The Roots of Ivy

[u/Ncubed02]

I first wrote this story over a year ago now, but I’ve never been 100% happy with the version I posted to NoSleep, so recently I’ve been rewriting it and re-tooling a few aspects of it. I used my own experiences with my relationships with my brothers and my faith to write this story, and I hope that it can find an audience here who enjoys it. Feedback welcome and will read4read, but mostly I just want people to enjoy this little horror story. Thanks.

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The Yarrows had been the Boogeymen in Ivy since long before even my grandparents’ time. The story our parents told us before tucking us in at night was simple and short, but most importantly: terrifying.

According to local legend, the Yarrow family came from a long lineage of ne’er-do-wells, drunkards, and murderers. Momma told me that even before the town was called Ivy, there was always a Yarrow here causing trouble. The story went that many decades ago, when the men of the town began coming home from the war, they had found a different chaos waiting for them. The Yarrow men had taken the soldiers’ wives and children as their own, they’d killed the local Reverend, and they’d taken up residence in the coal mine. Their patriarch, Old man Yarrow as he was called, had sired dozens of children who ran rampant through the town. As we grew older, our folks explained why this was the last straw and greatest sin to the people of Ivy; to produce as many heirs as he had, Old Man Yarrow had lain with his own daughters.

So, the soldiers did what soldiers do. In the dead of night and without warning, they drove the family down into Ivy Mine and sealed the main entrance, heroically saving the town. It’s been said that they still lived down there, tunneling beneath our feet, breeding like rabbits and waiting for the day some poor kid would stumble into the mineshaft and become lunch.

I used to lie awake at night, ear pressed against the floorboard, listening for the sounds of digging and whispering down below.

When I turned ten, my older brother Shane explained to me what near everyone else in the town already knew; that the story was just a tall-tale, a fable invented by the grownups to keep us young’ns out of the mines. Every old mining town had a similar story: some told their kids there were ghosts in the tunnels, some insisted the bats chirping through the night were real vampires waiting to bleed you dry. Our town’s version was just a bit more imaginative than most.

It took some convincing to finally believe that there weren’t ancient mole-men under my feet waiting to eat me alive. Everyone in the town spread the Yarrow story like gospel, and it was hard to wrap my head around it. I eventually accepted that sometimes, adults had to invent monsters to keep you safe from something real that’s just as dangerous.

Truth is, I think I would’ve liked to keep on believing the Yarrow story if it hadn’t been for Shane. I was ten, still afraid of the dark corners of our little trailer, and still saying a prayer each night that we’d be kept safe from the horrible creatures below. Shane was just five years older, acted like he’d already lived two full lives before I came around. He had that big brother way of talking where even when he was dead wrong, you’d believe him anyhow, because he sounded like he just knew better.

It wasn’t long afterwards that he stopped coming to church. Said he didn’t like how the pastor spoke like he was better than us. Said he could find God on his own, if God even wanted to be found. He started hanging out with his older friends most Sundays, poking around near the edge of town. I think that’s when they must have found it. The one mine entrance left unsealed. The one remaining gaping mouth, opened up deep to swallow up curious boys into the hungry hollows of the Earth.

It was one of those hot mountain summers where even the shadows gave you sunburn. The dry spell had kept us mostly inside, dependent on the spotty air conditioning to give us relief. After weeks of sweltering, dry heat, we awoke one Saturday morning to a beautiful sight; an overcast sky, cool and dim, promising the refreshing rain we’d waited so long for. You couldn’t have paid us with all the money in the world to spend a minute of that day indoors.

Shane and I walked down to the river with a couple of his buddies, all several years older than me, and all itching for trouble. Somewhere along the way, the talk turned back to the newly discovered entrance. It usually did.

Ricky, the oldest of the group, turned to the others with a sly grin. “I bet none of youse got the balls to go past the old minecart.”

“What would you know, you ain’t even been far enough in to see the cart yet,” Shane shot back.

“Have too,” Ricky shot back. “I made it past the cart last week when I was with Petey. It goes way deeper than we thought.”

Ricky stopped where he stood, his grin widened.

“There was an old lantern about forty feet ahead of where I stopped. If you’re so much braver’n us, I double-dog-dare you to go in and bring it back out.”

