My arm tingled, and a look at it showed I’d lost an hour between the drive to his house and my initial search. Just four left…
The only bit of information lying about the place was the mounting bills from Wayland falling behind in life, sadly like so many others these days. And the history of what he’d been reading up on: various tragedies the mine had suffered over the near century it’d been up and running.
It wasn’t uncommon to hear of in such a dangerous line of work, but the clippings Wayland had gathered pointed to a string of mishaps that possibly could have been avoided. Then there wasthe stack of notes about a member of the MSHA (or Mine Safety and Health Administration) who’d vanished several decades ago after raising some public outcry about the hazards of the particular site I’d woken up in.
Some of the old newspaper snippets covered local townsfolk murmuring that corners had been cut by the family who ran the mine, and as a result, unnecessary deaths had occurred. Ground falls, subpar respiratory equipment, as well as accusations of other poor pieces of personal protective equipment, or PPE. A few pictures of the mine owner along with a young man near him who could have passed for his son by his looks. Lastly, Wayland had calculated how much a mine might spend on PPE yearly, and what skimping on it might save an owner.
But none of that pointed me in the direction of identifying what kind of monster was behind Mr.Keeney’s death.
I ground the palms of my hands against my eyes, more in frustration than anything else. Mining accidents, a missing person from thirty years ago, and something haunting the local mine from the looks of it.
And not a lot of options on how to go about my case. I could march right back to where I’d woken up in Wayland’s body and be ready to throw down, but walking in blind to a fight with the paranormal gets a guy killed more often than not.
The best way to win in my line of work is with knowledge.
Which meant I needed to talk to a monster myself.
I pored as much through one of my journals as I did more of the contents of Wayland’s home. My search turned up answers for the empty home, but little to bring me closer to solving my case.
Wayland was a widower. His wife had passed giving birth totheir son, leaving the man a single father with a hard-as-hell day job. Rough circumstances made worse by the fact I’d learned his son had died a few years earlier in a tragic accident…
At the same mine where Wayland was employed. Places like this, some folk don’t have many options when it comes to work. So it wasn’t unheard of for generations of men to toil in the same mine. And it wasn’t rare for some to die doing that work over the years.
But losing your son like that? It’s a kind of pain no one is prepared to bear. And it had sent Wayland into an obsession with the mine. His home was littered with papers and reports spanning decades back. Any piece of bad press, any concern, any investigation, it was all collected and laid out by Wayland.
Maybe something’s not wrong with the mine, but what’s in it.The line of thought brought me back to my journal. I stopped turning the pages just as I came across information on a creature from the old world. A mining spirit.
“Perfect.” I scanned my writing, taking note of what was required for a gentle summoning. In theory, calling on a supernatural required something (at times many things) associated with their nature or desires. An offering of good faith for their time and knowledge that you might be taking from them.
The old corded phone by the kitchen counter beeped once. Then again. A weak red light pulsed, letting me know a message had been left, and by the looks of it, there were already a few waiting to be checked. Wayland had let his phone go straight to the answering machine and hadn’t bothered listening to what anyone had wanted to say.
I figured I’d catch up for him while I went about the space gathering the supplies I needed to talk to a monster. The answering machine beeped again as I thumbed the button to begin playing back the recordings.
The first was from a local librarian who asked if Wayland needed any more help with records on the missing person, a Jeremiah Gibson. He happened to be the MSHA inspector who’d vanished ages ago.
Wayland’s fridge had been mercifully stocked before he’d kicked it, leaving me with some apple butter as well as some sort of chocolate spread, some cold beer that came from a microbrewery, by the looks of the labels, and some fruit still in its plastic packaging.
The second message played. “Hey there, Wayland.” The speaker had the sort of roughness to their voice that came from years of breathing in sawdust as much as smoking multiple packs of cigarettes a day. It was cracked stone and broken asphalt. “My boy Jimmy said he saw your truck pulling into town. Looks like you came down from the mine way…” A pregnant pause, then I heard the man audibly swallow. “I imagine you want to talk. You know how to get ahold of me.”
Talk about what?The way the message had been left made it clear it was recent. I had only just driven into the area, and given what had happened to Wayland, it was a fair bet he hadn’t been home since last he headed out. In small American towns, everyone is part of a tight-knit community. Even if you don’t like someone, you likely know something about their business. When they’re gone, where they’re going to, and when they come back.
Few secrets in places like this. In normal murders, the victim often knows their killer, but a lot of the usual rules go out the window when monsters get involved.
I just needed to find out which kind I was dealing with. So I grabbed everything I needed and headed out to Wayland Keeney’s backyard. Thankfully, most people still believe in the idea ofprivacy, so a tall wooden fence ran around his quarter-acre property. It’d keep anyone from accidently seeing what I was up to.
As a rule, the supernatural are skittish about letting mundane folk in on their existence. It can lead to all kinds of problems. Monsters generally have an easier time going about their business when people don’t know they’re going bump in the night…
Or day.
A thicket of trees stood at the end of his property, and it seemed like a good enough space to set up. I headed over and laid out the items I’d taken. The apple butter’s lid fought me a tad, but I got it open, then popped the top off one of the lagers. I undid the plastic top to the strawberries, the honey followed, and lastly, I sprinkled some salt onto raw earth, taking a clump in my hand before letting it slip from my grip.
“Oh, spirit of the earth—old-world miner of salt, stone, and precious gems, I invoke you. I offer you—”
I hadn’t finished the courtesies when I noticed a pair of large eyes staring back at me through the tree line. One moment they were bright as gold. Then they shone like old emeralds. And they drew closer. Soon I found myself staring at something that could have passed for an emaciated man at a distance.
A great distance.
Hook nosed and leathery skinned, the creature had all the similarities to a garden gnome sans the whimsical and bright clothing. It wore overalls that could have belonged to a miner a hundred years ago. Lean limbed and lined in corded muscle, it also conjured the image of a shaved polar bear.
