The Disillusion Mountains

Chapter 13

    "Answer us!" Nimma screamed into the dark. She and Grant had been looking for the woman for over an hour and found no one. It didn't even seem like they were getting close to wherever the woman was. Her screams always sounded as if they were the same distance away no matter what direction they turned in.        "Nimma!" Grant was to her left and she raced to meet him. "This is getting us nowhere. I think we should go back to the tent and try to find the woman in the morning." 

    Nimma agreed. The screams continued all night and neither Grant nor Nimma got any sleep. They heard the last scream just before dawn and then an eerie quiet descended on the forest. Starting a search once again they combed the woods around their camp for half a day. They called and called but no screaming or anything but the echo of their own voices came back to them. As afternoon came upon them they gave up.

    "Let's keep moving." Nimma said while packing up their tent. "If there was someone out there we should have found them or at least they should have answered us."

    "Then what the hell were we hearing?"

    "I don't know."

    "Maybe these mountains really are cursed." Loud thunder sounded above them as the rain continued to pour. "In all my time as a Ranger I've never experienced that before."

    "Hopefully it's just something about this location. I don't care. I just want to find those cliffs and leave this place behind." Grant nodded at her words.

    They traveled another couple miles before the rain and howling winds got too intense. They pitched their tent behind a moss covered boulder the first they'd seen which both took as a good sign that the cliffs may be near. They played card games for a few hours before sun went down again. Seeing as Grant had gotten no sleep at all since the day before yesterday Nimma decided she would take a longer watch than normal.

    She rummaged in her pack planning to read more of Regina's journal. The candle had already been lit and just as she found the old leather book the screaming started. Nimma looked wearily down at Grant but he didn't wake and she decided to leave him that way. Knowing she wouldn't be able to read with all this screaming she put the book back and sat with her pistol on her knee.

    Nimma's hand crept closer to the pistol as she thought she saw a flash of purple that could have been eye shine. What animal had purple eye shine? She didn't see any flashes of purple again so she began to wonder if it was her imagination. With only four hours until dawn Nimma woke Grant and they switched places.

    The screams were still going strong but Nimma was so tired that she was asleep within seconds of her head hitting the pillow.

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    "The screams stopped at dawn again." Grant told her when she woke. "The rain lightened a bit so that's good news."

    "If we were starving or something I'd think we were just hallucinating," Nimma said.

    "Me too. Let's find those cliffs so we can leave these woods."

    As the day went on they began to see more boulders and the forest thinned slightly. That lifted their spirits considerably. Finding the body however made those spirits plummet. It was a full skeleton that had clearly been there for some time. What little clothing that it had was in tatters. Finding a full skeleton like this in the woods was extremely unusual. Normally animals would have dragged body parts and bones all over the woods. Then again they hadn't seen any animals for days.

    "What now? Do we have to turn back and report this?" Nimma asked.

    "We don't have to turn back but I'll mark the position down and when we get back Rangers can retrieve the body."

    Nimma bent down to examine the body. From the clothing she couldn't tell what gender the person had been. What she could see was this person had likely come here prepared. The clothes though now tattered had once been very sturdy. Nimma poked around the body and noticed that the person seemed to have fallen on something.

    "What are you doing?" Grant asked slightly alarmed.

    "There's something under their chest."

    "Leave it alone."

    Nimma ignored his words and pulled it out from under the bones as gently as she could. It turned out to be a backpack. An old fashioned one.

    "I'm not sure you should be doing that," Grant said as Nimma poked through the contents.

    There were some very old maps, ropes, and what had probably been food. There was also a book; a journal sealed in a small waterproof bag. How fitting since another journal was the whole reason she and Grant were out here. Nimma flipped through the journal and found the last couple entries.

    "Listen to this," Nimma said "'We heard it again last night that God awful screaming. No sounds of a natural forest but for three nights in a row incessant screaming. No matter how hard we search we cannot find the poor woman. Joshua says it doesn't matter and we need to just keep moving. The money is out here somewhere and he must find it. The Towers family always was pushy but this guy takes the cake. He's completely unrealistic about this and insists I pull off the impossible by locating the money and traversing huge obstacles without breaking a sweat.'

    "Here's another one." Nimma continued to read. "'I regret agreeing to take Joshua Towers into these mountains. They are cursed for a reason and now I know why. Ever since Regina disappeared twenty years ago, the Towers family has been dying to tear down her legacy. I was only a boy when she was robbing so I don't remember it well but the aftermath is different. She has summoned a demon to guard her resting place. I've lost Joshua. In the chaos last night we were separated and I cannot find him. Regina I am sorry for agreeing to aid your enemies. Please have mercy on me and allow me to find my way home.'

    "This is the last one," Nimma confirmed by skimming the rest of the pages. 'To whomever finds my body–my name was Conor Ascella. I was the youngest son of the Ascella family and an outdoorsmen. Please return my body to my parents. And be careful. Something unnatural lurks in these woods. The ghosts are roaming and they are unable to be reasoned with. A woman with glowing purple eyes and dark hair is chasing me. A witch is in these woods. I don't know who she is only that she wants me out of the woods. I am trying. I swear I'm trying. Tell my family I love them and that I'm sorry for doing this against their wishes.'"  

    Nimma looked up at Grant and together they nervously looked back into the woods.