Dennis Yates - Red Mountain

Like all ghosts, his physical materiality was sometimes fleeting and the only way to avoid long periods of not being able to exert one’s influence was to avoid touching living things.

And this was what drove most ghosts insane.

CHAPTER 60

“You cannot turn your back on your destiny, Robert,” Maynard explained. “It’s not an option.”

Robert stared into the crimson sky above. The spirit of the frozen man leaned over him, his hands pressing sharply into Robert’s chest until his sternum and ribs burned like fire.

“Where is my family?” Robert gasped. It was all he could think about, his only connection to a life that had suddenly become mysterious and frightening. The only reason why he hadn’t given up and wished for a quick death.

“They are alive, Robert. Maybe not for long, but they are alive now.”

“I want to go back to them. I’ve already told you I have no interest in what you’re offering. I have a life and people I love. I don’t want to be like you or anyone else.”

Maynard lifted his hands and backed away. “I think you misunderstand me. I must ensure the powers I possess are transferred to you. Only you can pass on the sacred knowledge. It’s your duty to do so. It has protected you all this time and has given you the strength when you needed it.”

“I never asked for anyone’s help.”

“You know that’s untrue Robert. You’ve always known you could tap into something much deeper inside, a primal darkness that has lain silently within you since the day you were born. For so long you’ve repressed your nature. You’ve been keeping it under lock and key, not exercising it when you could have put it to use.”

Robert gritted his teeth. If he’d been able to look down at the rest of his body he would have expected it to be engulfed in flame.

“Please. If you won’t let me have my family back again just let me die…”

“Don’t disappoint me Robert. If it wasn’t for me watching over you all this time you would have been dead a long time ago.”

Robert’s mind flashed back to Mexico. He’d never known before that he and Will could have pulled off what they did, had never imagined the extreme violence he was capable of. But it wasn’t as if he had a choice in the matter. Either he rescued his father and Uncle Barney or stayed home and did nothing.

Then there was the ghost Will had seen in the abandoned building, the one he’d told Robert about when they’d been driving in his truck that morning. Something had come to protect them from the assassins outside—the men who worked for the dogfighter, drug dealer and kidnapper—the man who dressed in white. They were about to burst inside and fill the Americans’ bodies with holes from their automatic rifles. Instead, the thing sent them back into an alley where they took one another’s lives.

Was it you who drove those men crazy?

Maynard shook his head. He’d been reading Robert’s thoughts.

“No, it was your great grandfather, Jared Horn. He’d made those two men think that the other had the head of a giant rattlesnake. He drove them to complete madness. Your great grandfather was the first to discover me down here, and at the time he was in desperate need of help. In exchange for helping him, he agreed that his great grandsons could one day be summoned by me when the time came for new blood.”

“So this is what it’s all about?” Robert asked. “Making people kill each other so you can give the victor your power?’

Maynard grinned coldly and turned away his eyes.

“That is the tradition. I owe it to my teacher, as he did to his teacher and so on. Now that I’ve completed my task I will be freed from my prison, and not just the prison of ice that has kept my body all these years. My untimely death, of course, was unfortunate for me, just as Jared’s execution by a party of vigilantes had been for him. We’ve both been ghosts for a long time now, waiting for the right moment, knowing all too well how the fever for gold can take over some men’s minds, cause them to do things they’d normally never consider. I knew it on the day the Sheriff’s posse was going to gun me down on this mountain. I knew if I took the gold with me I would be planting the seeds of my eventual rebirth through you.”

“And if I refuse to go along? I will not have the blood of innocents on my hands. I’ll kill myself first.”

Maynard shook his head.

“Your true nature has much more to teach you. It’s too late to go back I’m afraid. The knowledge is now embedded in the very fiber of your being and cannot be removed. I have completed my work here.”

“But you haven’t taught me anything. You’re just a thief and a murderer.”

Maynard laughed and the crimson sky above them turned dark velvet blue as he vaporized into a foul-smelling fog and disappeared.

Robert lay silent, unable to move. There was nothing he could do to save the others who’d come looking for him. They didn’t have a chance in hell. Not against three desperate lunatics armed with rifles.

What they needed was more help. But even if he were able to radio for help somehow it wouldn’t make a difference. No one could make it up here in time to do anything.

If only I could hold them in my arms one last time…

Suddenly Robert began shaking, and a powerful heat began to spread through his body, opening up from his empty belly like a giant flower. Did he have hypothermia? Was this how he was going to die?

He tried to sit up but couldn’t. Invisible hands kept him pressed against the ice until he began to accept the fever running through him. The images of animals and faces of old men stared at him with glowing eyes while he started to drift out of consciousness. You can’t do this. You’ll go to sleep and then you’ll die…

Robert awoke to the sounds of people moving nearby.

Had they found him?

“Peggy?” he called out, hearing his echo careening away through a maze of glacier corridors.

He waited. No one replied. And yet there were rustling sounds very close by.

Robert remembered to open his eyes. When he glanced around he realized he was still lying in the ice shrine on his back with the low ice ceiling pressing down at him. When he sat up he saw the research team had come to life again, had pulled themselves up from the bloody muck and were headed out of the shrine. Some had their heads hanging by strands, while others pulled themselves along the ice on bloody stumps.

Oh god. They’re coming back to life.

And it’s because of me…

CHAPTER 61

Satisfied that the sled of gold was safely secured, Marsh and Chester began to head out of the glacier. Billy stayed behind to see that the load didn’t get hung up on anything while the others would see to bringing it to the surface. But just as Marsh and Chester reached the place where they’d have to start climbing, the crevasse echoed with Billy’s horrified screams.

Marsh stared at Chester, bewildered. “What the hell is wrong with him?”

Chester shivered with fear. “Something’s scared him bad. That doesn’t sound like the Billy I know.”

“I knew he wasn’t worth a damn. We’re so close now and he’s going to mess things up for us.”

“Maybe it’s Crain. He could be killing Billy down there for all we know.”

“Shit.” Marsh said, resigned. He dropped his pack to the ground, cracked his rifle to make sure it was still loaded. “I should have wasted the son of a bitch when I had the chance. Come on. Let’s get back down there before he cuts the line or something.”

****

They hadn’t even touched Billy yet.

He couldn’t run. In his hurry to get away he’d slipped over the ledge and crashed against a glassy spire of diamond-hard ice. Some barbs growing out from the spire had gotten hooked through his jacket and shirt and possibly into his flesh. Held up above a seemingly bottomless crevasse, he’d kicked wildly in an attempt to find a foothold. Soon his legs turned to mush, and all Billy could do was hang there and cry for help.