Terror Mountain

  TERROR MOUNTAIN

  GERRY GRIFFITHS

  www.severedpress.com

  Copyright 2018 by Gerry Griffiths

  DEDICATION

  For my brother, Steve

  A mountain man in his own rights

  1

  When Ray Pike got the call from Josie Mills that her husband, Lewis, had gone after a large predator that had broken into their stockade and slaughtered some of their goats, Ray didn’t even hesitate. He grabbed his keys off the peg by the front door and shambled out to his truck as fast as he could.

  At 67, and with arthritic hips, Ray hoped to spot his friend from the road, as he wasn’t in any condition to go traipsing through the woods. Maybe Lewis could flush the murderous heathen his way and Ray could pick it off from his truck.

  He sped down the rural road; the worn tires on his old Dodge pickup kicking up dirt and gravel under the chassis. Driving with one hand on the big steering wheel, he reached up to the gun rack hanging across the rear window of the cab, grabbed his varmint rifle, and laid the weapon on the bench seat.

  He’d been in such a hurry to rush out the door and come to the aid of his friend that he hadn’t thought to grab an extra box of .308-caliber shells from the dresser by the front door.

  Keeping his eyes on the road, he leaned over and dropped the door on the glove compartment, hoping to spot an ammo box inside, but there was nothing but the truck registration and some tattered maps.

  He ejected the four-round clip while he drove and was relieved to see that the magazine was full, knowing he would have been as worthless as a wooden nickel showing up with a gun without any bullets.

  He saw Josie standing on the side of the road at the end of the Mills’ driveway. She was holding a single-barrel shotgun. When Ray took his foot off the accelerator to slow down, she pointed firmly down the road, and yelled for him to keep going. He could see that she was mad, as she prized her livestock, but at the same time he swore he saw a look of fear in her eyes.

  Josie Mills was a strong woman, a hard-working farmer’s wife, and had performed every husbandry chore imaginable from assisting duress animals giving birth to having to make the tough decision when an aging animal could no longer get up on its own and was in too much pain.

  Ray knew whatever Josie had seen, it had to have been terrible.

  He waved and kept going, following the windy road through the mountainous forest.

  He cranked his window down. He couldn’t hear anything, but the sound of the laboring engine so he slowed down and stopped. “Lewis!” he yelled. “Can you hear me?” he continued to shout.

  “Over here!” a voice answered not too far off.

  Ray gazed through the dense trees and saw a swath of orange. Lewis must have slipped on his hunting vest when he’d grabbed his gun so he could be easily spotted in the woods. He’d known Ray would come a running—which was now only a figure of speech—when Josie called and said they were in trouble.

  But then Ray had second thoughts, and instead of remaining in the truck, he figured he’d be more useful going out to meet Lewis, bad hips or not. He reached inside his shirt pocket and grabbed the tiny packet of aspirins. He ripped off the corner, shook the tablets into his mouth, and crunched them up.

  Whenever his joints would flare up, he’d pop some aspirins, and always carried a packet or two with him at all times. It generally helped to dull the pain. Lately his gut had become a bubbling lava pit from all the aspirins he’d been taking. It had gotten so bad some mornings, he was spitting up blood in the sink.

  He opened the truck door, grabbed his rifle, and scooted down off the seat. He felt a sharp twinge of pain in both hips the second his boots hit the ground. He took a deep breath and shut the door.

  He’d parked near the edge of the road, which dropped off about five hundred feet down into the gorge where the Diamondback River flowed between its rocky banks like a sidewinder traveling down through the mountainous terrain.

  Walking with noticeable limps, he headed into the trees where he soon found Lewis waiting anxiously. “I think it went this way. The ground’s so hard, I can’t say for sure.”

  “Any idea what it is?” Ray asked, pulling back the bolt on his rifle, and sliding a cartridge into the chamber.

