Johnny realized that right now might be the best time to move away from the mine opening and slowly walked backward in the direction of the telephone pole.
Still angry and ready for a fight, Tommy shouted at the departing pair. “Yeah. Like you two girlies are so brave. Like you would be willing to go down into that mine all by yourselves. Let's see you and your toady-boy go in there, Billy Coogan. Go ahead. I dare you. Puuuussssyyyyyy boys.” A look of dread appeared on Billy’s face, knowing too well that Jimmy could be goaded into almost anything.
“We ain't scared. Are we, Billy?” Jimmy said. “We ain't no pussy boys like them fags. Are we, Billy?”
Billy understood where this was going to lead and does not want any part of it, but he found himself trapped with no choice but to agree. “Uh… uh… no. No we ain't scared. Not us. We ain't afraid at all. Uh...”
Then he remembered how often he, himself, had coerced Jimmy into doing his dirty work for him in the past and took advantage of the knowledge saying, “You’re right, Jimmy. We'll show them. Won't we? He can’t talk about us that way can he, Jimmy? We’ll show him for sure!”
Without forethought, Jimmy stalked back toward the mine with angry determination. “You bet we will. We ain't afraid of nothing.” He proclaimed.
Billy walked behind Jimmy with enough conviction to appear as if he would follow Jimmy into the mine, but still managed to remain a safe distance behind the boy. Billy had no intention of going into the mine if at all avoidable; however, if he found that he had to do so, he knew that at least Jimmy would be going in first. Peter and Tony had both been a good distance down the access road, but decided to turn around and return to see how the events would play out.
As Jimmy got close to the mine, he passed Johnny and pushed him hard, knocking the young boy to the ground, where he laid in a semi sitting position, having a direct view into the mine, overwhelmed by the blackness of the opening.
The boy stared into the darkness, as if hypnotized. Tommy Marchinsky walked around behind Johnny to help him back up to his feet. Bending down he too looked into the mine, instantly paralyzed as if by some supernatural force inside.
The two boys’ minds joined as if through some type of psychic link. Within their conjoined thoughts, they heard a horrible jumble of insect-like sounds, which seemed to flow from the blackness directly into their heads. The sounds started softly at first then grew ever louder as they stared speechless, mouths agape.
The other boys did not appear to notice them; likewise, Tommy and Johnny seemed to be unaware of the others. Something transported them to a new place; a horrible place; a place of blackness and terror. They were in a mental free fall into a bottomless pit. The horrible sounds continued to grow more intense. They envisioned two blood red eyes rushing from the depths of the mine and sensed heavy animal-like breathing. They heard the increasing pounding footfalls of something coming ever closer by the second. They felt the approach of some sort of snarling beast, the likes of which they had never imagined in their worst nightmares. They wanted to scream, they needed to scream, but were unable to do so.
Chapter 2
Jimmy stopped at the entrance of the mine positioning his body half way inside the broken door. He wanted to show everyone that he wasn’t scared. He was Jimmy. He was afraid of nothing. He was invincible.
Jimmy looked back and forth between Billy, Peter and Tony. He waved his left arm high in the air taunting them to show them he was braver then any of them. Peter and Tony cheered and laughed at Jimmy’s performance. Billy watched with an uncertain expression stopping his advance about five feet from the mine. Billy noticed Johnny and Tommy on the ground frozen, staring into the mine, partially blocked by Jimmy. They seemed to stare right through Jimmy as if he wasn’t there, their concentration focused entirely on the black opening.
Billy thought to himself. “What’s wrong with them? What are they staring at? Why aren’t they moving?” He realized that something had gone horribly wrong and that he needed to warn Jimmy. He opened his mouth to shout a warning to the boy, but he never got the chance.
