Edward Lee - Ghouls

“Big deal,” Kurt sputtered, but it was more like gasping. Vicky’s hair swayed in front of her face as she trotted along, arms full of flashlights.

“And I’m sure there’re footprints leading in and out of it. Lots of them.”

“Kids go in there to drink all the time” was Kurt’s exerted reply. He was losing his breath, years of cigarettes finally taking their toll. “If you dragged us down here just because of some footprints… Slow down, will you. I’m not the goddamned Marathon Man.”

Higgins strode on, his eyes bright with whatever fascination it was that lay waiting for them.

The path flattened to a wide lifeless expanse nearly the length of a football field, which cut into a great, thrusting ridge. Judging by the remnants, this particular mining operation had never developed into anything productive, a far cry from the immense projects Kurt, as a child, had seen in Garret and Allegany counties when his father had dredged coal. The first five manway portals were collapsed, some only trace etchings of what they’d been.

“Here it is,” Higgins said, stopping at the last portal. Winded, Kurt looked up. In the fading sunlight, the mouth of the manway was a solid black aperture bored into the ridge. It looked much larger than the last time he’d seen it.

“We’re crazy to go in there,” Kurt said. He withdrew his Kel-lite from the ring on his belt. “That sucker’s ready to fall.”

Higgins shook his head obliviously. “You think after all these years that mine’s gonna collapse at the same time we decide to go in it? The chances aren’t even worth thinking about.”

“Are we going, or aren’t we?” Vicky insisted. “Let’s not stand around like a bunch of dopes.”

Their flashlights clicked on. Lances of glare preceded them as they entered the mine, squarely lighting up the walls and pushing back the clammy darkness. Something dripped far ahead. The manway grew cooler as it descended; the darkness thickened like mist. Every few yards, they passed heavy timber stulls erected to keep the manway from falling in on itself. Toothpicks, Kurt thought. Many of the stulls were vermiculated, swollen with rot.

In the bobbing auras cast by their lights, Kurt picked out glimpses of the ghosts of this place, and again he thought of his father. Cable pitons studded walls of dense rock, some still ringing slack tails of power lines threaded through their eyelets. Lengths of trolley rails lay uprooted all around, stained black and eaten by rust. An old, rusted-out carbide lamp collapsed under Kurt’s shoe; it crunched crisply, like crab shells.

Nailed to an overhead stull, a warped sign read: KEEP LEFT, HAULAGE LINE. And another, CAUTION: MAIN SHAFT AHEAD.

The manway opened into a low-ceilinged cavern pillared by a maze of stulls, a ghost town within the earth. This type of mine was known as an “open stope”; the main shaft was just a narrow, wedge-shaped pit cut triangularly down into the rock, its walls paired with several horizontal corridors similar to the manway. A much narrower shaft continued at the bottom of the pit to collect seepage.

“My father worked in a mine like this for twenty years,” Kurt said, just now realizing what back-breaking work it must have been. He glanced around sullenly with his light, as if expecting to see skeletons. “No wonder he tipped the bottle so much.”

“Wait’ll you see the shaft,” Higgins said.

Warily, they stepped up onto the wooden causewalk which surrounded the pit. Then they peered boldly over the side and down. The pit was huge. Kurt stared in awed silence, a tremor in his gut. It was like staring over the edge of the world.

Groovelike winzes fitted with metal ladders and lift cables cut down past each row of stope entries. The erratic dripping sound echoed up, much louder than before. Pointing his light, Kurt combed further and saw more ladders and bilge lines leading straight down. He could not see their end.

“I figure the pit’s seventy, eighty feet deep at least,” Higgins said.

Vicky seemed dizzied by the shaft’s utter vastness. “What are all those holes?”

“They’re called stopes,” Kurt said. His voice was hollow, drained of tone. “That’s where they dig out the ore. They’re actually shaped like horseshoes inside.” He looked to Higgins. “So what’s the big find, Mark?”

“Look at the bottom. The very bottom.”

They kneeled on the causewalk, targeting their flashlights. At first Kurt saw nothing of detail, just the overall wedge shape of the pit tapering down and down. Sheer depth drew his flashlight beam out to a thread of light; his eyes began to hurt.

“See it?” Higgins said.

Slow shock fused on Vicky’s face. “I don’t believe it.”

As Kurt steadied his eyes, forms appeared just ahead of the seepage shaft. Piles of rubble, rock chunks, demolished trollies. Heavy layers of dust and earth evenly dulled everything at the bottom. But soon a small, square shape became visible. It seemed tilted forward and gave off a faint blue tint. He moved the flashlight. Something red glinted up. He was looking at the top of an automobile.

“See what I mean?” Higgins said. “Don’t ask me how I was able to spot it.”

“Hasn’t been there long, by the looks of it,” Kurt said. “It’s still shiny, no rust.”

Higgins pointed left, to a section of causewalk that was crushed in. “Somebody pushed it over the side. You can still see the tire tracks.”

“You’re not going down there?” Vicky said, a suspicious bend to the question.

Kurt stood up, hunting for the walkie-talkie. “We’ve got to. We might be able to run the plates. For all we know, there could be a body in it.”

“I don’t trust those ladders,” Higgins said. “That’s why I wanted the rope. Climbing down’ll be a cinch.”

Kurt extended the antennas of the two radios and handed them to Vicky. He lifted up the rope. “I’ll go, I’m lighter than you.”

“No way, Jose,” Higgins said back, already pulling on the gloves. “I’m the one who found it. I’ll be the one who goes down.”

“All right,” Kurt said. “Just take it slow.”

A few feet behind them sat an abandoned electric dredge. The motor panel bore stenciled letters: RANDOLPH CARTER EXCAVATORS, INC. Kurt securely tied one end of the rope through a rear idler arm. Higgins dropped the other end over the side, watching it unravel.

“You’re nuts,” Vicky said to Higgins. “What if the rope breaks?”

“It won’t break.” He slipped his flashlight through his belt, took one of the radios from Vicky. “That rope’s strong enough to hold ten men. Hell, it’d probably even hold Bard.”

Kurt took the other radio. They made a quick commo check, then Higgins grabbed hold of the rope and swung his legs over the side.

“And for God’s sake, be careful,” Kurt said.

Higgins grinned up at them. “If Batman can do it, I sure as hell can.”

He started to lower himself down.

“Batman, my ass,” Kurt remarked. He and Vicky lay side by side on the causewalk. A vague, foul odor wafted up. They watched without speaking as Higgins made his way past the first pair of stopes, their flashlights following him like little halos. When he’d gotten past the third pair, Vicky said, “I hope he knows what he’s doing.”

“He doesn’t,” Kurt answered. “But it’s not a very steep incline. It’s not like he’s going straight down. I just hope he doesn’t break his fool neck on all that junk once he gets to the bottom.”

Higgins grew tinier as they watched; he moved almost gracefully and with speed that seemed careless. The sound of his feet scuffling against rock reverberated up through the black air. Soon he was just a blue dot against the gorge.