Twin Mines

I always knew something was wrong with the people in this town. Always watching you as you drove down Main Street or walked to grab a drink in town. Grandma Darla sat on her front porch in the blistering heat of the Arizona summer in her black dress, raising one white eyebrow as my tires shot out sand and pebbles. I'd look in my rearview mirror, and she would continue staring at my Ford until I was over the small ridge and out of sight. And even then, I would feel her gaze cutting right through the ridge and into my mind like a laser beam honed in on its target.

Merle, the crazy nut on the edge of town, was another watcher. He'd be walking down the side of the road to get to the only bar in town, chewing on anything he could find with his two buckteeth. I once saw him chewing on a dog bone. I make fun of his one large eye, almost bulging out of his skull, to my wife. She would hit me on the shoulder and tell me to stop making fun. But I never realized why I made fun of his eye. Now I do. It freaked me out. Just like every other person in this town. But his eye, I could never get used to. It was like it had a mind of its own. Like a spotlight shining down on you, and there was nothing you could do to get out of its reach.

If it were up to me, we would leave this town for good, but my wife, Stacy, would always push back, saying, "This is my home," or "We are doing good here." So, we stayed. Until that night.

I was walking back to my car from a busy day at the mines. We were being overworked by our snobby boss, Greg, who only cared about how much money we made him. All I cared about was getting out of town, but I was being held hostage by my wife and her family. We had to park a far ways off from the mines because there were no roads to the mine, and my truck wouldn't last offroading, so I took a company-owned Jeep with a few others most of the time. My hands were blistered from working all day, and I could swear my cough was only getting worse every time I went into those mines. It was almost nine in the evening, and I knew I needed some booze to get this nagging thought of my boss off my mind, so I walked past my car, towards the bar across the street.

That's when I saw him. The man. He just stood there in the light of one of the few light posts on the road. He wore a miner's outfit, but it was all broken, ripped. His body was like a twig. He had a completely pale face that felt like a black hole of white. But what I most remember is his stare. His eyes were large. The dark of them never leaving my face. I waved. He didn't move. He just stood there in the yellow ray of the streetlamp. A chill ran down my spine as I turned and walked into the bar.

A few months later, the coughing started to get worse. I was spitting up black mucus, almost chalky like. Others were too. My best bud at work quit just a week before and moved to Vermont to live with his sister. He said, "I ain't gonna die working in those mines. I got a life I gotta live."

I wish I did. I wish we could have just up and moved right then, but my wife lost her job, and we had no money, and I was the only source of income, the little that it was. I had to keep working; I had no choice.

One night I was walking back to my truck, coughing up my lungs, and I saw him again. The man. He just stood there, again, under the light. He stared at me. I walked closer to the man, trying to figure out if he was one of my friends from the mine trying to scare me. I couldn’t see his facial expression, though. It was like a mask was covering his deeper lines and ridges, making him just a man. Just some lost soul in the light, next to the dark road, lost. “Who are you?” I asked.

He opened his mouth, slowly, like a puppet with one broken string. But no words came out. Instead, dark liquid flowed from his mouth and down his chin, dripping onto the floor. He didn’t move; he just stood there.

I remember speed walking to my car and turning the key, and I looked back to where the man was, and he was gone.

A few more months went by, and we were struggling to pay rent. Stacy couldn’t find a job, except for mining of course, but she wouldn’t go near a mine. For once, I agreed with her. This job was literally killing me. I had dark blankets under my eyes. My energy was like that of the DeLorean that Doc always barely got to work. My skin was dried up like a rotten peach. And the black tar that I was coughing up was not something I particularly enjoyed.

My bud Rusty and I were walking down the road on a night off to the bar. The liquid death was the one thing that could take my mind off of my own impending death from whatever this mine was giving me.

“You really should get out of this dying town, Jerry,” Rusty said.

“I would if I could, bud.” I turned to the dark houses and saw the decaying stones. I saw the dead grass. I saw the dust caked windows. In one of the windows was a child, no older than ten, watching me. Staring. “I never understood the people of this town. They always watch. They stare like we are some outsiders or some sort of deity coming to kill them.”

Rusty turned to me and said, “You don’t know why they stare? We are outsiders, Jer. We came to this town, started to mine, killing off whole families from all this shit that’s down there.”

“That was generations ago, man. We didn’t do that.”

Rusty shakes his head. “Makes no difference to them. Stories are passed down from generation to generation. That kid in there hates you, or at least dislikes you, because of what you represent. And why shouldn’t he? I mean, we are bringing this town to its knees. Just like you are told we are helping them flourish, they are told we are helping them die.”

“The way I see it, I am dying for them. I mean, look at me.”

“I get it, man, but the reality is you are getting paid jack shit to go down there and basically kill yourself for this company, which has brought this town nothing but pain.”

We got to the bar and walked in, leaving my thoughts on the dark road outside.

Two in the morning, I remember because the clock in the bar was broken, so I used Rusty’s flip phone to check the time, I walked out onto the street. I stumbled down the street, heading towards what some would call a shack, but I would call a home, when suddenly I saw the man under the light.

“What do you want? Just go away!” I spit at the man and stopped. At this moment I remember the drunkenness leave my body. I was sober again.

The man pointed his long-crooked finger straight at me as more and more black bile flowed down his chin.

“Well, you can’t have me, so go bother someone else. Creep.”

He shook his head and pointed through me. I spun around and saw what he was really pointing at. The town sign. The town of Twin Mines. The words were bleeding like the ink was wet even though the decaying sigh has been there for decades, maybe longer. I spun back around to the man. He smiled. No teeth, just darkness. His mining outfit melded into a black suit. A tie.

My heart was beating, and I sped walked past the man, trying to ignore his evil presence. I looked back over my shoulder, and he just stood there, staring, his eyes following me, the black liquid still draining down his chin. Then, he vanished into thin air. I stumbled and fell to my knees. This cave was either making me crazy or this town was crazy. And, as easy as it would have been to believe the mine sickness was the cause of my delusions, I knew the truth was far scarier. There was something evil in this town. I felt it before I ever stepped foot in those mines.

Crying black tears, coughing black blood, and seeing demons, I ran home to my wife. The next morning, we were on a plane to anywhere but Twin Mines. Fifteen years later, I’m as healthy as I’ve ever been, and the town of Twin Mines has been all but demolished. All the people I knew have either passed away or have gone crazy, even Rusty.

But sometimes I think about that town and that man under the light. Sometimes I still think I see him out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes I feel his presence watching me, his black bile dripping down his chin, his black orbs staring deep into my soul.

Sometimes I wonder if I ever truly escaped that town or if the man is still staring me down, waiting for his time to strike. Waiting for his chance to find another Twin Mines. Waiting for his next victim.