Mountain Malice

by Bronwyn Leroux

  “Well?” Jaden demanded.

  “Dude, I don’t know what you’re seeing, but I can’t find a thing.”

  Adamant they should acknowledge the existence of the apparition, Jaden leaped up and crashed over the boulders toward the tree, shouting and waving his hands in the air. If he could scare the thing, it would launch itself, and they would finally believe.

  CHAPTER 5

  Vaguely aware of his friends’ snorts of amusement following him, he continued regardless. Almost to the base of the tree, he felt the animal’s wrathful eyes and began to doubt it would do what he wanted. It seemed capable of reading his mind, knowing what he was after, but like a belligerent child was determined to do the opposite. Stopping just short of crashing into the tree, he was losing hope fast and breathing hard. He and the beast glared at one another.

  Now so close Jaden could smell the fetid air rolling off the beast, he began to truly comprehend its immensity. And for the first time since his irrational decision to charge, he realized how foolish he’d been. What if it meant to do him harm? He wasn’t more than thirty feet from it!

  Before he could consider his options, the monstrosity stretched out its scraggly wings. Colossal, they measured roughly twelve feet on each side, black as midnight and an even darker shade than the rest of its body. As the wings clicked open, Jaden perceived each wing wasn’t a whole piece; but rather four fingers of countless metallic feathers, each finger separate and distinct. No wonder they looked strange. How on earth could it fly with wings like that?

  The beast leaned forward. Jaden took an involuntary step back as it glowered at him through enormous, luminescent amber eyes. For an instant, Jaden feared attack when it fell off the branches toward him. But with powerful strokes, the fingers on its wings each rotated up and then down, in turn, lifting the creature away from him.

  Jaden took another precautionary step backward, his eyes never leaving the aberration as it ascended into the cloudless azure sky. He only relaxed when he was certain the beast wouldn’t come crashing back down again. Delighted it had finally taken flight, he yelled, “Look, look!” He faced his friends, enthusiasm brightening his face. But it quickly disappeared when he noted their expressions.

  “Hey man, are you sure you’re not feeling the altitude today?” Stovan’s concern was obvious.

  Shianna bounced the few steps necessary to reach him and stretched out a hand to his forehead. Realizing she intended checking whether he was feverish, Jaden thrust her outstretched hand away.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the feathered fiend etching lazy circles on the blank, blue canvas overhead. Jaden angled his face upward for a better view. Hard to tell at this distance, but it appeared to be smirking at him! Annoyed, he rasped, “None of you can see that, that thing, cart-wheeling up there?”

  More blank faces and worried looks. Jaden’s mind worked furiously, factoring the possibilities. Clearly, the monster was up there, but irrationally, only he could see it. He knew he had not imagined the sense of doom he had felt earlier. But then again, could that have been a product of his overactive imagination? Add to that the dizziness he had experienced on their break. And the undeniable fact that he had never seen anything that remotely resembled this beast anywhere, even in the extensive library of the Life Training Center. His reluctant conclusion was that it was possible he had imagined things.

  Deciding it would be wise to drop the matter before his worried friends dialed emergency services, he grimaced. “Okay, so I’m seeing things. I’ll drink more water. I’ll even agree to go back down if you want.”

  The group exhibited a mixture of relief and continued concern. But the conversation was now muted, and Jaden perceived how they all kept staring at him as they solemnly packed up the remnants of their lunch. Feeling guilty, he figured some clowning might help restore their earlier camaraderie.

  Grateful for the dated “Chatty Catty” app he had streamed to his personal access line (or PAL), only the previous evening, he tapped the CC link on his wrist that connected him to his PAL. His virtual screen popped up, and he launched the app. He had played with it a little last night and it was hilarious. Basically, whatever you said, it recorded and played back. Only the playback was altered so the voice sounded like Alvin the Chipmunk – not that any of his friends would know who Alvin was. Jaden was the only one in their group who enjoyed past-gen movies, which were so outdated that, to watch them, you had to actively search for them. But he had a penchant for the old cartoons, finding their witty humor enormously appealing. Consequently, he spent hours trolling for them online, paid small fortunes for them when he was able to wheedle one away from someone, and then enjoyed endless hours watching the movies repeatedly.

  Perching on a rock within earshot of his friends, he hunched over his virtual screen, pretending to talk to it. He grinned inwardly when he spotted Markov raising his eyebrows toward Shianna as they noticed what he was up to. Setting the app to play, he whined into the mike, “They think I’m cra-zy.”

  Immediately the ridiculous voice squeaked back, “They think I’m cra-zy.”

  “No, that’s what I said,” Jaden replied and the tinny voice again repeated his words back to him.

  Shianna and Markov stood there, open-mouthed at first, not sure what was happening. It only took one more line for them to register it was a prank and both started hooting with pleasure, scrambling over to where Jaden sat. The rest of the crew, attracted by the sudden commotion, crowded closer.

  When “Catty” picked up on Bree’s throaty chuckle and threw it back, they all erupted. The group’s anxiety melted away as naturally as the snow around them soon would. The screen was tossed around and the hysterics continued. Relieved Jaden seemed to be back to normal, Bree brought out her mouthwatering cookies and they continued playing with the app. Surreptitiously, they all kept a cautious eye on Jaden. There was an unspoken agreement that if he showed any further signs of possible altitude sickness, they would leave.

  CHAPTer 6

  Thankfully, Jaden continued to behave normally. Time ebbed away, packed with casual conversations, snowball fights, laser tag games in the trees surrounding the pool, and more food. Toward late afternoon, the air assumed a fierce, frosty edge and the group grudgingly prepared for the return trip, making sure they cleaned the area they had used before departing. Jaden spared only a brief glance upward when they left the frozen pool, reassured to find that smudges of wispy cirrus clouds were the only decorations on the otherwise empty sky.

  The hike to the bottom was definitely their favorite part of the trip. More accurately, it was a slide to the bottom. Using the specially marked sections of the trail, they plunked themselves down on their rear ends and let gravity suck them down on the slick fabric of their snow pants. This of course led to the inevitable collisions with one other and the odd, painful encounters with an out-of-place rock. Shrieking and shouting, the group hurtled their way to the bottom of the trail until they arrived back where they had started, their faces flushed red from the cold, their noses streaming and their bodies frozen to the bone.

  Stovan’s family’s shiny, silver terraporter waited for them in the guest parking berths. Roomy enough to accommodate the entire group, with all the amenities of a home on wheels, and hooked up to the AutoNav system, it not only meant they could travel independently as teens but also that they could kick back and relax while they were auto-piloted home. The terraporter was fired up and the heater set to max blast while they stripped their soggy outer layers, replacing them with warm sweaters, fleecy sweatpants and thick, dry socks. Wet clothes were dumped in trash bags which were thrown in the storage hatch, and then they settled in for the ride. Jaden smiled as Tarise slipped into a seat beside him.

  “Am I still not looking so hot?” he teased.

  “Well, considering your face is beet red now instead of chalk white like it was on the mountain, I’d say you look significantly hotter,” she quipped.

  Jaden laughed as the terrapor
ter slid from its berth. Looking out the window back toward the mountain they had just descended, he detected nothing unusual, nothing out of place. But despite his reasoning earlier that whatever he had seen had to have been a result of the altitude, he still couldn’t shake the sensation that something was out there. And it was waiting.

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