2nd December 2019
Night
Only a few steps into the mine was all it took to rob me of my ability to see. But I couldn’t stop. I walked with my arms outstretched, like something out of a zombie movie, trying to feel my way until I found the first corner that swept the tunnel towards the left. Keeping one hand on the wall to not lose my way, the texture of it was abrasive and damp. I tentatively moved further into the dark, the ground beneath my feet sloping as I descended. My other hand was still in front, feeling thin air – hoping not to grab anything, or anyone. And the smell was the one that had permeated my entire adult life in that place between being asleep and awake. Coal air.
My hand brushed something unfamiliar, and I let out a yelp. It was just a chain hanging from the ceiling. I took a deep breath, the air already feeling thick. Each step away from the world – away from its open spaces and phone reception – compounded my anxiety, which continued to build, a sea that was bracing for an approaching storm. I tried to keep myself calm, but panic set in, the walls beginning to close in around me. The ceiling looked like it might crack at any moment.
I stopped, closed my eyes. I told myself to slow down. I thought of my dad, of one night in particular when I was young and woke up as my night light flickered. The filament inside fighting to survive and failing, leaving me in total darkness for the first time I could recall. It was so dark I couldn’t see, and as I began to cry, Dad came in and calmed me. I thought I had gone blind. He held me in his arms, his smell, the one I loved that was part sweat, part coal dust, calmed me, and when my sobs became jagged little sniffles, he told me our eyes were actually those of superheroes and when I didn’t understand, he told me to close them, count to thirty and then open them again, and when I did, I could see the objects in my bedroom.
‘It’s a little trick we all know down the mine,’ he said. ‘We all just pause, close our eyes and let our vision find us.’
Closing my eyes helped, for when I opened them, I could just about make out the wall I was touching, and the wall on the other side of the tunnel. I could see the chains hanging limp from the ceiling and the slight tonal change where the metal structures ran in the rock. It was still too dark to see if a person stood in the dark corners, pressed into the crevices, but I could just about see enough of the grainy dark world to know if I was about to trip or fall over something. Still, it didn’t offer much comfort. The dread in my gut hadn’t lifted.
I had to continue further into the belly of the monster that had watched my every move since coming back. The more I walked, the warmer it began to feel, the earth itself radiating heat. I unfastened and then took off my coat and decided to leave it at the next corner I approached before turning left. At the next turn I placed my scarf, then my jumper at the next. Then I approached a fork in the tunnel, one I remembered vividly: turning left would take me further down into the heat and dust, closer to where we found Chloe. And right was another long tunnel that gradually descended. It was in that tunnel that we’d set up our ouija board and tried to scare one another, before the Drifter started banging and shouting, terrifying us all.
If I had – if any of us had – remembered to follow our trail that night, we would have all made it out together. But we didn’t. We were young, petrified, and in our world, we hadn’t heard of consequences, until that moment.
Walking past the tunnel where our foolish game began, my shoes wet from the running water, I heard something, a voice, a whimper. I held my breath, waiting to hear it again. Nothing. Despite being hot, a shudder ran up my spine, and I had to remind myself that I didn’t believe in ghosts.
I pushed the whimper I heard out of my head and continued. I was sure I knew the way – and would then know the way out – but with each step, my confidence wavered, and with no more items of clothing to leave, I had to rely on my memory of back then, which was tainted, damaged. And then, ahead of me, I saw it, a void where the narrow tunnel became a larger room, the ceiling of it higher than I could touch. The space as wide as a church, and in the middle of it, a hole eight feet wide that descended around twenty more.
I was where the Drifter wanted me; I was back in the place it all began.
And I was alone.
Quietly, I made my way towards the middle of the cavernous room, wondering if I had misinterpreted the note. No, I was here, the place where it all began. That night when Chloe fell, the night the blame fell upon him. It had to be. I hoped that I would find Holly and the others, and I would help them get out before facing the Drifter. It was just me in a dark, vast space with the remains of my best friend in a hole directly in front of me.
I wanted to look down, I wanted to see. But I couldn’t. Even now, even after all this time, I was still unable to face what had happened that night, and Michael was right. Compared to the others, I had it easy, because I didn’t look back then.
I thought again about the noise I heard when I was walking past the tunnel where we set up the ouija board. Maybe I did actually hear a whimper; Holly perhaps, or Georgia. Turning, I began to make my way back towards it, one single step, and then I was blinded by a torch which shone directly into my face. A deep voice spoke from behind it.
‘It’s been a long time, Neve.’