By Pauline Chow
My callused fingers squeezed the sharp edges. Something about brushing against mortality soothed my anxieties. On a warm-up route, I scooted my toe to a small crack on the granite face. I clenched my muscles to quiet the doubt in my head. Despite having climbed this problem a million times, my heart still fluttered at the top. Moving to the next hold, the rock buckled.
“Come on.” I said to myself. My spotter should be encouraging me. Was Garrick even there? A hot breeze blew over my neck.
I narrowed on the top ledge, when something stirred at the edge of my vision. My gaze shifted to the movement. Growing out of the hard stone were a high angled nose and lips. Sweat formed under my bangs. Up here, I wasn’t alone. Something smelled rank like a wet dog.
“Hey,” I called out. “Watch me.”
My spotter didn’t answer. Did he see the weird thing?
My fingers tired and muscles shook. This wasn’t happening. I lingered too long in one place.
I launched my lopsided body. One hand slapped onto the final hold. A sharp pain shot through my second hand, stunting the momentum. My legs swung out like a pendulum, and my body went flying. I braced myself for a hard landing.
Instead, I stopped short, hovering a few inches over a worn black pad. A pair of coarse hands encircled my hips and bare stomach. Garrick set me back down on the ground.
“Girllll, you almost had it.” He slapped me on the shoulder.
I shot him a look of disgust.
“Got distracted on the last move?” He bobbed his head in a silent chuckle.
I grabbed my head. It throbbed. I checked my limbs. I almost cracked open my skull on a warm-up problem.
“Dudddde, you’re fine.” Garrick’s untamed curls bounced. I swore for a few minutes, he hadn’t been there.
“Did you see it?” I asked, rubbing my forehead.
“You’re almost sick send?” His enthusiasm grated me the wrong way.
“When I called out to you, did you look at the rock face?” I was afraid to share more of the details. It sounded crazy.
“A squeak maybe but nuh, I squared up as soon as I saw ya freeze.” He ran his hand through his locks. I looked at his nose. His bridge resembled the one that appeared out of nowhere. Even if I had only glimpsed it.
“High gravity day?” Garrick rubbed the back of his neck and released a nervous laugh. His handsomeness was in a cookie cutter climber way. His body encapsulated the signs of over-climbing: bulging forearm muscles, knobby fingers, and protruding veins. His brown hair grew over his ears and shielded his eyebrows. He was a warrior statute with the chill surfer vibes.
Too chill for this moment. I stared at the final holds “High Gravity Day,” I repeated. My hand throbbed. Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. Looking down at the bouldering pad, I shrieked. Red. Blood spilled from my finger down the center of the pad.
“Let me help you.” He pulled paper towels from his pocket and rubbed down the cloth. “Always be prepared.”
I pursed my lips, inspecting a gash on my middle finger. He was only prepared being a dirtbag. The cut was smooth and shallow. I pressed down on it with my shirt. Teeth, not rock, ripped the skin.
Garrick disappeared once I started rifling through my bag. I relaxed, listening to the wind blow through the trees. Fishing out a headlamp and pocketknife before finding the first aid kit, I grabbed ointment and a bandage. A folded paper talisman fell out.
I sighed, half annoyed and half appreciating my meddlesome mom. She said, if I was galivanting where there was no cell phone reception, I needed protection. On yellow rice paper monks wrote mantras in red ink. My mom acquired these by the dozen from the temple. I rolled my eyes as her admonishments echoed in my head. She preferred I divert my energy to my career. My obsession with the outdoors wasn’t wifey material.
I shivered, staring at the starter route. My fingers had turned a light shade of purple. Something was off. I sat in the sun. While a solid twenty degrees cooler than Palm Springs, it was still a Los Angeles summer. I glared into the treelined, expecting something startling to jump out. Some unexplainable creepy vibes had descended on this day.
I slung the red string of the talisman over my head. In the Tramway, a thirty-minute ride away from civilization, wasn’t a place to ignore intuition.
“Mel, don’t let that little problem ruin your day.” Darlene walked over. “I see you mopin’ by yourself.”
“I am not…” I couldn’t explain the feeling of intrusion. Darlene’s smug half-smile brought me back to the failure of my efforts. She watched a v0 rated problem stump me. “I don’t know climbing today.” I coughed. The thinned air, two thousand feet up the mountain, wasn’t playing nice with me.
