Collection Of Horror Tales - Chapter 19 The Forbidden Mountain Pt. 4

I walked past many deserted tents; all of them looked like silent graves of a native cult. The totems all over the place made it look supernatural and mystic. With the shadows lurking in every corner I couldn’t deny, that I was scared. I had explored many places before and saw countless untouched trails. This place, in contrast to every other place I have seen, was different. I knew the shaman had already noticed me; his eyes seemed to watch everything inside the circle of horrific statues. I didn’t know where he was, but without any other idea I just made my way to the centre. Once I got to the central area, I already saw a tent that stood out. What made the difference were the lights and decorations on it. There were magnificent Totems in every possible place, illuminated with flickering candles in circles around every one. The contrast of dark spaces and illuminated totems made a surreal picture beyond imagination. An aura of disturbing harmony emitted from the inside out. I didn’t feel any bad emotions from it, but the eerie thing about it was that I felt guilt about not rejecting it. Although the area was suspicious to the maximum, there could even be Mephistopheles standing in front of me; I had no other option but this tribe.

Slowly I lift the curtains to have a look inside the shaman’s creepy tent. I was prepared to see really anything, from a skeleton guarding a treasure, till a friendly neighbourhood grandpa, who wants to drink tea with me. Still what I saw surpassed my imagination by leaps and bounds. The shaman was sitting inside, the white hair floating around the head like a cloud. Some kind of spiritual or war paint was on her face, glowing from within. Only now I realized that the shaman was actually a woman, with unusual gender neutral facial structures. Normal laws of nature seemed to not apply around her. Against the concept of gravity, candles were glowing in the air around 2 feet above the ground. The light emitted from them was not the usual warm light, but more of the omnipresent Nordic lights. I remembered the totems outside the tent, and shivered. She looked exactly like a living totem. Her eyes, that were closed when I entered, abruptly opened when I accidently touched one of the floating candles. They were pure white and shining as hell as two suns. It was the second time that I became blinded within hours. Her voice echoed into my ear, as if the tent was stable and dozens of times as bigger than it actual is.

“Outsider! ” The aggressive tone of her voice full of rage and hate, made me almost shit my pant. “Get out now!” Not letting her say that twice, I was out of that cursed tent before her voice faded.

When I was just outside, I heard beast like cries from the inside. Her voice became something outside of the human spectrum. The most disturbing scene of the night started to unfold in front of my eyes. With the light, that shone from the inside of the tent I could see faint shadows of the events within. The human silhouette slowly began to morph into something unrecognizable. Wings started to grow through her hunched back. The arms sank to the ground and became legs, the head started to form the shape of a bird. But still, it didn’t stop here, every part of her body just started to grow unproportioned huge, till one could not even recognize a living creature. The grow didn’t stop at this point, rather did the creature inside explode when it couldn’t handle the unnatural grow anymore. At this moment I could hear a fading voice, which I remembered to be of the dead shaman.

“In the Name of Angeni, the worldly spirit, awaken my wooden friends. Go out and protect our scared secrets of Mt. Shasta. Go, and eliminate those escaped Lemurian Invaders from outer space.”