The Mountain King

by Rick Hautala

  “Bingo,” Mark said softly.

  He realized that the erosion could be the result of the weather and rock slides, but something told him it was more than that.

  Maybe it had been worn smooth by the creatures climbing up and down it countless times over the years.

  Maybe this was how the creatures got up and down the cliff. Last night in the moonlight, he thought he had seen the beast climbing up Katherine’s Leap before it disappeared halfway up. If it hadn’t been an illusion, this must be where it had gone.

  Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, Mark settled his day pack on his shoulders, and then braced his hands and feet along the inside of the shallow indentation. By applying steady outward pressure with both arms and legs, he was able to shinny up the steep cliff.

  His progress was frustratingly slow. It didn’t take long for the muscles in his arms, legs, and back to start burning with exhaustion. It seemed to take forever to get even ten feet off the ground. He kept glancing up at the shelf of rock above him, but struggle as he might to inch himself upward, it seemed to be getting no closer.

  But that wasn’t his major concern. Nagging at his mind was the thought that if there was another one of those creatures up there and it attacked him now, he would be helpless, unable even to unsling his rifle before the thing was on top of him.

  In spite of the chilly mountain air, sweat broke out on his brow and ran down into his eyes. He repeatedly tried to wipe his eyes on his shoulder, but that only smeared the moisture and made it worse.

  He was making his way closer to the overhanging rock, inch by painful inch, but all he could think was, even if another one of the creatures didn’t attack right now, every boost higher was only going to make the landing all that much more painful if he lost his footing and fell.

  By the time he was halfway up to the overhang, about forty feet above the ground, the muscles in his shoulders and back were knotted with pain. Every time he slid his feet up, grit would make them slide out from under him, and he would have to press back all the harder against the rock to keep from falling. His breath came in short, painful gulps. Every inhalation was like fire in his lungs. He tried not to look down at the rocks and imagine himself lying there, helpless with his legs or back broken as dozens of creatures closed in on him from all sides.

  Waves of pain racked his body. His arms and legs throbbed with every movement, but he could see that he was getting steadily closer to the overhang. His rifle kept banging against the cliff. Every time he leaned back against the rock, the bolt action would dig into his back just above his kidney; but it was too late to shift its position now.

  He had to get up to the ledge.

  Once he was there he could worry about what to do next.

  Grunting and swearing under his breath, he hiked himself upward until—thank God!—the overhang was only a few feet above him, almost within reach. As soon as it was eye level, he wished to hell he dared to make a grab for it, if only to relieve the pressure and pain in his body, but he knew it wasn’t time. Not yet. His feet had to be level with the overhang before he could chance making a grab like that.

  It was just a matter of time ... and effort.

  He kept pushing himself up until the ledge was level with his shoulders, then his hips, then his knees, and—finally—his feet. His arm and leg muscles were trembling violently from the strain. Convinced that he couldn’t hang on another second, he held his breath, shot one foot out onto the ledge and, at the same instant, pushed himself away from the cliff side.

  For a sickening instant, he felt himself suspended in the air, but then he landed, hard, and rolled onto the rocky shelf. After a few tumbles, he came to rest on his back. Lying there, looking up at the sky, he let out an exhausted sigh. For several seconds he just lay there until his hammering pulse gradually began to slow. Finally, he found the strength to sit up, wipe the sweat from his face, and check out where he was.

  The cliff was no more than eight feet wide and fifteen to twenty feet long. Bright sunlight washed the rock with a lemon glow and stretched his shadow out over the edge and down along the slanting cliff face. As he looked down, Mark experienced a moment of vertigo. Far below he could see the small, bright specks that were Phil’s backpack and jacket. A light breeze was blowing up the side of the cliff, straight into his face. It swirled around him like frigid water. The muscle tremors in his shoulders still hadn’t stopped, but he knew he had to inspect every inch of this ledge before he could drop his guard. And then he wanted to rest a while before deciding how he was going to get either all the way up to the top of Katherine’s Leap or back down.

  He walked to the other side of the overhang and couldn’t repress a grunt of surprise when he saw that one large chunk of rock was angled outward, and behind it there was a narrow, triangular opening that looked like it led into a cave.

  Stepping back and studying it for a moment, Mark realized that the opening was located just right so it would be difficult if not impossible to see from the ground except—maybe—from an extreme angle. As far as he knew, no one had ever reported a cave on the ledge halfway down Katherine’s Leap. The cave mouth was easily wide enough to admit his body. In fact, it was large enough so that the creature could have squeezed through it.

  Is this where these things live?

  He unslung his rifle, bolted it, and took a few cautious steps forward. Then he crouched down on one knee and aimed into the opening. After clearing his throat, he called out, “Hey! Anyone there?”

  His voice echoed weirdly from inside the stony fissure. He could tell by the odd reverberation that this was not just a shallow niche in the cliff; there was a fairly large space inside.

