~~~
The brothers walked in silence for nearly forty-five minutes as they watched the nearest flashing of lights and looked for more. Their boots crunched and occasionally scattered the rough-edged gravel on the road except in the areas where tire treads had exposed the dirt beneath. Once they finally had followed the road out to the front, western edge of the mountain and climbed to nearly 8500 feet they were able to see Bald Mountain to the south again and the valley and great lake out beneath them in the valley. It was a beautiful sight and nearly distracted them deeply enough to forget their mission but then the light flashed not far above them on the ridge and brought their attention sharply to the task at hand.
“Hallooo!?” Don called again. And then the flashing light stopped.
The boys stood listening for a moment, hoping for a reply, but there was none. The second time Jonathan called out and still nothing. Then finally as they watched the light came on again. It remained solid, and even from the distance and lower elevation it seemed as though it were one bright candle flame of intense blue light.
“What the crap is that, anyway?” Donald asked, but his brother only shrugged and made to start climbing from the road up a nearby deer track he’d spotted.
The light went out after about ten seconds of being lit steadily, and when it went out just as suddenly as it had started, that was it. As they hiked and climbed up the steep mountain ridge there were no more lights flashing, no noises, nothing that they could see or hear.
After twenty-five minutes of climbing strenuously Jonathan and Donald had mounted the ridge and had started heading up it between the nearly Fall-stripped maples, oaks and the predominant Ponderosa pines and spruces towards the joining of that particular fold of mountain and another. Perhaps, they thought, they’d find one of the collections of scouts, search and rescue or whomever it was up there. The ridge widened and flattened as they went making it an easier march and in ten minutes or so they were at a flattened area snuggled up against the steep face of the mountain with many very large granite boulders strewn about, some as large as a house and reflecting a little moonlight in their flecked surfaces since the tree canopy couldn’t completely reach across the larger ones’ breadths.
Behind them and below were Woodville and Maple Springs to the south at a slightly lower elevation and gentler slope of the mountain. Few lights were still on through those cities but neither town could afford street lights, so for the most part so late in the night they were dark. One pair of headlights was leaving the middle of Maple Springs and heading down hill.
Don thought it funny thinking about how well you could hear the dogs’ barks echoing in the mountains from towns such as this and he let out a howl like a wolf at the top of his lungs. Sure enough a couple dogs in yards resounded back from the nearest neighborhoods, but the distance muffled them and made it a muted, somewhat lonely sound.
Then first contact came, immediately behind them. A snarl and then a low chuckle startled both men to turn around. Don had whipped his rifle off his shoulder during the turn and held it two hands roughly in front of him. It was then they realized they were surrounded by the shadows that had been igniting the signal lights and while they were short like children, they certainly were no boy scouts.
Several of the creatures took tentative steps towards the two men and they in turn backed away slowly as well. Jon reached back for his gun and Don raised his to his shoulder and aimed at the group of crawling, ant-like shadows moving out of the trees towards him. Only when he pulled the trigger and only heard a mild metallic click in the gun with no kick and no flash did Donald realize of course he hadn’t carried the gun loaded with a round in the chamber.
“I’m warning you!” Jon screeched in a voice much higher than even he had anticipated.
A couple of the shadowy, squatting figures had slinked into the more open area in which Jonathan and Don stood and they could see their pale gray-green faces mewling at them, baring tiny sharp teeth and drooling a pus-like saliva out of their lips. Their heads craned backwards as a slim figure strode onto the largest of the granite boulders before the two human males and placed its hands upon its hips, akimbo. Despite the odd shape of its head and pointed ears the new figure looked much like the silhouette of Peter Pan.
“Well?” the figure exclaimed in a female voice filled with gravel. “Arrr yer goin’tah take’som, er wut?”
The woman had a peculiar accent and it also caught Don and Jon off guard, giving just enough time for the hordes around them to bum rush and pin them to the dirt. The shadows started flailing both feet and fist to put the humans under, until finally, one of the more thoughtful of the goblin minions determined to knock them out with a rather large stone.
Jonathan’s last thoughts in the moment were how uncomfortable the frog-like cold, clammy hands of his captors were on his throat and tangled in his hair as they pulled his head back, aimed his eyes up into the moon and then received his dose of stone-to-forehead and then he was out.
For a time, he dreamt of ants crawling all over his body and biting at his skin.