Authors: Thomas Cater
“The ones who came to us, they had no eyes.”
“Ballsitch, I want to know exactly what you mean by
that.”
“I’m Scratch,” the voice said. “The ones who came from
the land above.” He pointed straight up to the hospital.
“You mean the patients? The patients who came to you
had no eyes. Why would they come to you?”
All three of them turned toward the entrance of the
mine and pointed. Shit. Unless I was irrevocably mad, or given to flights of
incredible fancy, I was about to discover a vault or a graveyard under the
hospital.
“Are the ones … who came to you … still there?” I
asked.
“The ones without eyes no longer suffer,” Scratch, I
think, replied.
I was relieved to hear that. The last thing I wanted
to be famous for was discovering a mass grave filled with unidentifiable bodies
beneath the hospital.
“Where have they gone?”
“To earth,” he replied. “They have gone to earth.”
That sounded very much like a common grave to me.
“Are they inside the mine?” I asked, reluctantly.
“
B
eyond,” he said.
Double damn. “Can you show me?”
“We will take you there, if you so declare.”
I was not sure what I was saying or doing, or what
I was
going to
do once I got there. My body was over-dosing on fumes from the furnace and
strange secretions from glands that had all but atrophied generations ago.
“I want to see where they are buried, Scratch. I want
you to take me into the mine and show me.”
They started mumbling among themselves again and
eventually focused on me.
“Come,” a voice replied.
“Is that you, Scratch?”
“Quilp,” he replied.
They turned and started walking into the mine. I ran
up behind them.
“
Do you have a hat or a lantern for me?” I pleaded.
“I’m almost blind in the dark.”
“You won’t need one,” Quilp proclaimed.
I fell in step at the end of the short line. The one
day I don't bring a lantern, you can bet I’m going to need it. As the darkness
grew more intense, I could see a dim light illuminating the area ahead. The
light looked as if it were coming from their faces and not the lanterns in
their hats. I grabbed Quilp or Scratch’s shirttail and stayed close behind,
listening to him breath, occasionally stepping on his heels. He had a peculiar
smell, the one I was following, similar to mushrooms or some other dried
fungus. They all emitted subtle variations of the same peculiar smell. It was
not unpleasant, just alien.
It took about five minutes for my eyes to adjust to
the darkness. The little orange light emanating from their lamps was not up to
the job required, especially in that shaft. The longer we proceeded, however,
the brighter the light became.
When Quilp turned to see how I was getting along, my
heart made a leap for my throat. His eyes were as glowing embers pitted with
hard black rough-edged pupils that burned inside my head. They made me smell
and taste ashes and smoke and awakened memories of goblins and demons dancing
around sacrificial bonfires.
I thought I was going to faint. He could see I was
having a hard time coping with his appearance. He turned his face away. It is no
wonder those little guys never leave the security of the hospital basement. They
would have been murdered and served up as demons if they were ever caught on
the street after dark.
“Thanks Quilp,” I whispered softly, but I didn’t hear
his reply, if he made one.
I don’t know how long we were in the mine, but it must
have been at least forty-five minutes. There were things down there scuttling
around in the darkness, things that wouldn’t stay put and hated the light. There
were steel doors, cages and dimly lit cells filled with swaying shadows, and
old splintered wooden boxes that looked like coffins. I forgot how many turns
we made. I just knew that I would never be able to find my way out alone. I
estimated we had traveled at least three or four miles underground.
The air in the shaft was nearly stagnant, only a warm
subtle movement from furnace. It had been trapped in the mine for years. Ventilation
fans were non-existent. To inhale the odor was to smell and taste death and
dying. There were lingering traces in the air of long dead mules, canaries,
rats, human sweat and blood, industry, anger and violence, manmade and natural.
I began to notice a slight draft in the distance. I
could see a light of such low voltage that it looked yellow. Something occupied
the center of the tunnel, something I had seen several times before. As we drew
closer, I recognized the bleak pattern of the wall. It blocked the tunnel
completely. It reached from ceiling to floor and the entire width of the shaft.
“Is this where the bodies are buried?” I asked, and
suddenly realized how gruesome that would have sounded outside in the light of
day.
“Beyond,” I heard was the only word.
“Thanks Quilp or Scratch, thanks a lot.”
I was delighted to bask finally in those failing rays
of dim light. Though I could not detect their source, there was enough
illumination to see, or my eyes were also glowing. I decided it was a subterranean
extension of the wall surrounding the Ryder mansion. It was equally as sound, but
where stone butted against the seam, the coal had begun to oxidize and crumble
away. I could feel currents of cooler air moving back and forth from one side
to the other. I began to pick at the coal seam and the coal easily gave way.
“If I had some tools and a little help,” I said
imploringly, “I could probably dig through here in about thirty minutes.”
No one answered. I suddenly turned around to discover
that Quilp, Scratch and Ballsitch had abandoned me. “Wait!” I shouted and ran back
down the tunnel for about 20 feet, but there was no sign of them. “Quilp,
Scratch, Ballsitch!” I shouted several times, but there was no reply. “You
little bastards, I’ll get you for this!” I shouted.
I ran toward the wall and threw myself against it
hoping it might cave in, but it stood undisturbed. I returned to the edge of
the coal seam and picked at it with my fingers. I could almost get a finger through
to the other side. It could take several hours or days for me to make it large
enough to squeeze through. If my fingers held out, I could do it, but I did not
know where it went
,
maybe
to
more of the same. I dug furiously at the coal, skinned
a knuckle and watched it bleed. I saw the smeared blood from my finger vanish into
the mortar with a slurping sound, as if it were swallowing.
