The Trackwalkers

“Alright ladies,” the foreman growled through clenched teeth. “They ain’t paying us by the hour. Move it!”
One by one the trackwalkers struggled to their feet, stubbing out cigarettes and tossing the last gulps of lukewarm coffee into the woods. Eddie Glover stood up and stretched. He scuffed his feet at the rocks, watching them trickle along the train tracks that stretched out in front of him. From somewhere in the thicket of trees that surrounded him, Eddie could hear the cicadas chirping out their three-beat cadence. He took one last drag on his Pall Mall and flicked it alongside the railbed. It was good to be back at work. With the country still solidly gripped in the Great Depression, such a thing was scarce and becoming scarcer by the day. Before the crash in ’29, he’d made a steady living as a brakeman on the drag freights making the run from Boston to Montreal. All that ended that fine Tuesday morning in October. Within a year, Eddie had found himself floating from job to job. He’d managed to pick up enough work to keep body and soul together. But now, four years into the Depression, most of the mills and tanneries had closed down.
When the work dried up in New England, he’d made his way south, hoping to find something steadier, at least enough to finish out the summer before hopping a boxcar West.

That’s when the accident happened that changed everything.

The foreman, a ruddy Irishman named Clancy Dell, cleared his throat. It was a sharp barking sound that split the silence. “Alright, listen up people,” he said, waiting for the crew to fall in line. “Take a look behind you at the Whipmill Tunnel. Ten miles of track carved right through the mountain. At its center, you can’t see light from either end, and you’re far enough from help you might as well be out to sea.” He spat a ripe wad of tobacco juice at the ground, then continued. “As you know, ’bout two days ago, two freights came head to head inside the tunnel. One of ’em was carrying iron ore south, the other taking livestock up north. Some sorry sumbitch fell asleep at the control point and, well, you read the rest in the papers. Cleanup crew’s done most of the heavy lifting, but there’s still a lot of debris littered all ’round the tunnel floor and the railbed. Animal carcasses, splintered wood and Lordy knows what else. And that’s where you come in.”

Dell got down on one knee and unfolded a dog-eared blueprint from his coveralls. He pointed a grimy finger at the page. “Most of the damage is centered here,” he noted, “About five miles in. We’ll take a handcar and clearance car, put in a day’s work and roll right on out.”

He raised himself up with a groan. “Our job is simple: get what we can off the tracks, from one end to the other. They’ll send clearance cars down from the roundhouse to repair the tracks and haul the rest out. They should be out in two days’ time. Until then, it’s up to us. Put in your time and I’ll cross your palm with five dollars a day. Now let’s get moving.”


* * *

Daylight stayed with them for about a mile as they rode through the tunnel. After they reached the first milemarker, the August sunlight dialed down to a pinprick. Ahead of them, unseen through nine miles of darkness, lay the other side. One by one, they lit their lanterns, filling the cavernous tunnel with a dull yellow glow. One of the crew, a tall black man named Ambrose, spoke up.

“Damn, it’s cold!” he hissed. “Feel like I can see my breath in here.”

“No sunlight,” said one of the trackwalkers, a skinny guy seen often down at
the roundhouse. His gangly appearance and constantly moving limbs had earned him the unfortunate moniker of Rubber Johnny. “We’re 300 feet underground right here. Not to mention all the damn water dripping everywhere.” Johnny raised his lantern up at the walks, illuminating the brickwork and the snakelike tangle of cable that ran along it. “Where the tunnel floor meets the walls, you’re standing in six inches the stuff.”

Ambrose nodded towards the cables. “Grab a hold of one of them and you’ll be jumping for joy ’til the Rapture come.”

“Damn straight,” said Norman, a coarse old man who seemed far younger than his eighty-two years. “I’ve been walking the track since before the lot of you was whelped, and I seen just ’bout every calamity there is down here.”

“Well, this ought to be a quiet weekend for you, old timer,” Eddie said jovially.

“Bull!” Norman spat. “Ain’t no such thing as quiet down in the Whipmill. She’s the meanest length of track ever laid down. Ten miles of ugly, shrieking darkness is what she is. Cables and wires cluttering up the tracks, grizzlies prowlin’ in and out. When the diesels come through here, they choke the place up with smoke so bad, you think it’s midnight in a mineshaft.

“You know, more’n two hundred men died cutting her out of the rock. The walls are screaming with their ghosts.”

Ambrose laughed his deep bass laugh. “That’s why I like walkin’ the track with you, Norman. You always keep things lively.”

Johnny cackled, slapping his knee. “You ain’t kiddin’, Ambrose. Old timer’s got more stories than the Empire State Building.”

“Laugh if you want to,” grumbled Norman. “But a few more years down in the dark and you’ll see things different, ain’t that right, Chief?”

Norman turned to Billy Sixkiller, a relatively quiet Indian who lived in a cabin on the outskirts of the Hope. Though born Iroquois, Sixkiller had broken from his family’s traditionalist ways, feeling that the world was moving forward and that his people should do the same. His mindset had won him no favor amongst his tribesman, but he had become a fixture within the Harbor’s Hope community, all of whom affectionately referred to him, as they did anyone of Native-American extraction, as
“Chief.”

