Red Mountain

by Dennis Yates

  Red Mountain

  Dennis Yates

  Robert Crain's perfect life is being torn apart... While recuperating at home from a car accident, men in ski masks break into his house and render him unconscious. When he awakens the next morning he is confronted by a nightmarish truth -- that his wife and son are gone.

  But it doesn't take long before he learns he's not dealing with ordinary kidnappers. They aren't interested in ransom money. No, what they want is unthinkable -- to see Robert fight other strangers to the death... And if he refuses, he will never see his family again.

  Accompanied by his loyal German shepherd, Robert descends into the darkest journey of his life, awaiting the kidnapper's next dreaded appointment -- and coming out of it alive. Joined later by his best friend Will, he will stop at nothing to rescue his wife and son who are being held by a haunted psychopath.

  Robert has always had questions about his family's past. About a mysterious oblong box he discovered in his grandmother's attic and his grandfather's deep fear of what lurked within a mountain glacier. Beginning with a ghost that stalked him in the forest while his was a boy to a violent trip he and Will survived in Mexico, Robert has always believed that some force from the distant past would one day come for him.

  Heart-pounding and unpredictable, RED MOUNTAIN is a journey between the past and present, and what happens when the two collide.

  Red Mountain

  For Pamela

  CHAPTER 1

  The room tilted back and forth, as if he were in the damaged hull of a ship taking on black seawater. Robert swayed in and out of consciousness as his body drifted into shock.

  He dropped his head to the side and stared beneath the family room couch. At the moment it felt as if his whole life was summarized in the objects collected there since the last time they’d moved furniture—a world of lost or forgotten things, pushed beyond the reach of any halfhearted search of the hand. Among the dust bunnies Robert could make out the contours of Connor’s old baseball mitt, some rubber dinosaurs and pieces of ancient Halloween candy. There were also Peggy’s Christmas catalogues, Nugget’s old dog brush and a chewed leather slipper that had gone missing over a year ago.

  Men he didn’t know where ransacking his house. He heard their heavy footfalls thundering up and down the hall, dresser drawers being thrown open and the squeal of rarely used closet doors he’d always meant to oil. He turned his head back to the thing pinning him to the floor and forced his eyes to refocus.

  A dark figure towered above, pressing a boot into his sternum. Robert had attempted to squirm out from under it, but he was too weak now to try again. It hurt too much to breathe. He squinted up at the eye-slits of a ski mask.

  “My family... What have you done to my family?”

  Thin lips protruded from the mask’s mouth hole in a twisted smile. The boot punched down hard and knocked the remaining air from his lungs, causing another wave of pain to rip across his body.

  “He’s coming out of it!” shouted the mask.

  “Take whatever you want,” Robert begged, his voice sounding thin and bronchial. He’d heard something pop in his chest. A wet and bloody sound. “But please don’t hurt them.”

  The mask burst with laughter, the kind of laugh Robert associated with men who smoked and drank a lot.

  “If you want money, I can take you to the bank first thing tomorrow. There’s not much there, but it’s something. We can do this the easy way. Nobody has to get hurt.”

  “Shut up,” ordered the mask.

  Robert’s strength was gone. He was at their mercy and they knew it. All he could do now was hope his family would survive.

  If it hadn’t been for the car accident, things might have turned out differently. Nugget would have been home to warn him of the home invasion and he would have had a fighting chance. But Nugget was spending the night at the vet’s. She’d been riding in the car too and had hit her head on the dash. Robert, who’d been taking painkillers for his hurt shoulder, had fallen asleep on the couch while watching television. The fifty-two inch television he’d bought at an Independence Day sale last year was now a burst eye of broken glass. Acrid smoke curled out of the blackened socket and hung near the ceiling where it left a charred mark. Robert had thrown one of his attackers into it.

