Revisiting Billy

As part of my alphabet short story challenge I want to share parts of the editing process my work undergoes. I could show you everything I've done but that would be overly repetitive. So I've just touched on some of the major changes to take place.


The biggest change to this particular story is the title. I've changed it from Billy, to Believe In Me. At its root the story revolves around belief and the love shared by siblings.

First up was the opening. I changed the first and second line to create a more immediate threat and cleaned up the remainder to draw the reader into the story. 

Original version:

He heard it crashing through the dark woods around him, the sound filled with deadly intent as he turned to flee into the gloomy depths. He didn’t know which way to run as the sound of the beast hunting him came from every direction. He was trapped between the emptiness of nowhere and gloomy depths of a featureless void. He could smell its rancid breath as the slender trucks of the trees on his right slowly parted, razor sharp claws glowing in the faint light of a sliver of moon that was playing hide and seek behind the low clouds skirting the treetops above him.

Edited Version:

It came crashing through the woods around him, filled with deadly intent as he turned and fled into the gloomy depths. He didn’t know which way to run as the sound of the beast hunting him came from every direction. He was trapped between the emptiness of nowhere and the gloomy depths of a featureless void. Its rancid breath washed over him as the slender trucks of the trees to his right slowly parted, razor sharp claws shimmered darkly in the faint light of a sliver of moon that played hide and seek behind the low clouds skirting across the treetops above him.

In the beginning I imagined his sister as having died. But as the story progressed I realized that wouldn't do. It wouldn't be good having a person who was supposed to be dead coming back to life. Instead of dying as a result of her attempt to take her own life I put her in a coma instead, which with the way the story played out worked out so much better in my opinion. 

Most of the editing was focused on cleaning up the verbiage. I've learned over the years that I have a tendency to use the word HAD, a great deal, and just the removal of that single word in many of the sentences helped smooth the narrative flow while strengthening its intent. At times I also use too much to describe something when a single word will suffice. As you can see in the second example below when I replaced "his mother" with "she".

Original: Sara had warned him they would try to do that, and that he had to be real careful about what he revealed. 

Updated: Sara warned him they would try to do that, and that he needed to be very careful about what he revealed.

Removed some clunky language to smooth the narrative flow.

Original: His mother spun around, startled by his sudden appearance, and knelt down to wrap him in a desperate embrace.

Updated: She spun around, startled by his sudden appearance, and knelt down to wrap him in a desperate embrace.

As is usually the case editing a piece of work is a never ending job, writers are rarely every entirely happy with what they've done. Insisting on going over a manuscript repeatedly as they search out every little mistake. I'm no different.


The final issue I would like to touch on is the poster in her bedroom and where it came from. If you've ever read The Shawshank Redemption, you might remember the scene where the narrator is talking about the poster on Andy's wall, and how at times he felt a chill coming from it, as if the poster led to another place. Of course we learn later there was nothing at all paranormal about the poster, it was only covering the hole Andy had been digging to escape. But that scene stayed with me and wound up in this story, only this time the poster serves as a portal to a shadowy place few of us would wish to visit.

A part of my challenge is to release each story to a much wider audience at the rate of one story per month. At the beginning of this month I released the first in the series A is for Alone. To read the newly improved Believe in me, follow the link below. But keep in mind the story will only be available in its entirety for free until March 7th. At which point I will truncate the story and provide links to where you can buy the rest if you wish.



Link to Full Story: Believe In Me!



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Alone Revisited

I wasn't too crazy about the opening for Alone so that was the first thing I worked on. I want to show the immediacy of the situation.

Old Opening:


It felt as if the weight of the world was resting on his shoulders, and in a sense, it was. A thousand feet of the earth stood between him and the sunlight above. Even with his kerchief pressed against his nose and mouth the dust that filled the air around him managed to find a way in, coating his teeth and tongue with a gritty film. He’d made the mistake of opening his eyes as he tried to assess his situation, and a piece of grit had gotten into his right eye. Though it was tiny, it felt like a pebble had become lodged beneath the lid.

Given the circumstances, he did the only thing he could do, withdraw within himself, and wait for the dust to settle. He turned off the light on his hardhat, after all, he didn’t know how long he was going to be down here, sat down and waited with his head resting on his knees.

New Opening

It happened so fast there was no time to react. One moment Pete was moving through the darkness of the mine, the small lantern affixed to his helmet lighting his path with a narrow beam of light. The next he was overwhelmed by a dense cloud of dust as the roof of the mine behind him collapsed without warning. The tons of dropping stone displaced the air so fast he was driven forward by a brief gust of wind, nearly falling to the rocky ground as he struggled to maintain his balance.

