Hell Mountain

By Jack Fortune

A tunnel under the mountain. Pure black. Eyes open-closed the same. No sound only you. Your breathing. Your sobs. Scream? No-one to hear. Crawl into the dark. Sheathed in rock. Buried alive under the mountain. Give up? Sleep? Sink into the abyss? They are waiting for you.Suck your eyeballs. Chew your flesh. Lick your blood. So go on.What drives you? What will save you? Fear? Hope? Faith?
Ellen, a sophomore on a ski trip, disappears in an avalanche. Was she suffocated by the snow? Murdered by a ski patrol? Abducted by the Lord of the Mountain? The frantic search for Ellen is led by a born-again police captain, an obsessive ski-patrol director and Mark, a handsome paraglider, whose dark secrets are entwined with hers. As the search intensifies, Ellen goes deep into the darkness, where she faces nightmares, ghosts and demons from her past. They test her faith, hope and courage to the limit. And beyond.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jack Fortune
• Release date: Feb 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310515583

Jack Fortune

When not in Los Angeles, Jack Fortune is in Britain or Greece, or more likely on a bus going somewhere interesting in the world. His new millenium resolution, which he has stuck to, was never to fly over anywhere he hasn’t seen on the ground. Hell Mountain is his first suspense story.Q: “What is the inspiration for the story?”A: “I love mountains. I am afraid of heights, caves and the dark. It seemed like a good combination for a story about evil, hope and faith.”Q: “Does your book have a message you would likek your readers to take away?”A: “Whatever life throws at you, hope and faith will save you.”Q: “When did you decide to become a writer?”A: “I don’t think I ever decided to write. It’s a gift, a compulsion - sometimes a curse. I can’t help it. I’ve been making up stories ever since I can remember.”

Book preview

Hell

Mountain

Jack Fortune

Copyright 2016 Jack Fortune

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-3105155-8-3

This book is also available in print

ISBN: 978-0-9557569-6-2

www.hellmountain.xyz

CONTENTS

In The Dark

First Day

First Evening

Second Day

Second Evening

Third Day

Third Evening

Fourth Day

Flashback

Fourth Day Continued

Fifth Day

About the Author

Contact

In The Dark

They wait for you in the dark. They grab your arms and legs. Stop your mouth with fleshy lips and fill it with slimy spittle. Leave you one nostril to suck in their stinking breath. Crowd round for the feast, jostling to the front for a taste. Tease the skin off your face in shreds with bony thumbs and forefingers. Pull the hair off your head, scalp and all, and lick the bare bone skull. Prize open your eyelids to lick the insides. Suck your eyeballs, harder and harder, working them loose from the sockets. Tear out your fingernails with their teeth and chew them. With claws and nails and teeth carve and tear and peel your flesh. Blood spurts from your arteries and drips from your veins. They gnaw your nipples, force fingers inside you, pull out your intestines, admiring each little piece before tearing off morsels and handing them round. Liver and pancreas and kidneys are the favorite delicacies, cooked in their fiery breath. Your steaming brain drips goo down their chins. They lick and slurp and suck the lovely juice, drooling your water and bile and jelly and blood. They finish. Lick their lips. Back-hand their chops. Wipe their hands up and down their scaly skin. Turn and go. Leave you floating in the dark.

They will be back again. In the dark. Again.

First Day

Check-in. A hangar with forty lines of airport-anxious people play follow-the-leader through a red rope maze. Three lines are packed with a college ski club on spring break. Men and women, snowboarders and skiers, freshmen and sophomores, juniors and seniors, fraternities and sororities, friends and classmates, straights and gays, lookers and homelys, popular and loners, and who wants to sit together and who doesn’t, shuffle these distinctions and make little groups before standing in line. Grace - snowboarder, sophomore, looker, sorority, is one of a quartet of similar women. Two others - snowboarders, freshmen, homely, dorm - have tagged on. The quartet calls them the noobs.

The four wear baseball caps with ponytails frisking at the back. Grace’s is ash blond, the others dark. The noobs have baseball caps without ponytails. The four pretend not to size up the men in other groups while they talk tattoos, what they have, where they have them, but don’t show because that would be gross in an airport and they are already wearing snowboarder’s underlayers, wrist to ankle. The two noobs are wearing gray T’s and track bottoms and they have no tattoos to show.

