One never quite got used to this damp dark, far beneath the earth. It was wet and hot and dusty all at once. Conditions that shouldn't've mixed, but a coal mine had a funny way of doing that. You weren't supposed to work down here alone, but the single man striking at the wall of the tunnel with his pick didn't really care.
  Jacob Morris was tired. His back ached, his lungs hurt, and his hands were so caked in black dust he thought he'd never get them clean. The 60 year old man had been working his entire life. Not out of any particular need to provide. Just to keep from going insane with boredom.
  He'd been born and raised in Pennington. It was a little map dot in the middle of nowhere, Pensylvania. Beautiful country, if you were up there to see it. But he'd been working since he was 14. He could barely read. He couldn't write to save his life. But he liked baseball, beer, and working, and you didn't need to read or write to enjoy any of that.
  He set down his pick. He was done for the day. Foreman Rogers could go fuck himself if he was thinking of making the crew stay late again. That's how you got strikes, and Jacob had been hearing plenty of talk about one of those. He didn't want any part of it. Beer cost money. And he needed beer. So, he needed money.
  Jacob turned and headed back along the tunnel towards the mine entrance. The A's had a game tonight, and he wasn't gonna miss that.
  Jacob froze. He'd heard something. He wasn't sure what, but he knew he'd heard it. If he heard anything, it was a blessing, given his shit hearing. Had it been... a footstep perhaps?
  Yes... there it was again. A footstep. And another. They sounded like they were running, running up behind him.
  Then he heard a laugh. A strange, high-pitched, otherworldly sound that sent shivers through him. He made a lunge for his pick on the ground, and was suddenly flying through the air, tackled by a ghoulish figure dressed in tattered rags that may once have been a Confederate army uniform. The figure punched Jacob to the ground and stood, laughing. Then Jacob noticed the dynamite in the creature's grasp. Where did he get that? Jacob wondered through the fog in his brain. He was dimly aware of a few more figures coming up behind the figure standing over him.
  "Who's got the match?" the figure standing over Jacob asked.
  A match came twirling through the air out of the darkness, and the figure turned around, slapping the thrower across the face. The man's head promptly came off, and he bent down to pick it up, grumbling in annoyance. "You wanna blow us all up, idiot?" asked the leader, and the second man, who had replaced his head by now, shook his head and stepped back into the darkness.
  The leader struck the match, lighting the dynamite in his hand. "Hold this, would ya?" the leader rasped, putting the stick into Jacob's hand. "Fire in the hole, boys!" the cadaverous leader shouted, and with shrieking laughter, they sprinted off into the darkness.
  The last thing Jacob Morris experienced was fire.


  The bell rang, and all hell broke loose. Kids streamed off in every direction, screaming and nearly trampling each other to get through those doors, out into the sunshine.
  Or so it seemed to Willem, who, at just 4 foot 8 at 11 years old, was shorter than many of his classmates. "You'll grow, Willy," his mom had said, but he wasn't going to believe that until it happened. He wanted to be big and strong, like his dad, or like Superman. Preferably Superman. Willem had a huge crush on Lois Lane and would've done anything to make her his girlfriend.
  No luck on that today, though. He pushed through the thrashing crowd of kids making their way out of Pennington Junior, searching for his two best buds. He found them on the school steps, waiting for him impatiently. Benji had his glove on and was tossing a ball in the air and catching it easily. Benji was the handsome one of their little gang. He wasn't the tallest, but he had a way about him that had all the girls hounding after him. Benji was also not very smart, so he didn't notice most of it. He was a meathead through and through, but that was okay. He liked to read comics and play ball, so Willem could excuse his idiocy. Most of the time.
  Sam was the tallest of them, and the skinniest. He looked like a string bean, all awkward arms and legs and ears too big for his head and eyes too small. Sam considered himself an adventurer. He'd picked up a stack of Tom Swift books from his dad's work, his dad was a librarian, and had done his best to be, in every way, just like Tom. He built weird machines out of windup toys and old pocket watches. Most of them broke after a few uses, but a lot of it was really good. He was going to be a big-shot scientist someday, Willem thought, but today, he needed his batter's arm.
  "Hey, fellas," Willem said, pushing his flop of straw-colored hair out of his eyes. His mom was saying he needed a haircut, but, as always, that could wait.
  "Took ya long enough," Sam grumbled, holding his bat loosely at his side. "The twins told us if we're not there in ten minutes they're gonna start without us and we'll be last pick, if they pick us at all."