  “My guess, it’s a wolf—and it’s a big one. Bloodthirsty bastard ripped our goats to shreds. Looked like they’d been run over by a harvester and churned up in the blades. Never seen Josie so upset.”

  “Did you call Avery?” Ray asked, thinking they could use the sheriff’s help.

  “Not until I know what we’re dealing with,” Lewis said. He was five years younger than Ray with the same sinewy build, but unlike Ray, Lewis had the energy and endurance of a man ten years his junior. He’d brought his .12 gauge Browning pump.

  “Which way do you think it went?” Ray asked, squinting up at the trees stretching up into the forest.

  “Probably hightailed it up the mountain,” Lewis replied.

  The two men stood quietly and listened for a moment. Ray gazed up, drawn by melodious sparrows perched in a Douglas fir.

  Then abruptly, the birds stopped singing.

  A twig snapped behind a nearby covert of high brush.

  Ray and Lewis turned in the direction of the sound.

  “Shit, Ray,” Lewis said, giving his friend a worried look. “Damn thing doubled back.”

  “Ah hell,” Ray yelled as something huge charged out of the thicket. The blinding fury roared and cuffed Ray alongside the head. Sharp nails raked the right side of his face like a hot knife cutting through a soft stick of butter. Blood gushed into his eyes and down his neck. A powerful blow drove into his sternum and sent him sprawling on his back in the pine needle covered dirt.

  Ray could feel the ground tremble. He gazed up through the crimson veil and saw a massive foot come down and stave in his ribcage.

  “Son of a bitch!” Lewis hollered and fired his shotgun.

  The retort was so loud Ray flinched. He felt like he’d been knocked down and run over by a bull.

  There weren’t enough aspirins in the world to make this pain go away.

  Ray attempted to raise his right hand to wipe the blood out of his face but the second he moved his arm, a sharp pain shot up his forearm and into his elbow.

  Lewis must have scared the animal off because he was pulling Ray up off the ground.

  Ray let out a pitiful moan when Lewis tried to raise his injured arm.

  “Sorry, Ray.” Lewis switched around to the other side and lifted Ray’s left arm up so that he could drape it over his shoulder, grabbing onto Ray’s left wrist.

  “What the hell was that thing?” Ray groaned. Before Lewis could answer, they’d taken a step and Ray screamed with pain.

  “I know you’re hurting but we’ve got to get to the truck,” Lewis said.

  Ray whimpered with each hobbling step.

  “Hang in there, Ray.”

  “I can’t...just leave me,” Ray moaned, unable to endure the pain, knowing that any second he was going to black out.

  “Just a little bit farther,” Lewis coaxed. “We’re almost there.”

  Ray couldn’t even move his legs and Lewis had to drag him but it didn’t matter because by then they had reached the back of the pickup. Lewis managed to unhook the tailgate and drop it down. He had to shove an old tire and some remnants of firewood out of the way. He grabbed Ray around the chest and hefted him up onto the metal bed.

  “Don’t you worry, Ray.”

  Ray could hear Lewis’ footsteps as he ran up to the driver side and opened the door. Lewis started the engine and turned the truck around.

  As the vehicle gradually picked up speed, the stiff ride in the back became bumpier and each jarring sh
ock made Ray cry out. He grabbed the railing of the truck bed and tried to sit up to tell Lewis to slow down. He raised his head and saw the huge beast in pursuit. He fell back just as the enormous creature vaulted up into the back of the truck.

  “Oh, God...” Ray screamed.

  He wailed as the thing ripped into him.

  His world suddenly became a kilter when the truck spun off the road and flipped over on its side, tossing Ray out into the great beyond. The truck rolled over his mutilated body and continued to tumble all the way like a pinecone plunging down the precipice, crashing on the boulders at the bottom of the deep ravine.

  The creature stood on the edge of the road. It took a moment and stared at the twisted wreckage down below then stepped back and stomped off into the forest.

  After a moment of dead silence, the song sparrows began singing again.