In response to Norman’s query, Sixkiller shood his head. “It’s a dirty place down here, I can tell you that much,” he said. “But it’s no worse than working the killing floor down in Smithfield. I did that for a time before coming back up here, and let me tell you, the Whipmill’s a picnic by comparison.”

The men laughed, but Eddie couldn’t help but feel slightly uneasy. The ever-increasing darkness of the tunnel gave Norman’s words a weight they never had in the comfort of daylight. Eddie looked behind him and saw that the sun had now been completely swallowed up by the tunnel. He shivered.

The walls are screaming with their ghosts.

* * *

On the afternoon of the first day, the crew encountered their first monster.

Eddie and Ambrose were working a section of track, clearing away some rotted beams and stacking them along the wall when one of the men, an Italian named Aberto came running out of the dark in front of them.

“Dammit all!” Ambrose cried, then grabbed Aberto by his coveralls. “What are you carrying on about, boy?”

Aberto, known around the yard as a hard worker, was uncharacteristically shaken. He babbled in Italian, talking so fast that it sounded like a cadence of nonsense.

“What in the blazes?” came Dell’s voice from down the track.

“Oh boy,” Eddie said.

Dell stormed out of the blackness, the latern highlighting his ruddy face. “What in the name of Sonny Jesus is he on about?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Eddie offered.

Dell ignored him, poking Aberto with a meaty finger. “Hey, Giuseppe,” he barked. “What’s got you spooked?”

Again, Aberto started chattering. This time, Eddie picked one word out: monstro.

“He’s saying something about a monster, Dell,” Eddie said.

Dell turned to face him. “You speak this pig Latin?”

“A little bit,” he said. “My neighbors down on Harbor Street were from Sicily.”

“Alright, you’re our interpreter, then,” Dell shoved Aberto over to Eddie as if he were a thing that needed to be dealt with.

Eddie gestured for Aberto to sit with him, then spoke quietly in Italian. “Aberto, my friend,” he began gently. “Tell me, what did you see?”

Aberto began to speak, his voice quivering but much calmer now. As he spoke, Eddie translated.

“He says they were working on a section of track just before the curve of the tunnel.”

“Who’s they?” Dell asked.

“Aberto and Enzo.”

“I should have known,” Dell muttered. “Thick as thieves they are. Go on.”

“He says that they saw glowing eyes peering at them from out of the darkness. Aberto walked closer and white shapes flew out of the air. He says they came in and out of the blackness.”

Dell’s cynical snigger conveyed his disbelief. Aberto continued as Eddie translated.
“Aberto says he held up his lantern to get a closer look at one of the shapes, and that’s when he saw its face.”

“What did it look like?” asked Ambrose, now intrigued. Eddie asked the question and Albert’s answer came in quaking tones of total fear. Eddie spoke.

“The face of death,” he said. “Hollow eyes inside a white face. Like…like a skull.”

“What about his friend?” said Dell, his patience worn out. Again Aberto spoke.

“He says the creature got him. That they both tried to run and it grabbed Enzo’s ankles and pulled him back.”

As he finished this last sentence, Aberto began to weep, sinking back against the tunnel wall.

“Well, I’ve heard just about enough horseshit to fill me up for the day,” Dell snorted. He grabbed Aberto and yanked him up. “Come along, ya lazy dago. Let’s go see this creature face to face.”

Aberto began to protest wildly, his head shaking. Eddie stepped forward. “Aberto!” he said speaking Italian, “I’ll come to. You won’t be alone.”

“Me too,” offered Ambrose. “No way am I standing around here by my lonesome.”

“It’s settled then,” said Dell. “Let’s meet the monster.”

* * *

The four men made their way back through the tunnel, remaining silent as they walked. The only sounds heard were the crunching of the stones under their feet and the steady drip from the ever-present condensation on the tunnel walls. Suddenly, a flash of something white caused them to stop at once.

“What was that?” Eddie whispered.

“Il monstro,” said Aberto.

Again, the white shape stole in and out of the flickering lamplight. Eddie squinted and could have sworn he saw a quick glimmer of gold, like the way a cat’s eye catches the light in a darkened room.

“There’s something out there,” Ambrose said ominously.

“Aw hell,” Dell grunted. “Yer all just seeing what you want to is all.”

Ambrose padded forward gingerly, holding his lantern up ahead of him. “Hello?” he called, his voice echoing.

At that moment, the tunnel exploded with a hideous and inhuman sound, like an animal shrieking in extreme fear. The thing ahead of them suddenly charged. In a panic, Eddie and the other men pinwheeled back. Ambrose caught his foot on one of the ties and toppled over, knocking himself into Eddie and Dell. Their lanterns clattered onto the tunnel floor, dimming the light.

“Jesus!” Dell called out. His voice rang with absolute panic. “What in the hell is it?”

Aberto began his cadence again. “Il monstro! Il monstro! Il monstro!”

Eddie felt whatever it was brush past him in the semi-dark. Horns, he thought crazily. The damn thing has horns.

Scrabbling about the tunnel floor, Ambrose felt for his lantern. When he clutched it in his hand, he held it up to stare the monster square in the face. When he saw what it was, he acted on his first impulse and lunged straight for it.

“Ambrose!” Eddie shouted. “Don’t!!”

