The Other World (Short Horror Stories)

Hell At High Altitude

To whoever may find this –

My recently deployed expedition into these vast mountains has been proven fruitless to say the least. In the past twenty-four hours I have witnessed events my mind cannot quite grasp. I feel my sanity melting away by the moment as this single red candle’s wax drips upon the cold floor of this dark grotto.

I have always been a wanderer; a lover of all things beyond my reach. Ever since I was a young boy residing in a small Pennsylvania town where the mountains stretched for miles outside the windows – the windows looking out upon a world where freedom truly existed – I had always taken a fond interest in what could only be called the Great Outdoors. I wanted to scale those snowy cliffs – reach the very top and watch the normal world below. I would be closer to the stars and the heavens than I could ever be. Those dreams stayed with me through my adolescence and only escalated as I grew into a young adult. Even after the untimely death of my father – a man who had stayed inside his whole life and eventually decided to venture onto those mountains in search for a missing couple, only to find death among the snow-capped peaks – my affinity for those very same frozen hills and natural skyscrapers remained unscathed. If anything, I had wanted to avenge the death of my father: battle those beautifully treacherous banks and cliffs with my own two hands and feet – and win the fight in a victory I’d take to my grave. Alas, these mountains have proven to be far too powerful an opponent for a man of my weakened and baffled condition. I fear I will take something to my grave – very imminently – but a victory it will not be.

My current whereabouts are unknown. My father’s old compass is gone now, lost somewhere among the ever-growing snowstorm raging on outside of this bitter cave in which I have unwittingly sought temporary refuge. Even when I had the compass in my possession, it was a useless tool, as useless as my withered hands that tremble as I try to write these passages in the dimming light of my remaining candle. Perhaps this monstrous altitude had been much too high for the usually-reliable compass. Or perhaps something even more menacing had befallen me: a curse. Hikers and mountain-climbers and folks who have traveled the very same twisting paths upon which I’ve traveled have told and retold superstitious tales of paranormal events occurring on these cliffs. Tales of murder and greed throughout the colonies of Native Americans of old. Those stories haunted my slumbering mind during many cold nights as a child, and now they are cutting at my aching muscles like ancient, blunt arrowheads being driven into my brain by the cold hand of some violent ghost unseen by living eyes.

Twelve years prior to this moment in time – or so I can only assume, although time at this juncture seems beyond my knowing – two local lovers named Francis and Ruth grew bored one frigid evening: bored with their tedious lives as average townsfolk, lusting for adventure – thirsty for the arctic taste of the unknown. The young hearts had made an unwise impromptu decision to wander off in the dead of night toward the grey-white mountains at the edge of civilization, telling only the barkeep at the town’s only tavern of their sudden plans to challenge God’s hills. The particular range chosen by the lovers had, according to legend, been home to ruthless Natives who fought for centuries to protect their land only to be forced amidst the stone-cold peaks for eternity. Vengeful spirits roamed those cliffs, but Francis and Ruth, intoxicated with whisky and an insatiable curiosity, ignored all stories and warnings and made their way to the top of the deadly mountains. Four days went by and the couple had not returned. Their families grew more and more concerned by the hour – until finally three fathers declared that they would form among themselves a search party and follow the footprints left behind by the wandering lovers leading up the winding trails of the accursed cliffs. My own father – a factory man all his life – stepped forward and opted to join the manmade search party to my mother’s chagrin. Perhaps he, like the missing couple, had been bored with his regular life. Or perhaps he felt the unyielding bite of responsibility, and chose not to ignore the firm grip of the beast’s sharp teeth. Nonetheless, he and the other three men packed their supplies – including, notably, the compass I had brought with me on my own doomed escapade – and followed the couple’s footprints up the winding trail of the mountainside.