Dark Corners

by Darren O’Sullivan

  ‘And condemn us all to jail. No, Neve.’

  ‘I’ll tell them it was all me. I did it all. I promise.’

  ‘It’s too late for that. The hole.’

  Stepping forward Georgia and Brenda grabbed me under my arms and dragged me the few feet towards the edge. I tried to fight them off. I tried to kick out and scream and bite, but they were too strong, too determined. I thought as they got close, someone would say something. I thought they might pause to tell me another fact about how they manipulated and controlled me. But they didn’t, and I was tossed into the darkness.

  Chapter 54

  July 1998

  The moment…

  The group found Holly as they approached the mouth of the mine. She was covered in black soot from the old coal remains that hung in the air and stuck to the walls. She shook like a small dog.

  ‘Holly, where’s Chloe?’ Neve asked.

  ‘I – I…’ was all Holly could reply.

  ‘Holly, have you seen her?’

  Again, Holly was unresponsive until Neve slapped her, snapping her back into the situation. ‘Holly, have you seen Chloe?’

  ‘She’s still down there. I tried to get her to follow me, but she said I was disorientated, going the wrong way. I tried to get her to follow me, but she wouldn’t. She’s down there still.’

  Baz charged past the group, shouting Chloe’s name as he descended into the darkness, Michael close behind, followed by the others who were reluctant to go back. As they traversed the main line wall, calling Chloe’s name, Neve felt the darkness was somehow blacker than before. Eventually they came across the tracks where they had seen the Drifter. They hoped he wasn’t still down there, waiting for them.

  ‘Which way did she go?’ Baz asked, desperation in his voice.

  ‘I told her to follow me up the way we’ve just come. She didn’t – she went that way,’ she replied between sobs, pointing in the opposite direction. Baz didn’t hesitate and ran on, his zippo lighter’s flame barely holding out against the wind he generated running. The others followed as close as they could, stumbling blind in the dark, until they reached a huge cavern that stretched fifty feet away from them, and the same upwards. Baz had stopped and was crouched, looking at the floor.

  ‘What is it?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Footprints,’ he said quietly, before calling her name.

  ‘Did she have a torch?’

  ‘No,’ Holly replied.

  ‘She’s blind down here,’ he said standing and slowly moving forward, following her footprints in the dirt. Neve didn’t know why, but she couldn’t follow. Something came over her, something terrible, freezing her to the spot. The others felt it too, and watched Baz take one step in front of the other until he stopped.

  ‘There is something here,’ he called back. ‘Michael, I need your torch.’

  Michael wound his torch and joined Baz’s side. Once it had enough charge, he pointed it towards the thing he could also now see. And when the light hit it, it vanished, sucked into a dark hole in the ground. Michael stepped forwards, and just before the light faded out, he could make out the shape of Chloe twenty feet below. Her head split wide open.

  Falling backwards he let out a cry and Baz – who had not seen – shouted to tell him what he could see. Michael couldn’t respond. Grabbing the torch Baz wound it up, flicked it on and pointed it down. The beam shook in his hands as the others joined his side to see what had caused Michael to cry.

  Everyone but Neve.

  Chapter 55

  2nd December 2019

  Night

  Falling into the pit seemed to last forever. I knew the ground was approaching as I hurtled towards it, but I couldn’t see it until the moment of impact. I heard my ankle snap, and I screamed out in pain. It robbed me of my ability to think, the shock of the injury setting in quickly. Above me, the lights began to fade and over my moaning I heard their footsteps ebb away until they vanished, along with the light they carried. There were no final words spoken. No gasps or cheers – they just left. And for a moment, I did nothing.