Hey, someone’s dropped a wallet, says Grace. Keep my place guys.

One of the noobs grabs her board to hold. ‘Creep’, mutters Nancy, one of the quartet. They check their pockets and purses. Grace ducks under the ropes and picks up the wallet from the edge of the concourse. She looks inside and inspects money, credit cards, donor card, driver’s license all in the name of Luke Harmon. Age 26. The photo looks like it was taken in the army, lean face and near-shaven head. Nice brown eyes.

Grace goes back to her line and shouts. Luke Harmon! They ignore her. She goes to the next line and calls again with the same result. The third line she strikes lucky. A tall, dark-haired man in the middle of the corral looks at her puzzled. Grace waves the wallet over her head and the man checks his pockets. He breaks ranks, ducks under ropes and joins her. He is a foot taller than Grace, broad shouldered and athletic. His curly hair is cut neat but longer than in his ID. His eyes are as nice as in his photo. They stare each other out. With his fingertips he wipes non-existent sweat from his forehead.

I …er… that’s wonderful. Thank you so much.

He has a deep voice. He takes the wallet but doesn’t know what to do next except shrug his shoulders. As if he had been caught red-handed at something.

Aren’t you going to count the money?

Should I?

She shrugs and smiles, says nothing.

I owe you. Are you going to Bright?

Yeah. Are you in the ski club?

I’m on the ski patrol.

Get paid to ski.

Get paid to check lift passes. I’m signing up.

I’d better get back in line

Sure. Thanks again. Remember I owe you one.

Grace goes back to her line and ducks under ropes to the check in desk.

Wow. Fast work. We’re not even there yet, says Nancy. Grace slides the tip of her tongue over her top lip and opens her eyes wide. She takes back her board from the noob without a word or gesture of thanks.

On the way to the gate Grace stops at a newsstand for magazines and treats. Luke is at the checkout buying mints. Grace stands beside him, pretending not to notice him. She picks up a pack of three disposable lighters, half price on promotion.

Oh hi, says Luke.

Two packs of Camel Light, says Grace to the assistant.

You smoke? says Luke.

For my Grandpa. I’ve got a fifth in my purse if you want a slug for the flight. Good for the nerves.

I’ll stick to mints. Thanks.

He doesn’t smile. She isn’t sure if he is dumb or going along with her joshing. He looks sweet when he’s serious though. What made her say Grandpa? Why couldn’t she say Daddy?

See you on board, says Luke. He waves his mints at her and leaves.

Hey, he scooted off fast, says Nancy.

He saw me buying smokes. His mom warned him about girls like me. Poor chick.

She looks at the magazines Nancy has chosen. Cosmo, Elle, Vogue, OK. New York Review of Books. Grace stabs the last one.

What is this?

That guy from our class likes this stuff. He thinks he’s the new Ernest Hemingway.

You’ll never pass for an intellectual Nancy. You’ve had your teeth whitened. Anyway, guys don’t like to be challenged by brains. Let him see you with True Romance.

Come on. You’re reading Jane Austen. There aren’t even any pictures.

That’s personal reading. I’ll get an Ann Rice for Mr. Harmon to see me with.

Later, on the plane, Luke walks down the aisle to the toilet at the back. He stops at Grace’s row, two seats against the window. Nancy is asleep with her head on Grace’s shoulder. Grace is asleep with her head resting on Nancy’s, her hair covering half her face. Luke watches her until he catches the eye of the man in the seat behind.

A little while later Grace walks up the aisle towards the front. She stops at Luke’s row, four seats in the middle. Luke, asleep, has the aisle seat. His head is back and his lips slightly parted. She remembers a dance class she took in her first year to get fit for snowboarding. For the concert at the end they were supposed to be woodland gods dancing around the great god Pan on a hot afternoon to some weird flute music. They are gripped by Panic, the irrational terror of nature, until they fall asleep exhausted. Luke could be a woodland god. He has long eyelashes. The magazine on his lap spoils the image. Paraglider Monthly. She looks around to make sure no-one has seen her spying and goes back to her seat.

