"This is definitely not the way I came last time," Matthew said aloud into the eerie silence. He couldn't seem to shake the feeling that he was being followed, even though there were no noises that indicated pursuit. An unfortunate side effect of this was that he was paying more attention to what was behind him rather than what was in front of him and he was getting increasingly more lost with every step.
All the legends of the North American continent he had ever been told seemed through from his unconscious to the forefront of his mind. The Bokwus, which was supposed to lead travellers through coniferous trees to rivers where it would drown them. The Wendigo; the kind that confused travellers and the kind that ate them. Acheri; the skeletal squaw who's piercing wail foretold the death of all who heard it. Superstitiously, he checked to make sure that he was indeed wearing his red boxers, and breathed a sigh of relief. Red warded off Acheri.
It was getting dark now, and Matthew wasn't sure if the footsteps that had started up were his own or someone else's. They quickened as his did, but the pace was different. The dark fir trees around him thickened and the gentle incline his had started on was now much steeper. He knew he was heading further and further away from civilisation, but he also knew that whatever it was that was chasing him lay between him and the edge of the forest. He wasn't about to chance it.
Soft laughter, hastily muffled, turned the young man's head. His eyes wide, he started to walk just a little faster. The footsteps started up again, and Matthew walked faster still, his neck aching as he looked over his shoulder to see what was there. Nothing. Just darkness in between the trees. Shit. Someone's, or something's, eyeballs were running up and down his spine and he shivered. He needed to get away from it. A twig snapped loudly underfoot and the panic in his chest ratcheted up another notch. It was suffocating, he couldn't breathe; he couldn't stay still.
Running through the woods wasn't a great idea at the best of times and in the twilight hours when shade and light are no longer friends, then it's an astronomically bad one. Matthew crashed through bushes and shrubs, hearing his own wild breathing and the sedate, loping steps of whatever was behind him. Faster and faster the Canadian ran, down a dry river bed, bruising his knees and hips as he bounced off of lichen covered boulders. Tripping over rotting branches and catching himself on bloody palms, he scrambled higher and higher up the mountainside, the muffled laughter of earlier had risen to howls of derisive mirth behind him.
Matthew practically sobbed in fear when he dared to look behind him again and found that there was nothing there. The faster he ran, the closer the thing seemed to get, until with an almighty thump, he ran headlong into something warm and unforgiving. He scrambled backwards, only to find himself backed against a rock.
Looming over him was a tall man, bare-chested and scared. His red-blond hair was long and tangled with all sorts of forest flotsam and jetsam, feathers and twigs all snarled together. On his head sat a crown of sticks and thorns. The man leant in close and Matthew whimpered, those too-bright eyes burning a hole right through him. His lips parted in a wide grin, and it made the darkness under his eyes all the more frightening.
"Welcome," he whispered.
—
It was with bemused steps that Matthew followed the tall and silent stranger as he turned and stalked back into the shadowy crags of the mountain. The hiker noted with a cold shudder that his were the only footfalls he heard, though the rocks were deep with collected loam. Maybe this stranger knew where he was. Though judging by his crown of thorns and the feathers and sticks that had woven themselves into his hair, the nameless man knew just as much about how to get back to civilisation as Matthew did.
Not really focusing on anything but the man and the ground beneath his feet, Matthew didn't notice that he had left the fading daylight behind him until he was in surrounded by sheer, slate grey walls. Faint light filtered through some sort of skylight far, far above. A pinprick of watery daylight. Matthew shivered. The next thing he noticed was that he was not alone with the wild hippy. There were others in this cavern. But… not human others. A man with the head of a bird brushed past, a human's eye dwarfed in the gaping surrounds of it's socket. A woman with vines bursting from her stomach twirled around in the middle of the floor. The faint light touched the plant life that spilt from her skin, making it glisten wetly, as though it were organs. Soft, chattering whispers lined the corners of the hall, pale, long fingered things smiled at him from behind their clawed hands.
The stranger had disappeared, and Matthew looked around wildly at the terrifying carnival he had wandered in on. A creature with no eyes turned its head sharply in his direction, only bloody pits for sockets. A man sat with his back pressed against the wall, rocking back and forth, dripping wet. He gibbered, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
Where was that guy? He was the most normal one out of the bunch. Matthew spun, eyes searching, landing on twisted face after grotesque form and finding only the vaguest resemblance of sanity.
