Collection Of Horror Tales - Chapter 16 The Forbidden Mountain Pt. 1

Year 1697:

Dear Pater Juan Mara de Salvatierra,

As the leader and survivor this letter will be the final report of the mission “Forbidden Mountains”. The circumstances surrounding this mission are still widely unknown to the public, so I will do, what u have asked from me and explain what happened. Many things that I have to say are so odd and unusual, that many won’t believe what I am going to tell, but I can’t even be mad at them. If I hadn’t experienced it myself, I wouldn’t believe them too. Although I know how unbelievable it is what I am going to tell, I decided to still do it, because I couldn’t even think of another explanation why this mission failed so miserably.

It all started with the quest you delegated me to do, the desire to exploit the land surrounding Mt. Shasta for the Spanish crown. There are many statements and rumours, which speak of a land full of riches. Even so, a same amount of whispers and warnings exist about it. A tribe of crazy natives should reside in it. Besides that, it was told, that nature was not keen on us pioneers invading and taking its riches, so that predators exist, who hunt humans. Furthermore spirits of the dead roam around and make invaders go crazy.

The more it was gossiped about the more interested the authorities became to bring certainty and salvage gold and other resources.

I organized a capable group of experienced explorers. It contained beside myself and other dozen Guards, a native to communicate with the local tribe, a representative of the Spanish crown and a team of scientists in every possible field of science. The preparations were done with uttermost thoroughness.

The starting day for the mission was the 21.09.1697. Each one of us had a horse so we got to the area surrounding the mountain within 3 days and without big complications. The last Night within known territory was calm and peaceful. Looking back one could trenchant describe it as the calm before the storm.

When the sun rose the next day, we stepped foot into the rumoured land. At first it was no different than any other place I have ever been. The trees grow the same way, there were no weird monster running around, it was just a normal mountain range. The first changes became only apparent, when the night arose and we set up our tent. Nevertheless they were so marginal, that nobody realized them. It was only looking back now that those were the first contrasts to normality. There were for example gnats that went for our blood more aggressively or a slightly high amount of bat’s flying over our heads. The wind also wasn’t rustling but more howling. One has to admit, that such marginal changes are easy to overlook, especially when you’re in company of a lively group of people. I think I remember only the english biologist Dr. Evergreen was startled, and commented on the rarity of this habitat.

The next day the first incident happened. One of the guards was fatally bitten by a poisonous snake. This was totally unexpected. Every one of us felt a sting of sadness, although we didn’t personally knew each other beforehand. This was the first time we recognized the mission as dangerous. Everybody knew what was told about the land, but none of us believed the gossip. We still didn’t believe it after the incident, but it made us all cautious. After we gave this unlucky fella a proper burial, we went on. Our destination was the tribe of natives, said to be located here. Apparently they call themselves Modocs

Beside from those small changes and incident, nothing major happened. We got safe and disturbingly easy, for the fact that we had no clear location of the Modoc tribe, to their encampment.