Black Mountain

EIGHT

‘Will… Will!’

Big Will Jordan jerked upright as he heard his mother scream his name. All the Jordan brothers made it their duty to help their folks on weekends with the heavy chores now the pair were getting on. This Saturday it had been his turn. The old folks were as mellow as they came, but his mother’s tone now worried him. It spoke of shock, anxiety and not a little fear. Last time he’d heard her like that was when Hank got busted up in a car crash. He dropped the axe he was using, but hung onto a good-sized lump of splintered wood, and sprinted for the back door.

His father stood at the sunroom window, his back turned and a whisky in his hand. It was way too early for the old man to be drinking. Will’s mother paced back and forth. On seeing him, she wiped her hands on her dress, gripped his shoulders and looked up into his broad face.

‘That was the Asheville police. It’s Brad, he’s missing.’

‘What? But he’s —’

His mother didn’t let him finish. ‘They found Amanda; she’s hurt.’ Her lips trembled and the word hurt came out long and filled with anguish.

‘Have they —’

His father turned. ‘Nope; not even started looking yet.’

His father could do that: read his sons like an open book.

His mother wrung her hands some more. ‘He’s up on the mountain by himself… and I read about a lion escaping. I thought it was funny at the time.’ She crossed herself, as though asking forgiveness for a sin, and turned back to Will. ‘Leave it to them, they said, they’ll keep us informed.’ She shook her head. ‘Brad’s not as strong as you boys; he’s…’ She put her hand over her mouth.

Will felt a flash of anger at the police inactivity. He knew that Brad was their mother’s favourite — they used to rib him about it when they were young. Where he, Jackson and Hank were big blocky men of average intelligence, Brad was still big but finer-featured; more of a thinker, his mother used to say.

Will put his arm around his mother’s tiny shoulders, and felt her trembling. He asked as gently as he could, ‘Can’t Amanda tell them what happened?’

She shook her head jerkily. ‘She’s in Asheville hospital in a sort of coma — not unconscious, but she can’t talk. She was hurt, and I get the feeling they think Brad was somehow involved.’ She looked up at him. ‘They asked me has he ever hit her.’

‘That’s bullshit!’ Will’s roar made his mother put her hands to her head.

His father put his drink down. ‘Listen, boy, the weather’s turning bad and there’s a big animal on the loose up there. Young Brad, he’s not a mountain man… and the police are doing jack shit.’

The old man held Will’s eyes for a number of seconds. Will got the unspoken communication: you find him, bring him home. He nodded once to his father, then said over his shoulder as he stepped towards the back door, ‘Call Jackson and Hank, tell ’em I’m on my way to pick ’em up.’

Will Jordan stood by the open back door of the dark blue SUV and loaded the supplies his brothers had bought at the local store. Hank sat behind the wheel, eating cereal straight from the box, and Jackson was still inside settling the bill. Will paused and folded his huge arms as an Asheville police cruiser drove by, its single occupant slowing to eyeball him. He eyeballed the officer right back, daring the smaller man to stop and say something. His feelings about the Asheville PD were at about basement level right now, and after driving most of the night to get to the mountain his mood was as dark and dirty as a coalminer’s crusties.

The cruiser rolled on, disappearing around the corner, and Will turned to yell at the shop’s closed door.

He jammed his hands in his pockets to keep them warm. He knew he should check in on Amanda, but decided she could wait. The weather was getting colder, and she had a roof over her head… his youngest brother didn’t. Unfortunately, the Asheville police either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell Will where they were up to with their search for Brad. And Amanda was still in such a state of shock that she hadn’t said a word.

The shop door swung open and Jackson emerged. Will jerked a thumb to the back of the SUV.

‘Throw that in, and let’s go.’

Will Jordan climbed out of the SUV and walked a few paces towards the start of the Black Mountain’s trail. He stared up at the mist-shrouded peaks. The low cloud obscured the Dome, but he knew it lay many thousands of feet above where he and his brothers stood. A freezing wind stung his exposed jug ears. Will ignored its bite, as did his little brothers — if you could call men over six-two and weighing over 230 pounds each, little. Jackson and Hank were silent too, their heads turned towards the distant peak. They knew Amanda had been found on the eastern slope, and pretty high up.

The youngest, Hank, spoke first. ‘Gonna be cold up there.’

‘Yup, damned cold,’ Will answered without turning. ‘And maybe wet too, I reckon.’

Hank hitched his pants a little higher and made a tsking noise within his cheek. ‘A man exposed to those elements for a few days is gonna be in a world of hurt.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Will exhaled, and watched a small ghost of warm vapour drift away from his mouth. He knew his brothers weren’t looking forward to the trek. All three had been hiking and camping in the woods before, but never for longer than a day at these temperatures. But if any of them were lost, Will knew that Brad wouldn’t hesitate to hike into Hell to look for his brother — and neither would he.

Jackson gave his eldest brother a flat smile. ‘It’s okay for you, Frosty; you like being alone in the cold.’