Ambrose reached out grabbed the thing, snaking both his arms around its neck. The tunnel was filled with a hysterical bleating that made Eddie’s blood freeze, then everything was silent. Dell struggled to his feet and held up his own lantern.

“Well ain’t that somethin’?” he said.

Eddie and Aberto stood as well to see Ambrose standing there, a sheep struggling in his arms.

“Didn’t you say that train was carrying livestock, boss?”


* * *

As it turned out, there were four sheep in the tunnel, part of the live cargo on the second freight train. They had been in the tunnel since the wreck and had been subsisting on the meager amounts of hay that had been scattered in the crash. Dell shook his head.

“Goddamn dagos and their superstitions.”

“I don’t know, Dell,” Eddie offered, “You seemed pretty convinced when Bo Peep and her three friends came after you.”

“Shut yer yap,” he sneered. “Now where’s the other one? Aberto’s friend, what happened to him?”

“Over here, boss,” called Ambrose.

The men walked up the tracks a few yards and found Enzo, alive. As he had tried to run from the sheep, his ankle had gotten caught on a railroad tie and been snapped. He’d lain there trying to move ever since.

“Well now, that’s just perfect,” said Dell. “How’re we supposed to finish the job with a cripple on the team?”

“Someone’s got to take him back to the yard,” said Eddie. “Take the handcar and get that ankle looked at.”

“One man’s all I’m giving,” Dell sniffed. “I’m not losing a day’s work to play nursemaid to some halfwit who can’t tell a sheep from a ha’ant.”

“It takes two men to run the Gandy dancer boss,” offered Ambrose. “Two standing men.”

“Oh hell, what’d I do to deserve getting thrown in with you humps? Alright, two, but no more. And you’re getting docked for the lost time. So who’s it gonna be?”

“I’ll go,” said Eddie.

“Me too,” Ambrose said.

“What a couple of heroes,” Dell said. “Get your asses in gear and then straight back here. You stop in at the Spinning Wheel for boilermakers and it’ll come out of your hides.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Eddie and Ambrose were rolling back through the tunnel. Enzo was lying on the attached clearance car, groaning in pain.

“Hang in there, Enzo,” Eddie piped up. “We’ll have you back home on Shelter Road before the sun sets.”

“Thank you both for taking me back,” Enzo said.

“Well, just remember our generosity the next time your momma makes Sunday din…”

Ambrose never got to finish his sentence. The handcar hit a section of broken track and derailed. Ambrose and Eddie were thrown clear off the car. Eddie landed on the ground hard and the wind exploded from his body in a painful burst. Ambrose struck the tunnel wall and slumped down, inert. Both the handcar and clearance car were jettisoned from the track, screeching down the rails for a few feet before skidding to a halt at a haphazard angle. Eddie sat up, trying to catch his breath.

“Ambrose!” he called. “Enzo! You all right?”

“Yes,” answered Enzo. “I’m alright.”

“Ambrose?”

“I’m here,” he said. “Got my bell rung a bit, but I’m here.”

They both stood up and walked over to help Enzo to his feet. The three men surveyed the wreckage. A cynical smile crossed Enzo’s face.

“What was that you were saying about having me home before sunset?”

* * *

Dell was, unsurprisingly, furious.

“What in God’s green earth are we supposed to do now? How the hell can we finish the job without a clearance car?”

“We’ll have to clear the tracks and stack everything off to the side,” said Norman.
“When the relief crew comes, they’ll have to take it all out. It’s messy, but it’s been done before.”

“What about Enzo?” Johnny asked. “Ain’t we got to take him back to the yard?”

“How?” said Eddie. “He can’t walk five miles on a broken ankle.”

“We have no choice,” Sixkiller said. “We have to bunk here.”

“Bunk here?” said Dell. “You’ve been drinking too much firewater, Chief. Where are we supposed to stay?”

“There’s a crew house about a mile up, not far from the Central Shaft” Norman said. “Built when they were digging out the tunnel. Carved right out of the rock. It ain’t much, but they’ve got a field telephone and a small fireplace.”

“Well, it ain’t the Hilton, but I guess it’ll do,” said Eddie. “Let’s get moving.”

“And what are we supposed to do about food and water?” Dell protested.

“Norman said the place has a field telephone,” Eddie said. “We’ll call the roundhouse, let them know what happened. They should send a crew out in the morning. In the meantime, we’ll ration the water we’ve got in our canteens.”

“And food?”

Everyone was quiet a moment, trying to puzzle out a solution. Sixkiller smiled.

“Might be time to see just what kind of livestock they were hauling.”

* * *

The fire crackled and hissed inside the crewhouse as Ambrose turned the pig around on a crudely-made spit. Johnny tilted back in his chair and whistled.

“Whooo-eee! I can taste those fatbacks already!”

“Why bother going home boys?” Ambrose laughed. “We could eat like kings down here!”

“Hey Eddie,” said Johnny as he dragged on a Pall Mall. “Didn’t you boys find some live sheep? I could go for a rack of lamb.”

“Ah, leave ’em be,” Eddie said. “They’re malnourished and probably not much longer for the world.”

“Besides,” said Norman, cleaning his pipe at the table. “Who’d want to eat that gamey shit?”

“Don’t eat it if you don’t want to, old man,” said Johnny. “But I might just go hunting in the morning.”