  Then, I heard my dad’s voice in my head. ‘Close your eyes, let the light come to you. And you’ll see properly.’ I did as he said. With my eyes closed, I focused on my breathing. Focused on drawing in enough to exhale. Calming myself with each breath until the pain was under my control, then, opening my eyes, I could make out the walls. I dragged myself towards one and sat against it. I gently placed my hand on my shin. The pain in my whole lower leg was white hot, and I couldn’t place the epicentre, so I explored further towards my foot. Before I could reach the ankle joint, my fingers clipped something sharp and I screamed out in pain again. One of my bones had come through the skin. Carefully, I moved over the bone to feel below. My hand came away tacky, covered in blood. I couldn’t see how much there was, but it felt like it wasn’t stopping. Being a miner’s child, I knew I needed to act. There were stories all the time of men being injured down here, miles away from help. I needed to stem the bleeding, and now wished I hadn’t dumped my scarf as a signpost to get out. Taking off my top, I wrapped it behind my knee as tightly as I could, hoping it would pinch the artery there and slow the flow. It was painful work and took me several minutes to do. Eventually, I think I secured it.

  I told myself to breathe, the heat and dust making it harder to do.

  I dragged myself up using the wall behind me and my one working leg. The top of the hole was the same height as a first-floor window – too high up for me to reach – so I tried to climb. I found small cracks in the wall, and using my fingertips I pulled, managing to lift myself from the floor. Reaching higher, I groped and found a small crevice. Jamming my fingers in it, I pulled again. Reaching up again, I found another pebble embedded in the rock and grabbed hold as best I could. Using my left foot, I pressed down on the first small crack and heaved myself higher. If I did this a few more times, I would be able to reach my hand over the top. As I fumbled in the dark to find somewhere further up to place my right hand, the pebble I was holding onto pulled away and I hurtled to the floor. Landing on my left foot, but then falling onto my right. The pain exploded and sent a wave rolling through my entire body. It hurt so much that I had to fight hard not to pass out. I tried to get up, tried to try again, but I couldn’t move anything without my right foot screaming at me.

  Breathe.

  I screamed for help. I shouted as loud as I could. I tried to describe where I was until my throat hurt and lungs ached. And as my voice – bouncing off the walls inside the mine – returned to me for the final time, the panic began to set in. No one would hear me, no one was there. I was going to die down here – die lying on top of my friend. My poor friend.

  I rolled onto my side and began to dig. I needed to see her. The others were right. I didn’t see her after the fall. I didn’t look over and see her dead body. I didn’t climb down, using three threaded belts to retrieve her top. I didn’t bury her under rocks and dirt. I instructed, and I ran away. And after, I hid in the trees and watched them walk down the lane and past me, broken and terrified. If I was to die down here, I was going to see my friend. Like I should have back then.

  That night when we found her, the others gathered around Michael’s torch and illuminated her body. They all saw how she lay. But I couldn’t look. I couldn’t see my friend that way. Holly wanted to call the police, but she didn’t move, and as the panic set in, I said something that I didn’t mean to say – it was just a thought, a what if, and as soon as it slipped from my mouth I wanted to take it back because I knew I didn’t mean it. However, the group latched onto the idea and in my panic, I kept talking. We could hide her, bury her. From that idea came the suggestion to place something of hers somewhere else, and then blame the Drifter. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t bury her, I couldn’t retrieve something of hers to hide elsewhere. So, they did it for me, and it ruined them.

  I kept digging. It didn’t take long for me to break through the topsoil, thrown down by the group to f
ilter between the large stones they’d initially dropped down onto Chloe. And until this moment, I hadn’t thought about that. How they, under my instruction, dropped heavy boulders and rocks onto Chloe’s body. I hated myself for not seeing what I had done until it was too late.

  With the soil removed, I then dug under one of the large rocks and using what strength I had, heaved it away. I then was able to reach under the next, and again I moved it, rolling it over and dropping it behind my back. After I cleared the fourth, I felt something soft. An item of clothing, long decayed but still here. I tried to remember what Chloe was wearing that night. Shuffling up, I moved another rock and when I reached under, I felt something thin and hard. A bone.

  I had found her.

  Fumbling around I worked out it was her forearm, and reaching under another rock, I found a collection of smaller bones, ones that made up her hand. Shuffling onto my back, I kept my arm down the hole, holding onto my best friend and closing my eyes. I waited for what came next.