  He thought about Peggy’s and Connor’s screams coming from the back bedrooms, of how a primal lightning deep inside him had flashed through his arms and legs. He’d punched and kicked and broken bones. But there were just too many of them, and when they’d finally managed to pin him to the floor and beat him senseless he’d held onto the location of his family’s cries as long as he could…

  He closed his eyes and strained to listen. He could no longer hear any signs of his wife and child in the house. Had they killed them? The thought tore at his insides. He had no idea how long he’d passed out. Except that when he came to again, the house felt empty. His family was gone... They’d either killed them or taken them away somewhere. When he opened his eyes again an indifferent moonlight was shining through the slider door.

  “What have you done?” Robert asked again. There were two of them now, grinning through mouth slits.

  The one not standing on his chest bent down next to him and took his arm. He heard the snap of surgical tubing and suddenly his bicep went numb. When he lifted his head he saw a needle sinking into his flesh. There was a brilliant burst of light throughout his body, followed by the sensation of sinking to the bottom of a very warm sea.

  All pain was washed away like a bad tide. He’d been fighting back all this time and now his will was no longer his…

  While he glided down into darkness, Robert heard the dope shooter’s silky voice echoing to him from somewhere above.

  “We will soon be contacting you with instructions, Mr. Crain. And please, don’t call the police. It will only make things very messy.”

  Even as terrible as it sounded, those words were like a heavy treasure that pulled him down faster. In the final moments before he was engulfed by oblivion, Robert was certain his family was still be alive.

  CHAPTER 2

  Robert awoke with the sun beating on his face through the slider. He ached all over, had no immediate memory of the night before. He thought maybe he’d passed out on the couch and rolled onto the floor in his sleep. When he sat up he saw the overturned shelves and broken furniture. He brushed his cheek and bits of ground glass and dried blood came off on his hand. His head lobbed back and forth, swollen and bruised.

  What the hell happened? Did I sleep through an earthquake?

  “Peggy!” he called out in panic. He grabbed the edge of an overturned couch and pulled himself up. His legs were shaky, and the carpet sucked at his feet like wet sand. He wondered if the pain pills he’d taken were kicking his ass. But that can’t be possible. They’d have worn off by now...

  He hobbled through the house, staring at the damage, feeling as if he was in one of those nightmares that you can’t seem to wake from.

  “Peggy!”

  He checked their bedroom, but there was no sign of her. Clothes and papers and broken glass littered the floor. If Peggy had left a message, he was unable to find it.

  What the hell has happened to everyone?

  By the time Robert reached Connor’s room, the floodgates had broken inside. Memories from the night before suddenly flowed through his head, blood-washed images of grinning ski masks and hypodermic needles.

  Robert fell onto his son’s bed and cried. He remembered Peggy and Connor screaming for help. But he’d been too busy fighting off attackers of his own. And now his family was gone…

  I didn’t protect you. I did everything I could but I still failed.

  He buried his face into his son’s pillow. His nose was
clogged with dried blood and he could barely smell the sweet scent of his son’s hair, the baby shampoo and the pine trees he loved to climb in their backyard.

  We were supposed to go to a movie today. Just you and me buddy. While mom went to lunch with some old friends…

  A phone rang down the hall. After a few moments Roberts sat up, remembering there was something important he had to do. He ran down the hall as fast as he could, stumbling into walls and tripping over a pile of coats still on their hangers.

  He closed his eyes and picked up the phone, concentrating as hard as he could to remain focused. He leaned against the wall to stop his head from spinning.

  A television blared in the background, a football game maybe... Then the voice of a man Robert didn’t recognize.

  “Sleep well, partner?”

  “Where are they?” Robert said. He tried picturing what the person on the other end looked like. The voice was casual, edged with glee.

  “Of course I can’t tell you where they are. But they are safe Mr. Crain. You really do have an attractive family by the way.”

  “Listen to me, you son of a bitch. You touch them and I’m going to find you and I’m going to make you pay with your fucking life.”