“No one’s going hunting,” barked Dell. “We’re bunking down here and then we’re getting back to work. That’s it. You get the roundhouse on the horn yet, chief?”

“No,” Sixkiller said as he walked back into the room. “Phone’s dead.”

“Don’t surprise me none,” said Norman. “Crews don’t come down here much these days. Time was, men used to stay down a night or two. Now just trackwalkers come through, and they don’t stay overnight.”

“These trackwalkers do!” Johnny said with a laugh. “We go the extra mile for the railroad.”

Enzo sat up, rubbing the makeshift splint on his ankle. “So if the phone is dead,” he began, “How are we supposed to get in touch with the railroad?”

“We don’t,” said Dell simply. “We wait until the scheduled crew arrives, two days from now.”

The thought of two days down in the choking darkness of the Whipmill tunnel filled all the men with a palpable sense of dread. At that moment, Ambrose arrived with the charred carcass of the pig. Johnny eyed it hungrily.

“Well, if I got to stay down here for two days, at least I’ll eat well.”

* * *

A few hours later, most of the crew had sacked out on the floor. The fire had died down to a few embers, though it still popped every once in awhile, as if to remind the room of its presence. Johnny was staring out the window of the crew house, listening to the wind whip down the tunnel.

“Gives me the creeps stayin’ down here,” he muttered.

“What’s the matter, Rubber?” Ambrose laughed. “You scared of ghosts?”

“Don’t laugh,” Johnny said. “I heard people seen things down here. And not things from storybooks, neither. Weird things. Stuff people don’t write about. Stuff they don’t even talk about.”

“Whoooo,” Eddie said in his best banshee impersonation, and the room broke up.

“You laugh, but Jimmy Traylor disappeared down here. No one never found the body or nothin’.”

“Jimmy Traylor spent every one of his days so lit up on Purple Jesuses he saw two tracks instead of one,” Ambrose said. “From what I heard, diesel hit ’im.”

“What about you, Norman?” Johnny asked, looking for someone to rally to his cause. “You’ve been comin’ down here longer than the lot of us. You ever see anything?”

Norman took a thoughtful puff, then spoke. “Well sir, I can’t claim to know much about ghosts and such. A man my age tends only to believe only in what he sees. But when I was a younger man, I came across something that I couldn’t hardly explain.”

Eddie, Ambrose and Johnny leaned forward, now interested. Norman cleared his throat.

“Back ’bout sixty years ago, when they were first digging this place out, the highest-paying crewmen were the blasters, the fellas who packed the rock with nitroglycerine and exploded it to dust. It paid well because it was the most dangerous job on the line. I was just a pup then, ’bout twenty and a half. One of my good friends at the time was Tommy Drucker. Craziest sumbitch you ever saw. Full up with courage and just as stone-brained as they come. But he was a lot of fun to knock around with. I once saw him jump into the Dover River from the Sugarwalk Bridge, out where highway 101 is now.”

“That was him?” Johnny asked, wide-eyed. “Lordy, I’ve heard talk ’bout that down at the Spinning Wheel"

"When the news of this tunnel project came ’round," Norman continued, "we both signed on. I had just married Gina, and Tommy figured it beat working for his old man at the tannery. So he lands himself a job working as a blaster, while they put me to digging out the porridge stone. We’re on the job for a few weeks, and things are going well, till one day, Tommy gets a fuse that won’t light. The damp down in the tunnel had soaked into that thing. The foreman called for him to pack it in for the day, but he wasn’t hearing it. He wasn’t about to let the next shift finish what he’d started. So Tommy kept at it. A few minutes later, they heard an explosion down in the tunnel.”

Norman’s voice became quiet and his eyes squinted as the memory flooded back.
“We laid Tommy in the ground two days later in a closed casket. The charge had blown his head clean off its shoulders.”

The room was silent. Although this accident had happened long before any of them were born, Eddie, Ambrose and Johnny treated it with due respect. They had all worked the line for most of their years, and in that time, they’d seen their share of friends go down in its service. Norman went on.

“So, some years later, maybe aught-five or so, I’m walking the track in the Whipmill when I see another lantern down at the other end of the tunnel. I figure it’s just another walker taking the East/West pass. I raise my lantern and call out ‘Hello!’ But he doesn’t answer. We get a little closer and still he’s not saying a word. Plus, I notice his steps are awful quiet. No gravel or anything under his boots. Finally, we pass each other and I raise my lantern to get a look.” Norman paused. “The man had no head. Nothing at all from the neck up.”

Johnny’s eyes widened, the look of a child who’s just heard the gory outcome of a fairy tale. “What’d you do?” he asked in a whisper.

“Nothin’” Norman shrugged. “I knew it was Tommy, still working the line. I nodded in respect to my old friend, and then I let him get on with his work.”

There was a material silence in the wake of Norman’s story, broken only by
Ambrose’s deep laughter. “That’s a hell of a story, old timer.”

“It’s not my story,” Norman smiled, gesturing out to the tunnel walls. “It’s hers.”