  2

  Marcus Pike drove his 1990 Ford F-150 up the dirt strip and stopped the truck a few feet away from the porch steps of the farmhouse and shut off the engine.

  “Well, what do you think?” he asked Libby, sitting stoically on the passenger side. He could tell by her expression his wife wasn’t duly impressed.

  He couldn’t really blame her.

  The place was rundown in need of repairs and looked abandoned like it hadn’t been occupied for years instead of only being vacated for a three-month period since his grandfather’s tragic accident.

  A rotted board on the second step of the riser leading up to the porch was cracked in half in the middle and had probably snapped under someone’s weight. A post was missing leaving a gap in the porch railing. The siding on the front of the structure was gray and weathered and needed to be painted. Sections of the wood shake roof were missing shingles. A deflated tire on a rusted rim and a wheelbarrow missing a handle were heaped with some other junk visible in a tall clump of weeds by the trees.

  Shortly after attending his grandfather’s closed-casket funeral—at the strong advice of the mortician—Marcus received a call from a trust attorney that there was a last will and testament and that Ray Pike had left his estate to his last immediate living relative, his grandson, Marcus, as Marcus’ parents had both died in a traffic accident five years ago.

  There had been just enough money in the old man’s savings account to take care of his funeral arrangements but he had thought enough of his grandson to leave him the farm on the three-acre parcel.

  “We moved out of our apartment for this?” Libby frowned, shaking her head.

  “Don’t be so quick to judge. I know it needs work but it’s ours,” Marcus said.

  “This place looks yucky,” seven-year-old Kaylee griped from the jump seat in the extended cab.

  “Right now it does,” Marcus said, “but we’ll fix it up.”

  “I want to go home,” Kaylee said.

  “This is our home.” Marcus turned around in his seat and smiled at his daughter. “Remember the story I used to read to you when you were little; the one about the snail that had to crawl all the way across the backyard so it could be with its family?” referring to a popup book he used to read to her before bedtime.

  “Because the boy raked him up and dumped him in a pile of leaves.”

  “That’s the one. And how it took the snail so long to get across the yard. What did you learn from that story?”

  “That snails are slow?”

  “No, Kaylee. Patience. The snail knew if it persisted, no matter how long it took, it would eventually reach its family.”

  “What your father is trying to say,” Libby interceded, “is that things take time and little by little before you know it, we could make this place look like home.”

  “Really?” Marcus gave Libby a dubious look. By her immediate reaction when seeing the farmhouse for the first time he had suspected she would continue to resist their move to the country.

  “Well, we’re here now,” Libby said resignedly, nodding over her shoulder at all their luggage and belongings piled up to the ceiling inside the camper shell.

  “Okay, then.” Marcus clapped his hands and rubbed his palms together. “Let’s take the grand tour!”

  They got out of the truck and stretched. The six-hour drive from the city had been long and tedious, even though they had taken the opportunity to refuel on the way and pulled off a couple times for potty breaks at the roadside rest stops.

  Marcus glanced around the property.

  A split rail fence had collapsed that edged alongside the barn several yards away from the rear of the farmhouse. Nearby was a dilapidated chicken coop constructed with a hob nosh of different building materials: interior doors and sheets of plywood and various-colored fiberglass typically used for patio covers. The poorly built enclosure was fenced in with an assortment of remnant poultry netting that looked like discarded end pieces. It was evident that his grandfather saw more importance in functionality then esthetics.

  A section of a small pen where Marcus remembered his grandfather kept a handful of goats and sheep was leaning at an extreme angle and on the verge of toppling over.

  Marcus had never thought of his grandfather as being a lazy man. There were times as a kid whenever he visited, the two of them would go on long walks in the woods or hike down steep trails to the river and fish. Back then, everything had been well kept up and there had been plenty of farm animals.