Boulders and stones tumbled to the ground behind him as he covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief in an attempt to keep the dust out. It was too late, his teeth and tongue were coated with a coarse film that turned to mud in his mouth. A piece of grit had gotten into one eye, and though it was tiny, it felt like a pebble had become lodged beneath the lid.

Given the circumstances, he did the only thing he could, withdraw within himself, and wait for the dust to settle. He turned off the light on his hardhat, after all, he didn’t know how long he was going to be down here, and sat down with his head resting on his upraised knees. As he was not the superstitious type he felt comfortable in the dark and as he waited his thoughts turned to what had happened.

They’d been getting warnings about a potential cave in for the past two weeks, if the older miners were to be believed. Gustaf was growing restless, they’d say.

Hiram Gustaf had been one of the first miners killed in Tredwell number seven affectionately dubbed The Pit. They believed it was his ghost that had been knocking on the stones as he tried to warn them of the coming danger. 

As this is a story about superstition I need to touch on that issue briefly near the beginning. It's a point  that I will expand on as I explore the conflicts in Pete's upbringing. A college educated man who spent his formative years listening to stories of tommyknockers and ghostly miners on his grandfather's knee. 

What do you think?
 
Did you like the old opening better?

Alone: The End

After a bit of a delay I'm now able to finish this little tale. I hope you've enjoyed it so far and again my apologies for last week's delay. So without further interruption let's get into it. Here's the link for the full story if you'd like to start from the beginning. 

Alone Full Story

Alone

 The dead miner stirring from his ageless sleep?

He felt the presence on a purely instinctive level,  something massive yet insubstantial. A yawning emptiness that slowly opened to consume everything in its path.  He moved away, scrabbling across that rocky surface, coming up hard against the wall as the emptiness opened behind him.

As it came closer he reached out with one hand, feeling for the floor that was no longer there. The mine had vanished, replaced by that all consuming void as a single thought whispered through his mind.

Am I dead?

It elicited a sense of sadness, a deepening sorrow as he came to understand that he would never see his daughter again. She would grow up without him to watch over her, maybe she would fall in love, and have children of her own. His wife  Renee might move on, find another not as foolish as himself to stand by her side until death parted them.

But most of all he would miss the warm feeling of the sun on his face. The gentle touch of an errant breeze carrying the scent of the pine trees covering the hillside behind his house. The hard bite of winter’s chill as the snow crunched beneath his feet.

The emptiness grew behind him, expanding to encompass everything his world had become, replacing the mine with its frozen caress. The sweat on his brow chilled his flesh as the cold slowly wrapped him in its embrace.  He was thankful he’d kept his heavy coat as it now served to protect him from the encroaching cold.

It made no sense, yet at the same time it was perfectly logical. This deep, on the devil’s doorstep, the temperature should be over a hundred degrees. But it had changed as that emptiness opened behind him, and the cold loneliness of the grave wrapped him in its mournful embrace.

He felt its touch on a purely instinctive level, coming as a  faint tickle at the base of his neck. Slowly it climbed the back of his skull, numbing his flesh at its chilled touch, and he became aware of another presence.

Something as old as time itself that regarded him with a frigid indifference. As the numbness of its touch spread across his body his memories stirred as this essence rifled through the files of his past with calloused indifference. He saw his life flashing before his eyes, and knew then that death had come to take its due.

He saw himself as a child sitting upon his grandfather’s knee as he wove the tales of miners of old, who viewed the world around them as one filled with the creatures of legend, and the magic of unlimited possibilities. Then he was a young man, focused on his studies, having shed the wonder of childhood and all the beliefs it entailed, as cold hard facts replaced the myths and folklore of his early days.

He saw his bride to be once again as she walked down the aisle towards him, surrounded by family and friends as two loves were joined into one. He saw the birth of his daughter and his heart filled with sadness when he realized he would never see her again.

Light filled the chamber behind him as his memories cascaded through his thoughts. His shadow was long against the loose stone and blasted walls of his grave. He saw his tool bag lying next to the boot protruding from the ground and crawled towards it.

With every step more details came into focus. He recognized the pattern on the bottom of the boot, it was a red wing just like he wore and that spark of recognition set off a chain reaction that washed through him like the rushing waters of a dam suddenly released from its prison.

He recognized the coveralls as well, they were similar to what every other miner wore, but with one small difference. The tiny plastic butterfly attached to the zipper tang that opened the bottom of the pants leg.