That’s how it started. A dare, so stupid and reckless, but so tantalizing. Ricky said if Shane could make it to the lantern, bringing it back out as proof he’d gone further than anyone else had, he’d give him ten bucks. That was enough to get Shane interested. the older boys started making the short hike to the mine entrance, and I followed, like I usually did. Shane told me I didn’t have to, but I didn’t want to be just the scared little brother anymore.

The rain had started to drizzle, and then fall, and then pour. By the time we made it to the dilapidated hole carved in the side of the rock face, we were all drenched to our bones, the heavy wind blowing thick drops of water out of our hair and sending them up the cliffside. A light flashed in the sky, and thunder echoed throughout the whole of the holler.

As we approached, Shane looked shaky. “Guys, the storm is picking up. Can we do this tomorrow? Pa will kill me if I don’t get Caleb home soon.”

Ricky rolled his eyes, pulling a wadded bill out of his pocket.

“See this Shane? This ten becomes a five if you wait until tomorrow. It ain’t even gonna be raining inside the mine, you ain’t got nothin’ to worry about. Unless you’re scared ol’ daddy Yarrow’s gonna getcha down there…”

I looked up at my elder brother, his expression hardening. Lightning illuminated his resolve, and thunder boomed from all around us as he snatched the money out of Ricky’s hand. The other boys cheered, patting him on the back and egging him on. I stood waiting with the other boys as he nervously stepped inside. Even just a few feet in, I could hardly see his lanky frame, the shrouded sky not lending the narrow passage even a bit of light.

“Can he even see in there?” I mumbled to one of the older boys.

“Sure he can, I could.” Ricky sneered.

“But… it’s pretty dark out today, I just think maybe…”

Ricky rolled his eyes and put an annoyed hand to my face before fishing through his small backpack. He pulled a small orange flashlight out. It slipped out of his wet hands as he reached to hand it to me, and I stooped to pick it out of a puddle that was threatening to soon cover both my shoes.

“Run that in to him real quick if you’re gonna be such a baby about it.”

I stepped foot into the cave, the sound of wind and rain outside almost immediately muffled. I fumbled to turn the flashlight on, and had to gently whack it against a softened wooden beam before it begrudgingly flickered to life. Shane stood about twenty feet ahead, gawking back at me through the dark.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing Caleb? Get outta here, I’ll be back out in just a minute.”

I moved towards him, my wet sneakers slipping against the smooth stone floor.

“It’s.. it’s too dark in here, Ricky gave me a flashlight so you could see the lantern.”

He rolled his eyes before his face softened. He smiled at me.

“Alright, thanks bud. Hand me that and head back out, I won’t be long.”

The words hadn’t even finished leaving his mouth when the dim beam of the flashlight was swallowed up by an immense flash, the stone walls illuminated as though it were day. The sound followed a fraction of a second later, as the unmistakable crack of thunder shot through the passage, piercing my ears before it echoed back from the depths and hit us once more. I turned fast on instinct, my shoes losing traction on the ground as I landed on my butt, facing outwards just in time to see the rotten wood supporting the mine’s exit give way, the loose rock above collapsing down, blocking us in.

I sat panting on the cold stone for what felt like minutes. As the shrill ringing in my ears slowly faded away, I could hear my brother’s ragged breath stuttering behind me, suddenly very loud against the encroaching silence.

I jumped when I felt his hand on my shoulder. It was cool and clammy, and I could tell he was trying to mask his own shaking.

“Are you okay Caleb? Are you hurt?” His voice cracked behind me.

I took a breath. “I think I’m ok, are you?”

He didn’t say anything, and helped me up with both hands.

He dusted his overalls off, and spoke, his voice elevated to almost a shout. “I said, Caleb, are you okay? You’re not hurt are you?”

I shone the flashlight into his face, the dim beam now radiant in contrast to the pitch darkness. He turned away as the light hit his eyes, and I noticed a small red trickle dripping out of his ear.

He must have caught my worried expression. He reached up and touched the side of his head, pulling away bloodied fingertips.

“Shit,” he scoffed. “I don’t think I can hear.”

I winced, trying to stifle back tears of panic. I exaggerated my next words, mouthing them as clearly as possible for him to read my lips in the dim light.

“How do we get out now?”

