Cold - A Terror Mountain Ghost Story

     Maybe someone has told you this before: That cold is just the absence of heat, in the same way that darkness is the absence of light. An absence cannot be measured, so, there’s no such thing as cold, right?

     Perhaps.

     Or perhaps it’s just a story we use to comfort ourselves when we’re shivering in the dark.

          ----------------

     The icy snow stung Jacob’s face, as he trudged onwards and upwards. Or at least, he thought he was going upwards, but it was hard to tell anymore with the storm setting in around him. The Ogrin wondered to himself where this blizzard had come from. One minute, he had been ascending Terror Mountain in the warm afternoon sun, and the next, it was as if midnight had fallen.

     Jacob shrugged off his rucksack and rummaged through it, struggling to keep his balance despite the wind’s best efforts to topple him. He found his flashlight and switched it on, but it wasn’t much use. Its light put him in the strange position of being surrounded by pitch black or blinding white simultaneously, with no useful in-between. He switched it off again, and shivered in the dark, in the cold.

     Jacob had expected low temperatures near the peak of the mountain, he wasn’t daft, but he hadn’t come prepared for whatever this was. He would have to find shelter, and soon. His eyes started to adjust to the dark, so he began to trudge forwards again.

     He stopped suddenly and looked to his left. What was that? He had seen something. But when he turned, there was nothing but swirling snow and endless dark.

     He shook his head, and resumed walking, three steps, before his attention was caught again, a flash of yellow, this time to his right. Once again, there was nothing but cold as far as the eye could see. But… he had been so sure. Something else had been there. Something impossible.

     Slower this time, Jacob began to move forwards, looking left and right, trying to catch whatever he had seen with some non-peripheral part of his eyes.

     He did not spot it again. He did, however, see something else that caught his interest. Through the snowy haze, a faint light glowed ahead. He took one last look around him, for any glimpse of what he had seen – for who he had seen – before moving at full pace towards the light.

     ----------------

     Jacob struggled to close the old wooden door against the force of the wind, snow swirling in behind him with a howl and a shriek. He eventually triumphed, setting the metal latch down again and securing the entrance to the warm room. The source of the light, it had transpired, was an old cabin on the edge of the cliffs.

     Jacob looked around the room. A fireplace crackled merrily in the corner, and large old bookcases lined almost every wall. An old grandfather clock ticked proudly, its rhythm syncing nicely with Jacob’s steadily relaxing heartbeat. The back of the room had a floor-to-ceiling window, which looked out to the snowy darkness.

     “Thank you,” Jacob said, to the Eyrie who had answered the door, and who was now heading back to his seat by the fire.

     “No problem at all,” the Eyrie said, “it’s lucky you saw us at all with how strong that blizzard is. Hate to think what would have happened if you had to spend the night out there…”

     Jacob flinched, a memory resurfacing. Not now.

     “…and you’re very welcome here. We have a spare room that you can use for the night.”

     “That’s very kind, please, let me compensate you,” said Jacob, fumbling to get some Neopoints out of his rucksack.

     The Eyrie held up his hand.

     “No need for that at all, Jacob, as I said, you’re very welcome.”

     Jacob paused, confused. The Eyrie sensed it.

     “Your name is written on your rucksack,” he chuckled, “I’m Eli. It’s nice to meet you. I assume from the way you’re dressed that you’re not a local? What brings you up to Terror Mountain in this weather?”

     Jacob’s eyes flashed down to his rucksack, where the foot of a cloth doll was poking out. He tucked it away again.

     “I’m on my way to see Donny, actually, I need something repaired,” Jacob replied.

     “That doll?” said Eli, indicating the space the doll’s leg had been moments earlier, “Long way to come to get a doll fixed, isn’t it?”

     “It has sentimental value,” mumbled Jacob, “I want to make sure it’s done right.”

     “Sounds like there’s a story here,” said Eli. “Let’s hear it. Neither of us is going anywhere for a while anyway.”

     “I’d really rather not, if that’s okay,” said Jacob quickly, picking up the rucksack. “I’m actually very tired, so I might retire to bed. Could you please direct me to the spare room?”

     “I didn’t mean to pry, my apologies. Up the stairs and to the left. Sleep well.”

     ----------------

     It was colder up here. The warmth from the fire clearly didn’t spread far.

     Jacob stared out the bedroom window, into the night. The wind flung snow mercilessly against the glass, before sweeping it up and hurling it back to the dark again. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the clear glass. The tip of his nose and his ears had darkened slightly with mild frostbite, from just a short time in the blizzard.

     He narrowed his eyes. There was something out there in the dark. A flash of yellow. A twirling within the swirling snow. The impossible. She was here again. This time, though, he could focus his eyes on her, just barely. She was standing out, in the blizzard, just at the edge of darkness, where the light from the cottage began to fade into nothingness. She was in her yellow dress, staring straight ahead, straight at him. Her mouth was moving, saying something, screaming it even, but no sound could be heard, save for the furious wind outside and the hammering of his own heartbeat.

     Jacob ran downstairs to find Eli still sitting by the fireplace, staring into it.

     “Something the matter?” he asked, without looking away from the flames.

     “I think, I don’t know… I… there’s someone out there. Someone who…” Jacob stammered in reply.

     “In the blizzard? Well, we had better let them in then,” replied Eli, calmly, standing and moving towards the door.

     “No, wait, don’t! Please, don’t open it, she can’t be here, it’s not possible.”

     “Who can’t be here?”

     “It’s – she’s my daughter. I thought I saw my daughter, Delilah, but I can’t have, I must be imagining things,” Jacob said, growing visibly more frantic.