* * *

They awoke early after a fitful night in the cold and damp of the crew house. Even the fire did little to stave off the constant chill. The men stumbled into the tunnel, deprived of sleep and coffee, coughing, stretching and dragging heavily on their Pall Malls. By nine they’d settled into a fairly steady rhythm, each working their own section of the tunnel in pairs. Only Enzo remained back at the crew house, with Johnny to watch him. Someone would be back in the afternoon to take Johnny’s shift.

At the eastern end of the tunnel, Aberto and Norman were clearing away a section of track, stacking whatever they could neatly along the walls. As they worked, Norman talked away. Anyone who worked with Norman knew how much he talked. He said it made the work go faster. And while it drove some men batty, most enjoyed working to the steady cadence of Norman’s tall tales. It kept the time down in the dark moving at a livelier pace. After a few hours of jawing away, Norman turned to Aberto, who was working a good fifty feet from him.

“Don’t say much, d’ya, boy?” he called to Aberto. “Guessin’ it’s cause you don’t speak the language. Well, that’s alright, I’ll talk enough for the both of us.”

Norman turned back to his work and delved into another story, when suddenly he heard a scrabbling sound off to his left, like loose gravel spilling from the walls. A moment later, he heard a muffled noise. To Norman, it almost sounded like a scream being cut short. He walked towards where Aberto was, raising his lantern.

“Aberto?” he called, his voice echoing. “You there?”

Silence. Norman continued to walk down the tunnel, keeping his lantern ahead of him. In the pale light, he could make out a shape moving in the darkness. It was hunched over and moving in a jerky, irregular pattern.

“Aberto!” he called. “Just what in the hell are you doing?”

The thing in the darkness turned and rose up to face Norman. He could now see it fully in the light from his lantern.

It wasn’t Aberto.

“God and Sonny Jesus,” he breathed. Quickly, he turned to run and ran smack into another one of the creatures. The last thing Norman heard before everything went black was the hideous beating of wings.

* * *

Back in the crew house, Enzo sat at the fireplace, stoking the last of the night’s embers.

“Do you know if the chimney really does go all the way to the top?” he asked.

“Nah, don’t think so,” answered Johnny as he tossed cards into his Dodgers cap. “My daddy worked down here and he told me it only goes up about half the way or so. It connects to the Central Shaft, which ventilates all the exhaust from the locomotives.”

Enzo peered up the chimney. “Fascinating.”

“Sure is,” Johnny answered, “Fact of business is, my daddy said…”

He never finished what he was about to say. Before Johnny could utter another word, something reached down from inside the chimney and yanked Enzo up through it. Unfortunately, Enzo’s body was not designed to go through a space that small and promptly got stuck at the shoulders.

Johnny leapt forward, grabbing a hold of Enzo’s legs. He held on as hard as he could, but whatever had a hold of Enzo was not willing to let go. Johnny tried to ignore his friend’s screams and focused on getting him out of the chimney. The two engaged in a tug of war for a moment before Johnny dug his heels into the hearth and managed to drag Enzo down part of the way.

“I gotcha!” he said in triumph. At that moment, the thing that had grabbed his friend came shrieking down the chimney. When Johnny saw its face, all the fight drained from him. He scrabbled back as he stared at the nightmare that had invaded their crew house. In a flash of movement, the thing grabbed Enzo, folded his body as easy as a washerwoman tending to a bedsheet and whipped back up the chimney in a flurry of black. Johnny stared at the space where Enzo and the monster were a moment ago, then did the only. He threw up.

* * *

Eddie, Ambrose and Dell were working a section of track about a mile from the crew house when they heard Johnny’s screams coming at them from the dark.

“It took him! It took him! It took him!”

“What in heaven’s name is it now?” Dell seethed.

Johnny came streaking at them, running into Ambrose full-bore. Ambrose grabbed Johnny gently but with enough force to settle him down.

“It took him! It took him!” he continued.

“Easy, Johnny, easy,” Ambrose said. “What happened?”

“Enzo…it took Enzo. Come right out the chimbley and took ’im.”

Eddie stepped forward. “What did? What took Enzo?”

Johnny’s eyes widened, as if he was horrified to even have to explain it. His voice dropped to a whisper. “A monster,” he whispered.

Dell threw down his shovel. “Now that’s it! I’ve heard all the monster and spook stories I’m gonna hear.”

In the commotion, Sixkiller had come into the group and was listening to what Johnny had to say.

“Easy there, Dell,” he said, “let the man speak.”

“Easy, nothing,” Dell shot back. “Yesterday it was those two guineas chattering about ghosts now I’ve got this cretin telling me he saw a monster. What’s next? The Easter Bunny?”

“Alright,” said Eddie. “Let’s say he’s confused or making it up or whatever. Then where’s Enzo?”

“Who knows?” Dell shrugged. “Back there nursing that bum leg, no doubt. Could be he got himself kilt, I’ll go that far.”

“By what, then?” said Ambrose.

“Christ knows? Probably a damn cougar got ’im. Happens all the time.”

“Excuse me sir,” said Johnny, now seeming to have regained some of his composure. “I make no claim to be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I know enough to be sure of one thing. That weren’t no cougar.”

“What was it, then, Johnny?” Sixkiller asked.

Johnny thought a moment before shaking his head. “I don’t know. Something awful. Like out of a nightmare.”

Dell became infuriated. His face turned a bright red. “Well now I’ve just ’bout heard it all! How in the hell did I get saddled with a bunch of no-account retards like the lot of you?”