“They’ll protect you daddy,” his daughter whispered in his mind as a chilly tear traced a wet path down his cheek. She had attached one to every zipper tang on his coveralls, a talisman of her own making to protect the one she loved.

The guys had ribbed him about them when they first saw them, but the kidding died down shortly after, when he explained what they meant. The atmosphere becoming somber as they waited for the cage to take them down into the bowels of the earth.

Into an eternal darkness where no one’s future was assured.

As the light grew he came to understand what love truly meant when more of those tiny plastic butterflies came to light. Behind him death waited as it waited for everyone, it had all the time in the world, but his had run short and when he felt that chilled touch on his shoulder he knew it had run out.

Upon your birth a voucher was issued, a chit, a token much like the ones the miners of old used to mark their loads. It was something we all carried our entire lives, slowly counting down the seconds, the moments, until death lay claim to our soul. For some that timer was short, while for others it was long.

His had wound down to the end and the sorrow that overwhelmed him at the sight of those sparkling butterflies filled him with a bitter remorse. He’d always promised to come home to her, now he was going to break that promise.

The hand on his shoulder tightened as it pulled him back towards the light that now filled the mine around him and painted his long shadow upon the shattered wall. Other shadows appeared around him as a babble of voices intruded upon his consciousness. Other hands grabbed him and he expected to find his grandfather and two of his uncles who had passed away when he turned towards the light.

Instead the bright light of a work lantern blinded him, and he held his hand up to cover his eyes.

“Are you okay, Pete?”

“Yeah,” he answered, startled to find his crew around him, “yeah. I’m okay.”

“Can you walk?”

Pete nodded silently as his eyes adjusted to the light and he looked around for his tool bag. It sat on the ground to his right, the boot that had been next to it now gone.

“Let’s get you out of here,” Arnold said as he pulled him towards the opened shaft, “make way people,” he shouted to the others who stepped back to clear a path.

As he was led from the mine he looked down at his coveralls, noticing that the small plastic butterflies were gone. A child’s talisman used in exchange for his life and for the first time in his life he came to understand that sometimes magic did exist, and the power of love, and belief could be enough to defeat even death. 

THE END

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Alone: Pt5

It has been a busy week for me. I've been on vacation taking care of some things around the house and I'm, looking forward to going back to work so I can get a break.  Here's the latest part of my serial story, a little later than normal, but I've got a good excuse.

I can see where some foreshadowing will be needed when I rewrite this little tale.

I hope you're enjoying the story so far. Don't hesitate to let me know what you think.

Alone

Stopping he gazed into the emptiness as the steady sound of a pick striking stone came from the darkness. It had to be his imagination, there was no room for ghosts,  and the legends of ghosts in his ordered world. Dead was dead, and there was no coming back.

As he stared into the darkness he began to make out small details that he knew he should not be able to see. The silhouette of a slender man stood against a faint illumination that he knew was not there. Yet it was something his emotional side grasped for with a desperation born of the need to see anything but the featureless void.

The man moved, picking up his pick, raising it above his head before bringing it down in an arc that was accompanied by the sound of a pick striking solid stone. Pete shook his head, wiping at his eyes, as the silhouette of the man bent down and retrieved something from the ground. He looked at the object in his hand for a moment, then seemed to turn and regard Pete, before tossing it in his direction.

A small stone hit Pete on the shoulder as a soft chuckle came from that presence. It was a  low, guttural, sound without mirth. A predatory sound that sent a chill washing across his back as the odor of decay tickled his nose . A pair of red eyes emerged, glowing softly with a malevolent light. They blinked and Pete jerked back with a startled cry.

Knocking came from his right, hard and fast, the ringing sound of cold steel against unyielding stone. It wasn’t a distant sound, as if heard through the earth, but right next to him. In the small chamber with him.

More knocking answered from the left, a fast tempo that raced the first. Even more joined in, coming from behind and before him as those glowing red eyes watched him with a preternatural stillness. More knocking came from the ceiling and floor as Pete curled into a fetal position with his hand clamped over his ears.

He withdrew within himself, retreating from the disharmony that filled the chamber around him. He’d always laughed at his grandfather’s belief that knockers lived beneath the earth. Chalking it up to a miner’s superstition coupled with long days spent beneath the ground. But now that he was experiencing it first hand he understood that these old beliefs had been born in truth. 