Will just winked in reply. As far as he was concerned, the cold and the discomfort meant nothing. And Jackson was right — he didn’t mind being alone at all; he liked it. Fact was, he found people annoying, his family excepted. One day, he’d buy a place in some remote part of the country and live there all by himself.

He zipped up his heavyweight insulated jacket and lifted his pack. It clanked as the bear canisters inside knocked together, then crackled as the covering weather shield moulded to the shape of his broad back. He checked the matt black Browning Maxus shotgun, then, satisfied with the lethal-looking twelve-gauge autoloader, he lifted it over his shoulder and slid it down into a side slot in the pack.

Once his brothers had their own packs in place, they checked their firearms — both were carrying large-frame Smith & Wesson revolvers, just like their missing brother.

Will turned to his brothers, his face grim. ‘As long as it takes.’

Jackson and Hank nodded solemnly and repeated the vow. ‘As long as it takes.’

The three big men started off towards the ominous black peak.

Black Mountain, with its dense tree cover, was normally a quiet place at the best of times. But now, with winter coming on, even the wildlife seemed to have disappeared. Any sounds that did intrude on the graveyard-like silence were magnified, alerting potential hunters to an approaching or retreating quarry.

Will was first to detect the faint sounds of heavy movement from further up the slope. Something or someone was ghosting them, staying close but just out of sight.

They were about 5000 feet up, and he reckoned they still had a way to go to get to where Brad had likely hiked. As Will had expected, once off the formal path, the going had been slow and arduous. The morning’s clear sky had changed as the day had worn on. Now, in the evening twilight, the low cloud moved quickly overhead and the temperature had dropped from cold to bone chilling. Still, everything had been quiet and uneventful… until now.

Will put one gloved hand to his mouth and used his teeth to slowly pull on the fingers to remove the glove and let it fall to the cold ground. He held up his hand. His brothers instantly got the message, and pulled their own gloves off and lifted their handguns from their holsters.

Will lowered his hand to the shotgun, his fingers now sliding easily in against the cold trigger. He widened his stance and grounded his feet. The slope was rocky and steep, and the soil hard and unyielding underneath the layer of pine needles and frozen leaves. One loose step and a man could find himself a couple of hundred yards down the side of the mountain before he knew it. And now was not the time for those sorts of mistakes.

He quickly organised his brothers into a loose skirmish line, with Hank closest, at twenty feet out to his right, and Jackson another twenty further along than Hank. Each strained to watch the upper slopes while also trying to keep one eye on Will. Jackson walked ahead a couple of steps so he could see around the bulky shape of Hank’s enormous red and yellow checked parka.

Hank looked from the slope to Will, and then back. He breathed out a question, loud enough for Will to hear: ‘Could it be Brad?’

Will didn’t take his eyes off the hill, but his mouth turned down and he shook his head slowly. He took a step forward, cocked his head slightly and strained to hear — there was a faint sound, like a giant bellows working, just over the small ridge. He was conscious of his fingers starting to numb from the cold — he’d need to replace his glove soon, or when the time came to pull the trigger, he wouldn’t be able to.

There was a grinding, snapping sound from over the ridge, as if something was being ripped, bent or broken, followed by a thumping sound Will both heard and felt beneath his boots. From the end of the skirmish line, Jackson whispered loudly, ‘What the hell is that?’ and leaned forward to look at his brothers.

Will turned briefly to motion for Jackson to stay quiet. The snapping and grinding turned to a deeper bouncing thump. As Will’s eyes focused on Jackson at the far end of the line, Hank, in the middle, just… disappeared.

The man-sized boulder that had taken him out hurtled and bounced down the steep mountainside, Hank with it, breaking small trees and ricocheting off larger trunks and outcrops of exposed stone. It struck an enormous spruce a hundred yards further down, leaving Hank’s body a flattened riot of colour and fluids against the scarred bark. The echoes of the collision with the boulder died away.

‘Haaank!’ Will screamed.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Jackson moaned, holding both hands to his head.

‘Wha-what just happened?’ Will whipped his head back and forth. Confusion swirled in his mind like a fog.

‘Hank?’ Jackson started to walk stiffly down the slope, calling to his younger brother as though trying to rouse him from sleep. ‘Are you okay, Hank?’

Will gestured towards the mess against the tree trunk. ‘He’s not fucking okay, he’s —’

Another sound: stealthy but heavy. Will reacted quickly, spinning with his gun up. He flicked the weapon one way and then the next, trying to pinpoint the sound with the long barrel.

‘Show yourself!’ he shouted, and then a little quieter he said, ‘Where are you?’

His breathing came in rapid pants and his heart raced in his chest. He could still hear Jackson bleating Hank’s name over and over, and he turned to yell at him to shut up — just in time to see something collide with his brother, something colossal, covered in greasy, matted red fur. In the time it took Will to raise and aim his shotgun, Jackson was lifted and smashed into a tree trunk. There was a brittle snapping sound, which could have been the breaking of branches or the splintering of his brother’s bones beneath his thick jacket.

