Dark Corners

by Darren O’Sullivan

  ‘There, is that better, Holly?’ Neve asked.

  ‘Not really, no,’ she replied honestly.

  Neve pressed on, Jamie by her side, holding her hand in the darkness. They turned left, and then right, each step taking further down.

  ‘Neve, do you have any idea where we’re heading?’

  ‘Dad often speaks of this place. I think I know where we are.’

  ‘We’re gonna get lost unless we leave a trail,’ said Baz.

  The group agreed and knew they needed to act like Hansel and Gretel and leave a trail of breadcrumbs to guide them back. But they didn’t have bread, so at each junction, each turn in the narrow passages, a member of the group removed an item of soaking wet, superfluous clothing. Michael’s hat, Neve’s hoody, Jamie even left his shoes, claiming he wanted to be more connected to the moment. With the intermittent illumination from the lighters and wind-up torch, and the trail to guide them back, the group began to relax. Michael took it upon himself to try and scare the others by running ahead and jumping out of dark corners, making the group laugh when Baz screamed like he was a five-year-old girl.

  ‘Stop it, you bastard!’

  ‘Mate, you crack me up.’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  They all began to shout down the tunnels, their voices bouncing back in perfect echoes. Everyone but Jamie, who walked quietly, barefoot, absorbing the life he felt he should have had.

  Before long, they came across a turning that veered to the right, tracks laid in the rock, which coal would have been shunted along. An upturned coal cart lay close by, now all rusted through.

  ‘The water is flowing, that’s good,’ said Jamie, looking at the small channel of water running close to where they walked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My granddad used to tell me, flowing water was OK; water that was stagnant wasn’t.’

  They moved slowly, the ground underfoot slippery. Georgia complained that her new trainers were getting ruined. But no one else passed comment, they were too busy concentrating on the next step. Above them, chains hung lifelessly every few metres. Chloe half expected one to begin to swing at any moment.

  ‘I think he died down there.’ Jamie pointed to his left, where a dark cavern extended away. Somewhere down there lay the corpse of a buried miner. But his was not the only story that came from these depths. Tales of rail carts moving on their own and whispers in people’s ears. Men’s screams. As they turned down it, Neve felt the air move around her, sweeping through her hair, and her cocksure attitude was swept away with it.

  Michael stopped messing around and walked towards the tracks. ‘Right, let’s do this,’ he said, his tone serious, which was more nerve-wracking than when he was trying to scare the others.

  Nodding, Baz took off his rucksack and unzipped it, pulling out a solid wooden board.

  ‘What is that?’ Holly asked.

  ‘What do you think it is?’ Michael replied.

  ‘No. No, you didn’t say anything about a ouija board. No, I want to go – I want to go now!’

  ‘Come on, Holly, you don’t actually believe in this stuff?’ Neve asked quietly, trying to reassure her, but she wasn’t kidding anyone; the board made her feel afraid also, despite her suggesting they brought one down.

  ‘All I know is there are things we don’t know. I don’t wanna start pissing around with it.’

  ‘Fine. Go if you want.’

  ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘No way! I’m staying here,’ Neve said, trying to sound sure of herself.

  ‘Is anyone coming?’ Holly asked, her voice bouncing off the cavern walls, and once it faded, it was greeted with the return of silence.

  ‘We all wanna stay,’ Baz said. ‘Come on, Holly. Nothing will happen. It’ll be fun.’

  Reluctantly, Holly nodded and walked into the narrow shaft to join the others who had placed themselves around the ouija board, a glass from Baz’s kitchen upside down on the top. One at a time, they placed a finger on the glass.

  ‘So, what do we do?’ he asked.

  ‘I guess we ask questions?’

  ‘OK, who’s gonna go first?’

  The group looked at one another, waiting for someone to speak. Rolling his eyes, Jamie began.

  ‘If there is anyone down here, let us know. Make the glass move. Make a noise. Something.’

  They all held their breaths, staring at the top of the glass, waiting for something to happen. After a few moments Jamie looked up, and the group caught his eye. He looked like he heard something.