"Human!" The voice was a thousand nails down a chalkboard, tearing glass. It hurt Matthew's ears, but still he turned. Gaunt and bone-white, the creature could have been a giant skeleton, its head twisted at a stomach-churning angle. "It's human."
Matthew felt his already trembling legs give out from under him.
Things chuckled and murmured, snatches of grating whispers lingered in the corners of his mind as a thousand fingers seemed to caress his skin and he wept. What was going on here? Where was he? Where was the road?
"Leave him," Matthew's head shot up. That was the voice. The man who he had run into, where was he? The crowd parted and there, on a raised dias at the end of the hall stood a throne. It seemed to be made out of a collection of fallen rocks, sharp and stained with something dark. The hiker gulped.
"I want to go home!" he muttered, his bile rising as the plant woman ceased her dancing and leant over him, blood of chlorophyll green dripping warmly onto his skin.
"There is no home," the man said shrugging as his sleepless eyes wandered off again. You'll stay here now.
"No!" Matthew yelled, "No! I have a home and a family, you can't keep me here!"
The man's eyes bored into his and Matthew wished he could swallow his words back down, "I'm king of this mountain. You don't get to tell me what I can and cannot do."
"Please," he whispered, "I didn't know. Just please let me go."
"And if I don't want to? You're a pretty thing. You'd look good in my court. And my last little bird died so long ago." The Mountain King made a vague gesture towards the ceiling of the cavern where a cage hung, brass bars worn with age. The floor beneath it was littered with horribly human-looking bones. Matthew shook his head, tears sweeping pale paths down his grimy cheeks; smeared dark again when he tried to wipe his face clean with the back of his hand.
"Let me go," he demanded again. Frowning, the man lounging on the throne grunted something.
"Fine. You can leave." He waved a hand at someone towards the back of the cave.
Matthew paused, his eyes narrowing in suspicion, "Okay. Bye." He turned on his heel to leave when a sound stopped him dead in his tracks. It wasn't altogether very loud or grating. It was a thin, keening noise that snaked its way through the crowded creatures and up his spine.
"So hungry," the voice begged piteously, "So cold." It could have been a child lost in the woods, a whisper through the trees. Whatever it was, it cut into Matthew's mind like an axe.
"Not so fast, Chickadee," the King said softly, "If you want to leave, you have to race the Wendigo."
Wendigo.
Matthew's mouth went dry as the creature came into view. dark leather had withered onto its misshapen bones. Antlers and branches jutted from its head, its shoulders, everywhere. Its eyes were burning and it whimpered again in that chilling, childish voice as it gazed at the Canadian, "Flesh?"
"What?" he rasped, not daring to take his eyes off of the hideous, lumbering creature caged in front of him.
"If you want to leave," there was a sickly smile in the other's voice, "You have to beat the beast."
—
Razor-tipped leaves sliced at exposed skin as he bounced from rock-face to tree-bark, feet landing heavily in the deep loam, breaths dragging from his lungs in panicked sobs. The screeching laughter behind him grew louder as the creature approached. It too was sobbing.
"So hungry!" It wailed plaintively, clawed fingers as gnarled and twisted as the tree branches pulled at Matthew's clothes and hair. Close enough to snatch at, but still too far to grab. Matthew tried to force his numb legs to move faster but had no idea if his efforts had any affect on his speed. He couldn't tell if the wetness on his cheeks was sweat, tears or blood. The palms of his hands had been scraped free of skin, bleeding and raw. His lip was torn, that much was certain.
"Flesh!" The Wendigo moaned, its anguished voice torn and ragged, spurring Matthew all the faster. Pain pulsed with every beat of his heart, every step was agony, but he didn't care. He needed to get out. Needed to beat the beast. The first to the road. He had to be the first to the road. Beat the beast.
"Feed me! Please!" Every scream from the abomination behind him clawed at his nerves, bring fresh pain to his abused body. Chocking, sobbing and gasping, Matthew clawed at the air, pulling himself forward, smashing into rocks and branches with total disregard If he made it out alive, then he would worry about his missing skin and his bruises. For now he just wanted to live.
The trees were gone. No trees. Tar. Matthew staggered to a standstill, his legs shaking violently. He was on the road. The road. Get out of the trees. Beat the beast. Legs no longer able to support him, he dropped to his shredded knees. Hysterical, hiccuping noises tore themselves free from his throat as he hugged the tar, clawing at it with bloodied fingertips. His chest heaved, desperate for air and his heart hammered through his ribs.
