This is part 2 of “My Experiences in the Death Cap Mountains.” Part 1 can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/zdrmav/my_experience_in_the_death_cap_mountains_part_1/
Part 3 can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/zwtvvb/my_experiences_in_the_death_cap_mountains_part_3/
“I have a feeling that we haven’t seen the last of them,” I said morosely. Max shook his head.
“As you go farther down the road, they only get worse,” Max replied.
“Why don’t you tell us exactly what you know about this road?” I asked. “Naomi and I just kind of stumbled on it, and you seem to know much more than either of us. We’d like to hear everything you know.” Naomi nodded in agreement.
“I’d like to hear about you, Max. I know you gave us the short version of how you ended up here, but I think there’s more to that story.” She looked over her shoulder at the backseat as she drove slowly along the road. Max nodded grimly.
“Well, I guess there is,” Max said brusquely. “The truth is, I did kind of stumble on the road while I was driving around Idaho. But the story starts earlier than that. I used to work for the FBI, after doing top secret work during my military career. Hell, I guess I still do work for the FBI, but I’m sure they are wondering where I’ve been for the past couple months. MIA or KIA, they probably just put me down as another statistic by now.
“We had received reports of strange creatures, including some reports of our friends back there in the woods, but also much more horrific and deadly monstrosities. We even found a snake skin that, if it was from a real snake, would have to be over a hundred feet long and weigh thousands of pounds. How could someone fake such a thing? Crop circles are one thing, but creating a fake snake skin twenty or thirty times longer than a human being is quite another.
“But it wasn’t just the reports of monsters. There were also people going missing, certain hotspots spread throughout the country. One of them was in Idaho, only an hour or so from my brother’s house. I was visiting him and his wife and decided, one sleepless, boring night, to go for a ride and look around, to see the hotspot where a lot of these missing people were last seen. Directly in the center of the area, I found this road, a road not on any of my maps, not even in the FBI or National Security databases. I ran some equipment near the entrance, tried Geiger counters, EMF detectors, anything else I could think of, but nothing anomalous came up. I didn’t see anything either, certainly no backwards crawling freaks or magic snakes, else I would have gotten out of there stat! But something about the road in front of me just gave me chills up and down my spine. I could feel the goosebumps rising all over my body, so hard that it hurt my skin. I felt like I wanted to vomit. Everything about the place just felt wrong and my body told me to turn around and run, get out of there while I had the chance. But I never run just based on a gut feeling… at least not before I came here.”
While he told us his story, Naomi followed the dirt road, winding around potholes and avoiding fallen branches on the side. I used the opportunity to check the woods on both sides for any sign of movement. A couple times I saw what looked like the flashing of silver eyes in the distance, but whenever I tried to focus they were gone.
“Obviously, I didn’t follow my instincts. I got in my car and drove down the road. It was the middle of the night, around 3:45 AM when I got to the visitor’s center…”
As if his words had brought it into existence, the visitor’s center building reappeared on our left. It was totally impossible, the fact that we went in a straight line back towards the road we came from yet ended up back in the same spot. We saw the run-down car, the gleaming fluorescent lights from inside. Naomi heaved a deep sigh.
“Do you think maybe the road only opens up at 3:33 AM?” she asked me. “Like maybe there is no road to connect to except at the time when this place opens up to the regular world, so it just sends us in circles? But maybe once the road reconnects, it stops and gives us an exit.” Max shook his head.
“I have tried to escape for weeks now. I thought the same thing as you did, that the road only connected around the time I came in. I drove down the road at 3:30 AM, at 3:33 AM, at 3:45 AM- I tried driving down it at noon, at sunrise, at sunset, anything I could think of. Eventually I nearly ran out of gas and stopped trying. And I always came back to the visitor’s center. Sometimes I went the other way, but there are horrible things in that direction, and it just leads further into this nightmarish place.
“Worst of all, I saw pieces of people- sometimes just the leg, other times a hand or a foot nailed to a tree. Some people were crucified along the side of the road, and others had been impaled. All of them were dead, and some were no more than skeletons.
