I'm just making this thread to get some ideas on paper and see how they feel. Feel free to chime in if you want. The story (most likely a short story, told as a series of diary entries) is set in the rocky mountains in Colorado. Three hikers are exploring the area, and the owner of the hotel they're staying at says he knows of a mountain very few people are able to climb. One of them, kind of a daredevil type, immediately wants to climb it and asks where it is, but the owner says it's not on any map. The only way to get there is from a trail hidden deep in the woods, and he tells them where to find it. He says that a party of settlers hundreds of years ago moved there but were never seen again. They find the trail, follow it, and it leads them to a mountain that wasn't there before. It sits in a gap between two other mountains, but only exists if you follow this one trail. Their compasses stop working, and their GPS tells them "Turn Back" before dying. They start climbing anyway, and halfway up they find a town built on the side of the mountain. The mountain is so steep that the buildings are supported by huge networks of stilts. The place is old and on the verge of falling apart, but there are still people living there. They're all very old, barely strong enough to walk, and who claim to be the settlers the hotel owner told them about, and are convinced that its still the early 1800s. The hikers assume this is just a tourism gimmick and decide to stay in town overnight. When they wake up the next day, they're all noticeably older, like they aged ten or fifteen years overnight. They panic and prepare to leave, but the townspeople say that "He" won't let them. They ask who, and are shown the town's church, where an idol of a shadowy beast is worshipped. The braver hiker brushes it off and heads back down alone while the other two stay behind. Night comes again, and they hear an unearthly howl come out of the woods. Morning comes, the two hikers have aged again. The third hiker comes back, his hood covering his head and moving very slowly. He tells his friends that it's true, "He" won't let anyone leave. One of his friends pulls his hood down—and he collapses into a pile of half decayed yuck. The townspeople say that He rules over the mountain and everyone on it. Time only moves when He allows it to, which is why they've all been living here as old, nearly dead people for hundreds of years without even knowing it. The hikers ask if there's a way to escape, they're told no. One of them asks what's further up the mountain, but nobody knows. They all became too old to climb it before anyone had a chance to. They stay another night, and wake up even older, with graying hair and wrinkles. One hiker freaks out, lights a torch, and tries to burn the church down—but He emerges from the forest, grabs the hiker, and carries him screaming into the woods. That's as far as I've gotten. I know I want the third hiker to go the rest of the way up the mountain, but I don't know what he finds there or how/if he beats the monster. Maybe he tries once, but ends up back in town but everyone is dead and decayed, and he almost dies when a stilt house he goes into collapses.
That's awesome. I'd have him climb that mountain at the end (which I guess is your plan too). I'd have him cast aside all his gear, his coat, and then everything else. That shows his transformation. (He could even keep changing in terrible ways . . .) He hears something calling to him from above and realizes it's a voice he's heard his whole life. The reader never sees what's on the top. Maybe there's a glimpse of something moving, but you never see it directly. Kind of like "Mountains of Madness." Then you go back and edit the "voice" in. Not literally, but as a compulsion. The third hiker is the one who just had to go to the mountain. He of course is the POV character and you flesh out his background with tales of loss.
Very cool idea. Did you ever see Picnic at Hanging Rock? Always made me feel like the writers didn't have any idea what happened to the missing people, so simply copped out by not finishing the story.
Movie, not a book. You can find it free on YouTube, I think. I liked it, I was just bummed that it ended without explaining what happened.
Absolutely fascinating idea, and Definitely something I'd read! I don't have a lot of input that Seven Crowns did not suggest already. Their ideas are great and I agree with them, I would also add that I'd be interesting to see what effect (if any) the time changes have had on the local animals and tress/plants. Just an interesting side of the story to explore.
For the ending, I'm thinking I might go full Lovecraft. He reaches the peak and has a revelation about the mountain existing and not existing that shatters his mind, he rambles about cosmic-y stuff, and then wills himself back to the town he started in, just as the hotel owner is leaving for the night, scares the bejeezus out of him, and then melts or something.
Being me, I would take it the other direction: The third hiker would climb to the top of the mountain, where he would encounter Jesus, who has been waiting for a mortal to defeat the beast that has taken over the mountain and the town. Blessed with the power and authority of the Christ, the third hiker would then return to the town, where the power of Christ would restore all the inhabitants to their youth, then he would proceed down the mountain where an encounter with the beast would result in the beast being slain and the mountain released from the curse.
What if he never finds the monster? He higher he travels on the mountain, the older he gets. Shadows fly at him and he is a quaking mess by the time he gets to the mountain with the full expectation of a fight. At the top, he dies...and as he takes his last breath... And that's when you end it. Or maybe you show the monster as he is dying if that ending doesn't feel right.