  ‘If there is anyone here, move the glass, spell out your name. Bang something,’ he called again. And again, they waited in silence.

  ‘I don’t think…’ Michael began his sentence before being cut off by a distant noise.

  ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘What the fuck was that?’ Georgia asked.

  ‘I’m freaking out,’ Holly said, letting go of the glass.

  ‘Guys, shut up,’ Jamie interrupted. ‘If that was you, can you do it again, so, we can hear it clearer.’

  Another tap came from somewhere down the mine.

  ‘Fuck!’ Baz said, covering his mouth.

  ‘Jamie, say something else,’ Michael said excitedly.

  ‘Can you do it again? This time, tap twice.’

  A pause, and then, just as the group began to breathe once more, two taps quietly returned, the sound of hammer on rock, sending the group into a frenzy. Michael and Georgia were grinning, afraid, but enjoying the fear. Neve found herself clutching onto Jamie, and Chloe held onto her. Holly began to cry, and Baz tried to comfort her.

  ‘Could you do it again?’ Jamie called out, stepping away from Neve and Chloe who held each other tighter. ‘Make a clearer noise. So, we know for sure you’re definitely listen…’

  The bangs picked up again, more than they could count. Louder than a tap. Much louder. It sounded like a metal pipe hitting something else metal. Like the ghost was hitting the steel arteries that reinforced the tunnels with a hammer. It came from in front of them, a place deeper into the mine, further into the bowels of hell. Then, just as the group began to panic, it stopped.

  ‘Michael, wind up the torch,’ Jamie said quietly, his breathing jagged and shallow. Nodding, Michael did as Jamie asked and once it had a bit of power, he flicked it on in the direction of the sound.

  ‘What the fuck…’

  Down the mine, just on the edge of what they could see, something stood in the middle of the passage. ‘What is that?’

  ‘Some sort of machine?’ Georgia queried; the smile wiped from her face.

  Michael advanced, and after three steps the torch went out.

  ‘Shit,’ he said, quickly winding it again. When he held it up, the thing was moving towards them. The Drifter.

  The group descended into hysteria, screaming, crying, running. Baz dropped his lighter and Michael’s torch failed again as the group tried to run the way they came, back to the entrance of the mine.

  Chapter 50

  2nd December 2019

  Night

  Only a few steps into the mine was all it took to rob me of my ability to see. But I couldn’t stop. I walked with my arms outstretched, like something out of a zombie movie, trying to feel my way until I found the first corner that swept the tunnel towards the left. Keeping one hand on the wall to not lose my way, the texture of it was abrasive and damp. I tentatively moved further into the dark, the ground beneath my feet sloping as I descended. My other hand was still in front, feeling thin air – hoping not to grab anything, or anyone. And the smell was the one that had permeated my entire adult life in that place between being asleep and awake. Coal air.

  My hand brushed something unfamiliar, and I let out a yelp. It was just a chain hanging from the ceiling. I took a deep breath, the air already feeling thick. Each step away from the world – away from its open spaces and phone reception – compounded my anxiety, which continued to build, a sea that was bracing for an approaching storm. I
tried to keep myself calm, but panic set in, the walls beginning to close in around me. The ceiling looked like it might crack at any moment.

  I stopped, closed my eyes. I told myself to slow down. I thought of my dad, of one night in particular when I was young and woke up as my night light flickered. The filament inside fighting to survive and failing, leaving me in total darkness for the first time I could recall. It was so dark I couldn’t see, and as I began to cry, Dad came in and calmed me. I thought I had gone blind. He held me in his arms, his smell, the one I loved that was part sweat, part coal dust, calmed me, and when my sobs became jagged little sniffles, he told me our eyes were actually those of superheroes and when I didn’t understand, he told me to close them, count to thirty and then open them again, and when I did, I could see the objects in my bedroom.

  ‘It’s a little trick we all know down the mine,’ he said. ‘We all just pause, close our eyes and let our vision find us.’

