Mountain

The cave narrows until I have to turn sideways to squeeze through it. Jagged stone scrapes against my shoulders and catches the straps of my overall shorts while loose gravel shifts beneath my boots. The farther I descend beneath the mesa, the colder the air becomes.

The desert heat vanishes completely, replaced by damp earth, rusted metal, and the suffocating smell of buried stone. Behind me, somewhere far above, the wind moans through cracks in the rock. The sound drifts down through the darkness like distant voices whispering through teeth. Then the tunnel suddenly opens.

I stop immediately. The cavern ahead stretches outward into darkness supported by enormous timber beams blackened with age. Rusted rail tracks run through the center of the chamber before splitting into multiple tunnels disappearing in different directions.

Hanging chains sway gently overhead despite the still air. Ancient mining carts sit abandoned beside the rails like skeletons left where they died. An abandoned mine spreads beneath the mountain. “Aw hell,” I whisper.

The ceiling rises so high I cannot even make it out clearly in the darkness above me. Dust floats through weak pockets of light drifting from somewhere deeper underground. Warning signs hang crooked from splintered posts, their paint long peeled away by time and moisture.

But the mine is not dead. I hear it almost immediately. A low mechanical growl vibrates faintly through the earth. I stand perfectly still and listen. The sound repeats steadily beneath the mountain, a generator. Somebody has power down here. The realization twists my stomach.

A second later, one of the hanging bulbs overhead flickers weakly to life. I jerk backward instinctively. The bulb buzzes loudly, bathing one section of tunnel in dim amber light before dimming again. Farther down the tracks, another light flickers on.

Then another deeper below. A broken trail of weak industrial lighting stretches through the mine in scattered intervals while everything beyond them remains swallowed in darkness. The generator continues humming somewhere far away. “Fantastic,” I mutter quietly. “Some one lives in **** mountain.” My own voice sounds tiny down here.

I start moving carefully along the tracks, boots crunching against gravel while my eyes adjust to the uneven lighting. Every sound echoes too loudly. Every creak of timber feels deliberate. The entire mine seems to breathe around me. And underneath all of it, I feel something watching me.

The sensation crawls steadily across the back of my neck the deeper I go. It is not panic. It is instinct. I have spent too many nights chasing monsters through swamps, churches, graveyards, motels, and slaughterhouses not to recognize the weight of danger when it settles over a place.

Something is down here with me. I stop suddenly and glance over my shoulder.

There's nothing, only rough stone walls and darkness broken by weak flickering bulbs. Still, the feeling does not leave. The tunnels twist unpredictably beneath the mountain. Some collapse entirely beneath avalanches of rock and timber. Others descend sharply into lower shafts disappearing into blackness.

Ancient tools lie scattered everywhere beside rotting lengths of electrical cable running deeper underground toward the unseen generator. Then I notice the footprints. I crouch beside the tracks carefully. Human footprints press clearly into the mud beside the rails.

I stare at them for several seconds before slowly following the trail ahead with my eyes. The prints disappear around a bend farther down the tunnel. I rise carefully, revolver tightening in my grip. The generator hum grows slightly louder.

Then a metallic crash explodes somewhere behind me. I spin instantly. The sound echoes violently through the mine before fading back into silence. My pulse pounds hard enough that I can hear it. The tunnel behind me sits empty, only flickering lights swaying gently overhead.