Opening the various cabinets he finds them all empty. A door is set in the far wall, and he walks over to it. Grasping the handle he pulls it open and finds a walk-in pantry on the other side. Old rotted containers still line the shelves, whatever they had once contained is long gone. He moves inside as he checks for anything which may have been left behind. He’s become quite the scavenger.
Not finding anything he turns to leave and takes two steps before coming to stop. A cold chill runs through him and his heart skips a beat at what he sees in the other room. Standing there, looking directly at him is a figure of a man, gaunt and pale. The skin is pulled tight to his bones and his hair is scraggly, looking like it has fallen out in patches. Clutched in one hand is a pickaxe such as a miner would use.
The instant of fright leaves him as he says, “Alright guys, enough is enough. You’re not fooling anyone.”
When the figure makes no reply and continues to stand there staring at him, his feelings of unease return. Fear begins to take him again as he comes to realize this isn’t Uther or Jorry.
Standing there frozen in fear, Miko is speechless as they both gaze upon the other. Then the miner’s mouth begins to move but nothing comes out as he turns slightly toward Miko. Taking a step forward, he reaches out his other hand as if to grab him.
The movement of the miner breaks the spell fear had over him and Miko lets out with a god awful inarticulate scream of fear as he backpedals into the pantry. Reaching out in panic, he takes hold of the pantry door and pulls it closed behind him.
Moving as far back as he can, he stands there in the dark, eyes locked to the door afraid the miner will open it and come for him. The darkness of the pantry does nothing to alleviate the terror that continues to rifle through him.
Suddenly, the door swings open and he sees Jiron standing there, knife in hand. “What happened?” he asks. Then he sees the wide eyed, pale expression on Miko’s face.
“He was standing there!” Miko says, pointing to the other room.
“Who?” Jiron asks. “Who was standing here?” Looking around the kitchen, he doesn’t see anything.
“A miner,” he says. “I think he was dead.”
Reaching his hand out to him, Jiron asks, “Were they playing another joke on you?”
Shaking his head vehemently, he says, “No, it wasn’t them.”
“Come on, let’s go tell James,” he says.
Nodding, Miko takes the hand and leaves the panty. Reentering the kitchen, his eyes dart around for the gaunt miner but other than him and Jiron, the kitchen is empty. Coming to where the miner had stood he says, “He was standing right here!” He takes hold of Jiron’s shirt and says, “He was reaching for me.”
“Calm down,” Jiron says as he leads him out of the building. “He’s not here now.”
On their way to find James, they run across Fifer and Qyrll who join them. Jiron gives them a brief rundown of what happened as they continue moving toward where James and Dave are hunting. Jorry and Uther are nowhere in sight.
When they reach the area, he calls out “James!”
From an upper window of a nearby building, they hear a “What?”
Looking up, they see James peering down at them. “Miko saw something!”
“It was a miner!” he hollers. “I think he was dead.”
“I’ll be right down,” he says and then ducks back inside. A moment later, he and Dave leave the building and join them in the street. Coming to Miko he asks, “What happened?”
He relates to him his encounter with the dead miner, as now he’s sure that’s what it was. “He was reaching for me and I panicked,” he concludes. “I slammed the door closed as I fled into the panty. When it opened again, Jiron was standing there and the miner was gone.”
“And you’re sure it wasn’t them playing another joke on you?” he asks.
When Miko shakes his head no, he says, “Take me there.”
Together they hurry along back to the building where the dead miner had been encountered. When they approach, James says, “You all stay here, Miko you come with me.” With Miko right beside him, he goes up to the open door leading into the kitchen and stops before entering.
“Now,” he says as he turns to Miko, “just where did this miner appear?”
Pointing to the spot, he replies, “Right there.”
Entering through the door, James comes to the spot and examines the floor carefully. If the miner had left footprints they were obliterated by Jiron and Miko walking over them when they left. He stands there a moment with his eyes closed but fails to pick up anything such as coldness or a sense of danger, things he heard always accompanies the supernatural.
Turning back to Miko he says, “Whatever it was, there’s nothing here now.”
“I tell you I saw it,” insists Miko defensively.
“I’m not saying you imagined it,” James tells him. “I’m just saying there’s nothing here now.”
With a tremor of fear in his voice, he asks, “What are we to do?”
“Let’s go have lunch while I think on it,” he says. “After that we’ll see.”
“Alright.”
They leave the house and rejoin the others. “There’s nothing there now,” he says when he draws near. “Let’s go back to the horses and have lunch. I want to comb this area after we eat.” The idea of searching a mine is forgotten after Miko’s encounter with the miner.
Moving down the street toward where they left the horses, Qyrll moves next to Miko and asks, “What did it look like?”
Qyrll seems to have a rather keen interest in this sort of thing and practically grills Miko about the subtle details. By the time they’ve returned to the horses, he brings his questioning to a close, for the moment satisfied he’s learned all there is.
Jorry and Uther have returned in the meantime and are filled in on what just happened.
They remove the food for their meal from their horses and take it inside a nearby inn where they sit at a table near a window. James sits there in silence while he eats, the others talking quietly among themselves.
Suddenly from outside, they hear the horses neighing and then see them racing away down the street. “The ghost!” cries out Miko as they all race out of the inn into the street. Weapons at the ready, they find the street deserted except for their fleeing horses.
“Fifer, Miko, you two go after the horses,” James says. As they race down the street after them, he says to the others, “Fan out and see if you can find anything. Dave, you stay with me.”
Qyrll returns his sword to its scabbard as he moves out quickly, Jiron right behind him. Jorry and Uther go down a side street. James motions for Dave to follow him as he goes over to where the horses were tied to begin their search from there.
Moving quickly, he races down side streets and ducks into buildings only to end up finding nothing. By the time Fifer and Miko return with the horses, they’ve all returned to the inn.
“Nothing,” Jiron says to James when they return. Jorry and Uther have likewise turned up nothing.
“What spooked them?” Fifer asks.
“Ghosts, that’s what,” replies Miko. Ever since his encounter with the miner, he’s been constantly on the lookout, head turning this way and that.
“I think we all need to be extra cautious from this point,” James says. “We still need to find what we came here to find.”
After securing the horses again, they return to the inn and finish their meal. Once over, they head back to the place where Miko saw the miner to start the afternoon’s search from there. “If any of you see anything out of the ordinary, call for me right away,” James tells them.
“You can count on that,” Miko assures him. Jiron just grins at his enthusiasm at carrying out that command.
“I still want us to meet back here every hour until dusk,” he tells them and then they head out to continue their searching.