In The Shadow Of The Mountain

    THE SMELL OF KAREN'S perfume hung in the air, along with the singed odor of gunpowder.

    "Please don't do this." Richards wife begged.

    Karen was kneeling on the bed, the man her husband murdered laying beside her. She held out her hands in a gesture that was both defensive and supplicating. Richard noted, abstractly that the blood on her palms was the same shade as her lingerie.

    "Please honey," Karen moaned. "Please don't hurt me!"

    The rage inside him swelled. She was humiliating him. First she had taken this man, younger and more attractive as her lover. Then she had taken him here, to the cabin Richard had bought, the place he had sweat and worked for. She had taken her lover here, and given herself to him. And now, as if these humiliations were not enough, she groveled and begged for mercy, like he was some sort of monster.

    Suddenly, the cabin, with its romantic fireplace and rustic adornments, seemed like a stage on which he would stand and be booed. Richard backed away towards the door. He wanted to leave this place, it made him feel as though he were a minuscule thing, standing on the tray of a great microscope, all the world peering through its lens and laughing.

    He bumped against the door and reached for the knob. He needed to leave this place. Karen will hide the body and never speak of this thing for shame of her adultery. We can start over. But when he stepped out into the frigid cold, Richard realized the thought was insane and ridiculous. Whether he wanted to or not, there was no going back. He must finish this.

    Richard looked from his puzzled, frightened wife to the great white mountains that surrounded the cabin. They sat in their frozen enormity, indifferent to the drama unfolding in their shadows.

    "Richard?" Karen asked, her voice small and afraid.

    He shot her.

    There was a sudden rumble and a groan from deep in the earth. A panicked, irrational thought struck him.

    He knows! God saw what you did, the voice screamed, he was walking in the garden
("mountains")
and her blood cried out to him.

    Richard spun in time to see a massive white wall rolling towards him. Its crest churned and rioted throwing huge jets of snow in all directions. He had only taken a single step backwards into the doorway before the great wave crashed into him.

    Then it was dark.

    He was aware of the cold, biting and stinging, but distant. That pain, like the terrible agony in his leg was far away. But as Richard swam up to consciousness, it drew closer like the increasing volume of an oncoming siren. 

    He came to screaming. He was on the floor. Looking around, he immediately discovered the cause of his misery. His leg was slammed in the door and snapped at the shin. His shattered bones protested with a terrible stab when he tried to move. His stomach turned from the pain; he vomited.

    What? How? Richard asked himself and was answered by the cold metal still clutched in his hand.

    Avalanche. It was the gunshot.

    A mound of snow had made it through before the door was closed. It was heaped on top of him and he struggled against the shivers that jarred his broken leg. He was freezing.

    Twisting his head, Richard looked to the fireplace: dead. It had been smothered beneath the snow that poured down the chimney. The chills intensified.

    And then there was movement. Richard saw it in his periphery as he heard the bed springs creak.

    He knew it was them. It was impossible and insane, but he was certain.

    Richard whimpered as the footsteps thudded and dragged slowly across the floor. He could no longer control the chills and shook violently.

    He closed his eyes, praying and weeping. Soon they were beside him. Too frightened to see, Richard kept his eyes closed for a long time. They did not speak or urge him, only waited with all the silent patience of death.

    He opened his eyes and began to sob.

    The corpses stood over him, watching with baleful milky eyes. The man was naked, his flesh the color of pale marble. Half of his face was torn away, what was left was smiling. Karen was at his side. Her breasts were painted in blood and there was a ragged black hole at her sternum. The dead lovers glared down at him, their wounds steamed, their eyes accused.

    A broken wheeze passed over his lips when his wife gestured to the pistol. He could stand their hateful vacant eyes no longer.

    "Is this what you want?"

    She only smiled.

    Richard raised the gun to his head, he shook so badly he needed to press the muzzle to his temple to steady the gun.

    Click.

    "Oh, NO!" Richard cried.

    Karen's smile widened as she and her murdered lover knelt down, reaching for Richard's hands. He screamed, jerking them away protectively and trying to pull his leg free despite the agony in his fractured bones. The corpses smiled almost sympathetically, as they ignored his struggle and seized his hands.

    Their touch was stiff and frozen, it bit into him as the cold burned his flesh. Richard screamed as he watched the blood in their wounds frost over before freezing solid.

    When Karen spoke, her voice was low and hollow, her icy breath making frost of the perspiration on her husband's face.

    "Don't worry honey," she said as her grip tightened, "we'll stay with you until the end."

    And they did.

(WC:935)