“Garrick caught you, right?” She lowered her eyes. “Something is going around. Philomena said she was sick too…” Her sentence trailed off.
“How is she?” I put on a long-sleeved shirt, sensing Darlene won’t climb much today either. Over last three years, we had conquered this place.
Darlene shrugged. “Ghosted.” Her eyes grew dark. “Things were going well. We were even talking about another trip here on my birthday.”
I remembered last week my friend’s new person of interest hadn’t shown up. Even Garrick attended.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions. She’s in graduate school.” I offered a convenient explanation, unscrewing the top of my thermos. “It’s a busy, unpredictable life.”
I cleared my throat. The more I talked, the more phlegm congregated at the back of my throat. I couldn’t believe I caught the flu in the heat. My mom heard my hacking from miles away and had dropped herbal remedies at my door. A recipe from my grandmother’s notebook, which held secrets beyond my language abilities. I took a sip from my thermos, wishing I had taken weekend Chinese school. To my mom’s credit, the traditional Eastern concoction of licorice and balloon flower roots had lessened the rattling in my lungs.
Darlene laughed. “A sudden migration of birds in the middle of summer.” She lifted one side of lips. Darlene and Philomena had the shiniest golden hair. “I guess her ornithology PhD is more important than me.”
I didn’t mean for my advice to go in a negative direction. Love was hard. I didn’t need to tell her this. I had been struggling too, which explained picking up the new guy at the gym. Garrick didn’t come with as much baggage as the regulars, right?
“At least she taught me to make friends with ravens. I leave out shiny things for them at every climb.” She sighed.
I couldn’t pay attention. A stone face haunted me. Flaring nostrils and hideous teeth. What did Darlene have to worry about anyways? Her luck had been crafted by a modelesque body. She would find someone else without issue. I, on the other hand, had to attract a mate with my acne scars and untamed eyebrows. My limp black hair and round nose hadn’t catapulted my dating stock.
“Shouldn’t we not mess with the wildlife?” At zoos, we were warned against feeding the animals.
“Mel…the birds are guardians between realms, watching over us, especially when we climb here.”
I nearly dropped my mouth open. The break-up had twisted her sanity.
“Psst. Like you haven’t seen or heard anything weird?” Darlene said, waving a shiny dime. “My next try.”
She was so on point that I didn’t have a response. I froze, gathering an explanation. “Good luck” was all that I could muster.
“Your new boy has the most beautiful silver eyes.” Darlene ran her fingertips over my triceps. “At least one of us has game. Ok, enough feeling sorry for myself. See you at Blue Flame?” She turned quickly and left me floundering with my words.
Blue Flame was a challenging problem that required four moves, including one acrobatic leap across a bulbous jug hold. Climbers called those faithful jumps dynos. I measured a climber’s athleticism with that route. It was my boyfriend maker. No matter how cute he was, I didn’t date someone that climbed less than a v7 outside.
Garrick lumbered around the boulder, coughing up a storm. “Want some candy?” He kicked a boulder with the tip of his worn shoes. Holding out a miniature chocolate bar as if trying to make up for a mediocre spotting job.
I shook my head, returning the offer with the contents of my thermos. I could pour some in his cup for his throat.
He jumped, stumbling backwards. “Urgh. Gross”
I was surprised, looking into his brown eyes. Garrick and I met last month, so I had yet to learn about his manners. Why did Darlene call his irises silver?
“What? This is herbal tea for coughs,” I replied, annoyed that I had to defend my drink. The scent was earthy with hints of anise. It wasn’t feces.
He wrinkled his nose, turned, and peered into the tree line. “Where to next?”
I took one more swig and closed the lid. The skin on his jaw seemed to flutter in a wavy pattern. I saw what I had felt on the rock. “Blue flame.” I stood up to inspect his facial feature closer up.
Garrick smiled robotically. Chunks of muscles were hardened on the side of his neck. Tiny black spots formed under the edge of his moth-eaten heavy metal t-shirt. From far away, it had looked like chest hair. “How about a new ascent?”
“Where?” The question was sweet molasses. I melted. “What do you have in mind?” I shoved my things into a day pack, then heaved that inside a folded pad. To a non-climber, it appeared as though I was carrying a turtle shell on my back.