He walked a few feet and then turned and pointed an accusing finger at them. “Now all of you listen to me. We’re getting this job done and we’re going to do it like men, do you understand? And the next goddamn pantywaist who says anything about giant monsters, man-eating sheep or the leaping Christ on a pogo stick is going to get their skull thumped by the blade of this shovel. Do I make myself clear????”

Before an answer to the foreman’s ultimatum could even be given, something black and horrible descended from the ceiling. It wrapped two leathery wing-like arms around the Dell’s body and tore him in two with a sound like splintering wood.

“Jesus!” Eddie yelled.

“Run, dammit!” Ambrose cried and the men turned on their heels and streaked back down the tunnel, keenly aware that whatever had taken Dell down was now scrabbling along the ceiling in pursuit of them.

“The crew house,” Sixkiller yelled. “Get to the crew house!”

The men wasted no time in getting back to the crew house. They dove inside as the
monster from the ceiling tore after them. All four of them threw their bodies up against the door, holding it shut. The creature outside slammed into it with such force that it briefly knocked them back onto the floor.

“Don’t let it in! Don’t let it in!” Johnny shrieked.

The thing outside crashed against the door again and again, sending dust everywhere. The room was filled with the panicked cries of the men and the rhythmic pounding of the animal, or whatever it was, outside.

“Give me something to brace the door!” yelled Eddie.

“There ain’t nothing!” Johnny yelled, searching frantically through the shack.
“Goddammit, it’s coming through!”

“I don’t know how much longer I can hold it back,” Sixkiller groaned, forcing his entire weight against the door. Another punch from the beast and a portion of the wood broke away.

“It’s coming in!!!” cried Johnny.

“We’ve got to be ready to fight this thing!!!!” screamed Eddie.

All of a sudden a deafening roar filled the crew house, startling all of the men. The door shattered, and the creature let out a scream so loud that every single person felt the air around them move from the sheer force of the sound. Then, just as quickly, silence fell about the room. Eddie, Johnny and Sixkiller looked up to see Ambrose holding a 12-gauge shotgun, smoke drifting lazily from the barrel. There was a brief moment as everyone processed what had just happened, then Eddie spoke, his voice reedy from stress.

“Where’d you get the gun, Ambrose?”

Ambrose kept both the gun and his eyes fixed on the door.

“Found it in the crew locker.”

“Yeah,” said Johnny with the tone of someone who’s just had a great idea. “They must’ve used it for deers and grizzlies and such!”

Ambrose kept the gun trained on the door and walked toward it.

“Now we used it to bag something else,” he said.

“But what?” Sixkiller mused.

Eddie stood up and dusted himself off.

“Why don’t we go outside and see?”

* * *

The four men walked out onto the tracks, shining their lanterns in the hopes of seeing what it was that tore Dell apart. Ambrose brandished the 12-gauge, ready to unload another round.

“Watch yourself,” he whispered. “The damn thing could be hiding.”

“Maybe you just winged it,” Eddie said.

After several minutes of searching the tunnel space around the crew house, they came to an unmistakable conclusion. The creature, whatever it was, was gone.

“What’s going on around here?” Johnny protested. “I thought you kilt ’im!”

“I hit him point-blank,” argued Ambrose.

“So then where the hell is it?”

“It’s gone,” said Sixkiller with enough authority to make everyone turn to face him.

“You know something’, chief?” asked Johnny.

“Maybe,” said Sixkiller. He squatted down a moment and picked up a handful of gravel. “My grandfather lived alone here in the mountains for many years. He would tell me tales of the things that lived here. People and beasts never written about in our legends. Shape-shifters, spirit-people, beasts of the air that could disappear like smoke.” Sixkiller laughed. “I always thought he was just a crazy old man. I never believed those stories until right now.”

“So that’s what we’re dealing with here?” asked Eddie. “Some kind of mythical animal?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Sixkiller shrugged. “My grandfather would always say that there’s more than one path that leads from our world into the next. Many doors to travel through, both in and out.”

“I’m not following your riddles, redskin,” Johnny said. “Just give it to me straight. Are we going to die down here?”

“We might. After all, if we are dealing with some of the creatures my grandfather told us about, it was their mountain before it was ours.”

“Alright then,” said Ambrose. “But the tunnel’s been running for sixty years. How come no one’s ever seen one of these things before?”

“Well for one thing, if they did, they probably didn’t live to tell about it,” Eddie said.

“I tole you,” Johnny mumbled. “Jimmy Traylor.”

“It’s possible that these things, whatever they are, have been living here for some time, hibernating and only coming out to feed,” Sixkiller said.

“Then what woke them up?” asked Eddie.

A look of comprehension crossed Ambrose’s face. “The crash,” he said. “The crash in the tunnel must’ve woke them.”

“Two locomotives hitting head on…” pondered Sixkiller.

“It was a helluva wreck,” said Johnny. “Blewed holes in the tunnel walls up and down the length.”

“If this tunnel was theirs to begin with, these things obviously want it back.” Sixkiller said.

“Well they can have it,” said Eddie. “Let’s get out of here and call it even.”

“Amen to that,” Ambrose said.