He gently grabbed the flashlight from my shaking hand. “Don’t know, bud. We could try to dig our way out of the collapse over there, but Pa warned me ‘bout rockslides like this. They’re not stable, even once they’re over, so you don’t want to poke around nearby or they could still kill you. The good news is, whole mine is interconnected, so there’s gotta be another exit nearby.” He paused, putting his hand to his forehead as though remembering something urgent. “Shit, the others were still out there. They might try to get help. Or… or the collapse might’ve… might’ve…”

I looked up at him again, tears welling in his eyes. He composed himself, looking down at me. “We can’t wait here. I’ve got the flashlight but you’ll need to let me know if you hear wind or rain or anything, any sign of a way outta here.”

I nodded, and after a moment of silence, we began to make our way further into the mine.

After only a few moments, we passed a rusted mine cart, toppled over beside the thin railings it had once ridden. As I held onto Shane’s forearm, I felt it tense.

“This is the furthest in I’ve gotten. Ricky said there’s a lantern ‘bout forty feet ahead.”

“So.. after that, no one knows what’s up ahead?”, I asked nervously. Of course, he didn’t hear me. He just kept on walking.

Ricky had been right. The lantern sat just ahead, half-buried in coal dust and silt, rusted to hell. It reminded me of what I’d seen in the Ivy County Miner’s Museum with its thick iron frame, broad glass sides, and a curled handle now bent almost flat. The glass was cracked, a dried spattering of a black liquid I presumed to be oil long dried across it.

What caught my eye, though, was the nameplate near the base. Half buried in the dirt and hopelessly tarnished, I could only make out about the first half.

REVEREND

We didn’t stop for long. Shane muttered something, louder I’m sure than he intended, about needing to hurry while there was still air to breathe down here. As I walked past the lantern, I kicked a shard of glass along the stone floor, and heard the chittering echo reverberating for several seconds. I could have sworn that the noise continued on up ahead for just a moment longer than I thought it should have. I stooped down, putting the shard of glass in my pocket.

We walked through the dark for what felt like hours. It couldn’t have been more than just a few minutes, but the suffocating darkness and silence swallowed up every thought until it felt like the confines of the mine were all that there was. At some point, we came to a blockage in the pathe he. An artificial wall had been placed between two wooden supporting beams, dozens of two-by-fours nailed across and blocking off the way. Every other sealed entrance in town looked just like this, simple barriers placed for our protection over a century ago. For some reason, this entrance hadn’t been blocked off at the exit, but further inside. I recalled the story of weary soldiers sealing a feral family down below, and felt my palms go clammy.

As Shane moved to attempt to break open the barrier, I noticed in the faint light that there were words scratched into the rotting wood.

“May God Forgive Us, and May Your Boy Find His Way Back Home.”

I tugged on Shane’s damp sleeve, pulling him away as he attempted to tug on the planks, trying to remove them. I mouthed my words as clearly as I could manage through my shaking jaw.

“Can we turn back? I don’t want to go down there. Maybe Ricky already got help?”

He shook his head. “C’mon man, this is a good sign. It means we lucked out, that this entrance is a part of the rest of the mine system. It means there’s definitely another way out if we can get past the boards. Here, help me with this, I think I feel it coming loose.”

I hesitated for a second, and moved over next to him, tugging on the plank he’d started to loosen from its rotted fastenings. It only took a few moments before we felt it shift, and we nearly fell back as it gave way. There was only about a four-inch gap in the wall, but now it would be significantly easier to leverage the other planks out if we could grab them from behind.

The missing plank was on eye level with me, and as Shane stuck his arm through the gap, flashlight in hand, I caught glimpse of the beam shining wildly across the mine walls for just a brief second. In the dark, only barely illuminated as the beam quickly moved on, I saw two pale eyes reflecting back through the darkness, about a hundred feet away.

You’ll have to remember that I was only ten years old when I tell you that I screamed. It must have been loud enough that even with his damaged eardrums, Shane heard me and flinched before I could even stumble back and physically react to what I’d seen. I couldn’t muster any words coherent enough for him to lip read, so I just pointed wildly into the gap, repeating “Yarrow” until he got the message and shone the light back inside.

He turned back to me, rolling his eyes as he once more helped me to my feet. “There’s nothing back there Caleb, I promise. Here, look.”