Jimmy continued to perform for his audience, “Look at this, you little fairies. What’s wrong with you? There’s nothing to be afraid of in there. No scary ghosts. No monsters. No Devil Da.…”
Before he could finish his sentence, Jimmy’s body jerked as if pulled by some unknown force inside the mine, slamming the right side of his body and face against the broken door, shattering his nose and breaking out several of his front teeth. Blood spurted from his crushed face yet he did not shout or scream.
The young boy’s ruined face held a look of complete shock and disbelief. The flesh on the right side of his face was completely gone, hanging in shredded chunks from the rough wood on the door. Blood gushed from his mouth and smashed nose. As he realized what was happening to him, his expression changed from disorientation to pain then to utter terror. His head slowly arched backward as he prepared to scream, but this was a futile exercise for the youngster.
Again, the boy’s body was slammed into the door, which rattled from the repeated impacts. Blood continued to spurt from Jimmy's now hideous face. Splinters of bloodstained wood flew through the air falling like rain. His eyes drooped. This second blow, which had broken a large section of one of the rotting doors had disfigured him further.
His body went limp yet he appeared somehow to remain standing. Something pulled his body slowly into the narrow mine entrance. Billy watched all of this unfold before him in horror unable to determine how such a thing could be happening.
The two boys, Peter and Tony had been furthest from the mine. They watched the scene play out in disbelief, then turned together to run in the opposite direction as one, as if performing a choreographed ballet of terror. Gaining purchase in the sand-like soil they sprinted away from the carnage.
Billy was able to turn around to run to join the other two fleeing boys. In his horror, he had forgotten about Tommy and Johnny who were still frozen in their semi-hypnotic state, on the ground, near the mine.
Jimmy’s slumping body continued slamming repeatedly against what remained of the mine door; each subsequent blow shattering more of the door; the opening enlarging.
Although still partially paralyzed, Johnny and Tommy finally became aware of what was happening around them. They saw the shattered mine door. They saw the shower of blood splatter and splinters falling around them. They saw Jimmy’s devastated body slamming repeatedly against the rotting mine door, like some sort of deranged ventriloquist’s dummy. They saw the unconscious boy suspended several inches above the ground, hanging limply as if from a meat hook.
From the faint glow of the light on the pole, the boys saw filth-encrusted claws emerge from the mine. Slowly these ghastly talons walked up along the suspended boy’s body as if performing some twisted version of Itsy Bitsy Spider. Inch by inch the claws walked up toward his stomach area where they stopped for a brief moment, then in one fluid motion the claws sliced through Jimmy’s shirt into his abdomen. As if in slow motion, the boys watched a river of blood pour out of the incisions, then flow down staining the front of Jimmy’s pants. Blood splashed in puddles on the ground while what seemed like gallons of gore splattered on the mine doors.
Then like floodgates bursting, Jimmy’s insides fell from his body sickeningly sloshing down into the palm of an enormous clawed hand. The entanglement of internal organs hid the details of the hand of whatever this Hell-born creature may have been. The beast was clearly huge, animal like and filthy with black mine dirt. Some of the boy’s intestines slid in a nauseating splash to the ground. The boys watched petrified as the creature’s hand played with the entrails dangling them between its massive fingers. They noticed several bluish black flies, which landed on the puddle of blood, gorging themselves.
The site was more than Johnny’s young mind could tolerate. He fell into a catatonic unconscious. Tommy, in his semi-aware state, felt the dead weight of the young boy as the child slumped under h
is grasp.
Tommy looked on helplessly while whatever the incredible creature was began to drag Jimmy further into the mine opening. The boy’s body appeared to crush in upon itself, like a living wadded sheet of paper as it was forced through the broken mine door.
Off in the distance, Billy and the two other boys ran far down the access road screaming in terror. Tommy watched while all that remained of Jimmy McKinley disappeared into the mine, save for the young boy’s twitching left foot.
Inside the mine, Tommy saw some sort of white sparkling illumination. He did not make out what was happening, but he saw what appeared to be thousands of tiny glowing sparkles moving around inside the blackness. Then the mine returned to total darkness.