  The man laughed easily, as if he and Robert were sitting at a bar trading dirty jokes. Robert imagined a sun-damaged face, a dark polyester blend suit and rotting cowboy boots. A cheap cigar smoldering in an ashtray.

  “Sorry Robert, I didn’t mean no harm by it. I was just making a friendly observation. I completely understand how you might feel. And I won’t be taking any points away just because you might talk a little rough. A man in your position can’t always be expected to keep a cool head.”

  “What is it you want?”

  “I want you to listen to my instructions.”

  Robert slid down the wall to the floor, head pounding as he fought off the dope still coursing through his veins. He wanted to hurt this stranger who’d stolen his family from him, draw it out until the man was incapable of ever having another humorous thought before he did him the favor of sending him to hell…

  “You need to prove to me they’re still alive.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Central Oregon – 1880

  Wind howls across the high desert plain. It has just rained and the sharp tang of juniper dominates the cool night air. A torso of dark clouds and lightning continues to thrash along the far slopes of Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Hood. Arms thick with rain stretch eastward, brandishing ocher fists high above a badly weathered farmhouse where a group of three men and a boy prepare to carry out an execution.

  Standing below a large tree with his arms tied behind him is the owner of the farmhouse, Jared Horn. He’s a tall man, with piercing green eyes and long white beard. Blood seeps from a gunshot wound to his right armpit, soaking the sleeve of his gingham shirt. He is remarkably calm for a man about to die.

  Two of his executioners, Arvin and Palmer, carefully fix a noose around Jared’s neck. A large man named Hemmel shoves more firewood below Horn’s feet, and the small jostling causes the rough hemp rope to tighten. Horn only smiles when the ring around his throat starts to burn. He turns his head to see a young redheaded boy named Stu walk out of the front door of his home carrying a leather sack stuffed with valuables. The bag is too heavy for the boy, and he soon lets it scrape against the ground. Stu meets Horn’s eye only briefly, before turning his attention to the task of strapping the load to his horse.

  The men finish their work and back away from Horn quietly. Stu joins them as soon as he’s done. He cups his hand, puts a match to a cigarette and coughs.

  “Be careful boy, those things will stunt your growth,” says Arvin, grinning.

  Stu takes another drag to show he can take it, but a coughing fit causes him to double over. He drops the cigarette on the ground and puts it out with his toe. When he looks up, his eyes are watering and the others are all chuckling softly.

  “Jump in a lake, fellas. I bet you all puked after your first smoke.”

  “You got yourself an iron stomach, boy? I guess we’ll just have to see about that,” says Palmer.

  “He’s just like his daddy was,” says Arvin. “Always trying to show he’s tougher than an oak shithouse.”

  Palmer produces a bottle of whiskey to pass around in the lantern light. Their eyes are already bloodshot from too much of it, but they pass it around anyway. They’ve spent the entire day getting shit faced, so there’s no sense in tapering off now, especially now.

  Raised several feet above them on a pile of split firewood, Horn stares down at the men, smiling.

  “What are you so happy about, Jared?” says Palmer. “This time you’re finally going to get what you deserve.”

  Jared laughs, spits a bloody wad at their feet. “Looks like the whiskey must have given the so-called vigilantes some courage. But you still look like a bunch of cowards from up here.”

  Stu finishes a hearty slug and passes the bottle to Hemmel. The boy pie-eyed and his speech is slurred. “Just watch us you son-of-a-bitch. We’re gonna do you like a murderer and a witch.”

  “No, you’re the murderers, lad. This ain’t no court of law.”

  “It’s good enough for us,” shouts Palmer.

  Hemmel picks up a rock and throws it at Horn. It strikes him in the temple, causing a thick flow of blood to run down the side of his face. “We’re sending you back to hell where you belong,” Hemmel says in a thick German accent, “And we’re taking what you owe us for the trouble of doing it.”

