That night April was surprised to have another late night guest wanting to see the lights.
“Did you sneak out without your parents knowing?” April asked Cody as he climbed in the window.
“Yep,” he answered, “Sarah told me she saw the lights last night so I want to see ‘em too. My house is in the wrong part of town to be able to see the mountain so I rode over here on my bike.”
“Okay, just keep your voice down. Do you know how much trouble I would be in if my parents found a boy in my bedroom late at night?”
Twenty minutes later after seeing the lights Cody sat back and looked thoughtfully at April. “There must be some logical explanation. Someone is up there flashing a torch, campers maybe.”
“But they’re doing it every night at eleven o’clock,” April said, “And it’s always the same sequence. Four lots of two short flashes with a blue light.”
“Yeah, it’s a bit weird all right.”
“I think the lights are coming from the place on the mountain where the Bergen family built their cabin.”
“Wow, you think so? Maybe this is some kind of ghost light coming through a window from the past.”
“You watch too many horror movies,” April laughed.
“Well there’s only one way to find out for sure,” Cody said, “We have to climb that mountain and find out what’s up there that’s making this light.”
“I agree, but first I am going to try and talk to someone who has already climbed it.” April then told Cody about her conversation with Paul earlier that day.
Over the next few days April continued to observe the lights coming from the mountain, always at eleven o’clock in the evening, and always four lots of two flashes. Only on one night there was nothing to see because the mountain was covered by low cloud and mist.
Finally Monday arrived and April searched out Paul at lunchtime.
“I asked the head ranger,” Paul explained, “and he said the same thing I told you. Don’t try and climb that mountain. I asked if he knew anyone who had climbed it recently and he said as far as he knows no one has been up there for years.”
April felt disappointed, “Oh ok, well thanks for asking.” She turned to walk away.
“Wait a minute,” Paul called after her, “You didn’t let me finish. One of the other rangers came up to me later that day and said he knows of a couple who climbed the mountain about five years ago. They only went about halfway up to where the steep section starts. He gave me their phone number. You can call them, maybe they’ll meet with you and give you the info you want.” He handed April a slip of paper with a name and phone number.
“Wow, thanks Paul,” April smiled at him, “You’re the best.” She ran off to find her friends.
“So when are you going to call them?” Mia asked as they all sat in a secluded part of the school grounds eating their lunches.
“How about right now,” April took her mobile phone from her bag. The name on the slip of paper read ‘Jeff Goldman.’
“I hope he’s home,” she said as she keyed the number into her phone.
After four rings a voice answered. “Hello, who is this?”
“Hi. My name is April Stevens. Is this Jeff Goldman?”
“Yes it is. What can I do for you, April?”
“I’m a student at the high school and myself and some friends are doing some research for an assignment on Mount Despair in the national park. I heard from a ranger that you climbed it five years ago and I was hoping you could tell me about your experience.”
There was a long pause before the man answered. “Do you know about the history of the mountain?”
“Yes we know some of it.”
Another pause, then, “I can tell you all about what happened to my wife and I when we climbed it, but it’s probably better if we talk in person. Could you and your friends meet me after school this afternoon. How about at the café on main street at say four o’clock.”
“Yes that will be fine. Thank you. We’ll see you then.”
April dropped her phone back into her bag and looked around at her four friends. “Well, who wants to come with me this afternoon?”
At four o’clock all five of them were sitting at an outside table at the café sipping on milkshakes. April kept looking around for a man who looked like a mountain climber. They had checked inside and there were only teenagers in there.
Finally at ten past four an athletic looking man with greying hair came up to their table. He looked at the three girls. “Are one of you April Stevens?” he asked.
April put her hand up, “That’s me,” she said, “Mr Goldman? Please sit down and join us.”
She introduced her friends, and Goldman ordered himself a coffee.
“You want to know about the time I climbed the mountain?”
The teenagers nodded eagerly.
He leaned forward with his hands on the table. “Kids, I don’t believe in curses, but there is something very strange going on up there. If I believed in ghosts I would say the mountain is haunted by the Bergen family. Anyway it was about five years ago in the autumn when my wife and I set off intending to climb all the way to the top. We’re both experienced mountain climbers and we had all the climbing gear we needed, but we never made it past the halfway point.”
“Why not? What happened?” Cody asked.
Goldman paused, then continued in a low voice. “The Bergen family, that’s what happened.”
The five teenagers all stared at him wide eyed.
Goldman held his hands up. “Yes I know I just said I don’t believe in curses or ghosts, but let me tell you exactly what happened. After about three hours climbing we came to a flat area on the side of the mountain. There weren’t many trees growing there so there was a good view right down the valley to the town, and there was a small running stream nearby. We had done our research on the history of the mountain and we decided this must be where the Bergen family had built their cabin. We searched around and eventually found the spot where we think the cabin had stood before it burned down in the big forest fires of 1906. There were a few bits of broken glass, probably from bottles, and rusted bits of old cutlery like forks and spoons half buried in the ground. Not far away was a cliff which we assume was the one where the three searchers had fallen to their deaths. Must have been a bit dangerous having it so close to the cabin with little kids who would be running around.