     “OK,” reasoned Eli, “so your daughter followed you up the mountain, let’s let her in before she freezes to dea—”

     “You don’t understand!” shouted Jacob.

     Silence fell between the two of them, punctuated only by the grandfather clock.

     Tick, tick, tick

     “I – I’m sorry for shouting. Delilah can’t be outside and certainly can’t freeze to death because she already did. Two years ago. It was..” Jacob paused to gather himself, tears welling in his eyes, “It was my fault, I – I should have been watching her. She took this doll, her doll, she took her blanket, and she went to camp out under the stars. She didn’t tell me where she was going. I would have told her no, I would have told her to stay inside, the weather can change unexpectedly, that it’s not safe, I would have told her. The blizzard came through in a flash that night, like this night, one of the only blizzards we have ever had in our area. I thought we were all safe inside, I thought… the next morning…” he trailed off again.

     Eli laid a gentle arm on his shoulder, and Jacob continued.

     “This doll, we found her with… with this doll. Its arm was torn slightly. She loved this doll. I need – I need to fix it, for her. I would have told her not to go, I would have…” Jacob sobbed.

     Eli hugged him.

     “I know you would have,” said Eli, but not with his own deep voice.

     With Delilah’s voice.

     The fireplace went out and the room was thrown into darkness.

     ----------------

     Jacob was alone, in the dark cabin, hugging thin air. Eli was gone.

     The storm outside intensified. Without the fire, the temperature had started to drop rapidly. The cold was back, and Jacob’s breath formed small clouds with each exhale, his tears beginning to crystalise on his eyelashes.

     The side of the cabin creaked - something was pushing against it.

     “Who’s there?” whispered Jacob.

     He could hear footsteps in the snow outside, slowly making their way along the outside of the cabin, as if they were looking for a weak spot in the walls. The footsteps moved slowly, slowly, towards the back wall, the wall with the huge window. Jacob moved to the window and waited with bated breath, as the crunching sound grew louder and louder, closer, and closer.

     Suddenly, they stopped. Jacob found himself standing in silence again, his cloud of breath fogging up the window in front of him. He stood, frozen, as a message began to appear on the glass, drawn with an invisible finger through the condensation.

     “I’m sorry,” it read, “I tried to stop her.”

     The window exploded, outward, glass flying into the snowy abyss.

     Frozen air blew in desperately, frantically, filling every corner of the room, sending books tumbling off shelves and pages flying around everywhere. Jacob turned to see Delilah, standing in the middle of the chaos, pointing upstairs. She was mouthing something, but no words were coming out. Then she was gone.

     Delilah was also clearly trying to communicate something to him. If she wanted him upstairs, upstairs he would go. Jacob knew he couldn’t stay here anyway, not with the oppressive cold from the blizzard – at least the window upstairs was still intact.

     By the time Jacob reached the bedroom, Delilah was there again, this time pointing at the rucksack, urgently. Strange laughter drifted up from downstairs, followed by angry whispers.

     Delilah was still mouthing, but it was simpler this time, only two words, the same two words, repeatedly. Jacob understood.

     The doll.

     The doll had been there that night, the first blizzard that took Delilah from him, and it was here again tonight.

     Jacob pulled the doll from the bag and laid it out on the bed. He saw a glimmer in its eyes. Of course. The torn arm was not an accident. Delilah had tried to stop it, but wasn’t strong enough. But he could be. He reached for the doll, but before he could grab it, it was sailing through the air, as if carried by some unseen force.

     Jacob grabbed his rucksack and chased after the cursed doll, back downstairs. Halfway down the flight, something freezing, even colder than the rest of the room, grabbed his ankle. He tripped and stumbled down the rest of the way. On the ground, he turned. A shadowy figure loomed over him. Eli, but not Eli. Pure, pitch-black nothingness in the shape of Eli. An absence of Eli. It reached out a shadowy hand, but Jacob rolled out of reach.

     The doll now floated in the middle of the cabin. Snow, wind, and books swirled around it in a flurry. Jacob, on the ground, began to crawl towards it, hand after hand. He could feel his muscles freezing up, and each movement was more challenging than the last.

     The Absence of Eli grabbed Jacob's shoulders and pulled him up. He felt his shoulders freeze over where the Absence held him. It lifted him from the ground and threw him towards the open window. But Jacob was ready. He unzipped his rucksack and held it out like a net. As he sailed past the floating doll, he scooped it up with his bag.

     Jacob landed outside in the snow. He grabbed the cursed doll from his bag and quickly tore it into pieces. He ran to the edge of the cliff and tossed the parts of the cursed doll as far as he could, into the storm. Its eyes gleamed and shone as the storm picked it up and carried it away into the night.

     ----------------

     The cabin had vanished. The storm, thankfully, had also dissipated. The doll was gone, and so too were all its nightmarish apparitions. All that remained was Jacob’s rucksack, lying in the snow.

     Jacob took out a blanket and wrapped himself in it, as he sat on the snow and watched the sun rise over the mountains. It was time to go home. He was hopeful he would finally get some rest.

     He hoped Delilah would too.

     ----------------

     Donny opened the door of his toy repair shop and greeted the day with a grizzled smile. The storm had cleared, and all seemed to be well on Terror Mountain again.

     Something caught his eye, not far from his door.

     “What do we have here then?” He asked aloud, as he bent down and collected the doll’s parts.

     “Oh no, this simply won’t do. Let’s go get you fixed up.”

     The doll’s eyes flashed, but Donny didn’t notice, as he was already halfway inside his workshop.

     The End.