Chapter 1 #2
Travis took a quick shower, letting the hot water sluice over him, making sure the dust didn’t clump since he had no desire to try to get cement out of his hair. He breathed deeply, letting the delayed reaction of mortal terror drain away as his heartbeat slowed to normal.
Monster hunting wasn’t a career choice with a retirement package.
More like penance, not so different from making a vow to a holy order or swearing allegiance to an army.
But as he and Brent often remarked over coffee or a “glad-we’re-still-alive” beer, it was a dirty job someone had to do, and they were uniquely qualified.
The vision came on suddenly, between one breath and the next. He saw a concrete entrance into a hillside with huge steel doors. The doors swung open of their own accord, but it was too dark to see inside. In the next breath, all-consuming fire obliterated the entrance and the hillside.
“Hey, leave me some hot water!” Brent banged on the bathroom door, only partially in jest. “I’m too old for cold showers.”
“What? Can’t hear you!” Travis tried to buy himself time to get his thudding heart under control.
“Fucker,” he heard Brent mutter. Travis turned off the water and toweled off.
Visions weren’t new to Travis. He had glimpsed snippets of the past, present, and future all his life.
No matter how baffling they seemed when they first appeared, they usually turned out to be related to something he was struggling with in the present.
Right now, Travis couldn’t imagine any connection to the fiery scene he had just witnessed.
He dressed quickly, threw his clothes in a plastic grocery bag to take back to the mission, and checked his hair one last time for cement before relinquishing the bathroom.
“All yours,” he said as Brent passed him on the way in with a stack of his own clothing. “Are there cookies?”
“I even left some for you,” Brent teased. “And if you drink all the coffee, make more.” He closed the door in Travis’s face, laughing.
Travis went out to the office lobby, which had once been a living room, and helped himself, sitting on the couch to wait for Brent.
In the time they had been working together, the two loners had forged a solid friendship and trusting partnership, something Travis was grateful for but still found remarkable.
Since their efforts were mistrusted as vigilantism by regular law enforcement, which didn’t openly acknowledge the existence of the paranormal, that bond mattered a lot.
“I left most of a pot for you,” Travis said when Brent joined him, still toweling off his wet hair.
“Alex is due to make a supply run, so running out isn’t really a problem,” Brent replied. “Cookies, coffee, pain killers, first-aid supplies, salt in the big industrial-sized container, and whiskey.”
“Sounds like what Matthew orders every week, except for the whiskey.” Travis didn’t have any issues with alcohol and often joined Brent for a drink, but out of respect for the halfway house residents who struggled with sobriety, he didn’t allow any on the property.
Brent raised his coffee cup in salute. “Cheers.” He shoved a cookie in his mouth and took a couple of swallows before giving a satisfied sigh.
“I don’t want to tempt fate, but we both got out of there fairly unscathed. That’s a rarity,” he observed.
“Don’t jinx us,” Travis cautioned. “Do you need me to bless some more holy water while I’m here?”
“Sure. Thanks. Comes in handy.” Brent ate a second cookie and washed it down.
“Does it seem like the ghosts have gotten more aggressive lately? Almost like they’re provoking a fight?”
Travis hummed in agreement with a mouthful of coffee. “Yeah, and there’s nothing to account for it—full moon, religious holiday, death anniversary. You think C.H.A.R.O.N. is doing something to cause it?”
Brent grumbled several uncharitable epithets. “Maybe. Maybe not, but I’m happy to blame them anyhow.”
C.H.A.R.O.N., which stood for Central Handling Arcane Relics and Occult Networks, was an elite, secretive paramilitary organization of demon hunters who tried and failed repeatedly to recruit Brent, whose distrust ran deep.
Travis and Brent had just run up against CHARON on their last big case, proving that the organization hadn’t cleaned up its act or improved its ethics.
“Could just as easily be Sinistram,” Brent pointed out.
“True,” Travis allowed. “Although juiced-up local hauntings are small fry for them. They like the big world-ending, cackling villain apocalyptic shit.”
“Tell me how you really feel,” Brent teased.
Travis shrugged. “You asked.”
“And maybe it’s just a run of bad luck.” Brent brought over coffee and cookies. “Not everything that happens at the same time is related.”
“Cause and effect can be hard to see without a bigger picture. Not that I want more attacks, but we need more data points.” Travis took a bite of cookie and washed it down with the java. He needed a hit of sugar and caffeine to get a second wind.