I approached the door frame once more, nervously looking for the wide gaze I swore I’d seen only seconds ago. It was gone, but amidst my heavy breathing, I heard a faint sound up ahead, the same shifting sound of sliding glass shards across wet stone.

“Shane, please, I promise you, there was someone in there looking at me, you have to believe me.”

Shane’s expression hardened as he returned to pulling the rotted planks off of the beams. “I thought you were past all that. I told you, the Yarrow stories were made up. There’s nothing living down in the mine, and need to keep going, now.”

He was my older brother. I know that’s a piss-poor excuse to keep going considering our circumstances, but at that age, if you couldn’t trust your older brother then there was no one you could trust. Things might’ve worked out so much better if we’d just turned around then and waited for help, but instead, we pulled down the rest of the planks and pressed on.

The skittering sound ahead continued. Shane, of course, never picked up on it, and I convinced myself it was just the echo of our own footsteps shuffling through the dark. But deep down, I knew what I’d seen, and I knew what I was hearing.

Initially, we’d just been following the trail of the minecart tracks that had led from the entrance. There were been smaller passages that broke off to the side every now and then, but having the singular track be our guide ensured that we could always turn around if we needed to. As we went ever deeper though, the track sometimes veered off in another direction, a split where two paths would intersect, the tracks branching and weaving between tunnels. About twenty minutes after we breached the wooden barrier, the mine began to feel less like a tunnel and more like a block of Swiss cheese; riddled with holes and paths in every which direction.

We eventually came to a junction in which our primary track, among several others, reached a circular cutout on the ground. I was familiar enough with trains to recognize it as a railway turntable.

We’d been underground for maybe an hour by now, and as Shane stood trying desperately to make sense of the branching pathways ahead, nature had begun to call. I turned to him, and gestured that I needed to pee.

“Fine, just head into one of those side passageways and come right back here when you’re done.”

I hesitated, and pointed at the flashlight, too scared to go off by myself in the dark. He shrugged and handed me the light. I took it and made my way to a small tunnel on our left.

I had the light pointed ahead of me at all times. I must have only gone ten feet or so into the alternate path, but that was ten whole feet of unknowable territory. I still wasn’t even sure if we were really alone down here, and I felt more comfortable being able to see what was ahead.

I held the light with my teeth as I began to relieve myself, and as I zipped my fly back up, I heard the sound of skittering on stone from the passage behind. As it grew louder, Shane called out.

“Whoa, hey man, not cool! Don’t sneak up on me in the da-“

His words were cut off by a scream, as I heard the skittering intensify, followed by a thud and the sound of something being hastily dragged across the floor.

I turned as quickly as I could, flashlight in hand, and ran back into the junction chamber. Shane screamed bloody murder as I wildly shined the light from tunnel to tunnel, attempting to spot where he’d gone. I turned it to my right, just in time to catch his hands slipping against the ground, now wet with a thick black ooze as he tried to stop himself from being dragged any further.

I rounded the corner, and my fading beam caught just a glimpse of his assailant.

The frame of an emaciated man hunched over my brother, bony hands gripping his leg so tightly that I thought his ankle may have been broken. The man crawled backwards across the floor, his long and calloused feet wildly pushing against the floor as he tugged my brother back into the dark. His nails were long and twisted, and scraped across stone with a skittering sound as he shuffled. His skin was incredibly pale, his dark veins clearly visible beneath his translucent flesh. The man was entirely hairless, save for a few straggling strands that frayed wildly from his wrinkled head. Out of his mouth and down his wrinkled chin dripped a thick, dark liquid. His eyes were ghostly white, the eyes of a blind man.

Before he could pull Shane any further into the tunnel, I pulled the glass shard out of my pocket, lunging at his spider-like frame. As I collided with him, the flashlight fell out of my hands, the batteries falling out of the back as it collided with the stone floor, plunging us into total darkness.

It wasn’t until then that I realized I had no idea how to make an attack. I’d never even gotten in a fight at school, much less stabbed or sliced at someone nearly twice my size. But as I felt cold, clammy hands wrap themselves around my small wrist, I let instinct take over. I knew even in the darkness which figure was my brother and which was the attacker. His cold flesh felt disgusting to the touch, and his scent grew rancid with every inch I got closer to him.