  His hands tightened on the rifle stock as he aimed into the darkness and waited. After a few heartbeats, the distant, echoing voice came again, rustling like dead leaves in the gutter.

  “They’re gone now. Please . . . help us. Hurry.”

  Mark swallowed with difficulty and was unable to reply for a moment. Remembering that he had a flashlight in his day pack, he quickly unzipped the bag, took out the flashlight, clicked it on, and shined it into the opening. Dumbfounded and wondering what the hell was going on, he inched forward and stuck his head into the cool, moist darkness.

  “Who—? . . . Who are you?” Mark called in a ragged whisper.

  “You have to hurry . . . they might come back soon.”

  The voice reverberated in the darkness.

  Mark swept the flashlight beam back and forth along the angled stone walls. The rasping sound of his breath was oddly magnified as he inched further into the cool darkness, keeping his rifle braced in one hand, his flashlight in the other.

  He found himself in a narrow passageway that angled back into the mountain about twenty feet before it curved sharply to the left. The interior walls met at a peak about fifteen feet above his head. A track along the middle of the floor had buffed the stone to a dull gloss. Small stones and other debris, including large piles of wood, littered both sides of the entrance.

  Mark hesitated, wondering if it was possible that this might, in fact, be another one of the creatures calling to him. Had they learned how to mimic human speech, and were luring him into a trap?

  “Who are you?” he called out, forcing strength into his voice which he didn’t really feel.

  “Mark . . . ? Jesus Christ, man! Is that really you?” called the voice, which now sounded vaguely familiar. “For Christ’s sake, it’s me ... Phil. Please ... hurry!”

  “Jesus Christ,” Mark whispered.

  He started forward at a brisk walk, following the twisting cavern back into the bowels of Mount Agiochook. Rough angles of rock made numerous niches and ledges deep inside the cave’s recesses, but the major route was clearly marked by the scuff marks on the floor. Mark had the impression that feet had worn the stone smooth over the years—over centuries, perhaps. The cave twisted to the left, then opened up into a roughly triangular chamber. For a minute or two, Mark surveyed the area,
but he saw no one there. A choking, rotten smell tainted the air, almost making him gag. He wondered if his ears had been playing tricks on him, if he was imagining all of this, but then the voice—now sounding exactly like Phil Sawyer’s voice—called to him again.

  “Where are you, Mark? Are you still outside?”

  “No,” Mark replied. “I—I’m in some kind of chamber.”

  “Keep coming. We’re all the way in back here.”

  The echoing voice sounded as if it were coming from ten different directions at once. Mark swept the flashlight beam from the uneven floor into dozens of narrow nooks and crannies in the walls. On the right side of the far wall, he noticed a narrow passage. Crossing the floor quickly, he scrambled through the narrow passage and came out into an even larger space.

  “What the hell—?” he said. No matter what he had been expecting, he wasn’t ready for what he saw.

  The cave opened up into a gigantic interior chamber that looked to be at least a couple of hundred feet square. The ceiling was a good fifty or sixty feet above him, shrouded with dense shadows which his flashlight couldn’t push aside. The floor was littered with large boulders that looked as if they had been purposely rearranged. Several flat stone were covered with piles of dried leaves, moss, and worn fur pelts.

  At the far end of the chamber, in front of a narrow shelf of rock, was a crudely made corral of thick timbers lashed together with dried-out vines. Through the slats, Mark saw a large mounded stack. As he passed his flashlight beam over it, he realized that it was a pile of animal carcasses. The smell of rotting flesh was nauseating, but he was too amazed even to retch.

  “Jesus!” Mark shouted when something moved behind the stack of carcasses. A hand—a human hand rose up and beckoned to him.

  Stunned and amazed, Mark started moving closer, walking like an automaton, unable to believe that his flashlight was shining straight into the face of his friend Phil Sawyer. Sitting beside him, their backs against the cave wall, were two other people, a man and a woman. All three of them were tied up with thick, knotted vines wrapped around their knees.

  Phil squinted as he tried to look up at Mark, but the light was too bright. His face was smeared with grime, and his clothes were torn and dirty. His hair was an oily mat plastered against his forehead. His lips were pale and cracked, and his eyes reflected a frightened glaze as he forced a wide, crazy-looking smile.

  “Jesus Christ, man!” Phil said. “What the fuck took you so long?”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Escape Plans

  “I just—I can’t believe you’re still alive!” Mark said as he screwed the top off his canteen and handed it to Phil, who slurped a mouthful of water and then licked his lips greedily.

  “How long has it been?” Phil asked, his voice a low rasp.

  “A little less than a week. It’s—uh, Thursday,” Mark said, having to think a moment. “Watch it with that water. It’s all I’ve got until I can get you out of here.”

  “Christ, Thursday?”

  Phil closed his eyes a moment and rocked his head from side to side.

  “I’ve only been here five days? Jesus, it feels like it’s been more than that . . . a couple of weeks, at least.”