  "He's exaggerating," Benji said, his easygoing smile never faltering. "But yeah we really should get goin. I really don't wanna be on the team with Tiny Tim again."
  "Fuck you, Rogers," Timothy Grant said as he pushed between them, running down the school steps to where his bike was locked up. Tiny Tim was actually the tallest kid in school, taller than Sam, but he couldn't play ball to save his, or anyone else's, life.
  Benji laughed good-naturedly, and the three started down the steps. The day was just right. Not too hot, not too cold, and with just the right amount of wind to keep you cool when you were running the bases. It was a beautiful day, and not even the stink of the steel mill could ruin it.
  "My dad told me he lost a guy the other day," Benji said as they walked along the quiet street towards the old abandoned lot they played ball in. "Old Man Morris."
  "Whoa," Willem said. That was all he could manage. He'd liked Morris well enough, he guessed. He didn't throw bottles at them, like some of the other old geezers did, but he was never really interested in talking to anyone either. "How'd it happen?"
  "Mine collapse. Dad's trying to keep it as quiet as he can but Morris' daughter has come around, asking questions. She'll go to the cops or the paper, and dad knows it."
  "What's that, like, fifth collapse this year or something?" asked Sam. He was, by far, the biggest opponent of the mine in their group. He would go on long rants about how it was ruining the environment, and how all of them were going to die because of what coal dust does to your lungs. Those usually ended in blows between him and Benji. Benji was a die-hard supporter of his dad and his work. His dad was a foreman and also the mine's owner. Benjamin Rogers Sr. didn't believe in sending others out there to do the work, he wanted to be right there in the thick of it. But he was a tough man, a man who drove his men to extremes, and Benji told them all about it. He wasn't supposed to. But he did anyway.
  "Now don't you go spreading that around," Benji said, looking around to make sure nobody was listening. "One of the other guys... Jensen, I think... Said he heard an explosion, and some laughing or something. Right around when Old Man Morris croaked."
  "You think Morris blew himself up?" asked Willem, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. Behind them, the steel mill belched a fresh gout of smoke into the sky, and the smell of fire hit his nose. It was common, but it seemed timely for their conversation.
  "Hell, I don't know," said Benji, whipping around with a look of annoyance on his face. "Come on, keep up, we got a game to catch."
  Sam fell back to walk beside Willem as they headed towards the lot. "Something don't feel right about this, Will," said Sam, his beady eyes full of suspicion. "Something don't feel right at all."
  "No," said Willem, scratching his hairless chin. "No... it don't."


  The next collapse came a week later. It killed Eddie Jensen, the man that had given the details about Old Man Morris death. Willem, Benji and Sam were sitting in Benji's basement, reading comics, when Ben Sr. came down the stairs, drunk beyond comprehension, and told them all about it.
  The boys sat and listened to him slur on and on about nothing and everything when he'd finished his story, but eventually he went back upstairs, and they soon heard his snores reverberating through the floor.
  "Something still don't feel right," said Willem, dropping his Superman comic onto the table. "There's no way there are this many accidents, even in a god damn coal mine."
  "Shit happens," Benji said, not even looking up from his comic book. Something with aliens on the front. Probably something dumb. For kids.
  "No, Benji, Will's right," Sam piped up, dropping his Tom Swift book on the table next to him. "Your dad's either hiding something, or he's just as confused about this as we are. I say we investigate."
  "Oh shut up, Sam," said Benji, sitting up and lowering his comic. "You just wanna be like that kid in your book and go find buried treasure or something. There's nothing down there. It's a coal mine. Accidents happen."
  "Yeah, but not this close together. And didn't you hear your dad? He mentioned there were burn marks all over the place. Like someone lit dynamite and let it blow. And we all know Jensen didn't do it. He didn't have access to any of that. And neither did Morris."
  A brief flash of uncertainty crossed Benji's face, but he quickly hid it with a shake of his head. "Nah. It's just a bad stroke of luck, that's all. It'll pass by."
  "Yeah but what if it doesn't?" Willem said, leaning forward. "I'm with Sam on this one, we gotta take a look."
  "In the coal mine?" Benji said. "How stupid are you two? We'll die down there. We'll get crushed or blowed up or breath in some toxic shit and turn into zombies or something."
  "You're just scared," Sam taunted, leaning forward towards Benji. "Benji The Chicken, that's what I'm gonna call you now."
  "Shut up, Sam," Benji said.
  "Stop being a chicken then, Benji The Chicken."
  "Sam..." Benji's fists were clenched at this point, and he looked ready to sock Sam a good one.
