The Pit-Heads: Short Story Read Free Page A

knew there would have to be a door there — those tracks would lead out to the trestle, and the jagged heap of rocks that it traversed.
    “Graham! For Christ’s sake!” It was Paul, but I didn’t take time to answer him. Something more important had suddenly occupied my attention:
    The clicking had finally stopped.
    And the ladder creaked under new weight.
    I turned and ran towards the light. The floor was clear, but the boards had heaved over the years and I almost tripped twice before I finally fell against the huge door at the end of the tracks. It rattled on its runners as I righted myself. Behind me, I heard the sound of wood snapping, and something grunted — a sound a pig would make.
    I found a metal handle about half-way up and lifted, but the door wouldn’t budge. So I wedged the tip of the crowbar between the floor and the bottom of the door, and stepped on it. There were more splintering sounds; this time coming both from the door in front of me and the ladder behind me.
    “Graham! Get back here!”
    “Forget it, Paul!” I was surprised at how giddy my voice sounded, echoing back at me through the darkness.
    “I’m doing you a Goddamned favour!”
    Whatever was holding the door shut gave way then, and I nearly lost the crowbar as it shot up with the force of the released tension. In a fast motion, I scooped up the crowbar under one arm, and lifted the door up with the other. The pit-head was briefly filled with grey November daylight and I let the door rest on my shoulder.
    The creature was at the top of the ladder. It had cast off its helmet and goggles, revealing patchy whips of hair on a mottled yellow scalp, eyes that seemed all pupil — they glittered blankly in the new light. Its chin and beard were slick with Harry’s blood and its hands
were
claws. The gloves had been discarded on the way up, and they poked out of the snowsuit’s sleeves, dead branches blackened by flame.
    The thing held its arm up against the light for only an instant before it launched itself at me.
    I swung my head under the door and, checking my footing on the trestle outside first, let go. The door clattered down, even as the creature fell against it.
    I backed up a few steps and raised the crowbar again, this time holding it over my shoulder, like a baseball bat.
    I don’t know how long I stood there before it dawned on me that I could climb down any time I wanted; that it wasn’t coming out.
    Before it dawned on me just what kind of creature the thing inside the pit-head was.
    I threw the crowbar ahead of me, and in careful fits and starts, made it to the ground.
    Paul raised his hands and stepped away from the van. I held his 12-gauge cocked and ready at my shoulder, an open box of ammunition on the floor of the van beside the chemical toilet, which I was using as a stool. If the gun were to go off, it would do so with both barrels, and take Paul’s head away in the process.
    “Stay where I can see you,” I told him, and he made no move to disobey. He was framed perfectly in the open panel. “But don’t come any closer. No more tricks, all right?”
    “I’m glad you weren’t hurt,” he said, and at that I swear I almost did shoot him.
    “No thanks to you.”
    “No, Graham,” said Paul, his voice very cool and reasonable considering his circumstances, “if you’d done what I told you to, stood still and waited for it, believe me — you’d thank me.”
    “Yeah, Paul. Just like Jim and Harry are thanking you now. I want you to hand over the keys to the van.”
    “So you can just drive away? Leave all this, leave your work behind?” Paul stood still, kept his eyes on mine as he spoke. “I’m disappointed.”
    I’d been in the back of Paul’s van for about an hour before he’d shown up, and once I’d pried open his gun case and found where he’d kept the ammunition, I’d had little to do but think. Paul had set us up — set us up for something awful — that much was clear. Other things were