Introduzione
Nuovo numero della rubrica Open Circle, dedicato al romanzo The Mountain King di Rick Hautala, autore di diversi bestsellers, recentemente premiato con il Bram Stoker Award alla carriera, non ancora pubblicato in Italia. The Mountain King, pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1996, è un romanzo duro e affascinante, una storia horror claustrofobica nel quale non mancano scene terribili, mai gratuite. Quest'opera di Hautala, caratteristica della sua narrativa, corre sul filo delle prime opere di Jack Ketchum, si ritrovano le profondità delle atmosfere e delle ombre di Peter Straub. La mancanza di edizioni italiane delle opere di Rick Hautala, che ha frenato la conoscenza di questo grande autore nel nostro paese, rappresenta un grande "buco" nella conoscenza dei più grandi interpreti dell'horror moderno. L'autore è recentemente rappresentato in Italia dalla mia agenzia Dark Circle, che ci offre l'occasione di leggere il primo capitolo di questo romanzo, e ascoltare la "voce dell'autore", anche se in lingua originale. Presto Rick Hautala sarà ospite del Posto Nero, potremo conoscerlo meglio e approfondire il suo lavoro.
Tornando al romanzo, la trama di The Mountain King è complessa e originale, riporto solo una descrizione molto generica del plot, che non può entrare in alcuni dettagli della storia che svelerebbero i segreti della grande forza emotiva e evocativa contenuta dalle pagine del libro, pronta e esplodere, che vi assicuro riserva grandi soprese, scene indimenticabili.
Descrizione e commento
Ci sono molte leggende e antiche storie sul Monte Agiochook, la montagna più alta del Maine. Alcuni di questi racconti parlano di un demone che si trova sulle pendici rocciose nei pressi del monte. La leggenda vuole che una forza del male soprannaturale emerga periodicamente dalle nebbie che avvolgono la montagna e scende a valle, cercando di rivendicare una vita. A volte la vita che strappa è quella di un animale, un cane randagio, la mucca di un contadino o un cavallo. In altri casi, il demone si prende una vita umana, un escursionista o qualcuno che si è smarrito. Mark Newman è stato impegnato in molte escursioni sui numerosi sentieri fino alla cima del Monte Agiochook. Conosce le storie e leggende indiane, ma non ci crede. Finchè un pomeriggio di settembre, durante una escursione, il suo amico Phil Sawyer dopo una bufera i neve cade in un burrone. Mark riesce faticosamente a raggiungerlo, ma solo per vedere il suo corpo trascinato nella foresta da una creatura antropomorfa delle dimensioni di un orso, apparso dal nulla.
Tornato in città, Mark è angosciato dal pensiero di ciò che è accaduto al suo amico, ma la polizia, che scopre che Phil aveva una relazione con sua moglie, non crede alla sua versione, come nessun’altro, a parte sua figlia. Una scelta che segnerà il suo destino. Mark decide di tornare in montagna da solo, per cercare il suo amico e porre fine a questo incubo, che invece diventerà un vero inferno. Nelle grotte, nei recessi della montagna, Mark scoprirà l’odore della carne umana, assisterà a scene raccapriccianti e capirà di non essere un cacciatore, ma una preda, sia delle strane creature che vivono nell’oscurità di questi posti, che della sua gente che gli darà la caccia come un’omicida.
Da un grande maestro dell’horror come Rick Hautala, The Mountain King è una storia che assorbe il lettore, caratterizzata da un gran ritmo, dalle reminiscenze che l’autore riesce a installare nella nostra immaginazione con una tecnica narrativa molto efficace, che ci fa credere di essere già stati in quei posti remoti, e aver sentito l’odore del sangue, che in questo romanzo scorre copiosamente. The Mountain King è una grotta oscura, umida e fredda, un originale inferno che emerge inaspettatamente davanti ai nostri occhi. Per divorare lentamente il nostro cuore, in tutti i sensi, senza pietà.
Lettura: The Mountain King di Rick Hautala - Primo capitolo
Chapter One
Sudden Snow
"I think we're screwed!" Phil Sawyer said. His mouth was a thin, tight line above his coat collar as he looked over his shoulder at his friend, Mark Newman.
"Not quite yet," Mark replied.
They were high above the timberline on Mount Agiochook in Maine, near the New Hampshire bor¬der. It was a beautiful, brisk mid-September after¬noon, but a swift storm cloud was sweeping out of the west like a raven's wing—silent and black. With rising apprehension, the two men watched as shadows rip¬pled like a gush of dark water across the contours of the distant hills. Behind the swift-moving front was a slanting gray haze of precipitation.
