Fear Mountain by Dellosso Mike

Author:Dellosso, Mike [Dellosso, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Darlington House
Published: 2015-10-29T07:00:00+00:00

22

Like a blind man in a room full of moving obstacles, I groped around in the darkness for an undeterminable amount of time, pushing past and through bony hands that pulled at my jacket and pants and sinewy tentacles that entwined my legs. More than once, I tripped on a fallen branch and found myself on my hands and knees in the leaves.

The air was cool, almost chilly, and damp, saturated with the odor of decomposing nature. If I looked up, I could see the slate gray sky above, broken by a tangle of twisted branches towering overhead, forming a webbed canopy that seemed to lower and close in on me from above. My lungs tightened, as if those bony hands that merely fumbled at my jacket had found their mark and worked their way into my chest, becoming one with my ribs and refusing to expand when my diaphragm struggled to contract. I was on foreign soil, a land populated by unfeeling giants, ravenous beasts, and tentacled creatures that only the most imaginative storyteller could conjure. In my ears, behind the drums, blood thumped out a steady staccato rhythm.

After some time—I had no idea how long it had been since I witnessed my rescuer’s dimming and lost contact with him—I found myself once again on my knees, lost. I realized I no longer knew which way led back to the house, back to the company of the Nazis. If I kept aimlessly meandering through the woods, sooner or later I’d stumble into the clearing and find myself back on the second floor, bound and this time no doubt gagged, listening to a bear of a man curse me in German while showering me with his Nazi spittle.

I wanted to see Dad and Pop and Henry again, sit in a room with them and laugh and tell stories and reminisce about bygone days when innocence ruled the day and life was simple and predictable. I wanted to hear Dad’s booming laugh and listen to Henry’s wisecracks and Pop’s wisdom. I wanted to be with them, as they were, before this cursed hunting trip where we had become the prey. But I didn’t want to be with them in that second-story room that smelled of body odor and urine and reeked of violence and hate. I wanted to share a warm fire in our living room back at the farmhouse, watch as the orange light of the flames danced on their faces and illuminated their smiling eyes. I wanted security and love and safety and the wellbeing that can only come from time spent with family.

It’s human nature to mentally escape when no physical retreat is possible. Our mind finds a safe, secure place to hide, hoping in some supernatural way that our body will be able to follow. Truth is, we hadn’t sat around a glowing fire and reminisced about bygone days since I was a child, maybe eight or nine. I hadn’t shared a real conversation with my dad in years.

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