The swarm of Coblynau, still clinging to the walls and roof of the tunnel, fixed their gaze on the gold.
It was theirs.
It belonged to them.
It belonged to the mine.
None shall take it from them…
The swarm looked to the muscular Coblynau with the lamp, waiting for the signal. He stared past the groveling Adam and straight at Ewan. His mouth opened and a guttural voice rasped out a single word. “Hughes?”
Ewan nodded and smiled. “Payment, Da. As promised four generations ago, and promised for six more.”
The Coblynau smiled, his dazzling white teeth shining in the phosphorescent glow. “Welcome home, my boy.”
Ewan dropped his head, and the Coblynau king turned his gaze on the group. He took a single step aside, and nodded his head. “Go. This does not concern you. Leave this mine. Do not come back. Never come back.”
Jay stared, open-mouthed at the Coblynau, and then turned to Ewan. “You? You knew?”
Ewan nodded. “You think all this was an accident?”
“You!” Adam pointed a shaking finger at Ewan. “You were the one who suggested the ghost tours. I knew it!”
“You know nothing.” Ewan snarled at the cowering Adam. “Only greed. You saw that gold and you practically pissed your pants. You’re the same as your great, great grandfather. Greedy for the riches from the mine, whatever the cost. All you had to do was say you’re sorry. But you didn’t, did you? You didn’t.”
“But Ifan! David! They’re dead and they had nothing to do with whatever the hell this is all about.” Jay couldn’t stop himself. The two men had been his friends since junior school. And now they were dead.
“Wrong, Jay. Wrong. Their ancestors were blasters. It was their explosives that brought the roof down. They followed Hughes’ orders. Their families are cursed, just as his is.” Ewan pointed a finger at Adam.
Jay recoiled.
Ewan’s finger had taken on a strange alabaster cast. The skin seemed loose and translucent, blue veins pulsing just below the surface. The tip of his finger peeled back to reveal the distal phalange bone poking through.
Jay looked up. Ewan’s eyes were milky white. His skull was visible just below paper-thin white skin. He leaned forward, his teeth bared. “Do as my da says, Jay. It’s his turn to rest, and my turn to take his place as King of the Coblynau. And so it will be for generations to come. Now go. Go, and never come back.”
Ewan stepped away from Jay, threw back his head, and let out an ear-shattering screech. The swarm of Coblynau responded.
Jay had seen enough. He yelled at the others. “Run!”
They didn’t need telling twice. Matt and Louise skittered past the King of the Coblynau and on up the tunnel. Alex was a step behind them. Jay shot past the alabaster man, flinching as he ducked underneath the upstretched arm that held the swaying miner’s lamp.
Beyond the standing man was a second light source.
Daylight.
Pure. Welcoming. Safe.
They ran towards it, their feet slipping and sliding on the muddy ground.
A deep rumble from the depths of the mine indicated that once again, the ground was shifting.
The rumble was joined by a rising chorus of screeching. The Coblynau were singing the song of their people. A song of death. Of pain. Of loss. Of a curse that would blight the lives of families for hundreds of years to come.
An epitaph for men whose only crime was to scour beneath the crust of the earth, searching for black coal and shining gold. Men in the service of masters who cared for nothing except the profits of the men’s labors. Masters who drank port and ate quail while their impoverished, starving workers were crushed by cave-ins, slowly choked by black dust, or incinerated in an instant by mine gas.
It was little wonder that the song of the Coblynau was one of mourning and loss, not just anger and hatred.
Jay stumbled through the southern exit just in time. He turned to see the Coblynau, led by the old King and his son Ewan, swarming over the hunched body of Adam Hughes.
Another generation lost to the Pit of Ghosts. Four more souls destined to spend eternity in blackness, driven mad by the curse and the endless drip-drip-drip of water.
The final rock-fall sealed the southern exit behind tons of boulders. It would be years before anyone else ever found their way back into Morfa Mine. At least a generation. And then the cycle would begin again.
The rumbling stopped, and a final shower of small rocks cascaded down the face of the cave-in.
Matt, Louise, Alex and Jay all sat there, staring at the sealed entrance. Louise sobbed quietly while Matt rocked her gently in his arms.
Alex ran a shaking hand through his hair, turned, and promptly vomited the contents of his stomach on the wet grass.
Jay sat looking at the cave-in, tears running unhindered down his cheeks.
The silence was absolute. No birds sang. The universe paused briefly, acknowledging the sacrifice of the Morfa Colliery men.
Then the faintest of sounds could be heard.
Jay strained to listen.
Knock knock…
WHERE THE SUN DOES NOT SHINE
Paul Mannering
“Okay Lucy, over you go.” The treads of the eight-wheeled robot bit into the grey powder of the lunar dust. Lights and cameras mounted on the front tilted up, staring blindly into the clear, dark sky, before pitching forward and illuminating the crater slope. “Lucy has begun her descent into the crater.”
“Christ. Would you look at this fucking mess?” Private Howard asked.
“No, because unlike some assholes, I have a real job to do,” Corporal Pierce snapped in reply. Her focus never wavered from monitors that showed her everything LUSE saw through its cameras.
“Howard, have you found any survivors?” Sergeant Block sounded calm over the comms channel.
“Uhh, negative, Sarge. I’m still in the control room with Pierce. This place is fucked up.” Howard picked up a twisted metal girder and casually tossed it aside.
“Pierce, how’s your grid search?” Block asked.
Pierce sighed in her pressure suit and responded to the voice in her ear. “Lunar Utility Survey and Exploration unit is conducting the first sweep, Sarge. The facility has depressurized in several places. No sign of corpses yet.”
“No survivors either?” Block replied.
“Not yet,” Pierce said, her hands hovering over the drive controls for the robotic unit.
“We’re on our way back to your position,” Block advised. “ETA, five minutes.”
“Roger that, Sarge.” Pierce brought the robot to a halt and swiveled the cameras, scanning her view over the featureless floor of the lunar crater.
“Hey Pierce,” Howard said over the comms. “I said, hey Pierce.”
“What?” She twisted in her seat, the lightly armored suit she was wearing moving with her.
“I found someone.” Howard grinned at her from across the room, his face turning skeletal in the halogen lights on Pierce’s helmet.
“Alive?” she asked.
Howard lifted a torn piece of meat and exposed bone that might have once been a human arm. “Possibly.”
“Christ.” Pierce turned back to her equipment. A shadow moved out of the ring of LUSE’s lights. “Whoa,” the corporal muttered.
Pierce moved the joystick and panned the camera through a ninety-degree arc. “Lucy, turn right fifteen degrees.” She waited while the robot responded to the voice command. The wheels on LUSE’s right side clicked into reverse while the left side rolled forward.
The camera showed a sharp deviation of shadow. Less than ten meters away, a gaping hole in the crater floor came into view.