First Evening

The ski club has taken over the Purgatorio Inn. It is light and airy, all glass and wood and stone-faced concrete. Grace and Nancy unpack and settle in. They share a room that looks out on Bright Mountain. As the sun sets the great white pyramid of the summit glows blood red. As night falls it coagulates into black, looms closer, fills the window.

Bright Mountain, here we come baby, says Nancy.

Grace goes to the window. On a path across to the road a worker shovels snow. He looks up at her in the window. She is close enough to see his bloodshot eyes. They stare at each other. She shivers and closes the curtains.

Hey, what’s up? says Nancy.

Nothing.

I like the view.

The mountain. It’s creepy.

Jeez. It’s what we’re here for.

They shower and re-tie their pony tails in Indian bead elastics and change into white T’s and jeans and fleeces, Grace’s dark green and Nancy’s dark blue. In the lobby, flickering with a wood effect gas fire, they join Nina, purple fleece, and Judy, mustard, fleece. They are flipping through tourist leaflets on a stand by the front door.

Look at this guys, we can go down an abandoned gold mine, says Nina.

Can’t wait, says Grace.

They put the leaflets back and go outside, shuddering against the cold, and go along the boardwalk to the lodge next door, hugging themselves for simulated warmth.

Mmm, mountain air, says Nancy.

How high are we? asks Judy.

Not high enough. Let’s find the bar, says Grace.

The bar is half empty. Most of the skiers have gone to stand in line at the rental shop. Grace and her gang brought their own gear.

Where are the noobs? asks Nancy.

At the rental I guess. Gearing up for a week on bunny hill.

Come on, we’ve all been there, says Judy.

Only for the instructors, says Nina.

Who’s getting in the drinks? Margaritas anyone? asks Grace.

Whose ID you got? asks Judy. Grace shrugs and smiles and says nothing.

There’s your friend, says Nina. Grace glances over the room. Luke is sitting with a thin, blond man and a chunky dark haired woman, both mid-twenties.

Ski patrol, she says.

Nice. Worth wiping out to get lifted on the sled, says Nina.

He’s a rookie. Checks lift passes all day.

Oh God. Mom, says Nancy.

She here? Where? asks Judy. Nancy takes out her cell.

I promised to call from the airport. She’ll kill me.

Good thought, says Judy and takes out her own phone.

Oh shoot. I left mine in my room, says Nina.

Here, I don’t need mine says Grace, handing over her cell. The other three look embarrassed.

Sorry, I didn’t…

It’s OK. Beers everyone?

As she waits at the bar Luke comes up to her. He is more relaxed than at the airport. He has a lovely smile.

I owe you remember. What will it be? he asks.

Blue Ribbon. I’d normally have a cocktail but I’ll stay sharp for the slopes.

Are you er…

Am I what? she says innocently, enjoying his embarrassment. Good looking guys were so easy to tease. They didn’t get enough practice. Dorks were much harder.

A boozer? An alky? A lush? Inured to the hard stuff?

I meant are you twenty-one.

No but I know you are. You can sit next to me and I’ll sip your beer.

I can’t do that.

Bring it to my room then. We’ll party.

I can’t buy you a beer. I’m sorry.

Yellow jackets police in here as well?

No…

Then there’s nothing you can possibly owe me. Four PBR she says to the bartender. and whatever he’s having.

No, I’m good, thanks. See you around, says Luke.

See you around? What an old-fashioned phrase. Her parents said it when they were trying to be cool. As he turns away she catches a glimpse of a little gold crucifix pinned to his shirt pocket. Now it is her turn to be thrown off balance.

***

Daddy wore a gold crucifix on the lapel of his best dark gray suit. It went with a starched white shirt and the red tie with blue spots she gave him for Christmas. He was always well-turned out and this was a special occasion. She kissed him on the forehead. She jerked back, mouth frozen in disgust, smearing her lip balm over her cheek with the back of her hand. She had expected chill, like marble, but not damp, not clammy, not slimy. There must have been a lot of other people but she only remembers being alone. An organ tootles church elevator music. Flowers without smell. The stale lemon scent of carpet cleaner. Soft lighting. A stained glass window. Her parents lay side by side on white satin in matching pale wood coffins. She asked for a double coffin so they could hold hands. They often sat on the couch holding hands while they watched TV. The funeral home said it wasn’t allowed.