He explained in great detail a potential new area as we walked in the opposite direction of Blue Flame. Excitement exuded through his voice. “Just a twenty-minute walk. This new route will only be out of the sun for the next hour.”
“Have you been there?” I would see Darlene afterwards to announce our sick new send.
“No.” His gazed seemed hollowed.
The blind leading the blind.
Yet, I was game.
Lagging behind my guide, I knotted up pieces of foil from an energy bar and left crumbs for the ravens on several tree stump.
“Caw caw,” I chuckled before descending into an unknown valley.
The air thickened as I kicked up thick layers of pine needles. This wasn’t a well-traveled path. My stomach stirred with unease. It was regret. Getting lost wasn’t a joke, people froze at high altitudes without the right gear.
“Wait.” I hollered after Garrick who had inconsiderately allowed a considerable distance to grow between us. I needed to talk to him. This was a bright red flag for a boyfriend and a climbing guide. Garrick was too much off trail. I wasn’t a nark, but at least, we should have told someone about our plans.
He continued over a hill.
After what didn’t seem so far away, mixed pines, firs, and oak had squeezed close together. The light had been blotted out by leaves, branches, and a bit of fog. I hadn’t seen a rock, even a small one, for a long time. I didn’t know where I was.
Where was Garrick?
Ditching him, a newbie, would ruin my reputation. I couldn’t be douche-y. It wasn’t my style. No one deserved being left alone out here.
I rubbed my sore forehead. As I peed behind the thickest tree stump, the cries of birds called after me. Were they happy about the gifts? I felt a sinking in my stomach like a void.
Using my pocketknife, I carved an “X” into the bark. A wayfinding mechanism reserved for emergencies. I promised to the State Park gods to volunteer for extra clean-up days. For no apparent reason, other than being scared, I made the sign of the cross. Surveying my supplies and water, I prepared for the descent back. What else could I take for protection? My gazed landed on an extra-large pinecone. The scales fanned out, displaying sharp jagged edges. This bit of nature gave me comfort. I clutched it while in search of Garrick.
Calling out his name, I didn’t venture far from the marked tree. I snapped branches and scuffed up the ground, noting where I had been. I wasn’t proud of my erratic behavior. Why must I bring these situations onto myself?
As I started to turn back, I heard my name.
“Yo Jack Ass,” I yelled. I hadn’t consented to a game of hide and seek.
In front of me, a ray of sun beamed onto my side of a path. On the other sides, piles of stacked grey stones glared at me. My heart jumped into my throat. Could this be the start of a boulder field?
I huffed as I neared the top of the hill. From the trail, the rocks steadily grew in size. It hurt to breathe. Fighting back my coughs, I took another sip of my mom’s tea. Its scents calmed me. At the peak, unclimbed routes towered over me.
Touching the uneven surface of the stone, psyched me up. Even while all my muscles screamed to run back down the hill, my stubbornness insisted on one more climb. Leaving an area unclimbed seemed wasteful.
A first ascent was a first, regardless of the difficulty. It was a feat. A legacy for me to look back on when one day old age took its course. Everyone had their season for climbing. The time didn’t last forever. I chose a boulder double my height with obvious handholds. Garrick no longer registered in my mind. One climb and back home.
I unfolded my mat, positioning it to minimize injury and then cramming my feet into my tight shoes.
The starting holds angled my body slightly backwards. I decided after a few tugs they would hold my weight. Move-by-move I ascended the rock. I completed it flawlessly. At the top, I stared in awe over climbs dotting the entire side of the mountain.
Why wasn’t this place on the map?
On the way down, I got my answer. Flashing my headlamp inside an overhang, I located the reason for the lack of activity. I hung my head in dismay.
In the Tramway station, dioramas reminded visitors about the mountain’s history and pasts residents, the Cahuilla and Soboba Native American tribes. I heard the stories on every ride. Shining my light onto markings, I had a sinking feeling of what I might have done. Climbing within fifty feet of tribal cave drawings were forbidden.