“Where we are now, we’re closer to the Western end of the tunnel,” Eddie said, looking around. “I say we pick up our gear and head out that way.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Johnny. “But one thing, shouldn’t we be armed?”

* * *

Shortly after making the decision to leave the tunnel, the four men were making their way West. Before leaving, they had raided the supplies in the crew house, foraging for whatever weapons they could find. Sixkiller carried a hammer-like spike driver, Johnny had uncovered a pair of giant tie-tongs, which were used to drag and carry cross-ties. He held them out from his body like a child carrying a set of scissors. Eddie carried a large alligator wrench in his right hand, thumping the head into his left in a steady beat. Ambrose, taking the lead, still held the 12-gauge at the ready.

As they walked, they didn’t talk much, preferring to simply watch the tunnel walls and ceilings for any sign of movement. After a half-hour or so, the first hint of light from the tunnel’s western end became visible.

“Thank Christ,” Johnny breathed. A feeling of relief washed over all of them. They were going to make it.

That’s when they saw a sight that made their blood freeze.

In the dim light cast by the tunnel’s entrance, they could make out their silhouettes. It seemed they were clustered around the ceiling. Roosting, Eddie thought and the word filled him with revulsion. Their movements were subtle, but it was enough to let the four of them know that leaving out the Western entrance was no longer an option.

“Dammit,” Ambrose hissed.

“They were waiting for us,” Sixkiller mused. “They’re not going to let us out.”

“Well so what?” said Johnny. “We’re armed ain’t we? I say we go after ’em!”

“We don’t know what they’ll do if we charge them,” Eddie argued. “We saw what one of them did to Dell. It tore him in half like a paper doll. There’s no telling how many of them are down there.”

“So what?” Johnny said. “We’re just supposed to stay here in the dark waiting for those things to swallow us whole?”

“We find another way out,” said Sixkiller.

“Where?” Johnny asked, his voice beginning to break. “In case you didn’t notice, we’re in the middle of a goddamned tunnel!!”

“The Central Shaft,” said Ambrose.

“Right,” Eddie said. “Back by the crew house. It leads straight up and out of the tunnel.”

“You’re talking about a thousand-foot climb,” Sixkiller said. “Through a ventilation shaft that’s little more than a glorified chimney.”

“There’s an elevator shaft there,” said Eddie. “Built in the late 1870s to shuttle builders back and forth. It hasn’t worked in years, so far as I know, but the structure’s still intact. There should be ladders, latticework, something we can hold on to. Hell, it’s a chance, isn’t it?”

“No way,” Johnny protested. “There’s no way it can work. The entrance is right there and you’re asking us to climb our way through some goddamn stovepipe? Hell with that, and with the lot of you!”

Johnny began to walk forward towards the Western entrance. As he moved, the remaining men noticed the shapes on the ceiling begin to retreat. Johnny turned back to face them.

“You see? They’re a-running already!”

Eddie suddenly had a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Johnny!” he called out. “Don’t move, dammit!”

It was too late. From either side of the tunnel a phalanx of the creatures suddenly arose.

“Creeping Jesus!” Johnny cried and instinctively swung his tie-tongs. The metal tool collided with the skull of one of the tunnel-beasts, knocking it back against the walls. It let out another horrid shriek and disappeared like mist. Almost instantly, another creature descended from the ceiling, pulling him up through a cavernous hole. Johnny’s screams echoed through the tunnel.

“C’mon!” Eddie called and the three men charged the creatures. In the silhouetted light of the tunnel, they could just barely make out the semi-human features of the beings attacking them. Eddie thought of what Sixkiller had told them as he drove a wrench into one of them. Beasts of the air that could disappear like smoke.

Sixkiller buried his spike driver into one of the creatures, forcing it up against the brick. Hideous black ichor spewed from the wound, spraying his face and arms. The thing beat against him with its leathery arms before evaporating.

Ambrose fired off several shots from his 12-gauge, causing the creatures to disperse, briefly.

“Come on!” Ambrose yelled.

“What about Johnny?” asked Sixkiller. “We can’t just leave him!”

“There’s nothing we can do for him now,” said Eddie. “We’ve got to get back to the crew house and up into the Central Shaft or we’ve all had it.”

The three men ran as fast as they could, pounding the tracks with their steps. The creatures remained in pursuit, scratching their way to them along the walls and ceilings. Finally, they reached the crew house. Inside was the entrance to the Shaft.

“Let’s go, boys,” said Eddie.

At that moment, one of the things leapt from the dark, streaking at them with full force. Sixkiller raised his spike driver and thrust it through its chest, using its momentum to fling it against the wall. The creature dissolved, but not before lashing out with one of its claws and slashing Sixkiller across the chest. He cried out and fell to the ground.

“No!” screamed Eddie, racing to the fallen man.

Sixkiler smiled weakly. “Looks like I won’t have to worry about that climb after all.”

“Don’t say that,” said Eddie. “You’re coming with us.”

“I guess it’s fitting,” he grimaced. “My grandfather is buried here in this mountain. It seems as though I’ll be seeing him again.”

“If we’re going to go, we’ve got to go now.” said Ambrose. “Can you make it, chief?”

“Doesn’t seem likely, Ambrose.”

Ambrose turned the butt of the shotgun towards Sixkiller.

“You need this?”