I think you shouldn't show the monster before the climax, so better not dragging the other guy off into the woods. I would recommend to have the other hiker die in his own fire. For example: He tries to light the church on fire, but the fire doesn't really burn. It gets suspended in time. Then the hiker who made it goes near it and tries to get it going (for example by emptying their camping stove fuel onto it. Maybe they had a kerosene or spiritus cooker or he throws the gas can into it.) and suddenly the flames spread, engulf him and burn him to death. The third hiker then goes up the mountain and only in the end meets the monster. I don't have a clear idea what he could find there exactly, but I just had this thought, that, because it's on a mountain, maybe the monster represents the changing of the Earth through geological time. So, what if the hiker looks out into the landscape during his way up and the further he gets the more and more alien the Earth becomes, because he is basically walking millions and billions of years back in time. He sees the landscape change dramatically, lakes and forests appear where they haven't been before, mountains rise and fall, glaciers appear and disappear (must all happen backwards, though), and at some point he sees some huge dinosaurs in the distance. The only thing that's constant is the mountain. When he approaches the summit, the landscape becomes barren, no life can be detected anymore and then the atmosphere changes. Shortly before the summit the Earth turns into a boiling ball of lava. As an alternative, because they have so far only aged forward, you could let him witness the Earth dying, the Sun becoming a red giant and maybe even the stars going out after a while. When he is on the summit, he sees the monster and it asks: "Do you want to leave?" The hiker answers affirmative and the monster steps aside. Then the landscape around the mountain has vanished completely and there is only black space all around. The hiker gets sucked into the void and his atoms dissolve into a maelstrom of stardust that could be either the protoplanetary disk or maybe the galaxy. If you want to go full Lovecraft, he could see Azathoth and his companions before he dies. All in all I think your story idea sounds awesome and I hope you write this story and show it to us. I'm on a cosmic horror trip at the moment and would totally love to read more. Fun fact: In German we have the expression "the tooth of time" ("der Zahn der Zeit") to express decay. As in "The tooth of time had gnawed on the little house." So, you could give your monster a big tooth. There is also an actual geological feature called "tooth of time" in the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooth_of_Time
Good luck with it; I certainly want to read it! This idea is very The House on the Borderlands, one of my all time favourites, and one which is very apt for the OP's outline. Something else the OP's outline brings to mind is The Buried Giant. In that book ... Spoiler ... the whole of post-Aurthurian England is enveloped in a mysterious forgetfulness and fog, which is eventually dispelled by the killing of a dragon that had been casting a pall of narcoleptic miasma over the land, enabling everyone to forget the horrors of genocide. Or the end of American Gods (the book), where ... Spoiler ... a bucolic village is revealed to have been sustained against the flattening, deadening effects of 21st century consumerist America by ritual child sacrifice. In both cases the reveal is sad, and the slaying of the monster is almost sadder than its continuation. Necessary but sad, exposing more horrors, ending a way of life and a loss of innocence. For this story, well, maybe there is something like it that could work. The monster is suppressing something horrific, or it is perpetuating the people in an alternative time stream so as not to give up on the dream of them achieving... something, whatever it is they came there for. But when it is slain, all is finally lost.
Don't kill the second guy and don't burn the church to the ground, we need both now. The church needs to have mirrors in prominent places inside, so that you see the idol from many perspectives. I would send the third guy up the mountain. First he talks to himself, sort of re-assuring himself that he has to end it. Somehow. Then his soliloquy is complemented by a second voice. First sparingly, distracted, then with increasing focus and eloquence. When he reaches the summit he is in full dialog with this other voice in his head, discussing if this strange village makes sense at all, if it is just a hallucination, if He exists or if it is just sort of a daydream, if He is really evil or if He just aims for a higher goal. This internal discussion clears his mind. Even the aged body seems to recover a little bit, he feels stronger, younger again. After a break in the bright sunlight he decides to walk down and get the mess cleared up: With a strong mind it should be simple enough to distinguish hallucination from reality, like waking up from a dream. Reaching the village all the old villagers greet him with extreme humility, some turn around and hide like in fear. When his friend sees him, he turns around and dashes to the church. He follows, enters the dim main room. Searching for his friend he sees himself in the mirrors - a dark, hooded figure although he cannot remember of putting on such a hood. In order to get a clearer view he steps towards the center of the room, close to the idol. Wondering about his own appearance he forgets about his friend, gets more and more distracted by all these reflections of himself. Again the other voice in his head speaks up. In addition to the well known voice from the mountain top he hears the murmur of many voices. In chorus these say "Wait for your followers to come and worship you. You will enjoy them. Our worshipers." In the final scene he realizes that he has become part of Him, he is the idol, he is He. He feels love and gratitude for his worshipers. And he feels that he has the power to extend their lives, because they are good people. People who love him and obey him. What do you think about this sort of circular, tragic end?