Tommy heard a combination of sucking, slurping and guttural sounds as Jimmy’s foot jerked and twitched in violent convulsions. The boy’s foot stopped its dance of death and disappeared into the mine.
Tommy’s breathing sounded short and rapid. He no longer heard anything in his mind but the pounding of his heart, which felt like it would explode from his chest.
Suddenly, a deafening sound erupted as the remaining mine door blew off its hinges and Jimmy’s gutted remains shot out of the mine with the power of a cannon. Splinters and fragments of the door flew in every direction.
The dead boy’s body flew over top of the boys’ heads smashing against the telephone pole where it stuck, impaled on one of the metal footrests.
Tommy either did not see where the body went or did not understand. He focused on something new, which appeared from the darkness. He realized that he and Johnny were still much too close to the mine. He attempted to move his arms and legs realizing that he must find some way move back away from the danger.
Along the bottom of the doorway the creature’s claws emerged from the blackness; first the tips, then their full lengths. They crawled menacingly forward toward the unconscious young Johnny, who Tommy still supported.
Tommy became a more alert and pulled Johnny back toward the telephone pole. The boy’s dead weight caused Tommy’s muscles to ache with the challenge.
Tommy pulled harder digging his heals in to the loose black dirt, never taking his eyes off the mine entrance, pushing backward toward the pole as quickly as possible.
From within the mine a huge clawed hand inched cautiously along the ground. It appeared to be not quite animal, but not quite human either, seeming to somehow to be both.
The shadows of the evening and the reflections from the light made it difficult for Tommy to see all of the details, so he closed his eyes backing further along the ground, but this could not block out the sound of the scraping claws and the heavy animal breathing. He smelled something primal and musty not unlike the time he went hunting with his uncle who shot a bear, an odor deep, woodsy and feral.
Tommy watched the demonic claws work their way out of the mine fearing what manner of beast might follow. However, when the hand got about a foot or two outside of the mine entrance, the flesh on the back of the huge paw began to emit what appeared to be steam or smoke.
Then the leather-like hide on the hand-thing bubbled. A repulsive scent of burning and decomposing rotten meat filled the air. The hand retreated and Tommy heard a howl similar to that of a wounded animal echoing from just inside of the mine. He heard rapid footsteps of some enormous and horrible creature limping away, descending deeper down into the bowels of the mine.
Somehow, Tommy drug Johnny’s limp body a few feet along the ground to safety. He leaned against the telephone pole, exhausted, staring vacantly at the mine opening. He held the unconscious Johnny between his legs, the boy’s head resting in the crook of Tommy’s arm.
Tommy took a moment to look down at the boy, relieved to see that the boy breathing, though unconscious. God only knew what harm the events of this evening would bring the child, but at least he was still alive.
As Tommy looked at the sleeping face of the boy, a drop of blood landed on Johnny’s forehead and trickle down his face. At first, Tommy was unsure where the blood came from or if it was actually blood or perhaps something else. He felt his own face to see if he was bleeding and discovered no trace of blood. Then he looked upward along the length of the telephone pole to see if he could locate the source.
Above him the impaled body of Jimmy McKinley hung. Still numb and confused, Tommy looked at the hanging corpse. Something did not look right to him. The boy’s remains no longer like Jimmy any longer. The body wore what was left of Jimmy’s shredded clothing, but that appeared to be where the resemblance ended.
The corpse resembled a mummified version of the child, as if Jimmy somehow had remained Jimmy but had aged a hundred years, its hair white and gray shade as was its pallor. The face and body appeared shrunken and shriveled, its insides missing leaving a vacant hallow cavity.
From this ghastly pit in the dead boy’s stomach cavity, another drop of blood fell and grew larger while Tommy watched it approach. The drop struck his cheek and felt as cold as an ice cube.
