He dropped to his knees and took a few deep breaths. The air quality seemed marginally better here, close to the ground, than it had up near the ceiling. He thought about all the whispered rumors he had heard regarding Alpha Seven. That shaft was ancient, one of the mine’s original tunnels, dug into the earth more than seventy years ago and abandoned well over sixty years ago. It was long; nobody still alive knew exactly how long, because nobody still alive had ever been all the way to the end of it.
In fact, Karl couldn’t think of anyone who had ever traveled any significant distance into Alpha Seven. Everybody laughed about the legend of Alpha Seven being haunted — by the ghosts of long-dead miners, or worse, by something inhuman and bloodthirsty — but everybody stayed out of the damned thing, too.
But if the shaft really was as long as the old-timers claimed, if it went as deep into the earth as rumored, then it stood to reason that at some point along the length of Alpha Seven the air would clear, at least enough to remain breathable. It’s not like he really had a choice, anyway. The oxygen in this section of the main tunnel was corrupted; that much was obvious. Staying here was not an option, and neither was returning to the far end of the main shaft.
Karl rose unsteadily, arm throbbing, and approached the entrance to Alpha Seven. He glanced back at the rock which had nearly hit him an hour or so ago. It was nestled harmlessly in the dirt where it had fallen after clanging off his cart. He knew the second rock would still be sitting at the base of the tunnel wall, too, if he decided to look for it.
He didn’t. He took a deep breath, coughing and hacking, and squeezed between the ancient rotting two-by-fours nailed in an X pattern across the entrance and into the darkness. His miner’s lamp seemed to be dimming, the light changing from bright yellow to dirty brown, and Karl knew it was only a matter of time before the damned thing burned out, leaving him trapped in the inky blackness of a haunted—rumored to be haunted, he reminded himself; it was only a rumor — mining shaft with… what, exactly?
For a long time, Karl walked in what felt like basically a straight line, although he could feel the shaft floor sloping steadily downward. He scanned left and right as he moved, the weakening beam of light moving back and forth, back and forth. There was no indication anyone (anything) had been here recently; no clue to indicate where the flying rocks may have come from.
But Karl felt uneasy, like he was being watched. That was absurd, of course; the ancient mine shaft was only four to six feet wide, a rounded, hollowed-out tube burrowed into the ground. There was no place for anyone to hide and no reason for them to do so.
Nevertheless, the farther he walked, the more apprehensive Karl Meyer became. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, as did the hair on his arms. Although the air quality seemed to be improving, somehow the density of the air seemed to be thickening. It was as if some invisible entity was massing in front of him, trying to force him to turn back.
I wish I could, Karl thought.
At last the shaft turned, banking gradually to the right. Why the miners seven decades ago had elected to turn here rather than continuing to dig straight ahead was a mystery, but Karl had no alternative than to turn as well. He had now been walking for at least thirty minutes and began debating whether he had gone far enough. He removed his makeshift mask and breathed deeply. The air wasn’t exactly sweet and fresh, but that metallic-chemical odor he had been so concerned about had disappeared.
Karl turned around, peering back the way he had come. The little miner’s lamp proved ineffectual at piercing the darkness, which had seemed to grow much thicker and fuller the farther Karl walked. The beam of light simply disappeared, swallowed up by the encroaching darkness.
Then the lamp failed.
The hiss of gas sputtered and recovered, sputtered again and then stopped entirely, and Karl was plunged into darkness, only now realizing how much he had come to depend on the weak yellow glow. He turned, panicked, making a full three hundred sixty degree revolution as his heart rate skyrocketed.
He felt his way to the side wall and eased into a sitting position, trying to slow his breathing and force his racing pulse to ease before his heart simply exploded in his chest. There’s nothing here in the dark that isn’t here in the light. There’s nothing here in the dark that isn’t here in the light. Besides, he reasoned, the damned miner’s lamp had barely shone ten feet in front of him, anyway. When he really thought about it, Karl decided the lamp didn’t make a damn bit of difference. He would be fine.
Problem was, knowing he would be fine and convincing his body to accept that hypothesis were two entirely separate issues. He was shaking like he had just contracted yellow fever and staring into the darkness so hard he thought his eyeballs might just pop out of his head and roll away in the dark.
He leaned against the dirt wall, feeling the earth’s damp chill leach through his overalls and into his body. He wondered how long it would be before the rescuers came, and how he would even know when they did. He guessed he had traveled close to a mile into the old mine shaft, probably the deepest penetration any human being had made into Alpha Seven in nearly a lifetime. Hell, the shaft hadn’t been active in at least sixty years, so when you took the life expectancy of the average coal miner into consideration, it probably had been more than a lifetime since anyone had trod this dirt floor.
Karl thought about Susan, and about the children. The prospect of his wife trying to raise their family as a widow filled Karl with sadness, and he vowed to do whatever necessary to survive this ordeal, if only to make it home to his wife, because—
— a stealthy slithering noise from somewhere off to the right made Karl’s breath catch in his throat. He strained to identify the noise and it stopped.
He listened hard. Nothing.
He realized he was holding his breath and tried to chuckle but could not; his throat was dry and scratchy and he became acutely aware of his lack of food, water or survival supplies. If the rescue took more than a day, maybe two, Karl knew he was going to be in big trouble. Food, he could do without for a while, but water—
— there it was again. The sound was softer this time, somehow even stealthier, as if whatever was making it knew Karl could hear and was trying to mask its advance.
Could it be rats?
He knew the filthy, disease-carrying rodents lived in the mines, but had never seen any this far underground and doubted that was what was making the noise. Rats tended to scurry, and this slithering, sliding sound struck Karl as the sort of noise a snake might make. But if it was a snake, it would have to be an unimaginably large one. The noise, although stealthy, implied a heft to whatever was making it that most snakes didn’t have, at least no snakes living in North America that Karl was aware of.
He concentrated hard and the sound stopped again and his blood chilled when he realized he was being stalked. By what, and for what purpose, he didn’t know, but there was no doubt in his mind that something was out there in the dark, watching. And waiting.
He reviewed his options. It didn’t take long, because he didn’t have any. He knew the main mining tunnel was far off his left, but the thought of returning all the way down Alpha Seven in the dark, exposing his back to whatever was lurking in the darkness, filled Karl with dread. It was completely illogical, he was already at the mercy of whatever was out there, but he simply could not bring himself to contemplate turning his back on the potential danger.