  Closing my eyes helped, for when I opened them, I could just about make out the wall I was touching, and the wall on the other side of the tunnel. I could see the chains hanging limp from the ceiling and the slight tonal change where the metal structures ran in the rock. It was still too dark to see if a person stood in the dark corners, pressed into the crevices, but I could just about see enough of the grainy dark world to know if I was about to trip or fall over something. Still, it didn’t offer much comfort. The dread in my gut hadn’t lifted.

  I had to continue further into the belly of the monster that had watched my every move since coming back. The more I walked, the warmer it began to feel, the earth itself radiating heat. I unfastened and then took off my coat and decided to leave it at the next corner I approached before turning left. At the next turn I placed my scarf, then my jumper at the next. Then I approached a fork in the tunnel, one I remembered vividly: turning left would take me further down into the heat and dust, closer to where we found Chloe. And right was another long tunnel that gradually descended. It was in that tunnel that we’d set up our ouija board and tried to scare one another, before the Drifter started banging and shouting, terrifying us all.

  If I had – if any of us had – remembered to follow our trail that night, we would have all made it out together. But we didn’t. We were young, petrified, and in our world, we hadn’t heard of consequences, until that moment.

  Walking past the tunnel where our foolish game began, my shoes wet from the running water, I heard something, a voice, a whimper. I held my breath, waiting to hear it again. Nothing. Despite being hot, a shudder ran up my spine, and I had to remind myself that I didn’t believe in ghosts.

  I pushed the whimper I heard out of my head and continued. I was sure I knew the way – and would then know the way out – but with each step, my confidence wavered, and with no more items of clothing to leave, I had to rely on my memory of back then, which was tainted, damaged. And then, ahead of me, I saw it, a void where the narrow tunnel became a larger room, the ceiling of it higher than I could touch. The space as wide as a church, and in the middle of it, a hole eight feet wide that descended around twenty more.

  I was where the Drifter wanted me; I was back in the place it all began.

  And I was alone.

  Quietly, I made my way towards the middle of the cavernous room, wondering if I had misinterpreted the note. No, I was here, the place where it all began. That night when Chloe fell, the night the blame fell upon him. It had to be. I hoped that I would find Holly and the others, and I would help them get out before facing the Drifter. It was just me in a dark, vast space with the remains of my best friend in a hole directly in front of me.

  I wanted to look down, I wanted to see. But I couldn’t. Even now, even after all this time, I was still unable to face what had happened that night, and Michael was right. Compared to the others, I had it easy, because I didn’t look back then.

  I thought again about the noise I heard when I was walking past the tunnel where we set up the ouija board. Maybe I did actually hear a whimper; Holly perhaps, or Georgia. Turning, I began to make my way back towards it, one single step, and then I was blinded by a torch which shone directly into my face. A deep voice spoke from behind it.

  ‘It’s been a long time, Neve.’

  Chapter 51

  2nd December 2019

  Night

  I couldn’t see who had spoken, my eyes burning from the light in my face. But that voice, I knew it, though I couldn’t quite place it.

  ‘Take out your phone and throw it towards me,’ he commanded and, doing as I was told, I took my mobile from my back pocket and threw it on the ground, near his feet.

  ‘It doesn’t work down here,’ I said as a way of telling him I couldn’t call the police.

  ‘On your knees,’ he instructed and again I did as I was told. Awkwardly, I lowered myself to the ground, my hands up, shielding my eyes from the light, trying to see the man behind it.

  ‘You haven’t changed in all these years,’ he said, the torch dancing a little as he spoke, revealing more of his frame behind. But the voice, I knew who he was, I was sure of it.

  ‘I can see you really trying to work this out, Buttercup. You were never much good at problem-solving,’ he said, enjoying himself.

  That name, Buttercup. I had been called it before, a very long time ago, and I knew who he was. Seeing my shock, my confusion, he lowered the torch and waited for my eyes to recover and for me to be able to see his face and confirm it was him.

  ‘Hello, Neve,’ he said, waiting for me to reply. I couldn’t, because I didn’t understand why the man standing in front of me wearing a long, dark coat, the man who I thought was the Drifter, was in fact the person I had come back to find.

