Black Creek Falls

The air in Black Creek had always smelled of damp earth and pine needles, a comforting scent that clung to everything like a second skin. But by dawn, that familiar aroma was being choked out by something acrid, something metallic and vaguely rotten. The scream that ripped through the quiet morning air wasn't a human sound, not entirely. It was a guttural, ragged thing that tore at the edges of sleep and pulled me from my bed.

I pulled on my jeans and a worn flannel, my boots finding my feet before I was fully awake. Bubba Morgan. That’s what my mama always said, even when I was just a pup tearing up her flowerbeds. “Bubba Morgan, you got more sense than you let on.” Maybe she was right. Maybe it was just the years spent wrestling with the stubborn guts of a coal mine, or maybe it was the quiet understanding that settled between Jesse and me over a thousand beers and a million shared jokes. Whatever it was, my gut twisted with a certainty that something was deeply, irrevocably wrong.

Downstairs, the radio crackled with static, a broken cough in the silence. Jesse’s wife, Clara, was already in the kitchen, her face pale, her hands trembling as she poured coffee. Her eyes, usually bright and full of laughter, were wide with a fear I’d only seen in the eyes of men who’d seen too much darkness underground.