“We can contact the other hunters we know in the area,” Brent suggested. “See what they’re hearing, and if things have been busier than usual in their neck of the woods. It could just be a coincidence. But if it isn’t…I’d rather catch it early.”
“I’ll make some calls too,” Travis said. “What’s your calendar like tomorrow? Want to go have a look at the Darr Mine—speaking of spirits acting badly.”
“Nothing I can’t shift around,” Brent answered. “Do you think the problems are random, or connected?”
“Won’t know until we look into it. Could go either way.” Travis refilled his cup and poured more for Brent while he was up.
“How deserted is it? Can we go in daylight, or do we have to sneak in at the dead of night?”
“It’s out near Van Meter, not too far from here.
The mine entrance is closed, and the area is pretty grown over,” Travis replied.
“It’s still the worst coal mining disaster in Pennsylvania history, even though it happened back in 1907.
Which is saying something because there were two other big disasters that same year, one in Pennsylvania and one in West Virginia.
If something supernatural was feeding off death and destruction, it sure got its fill. ”
“How many died?” Brent leaned back and finished his cookie.
“Two hundred and thirty-nine,” Travis said. “The explosion got blamed on miners carrying open lanterns in an unsafe area, but the bosses never took responsibility for that kind of thing,” he added with a bitter note. “Although they did stop using that kind of lamp afterward.”
“Bully for them,” Brent replied.
“Some of the bodies were never recovered. The ones that were brought out were so badly burned they could only be identified by the clothing,” Travis went on. “They weren’t buried at the mine, but there’s a memorial marker. The mine never reopened.”
“I’m guessing that families took their dead for local funerals if they could identify them, and the others were buried in a common grave,” Brent said.
“Probably done quietly, but there’s got to be paperwork somewhere.
Maybe they were buried on the mine property itself, since it no longer functioned? ”
When Travis didn’t respond right away, Brent looked at him with concern. “Are you okay? You seem a little spooked.”
Travis shrugged. Brent knew about his visions, but admitting one always left Travis feeling vulnerable. “I caught a glimpse of something, and I don’t know what I saw.”
“Something…like a vision? Think it’s connected to the mine we’re going to?” Brent asked.
“Don’t know. It didn’t match any of the photos or drone footage of the site that I’ve seen,” Travis replied. Unknowns were dangerous, and he didn’t like loose ends.
Brent listened quietly while Travis described his vision. “Too bad your woo-woo doesn’t come with a time stamp,” Brent said. “At least you didn’t see either of us getting Kentucky-fried.”
“Just keep it in mind,” Travis told him. “It’s bound to show up somewhere.”
“Will do.”
“I don’t begrudge the miners their revenge, but why now?
Like tonight, the people who did them wrong are long gone.
What’s given them the mojo to start attacking people who just happen by at the wrong time?
It’s been over a hundred years. Seems odd for them to just wake up and raise hell,” Brent pointed out.
“Guess it’s our job to find out.” Travis gave Brent an assessing once-over. “You okay from the fire? Need to have Matthew check you out?”
Brent shook his head. “No burns. I checked when I showered. Didn’t get hit with anything. All in all, I’m in good shape, compared to how it usually goes.”
“Me, too,” Travis agreed. “I’ll head back to St. Dismas and get some work done, make some calls. Then we can meet up in the morning and go over to the mine. Sound good?”
“Deal.”
Travis wasn’t surprised that Matthew was still up when he got back to St. Dismas. He and Jon were sitting in the lobby, savoring cups of hot chocolate, trying not to look like parents waiting for an errant teen to come home after curfew.
“Am I grounded?” Travis joked, although he appreciated having people watching out for him.
“That depends,” Jon said with mock seriousness. “Do you deserve to be?
Jon was a former Army chaplain, five-foot ten and forty-something, built like a fireplug with short-cropped dark hair, wary eyes, and chestnut skin.
Matthew was ex-Army, like Brent. That unspoken bond had helped Brent to accept the medic’s services more than once, although it was a language Travis didn’t share.
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that fire at the old cement factory, would you?” Matthew raised an eyebrow.
“Maybe.” Travis didn’t try to prevaricate. Both of the other men knew about the monster hunting and seemed to understand that it was part of Travis’s self-imposed absolution.
“Did it work? And where’s Lawson? He usually needs patching up,” Matthew replied.