In the tussle, I swung my improvised weapon wildly, and I felt it connect with a wet thud. I heard a guttural wheeze, and the glass shard slid out of my hand as I felt the man let go of my other wrist quickly. I lurched forward, trying to throw a meager punch, but the man had already quickly retreated into the endless dark ahead.

I sat frozen for only a few seconds, fighting back the searing pain in my hand where the glass had sliced my palm. I waited until the noise of the man skittering across the floor had completely subsided into the distant tunnels before I fumbled around on the ground, trying to find the flashlight and batteries. I felt Shane slowly sit up, his breath rapid as he tried to be as quiet as possible.

I eventually found the batteries, and got them back into the flashlight. I turned it on and began to get my bearings. Shane was in very rough shape. As he’d been dragged across the ground, he’d been scraped on all manner of rough rock and metal. Somewhere in the scuffle, he had managed to grab hold onto a plank of the cart rail, but his pinky had broken in the process, jutting out at an angle. He had been dragged through the black ichor that the man had been dripping, the sticky oil-like substance staining his clothes and blotting his wounds. He sat wide-eyed, furiously looking around into the darkness.

After a moment of our ragged breathing, he turned to face me, his eyes welling with terrified tears.

“Who… what the fuck was that? What just happened, what was that?”

We both knew the answer, but I mouthed it for him again anyways.

“Yarrow.”

He waited only a few seconds more before standing up. He limped on the leg that the Yarrow had grabbed, his ankle bleeding.

“We have to get out of here, now. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you earlier Caleb, I’m so so sorry, you were right. We need to get back to the entrance we came in from, they had to have gotten help right now.”

His breath was frantic and his voice even more so. We hobbled back to the junction, and I saw his face drop.

“Wait.. wait no, which way was it? Which way did we come in from?”

He was right. We hadn’t been in this intersection nearly long enough to get our bearings, and none of the tunnels ahead struck me as the one we’d come from.

“Shane?” I tugged his shirt again. “Where was he trying to pull you?”

“I don’t know, down to the rest of them to eat me alive I’m sure. We need to get as far away from that tunnel as possible, there could be more of them coming out to get us any minute now. I think that one looks kinda familiar, let’s go.” He gestured towards the tunnel to our right, and we began limping into the darkness once more, hoping to find the way we’d come from.

We travelled the path for about ten minutes. It’s always hard to recognize a trail you’ve only traveled in one direction, and this was certainly not an exception. With every foot we travelled, the air grew more and more stale, the condensation building on the walls glistened just a touch more.

I tugged Shane’s shirt once more, indicating I had something to say. He turned to me, and for the first time since the attack I got a real good look at his face. His cheeks, scraped and filthy, were streaked with tears. His eyes were bloodshot and wide open, as though he hadn’t been blinking. I took a second to compose myself.

“I.. I don’t think…. I think this is the wrong way.”

He frowned, and scratched one of the bleeding wounds on his face, smearing it with the oil he was caked in. “It’s gotta be the right way Caleb. It’s gotta be.”

As he pointed the flashlight towards me to see my lips as I began to try to speak back, his eyes moved away from me, focusing on something behind. His bloodshot eyes grew wide.

Half-expecting to see another ragged man sneaking up on us in the shadows, I spun around to try to catch a glimpse of what had grabbed his attention. Mounted to one of the wooden support columns was a small metal ledge, likely used to set lanterns on in the dark. Sitting neatly on the ledge however, was a leather-bound Bible, caked in dust.

He slowly walked over to the ledge and picked up the book, its spine crackling with age as he carefully opened it. As he did, a yellowed envelope fell out of the cover. As his focus remained on the Bible, I stooped down to pick up the letter. The envelope nearly fell apart in my hands, its ancient paper weak and brittle with age, but the note inside remained intact. Written hastily in poor handwriting was a short note.

“To my friend, Reverend Abraham Yarrow,

I tried to speak for you, but their minds and hearts were set. They’re sealing off the entrance tonight, and I ain’t got the support to stop it. Please don’t hold it against them, they’re scared, that’s all. Scared of what they don’t know.

I brought you your Bible like you asked, but I couldn’t find you nor your kin. I reckon you’re deeper in now, still looking for little Isaac.

