Inhabited

by Ike Hamill

  Roger did the conversion and set the dials on the drop-stamp. He used his tool to carve the holes in the wall of the shaft. After making sure everything lined up, he began to press the stamp into the wall.

  “Wait,” she said. “Let me check it too.”

  Roger nodded.

  Florida made a small tweak to his settings and then waved him forward.

  “Do you understand all this?” he asked.

  “I understand the goal, but not necessarily all the theory behind it.”

  “Can you explain it to me again? Dr. Deb’s lecture nearly put me to sleep.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Some places have persistent mysterious creatures associated with them. You have the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, Chupacabra, and dozens of others you may have heard of. They call these ‘cryptids,’ which are rumored creatures that haven’t been scientifically observed or documented. Some people believe that this mine is the home to one of those cryptids.”

  “But Dr. Deb seemed to suggest that this place had a ghost or something,” Roger said.

  “Yeah,” Florida said, nodding. “That’s one of the other explanations. Maybe the stories about this place were caused by some sort of paranormal entity. There’s a third explanation that there is a psychoactive chemical in the air or maybe radiation. Maybe the stories come from an environmental source.”

  “So we’re trying to figure out which one of those is true?”

  “No,” Florida said. “We’re trying to document the experience without associating a specific cause. If we can make a database of observations, then theoretical causes can be mapped to that database and tested experimentally.”

  “Oh.”

  “Understand?”

  “No.”

  Florida laughed. “It is pretty squirrelly, I admit. But that’s why we’re here. We’re going to pin this down and make everything proper and scientific. We will shake all the magic out until we’re left with cold, hard facts.”

  “And that’s what these probes and drop-stamps are for?”

  “Yeah, that’s the part I’m not quite clear on. I know the steps we’re supposed to follow, but I couldn’t tell you what’s going on inside those things.”

  “That all seems pretty reasonable,” Roger said. “I don’t know why she made it sound so ominous during the instruction, you know? It was almost like she was trying to scare people off.”

  “I’m sure Dr. Grossman felt some responsibility to make sure that everyone knew what they were getting in to. It’s not exactly the lowest-risk thing in the world.”

  “I don’t know. The old mine seems to be in pretty good shape. We haven’t seen any cave-ins, or supports that look like they’ll give out any second.”

  “It’s not that,” Florida said. “Did you read the literature?”

  “Pardon?”

  “She gave us a series of investigative pieces to bring us up to speed. You read all that?”

  “Was this on the first day? I missed the first day because I had another engagement.”

  “It was also mentioned on the waiver you signed.”

  “Let’s say for argument’s sake that I never read those kinds of things.”

  Florida sighed and turned the corners of her mouth down into a frown.

  Her tone was flat and resigned. “So you’re not aware of the deaths and disappearances?”

  Roger furrowed his brow and shook his head slowly.

  “You never heard any stories about Old Hang?”

  “Old Hang? Isn’t that a town or something? Didn’t they used to hang people there? Or am I just confusing it because it has the word ‘hang’ in it?”

  “You’re confused. This place is responsible for dozens of disappearances and a ton of corpses. A lot of people come in and never come back out. I can’t believe you’re here without knowing any of this.”

  “If it’s so damn scary, what are you doing here? What are any of these people doing here?”

  “So far,” Florida said, holding up her fingers and crossing them, “Dr. Grossman hasn’t lost a single researcher. We’ve got good processes, radios, and plenty of light sources. If I make the call, someone follows our flags and help is here. I feel pretty confident that I’m safe.”

  “What do you expect to see?”

  “Me? Nothing. I don’t believe in any of that garbage. I think the fatalities here can be attributed to bad luck and superstition. It’s like the opposite of the placebo effect. Convince people that they might die, and they’re going to panic, do something stupid, and die.”

  “Huh,” Roger said. He nodded. “I guess that makes sense.”

  Florida looked down at her watch. “We have four minutes to get to the next grid location. Let’s step it up a bit.”

  “Sure,” Roger said. When they arrived at a proper intersection, they had to choose a new direction and lay down one of their flags. Roger had some lingering questions about the procedure. For one, what if the mine had multiple ways to get to the same place? If they were choosing their path randomly, wouldn’t there be a chance of them colliding with another team?

  Second, why weren’t they concerned with any of the vertical options? Every few minutes they came across something that looked like a tube leading either up or down from their tunnel. They must lead somewhere. The mine had different levels—maybe the tubes were shortcuts to different places.

  He was thinking about this when they passed by one of the vertical tubes that led diagonally up from the corner of their tunnel. When he was directly in line with the tube, his light passed through it and showed him what was in the room above.

  “Hey,” he said. He tapped the back of his hand against Florida’s shoulder. “Hey.”

  “What?”

  “What is that?” He pointed up through the tube. She glanced and shrugged. “No, come right here. You have to see all the way.” He motioned for her to take his place and then waited for her to find the right spot so she could see to the end of the tube.

  “It looks like…” She squinted. “Is that?”

  “A hangman’s noose?”

  “For future reference, you shouldn’t impose your observation on me. Let me come up with my own.”