“At night, there were things with silver eyes wandering around. They looked almost human, like naked figures standing ten feet tall with tight, shining skin, as pale as moonlight. Their freakishly long-fingered hands hung down below their knees. But the real frightening thing was that they could outrun my car, at least on these dirt roads. As soon as I saw a few of those things blocking the road, I spun my car around and began driving back to the visitor’s center. They followed most of the way, smashing the roof and the windows. I lost them as I pulled into the parking lot, but I went into the bathroom of the visitor’s center and barricaded the door with chairs and everything else I could find.
“When I came back out the next morning, someone, or something, had slashed my tires. And that was the end of my car. Seeing as I was about out of gas, it didn’t make much of a difference by that point.
“Whenever I wake up in the visitor’s center, whatever trash I left is gone, muddy footprints are cleaned up and the food and drink is restocked. The bathrooms even look cleaned. But there is never anybody there. I’ve woken up in the middle of the night and searched for these hidden workers but never found anything. Maybe it is some sort of automated process but I think it is more like the magic that sustains the road. It seems to reset and clean the building, for whatever bizarre reason.”
By now we had parked in front of the building and just sat in the car, thinking. Max lit a cigarette in the backseat. I pulled out my cell phone and checked the time. 4:49 AM. All of that had happened in just over an hour. It felt much longer to me.
Then I noticed something strange with my phone. Even though it had no service, it still said, “Emergency Calls Only.” Shrugging, I figured I’d give it a try. I opened up the browser and, to my surprise, there was an unlocked wifi connection at the Visitor’s Center. I was able to open it up and load Google, Reddit and other sites, even though I still couldn’t text or call family members.
“This says ‘Emergency Calls Only,’” I told Naomi and Max. “I’m going to see if I can get through and maybe call for help. I doubt it would work, but…” Max shook his head.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said, but it was too late. I had already typed in 911 and pressed ‘Send’. The phone rang.
“It’s ringing!” I said in a whisper-shout, covering the mouthpiece with my hand. On the third ring, someone picked up.
“This is the Death Cap County emergency assistance line,” a deep, gravelly voice said on the other side. “What is your emergency?”
“Hi, thank God you answered,” I began, speaking rapidly. My heart fluttered in my chest. “My two friends and I are somehow trapped on a back road in the area. There’s a visitor center building but no one else. We have been trying to get out but I think we’re lost. Can you please send someone out to help us? There are strange people out here and I think they’re dangerous, and they’re definitely deranged.” The voice on the other end paused for a long moment.
“Sir, what is your current location?” the voice said, deepening as it spoke.
“The visitor’s center,” I said.
“Please stay there. Help is on the way.” The speaker’s voice began to stretch and slow near the end, until the last word, ‘way’, became so deep and drawn-out that it sounded more like a machine than a human voice. With that, the line went dead.
“So?” Naomi said, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. Her purple hair shone under the light pouring out from the visitor’s center.
“They claim that help is on the way, but the voice…” I started. “The voice sounded like it was altered by some sort of voice changing software, or maybe it was just a computer. I don’t know if it was a human dispatcher or not. At the end, it sounded almost… demonic.” Behind me, Max shook his head.
“I told you not to do that,” he said quietly. “I have a real bad feeling about this. I’m getting my guns out of my car.” Turning to me, he asked, “Do you know how to use a gun?”
“I’ve done some target shooting but overall, not much,” I said, shrugging.
“Good enough.” Max took his keys from his pocket, opened his trunk and began loading ammo into his firearms. “You-” he said, pointing to me, “will take the Mossberg 12 gauge. A shotgun spreads out so you don’t have to be as accurate, at least with buckshot or birdshot. I’ll fill it with buckshot and give you some extra shells to keep on you.”
“What will you use?” I asked. He looked at me like I was stupid.
“The AR-15, of course. My favorite gun, especially in a survival situation. This baby will tear a monster in two before he ever gets close.” He looked at Naomi. “Would you like to carry the .22? You can holster the pistol and keep it for emergencies, but I have hundreds of rounds in here for the .22. I doubt you brought much more than a couple extra clips for the Glock.” She smiled warmly at him as she took the rifle, placing the pistol in her ankle holster with a spare clip next to it.
In the distance, we saw flashing red and blue lights. The lights spun around the branches and above the trees, even coloring the sky with their bright iridescence. Without a word, all of us walked into the visitor’s center. Some instinct told me not to be outside, that barricading a building would be far easier than trying to fight in an open lot.
