A/N: Undertaker is about 30 in this story. Yes Grell and William are his kids and Eric and Ronald are his nephew's. Alan is just Eric's "friend" that comes. I hope you like my story. Review are welcome. R&R
A chuckle came from the woods. The five boys waited, leaning on the edges of their seats, wanting to hear the rest of the story.
"...and from that day forward, the campers shivered in their tents anytime they heard the howl of the ghostly black hound."
All the boys stared at each other with wide, wonder-filled eyes. They waited for their storyteller to return to the campfire. They waited...and waited...and waited, until they heard a loud scream and right after a loud howling. The two youngest boys started shivering in their seats.
"D-dad! St-stop messing around! It's not funny!" the oldest said. "Your scaring Ronald and Alan!" His voice didn't sound a confident as he wanted it to.
Suddenly there was a movement to Ronald's, the youngest, right. A loud howl came from the dark figure, and Ronald screams running into the second oldest boys arms crying. The dark figure chuckled not know how much he scared the little boy. The figure moved into the firelight, all the boys shaking now. A large grin spread across his scarred face.
"Dad! Th-that was NOT FUNNY!" The boy yelled at his father
His father just chuckled, but suddenly frowned when he heard Ronald, his nephew, crying. He walked up to the two toned hair little boy and the semi-long red head teenager.
"I'm sorry little lamb. Didn't mean to scare you that much." Undertaker said. The little boy sniffed his Green eyes going to his uncle
"I-its okay un-unckle Undertaker." The 9 year old said, clinging to the red-head.
The blond-black hair teenager sat, his best friend clinging to his shirt. "Sir...Is that a true?
The long silver-hair man chuckled. "Would I tell a story that wasn't true?"
There was a cynical snort of laughter as his son, William, said "They are good tall-tales, very good. Can you tell us one more?"
The other boys instantly adder their own pleas for another story. The two youngest boys had recovered from their earlier fright.
"Nah it's real late." Undertaker said "We had a long hike today and its time we all hit the hay" He chuckled at his own little rhyme.
There was grumbling from the boys, but only a little. They had spent two hours hiking to the campsite, and another hour setting up camp. They loved their annual wilderness excursion but they were bone-tired. They also knew that they would sit around the campfire again, tomorrow night and here more stories. Undertaker would tell them two or three stories. Four if they got lucky.
"'Night boys." Undertaker gave each kid a good-natured pat on the shoulder as they filed past him. When Ronald past him he said sorry once again for scaring him. They all disappeared into two large tents. There was a bit of rustling about, a few minutes of the boys shadow bouncing off the canvases tents. The flashlights turned off and soon the sound of soft snoring could be heard. The undertaker smiled stirring the ashes of the fire. It was his time now. His time to be alone with his thoughts in the quietest part of the world he knew.
The Undertaker and his family would spend a week before school every fall surrounded by this quite, beautiful nature. He would bring his sisters family and they would all meet at the rustic lodge that sat just outside the wilderness preserve. For a couple days they would all hang out for a reunion. Then Undertaker would gather up the boys and take them on a two-day excursion. It was good for them to spend time in nature's beauty instead of wasting it on the computer or video games. It was good for him as well. He loved spending time listing to the sounds of nature at night looking at the stars.
For a while, he sat watching the stars until the embers died out. The Undertaker had carried most of the camping gear so it wasn't long before his eyelids started to drop.
"Tomorrow's another day" He said quietly. He got up and stretched until he saw a mysterious sight caught his interest.
Shooting star? He wondered, and squinted into the distance. He watched the light bob, until soon, there were six lights. The Undertaker got scared. Not worried or concerned, but scared. Scared enough to rouse the boys from their deep sleep.
"C'mon" he said softly. "Everybody's gotta get up. There is a change of plans."
There were many groggy complaints, but the boys got up and did as they were told. They came out of their sleeping bags and out of the tent, shivering at the suddenly cold air.
"Was'going on?" William said rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
Undertaker pulled out the gear packs and began to pack up camp.
"Nothin' too much," He said and he hoped that his voice didn't betray either his fear or his lie.
"I'm sensing that we might get some weather. I thought instead of being cold we could get back to the lodge and have a roof over our heads."
