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Labyrinth of the Grey Man (part 2)
Our advance through the grey rain and encompassing mist was a desultory trudge when compared to the previous day’s advance, negating the good fortune which had placed us ahead of schedule. We had arrived on the inhospitable sub-arctic plateau atop Ben Macdhui by noon and came to the summit by early evening. All about on this height, outstripped by none in Britain save Ben Nevis, were weather-smoothed rocks, some of which had been piled together to create a cairn at the mountain’s absolute summit. Here Howard and I conducted several sessions with the EVP recorder, but a furtive attempt to playback the findings revealed a wave of queer undulating static. The EMF metre was of little more use, producing inconstant readings from which no solid conclusion could be drawn. It was then that it happened, that which turned the whole expedition on its head. As we were preparing to make our descent to the final camp site before we left the mountain entirely Mackay claimed he saw a great shape loom out of the fog toward him before withdrawing back into Scotch mist. It took us some time to calm this tough highlander down, which we did with the help of some Old Fettercairn that Smith had guilefully kept secreted inside a hip-flask. O’Hare suggested that the thing may have been the product of an optical illusion known as the broken spectre effect, in which one’s shadow is cast against the cloud, giving the appearance of a large humanoid figure. Mackay replied that he would have said as much himself, had not the shape closed on him while he was standing perfectly still. By now that dawning horror which had germinated within me the previous night began to bloom even as I witnessed its vanguard symptoms on the others, even O’Hare. The fog appeared to close in even further, making it impossible to retrace our route off the pinnacle, so we resolved to make what progress we could in the hope of the weather clearing or of encountering some fellow hikers. Neither of which ever occurred, as far as I can tell.
That night, which was supposed to be our last, we spent alert, all our senses prickling at the merest suggestion of deliberate egress. Smith complained that we would not be able to reclaim the motion trigger cameras anytime soon if we did not follow the same route back down, but in truth my thoughts strayed from the quest to all manner of nameless terrors. The legendary fear of Ben Macdhui had broken down my fortitude, I am ashamed to confess, replacing my commitment to the goals of the Society with thoughts of panic and of flight. The very wind, which had gained yet more in strength, seemed to carry on it fell voices and unearthly cries. There was no sleep for me that night, even if Howard had refrained from playing back the eldritch confusions captured on his EVP recorder, which never appeared to sound the same way twice in each replaying of, nominally, the same sample.
Dawn on the third day, the 13th June, was ushered in not through the sudden alertness that comes from waking but as a slowly unfolding state of being, one which proceeds from a state of unyielding sleeplessness. Our team soundlessly and cautiously gathered themselves together and disassembled the single tent into which we had all pressed shamelessly for mutual comfort. To our distress it seemed as though the mist had not only failed to disperse but had grown even closer and denser, if that were possible. Bereft of any obvious route, and with our compass spinning about wildly and uselessly, we headed in the direction that felt most downward in trajectory, but which might prove to be a decline foreshadowing an ascent to yet another unseen height. We from the Society were content that this was the least worst option available, a fact and reality which Mackay found hard to accept given his hiking experience in the Cairngorms. Nobody wished to take up the van or the rear of our shuffling column, so we clustered together, eyes and heads swivelling in their sockets in fear of a reappearance of the shape.
Our party carried on for what felt like an epoch, but which may only have been a half an hour of intense alertness. We let out a collective sigh of dismay when the path began to ascend again, begetting a wave of panic and desperation that breached the facades of our self-control. Mackay bellowed in rage and frustration and O’Hare joined in with a tirade of curses. I was frozen in place, numbed by fear, with the blood pounding in my ears as suddenly the encircling mists grew impossibly dense, completely surrounding me such that I could not even see my own knees. Then all sound died away besides the howl of the wind and my own useless cries for help. I could neither see, nor hear, nor in anyway sense the company of my fellows as panic drove me to dive madly into suffocating grey shroud. I cannot say for how long I ran hither and thither, vainly searching for Howard, Smith and the others but my efforts were brought to a sudden end when I found myself falling. I landed heavily, winded and dazed, inside a cavernous expanse and retained consciousness long enough to see something sealing the entryway in the ceiling above me with a great stone before the darkness engulfed me.
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