Something snatched at his shoulder and he cried out in terror. Another hand grabbed at his ankle, the fingers ice cold through the protective layer of his clothes. A cold hand caressed his cheek and he screamed as a shriek of agony sliced across the symphony of sound, silencing it instantly.

He opened his eyes and looked up into the hushed emptiness. The silhouette was gone, as was the faint illumination that had set it off. He was once again, alone in the dark, with the sound of the earth settling around him.

How long had it been?

From behind him came the sound of movement, stones stirred as something emerged from the rocky depths, pebbles cascaded across the hard ground, and he sensed a deeper blackness rising up from the floor of the cave behind him

Was it death coming to take him at last?

To be continued!

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Free Read Friday: Alone Pt4

I've posted the entire short story, up to the end of this part on it's own page that you can find HERE!.

Alone

Moving closer he traced the outline of the object with his hand as it curved upward, the Cris-crossed object terminating at a scarred flat surface. The scarred surface curved down to another flat section and as his fingers traced the pattern embedded in its face he realized what it was.

A boot.

Just like the one he wore and as the realization filled his mine he came to understand that the Cris-crossed patter had been the laces. Someone had lost or discarded a boot in the mine, and it had lain there ignored until he came across it while searching for his tool bag. It wasn’t uncommon for miners to bring spare footwear with them when they ventured into the mines so the presence of the boot was not uncommon

Relieved by the sheer innocence of the object he tried to pull it from the ground, only to find it was securely held in place by the stony earth. And as he pulled he came to realize the boot was occupied by a foot.

Who was it?

 With fingers shaking at the revelation and the implications it contained he followed the outline of the boot in the opposite direction. Slipping his finger beneath the hem of that coarse fabric he came to a softer fabric bunched around a solid object. Beyond that his fingers came into contact with flesh as cold as the ground in which it had been buried.

An uncontrollable flash of panic drove him back and he scrabbled through the loose stone, loosing all sense of direction as a single thought blossomed in his mind like a poisonous flower.

There was a body with him.

He looked left, and then right, the emptiness pressing in on all sides as he focused on that singular notion. There was a body in the mine with him. It was followed by another that came with an ominous clarity. It was not where it should be to have been affected by the cave in.

Unless, he tried to convince himself, he had gotten turned around when he was crawling through the dark, and instead of being near the face of the mine, he had unknowingly returned to the collapsed section.

Who was it?

The others had gotten out, he was sure of it, he’d left them at the bottom of the vertical shaft leading to section 16B. Unless one of them had followed him back without him knowing about it, and had become buried by the falling stone.

It made sense, it was logical, and if anything was to be said about him, he was logical. Four years of college had made him that way. His time in school had also severed to distance him from his roots, but the roots of a boy raised in the West Virginia coal fields ran strong and deep. Roots that ran as far back as the late seventeen hundred when the first settlers ventured west, finding the rolling hills of the Appalachians that reminded them so much of the homelands they had left behind.  These roots might be weakened, but they could never be removed.

Reaching this conclusion helped to quell the panic simmering in the pit of his stomach, and he stopped moving so he could work out where he’d left his bag. The section he occupied was not very big, no more than thirty by forty feet. If he took his time, and approached his problem logically, he’d find his tool bag.

It was just a matter of remaining focused as he carefully worked his way back and forth across the open space. It wasn’t going to be quick, but it was preferable to running around in a blind panic.  Calmly he crawled forward until he reached the wall of the mine. Turning to his right he crawled two steps, then turned right again and crawled across the open space towards what he hoped was the other side of the mine.

As he worked, slow and careful, he became conscious of the sound of a steady pounding that came from his left. Turning his head in that direction he peered into the emptiness as a slow chill crawled the length of his mine when he realized it was the steady sound of a pick working the wall.

It was believed that when a miner died in the mine, his ghost returned to finish his shift. 

To be continued!

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Free Read Friday: Alone Pt 3

You know how sometimes you're working on a story you think is headed in one direction, and it suddenly decides to go off in another. Well that's what has happened with the continuing saga of our hapless miner.

If you're new, here's a link to part one so you can start at the beginning of the story. Part 1
There will be a link for part two at the end of part one so you can follow along.

Alone Part III

He struggled against the panic threatening to overwhelm him, taking in slow steady breaths after coming to a stop. He didn’t want to get turned around in the dark. After a few moments the panic passed and he continued on his hands and knees, the sharp edges of loose stone cutting into the flesh of his palms as he carefully worked his way across the stony ground.

He’d been less than twenty feet away from his tool bag and the spare battery when his light went out. An area that could be covered in just a few steps if he could see. Less than the distance across the front porch of his house where his wife and daughter had surely heard the news of he the cave in.