Sixkiller struggled to his feet. “No thanks,” he said determinedly. “I’ve got everything I need.”

Eddie clasped Sixkiller on the shoulder.

“Good luck, Billy.”

“To us all.”

Ambrose and Eddie ducked into the crew house and headed for the entrance to the Central Shaft. From the shadows ahead of him, Sixkiller could hear the creatures scrabbling towards him. Their maddened chittering filled the tunnel. Deep inside him Billy could feel the boiling of his warrior blood.

“I am Billy Sixkiller of the Iroquois nation,” he said to himself. “I have lived long and full. I have counted coup on many of my enemies and today, I swear to you, I will spill your blood with my own.”

The beasts screamed forward from the darkness. Billy Sixkiller gripped the handle of his spike driver and waited. He was ready.

It was a good day to die.

* * *

Eddie and Ambrose burst through the door of the crew house, racing to the shaft’s entrance. They peered up the gaping hole. A fifth of a mile above their heads, they could just make out the exit into daylight. Elaborate wooden scaffolding snaked up along the sides of the shaft.

“Let’s start climbing,” Ambrose, throwing the shotgun over his shoulders by its strap.
The two men gripped their hands on the beams and hoisted themselves up. Hand over hand they climbed, buffeted slightly by the ever-present wind that blew through the shaft. After more than twenty-four hours of intense exertion with little food and water, they both felt their bodies rebelling against them. Every inch of the climb took more strength than they had. At five hundred feet, they were both so winded they had to take a rest. Both of them hooked their arms around the beams and let the tension drift from their bodies. Ambrose hung on one side of the shaft, while Eddie on the other.

“Guess we really earned that ten dollars, huh?” Ambrose laughed.

Eddie shook his head, joining in the laughter. The sound reverberated through the shaft. It felt good to laugh. It was something neither of them were sure they’d ever be able to do again.

Eddie was still laughing when the two claws sprang from behind him and embedded themselves in his right shoulder. Ambrose’s eyes widened and he scrambled for his shotgun. At that moment, a second creature lunged from the dark and attempted to hook itself around Ambrose’s throat. He lost his footing and felt himself falling down the shaft.

No.

With a jerk, Ambrose was pulled back from his freefall. He turned around and saw that the strap of his gun was snagged on a rotted outcropping of beam. Quickly, Ambrose found his footing, then turned his body around so that he was face to face with the horrible thing from the tunnel. It stared him down with dark, obsidian eyes and opened its fetid mouth to emit a hissing scream. Ambrose jammed the barrel of the shotgun into its horrid maw and discharged the trigger.

The report of the gun echoed in the shaft with the sound of a bomb going off. In a flash, the thing disappeared in a cloud of black. He took a second to catch his breath and then turned to see Eddie, still battling with the creature that had embedded itself in his arm. The thing had opened its mouth and was attempting to lodge its jaws in Eddie’s jugular.

“Eddie!” Ambrose called. “The elevator cable!”

Eddie looked and saw the rotting cable left over from the 19th century and knew what he had to do. In one swift motion he sprang from his moorings, dragging the creature with him. Eddie caught hold of the cable and clung there. Ambrose leveled his weapon at the beast.

“Just don’t miss,” Eddie said, feeling his energy drain away.

The shotgun blast knocked the screeching creature loose. It let go of Eddie and fell backwards down the shaft disintegrating as it plummeted.

“I never miss,” Ambrose said.

Exhausted, Eddie slumped against the wood. Suddenly there was a sickening crack as the beam beneath his feet gave way. Just as he was about to fall, Eddie felt himself be yanked back by the front of his shirt. He looked up to see Ambrose’s smiling face.

“Where you think you’re going?”

* * *

The rest of the climb was relatively uneventful, save for the fact that Ambrose had to carry Eddie most of the way thanks to his newly-wounded shoulder. Finally, after what felt like hours, the two men reached the top of the shaft. Late afternoon sunlight spilled onto their faces. Both men lay in the grass, looking up at the trees and feeling the late summer air.

“Where do we go from here?” Eddie asked, gasping for breath.

“I say we get that shoulder looked at, then we find the first boxcar out of here.”

“California sounds good to me.”

Ambrose smiled broadly. “I never seen the ocean before.”

“Then let’s get moving.”

Slowly, the two men struggled to their feet and began walking through the woods down the mountain, never looking back over their shoulders. After a few steps, both men began to run.

Somehow, after what he had seen during those two days in the tunnel, Eddie knew he’d probably be running for the rest of his life.

* * *

The handcar wheeled its way along the tracks, on its way into the Whipmill Tunnel. Mert Tanay and Cyril Wheeler were at the handle as the first part of the relief team.

“Hello?” Mert called as Cyril flashed his signal lamp.

“No sign of ’em,” Cyril said after they passed the first mile marker. “Strange, huh?”

“Hope a grizzly didn’t get ’em,” said Mert. “They get ornery this close to hibernatin’.”

“Ain’t been a grizzly down in the Whipmill in some time,” Cyril said as he peered into the tunnel. “Still, stranger things have happened down here.”

“You got that right. Let’s go on a bit more, then call it a day. This place gives me the willies.”

Slowly, the two men pushed their handcart down the tracks, gliding deeper and deeper into the all-consuming dark.