  “Wherever I go, I’ll certainly have you devils as my company. And that’s a promise boys.”

  Palmer removes a matchstick from his teeth and takes a wobbly step closer toward Horn. “And we promise to kill the rest of your kin if we ever find them.”

  Horn shrugs his shoulders “Do what you must, but when I see you again, you’ll sooner be hung by the neck twenty times than suffer what I shall bring upon you.”

  “I’ve heard enough,” says Arvin. “What the hell are we waiting for? We’ve still got a long ride home tonight and I’m afraid it won’t be a dry one.”

  Palmer picks up one of the kerosene lamps and throws it at Horn. The lamp bursts into flames and sets the pile of wood on fire. Jared screams and tries to kick away the burning wood, but every movement he makes causes the rope around his neck to choke him more.

  Stu picks out a flaming chunk of firewood and tosses it through the open door of the farmhouse. Flames soon erupt inside, followed by the sounds of exploding glass.

  “Goodbye, Jared Horn,” says Hemmel. He leans forward and spits on the ground.

  Thunder crackles above them, and when they look up they see an enormous blue-black cloud hovering in the sky above. Rain first patters gently against their hats and leather jackets, then swiftly builds intensity. Hissing tendrils of steam wind upwards as Horn’s body spasms above a glowing mound of coals. Flames lick up the rope attached to his neck toward the gnarled limb above.

  Stu is on his hands and knees vomiting up what little food he’s eaten today. The smell of Horn’s burning flesh has made his stomach lurch. It wasn’t as if he’d never smelled burning meat before, he keeps reminding himself. When he was eight he and his uncle were forced to put down several rabid horses and cows. They’d had no choice but to shoot them all in the head, roll them into a pit, and set them on fire.

  But this was different. More foul than Stu could ever imagine. The smoke had worked its way up his nostrils like a severed pair of dead man’s fingers and slid down his throat and knotted in his gullet.

  Arvin pats Stu on the back and offers a hand to help him up. The boy can’t take his eyes off the figure wheezing with fire. One of Horn’s hands remained raised and his blackened index finger has curled as if he were beckoning Stu to come closer. The boy watches, trembling.

  Arvin puts his arm around his nephew and turns him gently around. “He’s dead, boy. He ain’t ever coming back to cause us harm.”

  T
he ranchers walk back to their horses as the rain turns to hail stone. They mount their horses and stare soberly at the body of Horn one last time before riding off into the darkness.

  CHAPTER 4

  Robert drove to the vet’s to pick up Nugget. Dr. Jordan had told him over the phone that his dog was doing much better.

  “I thought she might have had a concussion,” he’d said, “But she appears to have made a full recovery. To be honest, I’m kind of surprised.”

  “She’s a tough customer,” Robert replied.

  Nugget also had strong family instincts. Back when Connor was learning to ride his bike a teenager on a skateboard had bumped into him accidentally and sent him shooting out into traffic. Peggy and Robert were too far away to do anything about the oncoming truck, but Nugget took charge and put herself in front of the vehicle. Luckily the driver saw her and screeched to a halt. Nugget hadn’t flinched—just bared her teeth and growled at the surprised driver until Connor was safely out of harm’s way.

  Robert took some aspirin and washed them down with the last of his bottled water. God was he thirsty. He’d already guzzled two liter-sized bottles and needed to stop for more. Although he didn’t feel hungry, he knew he should eat. He was going to need the energy. His family was still alive. One way or another, he was going to bring them home.

  The man who called him this morning had handed Peggy the phone to prove to Robert that she was still alive. Her spirit hadn’t been shattered, but he’d sensed right away that she was worried about Connor. He’d had a flash-vision of himself waiting in a teller line at a bank. An icy sweat was trickling down his back. In his hand was a note demanding money. And tucked in his waist band was a gun…

  “I promise you I’m going to get you out of this no matter what it takes. How’s Connor holding up?”