  "Alright, that's enough," Willem said, before this got ugly. "You gotta think about it, Benji. Something ain't right here. Something really ain't right."
  Benji stood, rigid for a moment, before collapsing back into his chair. "Yeah," he said. "I know. But when are we gonna go? How are we gonna stay safe?"
  "Your dad has kid sized stuff right? For when he shows you around the upper shafts, so you can see what it's like?"
  "Yeah," Benji said grudgingly.
  "Get us that. And we'll plan out the rest. We'll go next Saturday. We'll say we're going to the movies, and then sneak off to the mines and see what we can't dig up."
  Benji stared at Willem. "Since when did you become a planner?"
  Willem shrugged. "Sam ain't the only one with brains here."


  And so, plans were made. The boys told their dads they were going to see a movie. Some space alien trash Benji liked, and they'd be back after midnight sometime. But they never went to the theatre. And Willem was a bit sad about that.
  You could never tell Willem to his face that he was afraid of the dark. He'd deny it. Or punch you. Depending on how he felt, though he wasn't often the violent type. But nobody would call him a baby and get away with it. But, he couldn't deny it, he was a bit nervous by pitch blackness.
  He trudged along the long dirt road leading to the mine, carrying a flashlight low at his side. He didn't want to be a beacon for anyone, but he also didn't want to be blind. Now that, he thought, would suck. The plan was to meet Benji and Sam out behind the main mining office. Benji would have their gas masks ready, and headlamps too, so they didn't end up dropping their flashlights and breaking them down there.
  Willem made his way around the side of the big brick mining office building, on high alert. He was expecting it, but still cracked Benji over the head with his flashlight when he popped out at him and screamed, "Boo!" That boo became a yelp, as he stumbled backwards, clutching his head.
  "You dick!" he shouted, flailing a hand at Willem.
  "You had it coming, ass breath," Willem replied, snatching a headlamp and gas mask from the pile nearby. "Where the hell is Sam anyway?"
  "Here," Sam said, voice muffled by his equipment. He walked out from the shadows, which almost had Willem pissing his pants. In the low light, with all the shadows and creepy noises a place like this had at night, Sam looked like a monster out of one of Benji's comics. "We'd better get a move-on," he said. "I don't wanna get caught out here and get the whole adventure ruined."
  "Shut up, Sam," Benji grumbled, mood soured by the ache in his head. They all put on the gear, double checked it was working, and headed towards the yawning blackness of the mine further up the hill.
  It was damper and colder than Willem expected. It was actually rather disappointing. In the light of their headlamps, the tunnel stretched out for far beyond their vision, but it was just a really cramped hallway. It was dusty though, and Willem was glad for the gas mask as they trekked deeper.
  They passed by the sites of the two most recent collapses. They'd been dug out and repaired, and wooden posts held up the ceiling. They could see the burn marks that had been mentioned, and covered up. But no trace of the dead men remained. Just a strange feeling of foreboding.
  "See, Sam?" Benji said after another ten minutes or so of walking. "This is boring. We're not going to find anything here."
  "Yeah we will," he said. "I can feel it."
  Willem could too. As they traversed deeper, the earth seemed to press in more on them. The air felt less natural. The sounds were muffled somehow, but also echoed strangely. He didn't like it. In fact, he hated it. But a part of him, a part he couldn't quite lay his finger on, loved the adventure. Maybe Sam was rubbing off on him.
  They came across the first clue about ten minutes after that. It was a scrap of cloth. Old. Obviously so. And it looked as though it hadn't been washed in it's entire existence. It was now a washed out color, all of it's vibrancy having eroded with age, but it was definitely not something the miners wore. "Guys?" Willem said, showing them the fabric. "What's... what's this?"
  That's when the laughing started. Harsh, high, and shrieking. Then the ceiling behind them collapsed.
  Coughing, panicking, the three boys stumbled around in the dust choked darkness. All three of them had suffered some form of damage to their mask, and they were breathing in dust choked air. They coughed, hacking up great balls of dirt, before finally calming and looking around them. Luckily, their headlamps had survived the collapse, and they could see clearly.
  They all screamed as one.
  Five dead men stood before them, wearing confederacy uniforms. Their leader was a tall, powerfully built man, or must have been once, for most of his muscles had atrophied in death, and he had a long scar running from his eyebrow to his cheek. The skin had parted there, revealing his decicated gums, rotted teeth, and part of his cheekbone. He held a gleaming Bowie knife in his right hand, and wore a bandolier of dynamite sticks across his boney chest.
