The Music of the Mountains
It had been a while since he heard that sound. “The music of the mountains”, he had called it many years ago. The sound of a hundred drums and whistles intertwined so melodiously to create an ambience of calm whispered by the numerous tall cypresses that marked the entrance to the Forlorn Mountain.
As Dave drove up the mountain in his all black 2016 Corvette Stingray, top down and wind blowing through his hair, he could hear his foster mother scolding him in her evil do-not-dare-disobey-me-again shriek; “I warned you Dave! Never go into the mountains, evil lurks there! But no, you just had to be stubborn... not obeying me like your good for nothing father! And see? This is what happens, you stupid boy. People get…”
Dave tightened his hands on the steering wheel as the memory of that conversation washed through him like hot water on fine silk. The bitterness of fear and hatred had his tongue recoiling in distaste.
He commanded his mind to drop the subject, focus on the road… focus on not having another accident… focus Dave, focus.
On a summer day, ten years ago, Dave and Melissa had the most sensual night of their lives. Melissa meant everything to Dave. She accepted him the way he was; depressed, broken and damaged. She was his heart, his breath, his smile, his joy, his reason for living. Her voice was a sweet melody driving him to be better, to crawl out of his depression and make something of himself, to believe that everything was going to be just fine.
The day had started with notes; handwritten notes strategically placed where he knew Melissa would find them easily. Love notes to commemorate three years of two hearts being utterly and completely in love and lust.
The eventuality of distance loomed over their heads as graduation drew closer and closer. College was very close.
Their third anniversary had to be perfect. Melissa fell in love with him all over again that day. The notes, chocolates, gifts popping up in very random places… the music that seemed to play in the background wherever she went and to top it all, the moonlight picnic with Dave at their favourite spot in the forest on the mountain. He made her feel like the most beautiful woman on earth and made love to her like it was their last time. Her passion matched his and she felt every bit of him, mind, body and soul. They bared it all to each other and within the chaos, found themselves again and again.
She felt like the lead actress in a classic romance movie that ended up with the man of her dreams, her knight in shining armour.
Except she was not.
Dave’s car was parked at the top of the mountain, five kilometres away from him, off the road and away from plain sight. He sat on a huge rock at the place he once referred to as “our special place”, playing with a small rock he picked up along the way. The rock he sat on had many small rocks like the one he carried, decorated at the bottom of it. This place held a lot of memories, and not just his. He thought about the life he had now, his wife, Tricia and daughter, Melissa who were some hundred miles away. They didn’t know about this place and they never would. He would protect them at all cost. He would protect the world from evil but not the evil his foster mother had said lurked in the Forlorn Mountain.
He would protect the world from her.
She had always loathed him. She beat him, abused him, physically and psychologically. She killed his father who loved him. His poor father was loving but he was weak. The day Dave found him hanging from the ceiling fan in his room with a bed sheet around his neck had been the darkest day of his life.
Until the accident.
Still in the happy haze of the just-over day, Dave drove his father’s truck down the mountain’s steep curve. He had to get Melissa home before her parents found out she’d been gone all night.
She leaned over to give him a sweet kiss on his cheek and for a moment, all he could think of was running away… with her… right then and there. He played it all in his head; they would go to a little town somewhere far away, get married and have a little girl just like Melissa. Live a peaceful life filled with happiness away from his mother and the memories of his weak father.
Melissa tried to warn him but he realized reality too late. He could not swerve fast enough. The trailer crashed into his father’s truck and pushed them down the side of the mountain.
It was a miracle, the doctor said. He lived and the witch hated him even more for it.
He slipped back into the depression before Melissa. Some days were worse than others and he’d plead for death but it wouldn’t come. He was too much of a coward to take his life.
One day, it all changed. Like a magnet attracting pins, the music of the mountain drew him to that spot where all the memories were.
It gave him life. It gave him a purpose. That night he had an epiphany.
He was no coward. He was not his father.
When he slit her throat, he had a smile on his face. It remained fixed on his face all through the night as he wrapped her body in the same bed sheet his father hung himself with, as he threw her corpse in the back of the truck, as he took a shovel and drove to the mountain that called him, as he dug her grave and laid her hatred to the ground.
He picked up a small stone and placed it at the bottom of a huge rock right in the middle of his now special spot.
He cleared up all evidence of death in his house, packed up and left the town in his father’s truck.
It was a new Dave.
Nobody ever bothered to find out what happened to the crazy woman and her suicidal son. The town was glad they were gone.
Thinking about his first kill always had two effects on Dave. First, something that resembled sadness, but he wasn’t sure. He was a changed man after-all.
Second was absolute joy.
He had rid the world of her then but his job wasn’t done. She must die over and over again. His happiness depended on it.
As Dave stared at the ground before him, he was filled with an intense satisfaction. He knew the exact spots he buried all of them.
The mountain was called the Forlorn Mountain for a reason. It was his special place and no one would ever know.
Dave bent down to place the stone he held in his hand carefully on top of the pile at the bottom of the huge rock; one more to his beautiful collection.
He grabbed the shovel on the ground beside him and began the five-kilometre walk back to his car.
As Dave drove back to Melissa and Tricia, a hundred drums and whistles whispered love songs to his ears. The Forlorn Mountain did not bid him farewell.
He would be back.
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