Collection Of Horror Tales - Chapter 20 The Forbidden Mountain Pt. 5

Suddenly the statues of those wooden bear-human creatures came to life. Their colours became bright, their breath became visible and finally their eyes started moving. Then they began to move. Every one moved in a ghastly harmony with each other. Everyone had the same actions, till they started, from one moment to the other, to move so fast that I could only see blurring shadows disappearing into the woods. I stood still. On one side the disgusting tent where the old woman exploded, on the other the woods where those living statues were. I didn’t know what to do. It was a choice between pest and cholera. Both options are as scary and dangerous as the other. In the End my panic and urge to flee from all this became the deciding factor and I sprinted of into the dark woods around Mount Shasta. I hoped to be able to flee back into civilization. For that I had to somehow get away from this Mountain. I started running as fast as I could, without making any overly loud noises. Without any better alternatives by hand, I could only go by foot. As soon as I left the horrifying tribe, the deathly aura became less intense. I inhaled deeply, as hope began to rise within me. Although hope started to form, I haven’t seen any of the escaped monster statues and so I was still careful about my surroundings. Slowly but surely I made my way through the woods. What irritated me slightly was that the animals, which attacked us at first, were nowhere to be seen. It was even so silent, that I doubted any animals where in my vicinity. It gave me a bad gut feeling, but the danger ahead and behind were to omnipresent to let me think deeper about this phenomena.

After around 10 minutes I started to hear the first fighting noises. They were still far away, but more careful then reckless, I took a turn to make a detour. Just when I wanted to start going down the mountain again, there were again fighting noises ahead of me. Helpless about the situation, I started to walk further around the mountain. Just when I wanted to descent again, I heard fighting noises for the third time. My patience was slowly fading away, but in consideration of the mortal danger ahead I took the detour again. After this scenario repeated itself for around 5 more times, my patience was finally gone and the fear I had after leaving the village was overshadowed by a slight annoyance against fate. Not caring anymore and doubting that it would get different if I tried another time, I wanted to try to go directly through the war zone. To do this without getting detected by either side, I started to tiptoe my way forward.

Soon the noises of fighting came clearer and louder, but at the same time they became more disturbing. I am not living in a peaceful time, here in the newly discovered continent. I heard the sound of killing way too often for my preference. Still what I heard at this moment, although I could recognize the sound of fighting, I couldn’t recognize any humanity within the noise. The cries sounded either animalistic or like they came straight out of hell. The sound of flesh was either too intense or not there at all. It was a scary portrayal of the unsettling sounds one could hear, when two totally incompatible and alien forces started to fight. A disgusting stench started to linger in the air. It had a too big nuance of decay and a too small nuance of blood, as one would have expected. I became more irritated the closer I got. A short moment later I got to a clearing, but stayed in the shadows at its border. Now I saw them.