Would they know he was trapped?

Surely they’d figured that out by now and had told his wife. She would be waiting by the phone for any news while his daughter, Becky played nearby, blissfully unaware of the danger he was in. Later, after it was all said and done, maybe they would tell her. Of course that would depend on whether he survived or not. If he didn’t… He let that thought die the quiet death it deserved. As long as he was still breathing he would do everything in his power to get home to his family.

Without ventilation how long would that be? The question rose up in his mind and he quickly squashed it with a stubbornness born from years of hard work, and doing the right thing.

Carefully he reached into the emptiness ahead of him. His fingers splayed out as he slowly moved his hand back and forth across the space in front of him, searching for the familiar shape of his tool bag. In addition to a spare battery it contained his water as well. Another essential to his survival.

He had to find that bag!

Without light he was unable to see the landmarks that would help keep him straight. Making it possible he could crawl around in circles for hours as his panic grew to envelope him, driving him to run around blindly as he bounced off the walls, increasing the likelihood of another cave in that could bury him beneath tons of unrelenting earth.

Maybe that would be for the best, a quick death beneath the falling ceiling was preferable to the agonizing demise that awaited him if he didn’t find his water. Already his mouth was becoming parched, and the air around him was growing stale.

How long did he have?

He moved another few feet forward, the loose stone rattling beneath his knees as he searched the emptiness in front of him. Perspiration sheathed his body beneath the heavy coveralls he wore. It would be much cooler to shed them, but at the same time he would have only a thin layer of clothing to protect him from the sharp edges of the stone that surrounded him.

A mine was not a place to go without some form of protection. The stone had been shattered by explosions and drilling as miners worked to extract the treasures it contained. Unlike natural caves formed over the millennia’s by the carving action of running water, mines were places of jagged stone faces ready to exact their revenge for man’s intrusion.

His fingers brushed against coarse fabric and he grasped at it as a whimper of relief sounded in his throat. Stretching out his arm he searched wit his fingers for the familiar shape of a battery or his water bottle. What he found instead made little sense in the dark. The fabric ended in a hem, and beneath that was an object that felt familiar, yet alien. It wasn’t his bag and as he worked his hand along the fabric he realized it was half buried beneath the stony ground.

There was something solid, yet yielding on the other side of the fabric and beneath the hem lay a cris-crossed pattern that was achingly familiar. His fingers traced the coarse fabric that made up the pattern to one side, finding a metal hole through which the  fabric passed.

What was it?

To be continued!

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Free read Friday: Alone Pt 2

Final edits are finished for Legion of the Damned. They have been formatted and uploaded to Amazon and Smashwords for distribution. I still have to format for the print version and that is the next project on my to do list. But before I move onto that I want to share the next part of my story in progress with you.

If you haven't read part one yet, here's a link to get caught up, there is a link to get back. Part 1

Alone

It was as silent as a tomb, and he shuddered at the thought that this might very well become his grave. In a perfect world they would do everything in their power to rescue him, working around the clock if necessary, unfortunately Tredwell was not known for expanding any more effort than necessary to protect its miners.


If the cave in wasn’t too bad they would put forth an effort to rescue him, on the other hand, and here he stopped this line of reasoning before it got too far ahead and the discomfort he felt blossomed into a full blown panic. There was nothing he could do but wait.


Turning off his light to conserve the battery he rested his head on his arms that he’d crossed over his knees, and listened to the earth around him as it slowly settled. The temperature was climbing, wrapping him in a suffocating cocoon of warmth.


Shaft 17C was so deep it was rumored that one had to be careful where they swung their pick for fear of knocking on the devil’s doorway. 


Without ventilation the temperature hovered around one hundred and five. With the shaft blocked it was anybody’s guess how hot it would get. As the heat seeped through his heavy work coat he reached for his water. Luckily he’d brought several bottles, but he only took a small sip. As much as it pained him to do so, he knew it would be best to conserve every drop of water he could.


Turning on his light he looked around to take stock of his situation. The dust had settled as much as it was likely to, and he found he was at the face of the mine. The deepest part they had worked to, the stone around him scarred by the marks of their passage. Gouged out lines from the drills that bored into solid stone to set explosives for blasting.


Pushing himself to his feet he crossed to the collapsed section of the roof. Here a pile of stones blocked the entrance, filling the opening completely. Taking his hammer from the loop on his pants he beat on the face of the largest boulder. He stopped, and leaned in close, pressing his ear against the silent face.