As Tommy continued looking up, the dangling body slumped, sliding from its impalement. The corpse fell toward Tommy as if in slow motion appearing to grow ever larger falling toward him. The last thing Tommy heard, before he slid mercifully into unconsciousness were his own screams.
Chapter 3
It was a sunny morning on the day following the nightmare at the mine; a typical late summer morning in nearby Ashton, Pennsylvania. The sun rose high in the sky and its light reflected off the coal dust covered hillsides. Small scrub trees attempted to grow along the banks of the hills making for an unusual contrast to the stark black appearance. Birds somehow managed to nest in these scrub trees and could be seen flying from bush to bush in search of food.
Ashton was a unique town in that it was located along a hill. It was about a mile long from its borders with the main street in town, Centre Street, running from the “bottom of town” to the “top of town” dividing the town essentially in half.
At the crest of the hill called the “top of town” by locals, was a small restaurant occupying a corner building formed from what was once two wood-framed row houses. The town itself consisted of many of these old “company houses”, which were generally two and three story structures from eleven to twenty feet wide.
On the left side of this building was a parking lot. On the right side still attached and still occupied, were a few other row homes starting to show their age and in need of some renovation.
On the large front window of the restaurant were worn letters that read: “MAGGIE’S RESTAURANT”. The restaurant sat back about twenty feet from the street with a small “stoop” in front consisting of four steps leading up to the front door opening directly into the main dining area.
Inside the restaurant, a collection of regular patrons sat eating breakfast while enjoying a good helping of local gossip. Maggie’s was the type of small town restaurant frequented by townsfolk who knew each other and each other’s business for decades. Many of the local people were related to each other in one way or another, which was quite common in this type of tight-knit ethnic community. Maggie’s was not the only restaurant in town, and it was sure that each one of the other restaurants was similarly busy with customers all looking to learn more about the incident at the mine.
Almost all of the booths in the restaurant were occupied, the atmosphere ringing with lively chatter. In Ashton, it was common for conversations not only to take place among people at adjacent tables, but across the entire restaurant. This morning was no exception. Most of the conversation focused on the terrible events of the night before. In a town, this small it did not take long for news to travel, especially news of a tragedy.
At the front of the restaurant, was a snack bar with five stools and a small drink preparation area, as well as a cash register. The restaurant was long and narrow as a direct result of its being constructed from what were once two row homes. On the uptown side, across from the counter was a row of booths that traveled along t
he wall leading back to an open doorway. Beyond that doorway was a room with tables generally reserved for “fancy dining”, evening dinners, and special groups or just for overflow from the main booth area on extra busy days.
A set of two parallel booths started just beyond the snack bar and continued back through the center of the restaurant, toward another doorway located on the downtown side also leading back to the same dining overflow area. There was a kitchen in the back of the restaurant left over from the original home, which meant that all food had to be carried through the large dining area out to the main breakfast booth area.
A young couple sat in the back corner booth of the restaurant. The woman was a very attractive blonde about thirty-five and the man was about ten years younger. By their dress and mannerisms, it was clear that they were not locals. They were also not involved directly with any of the conversations taking place, but obviously found the entire experience fascinating as many outsiders often did.
A tall, stocky fifty-something man in a red-checkered flannel shirt and ball cap entered the restaurant and slowly made his way toward the back of the main booth area. He shook hands stopping to meet and greet local friends along the way. The young woman watched the exchange with curiosity. Although this man was not dressed in professional clothing it was apparent that he was well known, well liked and she sensed that he may have held some position of authority within the community as he carried himself in a manner that seemed to command a degree of respect from those who greeted him.
He approached a booth not far from where the woman and her companion sat and arrived just as the current occupants were standing to leave. The couple exchanged pleasantries with the man then he sat down in the booth alone. After a few seconds, he seemed to lose his friendly expression, his face taking on a more serious look, as if he was a man with a lot on his mind. He sat alone in the booth with his hands folded on the table in front of him, apparently lost in the solitude that the lone booth provided.
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