Daniel Hayes
06-25-2015, 05:55 AM
Hi all, this is my first attempt at a horror short story, let me know what you think. Cheers ::EEK!::
Labyrinth of the Grey Man (part 1)
The following is a testament of the events that led to my present predicament and a record of my subsequent findings. I write this in the hope that it may be found one day, even if I am not, and I will endeavour to leave to posterity as much relevant detail in the telling as I can recall. It began three months ago now, in March of 2015, when we at the East Mercian Paranormal Society were contacted by a climber that had just returned from the Cairngorms and had seen something he could not explain. The climber in question did not want to be named as he feared for his reputation, though I pray that he comes forward, should this document see the light of day, to add credence to my account. Our contact described being followed by a great grey shape as he climbed Ben Macdhui, the tallest peak in the range, and related to us a feeling of overwhelming dread that had seized him from that moment and from which he was not released until he had come off the mountain. Such reports were not unknown to us at the Society as the Grey Man of Ben Macdhui, or the Am Fear Liath Mór as it is known in the old local tongue, is famous among paranormal circles as Britain’s potential equivalent of the North American Sasquatch, the Himalayan Yeti or the Australian Yowie alongside a score of other giant wildmen. Given our contact’s credentials, which shall go unlisted here except to say that he is an experienced mountaineer and learned academic, and the weight of similar historic testimony the Investigative Committee of the Society agreed unanimously to mount an expedition to Scotland in search of the Grey Man. My colleague at the Society, Dr Irving Ransom, was able to solicit sufficient donations to fund the trek from his secret source. If I ever make it out of this place alive I am determined to uncover the identity of this covert benefactor; my esurient curiosity can no longer be reconciled to the secrecy surrounding this generous individual and his clandestine motivations.
In addition to me our team included three others from the Society: Messrs Smith, Howard and O’Hare. The former pair are seasoned paranormal investigators but without any particular experience of the conditions we expected in the Cairngorms, therefore O’Hare was assigned to our group as he had not long been returned from an expedition in the heights of the Peruvian Andes. For some local guidance and know-how we sought the services of a professional hiker out of Inverness, one Malcom Mackay, the fifth and final member of our group. Once all the preparations had been made, we four from the Society flew out of Stansted to Glasgow on 10th June, which was a Wednesday, to rendezvous with Malcom before heading on to Ben Macdhui, which we reached by the evening. With us we had taken all the regulation equipment of our trade: electronic voice phenomena (EVP) recorders, electromagnetic field (EMF) metres, forward looking infrared thermal (FLIR) and motion trigger cameras alongside various other industry accoutrements. With these tools we aimed to decipher whether the Grey Man, if such a thing existed or could be found, was by nature corporeal or ethereal, a relict hominid or an immaterial spectre. We at the Society investigate the paranormal, by which we mean a spectrum from the purely paranormal (including ‘cryptids’, undiscovered creatures which are nevertheless flesh and blood members of the animal kingdom) to the supernatural (otherworldly spiritual entities that do not appear to conform to any law of nature). With this methodological framework in mind we set up camp at the Linn of Dee, on the river’s western bank. The night was peaceful and the sky clear, though my sleep was troubled by bad dreams.
Our expedition was due to last for three days, over the course of which it was our intent to slowly ascend the mountain, laying down baited motion trigger cameras at strategic locations as we went in addition to taking notes and documenting our progress in a procedural fashion. At night we would attempt to document sub-audible communications with the EVP recorder and scan the bare mountain face with the FLIR. All being well we would descend Ben Macdhui on the final day, collecting the cameras and lures as we did so before collating our data at base camp. It started well enough, Thursday morning was bright and we made good progress. All the land was bare apart from the pines about Derry Lodge and it was hard to imagine anything so reputedly large could hide out here for so long, but I was reminded by Howard that the Grey Man might not have need of rudimentary necessities such as shelter otherwise indispensable to animal-kind. He was a proponent of the ‘supernatural thesis’ amongst cryptozoologists, taking the view that most legendary creatures, from Nessie to Bigfoot, are in fact beings of a spiritual rather than corporeal nature. Howard expounded this hypothesis in a voluminous tome, published by the Society, in which he claims that the lack of conclusive physical evidence of these entities can be explained with reference to their supernatural, and necessarily immaterial, compositions. Smith, on the other hand, held to the opposite perspective, maintaining that his quest was the search for flesh and blood creatures, the paranormal yet not supernatural. What Mackay must have thought of this debate I know not what as he kept largely to himself, except to offer advice and instructions now and again, on matters strictly related to his contractual duties.