A minute later, a police car pulled into the parking lot, turning on a searchlight and shining it on Max’s black Ford Taurus, the sides of the building, the woods behind it and ending up back at the road they had just come from. After checking every nook and cranny with their spotlight, I saw two uniformed policemen get out of the car. Both had their guns drawn and were walking in a straight line towards the sliding glass doors of the entrance. The blinding glare of the searchlight combined with the flashing of the overhead lights stopped me from seeing much more than a silhouette of two armed men in uniforms, however. I couldn’t see their faces or expressions.
“What should we do?” Naomi whispered to us.
“Do not give up your guns, no matter what,” Max hissed. “In fact, we should move to the backroom and see what we are up against. I have a feeling that getting out of here isn’t so easy as calling in the cavalry and being whisked away in a police car back to civilization.” Motioning with his head, he began walking backwards at a rapid pace, Naomi and I following him as we opened the stockroom behind the refrigerators and peeped out through the small circular window on the door.
The two policemen slowly walked through the automatic doors, aiming their guns left and right. Neither spoke a word, despite the constant hissing and crackling of their radios on their belts. And as they drew nearer, I saw why.
They had no faces. Where their faces should have been was just pure white skin, with no eyes, no mouth, no nose, no ears. I could only tell which direction they were looking, if indeed they could see anything at all, by the direction of their black polished policeman’s cap. Their faces seemed to inflate and deflate slightly as if they were breathing through their skin. The white skin rippled smoothly and unnaturally under their caps.
“What in the hell is that?” I hissed out. Max shook his head next to me.
“They’re no friends of ours, I guarantee you that,” he said. “Be ready to put them down. They are not on our side and will likely blow us away the first chance they get. Those things, whatever they are, belong to the road.”
“But how do they see? How do they hear? How do they even breathe? I don’t understand…” I began, but Max shushed me with a slash of his hand.
“Don’t worry about any of that,” he said quietly. “The fact is that, obviously, they can see, and probably can hear too. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to drive in here. Don’t underestimate them. They are likely just as dangerous as any normal person with a gun, and maybe much more so, for all we know.”
“They’re coming this way,” Naomi whispered. “Get away from the window.” We all ducked down around the door, backing into the walls in a semi-circle and facing the door. I could hear the two police officers with their soft, patent leather shoes drawing nearer. Outside, I heard another car pulling up, the crisp rustle of tires on pebbles and loose dirt alerting me to its presence.
“I think they have company,” I whispered. Max nodded. He raised his hand in the universal gesture for “hold” and went back to aiming at the circular window.
The two police officers turned and went out the sliding glass doors. Two more police in black riot gear followed them back in. They also had no faces, just smooth skin covering a skull without a mouth or eye to break the flat tissue. The SWAT police had much heavier guns than the pistols of the first two, as well as tear gas or mace grenades all around their tactical belts. They likely would be much more of a problem in a firefight.
“I think we need to use the element of surprise to take them all down,” Max whispered to us in a low, calm voice. “Aim at the two SWAT officers first, then take out the other two. Those M4A1s that the tactical officers are carrying could easily shoot through walls, so we can’t take the chance of letting them trap us inside here. They could just blow through the door and walls until we all turn into swiss cheese.”
Rising slowly, I peered through the bottom of the circular window. The SWAT officer in front was using rapid hand motions to gesture to the other three, apparently detailing how they should split up and cover the building. With one hand he pointed at the storage room door and, unknowingly, directly at me, and with the other he gestured to the bathrooms and fire door in the back of the lobby.
“OK, let’s do this- now or never,” Max said, gesturing at both of us to stand and be ready to fire. He kicked the door open and began firing his AR-15’s massive 5.56x45mm rounds at the faceless humanoids in the lobby.
With the element of surprise on our side, the battle went quickly. Max’s first round exploded the bulbous head of the nearest tactical officer, while I fired buckshot at the other SWAT cop. Both fell in a spray of blood. The other two officers tried to retreat behind the aisles holding junk food and snacks, but Max kept firing his AR-15, ripping the aisles apart. I saw one of the regular police try to run but his legs were cut out beneath him as Max and Naomi fired in tandem towards his legs and torso. The other faceless cop army-crawled under the line of fire and raised his gun at us from his prone position on the floor.