  Chapter 56

  2nd December 2019

  Night

  I don’t know how long I lay there for, the warm rock under me had the strange effect of being like a heated blanket. Comforting me, numbing me. I knew I was in trouble. For in the darkness, I kept seeing flashes of light, faint and distant. It bounced off the high cavern above me. I assumed it was blood loss, shock, my body shutting down. I had heard that in a person’s final moments, lights would appear. Some would say it was heaven, some would say it was electrical impulses in our brains as it began to realise it was dying. I didn’t mind either way. I felt like I should want to fight, but the fight had left me and calm washed over me instead. And in that calm, Chloe came. She sat beside me, directly above the broken earth I had dug through to find her, her hair scraped back into a pony-tail like she wore in the summer before she died, her legs crossed. Her knees bounced off the floor as she fidgeted. She looked so young, a child. And she smiled at me. I wanted to smile back, I couldn’t. I daren’t. Instead a tear escaped from my eye, and as I blinked it away, she was gone.

  The lights began to move again on the roof of the cavern. More intense than before. It almost looked like it had a source. But it couldn’t have a source, there was no light down here. ‘Just stop it,’ I shouted at myself, my words barely audible through the arid space of the inside of my own throat. I knew what was happening, my mind trying to offer hope was only delaying the inevitable. And I didn’t want to fight the inevitable anymore. I’d done that for so long, because when I thought about it, how could things have ended any other way? Nobody gets away with it in the end. One way or another, secrets were debts that had to be paid. I almost convinced myself I would be the exception to the rule.

  The light above once again moved and I heard something too, a shuffle. I almost shouted again at myself to stop. The shuffle was followed by the sound of my name being called out. I held my breath and waited. It didn’t seem like it was in my head. I heard it again, my name being called out from somewhere above.

  ‘I’m here,’ I said. My words sharp and dry. I swallowed. ‘I’m down here.’

  I could barely hear myself. I tried again, and the light moved closer. I begged, please let this be real, please let it be someone who can help. But then, what if it wasn’t, what if it was Baz or Holly or one of the others, coming back to finish the job? Suddenly, I wanted to hide, to not be seen. I thought I was ready to give up and let the calm take me to oblivion. But I wasn’t, I felt myself moving, grabbing stones. I tried to pull them over me, and bury myself, hide myself with Chloe until they left. Then, I would try to pull myself out of this pit and drag myself up through the mine into the world. I didn’t think I would manage to, but I would try, and I would die trying. Because trying was something.

  I heard my name again, closer now, and I worked faster to hide myself. As I began to cover my legs, the pain once again white hot, the light shone down from above, blinding me.

  ‘Oh my God,’ the voice called. And in my state, it took me a moment to realise who the voice belonged to. ‘Don’t move, Neve, I’m going to get help.’

  ‘Please,’ I tried to say, my words inaudible.

  ‘Neve, don’t speak, don’t move, just stay still, I’ll be back soon. I promise.’

  The light moved and I heard footsteps running away. I didn’t know how, but Thompson had found me. The warm rock that was comforting only minutes ago now became unbearable to lay on. I couldn’t escape it. All I could do was wait for Thompson to return, if he was to return, if he was even there at all. I was so convinced that night at university about the ceiling falling in. It felt real, just like this did.

  After what felt like an eternity of slipping in and out of consciousness, not knowing if I had hallucinated my saviour, I saw light dance on the cave roof. Then footsteps quickly approached, the light shone down onto my face, blinding me again. He must have seen it hurt my eyes, and angled the torch against the wall in the hole, so the whole space was lit.

  ‘Help is coming Neve, OK? Help is on its way. I need you to stay awake, OK?’

  ‘I’m tired,’ I tried to say.

  ‘Neve, open your eyes, come on, open your eyes.’

  I did as he asked, and slowly he came into focus above me.

  ‘That’s it, well done, Neve. We are going to get you out of here, People, lots of people are coming. People are—’

  He stopped and I saw his face drop. Something had stunned him, and in my state, it took me a moment to place what that was.

  ‘Chloe,’ he said quietly. And I began to cry. ‘Who did this to you, Neve? We need to find them before they get away from here,’ he continued fervently. He was desperate to finally catch whoever was responsible for what had happened. ‘We need Hastings to track them down. Who was it, Neve, did you see who they were?’