  “Sure, whatever, but do you see a hangman’s noose up there?”

  Florida’s light bobbed as she nodded. “Give me a boost, would you?”

  -o-o-o-o-o-

  Roger climbed about a third of the way up before he looked down. The shaft was about twenty feet. If it had been truly vertical, they never would have made it up. If Florida hadn’t been so impulsive—scrambling up the wall like a spider monkey while Roger stood there—he would have never tried the climb. But they were partners on this investigation and they were supposed to stay together.

  His only foothold was an iron spike that protruded from the wall of the cylindrical shaft. He made it to the one that had broken off. As Florida climbed, one of the spikes had snapped and bounced down, almost hitting Roger in the face. She had caught a toe-hold. Roger used that same lip of rock to push himself up.

  When he got to the top, he spread his arms across the floor of the upper tunnel and pushed. His arms were barely able to accomplish the task. He rolled to the floor, panting.

  “How are we going to get back down?” he asked.

  “I’ve got rope. Did you leave a flag?”

  “Pardon?” He hadn’t left one. It was one of his jobs, and he had spaced it. The climb had felt like a side-excursion, and it had never occurred to him to put down a marker for the turn.

  “Let me have one,” she said, holding out her hand.

  “No, I’ll go.”

  “We’re not going anywhere.” When Roger didn’t move, she slipped around him and jerked open his pack. Florida took one of the flags out and straddled the hole. The shaft wasn’t exactly vertical, but she played the bounce. She dropped the flag and it tumbled. The metal base rang as it hit the wall. Roger pulled himself over to the hole and arrived in time to see the flag land. It spun as it
hit the floor below and rolled in tight circles. As it slowed to a stop, it tipped up and sat perfect. It even looked to point in the direction of the shaft.

  “Well done,” Roger said.

  Florida wasn’t even looking at the flag. She was examining the hangman’s noose.

  The tunnel they were in had a much higher ceiling, and more frequent supports to hold it up. Roger guessed it was at least twelve feet high. The hangman’s noose hung from another vertical shaft that penetrated the center of the high ceiling. The rope hung in the dead center of that shaft. Florida moved underneath.

  -o-o-o-o-o-

  “I can’t see where it’s attached,” she said. She added a flashlight to her headlamp. “It’s too high up.”

  Roger stood. If he jumped, he figured he would just about be able to grab the loop. He didn’t want to do that. Above the noose, the rope was light brown. But the working part of the noose was stained dark. Roger didn’t want to touch whatever had left that stain.

  “What’s the point of a noose in a mine?” he asked.

  “What’s the point of this room at all?” she asked.

  He spun and finally investigated the shape of the space. It didn’t go far in either direction. The tunnel ended with rounded walls. The only ways in or out appeared to be the vertical shafts.

  “Maybe they mined it and then shoved the ore down the hole?”

  “With what equipment?” she asked.

  “Maybe it used to be connected but cave-ins sealed it,” he said. It was a stupid idea. The walls had clearly been carved from solid mountain. “Let’s get back on track.” Roger moved back to the hole in the floor that they’d come up through.

  Florida had walked over to one of the walls. The rock changed color at eye-level. The lower half of the walls was the gray color they had grown accustomed to. The upper half was much whiter. Florida removed her drop-stamp tool and jammed it into the wall. The white rock crumbled away from the tool. Chunks of it fell away to the floor. Roger imagined a miniature avalanche, like she had removed the keystone and the walls would just crumble.

  “It bet this is why the ceiling is so high,” she said. She carved out another section of wall. A chunk the size of a football fell away. When it hit the floor it broke apart on its own. A wave of dust spread away from her feet.

  “Hey, Alabama, back to work,” Roger said.

  “Huh? Yeah, of course. You know, we should record and stamp this room though. It’s a dead end, but we should follow the process.”

  Roger thought about that for a second and then agreed. He pulled his pack to the side and started to get ready.

  Florida walked away from the wall and more material tumbled after her. She didn’t seem to notice, but Roger watched it carefully. He was convinced that the collapse would start a chain reaction until the whole room was falling in around them. It didn’t. Only a few more chunks fell away.

  But there was something there. Something had been exposed.

  Roger stood slowly with his eyes locked on it. He was watching for movement. It was irrational, he knew, but this was an irrational place.

  “What are you doing? Let’s collect and stamp,” Florida said. She finally keyed in on what he was looking at. They converged on the wall where she had started the cave-in.

  It was lifeless, but still covered in fur. Roger moved around, considering the paw from different angles.

  “It must be fossilized,” Florida said. Her light moved back to the ceiling. “I bet this was a prehistoric lake bed or something.”

  Roger used his tool and touched the wall near the protruding paw. More of the crumbling stone fell away.

  “I’ve never seen a fossil with fur,” Florida said. “It must be incredibly well-preserved.”

  With the next piece to fall, something shiny caught Roger’s light and reflected it back. He scraped at the metal with his tool.

  Another bunch of rock tumbled away and broke at Roger’s feet. The dog’s head slumped out from its tomb. The tags on its collar clinked. Roger jumped back. Florida covered her mouth with her hand. They glanced at each other and converged back to the wall slowly.