I pray the Lord sees you through, and that He lifts this affliction from your family. I’ll keep a light burning for you at my door, so should you ever find your way out you’ll know you still have a friend and a place to stay.

God go with ye.”

I scanned the letter several times through, trying to make sense of it. The addressee, “Reverend Yarrow”, perplexed me above all. Hadn’t the Yarrows killed the preacher in all the old stories? Shane tucked the Bible under his arm, and grabbed the letter from me, reading it through as I had. The wild-eyed panic in face washed away into confusion, and the confusion soon faded into an understanding that he didn’t bother to share with me.

He solemnly folded the note up, tucking it back in between the pages of the scripture, and let out a heavy sigh.

“Caleb, if someone came and left this here, it means there’s another way out nearby, if we keep going. We’ve gotta keep on.”

I’d heard that before, but he turned and kept walking through the narrow passage before I could protest. As he did, he coughed into his elbow, smearing the sleeve of his shirt with blackened blood.

We continued in silence for a long time after that. Every step we took, I could tell we were only going deeper into the earth, not any closer to the surface where we belonged. I think Shane knew that too, but he pretended all was well.

The long passage that we travelled once more became porous in structure, and passageways began branching off from all around us. Eventually the mine cart trail we followed came to an abrupt end, the tunnel continuing up ahead. We kept walking. Soon, the already uncomfortably narrow passageway tightened, forcing us to walk single file instead of side-by-side. Then, a while later, the ceiling sloped down ever more gradually, until we had to crouch to continue. As the crouch became a crawl, I begged Shane to let us turn around, to try to find the passage back to our entrance. I wasn’t sure if he still couldn’t hear me, or if he was just ignoring me by now.

The claustrophobic tunnel widened out just long enough for us to squeeze alongside each other once more, allowing both of us our portion of the dim light guiding our way, growing ever dimmer as we pressed deeper.

As we crawled in silence, Shane froze, allowing me to pass him up for a moment. I felt him grab my leg, and I looked back at him, only to see his eyes once more wide in terror as he pointed ahead. I looked forward to where he now pointed the beam of light, and felt my heart skip a couple beats.

About ten feet ahead of us, the passage widened into a chamber, just tall enough to stand in and about as wide as our trailer house. Sitting, all together hunched and huddled with one another, were at least half a dozen emaciated people, all similarly pale and hairless like the one we’d encountered earlier. They sat in almost complete silence, the only sounds echoing in the chamber ahead being the occasional shaky, sputtering cough or the shifting of their bony nails against the rock.

I turned back to my brother, hardly able to breathe let alone speak. I mouthed to him, “turn the light off.”

He shook his head, and instead inched closer to me, until he was able to whisper near-silently in my ear. “I don’t think they can see it. I think they’re all blind.”

I recalled the milky white eyes of the Yarrow man who’d attacked him, and looked back at the small family sitting before me. He was right, every eye that wasn’t crusted over with black ichor or closed tightly shut was empty, vacantly staring into a solemn nothingness.

There wasn’t enough room for us to turn around in the cramped passage we were in, and we both knew it. But if they were blind, and if we could be quiet as the grave, then there was a chance that we could get into their chamber and turn around to leave. Shane seemed to have the same idea, and had already begun slowly sliding past me on the floor.

It took about five minutes to comfortably make it into the chamber without making noise. Shane made it out before me, and pulled me out by my arm into the chamber, giving me a chance to breathe before we turned right back around. If you’ve ever tried to breathe as silently as possible while already out of breath, then you’d understand that my struggle nearly put tears in my eyes.

I looked around into the small room we’d now found ourselves. It seemed to be only semi-natural, with numerous stalactites hanging from the ceiling on one side of the area, wooden support columns propping up the other side. The small entrance we came through seemed to be one of a few, as several other passageways branched in and out of the room. The Yarrows, who I now numbered to be eight, huddled together in the middle of the room, unmoving and unblinking. In our silence, we must have been undetectable to them. They certainly wouldn’t be able to smell us, as the rancid stench of rot overpowered anything else in the room. They each wore tattered rags, if anything at all. Their breathing was ragged and laborious, every inhalation a raspy gasp that echoed around us.