It was not until the evening of the first day that anything worthy of note happened. We established camp in a gust-worn recess beneath Carn a’Mhaim to shelter from the wind which had picked up over the course of the afternoon. Being June the sky was still bright but the sun had sunk low enough to cast a shadow across desolate heath beneath us, so Smith and I retrieved the FLIR to scan for any heat signatures emitted by living creatures or other energy-emitting sources. After an unusually long time spent rousing the machine to life we scanned the heath and noticed a shape defined in bright reds and yellows in stark relief against a backdrop of cold blue and green. The creature, for it was surely alive given its apparent motion, wended steadily along a perpendicular heading. Mackay suggested that it might be one of the Cairngorm Reindeer or even a fellow hiker who’d lost his way, but he could make out nothing with the naked eye or through binoculars, leading Howard to suggest that it was an anomalous reading from a piece of occasionally erratic equipment. Following a reboot the FLIR failed to return anything of substance, which was enough to convince Howard. I was less certain and the foremost tendrils of an icy foreboding crept into my heart and could not be shaken from me. Though I was the junior member of this team, I had had my fair share of otherworldly experiences and prided myself on my stoicism, a virtue much regarded by the Society. Even so, that singular dread so often described in the accounts of the Grey Man was ushered in after this inconclusive encounter. That night was even more disturbed than the first.
Dawn on the second day was grim, driving rain and fog having moved in during the early hours which looked set to stay. Still, we had come prepared for such eventualities and de-camped in short order. Our route took as up, into Glen Luibeg following the Sion Riach route. This height was altogether bereft of trees and shrubs, according to what little distance we could see through the fog beyond the pathway. We continued laying down motion trigger cameras, which are often used in the pursuit of cryptids in the wild, most notably Sasquatch. In a lecture to the Society in the previous year, Smith had argued that the North American Bigfoot was so well adapted to seclusion in the wild that it instinctively avoided such traps, even if the specifics of their operation were beyond the ability of the Sasquatch to fathom. This and other speculations were the basis for continued debate between Howard and Smith, into which O’Hare refused to be drawn. O’Hare was a highflyer within the Society, enjoying the favour of the Investigative Committee which despatched him on the most prestigious and most eagerly anticipated missions, such as his recent sojourn in the Andes. He isn’t the type to become absorbed in the trivialities, as he probably sees it, of the sort that so engrosses men like Howard and Smith. For O’Hare truth is quested for in the field, not the lecture theatre or in tedious online forum threads. Perhaps it is he that will finally discover me, or what’s left. I think it is best that I follow his example and excise from this account any further detours into cryptozoological theory and contention.
Labyrinth of the Grey Man (part 1)
The following is a testament of the events that led to my present predicament and a record of my subsequent findings. I write this in the hope that it may be found one day, even if I am not, and I will endeavour to leave to posterity as much relevant detail in the telling as I can recall. It began three months ago now, in March of 2015, when we at the East Mercian Paranormal Society were contacted by a climber that had just returned from the Cairngorms and had seen something he could not explain. The climber in question did not want to be named as he feared for his reputation, though I pray that he comes forward, should this document see the light of day, to add credence to my account. Our contact described being followed by a great grey shape as he climbed Ben Macdhui, the tallest peak in the range, and related to us a feeling of overwhelming dread that had seized him from that moment and from which he was not released until he had come off the mountain. Such reports were not unknown to us at the Society as the Grey Man of Ben Macdhui, or the Am Fear Liath Mór as it is known in the old local tongue, is famous among paranormal circles as Britain’s potential equivalent of the North American Sasquatch, the Himalayan Yeti or the Australian Yowie alongside a score of other giant wildmen. Given our contact’s credentials, which shall go unlisted here except to say that he is an experienced mountaineer and learned academic, and the weight of similar historic testimony the Investigative Committee of the Society agreed unanimously to mount an expedition to Scotland in search of the Grey Man. My colleague at the Society, Dr Irving Ransom, was able to solicit sufficient donations to fund the trek from his secret source. If I ever make it out of this place alive I am determined to uncover the identity of this covert benefactor; my esurient curiosity can no longer be reconciled to the secrecy surrounding this generous individual and his clandestine motivations.