  Roger reached out with his tool and moved the tags.

  The dog’s cloudy, dead eyes stared at him.

  “This rabies tag is from three years ago,” he said.

  Florida moved in close enough to confirm and then backed away again.

  “I think those things are good for two years, so that means that this corpse is at most five years old.”

  “We mark this spot and then head back,” Florida said. Roger looked at her, but she didn’t meet his eyes. She ran her eyes all around the room. She eyed every inch of the wall with suspicion. “Dr. Grossman needs to know about this. Who knows what else is in these walls.”

  “Yeah,” Roger said. “Even better—radio from here before we start back, yeah?”

  Florida nodded. “Smart. And you know what? Fuck the procedure. She can do a drop-stamp herself when she gets here. You drop a flag and I’ll call it in.”

  Roger nodded. He liked the way she thought. He flipped open his bag and pulled out one of their colored flags. He glanced around and then set it down near the hole. Florida put the radio to her mouth and began the call.

  “Command, this is team J-6. Request an immediate rendezvous at our position. Over.”

  When she released the button, static erupted from the radio.

  “Command, do you read? Over.”

  More static.

  Roger put up his hand. A gust of cool air wafted down from the hole in the ceiling. The hangman’s noose began to sway in the breeze. Roger turned his nose upwards. He couldn’t place the smell.

  Florida’s voice was lower when she called again. “Command, do you read? Over.”

  There was no reply.

  “We’ve got too much rock between us and the closest repeater,” Florida said. “Let’s go back down and try from there.”

  Roger nodded. He didn’t care about the radio anymore, but going back down seemed like a great idea. He motioned for Florida to go first. She lowered herself into the hole and found one of the spikes to support herself with. Roger wasn’t sure what they were going to do at the bottom. They would probably have to drop to the tunnel floor. That was a problem for later. His first priority was getting away from that creepy, mummified dog and whatever else might be up here in the hangman’s room.

  As he lowered himself, his foot slipped off the spike. Roger barely caught himself on the lip. An image of tumbling down the shaft, plowing right through poor Florida, crashed through his mind. Roger paused to get ahold of himself.

  His light flickered and went dead.

  Roger blinked at the darkness. He couldn’t believe the luck. He had spare batteries in his pack, and he’d been warned that the light would go out with little notice. That’s why they carried so many backup light sources. But he couldn’t fathom a worse time for his light to go out. He could only see by the residual light from Florida below.

  Another breeze pushed past him from above. Roger looked up at the darkness and realized that the darkness wasn’t complete. There was a yellow glow from the shaft in the ceiling. The hangman’s noose cut a black figure against the glow.

  Roger moved quickly. He found the next spike with his foot and dropped. The next spike was missing, but Roger didn’t remember until he was already dropping. Only more incredible luck—good, this time—allowed him to catch himself on the next spike down. Dust and pebbles cascaded down on Florida.

  “Hey,” she said.

  Roger stopped himself just before putting a foot down on her hand. “Keep going!” he whispered.

  “The flag is gone,” she said. He tried to see around her, but it was useless. The shaft wasn’t big enough.

  “Keep going,” he said again. Mercifully, she started moving.

  She dropped out of sight and barely made a sound when she hit. Roger wasn’t nearly as graceful. He hung from the last spike and then fell. His body began to ro
tate in the air and he came down at an angle. After landing, he stumbled backwards into the wall.

  -o-o-o-o-o-

  Florida was scanning the floor with her light. Roger took off his helmet and began fumbling with the battery compartment. He flipped the batteries out and they sailed different directions. He didn’t care. He found the replacements and nodded vigorously when the light came back on. He put his helmet back on and exhaled.

  “Try the radio,” he said.

  “Who would take our flag?”

  Roger glanced towards the shaft.

  “Try the radio. Let’s start heading back. You can call in while we walk.”

  “But where’s our flag?”

  “I’ll drop another one,” he said, struggling to keep his tone under control.

  Florida nodded. She wandered as she pulled the device from her pack again.

  Roger shifted carefully to the edge of the shaft and glanced up. The noose was still up there. He couldn’t see the glow.

  “Command, do you read? Over.”

  Roger put his hand over his lamp and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He didn’t like the red light that filtered through his fingers. The noose was still up there, gently swaying, but now it was barely lit by light filtered through his blood. Florida turned back towards him and he couldn’t see very far up the shaft at all.

  “Command, this is team J-6. We’d like to request a rendezvous at our position. Over.”

  Roger moved away from the shaft. He pulled out a flag and dropped it near the wall. He thought about the breadcrumbs from Hansel and Gretel. He moved the flag farther away from the shaft. He didn’t like the idea that something up there would have a trail to easily follow.

  Florida laid her hand on his shoulder and he nearly screamed.

  “I’ve got nothing,” she said. “Not even static. I suppose that’s good. We’re getting signal at least, but they’re not replying. Maybe they’re having radio trouble.”

  Roger nodded.

  “I’ll try at the next stamp,” she said.