Mommy wore pink silk, well-cut, and a string of pearls over the scarf that hid the mortuary stitching round her neck. Her lips were pursed in a line. She was cross with this whole thing. She wasn’t meant to be here. This was all wrong. Daddy, who usually had the stern mouth, was smiling. No stress. No hurry. Nothing to worry about. This wasn’t so bad after all.

The make-up was all wrong. It was too orange, as if they were going on TV. Their hair was wrong. Daddy didn’t brush his hair forward but back. Mommy wore hers straight not flounced up in waves. At least she had her roots done the day before they died. Death had given them double chins and fleshy necks. Both of them had their hands crossed over their chests and held a crucifix. Mommy had the one from the living room mantelpiece, Daddy the one from the hall. She slipped Mommy’s best eyebrow tweezers and Daddy’s precious fountain pen into the coffins. Grave gifts. They got mad if she or her brother touched them. They could have them now for good.

***

Before dinner is the safety lecture. They crowd into the upstairs overflow of the cafeteria under a barn roof. At one end stands a man dressed in red ski pants and fleece, holding a microphone. He is old, about forty, tanned leathery skin, short dark hair graying at the temples. He looks lean and fit, too fit, gaunt and fleshless.

Hi. My name’s Shane Tyler. I’m director of the ski patrol. I’m responsible for your safety while you’re here, on and off the slopes. We’re all here for a good time. Powder’s great, the forecast’s good, we’re getting a big snowfall tonight. But we want you all to walk out of here on two good legs swinging two good arms. So even if you’ve heard it all before I want you to listen good and hard.

Boys slouching at the back audibly yawn. Girls hide giggles behind a hand.

OK, first the altitude. Right now we’re at ten thousand feet. Up at the top Devil’s Pulpit is close on fourteen thousand. Some of you flatlanders might be feeling it already. Short of breath, light headed, more of an effort. Take it easy for a day or so until you get acclimated. Watch out for hallucinations.

Like the safety lecture on an airplane, however studiously you read your book or close your eyes, you can’t help listening to the stuff you’ve heard a million times already. Especially if the cabin staff are as compelling as Shane. Even the boys at the back stop horsing around. The newbies drink in every word as if their lives depended on them. Stick to the slopes, treat an orange rope like a thousand volts, skiers stick to their rails and riders to theirs unless marked for both. The finale, when he gets to avalanches, holds the room like a revivalist meeting. The coolest snowbums are mesmerized. He doesn’t rant. He speaks more softly but more intense as if he is trying to hold in passion not express it. It’s a question and answer session with Shane doing both sides.

Q. What sets off an avalanche?

A. Most often humans. So never cross an orange rope. Never never go anywhere marked closed. It means an avalanche is lying in wait. For you.

Q. How fast does an avalanche travel?

A. Up to 140 miles an hour. That’s over 700 yards in one second.

Q. Can you outrun an avalanche?

A. No way. However fast you ski it will catch you. Get to the side, get up a ridge, hold on to a tree or a rock.

Q. What if it catches you?

A. Fight for your life. Swim like hell. Hold your hands over your mouth to make an air pocket.

Q. What does an avalanche do to you?

A. A hundred tons of snow smack you into rocks and trees, take you over the edge of the mountain, buries you.

Q. What happens if you’re buried?

A. The average burial depth in a medium avalanche is three feet. That’s enough snow to sit on your chest and stop you breathing. Even if you have space to breathe there will not be enough oxygen.

Q. How long can you survive if you are buried?

A. If you’re dug out in 15 minutes you have a good chance. Up to 30 minutes most people are dead. One hour and you are definitely gone.

It is like listening to Captain Ahab talk about the great white whale. The chances of seeing it close up are almost nil. It is Shane’s belief that is real. The odds on