"If that's just rain, we're only going to get a little wet," Mark said.
"What do you mean if?" Phil asked. There was a tremor in his voice as he wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "I'm sweating my ass off. It can't be cold enough up here to snow, can it?"
Mark shook his head and squinted as he watched the fast-approaching shadow spread over the valley below. Within a matter of minutes, the blue sky had turned soot gray.
"Wouldn't be all that unusual. 'Specially this time of year," he said, sniffing the rapidly chilling air. " 'N it sure as hell looks like a snow squall to me."
Phil's eyes widened as they shifted back and forth between his friend and the onrushing storm.
"What the hell can we do? Where can we go?" He was fighting hard to keep his voice steady. "Shit! If we were down the trail a bit, under the trees—"
"Yeah, we might just get wet," Mark finished for him. "This high up, though, it more than likely's gonna be snow."
"Enough to screw us?" Phil asked, glancing around the bare, rock-strewn slope. The summit, perhaps a mile away, looked like a dark, carved stone pyramid against the fast-moving clouds. The wind gusted with a sharp, knife-edge chill.
Phil was an inexperienced hiker, and it was obvious to Mark that he had no idea what to do in an emer¬gency. As far as Phil was concerned, this was supposed to be nothing more than a pleasant, late summer three-day hike through Grafton Notch, heading northwest from Hilton, Maine, to Gorham, New Hampshire, along twenty-four miles of the Appala¬chian Trail. It had never crossed his mind that it might snow this early—not in September.
"I think we're just gonna have to hunker down and wait it out," Mark said. He pointed to the right, where
the slope seemed to drop off. "There's a ravine over there that'll give us some shelter."
Shrugging his shoulders to settle his backpack, he started across the steep rock face with Phil close at his heels. The air went suddenly still, hushed with expectancy as the sunlight darkened. Every tone of color, every detail on the mountainside shifted as though seen through dark sunglasses. When the two men were less than halfway to where Mark was taking them, a low, mournful sound almost like a bestial cry filled the air.
"What the hell?" Phil shouted, stopping in his tracks and looking behind them.
"Just the wind," Mark said, smiling grimly.
"No fuckin' way," Phil said, narrowing his eyes and staring back at the way they had come. He clenched his gloved hands into fists and crouched as though preparing for an attack.
"You've heard too many of those stories about this place being haunted," Mark said with a laugh as he indicated the summit with a waving gesture. "Come on. If we don't find some shelter soon, we're gonna get slammed!"
The stormy darkness closed around them like an enfolding blanket, but there was no silence beneath that blanket. Shrill whistling noises rose higher as the wind sliced over the rocks. Then came a loud roaring sound as the clouds unloaded and snow and ice began to pelt the mountaintop.
"Hurry up!" Mark said, having to shout to be heard above the shrieking wind.
Strong, fitful gusts slammed the two men from all directions. Pellets of ice rattled around them like a hail of bullets. Within seconds, their view of the summit was lost as the mountainside became glazed with a coating of ice that made even the most carefully placed step treacherous.
"I told you!" Phil shouted. "We're screwed!"
Snuggled down inside the collar of his jacket, Mark barely heard what his companion had said.
"We just gotta make it to the ravine," Mark replied, waving his arm encouragingly.
Both men crouched low to prevent the strong blasts of wind from knocking them off their feet and sweep¬ing them away. Skittering like overgrown rock crabs, they forged ahead in the direction Mark had indi¬cated. The wind-driven snow thickened until neither one of them could see more than a few feet in any direction.
"Stay close!" Mark shouted. "I don't want to lose you!
"I don't either."
Glancing over his shoulder, Mark saw Phil strug¬gling along behind him, no more than a slouch-shouldered, gray blur inside the snowy maelstrom. He cursed himself for not thinking and acting more de¬cisively. They hadn't planned on any rock climbing, so they had brought along no climbing ropes. At the first sign of bad weather, he knew he should have taken the time to tie themselves together using a tent rope or something.
But it was too late now.
Any delay before they found shelter from the cut¬ting wind and snow might prove dangerous, possibly fatal. Waving his arm encouragingly, Mark forged ahead, keeping a watchful eye out for any hazards that might suddenly appear out of the storm.
"It can't be much further now!" he shouted. His face and hands were numb from the cold. His feet kept slipping out from under him as the ice coat¬ing on the rocks grew thicker and slicker. Up ahead, through the twisting sheets of snow, he finally saw a dark gash in the landscape.
It had to be the ravine he was looking for.
Trusting that Phil was right behind him and could see where he went, he scrambled on all fours over to the edge of the opening. Satisfied that this would at least keep them out of the direct arctic onslaught of wind and snow, he slid down into the little bit of shel¬ter the steep drop-off afforded. He could barely hear the scrambling sounds Phil made as he followed him down into the narrow gorge.