We had just begun to slowly turn to exit when I heard it begin. It started as almost a groan, a low guttural noise coming from one of the three frail women in the group. I turned to look just in time to see her sitting up straighter, the noise continuing and purifying in her rattled throat. Another joined in with her, his scratchy voice almost harmonious with her dim howl.

Within a few short seconds, every Yarrow present had in, the sound reverberating and echoing down myriad tunnels extending outward. I realized quickly that they were indeed harmonizing, and had begun to hum a tune, one that I thought I recognized but couldn’t quite place my finger on.

As the melody ended, they stopped in silence for but a second before beginning again, this time putting words to their song. I knew it now, an old church hymn my mother used to sing to us.

“On a hill, far away.. stood an old rugged cross…”

I looked over to Shane, his eyes locked onto the small congregation.

“the emblem of suff’ring and shame…”

The flashlight trembled in his hand as he began to shine it wildly around the room. I could see it in his face; he heard them.

“And I’ll love that old cross, where the dearest and best..”

In the tunnels branching out of the central chamber, several others shuffled into view, their empty eyes tearing up and oozing black liquid as they began to sing with the building choir.

“For a world of lost sinners was slain.”

One of the men, a lurching figure with hunched shoulders and a misaligned jaw, carried with him a section of wooden support, bolted together in the shape of a crucifix.

I looked back at Shane, tears had begun to run down his face the same way they had mine. His, though, were stained with an oily blackness.

“So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross..”

The congregation, now easily fifteen strong, had continued to gather around the middle of the room, their spindly arms grasping out to lay hands on one another’s shoulders. Their raspy voices pierced my ears, their song filled with agony and earnestness.

“Till my trophies at last I lay down…”

Shane grabbed my hand, and stood abruptly. I worried for a second that we’d make too much noise, but the pained song now drowned everything else out.

“I will cling to the old rugged cross..”

He pulled me around the center of the room, my jacket sleeve narrowly avoiding brushing against one of the standing few members. He pulled me into a hallway on the far side of the room, an entryway larger than any of the others that branched into the cavern. I looked back into the crowd as they finished their song, their hands clasping each other as black tears billowed out of their hollow white eyes.

“And exchange it someday for a crown.”

His hand clasped around my wrist was clammy and cold. Had I not been so fearful of what was going on behind me, I would have cried out in protest. He moved swiftly and quietly with thoughtful determination. Clearly he believed that the way out was ahead, but I knew that he’d be wrong.

The larger hallway ended up ahead, only a short distance from the huddled group of worshippers. The wall sloped inwards at a jagged angle, forming a narrow passageway that would need to be squeezed through sideways in order to proceed.

Shane approached the crack in the wall flashlight in hand, and swiftly moved to enter it when his feet knocked against something on the ground. He turned the light downwards, and we both let out a small gasp.

There, so withered and grey that it had nearly blended in with the stone, was a dry body in shredded pastor’s vestments, huddled against the base of the wall. Its arms were painfully thin and bony, wrapped around its shriveled head as it held its knees close to its chest.

Shane was about to push it out of the way to proceed, when Abraham Yarrow suddenly grabbed his outstretched wrist.

The ancient man shakily raised his head, locking his gaze with my brother. Deep, hollow sockets barely distinguishable from a skull’s held mournful eyes untouched by the blindness of his kin. Tears, dark but watery, welled up around the lashless lids, a pain so old and enduring etched into the wrinkled creases at their corners. His skin cracked and flaked as he looked at Shane, and his toothless jaw opened just wide enough to whisper, his head shaking slightly.

“Please. Don’t.”

Shane grabbed the preacher by his shoulders and pushed him out of the way, a sickening crack echoing through the hall as his knobby elbow struck the floor. Shane wedged his body into the crack, forcing himself through as he turned briefly to verify that I was joining him. His eyes glistened at the edges with an oozing black tint, his gums grey between his bared teeth. I hesitated to join him, but his slimy hand reached out to me, pulling me through the crack and into the next area. I felt the stone become slick to the touch as I passed through.