To confirm, I crawled into the deepest part of the cave. The red lines depicted roots, trees, and wheels. An ancient writing, boxy and angular symbols, accompanied the pictures. I hadn’t ever seen anything like them. I followed a trail of dots, shuffling on my back. Near the entrance, a circle was fit with triangles. Strange. This last image was an opened mouth of teeth. One I had seen earlier. Sharp edges that had cut into my finger on the first climb.
I scooted from under the rock as fast as I could.
Garrick was more clueless than I had imagined. We weren’t supposed to be here. I could be fined or banned from climbing at the Tramway. All because I followed a random boy without doing my own research. This would be a mistake; I would never make again.
As I packed up, I ran through the story that I would tell Darlene.
I heard my name in a low whisper.
Anger bubbled up in my belly. “Garrick can go to hell.” I didn’t care if I hurt his feelings. He was an idiot. Turning my head, I informed him of my finding. “I am leaving. We can’t climb here.”
“Why?” The response shocked me. He was closer than he had seemed.
“Cave drawings.” I crossed my arms, annoyed I had to explain.
“You climbed.” His disembodied voice addressed my hypocrisy.
The hairs on my neck stood up. I couldn’t see him. Whatever he was doing wasn’t funny. As I turned towards the trail, a force destabilized my balance. I lunged forward, but something strong pulled me backwards.
I screamed, flailing my legs while falling onto my back like a beached whale. Escaping from the straps, I grabbed my backpack and squeezed the pinecone in my other hand. “I swear…. Leave me alone.”
The rocks on my left and right quaked. I reached out, not able to touch the sides. My feet stayed in one place. This wasn’t an earthquake. I hurried forward as the boulders moaned a deafening sound. Hands claws at me from the rock.
Where are you going?
I thought I was hallucinating as snake-like appendages cut and hit my arms. Nothing hurt so much in my life. My eyes teared up. I continued fighting. I won’t give up easily. The small space in front narrowed, squeezing my existence into a smaller space. I took a few more steps forward. I hadn’t agreed to this. Black sludge spilled from cracks.
Climb us. The rock oozed with a savage desire. Some of it my own. I loved climbing, but not like this. Thrashing fingers snagged a loop on my bag. My body was flung from side-to-side. Pieces of the boulder flaked and crumbled onto my shoulders. The light of day beckoned ahead.
Swinging the giant pinecone in my hand, I slammed it repeatedly against the rocky extensions. The ridges sank into the greyish substance, released its grip on me. I rocketed out onto the dirt floor. Turning quickly, I plucked the thermos from the outside pocket of my backpack just as it was swallowed up.
I was speechless and banged up. My arms were bleeding from countless lacerations. I couldn’t believe that I was here alone. Garrick had baited me with glory. Luring me here to be eaten by his faceless friends. He wasn’t so idiotic as I was too ego-driven to heed the signs. Trying to stand again, I realized that it wasn’t over.
Garrick was waiting.
Spotting the rock that I had mistakenly scaled, I scrambled to it. I didn’t know anywhere else to go. For now, it was safety.
Hugging my knees on the cold earth, I felt hopeless. How rash had I been to follow an acquaintance? I lifted my eyes and rubbed my chapped lips together. Scraps on my jawline burned. Through impending tears, the drawings above my head morphed. The lines squirmed and pushed into the wheel. Six marks arranged themselves into a star.
My eyes grew wide.
What does this mean?
Then pebbles were shuffled outside. I stiffened. My eyes didn’t leave the ceiling. I was afraid to even breath. The circle with teeth had inched to the star. A pair of roughed up sneakers patrolled the opening. When the person moved away from the cave, the circle on the highest point creeped to the right. I readied my pocket for the knife. The next time, he came back, I won’t freeze up.
I heard scuffling over the sand. Whatever returned didn’t wear shoes. It reached down to scratch his ankles just outside the opening. Skin sagged on its limbs. Hair on its body bristled like a brush. It dropped a tattered black shirt. Could this be Garrick? I prayed it did not turn its head. When it finally moved along, I noticed the drawn mouth did too.
The drawing was tracking this strange creature.
While the rocks tried to eat me, the moveable ink was acting as my savior. There was more than one reason for not climbing in sacred areas. Monsters lurked about them.
The dots on the roof rearranged into a map of the stones. I noted the formation that swallowed my stuff and the short wall next to the trail. I oriented myself to the entire hillside, memorizing the routes that avoided the larger stones.