"Hey, some fun, huh?" Mark said, smiling as he turned to look at his friend.
What he saw was a mask of misery, despair, and worry. Phil's face was raw and red; his eyes were wa¬tering from the stinging cold and wind. Phil tried to say something, but his teeth were chattering so badly, whatever he was trying to say was lost.
"What do you say we open up the tent and cover ourselves?" Mark said.
Even though he was wearing gloves, his hands were nearly frozen. His fingers fumbled to untie the carry¬ing case. Thankfully, the wind didn't reach its icy fin¬gers down into the ravine where they crouched; so although it seemed like long minutes, it was really only a matter of seconds before they flapped open the tangle of blue nylon and pulled it over them like a huge, puffy comforter. In an instant, near total dark¬ness embraced them, and the shrill whistle of the wind lessened.
"All right," Mark said. "We're fine for now."
Both men were panting heavily as they supported the tent with their hands to give themselves a bit of breathing space. "You hanging in there?"
For a moment, there was no response from Phil; then he sighed deeply and said, "Yeah—I guess so."
Buffeted by occasional gusts of wind, the chilled tent material shifted and crinkled. It sounded like a blazing fire all around them, but it offered only a frac¬tion of the heat a fire would. A cold, dark, stony si¬lence enveloped the two men as tightly as the storm that embraced the mountain's summit.
"How—how l-l-long do you t-t-think this will l-l-last?" Phil asked through chattering teeth.
Mark shook his head. "No idea. Can't imagine it'll last very long. These things tend to blow themselves out pretty fast. The weather forecast said it was going to be nice all weekend."
"Wh—what if w-w-we have to s-s-stay up-p-p here like this all n-n-night?"
"We'll just have to wait and see," Mark said.
He was shivering too, but he didn't want to let it show because of how obviously unnerved Phil was. Besides, he could already feel a change in temperature beneath the tent from their trapped body heat. He was confident they would weather this just fine.
For several minutes, both men were silent as they listened to the wind shrieking all around them. Nei¬ther could deny that—at times—it sounded more like a wild animal, bellowing its rage at the storm-tossed sky. The tent flapped like a gigantic flag in a hurricane wind as ice and snow pelted against it like a shower of stones.
"Well, aren't you glad we decided to go for a hike this weekend?" Mark asked.
A deep, hissing sigh was Phil's first response; then he whispered, "Shit, man, this is making me wish I had never even moved to Maine."
A sudden gust of wind jostled the tent, almost pull¬ing it away. The men clutched the tent's edges and held them down until the breeze lessened. Then they settled back against the hard rocks, grateful, at least, that they were out of the direct wind.
"Yeah, that's right," Mark said. "You're not even from around here, so you probably haven't heard the stories about this place."
"Stories? What kind of stories?"
"About the mountain being haunted."
"Yeah—sure," Phil said, sniffing with laughter. "I'll just bet . . ."
He started to laugh louder, but then he fell silent when, from far off, they once again heard a low, moaning howl. It rose gradually, warbling higher and higher until it suddenly cut off as though swept away by the wind. Although neither man said it out loud, they both thought it sounded much more like a howl¬ing animal than the wind. Mark could feel the spike of Phil's fear like a tangible entity inside the tent.
"That sound—" Phil said, "tha—that's just the wind, right? Just blowing over the rocks, echoing like in a cave or something ..."
"Of course it is," Mark replied.
In truth, the sound had tingled a nerve inside him, too. He had lived in this area his whole life and had been to the top of Mount Agiochook an uncountable number of times. In all those times, he could remember hearing a sound like that only once before, and that had been on a humid August night with no wind whatsoever. He couldn't stop himself from adding, "Unless, of course, it's the ghost that supposedly haunts the top of the mountain."
Profilo dell'autoreRick Hautala: Scrittore horror e dark fantasy statunitense, recente vincitore del Bram Stoker Award alla carriera (Lifetime Achievement 2011) e di molti altri premi internazionali. Al suo attivo, dal 1980, oltre trenta romanzi tradotti in vari paesi, tra i quali vari bestsellers come Nighstone, Twilight Time, The Mountain King, Winter Wake, Little Brothers, Cold Whisper, Impulse, Wildman, oltre molti racconti e novelle pubblicati in varie antologie e magazines. Web: www.rickhautala.com/
Rick Hautala è rappresentato in esclusiva per l'italia dalla Agenzia Letteraria Dark Circle, per maggiori informazioni: [email protected]
http://www.darkcircle.it/
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