The boys stared skyward and looked at each other in confusion.
"There aren't any clouds" said Eric
"There's no wind" Grell said.
"Dad, it's a two hour hike. It might even take longer because it's nighttime."
Everything that the boys said was true, but Undertaker didn't have time to debate. He needed to get them dressed, packed, and out. Everything would go smoothly if they weren't frightened. So the Undertaker had to do what he had to do." He looked at the five boys squarely in the eyes and bribed them.
"You guys get moving right now," he said, "and while we're on the trail, I'll tell you one of the best ghost stories you ever heard. It's from here and it's true. I promise."
It was the nudge that they needed. Within 15 minutes, both tents were down and the supplies had been re-packed. Five minutes after that, The Undertaker with the two oldest boys wielding powerful flashlights, they started on their midnight trek.
"Tell us that story now. The really good one." Ronald begged his uncle from his arms, being too exhausted to walk.
The Undertaker cleared his throat. He was falling down tired and leading a group of equally tired boys on a very long walk. He had to make them move, without making them afraid. That called for extreme distraction, which meant that he had to be the most entertaining that he had ever been in his light. He wasn't entirely sure that he could manage it, but he dove bravely.
"It all happened more than 200 years ago," He began, "to a party of settlers who were traveling through here on their way to the west coast. There were two families, they say, who had banded together to make the hard journey. Unfortunately, not one of those people knew of a good path to take through the mountains. They eventually decided to past through here on the north side of the lake."
"But that's dangerous!" Alan said. "Didn't they know how steep and rocky that is?"
Undertaker smiled. His repeated lectures about never wandering around to the mountain side of the small lake had not fallen on deaf ears after all.
"No, they didn't know," he said. "They had no one to tell them. So there they were trying to negotiate paths so slippery and narrow that even the mountain goats steered clear of them. They had little kids to hand on to and heavy packs to carry and the horses were so skittish that they had to blindfold 'em and lead 'em along the trail, step by step. Their situation was plenty bad and about to get worse.
"It was late into the fall and the weather was growing cool. The settlers had wrapped themselves in a few layers of warm clothing, but they weren't really prepared for winter conditions. After all, they were sure that they would be happily set up beside the ocean before the snow flew. But there was another thing they didn't know about these mountains: They way the weather could change so quickly. And as they were inching their way along the path, trying to not fall into the freezing late, a storm was blowing in.
"It wasn't just any storm it was one of those wicked blizzards that only seem to brew really early in the season or really late. The kind where the wind whips tiny icicles at your face and you can't see a person who's standing more'n 10 feet away. They didn't know it until it was too late, of course. They were halfway 'round the mountain by the time the sky had gone dark and the wind has started to gust. They couldn't stay where they were then; most spots on that path there isn't even room to sit yourself comfortably down, let alone build a fire and a shelter and bed down from the night. So they just kept going and they prayed that the weather would let up."
"And did it?" Alan interrupted. The four other boys simultaneously shushed him.
"You hafta wait and find out in the story" Ronald said laying his head down on Undertakers shoulder. Undertaker knew that the boys were caught up in the story and not thinking about their weariness or their sore feet.
"The store didn't let up," he continued. "In fact, it went on for hours. The snow was blowing so furiously around the settlers that they were blinded by it. They were literally feeling their way around that mountain. Eventually, they grew so afraid of taking a wrong step on the trail that they slowed to a dead stop. They just clung to the face of the rock, felling their hands and feet go numb while the ice and snow found its way down their collars and into their sleeves. The men and women who were leading the group knew that every one of them was going to freeze if they didn't do something. So they did something."
"They took out their lanterns," Undertaker said solemnly. "It may not sound like a daring thing, or a brave thing, but it was. Just standing still wad precarious enough at that point; digging through the saddle bags on skitter horses was like walking a tightrope. The other thing was they had so little kerosene. They had been conserving it for weeks. Matches were in short supply, too, but they unpacked them just the same. And each time they jostled those supplies around, they risked sending either themselves or the packs that held their means of survival down into the lake."