It was like that - broken, bloody, pupils blown wide and silently screaming - that he was found.
—
Matthew panted, the kitchen swimming blearily into focus. It was still blurry, his glasses somewhere other than on his face. Alfred stood in the doorway, mouth open and eyes wide; one hand on the light switch.
His brother was crouched on the counter top.
And the kitchen was trashed.
Everywhere pots and pans had been flung across the room. What looked like relish was smeared across the walls. Barbecue sauce dripped from the light fixtures and something that was either salt or sugar was strewn carelessly across the tabletop. Flour clouded the air, lending Matthew a ghost-like appearance. There was a streak knife clutched in his trembling hand.
Other silverware had been hurled across the room. There was a fork in the pot plant that sat on the windowsill, and a knife had been embedded with terrifying accuracy into the wall clock. Matthew panted, hunkered down low, his eyes wild and his hair a mess. Slowly, Alfred lowered his hand from where it had glued itself to the wall.
"Mattie?" he asked croakily, "Mattie," he cleared his throat and tried again, "Mattie, put the knife down. Okay? Just put it down, nice and easy."
The blade thunked into the plaster beside Alfred's head, and Matthew moaned, shaking his head, he tore at his hair, fingers dragging at his skin.
"Beat the beast. Reach the road. Gotta be faster. Gotta gotta gotta. Beat the beast. Safe. Home. Beat the beast. Reach the road."
He screamed pulling at his own flesh as though it was burning from the inside out.
"Gotta go home!" he wailed.
—-
The bags under Alfred's eyes would have cost him extra at any airport the world over. Sitting at his wrecked kitchen table, he nursed his coffee and sighed. In the stark light of morning, he had hoped things might be better. He had, however, discovered that something had bitten his goldfish in two, half the garden had been torn up, and the only reason Matthew had been in the kitchen at all was because he had failed to make it past the electrified fence.
He had wondered about the thin, burnt lines across his twin's palms.
"Morning-" Matthew's tired greeting was cut short as he absorbed the chaos he had created. "I am so sorry."
"S'okay, Mattie," Alfred sighed, "But I think you ate my goldfish."
"Ate-?" the Canadian looked a little sick.
"Yeah. Ate. Matthew… What are we going to do about this?"
The other leant his head against the door frame, not surprised when he saw the knife buried in the wall. At least it hadn't hit Alfred this time. Last time he had needed stitches in his ear.
"I don't know," as he had the night before, Matthew's fingers dug into his face, pulling as though he could tear the civility straight off of his face.
—
Matthew sighed, his shoulders hunched up around his ears and his eyes on stalks as he stepped out of the car and into the chill air. He looked around uneasily. This had been where he had parked the last time. The exact same space, the exact same time. The skin that had been stripped from his fingers as he fled had barely just grown back; still soft and smooth. No prints yet.
Three hours later, Matthew was wondering if maybe he hadn't just gone for a hike and had a psychotic break while he was out there. He had walked, run, jumped and skipped over the entire valley he had run through the last time and there was no muttering laughter, no presence at his back. Not a trace of that strange, sleepy-eyed man. There was no Mountain King.
Seething, Matthew lashed out at a rock, sending it clattering down the slope, "Don't you want me?" he screamed at the mountain that loomed over him, "First you won't let me leave and now you won't take me back!" An animalistic shriek of frustration ripped from his throat and more rocks found themselves hurled down the gorge, thudding wetly against tree-trunks, bruising the bark and chipping it off in places.
"If I remember right, you didn't want to stay. Why should I let you back?" The Mountain King's tones were whisper soft, but he was laughing at him, Matthew knew it.
"I don't belong there," Matthew hissed, hands fisting into his own hear and pulling as though that would make his anguish disappear, "I should be here, I shouldn't be with people. What did you do to me?"
"I didn't do anything," the King said emotionlessly, "You ran."
"Please, I'll do anything, just let me stay. I'll be your little bird up in the cage just don't make me go back there. I can't I just." Matthew was on his knees, the soft knew skin of his fingers tearing as he clawed at the ground.
"You can stay," the king said carelessly, and Matthew looked up, face terrifyingly joyful. "If you beat the beast."
Matthew smiled.