  “I just can’t believe you’re still alive!” Mark repeated. He glanced at the other people, then offered each of them a sip of water, which they swallowed. Both of them looked much worse off than Phil.

  Turning back to his friend, Mark examined the vines binding his legs. They were dried, and had been twisted together so tightly that even with his hands free, Phil would never have been able to loosen the knots. It would take a knife to cut through them. Other than that, though, Phil seemed to be in fairly good health, considering the circumstances. Mark took out his Swiss Army knife and began sawing through the crude rope.

  “They’re clever, I’ll grant them that,” Phil said. He suddenly winced and shifted to one side.

  “Did I cut you?”

  Phil gritted his teeth and shook his head.

  “No, it’s my . . . legs—I’m afraid they’re both broken. From the fall off that cliff. But these bastards would have done it to me, anyway. I’m all right, though. Check out those other two first.”

  Mark went back to the man and woman who sat on the floor, their backs slumped against the stone wall. Their faces were gaunt with hunger and dehydration. Their skin had a pale, almost translucent quality to it, and they both smelled as if they had been sitting in their own filth for weeks. Lice and other bugs crawled in their hair and over their ragged clothes. The man’s beard hung halfway down to his chest. The woman regarded Mark with eyes completely devoid of human expression, as if she didn’t even recognize him as another human being.

  Mark shined the light on her to inspect her injuries. There was a serious gash on the left side of her face that had started to heal but was festering. The skin around the wound was an angry red. The woman kept licking her lips and trying to speak, but the only sound she could make was a low croaking in the back of her throat. It sounded almost like laughter. It took Mark a moment to realize that, like Phil, both the man and woman’s legs had been broken.

  “It’s all right . . . it’s all right,” Mark whispered as he tilted the woman’s head back and let a bit more water trickle down into her mouth. “I’m going to get all of us out of here.”

  The woman swallowed, then made a noise that sounded almost like the words thank you.

  Mark then gave the man another drink.

  “She’s not doing very well,” the man said in a voice that cracked on every other word.

  “Who are you?” Mark asked. “How long have you been here?”

  The man’s eyes fluttered a moment as though he were lost in thought, searching his memory for something that was far, far away ... almost irretrievable.

  “Phil said it was September when he came here. Is that true?”

  Mark nodded. “Yeah, today’s September—um, eleventh, I think.”

  The man nodded again and took a deep breath that sounded as if it were tearing his throat apart.

  “My name’s Jack—Jack Russell, and this is my girlfriend, Mary Fecteau. We’re from New Jersey. We— we were hiking on Agiochook last summer—the Fourth of July weekend.”

  “Jesus! You’re the two hikers who disappeared last summer,” Mark said, sitting back on his heels in amazement. “Half the county turned out to look for you. Do you mean to tell me you’ve been here all this time, just sitting here in the dark?”

  “Oh, no,” the man said. “These—these creatures— I don’t know what the hell they are, but they’re intelligent. They know how to make fire, so sometimes there’s been a campfire with enough light to see by.”

  The woman started moaning as she rolled her head from side to side. A thick yellow foam dripped from the corners of her mouth. Mark couldn’t tell if she was just trying to relieve the itching of the lice on her scalp or having some kind of seizure.

  Jack nodded stiffly. “Two of them ... these creatures, they attacked us on the slope just before we got to the summit. They—they—” He tried to finish but couldn’t stop himself from crying out loud. Agonized sobs racked his body, making him shudder.

  “Hey, take it easy, now, Jack,” Mark said, placing a hand gently on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

  “They—the bastards broke our legs and have kept us tied up like this ever since. Neither one of us can feel our legs anymore. We’ve been here so long, I know damned well the bones have healed all wrong. They feed us from time to time. That!”

  He sneered as he indicated the pile of rotting animal carcasses with an angry hand gesture.

  “Every now and then—there’s no way of knowing how long—one of them will bring in a fresh kill. Usually it’s a deer or something. They eat what they want, then throw us the scraps. About all we’ve had to drink is animal blood. A couple of times they’ve carried us out to the ledge where rainwater collects in a shallow depre
ssion in the rock, but I—I never imagined I could bring myself to eat raw flesh or gnaw marrow out of bones just to stay alive, and for what?”

  His eyes went wide, and his body began to tremble.

  “Stay alive for what? So they can torment us like this? I have no idea why they’re keeping us alive!”

  Mark didn’t know what to say, although, judging by the elaborate fence the creatures had constructed, his first impression was that they were treating these people like cattle. Maybe they were their stock of winter food, or if these creatures were intelligent enough, maybe the humans were being saved for some kind of primitive ritual or something.

  “I’m sorry,” Jack said, once he had calmed down a bit. “It’s just that—Christ, you can see we’re not doing very well. Tell me, how’s Mary doing? Do you think she ... you know?”

  “Who can say?” Mark replied, shrugging sympathetically. He directed his flashlight beam back at the entrance leading to the cave mouth. “I’m no doctor, but I do know we have to get the hell out of here.”