Ancient people had created this system for managing monstrous energies. The system was a marvel. Had the tribes leveraged this technology too? Native American tribes adapted to the environmental and wildlife. While my modern society brute forced an existence. My mom had carried intuition from her homeland, which I too often disregarded.
I studied the patterns. Garrick paced the perimeter of the boulders. He lingered at certain spots, never crossing the trail. Did this mean his territory stopped at the trail? I touched the protective wall. I didn’t want to leave. Without a headlamp and warm jacket, my only choice was to return to the tram station in the next few hours. I would stay hydrated with the tea for only little longer.
Grazing the lines with my fingers, I expected bumps. However, the shapes were embedded inside the stone. A spot of red jumped onto my finger. I retracted my hand, trying to rub off the crimson. The more I scrubbed, the more the red sunk deeper into my skin.
My eyes focused on Garrick’s symbol traversing into the other valley. He kept moving deeper. My heart soared. This was my opportunity.
Let’s go. A new voice rebounded in my head.
The star on the ceiling glowed along with the fresh smudge on my knuckle.
I waddled out of the cave, a rancid animalistic smell hit me. A thick blanket of sweat, blood, and urine seeped into my nose. My stomach churned.
Tiptoeing between the outcroppings, Garrick’s location flashed in my mind. I could see him perk up and consider returning to the last scent of me.
I stepped light and fast as if I was walking a long plank. It took every ounce of my willpower to stop from running. The so-called rocks I passed had the expected ridges and cracks. Except certain angles, shadows twisted into suffering. The stone-people were hungry, lashing out misshapen tongues and gnarled fingers. Energy of the living sustained them.
My pace was interrupted by pounding footsteps. Down the slope, Garrick gained speed. As he noticed my eyes peaking from a tall boulder, I queried my new friend.
What should we do?
The ink had nothing to advise.
Through the branches, a sliver of the trail became visible. I was close. My final move would be a race to death. I took off.
A breeze engulfed my senses with the smell of leaves. The creature howled. I sprinted harder, smelling the stench of rotting meat. I wasn’t fast enough to reach the trees before he crashed into me. The contact launched me into the air. I landed, sliding my face across pine needles. Some sharp was stabbed into my shoulder. I cried out, grabbing at anything. Whipping my body around, I struck Garrick on the neck. My wrist sunk into his throat.
My vision cleared. I was face to face with Garrick’s gray eyes. My blood ran down one of his claws. His head was limp to one side. The red of my amulet was wrapped around his teeth. His flesh liquefied, pooling at my elbow. I kicked, embedding my shoe into his belly.
A gurgling sounded escaped from a hole on his chest. I removed my foot, losing my shoe. He coughed and hacked out a lump of blond hair. His fingers were still wrapped around my ankle.
I struggled to find something else. Locating my thermos, I slammed it into his head. Garrick’s skull split in two. A blackness tumbled from his lips. But he kept smiling. His physical form seemed impervious to destruction.
With one more trick up my sleeve, I turned the cap of the herbal container. Tea released down his face. He bellowed. The herbs burned his flesh, emitting a green smoke. He released his hold. I would never again doubt my mom.
I burst onto the trail. The sun hit my eyes, sending a warmth into my bones. I sprinted to the familiar pine tree, which bore my X from earlier. Garrick’s wails echoed. Through the branches, the bottom half of Garrick lumbered to the stone wall. Was he not finished?
While his remains smelted into stone, I wasn’t totally relieved. I sure a stone person would reappear. How could I prevent this from happening? I shivered, waiting for the right moment. A pang guilt rose in my belly. I hadn’t meant to hurt the tree. I touched my glowing hand to the carved lines, and the light glided into the scratches. The marking had become part of the trunk. When a raven cawed from behind, I left my hiding spot and returned to the living.
* * *
Pauline Chow is a speculative fiction writer who crafts alternative histories and optimistic futures. Not your average data scientist, she once sued slumlords and advocated for affordable housing in Southern California. Her gothic horror, Chasing Moonflowers, weaves Lovecraftian lore into a 1925 Hong Kong murder mystery — comes out July 1, 2025. Connect with her on https://paulinechowstories.com/ and paulinechow.bsky.social