  ‘Jamie?’ I said, trying to get to my feet.

  ‘Just stay on the floor, Neve,’ he snapped, frightening me into doing as I was told. I felt my head swim. Jamie was the Drifter? It didn’t make sense. People were looking for him, the whole village, someone would have seen him, and yet, as my eyes adjusted further, I could clearly see that the man in the Drifter’s coat was my first love.

  ‘I – I don’t understand.’

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t.’

  ‘Why am I here?’

  ‘Now, come on, Neve, surely even you can work that out.’

  ‘Where are the others?’ I asked, to which he laughed. ‘Jamie, where are the others?’

  ‘Oh, Buttercup, you are hopeless.’

  There was something in the way he spoke that told me he wasn’t the same boy I’d fallen in love with all those years ago; there was something different, something dangerous, and in that moment, I knew the others were likely dead, and I would be next. It was him all along. He had faked being hurt; he had faked the Drifter back into existence. And he had come for the rest of us, one by one. I needed to buy time. No one was coming to help, I was alone, I didn’t tell anyone I was coming. I had stepped into his trap. I had made it easy for him.

  ‘Jamie, why are you doing this?’

  ‘Have you said hello to Chloe yet?’ he laughed. ‘Of course you haven’t, because you’re still a coward. You can pretend all you want, Neve, but she is there, behind you, in the bottom of that hole. She is still in the place we found her. The place where you couldn’t look and pleaded with me to help. Do you remember? You begged me to go down, take off her top, so we could plant it elsewhere. It was Michael’s idea, but you begged me to do it.’

  ‘You didn’t have to!’

  ‘Of course I did! You were hysterical, you were my girlfriend, and I wanted to make you happy, I wanted to help make it all go away for you. And I did, didn’t I?’

  ‘Jamie…’

  ‘But it didn’t go away for me. Every day since, I remember removing her top from her dead body, her glazed eyes staring at me. I remember her blood on my hands. Blood that should have been on yours.’

  ‘I didn’t kill Chloe; it was an accident.’

  ‘But you made sure we didn’t go to the police and tell
them what happened. You were the one that said it would ruin us all.’

  ‘I was scared.’

  ‘So was I. I wanted to go to the police. You stopped me. You did this to me.’

  Jamie began to cry, and I had to do something or else I knew he would kill me. The room was wide, and although it was pitch black either side of the small pool of light created by his torch, I knew the exit was to my right. If I acted quickly, I could bolt for it and run back to the real world and get help, and then, once I found Thompson or Hastings or the new DCI, I would come clean about it all. I would go back to 1998, say word for word what happened and what I did. Because Jamie was right, Chloe was behind me, and it was time she was laid to rest. There would no longer be an empty grave.

  Taking a breath, I sprang up and I ran. Jamie didn’t have time to react, his sobs were uninterrupted, his torch stayed low. As I skimmed past him, I knew I could get away, lose him in the tunnels until I found my way out. Jamie was three paces behind and still hadn’t reacted when another torch blinded me coming from where I was trying to exit. I raised my hands to protect my eyes, and in doing so lost my footing and stumbled, coming to a halt, a rabbit in headlights.

  Spinning around I saw Jamie, his torch low, still crying. Behind him, another torch shone towards me – the person advancing until they reached Jamie. To my right another torch shone, another to my left. Then a final torch lit. I was completely surrounded. I called out asking who it was, but no one replied. I heard only Jamie’s sobs, the sound bouncing off the mine walls coming back to me like the ground itself was weeping, and then the quiet whispers of a soft voice trying to comfort him.

  ‘It’s OK, Jay, everything is going to be OK, it’s over.’

  ‘Who is that? What’s going on?’ I asked, desperately trying not to cry. Jamie’s torch was raised to point at me, and I turned away from it, back towards the entrance, hoping there was a gap, a space for me to run to. Who I saw stunned me. Caught in the light from Jamie’s torch opposite was someone standing in a long, dark coat like the one Jamie was in.