FIRE CREEK, WEST VIRGINIA
PRESENT DAY
Thelma Scott grimaced as she wiped off the Formica counter of the Fire Creek Diner, known to everyone in town as “Thelma’s.” She stopped for a moment and slowly wiggled all of her fingers, taking note of the increased pain in her joints. “Gonna rain,” she mumbled. She prided herself on being able to predict the weather better than anyone on TV, and it was definitely going to rain today. She could feel it.
Outside, the morning sun was just cresting over Beury’s Ridge, nine miles away. Yet this did virtually nothing to brighten the hardscrabble town of Fire Creek, which was nestled deep in the valley below the ridge. At this hour, the tiny town was still enveloped in an opaque blanket of autumn fog that had filled the New River Gorge Valley overnight. Thelma peered through the diner’s front window and observed the swirling mist outside, thicker than normal for this time of year. Yep, rain within the hour, she predicted.
Instinctively, Thelma glanced at the old clock on the wall, which read 6:05. Then, as she did every morning, she stepped onto a chair and tweaked the big hand forward three minutes. Always three minutes. Every day.
She started a pot of coffee and fired up the diner’s antique O’Keefe & Merritt gas griddle. The morning crowd would be here soon, although “crowd” wasn’t quite the right word. The old codgers Tommy Ellis, Frank Rutter, and Joe McMahon would be here for their buckwheat pancakes, toast and butter, and double-thick sliced bacon. They’d sit in their regular booth and swap war stories, mining stories, and political bluster for hours until one of them would finally stand up, scratch his belly, and say, “Well, someone’s got to get some dang work done around here.” Joe’s wife would sit at the counter the entire time, chain-smoking Marlboro Lights and chatting with Thelma about the latest hardship to befall some member of the McMahon clan. Then, with luck, several of the younger men in town (and there were very few of those) would stop by on their way to Fayetteville or Beckley for their mining jobs. They usually just picked up coffee to go.
That was the extent of the morning crowd at Thelma’s.
It was amazing to her how much things had changed around here. Fire Creek had never been a big town. Even when she was younger and the town was in its heyday in the 1940s, the population was never more than five thousand. But it was bustling back then. The New River Coal Company was still in business in those days, extracting bituminous coal from the Fire Creek vein at full capacity. The massive coke ovens on the outskirts of town burned twenty-four hours a day, converting the sulfur-rich Fire Creek coal into valuable coke for the steel industry. Thelma remembered how the entire town felt such a sense of pride about their contribution to the war effort. The coke from Fire Creek was used to make Pittsburgh steel, which, in turn, was used to make tanks, ships, and guns. Back then, the foursquare houses in town were all freshly painted, and American flags flew from nearly every porch.
That all changed, however, in 1955, when the federal government came to town.
Thelma checked the refrigerator to ensure she had all the supplies she needed for lunch: hamburger patties, hot dogs, cold cuts, potato and macaroni salads, coleslaw, and soft drinks. It was Friday, which meant the “ghost hunters” would soon be arriving.
Thelma had first noticed them about five years ago: small groups of tourists arriving sporadically in cars and vans, mostly on weekends. Apparently, someone on the Internet had popularized the idea of taking self-guided “ghost town” tours along the New River Gorge. And, for some reason, they had included Fire Creek on their map of West Virginia ghost towns, although Thelma could never figure out why. People still lived here. How could it be a ghost town? Granted, the town’s population was less than four hundred and dwindling by the year. But it wasn’t a ghost town.
At least, not yet.
Thelma poured herself a cup of coffee and was just about to click on the TV when there was a loud knock on the front door of the diner. It was a repetitive, insistent knock that rattled the metal OPEN/CLOSED sign hanging on the doorknob. She squinted to make out the features of the person standing in the fog outside the glass door, but all she could tell was that it was a man. He was hunched over slightly and . . . wearing a hat. “We’re closed,” she yelled to him, still puzzling over the hat. It looked like a fedora, and the only person she knew who wore a fedora these days was Frank Rutter. But that wasn’t Frank. . . .
The man knocked again—several loud raps on the glass. “Please,” he said in a muffled voice. “I need help.”
Thelma inched toward the door, her pulse quickening. A few years ago, one of the McMahon boys had come into the diner late at night, brandishing a gun and demanding money. The poor kid was addicted to OxyContin and was desperate for a fix. Thelma would never forget how he apologized and actually cried as he robbed her. He was later arrested for armed robbery and put in jail, where he still was today. That experience had shattered Thelma’s sense of security and made her very hesitant to open her door to strangers, especially in the dark.
