I don’t often ask y’all for a favor, but I’m gonna ask now. Amazon has just publicly launched its Kindle Vella (serial reading) platform. I’m releasing two serials via Vella: Gridiron 2029 and Extinction Force. If you could see your way to spending around $0.50 and fifty minutes of your reading time checking out these serials it would be a huge boost for me. Vella makes serials visible to readers through a currently unknown algorithm involving “faves” and views. With a little help from y’all, several uninitiated readers will be able to find their way to my writings. And the more the merrier! [Click on the links above or the cover images further below to visit my stories on Kindle Vella, and thanks!]
[Follow these links to catch up with the #10 stupid thing, #9 stupid thing, and #8 stupid thing I survived growing up in Texas.] I waited until after the Fourth of July to share this one for reasons that shall become obvious. Every year I looked forward to the days leading up to the Fourth due to the unfettered pyrotechnics involved. While I could share about another event later in my teen years involving what most would label a “pipe bomb,” (such a nasty sounding thing these days, but was nothing more than kids having fun back in my day), I’ve chosen to lesser incriminate myself by relating a simple story involving a smoke bomb and an unfortunate cow.
Sometime every year around June 22nd, the local fireworks stand (run by the volunteer fire department as a fundraiser) would open up just off of the I-20 exit nearest my hometown. At some point within a few hours of the stand opening, I would show up with a twenty-dollar bill burning a hole in my pocket hotter than any firework possibly could. My first purchase was always a 500-pack of Blackcat firecrackers. My second purchase was always a 25-pack of smoke bombs. These were the two essential items through which I entered an explosive gateway of bliss that lasted until all my money was gone and/or the fireworks stand shut down for the season. (Back in my day we didn’t have any of these crazy, permanent fireworks shops.)
The summer of my thirteenth year, me and one of my buddies loaded up on legal explosives before promptly escaping into the pasture behind his house for some pyrotechnic fun. This involved the usual: exploding ant mounds, chucking firecrackers at field larks, and blowing up any garbage we found casually lying in the ditch. Before going further, I should mention that this pasture was surrounded by homes in an early, rural version of a suburb. (If you hadn’t already guessed where this story is leading, that might have tipped you off.)
Everything was fun and games until we happened upon a lonely cow that was not normally a resident of said pasture. Without a second thought, either I or my buddy (the truth has been obscured from history for the purposes of avoiding the death by paddling penalty) tossed a lit smoke bomb in the direction of the cow. Here is where semantics become important. Contrary to what one would naturally believe about a “smoke bomb,” they actually create a surprising amount of fire before they generate any smoke. This is a lesson I’ve since not forgotten.
Said firey smoke bomb landed beneath the cow in a clump of tall, very dry grass. Said tall, very dry clump of grass then burst into flames. At that point, it’s safe to say the two thirteen-year-olds involved freaked the hell out. The order of the following events has grown blurry over the years, but those events involved beating the fire with our t-shirts, stomping it with our shoes, sprinting home while screaming at the top of our lungs, and explaining what had happened to the volunteer firemen (who I’m sure remembered selling us the fireworks less than an hour earlier).
All in all, no houses were burned and no animals (other than ourselves) were harmed. We burned a couple of acres of pasture, blackened a fenceline, burned a couple of t-shirts, melted our tennis shoes (that’s what we called them back in the day), and singed the hair on our arms and legs. I just knew I was going to get the whoopin’ of my life and then be left to rot in juvie. I’m guessing we looked so dang pathetic standing there half-naked, lobster red, and streaked in soot that neither of our parents could stomach punishing us much beyond the punishment we had already endured. I was informed the following day that I was to be grounded from all fireworks for one year—a punishment I gladly accepted.
At the Desk This Week
I’m on vacation! Of course, I’m still more than happy to bang out an email to all of y’all! Instead of doing it at home, I get to do it while looking out over a pristine mountain lake. Of course, this was the week Kindle Vella chose to launch. Meh, nothing I can do about that. I’ll have to catch up on all the news and best practices next week. For now, I’m gonna get in 2 more days of swimming and fishing before heading back home (and doing some story mapping and brainstorming while on the road).
Twitch and Die! Empty but Living, Scene 9 through Down Deep, Scene 1
[Click here for an introduction by Jim Buckner]
[Start with the introduction to the series.]
Five minutes later, they spotted their mascot darting around the firehouse. Then again near the tipple, the boy ducked out of sight behind a pile of tailings. Each time, he appeared ahead of them as if leading the way.
Angelo stared at the spot where the boy had been. “Do you think he is a following us out of a morbid curiosity? You know, waiting to see de dummies get themselves killed?”
Chancho shrugged, “Maybe.”
Chloe stood with her back to Chancho, the boy’s presence continuing to drive a wedge between them.
“There is de engine room,” Angelo pointed. “If we can get de hoist running, it will save us a lot of shimmying.” Slowly, the three of them approached the three-story wooden structure.
“How gentlemanly of you,” Chloe smiled.
Angelo shot back a wicked grin. “Not to mention a faster exit.”
“Oh, I could have gone without that.”
Chancho turned to see if anyone other than the boy had followed them out of town. The scene had frozen in place like a photo. A gust pelted his boots with red sand, then died, leaving the town devoid of both movement and sound. Jogging, he caught up to the other two beneath the looming tipple of #4.
Tracks for the Black Diamond ran from underneath a loading bay on the second level. Cables extended up diagonally from the engine house and into the jack. Directly above the shaft, the jack used both gravity and centrifugal forces to sort the coal for loading into cars. The same cables that powered it also ran the cage—the same cage they hoped would function long enough to lower them into the blackness of #4 and pull them up again.