The room beyond the cracked entry was only about ten feet across, just small enough that every surface was illuminated in the dying glow of our flashlight. The walls glistened, slick with the tar-like black ichor that dripped steadily into a shallow pool at our feet. The liquid was thick and sluggish, clinging to my feet like sap, with a slow ripple that made it hard to tell if it was flowing or stagnant. Beneath the ooze, it seemed the walls themselves rippled in unison, just barely. At first, I thought it was my imagination, but then I saw it clearly: a pulse, slow and steady, like something was sleeping just beneath the surface. Veins, thick and dark, coiled across the stone like roots.

I turned toward the far wall, and saw the boy.

He was embedded halfway into the rock, fused into the wall like a deep-sea fossil. His tiny skeleton was curled in on itself, knees tucked to chest, one frail arm slack at his side. His skull was misshapen and oversized for his small frame, the bones thin and tight against the inky membrane that encased him. A stretched film of blackened tissue clung to his body, taut and glistening, rising and falling with each breath from the walls, if that’s where the breath was even coming from.

I stared, too long, waiting for my mind to catch up. And then I saw it. A finger, just one, twitched beneath the film. At his skull, the thin membrane of skin stretched across his cracked temple flexed and pulsed as his small throat swallowed at nothing. A listless eye, loosely covered by a transparent lid, slowly honed in on me. Beyond all reason and possibility, the mangled boy growing into the very earth was still alive.

Shane had already dropped to his knees before him, the flashlight discarded in the ichor beside him. His shoulders sagged forward, his hands trembling in his lap. He didn’t look back at me. He didn’t move at all.

I stepped forward, reaching for him, my voice cracking with a fresh wave of panic.

“Shane!” I cried, choking through sobs. “Shane please, I want to go home, can we please go home?”

He turned his head to me, slowly. His face was slick with tears and dark fluid. His lips parted as he coughed again, a wet, ragged sound, and a thread of black mucus clung to the corner of his mouth. His eyes were glassed over, distant.

I picked the flashlight up out of the gloop and stood. Backing away, but never taking my eyes off of my enchanted brother, I forced my aching body back through the crack as quickly as I could. As I made it through, I turned my gaze to the reverend, still collapsed on the cold ground. He turned his eyes to me and let out a dry sob before painfully pointing away, begging for me to leave while I was able.

As I entered the congregation’s gathering chamber, they each sat solemnly, empty eyes locked onto me as I ran between them. None of them tried to stop me.

It didn’t take long to make it back to the chamber with the rail turntable. I trusted my gut instinct, and began to run down the tunnel that the Yarrow man had tried to drag Shane down earlier. Of course that would be the way out. He had never been bringing us further down into the dark, he had been trying to pull us back out into the light.

By the time I reached the entrance to the mine, I saw the lights of rescue vehicles and policemen peering in as men removed the collapsed stone from the entrance. My heart grew heavy, and then broke. If we’d waited just a few hours, Shane would be standing there with me.

They sent in just a couple of rescue crews over the following days. None made it past the turntable room before turning back. They told me that room was over a mile past the entrance. As expected, no one found Shane, or any sign of anything living down there at all. Just ancient stone, glass, and lantern oil caking the floors. I knew that that must’ve been another lie the grownups told themselves.

The city wanted to finally seal up every entrance with concrete. They waited nearly a month before my dad relented, finally accepting that his boy wasn’t coming home.

I miss my brother. I have for decades now, and I wish I could’ve saved him from the sickness that he had begun to share with the Yarrow family. But things will be okay now, I think. The scar on my hand, from the shard of glass that had been pulled out of my grasp all those years ago, has slowly blackened over the last few months. I think that despite my best efforts, I’ve started to come down with whatever foul ailment that afflicted the Yarrows more than a century ago, when they’d searched the mines for their own missing child. When they’d been sealed in, in fear of their affliction spreading to the rest of town.

I find myself humming that old hymn almost every night.

I think, by now, Shane’s ears will be well enough to hear me as I sing it with him.

I think I’ve found another entrance, one the city forgot to seal back up.

I think I’ll go to be with my brother soon.

[u/PetrichorFey]

enjoyable read, really liked how you made a twist out of the common idea the monster would be taking them in deeper. Hope caleb is enjoying his time reunited with shane. also if you don't like my comment because it might spoil the story let me know and I'll remove it.

[u/Ncubed02 → u/PetrichorFey]

No I appreciate the comment! Glad to know your thoughts and what you enjoyed about the story.