The man outside knocked again and pleaded through the glass door, “Please. I need a doctor.”
“Oh my word,” Thelma gasped, rushing to the door. She could now see that it was an elderly, white-bearded man, and he was hunched over, holding his stomach. His white shirt was soaked through with blood. Danger be damned, she thought. She was not going to let this poor old man die outside her front door. She unlocked the door and flung it open.
The wounded man stumbled into the diner and immediately dropped to his knees beside the lunch counter. He had his hands clutched to his bloody stomach, and he was wincing in pain.
“Lord in heaven!” Thelma said. She put her hand on the man’s back, momentarily unsure about what to do. His head was down, so she couldn’t fully see his face. But something about him was familiar. “I’ll call 911,” she said, rushing toward the phone behind the counter.
“Vaht? No.” The bearded man spoke with a heavy German accent. He looked up and seemed genuinely confused. “I need a doctor.”
What the heck does he think I’m doing? Thelma quickly punched 911 into the phone. As she waited for the operator, she tried to place the man’s voice. Where had she heard that accent before? A moment later, the emergency operator picked up, and Thelma explained the situation to him and gave the address of her diner. “Yes,” she repeated before hanging up. “Fire Creek. East of Mount Hope, at the end of Route 26.”
Thelma returned to the diner floor to comfort the injured man, who was now lying in the fetal position, panting in short breaths. “It’s gonna be a while, honey,” she said soothingly. “They’re coming all the way from Beckley. Could be twenty-five minutes or more.”
The old man groaned at that news, and Thelma’s heart sank. What could she do? She didn’t know the first thing about treating wounds. The man was panting in shallow breaths and appeared to be going into shock. Thelma decided the only thing she could do was keep him awake and alert. “What happened to you, sweetie?” she asked.
The man convulsed in pain and said nothing.
Thelma leaned over and got a full view of the man’s bloody abdomen. She quickly recoiled and cupped her mouth with her hands. “My God,” she whispered. It must have been one of those drug gangs. The backwoods in Fayette County were notorious for concealing marijuana farms and trailer-home meth kitchens. Those people were truly crazy.
But this man didn’t seem like the type to be involved with drugs. “You visiting from somewhere?” she asked. It was the only thing she could think of given his foreign accent and odd attire. He wore a white dress shirt—soaked with blood in the front—a black necktie, gray wool pants with suspenders, a matching gray jacket, and black dress shoes, thoroughly caked with mud. His fedora lay on the floor, near his head.
The wounded man did not respond to Thelma’s question. His breathing was getting more sporadic now, almost spastic.
“Oh dear,” Thelma whispered. He ain’t gonna make it. She started off toward the phone again. “I’ll call Hiram Johnson. He was a medic in the army.”
“No,” groaned the man, drawing his knees up closer to his chest. “Call . . . Dr. . . . Reynolds.” He sucked in several shallow breaths before continuing. “Princeton 572.”
Thelma stopped short and turned around slowly. A strange feeling suddenly emerged from the pit of her stomach. “Where’d you say you was from?”
“Thurmond,” the man grunted.
Well, Thelma knew that was a lie. Thurmond really was a ghost town. Nobody has lived there since . . .
Then suddenly it hit her. She now realized where she’d heard this man’s voice before. She stepped slowly toward his contorted body, her eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “Who are you?” she asked.
The man didn’t answer. He was losing consciousness. Thelma stooped down and lightly slapped him on the cheek several times. “C’mon now,” she said. “Don’t go nowhere.” With her thumb and forefinger, she lifted one of the man’s eyelids, revealing a glassy, dilated pupil. She had no idea what she was looking for, but she’d seen people do this on TV. She grabbed the man’s bearded jaw firmly with one hand and gently shook his head back and forth.
The man came to and coughed meekly.
“That’s it, honey,” Thelma said. “Stay with me, now. Help is on the way.”
The man stared up at her blankly.
“Now, tell me where you came from exactly.”
The man whispered something indecipherable.
“Huh?”
“Thurmond . . . National . . . L—” The word “laboratory” never made it past his lips before his eyes rolled back into his head and his body went completely limp.
But Thelma had heard enough. Her eyes widened as she stood and slowly backed away from the bleeding man. “Not possible,” she whispered, shaking her head in disbelief. “Not possible.”