"Well, the wing was howling and the snow was blowing and it took quite a few tries to even get one lantern wick lit. But they did it, and then they lit another and another and another. They lit every lantern that they had with them and passed them carefully down the line Once the lights were spread out , each of them could see little bit better. Plus, they had something to follow. They could tell when there was a dip or a bend coming up. The terrain was just as dangerous, but it couldn't surprise them so much."
"But maybe that was part of the problem, in the end; the fact that each person was almost hypnotically following the lamp that was in front of him or her. Because the group eventually came to this little slope that had gotten real slick with ice. The fellow that was leading, he stared edging down the path, real slow and easy, but he still lost his footing. He slipped and he fell, straight down into the lake. He took his lantern with him, and his whole family watched in horror as that light disappeared over the side of the precipice. They say that quite a few of them leaned over to keep the light in their sights, and that they lost their balance and fell too. Fell screaming, still clutching their lanterns, all the way into the cold, back water.
"By the time the storm had ended and the group had made it through the treacherous mountain pass, they were missing more than half their number. And they say that the ones who perished along the way occasionally relive their terrifying final hours. People know, because every so often they see the glow of their lanterns. These little pinpoints of light moving unsteadily and ever so slowly along the base of the mountain. They call them the 'lost lights', because they are the lost souls of the settlers who never made it though the storm."
There were a few moments of respectful silence. The William spoke.
"Wow…dad," He breathed. "Did that really happen, right here?"
"You can look it up when we get back to the lodge," said Undertaker. "I'm pretty sure the part about the settlers and the storm is in a local history book. The part about the 'lost lights', well, you just have to take my word for it."
"Have you ever seen them?" Eric asked.
Undertaker paused for just a second before he answered.
"Just once," Was all he said.
Undertaker and the boys made it back to the lodge in good time considering that they were walking in the dark and badly in need of rest. It was still the wee hours of the morning when they crested the hill that took them out of the woods and into the open pasture where the lodge was situated.
Because of the time, they were surprised to see lights blazing and a group of people bustling about on the building's main veranda. When they got closer, Undertaker could see men loading survival gear onto the backs of a couple all-terrain vehicles.
"What's going on?" He called out when he was close enough to be heard. At the sound of his voice, every one of the people turned and squinted into the darkness.
"It's them!" Somebody shouted as Undertaker and the boys came walking into the illumination of the powerful yard lights. There was an eruption of excited comments from the crowd. Then Undertakers sister and his wife pushed their way through the group and came running across the lawn to meet him.
"Thank god, thank god!" his wife said over and over. Her face showed evidence of some great strain. Undertaker's sister grabbed a sleeping Ronald from his arms and went over to Eric, crying, so glad that both of her son's were safe.
"What going on?" He asked, this time to his wife, who had grabbed William and Grell and was hugging them.
She told him that there was a storm blowing in, a freak, early-season storm that was likely to be the worst in decades. They had been told to except freezing rain followed by a blizzard. Temperatures were supposed to drop more than 20 degrees overnight. Campers from all over the area were being rounded up and brought in to safety.
"But you and the boys were the farthest out," She said, "and the bad weather is coming form that direction. It's supposed to hit the lake first. In fact, it's probably already there. So they sent a search and rescue team," She pointed to the men by the loaded ATVs.
Undertaker's wife sighed with relief once more hugging Grell and William. Then she paused as a question occurred to her.
"It's the middle of the night," She said to him. "How did you know you had to get back?"
It was Undertakers turn to pause. He took his wife's arm and moved them away from the kids and his sister.
"I saw the 'lost lights'," He said in a quiet voice.
They both went pale because the both knew the legend. There was a part that Undertaker did not tell the boys.
It was long believed that when the lost lights appeared, it was to serve as a dire warning. Those who souls had perished in the mountain lake more than two centuries before showed their lanterns for only one reason: to signal that a vicious, deadly storm was on its way.
"How many?" Undertaker's wife asked him. When he responded by holding up all the fingers on his left hand and put up his index finger on his right, her hands flew to her mouth in an expression of horror.
"All of you!" she gasped, and he nodded.
Undertaker shook a little then, as the reality of what could have happened sunk it. For it was true what the legend said about how the spirits always personalized the omen.
They did it by showing one lantern…for every person who was about to die.