“Look out!” I screamed, ducking back into the inventory room. I heard a gunshot and a scream of pain. I got back on my feet and peered out through the window, where I saw a trickle of blood running down Max’s leg.
“I got him,” Naomi said. Looking across the lobby, I saw a small bullethole in his forehead. The other officer with no legs continued to crawl towards the door, before Naomi walked briskly over and put a shot in the back of his skull. He instantly stopped moving. the pool of blood rapidly widening around him. Pieces of brain matter and shards of skull reflected the harsh fluorescent lights of the visitor’s center.
“Well, they’re all dead,” I said, panting. The adrenaline spike made me feel light-headed, with the lights appearing far too bright. I just wanted to lay down somewhere dark and rest, but I knew it was impossible under these circumstances. “Now what?” Max panted next to me.
“We need to get out of here,” Max said. “I mean, we need to get off this road. If there is no exit back the way we came, then we need to go forward until we find a way, or at least find someone who knows more than we do. There has to be a way out somewhere, right?” I just stared out through the sliding glass doors, afraid of the answer to that question.
“No, first we need to bandage you two up. Jason here is missing part of his ear and you have blood pouring down your leg,” Naomi said. Max waved her concern away.
“Look, it’s just a flesh wound,” he said. “Didn’t even hit the bone. It barely skimmed me.”
“Still, we have to clean and bandage both of you guys,” she said. “The last thing we need is an infection while we are out here, cut off from the rest of the world. Even if there is a hospital somewhere on this road, I’m sure it is staffed with doctors who are more likely to dissect you alive without anesthesia rather than bandaging your wounds.”
***
After we had cleaned up with a first aid kit and filled the car with snacks and drinks, we discussed what the next step in our plan should be. I was feeling rather sick and light-headed, and sat down on a stool inside the visitor’s center.
“We need to go forward,” Naomi said. “If we can’t get out of here by going back, then we have to keep going and hope we find an exit or at least more information. There must be other people on this road, maybe whole communities of them for all we know.”
“I don’t think you realize how horrific the obstacles become as we go further towards the mountains,” Max said. “What we have faced is nothing compared to the monstrosities waiting for us.”
“But what choice do we have?” I asked softly, rubbing my head in pain. A migraine had begun to creep in as I sat there, and the lights looked brighter all of a sudden. Without warning I got a repeat of that eerie sensation that had overtaken me earlier this night. The building around me seemed to shimmer and grow dim; I could see through the walls out into the forest, which also began to dim and darken in the same manner. Where Naomi and Max sat became filled with a blinding white light, and as I stared into it I could yet again see their thoughts, their emotions and their pasts. I could see Naomi’s determination to get out of here alive, her slight bitterness at me for introducing her to it in the first place, and even flashes of her childhood. I saw her with her family rescuing their first dog, I saw her as a little girl at her cousin’s funeral, the one who had gotten hit by a car and died after a week in a coma, and a thousand other little flashes accompanied these in the bright light. It all happened in a fraction of a second and then suddenly I was back on the stool, hyperventilating.
“Did you guys feel that?” Naomi said breathlessly, her eyes wide and pupils dilated. “It felt like everything just kind of melted away and was replaced by…”
“By white light?” I asked. She nodded mutely. Max just stood in shock, glancing around. His Teflon agent persona had finally been pierced by some of the weirdness on this road. But he quickly regained a hold of himself.
“That’s not the first time that’s happened to me,” said Max, “but it disorients me every time. I don’t know if it is some kind of drug in the water here, or some residual effects of being around this kind of alternate physical existence. Don’t let it bother you, however. If there are beings in charge of this kind of lunacy, they are probably trying to throw us off our game and prevent us from ever escaping.” I nodded. Max stopped speaking for a moment, staring thoughtfully in the distance before sighing.
“I’m going to type out what happened and release it to the internet before we go anywhere,” I said. “I doubt we will have regular access to the internet throughout this.” We all agreed to take a short nap and relax while I wrote this up and posted it.
If you don’t hear from me again, it means we didn’t make it out.