and shone the light in every corner.

  Empty.

  He shone the light at the other bunks.

  Empty.

  There was just him.

  But the smell returned when the torch light faded, and soon after he climbed back under the sheets he heard the breathing again. Or perhaps it was the wind in the eaves. Yes, it had to be that, air working its way inside, circulating in the roof-space somehow, confusing him. And the creaking, it could be the timbers settling down now that the fire was out. The smell? The smell could be the fireplace, or perhaps his own sweat-soaked clothing.

  Logic wrestled with imagined threats.

  Morris pulled the blanket tight to his neck and forced himself to sit upright, fighting the urge to sleep. He was a child again. He sat like that until the first threads of morning pierced the edges of the shuttered windows. Then, only then, did he allow himself to tumble into dreams.

  III.

  He woke with a feeling of panic working its way up from the pit of his stomach. He’d had a nightmare. He was negotiating the summit of Fell’s Edge, heading for the marker that would signal the culmination of his year’s endeavours. He’d come over the final ridge to discover his follower at the marker waiting for him. The man turned to look at him and then crumbled to dust before his eyes.

  Morris fell out of the bunk and dressed. He didn’t bother with breakfast. He dumped all of his food, save for a cereal bar, on the floor beside the bed. He’d collect it all on the way down. He shook his flask, realised it was half-full. He did not have time to light another fire and boil water. He was frantic with worry about beating the weather. He forced the door to the bothy open and gasped when he saw where the sun was positioned amongst the mountains. He pulled on his boots, secured them with hurried knots and slammed the door behind him.

  In the distance he could see the clear outline of Fell’s Edge.

  It looked eons away.

  The sun was warm for November. It vindicated his decision to make the ascent, and relaxed him a little, but his mood remained dark. He could think of nothing else but the man on the mountain. There was a path, of sorts, a discernable route, but his feet unseated random pieces of slate, causing them to skitter off the trail.

  Morris stared ahead. The sunlight hurt his eyes but mercifully the route to the summit looked empty. Perhaps his follower had left the mountain the previous evening. Perhaps he never was a threat. But the clothing he wore, the metronomic way he walked, his ceaseless encroachment, all these things spoke to Morris differently. He couldn’t risk it. He had to press onward, leave nothing to chance, regardless of the risks.

  He was halfway up the gradient when he spotted the man. To his relief, his mighty relief, he saw the figure was behind him, a dark smudge in the valley. The man was standing outside the bothy, sort of lingering there. It unsettled Morris to see him like that, waiting at the cabin as if there was something to wait for.

  Morris took out his binoculars. He focussed in on the grey clothing, the hood and the dark shadow contained within it. He watched the man enter the building, reappear a minute later and move towards the trailhead, adopting the same metronomic rhythm as if this were a rehearsed performance.

  Morris put his binoculars away and continued his climb. Above him, beyond the angle of the mountain, was Fell’s Edge, his Valhalla. Way off to the west, rolling in off the sea, was the storm predicted for that evening. Behind him, climbing the mountain, was his follower.

  Morris hurried on. Ridiculously, no matter how much he increased his pace, the gap between him and his follower did not widen. If anything, despite his efforts, the gap seemed to contract. Had it become a race? The man was too far away to reach the peak ahead of him. It was physically impossible for any man to breach such a distance so quickly. And yet the gap was dropping at an alarming rate. Morris was tiring too, physical exertion exacerbated now by a draining of his mental capacities as he sought some explanation for the events taking place. There was something else too, a fear gnawing away at his mind. If his follower caught up with him, would he cause Morris harm? He knew this was a fatal combination. A man could not allow himself to grow tired or confused on a mountain. He cursed himself for not eating, for not drinking, for allowing fixation to overcome preparedness. And the danger signals were already raging, the loss of clarity, the feeling of disorientation, anxiety. He took a mouthful of tea. It was tepid. He spat it out. He looked down the mountain and picked out a tarn amongst the nothingness. As still as glass, the bleak mountains, the wide-open sky and the billowing clouds were reflected on its surface. He imagined himself hiding behind an outcrop, striking his tormentor with a rock as he passed, dragging his unconscious body to that place, and drowning him there. But a cloying mist rolled over the mountain, and he lost sight of the pond within it.

  The mist soon enveloped Morris and everything around him. It only added to his anxiety. He couldn’t see his follower anymore. He plodded on, trying to keep to the route, not daring to stop. On and on he went, blindly into the mist until, to his absolute terror, he heard the sound of footfalls behind him, the distinctive crunch of boots on shale. Steady, metronomic footsteps, growing louder. Morris fought to increase his pace. Each time he placed a foot on the ground a shot of pain emanated from his damaged ribs. And with each step he was finding it harder to ascertain height and distance, the space between footfalls. Behind him, the footsteps seemed closer than even the moment
before. He imagined a gloved hand reaching for his shoulder…

  Focussing on too many things at once, the footsteps, his follower, the encroaching storm, Morris lost his footing.

  It wasn’t like before, when he’d cracked his ribs. He had slid then, on his haunches. Though he’d been unable to stop himself, a protruding outcrop had saved him. This time he fell more awkwardly. His left knee turned in an unnatural direction, sideways and outwards. The pain was instantaneous. He felt something tear inside it and give way. He felt bone gnaw against bone. He dropped in such a manner that his weight, supplemented by his backpack, shifted onto the other leg. It wasn’t strong enough to support him. He tumbled off the side of the ridge and fell through open air. For a brief second he felt weightless, without burden, and then there was impact.

  He woke to the realisation that the injury was a bad one. A furtive glance at his legs confirmed his fears. Both were crumpled underneath him, impossibly so. He tried to put the image out of his mind. Curiously there wasn’t much pain, but then there wasn’t much feeling either. His ribs were worse. Each time he tried to move, a searing jolt shot through them. The very act of breathing was agony enough. He’d fallen six or seven meters, vertically, with nothing to break his fall but his backpack. He understood he would need help very quickly if he were to have any chance of survival. He stared upwards along the ridge, through the mist, into the white orb that was the sun, then in the direction of his follower. Surely it was only a matter of time before the man appeared behind him. Relief surged through him, and he basked in the irony of it. His relentless tormentor would become his saviour.

  But time seemed to stretch as Morris lay stricken on the ledge. What could be stalling his follower’s climb? What had become of those incessant footfalls? A cold chill came over him. What if the man had turned back, perturbed by the encroaching mist, the gathering cloud? And then another thought. Might the fall have knocked him unconscious? If so, how long had he been out? Might his follower have already passed while Morris lay prone on the ledge? Passed without glancing in his direction, eyes focussed solely on his next step, as Morris should have done.