The Man from the Peak
By Adam Golaski, first published in Worse Than Myself, Raw Dog Screaming Press
At a going-away party for a friend on an isolated mountaintop, a man must avoid a mysterious man who is trying to kill all the guests.
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Plot Summary
A man named David drives up a mountain to his friend Richard’s house for his going-away party. At the door, he’s greeted by multiple people he knows, but he’s really looking for Sarah, Richard’s girlfriend. He goes outside to greet Richard and sees a man making his way down the peak towards the house, but no one else sees him. Putting it out of his mind, David goes inside to flirt with some girls and try to talk to Sarah. He gives Sarah a book as a gift It isn’t until a bit later that he sees a very ugly man sitting at the grand piano and playing an eerie melody, captivating everyone else at the party, when he realizes the man from the peak must have come inside. The man waves a hand and seemingly releases everyone from his spell, and even though David questions them about who he is, no one seems to think anything is wrong. David finally gets Sarah alone, and she admits that she’d rather stay here with him than move with Richard. Pleased, he gets ready to leave when the man from the peak comes up to him. He realizes that the man is drenched in blood and gore, but just as quickly as he sees it, the image is gone and the man tells him that it’s alright. It takes a moment for him to be free, but David realizes he has to go, and he runs to get Sarah. He finds her still alive in the backyard with the corpses of the other party guests and takes her out to his car, starting to drive away. They hear something in the trunk and then the man from the peak crawls out and gets on David’s windshield, hypnotizing them to stop. He kills Sarah and then takes her away, forcing David to stand there for another hour before he lets him escape. After three days of staying locked inside his house, David gets obsessed with thinking about the book of stories he gifted Sarah. He goes to Richard's to retrieve it. Even when he finds the book, he realizes that it’s not what he came for, and he goes up to the peak. He can’t stop himself as he waits at the cave for the man to come.