Will groaned, feeling his soul shrink. His whole body was suddenly as cold as the snow. He screamed Jackson’s name, then swore and fired his gun, but the distance was too far and the pellets lost much of their penetrative force. The enormous figure bent over Jackson simply turned its head to him in response.

Will froze at the sight of its face — a mask of pink boiled flesh, with features that were almost human, but grossly large and deformed. Its eyes pinned him to the spot — definitely not human, but intelligent… and cunning.

Jackson moaned and raised one feeble hand. The creature turned its attention back to him, lifted his broken body in both its hands and spun to whip it against the trunk with such force that something flew off the top of Jackson’s body. Will hoped it was his brother’s cap, even though he couldn’t fail to see the spray of red across the white ground.

Will charged with the shotgun raised. He fired, pumped and fired again. The creature made an unnerving whooping sound that was almost as loud as the blast of the gun. Will couldn’t tell if he’d hit the thing or not — I should have, he thought, I’m a fair shot and the distance isn’t so great. But the creature showed no sign of being injured or even discouraged by the tungsten-iron shot pellets that must have struck its huge frame.

In a flash, it was up the steep hill, much faster than Will could hope to follow. It disappeared over the ridge; Will could hear it moving at speed, presumably towards some form of cover.

He raced to Jackson, but all that remained was blood, a few fragments of ripped clothing and something that could have been hair-covered skull fragments. The body was gone.

Will screamed his brother’s name to the sky, then said it again, softly. He looked down the slope to the crumpled mess that was Hank. He felt freezing tears on his cheeks and opened his mouth, but couldn’t find the energy to scream again. He sank to his knees amid the ruination that was the last of his brothers. He was alone. Four had become one, and he felt the loss as keenly as if he had forfeited his limbs.

Snow started to float down, bringing a deeper silence with it. People said big Will Jordan always wanted to be alone. He’d finally got his wish.

Will regretted pursuing the creature further up the mountain. Though his desire for vengeance was strong, his body was exhausted, as was his ammunition, and he wasn’t sure he’d even hit the thing. He could hear the crush of its heavy footsteps as it circled him in the twilight shadows. It was as if it wanted him to hear, was playing with him, always staying just out of sight, just out of range.

Will drew his handgun and tried to sight along its shaking barrel. His fatigue pulled heavily at him as he tried to hold it steady. He knew he needed the creature to come a helluva lot closer to have any chance of hitting it. Things have gone to shit, he thought. And I goddamn walked them all into that shit.

He looked down the slope; he needed to get away from here. Even though his anger still burned hotly, reason told him that out here by himself he’d soon die. He needed to come back with a bigger gun, a lot more shooters… maybe some dynamite.

He took a step back, and then another. The wind had come up; it wailed softly through the tops of the trees, sounding sad. That was appropriate. Will’s cheeks stung where the tears for his lost brothers had dried; the ice crystals left there burned his skin raw. He took another step back, and looked slowly from the upper slope down the steep incline, judging where to place his feet when he broke into a run.

Time was against him. In another hour it would be pitch dark, and then… He didn’t want to think about being on this mountain in the dark.

The crunch of heavy footsteps came again, and the coarse sound of a giant pair of bellows being worked — in front of him, then beside him, then to the left, then right. Perhaps it’s just the wind in the trees, he thought without conviction. He looked down the slope again, fear creating an urgency in him.

Will slid the backpack off his shoulders. He wouldn’t need its contents; wouldn’t need any of the survival gear he’d packed — there was no way he’d survive a night here now. He sucked in a huge lungful of breath, and tensed his muscles, ready to leap. He stole one last look up the slope — and exhaled as if he’d been punched in the gut.

It was Hank… about fifty feet up, leaning against a tree. His body was slumped against it and he looked hurt, but it was him for sure — his red and yellow checked parka was unmistakable. Maybe it had been his brother moving around all this time, hurt and confused. Inside, Will knew it wasn’t possible; he’d seen Hank’s body smashed against the trunk of the tree. There was no way he could have survived that. But still…

‘Hank!’ Will slogged ten feet up the slope towards him.

He wasn’t moving, just sort of leaning, propped against the side of the tree. Will looked around. Silence. Even the wind seemed to be holding its breath, waiting.

He climbed another twenty feet. Damn this darkness, damn the cold, and damn dropping my pack — he couldn’t see properly and wished he’d at least kept his flashlight.

He climbed another ten feet.

‘Oh, God, no… Hank.’

He made a gagging sound in the back of his throat, and his teeth bared in a disgusted grimace. He didn’t need to go any further. The placement of the body and the bulky material had been deceiving. Closer, and from a different angle, he could see Hank’s crushed and flattened frame, the broken skull that had been roughly stuffed back inside the jacket’s hood. Will knew what this was — a decoy. The same strategy duck hunters and deer stalkers used to draw lone animals in.

He felt fresh tears burning his cheeks as a soft, crunching footstep sounded behind him.

‘Bastard!’

He spun, raising his weapon at the same time, but he never got to fire. The booming whoop froze his fingers on the trigger and he was lifted roughly into the air.

Will Jordan joined his brothers.