“Jesus, a blood-thirsty wall!”
I began to search desperately on the mine floor for
some kind of tool and found a broken pick handle. It was hard and splintered
and the broken wood had created a sharp point.
“Oh, thank you, Lord,” I whispered, and attacked the
coal seam with the jagged handle. The coal split and flaked away. In twenty
minutes, I had a hole big enough to shove my arm. I kept poking and jabbing,
cursing and crying at the seam, occasionally taking a reckless swipe at the
wall. It delighted in my weak, ineffectual jabs and drove the handle back into
my hands, bruising my palms and opening new wounds. I grew more desperate with
each jab. I focused my attention on the seam. An hour later, I had carved a
hole in the seam large enough
to
squeeze through. It took an effort, but I done it. Dazed
and exhausted, I was shaken by the whole experience.
In a sudden rush, it occurred to me that I might be no
closer to getting out now than I was an hour ago, but desperation helped. When I
touched the ground and felt cold flat concrete, I knew I was safe.
My new surroundings were not as dark as the mineshaft.
I noticed a sliver of light fading through a tiny crack in what appeared to be
another wall. I hoped it was daylight; I hoped it was not another long-life bulb,
burning indefinitely. I felt solid concrete beneath my knees, and then I felt
the wall sucking blood from my wounds; it was like a thirsty vampire. “Jesus,”
I shouted once again and pulled my hand away, feeling for tooth perforations in
the darkness. I climbed to my feet and staggered through the darkness toward
the gray light.
Through a dust-laden window, I saw a fading glimmer of
twilight beyond a row of hedges, and then I recognized the odor. I was in the Ryder
house basement. I examined each darkened corner where I believed stairs ought
to be and saw them outlined vaguely in that uncompromising light.
I tried to remember if I had bolted the cellar door
the last time I stood there with Virgil. He was behaving like a coal miner and
trying to walk through the wall of the sealed shaft I had just breached.
I crept toward the ancient stairs stumbling over god
knows what;
I did not
intend to find out. On the steps
,
I felt my way
to the top, loathing the feel of dust-laden stairs on my fingertips and in my
lungs. I pushed open the door and collapsed on the floor.
To see my hand in front of my face was a miraculous event.
At that moment, I feared nothing: not man, beast, or ghost. I was simply
delighted to be back in familiar territory and have my sight fully restored. I
was also overwhelmed with compassion. Elinore's nightmare was far worse than
any I could imagine. For her, every living moment was a journey into madness.
I looked worse than any coal miner finishing a double
shift imagined. Covered from head to foot with coal dust, my nasal passages
were stuffed. I felt as if I were going to gag if I did not get water. I had no
appetite however for the black stinking kind in the Ryder house. I did not have
enough stamina to crawl out the door, much less then walk to town, but the
alternative was not attractive … to spend the night in the house.
I was cautiously making my way toward the front door
when I heard her speak: “
Frank. …
” I stopped and turned a full 180
degrees and saw nothing. Then I heard the voice again: “
Frank, I’ve been
waiting ...”
I felt a chill against my arm and the weight of a hand
upon my back. I heard her voice again. It was as if she were whispering in my
ear.
“
I’ve been waiting …
” My heart sounded like a
kettledrum. Not only could I hear, but I could also sense the presence of a young
woman. The air and her presence were so cool I trembled.
“
It’s been so long
,” she said.
Coming so soon after everything else, I doubted
nothing. I wanted her to be sure in the knowledge that Frank wanted and missed
her, too. I said what I believed she wanted to hear.
“I miss you to, Elinore; I miss and want you to be
happy.”
I could feel the touch of a hand upon my shoulders and
a warm presence near my cheek, I would have preferred to feel the warm touch of
young woman in my arms, but I received no
thing
but chills
.
Then the voice replied, “
I think he knows
…”
The tone of her voice made me shiver.
“
Soon, Frank, he will come … and we
will know …
.
”
My very nervous response to those words must have
alarmed her. I stiffened, felt the air grow wildly chill, and I heard her desperate
voice declare ... “
He mustn’t see you!”
I felt I was in the midst of wild confusion, heard the
savage growl of a wild animal mixed with sorrowful sighs, and then a slight
nearly silent weeping voice intruded.
I spoke her name in the darkness. “Elinore?” The
sobbing stopped. “Elinore, do you hear me?”
I saw a shapeless vaporous cloud and heard the voice
of an older woman speaking.
“Are you the one who has lost his way?”
Before I could reply, I fell to my knees. I knew the
voice was not the least bit attentive to my words. “I’m Charlie Case!” I
shouted. “I need your help!”
The unseen force whipped passed me and blew across the
floor; followed by a terrifying scream. I could feel blood pumping in my head
and through my veins.
“
The screaming ones!”
she cried, and her voice became
suddenly silent.
Chapter Thirty-four
When I awoke, I could hear Scary Creek babbling in
some lunatic language. Little patches of moonlight filtered through the trees and
glanced off rippling currents of water. The night insects and frogs were
hibernating in the chill silent air, with the exception of a single bird that
seemed to derive satisfaction from the surrounding darkness.
I could think only about my financial loss and the sad
fact I was never going to move into my house. My second thought was that I was unable
to end whatever pain the nightmare was inflicting on so many spirits wandering through
the mansion. My body ached when I tried to stand. It took several minutes to
work the rheumatic kinks out of my back and stand erect. I was not sure what
hurt most, my back, or the fact I had been lying unconscious on the cool ground.