  "Well well well, boys, they're putting them to work younger and younger ain't they?"
  The men behind him laughed, a surly bunch of nobodies in much the same condition as their leader. "We gonna kill'em, Vic?" asked one of them, a man who's head didn't seem to fit his shoulders just right. The leader, apparently named Vic, didn't even look back at him. He jabbed his elbow backwards, knocking the man's head off, and the man stumbled around to pull it out of the dirt. Vic raised the knife and said, "As a matter of fact, I might."
  "Then what'd you hit me for?" the headless man said in a whiney, high-pitched voice.
  "Cuz I hate listening to you, Danson," Vic growled, turning on him. "And I may just turn this knife on you you don't quit yapping."
  That shut him up quick, and Vic turned back to them. Willem's heart was racing. They were dead. They were dead, they were dead, they were dead. He'd never see the light again. Never marry Lois Lane. Never...
  Benji suddenly howled out a battlecry of some sort, pulling a heavy pick from his belt. Willem hadn't noticed it, the black metal having been nearly invisible in the darkness. The bit drove into Vic's chest, cracking ribs and sheering through the bandolier of dynamite. But Vic just stood there and laughed, the horrible sound taking on a strange, whistly quality. "Nice try, kid," he said, and Stabbed Benji in the shoulder. Benji fell back, howling, covering the hole in his shoulder with his hand, as tears and snot poured down his face. Sam scampered to his side, shouting, "Let me see it! I just wanna see it!" Sam seemed to be the one calmest about this. He was always the level-headed one, though he did like to pick fights with Benji for the fun of it. Vic continued to laugh, pulling the pick from his chest with a gurgling laugh. The heavy metal implemtn fell at Willem's feet. "Anyone else wanna try something stupid?"
  When the boys didn't move, Vic smiled. "Good. Now..."
  He was cut off as a rock shifted in the pile behind them, where the ceiling had caved in. First one rock. Then two. The unstable pile began to tumble, more rocks and debris and choking dust filling the air, and Willem took his chance. He snatched up the bandolier of dynamite and yelled for Sam and Benji to run. He pulled a box of matches from his pocket and lit one and touched it to one of the stick's fuses. "No!" Vic howled, launching himself forward as Willem droped the whole thing and began to run. "You're not going to tell them about us you little shit," the man howled, driving his Bowie knife into Willem's calf. Willem shrieked, kicking backwards as the fuse slowly burned down. Vic's five cronies were scrambling around, trying to put it out, but they were too clumsy and uncoordinated that they were mainly playing keepaway with the thing. Suddenly, Sam was there, and he swung a rock down on Vic's head with all his might. The dead man lurched backwards, somewhat dazed, and let go of Willem's leg. "Go go go!" Sam yelled over the commotion, dust still choking the air as a fresh rumble carried through the mine. All of this shifting... the mine was unstable. They'd never make it out of here.
  "Go!" Sam roared, pushing Willem ahead of him, as the ceiling began to cave in behind them. "No!" howled Vic, lurching forward. He grabbed Sam's arm in an iron grip as the ceiling caved in.
  And then the fuse burnt down.
  It was lucky for the boys that the ceiling caved when it did. It was unlucky for Sam how close to it he was. Vic's grip was like Iron, and it clutched onto Sam's wrist as the cave in settled around him and his arm. The explosion flung Sam violently into Willem, and they slid along the floor for a good 60 yards, ears ringing, lungs burning, and feeling like they'd been hit by a truck.
  But when they came to rest, Willem noticed the blood. Sam's arm was missing from the elbow down. Vaporized somewhere back along the tunnel. 
  "Oh no," Willem breathed, right as Sam passed out.
  In the end, Benji walked away with a battle scar to show the girls. And show it he did. Willem walked away with a few broken ribs and a bad cough for about six months after the fact. But Sam had lost the most. He'd lost his golden batting arm. He'd lost his knack for inventions. He'd lost his right arm. But he still hadn't lost his adventurous spirit.
  After their excursion, the collapses stopped. The mine flourished as long as it could, and the boys tried to move past what they'd seen there. What they'd experienced there. They still had nightmares. Of the laughter. Of the dead men. Of the pain and the loss and how close to death they'd been.
  But, mostly, they just remembered the adventure.
  None of the boys were alive when, 50 years later, more of those things broke free of the mine. None of them were as smart as the dead men they'd fought as children. They were twisted, mutated things, with a voracious hunger and no soul to speak of. What the boys had found in the mine was only the beginning. And as the world would soon find out, a story that had no happy ending.