In addition to me our team included three others from the Society: Messrs Smith, Howard and O’Hare. The former pair are seasoned paranormal investigators but without any particular experience of the conditions we expected in the Cairngorms, therefore O’Hare was assigned to our group as he had not long been returned from an expedition in the heights of the Peruvian Andes. For some local guidance and know-how we sought the services of a professional hiker out of Inverness, one Malcom Mackay, the fifth and final member of our group. Once all the preparations had been made, we four from the Society flew out of Stansted to Glasgow on 10th June, which was a Wednesday, to rendezvous with Malcom before heading on to Ben Macdhui, which we reached by the evening. With us we had taken all the regulation equipment of our trade: electronic voice phenomena (EVP) recorders, electromagnetic field (EMF) metres, forward looking infrared thermal (FLIR) and motion trigger cameras alongside various other industry accoutrements. With these tools we aimed to decipher whether the Grey Man, if such a thing existed or could be found, was by nature corporeal or ethereal, a relict hominid or an immaterial spectre. We at the Society investigate the paranormal, by which we mean a spectrum from the purely paranormal (including ‘cryptids’, undiscovered creatures which are nevertheless flesh and blood members of the animal kingdom) to the supernatural (otherworldly spiritual entities that do not appear to conform to any law of nature). With this methodological framework in mind we set up camp at the Linn of Dee, on the river’s western bank. The night was peaceful and the sky clear, though my sleep was troubled by bad dreams.
Our expedition was due to last for three days, over the course of which it was our intent to slowly ascend the mountain, laying down baited motion trigger cameras at strategic locations as we went in addition to taking notes and documenting our progress in a procedural fashion. At night we would attempt to document sub-audible communications with the EVP recorder and scan the bare mountain face with the FLIR. All being well we would descend Ben Macdhui on the final day, collecting the cameras and lures as we did so before collating our data at base camp. It started well enough, Thursday morning was bright and we made good progress. All the land was bare apart from the pines about Derry Lodge and it was hard to imagine anything so reputedly large could hide out here for so long, but I was reminded by Howard that the Grey Man might not have need of rudimentary necessities such as shelter otherwise indispensable to animal-kind. He was a proponent of the ‘supernatural thesis’ amongst cryptozoologists, taking the view that most legendary creatures, from Nessie to Bigfoot, are in fact beings of a spiritual rather than corporeal nature. Howard expounded this hypothesis in a voluminous tome, published by the Society, in which he claims that the lack of conclusive physical evidence of these entities can be explained with reference to their supernatural, and necessarily immaterial, compositions. Smith, on the other hand, held to the opposite perspective, maintaining that his quest was the search for flesh and blood creatures, the paranormal yet not supernatural. What Mackay must have thought of this debate I know not what as he kept largely to himself, except to offer advice and instructions now and again, on matters strictly related to his contractual duties.
It was not until the evening of the first day that anything worthy of note happened. We established camp in a gust-worn recess beneath Carn a’Mhaim to shelter from the wind which had picked up over the course of the afternoon. Being June the sky was still bright but the sun had sunk low enough to cast a shadow across desolate heath beneath us, so Smith and I retrieved the FLIR to scan for any heat signatures emitted by living creatures or other energy-emitting sources. After an unusually long time spent rousing the machine to life we scanned the heath and noticed a shape defined in bright reds and yellows in stark relief against a backdrop of cold blue and green. The creature, for it was surely alive given its apparent motion, wended steadily along a perpendicular heading. Mackay suggested that it might be one of the Cairngorm Reindeer or even a fellow hiker who’d lost his way, but he could make out nothing with the naked eye or through binoculars, leading Howard to suggest that it was an anomalous reading from a piece of occasionally erratic equipment. Following a reboot the FLIR failed to return anything of substance, which was enough to convince Howard. I was less certain and the foremost tendrils of an icy foreboding crept into my heart and could not be shaken from me. Though I was the junior member of this team, I had had my fair share of otherworldly experiences and prided myself on my stoicism, a virtue much regarded by the Society. Even so, that singular dread so often described in the accounts of the Grey Man was ushered in after this inconclusive encounter. That night was even more disturbed than the first.
Dawn on the second day was grim, driving rain and fog having moved in during the early hours which looked set to stay. Still, we had come prepared for such eventualities and de-camped in short order. Our route took as up, into Glen Luibeg following the Sion Riach route. This height was altogether bereft of trees and shrubs, according to what little distance we could see through the fog beyond the pathway. We continued laying down motion trigger cameras, which are often used in the pursuit of cryptids in the wild, most notably Sasquatch. In a lecture to the Society in the previous year, Smith had argued that the North American Bigfoot was so well adapted to seclusion in the wild that it instinctively avoided such traps, even if the specifics of their operation were beyond the ability of the Sasquatch to fathom. This and other speculations were the basis for continued debate between Howard and Smith, into which O’Hare refused to be drawn. O’Hare was a highflyer within the Society, enjoying the favour of the Investigative Committee which despatched him on the most prestigious and most eagerly anticipated missions, such as his recent sojourn in the Andes. He isn’t the type to become absorbed in the trivialities, as he probably sees it, of the sort that so engrosses men like Howard and Smith. For O’Hare truth is quested for in the field, not the lecture theatre or in tedious online forum threads. Perhaps it is he that will finally discover me, or what’s left. I think it is best that I follow his example and excise from this account any further detours into cryptozoological theory and contention.