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We decided to stop there for lunch, then we both lay back in the grass and fell asleep. I don’t know why we fell asleep, we weren’t all that tired. It had been an easy climb so far. Anyway when we woke up it was getting late so we decided to camp there for the night and continue the climb the next morning. After it got dark we could see the lights of Eden Vale in the distance, a pretty sight. We slept in our sleeping bags, it wasn’t a cold night, and it was early next morning that we saw them.”
Goldman stopped to take a long drink from his coffee cup, while the five enraptured teenagers waited impatiently for him to continue.
“There was no moon that night, except for the lights from the town in the distance it was black as pitch, and it was dead silent, too silent. We lit a fire to make some light, then we fell asleep. I woke up just as it was getting light but I still couldn’t see much because a fog had settled over the mountain. I stood up and got dressed, then as I glanced in the direction of where the cabin had been I saw a sight that scared the hell out of me. The figures of five people, two adults and three children were just standing there. It was hard to see them properly because of the fog, they were just vague misty outlines. I shook Carol awake, and she saw them too. She was terrified. The two adults were pointing up the mountain, then holding up their hands as if to say stop, don’t go up there. Maybe I imagined it but I thought a heard a voice whispering ‘Danger, go back’ over and over. Then fog started to quickly thin out, and a couple of minutes later we could see right across the clearing. The figures were gone. They had just vanished.
I looked at Carol. I could see she was still terrified. We both decided right then to abandon the rest of the climb. We packed up our gear and headed back down the mountain as fast as we could. When we got back to town we decided not to tell anyone what we saw. Everyone would say we were crazy. But I’m telling you kids now, because I don’t want you to even think about trying to go up there.”
Sarah was the first to speak in a hushed voice. “You saw the ghosts of the Bergen family.”
“I don’t know what we saw. Maybe it was the Bergen family, but my wife has vowed we will never go back up there again.”
“Mr Goldman, did you see any lights that night up there?” April asked, “The last few nights at eleven o’clock I’ve seen four faint flashes of blue light coming from halfway up the mountain, and I think they are coming from the place where the cabin had been.”
Goldman looked puzzled, “Lights? No, like I said it was pitch black. We didn’t see any lights.” He sat back and looked at the expressions on their faces. “You kids obviously like a good mystery. Well there’s more. Over the following few months I did some further research on the mountain and what happened to the Bergen family and those three men. I found a couple of interesting websites. Sometime in the 1890’s long before the area became a national park a local tribe set up a semi-permanent camp on the lower part of the mountain. They only stayed a few months before fleeing the area.
Sometime later one of them gave an interview to a local newspaper about the ‘cursed mountain’ as he called it. He said on a number of occasions they saw the ‘spirits’ of the Bergen family telling them to get off the mountain. He also claimed there was some kind of dangerous beast wandering around up there, a beast that had attacked them several times, but only at night. They never properly saw it, just a large dark shape which they could hear coming towards them rustling and cracking its way through the undergrowth, and they often heard it growling. After several encounters with this animal, they packed up and left the area.”
“An animal,” April murmured, “What sort of animal could it have been? I mean this is Australia. We don’t have any large wild animals that attack people, unless…”
“I have a theory about that,” Goldman said, “I kept searching the internet until I came across one of those websites that talks about oddities or unusual things that happened in the past. It was a clipping dated 1877 from a newspaper in our neighbouring town of Mansfield. It seems a travelling circus was passing through the area. The roads were very rough back then and a cage fell off a wagon and broke open. The occupant was the prize exhibit of the circus, it was a young Bengal tiger. It got away, apparently running off into the hills. They searched for it for several days but couldn’t track it down, so they gave up and moved on. Everyone living out on farms in the area kept their doors bolted and stayed inside at night. Apparently Bengal tigers don’t normally attack humans. They kill and eat wild animals, but if one got hungry enough…”
April was quickly doing the math in her head. “1877 was about a year before the Bergen family went missing. Could the tiger have climbed up the mountain and killed them, and scared those three searchers into jumping off the cliff?”
“It’s very possible,” Goldman replied.
“And if the tiger stayed on the mountain for another fifteen or more years it could have been the ‘beast’ that attacked the tribe,” added Cody enthusiastically, “But do tigers live that long?”
“I checked on that,” Goldman answered, “Their normal life span is ten to fifteen years.”
The group sat silently for a few moments all thinking ghosts and tigers and curses.
Eventually Sarah spoke, “It must have been the ghosts of the dead family, and they were warning you not to climb any further up the mountain because of the tiger waiting up there.”
Cody broke the tension, “Well if the tiger is waiting up there after a hundred and forty years it would have to be a ghost tiger.”
They all laughed.
Goldman got up to leave. “Well that’s it kids, that’s everything I know. But please promise me you won’t climb that mountain. There’s a good reason hardly anyone goes up there. Haunted or not, it is not a good place or a safe place to go. It has a very bad vibe.”
“April stood up and shook his hand, “Thank you so much Mr Goldman for your time and valuable information.”
“Happy to help. Oh when you write your project please keep my name out of it. I don’t want the whole town thinking I’m a crazy person who sees ghosts.”