Was that knocking? He wondered, or just an echo of his own pounding. He was certain he’d heard an answering knock on the stone, faint, almost imperceptible, he was sure it was there. It had to be there, to believe otherwise would lead only to death.


He knocked again, leaning in close to listen, and once more was certain he heard a faint knock answering his own.


They were coming. How long it would take was anybody’s guess, but they were coming to get him. He turned back to where he’d left his tool bag, and was halfway to it when the light on his helmet flickered briefly before going out completely.


The battery was dead.


He stopped, and tried to recall how close he had been to his tool bag. There was another battery in it, If he could get to it he could replace the dead battery. Carefully he dropped to his hands and knees, his eyes wide open, yet completely blind, as he carefully worked his way forward, reaching out with one hand to feel for his tool bag.


A thought emerged at the edge of his consciousness and he struggled to keep it at bay. Yet it persisted, blossoming into his mind like a deadly flower, with a cold clarity that made his knees weak and turned his bowels to ice water.


So this is what it was like to be buried alive.

To be continued.

Link for part three: PART 3

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Free read Friday: Alone

As promised in my last post I offer you a brief detour through the landscape of my mind. My intent is to weave a tale about superstition, and who would be more superstitious than a miner, after all these men who toil beneath the ground face death almost daily. When they climb onto the car for the trip down, I'm sure they wonder if this will  be the last time they see the sky.

This is a work in progress. Next Friday I'll add to the story, possibly finish it, maybe not as I work to uncover the fossil of the story that lies buried in my mind. Thanks for stopping by and don't hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments.

So without further adieu, I give you:

ALONE

It felt as if the weight of the world was resting on his shoulders, and in a sense, it was, as a thousand feet of the earth stood between him and the sunlight bathing the ground above in a soft yellow light. Even with his kerchief pressed against his nose and mouth the dust that filled the air around him managed to find a way in, coating his teeth and tongue with a gritty film. He’d made the mistake of opening his eyes as he tried to assess his situation, and a piece of the grit had gotten into his right eye. Though it was tiny, it felt like a pebble had become lodged beneath his eyelid.

Given the circumstances, he did the only thing he could do, withdraw within himself, and wait for the dust to settle. Turning off the light on his hardhat, after all, he didn’t know how long he was going to be down here, he sat down and waited with his head resting on his knees.

An electrician with the Treadwell mine Pete and his crew had been removing the last of the lighting from shaft 17C in preparation for closing it permanently. Structural problems had been recently uncovered, and though the shaft was likely to produce for another six months, it would have been foolish to continue operations.

Did the others get out? He wondered.

They should have, all of them had reached the vertical shaft that would take them up to the next level when he realized he had forgotten his tool bag. Had it not been for that he’d be on the other side with the rest of them.

It was only a hundred dollars worth of tools, but hey, a hundred bucks was a hundred bucks. He dropped his hand to the tool bag next to him, comforted by its familiar shape. It was his link to who he was, and what lay beyond the plug of jumbled boulders that blocked his way out.

They should be working on it soon, he thought as a stream of pebbles cascaded down the stone on his right. 

A third generation miner who had gotten the education his father and grandfather lacked. He had not followed the path they wanted. They wanted him to become a doctor, or a  lawyer, anything but a miner who spent the better part of their life beneath the ground. But he had been drawn to the job by their stories of the deep mines, and the men who toiled in them. He wanted to belong to that select brotherhood who every day walked into harm's way to eek out a living and drive a nation.

After what felt like an hour he turned on his lamp, lifted his head, and slowly opened his eyes.  The beam of his light pierced the darkness that surrounded him, illuminating the wall of the tunnel across from him that carried the scars of their digging. Long narrow gouges marred the face of the stone. They looked like the claw marks of some ancient beast, and a chill ran the length of his spine as he turned his head to the right to illuminate the pile of boulders that blocked the tunnel.

He was alone. The realization hit him with the force of a physical blow, and though he had never been one to chatter, he now realized just how important the background noise of daily life could be.

To be continued!

Here's a link to Part 2

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UPDATE

New Eroitic Horror short story release.

My erotic horror short story is now available at Amazon for $0.99, free to kindle unlimited and prime members.

Peter had it all.

A thriving Tattoo business in the city, a beautiful wife, and two well behaved boys. He had everything he could ever hope for until she came in for a tattoo.

Captivated by her unnatural beauty, he became obsessed, throwing away everything he had. Only to discover that beauty was merely skin deep.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00V0WCFMI