  It saddened Marcus to see the place in such disrepair. He figured the farm had become too much for his grandfather to maintain as he got older and the place slowly declined. Marcus felt bad that he had not kept in touch with his grandfather in the past ten years. He knew his grandfather was too proud to ask for help. Marcus wondered if he would have dropped everything if he had called. Or would he have found an excuse not to come, as he was too busy with his own life being married and raising Kaylee?

  “Marcus, do you have the key?” Libby and Kaylee were already on the porch, cupping their hands over their brows and staring through the windows to see inside. He’d been so distracted he hadn’t noticed they’d gone up on the porch.

  When he came over, he noticed that Libby had proactively taken a short plank from a strewn pile of wooden posts and boards by the lattice skirting around the base of the porch and placed it across the broken step.

  Marcus climbed up the steps. He reached inside his jean pocket and dug out the small set of keys that had been given to him by the attorney. He chose a key that looked like a match for the front door but when he went to insert it into the lock, he found that the door hadn’t been locked, as it slowly swung inward as soon as he touched the knob.

  “You don’t think someone broke in?” was Libby’s first suspicion.

  “Maybe it was never locked. I doubt neighbors out here worry much about crime like they do in the city.”

  “Even so, you don’t want people just walking in.”

  “Okay. Let me go in first and take a look. If everything looks normal, I’ll call you both in.” Marcus glanced down and saw the worried look on Kaylee’s face as she stared up at him. He gave her a reassuring smile and winked, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  It was plain to see that his grandfather hadn’t been much of a housekeeper by all the clutter and mess in the front room. Even though it was sunny outside, the interior of the farmhouse was gloomy and didn’t reflect much light as the walls were covered with dark brown panels. It was like stepping into a cave.

  A dresser that should have been in a bedroom was next to the door. Marcus saw a drawer that had been pulled out and not pushed back in. Inside were packages of fishhooks and red-white bobbers.

  A fly rod and half a dozen fishing poles were leaning against the piece of furniture. Marcus recognized one of the fishing poles he had used as a kid. Seeing it still there made him sad that he hadn’t spent more time with his grandfather.

  A worn checkered plaid armchair and a matching tattered couch faced the stone hearth. The coffee table in front of the settee had a broken leg; most likely from all t
he fishing and outdoors magazines piled on the tabletop. He looked down at the hardwood floor. The surface was scuffed and there were places where the planks had warped from the damp and lifted up.

  He did a quick walkthrough and checked the kitchen facing the rear yard then went into both bedrooms downstairs, but didn’t find anything that would suggest that anyone had come in to rob the place. He went up the narrow staircase that led to the landing of the loft. Again, there were no signs of intruders.

  Marcus came back down and walked over to the front door and opened it all the way. “It’s okay to come in.”

  Libby held Kaylee’s hand and they came inside. Libby took a moment and gazed about the room. “This is a little rough.”

  “Nothing a little TLC won’t cure,” Marcus said, trying to liven the mood.

  “It’s like a tomb in here.”

  “Definitely need to repaint these walls. What do you think? Some cleanup, furniture covers, I could sand and refinish the floor? Might look pretty nice.”

  “I don’t know, Marcus. This looks like a lot of work.”

  “And when have you been afraid of rolling up your sleeves?”

  “It’s just...”

  “Mommy, can we go see the barn?” Kaylee asked.

  “Sure, let’s go check out the barn,” Marcus said thankful for the diversion and grabbed his daughter’s hand.

  “You guys go ahead,” Libby said. “I need a few minutes.”

  “Careful,” Marcus hollered after Kaylee as she ran ahead and rushed down the rickety porch steps.

  Marcus followed Kaylee around the edge of the farmhouse and caught up to her before she could dash through the open doorway of the barn. “Wait up, you don’t want to run in there and step on something sharp.”

  “I’ve never been in a barn before,” Kaylee said excitedly.

  Like the farmhouse, the barn needed a lot of work. One of the large doors in the front had broken off the hinges and was lying on the ground.

  “Ooh, what’s that smell?” Kaylee said, pinching her nose.