  I nodded towards him.

  ‘Good, that’s good. Who was it? Say a name. Tell me a name.’

  I almost spoke but stopped. I thought about the damage I had done to the six friends of my childhood and the mother of my best friend. And to the village itself. I thought about Jamie’s sadness, Holly’s fear, Baz’s heartache and Georgia’s powerlessness. I thought of Michael and his loneliness. Things I had caused. They had paid their price for what happened in 1998. They had paid for twenty-one years. And if I kept my mouth shut, they could escape the mine, be heroes and victims and have a life once more.

  ‘Neve, who was it?’

  ‘It was the Drifter,’ I said.

  Chapter 57

  One year later, 2nd December 2020

  Evening

  It had been a year to the day since the night at the mine. And as much as everyone around me wanted to make sure I was coping, I wanted nothing more than to be normal. So, for me, it was a regular Wednesday. And I was at work. The day had been as busy as ever and with the last customer gone, I locked The Tea Tree’s front door and sighed. Using my one remaining crutch to help me move, I hobbled back towards the till to cash up, but first, I needed a glass of wine. In the aftermath of Thompson finding me down the mine, I spent some time in the media eye, and though I hated the glare I suppose I was lucky. His vigilance saved me. He had spotted me drive by in Michael’s car and had gone to his house and found the note. Then, assuming it was something to do with where Chloe’s top was found, he headed for the mine, using my clothes to guide him down into the depths. If he had taken a sip of his pint, or stood to get another the moment I passed, I would surely be dead.

  The mystery surrounding the Drifter captured the nation’s attention again, who he was, where he’d gone. Holly, Jamie and the others returned home, his survivors. They returned a day after I was found. They said they were in another part of the mine, far away from where Thompson found me. The Drifter had kept them there, wanting to have all of those who had seen him in 1998. The world loved them: heroes, survivors, and the village prospered. People flocked to see the mine, the would-be victims of a mysterious, grudge-holding killer. From what I had been tol
d, the pub was thriving. And people were beginning to let go of the past. I hadn’t escaped the media either; I was another survivor. It threw our small coffee shop into the spotlight with such force we had to take on new members of staff, just to keep up with demand. I thought that once the story of the Drifter and the mine had slipped from the front pages, business would slow. So far, it hadn’t. Business was so good that both Esther and I worked part time, still drawing a proper wage. She could be at home with Tilly more and I could go to my rehabilitation sessions to try and regain mobility in my right leg. I was told it would never fully heal. But, with time and the right exercise, I could walk unaided one day. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do – this was my punishment, I suppose.

  And Chloe, she was found, her body carried out in a small coffin, televised to the world. I never made it to her first funeral, so made a point of being there early to say goodbye. They laid her to rest in the same grave that had been empty for twenty-one years. Dad pushed my wheelchair through the cemetery as people cried and offered reassurances to me, the almost-victim. I felt terrible receiving praise for being so brave, so strong. I felt a crushing guilt every time I thought about how the truth about Chloe was still hidden from the world. And they were all there: Holly, Jamie, Michael, Baz, Georgia and Brenda. They watched me intently. I hugged Holly, hugged Brenda, but only because people were watching. They didn’t say anything, and nor did I. When our eyes met it was clear. They would never forget, never forgive, but they would also never speak of what really happened. It was my turn to carry the cross we all had to bear.

  And after Chloe’s funeral, I left the village, and I vowed never to go back.

  Cashing up the till and locking the safe, I sat down to finish my wine before walking to the Tube and home. On the sound system behind me, Kylie played, the song that took me back to where the nightmare began a year ago. Spookily I was doing the very thing moments before seeing Michael’s shadow outside, flipping my life upside down. It made me shudder and as panic began to rise, I told myself it was behind me, it was done. The others wouldn’t come back because they had their new lives; they had cleansed their guilt from that night, it was now on me. All of it. I doubted they would want to risk anything. Life was a fragile balance. And I knew they would prefer me dead, but killing me now would raise too many questions, pose too many risks for them.