Angelo strode toward the shaft. “Marcello told me this shaft had been capped after de explosion.” Despite the Italian’s short legs, Chloe and Chancho hurried to keep up. They reached the collar. “But as you can see, somebody has been accessing de shaft since then.”
A large steal plate had been shoved half-way off the opening of the shaft, just enough for the cables to operate freely.
“But the cage,” Chloe indicated the smashed mesh container laying thirty yards away.
Angelo leaned over the shaft. “Somebody has attached a skip…” He wrung his hat in his hands before scratching his head, “most likely.”
Chloe narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”
Angelo rolled his right eye around in its socket several times before shaking his head. “Well, a skip is a car used—”
“The second part.”
He cleared his throat. “Whoever has a done it, left it at the bottom. No way to see that far to be sure.”
“So what you’re saying,” Chloe took a deep breath, “is that the living-dead version of Serge rigged all this as his personal entrance in and out of hell’s womb. And our plan is to knock on the front door to see if he’ll not only let us in, but put on a spot of tea?”
Angelo and Chancho looked at each other before facing Chloe and nodding. “I could do with some tea, as long as you Irish it up for me.” Angelo attempted to slap her butt. She dodged while wagging her finger.
“Sounds about right.” She shook her head. “But I don’t plan on minding my Ps and Qs.”
Angelo headed for the engine house. “First we have to see if we can operate de skip from topside.”
The engine house creaked in protest as Angelo threw open the door. Slits of light slipped into the darkness through cracks and knotholes in the rough cedar clapboards. He spoke in a hoarse whisper. “Usually run by electric motor attached to a small locomotive.” Holding his hands blindly in front of him, he shuffled across the creaking plank floor. “But if Serge has been using de hoist, I would bet my last bottle he has rigged it to run on diesel.”
He cracked his shin on something solid and swore in Italian. “Here.”
A gust of wind buffeted the side of the building, and Chancho realized with sudden shock that none of them had remained outside the engine house. Aware of the same thing, Chloe started for the door before Chancho could stop her. Having found a pull cord, Angelo gave it a good yank as Chloe reached the opening.
A diesel engine turned over loudly before gasping to a stop. Chancho stood frozen in indecision. Angelo hovered over the engine. Chloe gleamed in the comparatively bright gloom of the outdoors beneath the open-air jack. Something didn’t feel right. They were too spread out.
Then he heard it. The same scratching as the night before, from below the floorboards of the bungalow, but louder or closer. He shushed the others, the hair rising on the back of his neck. But Angelo had already tugged the pull cord a second time as Chloe stepped back inside the opening.
“I don’t see anything,” she spoke loudly.
The diesel engine turned over and chugged to life, puffing acrid smoke into the room.
Chancho tried to gain both of their attention without being overly loud, but it was impossible. “Be quiet!” A second later, dim yellow lights, dangling on wires suspended across the rafters, flickered to life. Simultaneously, a moan rippled from the corner of the engine house—starting low and growing louder.
Angelo whispered, “The break room,” then nodded toward the hoist controls.
Pistol drawn, Chancho held a hand out for Chloe to stay put. As Angelo crept toward the controls, Chancho shifted between him and the break room. He cursed himself for not smelling the same methane odor from the stone house that now seemed thick and pungent. But maybe the whole town smelled that way. He couldn’t tell anymore.
He scanned his surroundings, registering every detail in his mind as fast as he could. One thing kept crashing back into his thoughts, stay out of the shadows.
Angelo threw the lever for the hoist. A large spool-coiled cable jerked to life and began lifting what they hoped was a skip to the surface. Within the walled-off corner of the break room, concealed behind boarded windows and a locked door, the moan curdled and morphed into a guttural howl.
Angelo jammed the lever all the way down, spinning the spool up to full speed. As cable whizzed from underground, up the tipple, and back down to the hoist, a violent lust shook the break room.
“Get out,” Chloe flashed her knife.
Chancho waved her off. He kept his eyes and pistol leveled at the break room door in the corner. “Not until we raise the skip.”
“Then what?”
“Get in it.”
“This is crazy.”
Like a locomotive striking a deadman at full speed, the skip struck the steel plate half-covering the shaft. Overwhelmed by stress, the engine whined. The lights flickered and dimmed to nothing.
In the beat of an eyelash, the infected exploded through the wood and glass of the break room window. Chancho sparked the darkness with his .38. He popped off one frantic round before a splintered board struck him across the chest. Knocked to the ground amidst a strobe of resurgent electrical lights, he rolled onto his back as the demon flashed over the top of him and headed for Angelo.
“Angel!” Chancho snatched the board that had struck him and slung it into the back of the demon’s legs.
Howling, the beast flailed headfirst into the rail that surrounded the hoist. Angelo stood on the controls and fired his weapon into the body of the stunned demon. “Go! Now or never!”
A second screech, lower pitched than the first, emerged from the break room. Chancho stretched his legs toward the dismal light beyond the door while firing blindly into the corner. Behind him, Angelo reversed the direction of the hoist to start the skip back down the shaft.
Feeling hot breath on the back of his neck, Chancho dove. He struck the ground and rolled through the door as a blur of tattered flesh and clothing blocked out the gray clouds above him. Thrusting his pistol upward with the power of a punch, he plunged it into the pounding chest of the infected and pulled the trigger.
An ear-shattering shriek rattled the tipple before cutting short as the second demon crashed into a coal car. Angelo burst through the clapboard siding with a metal bucket in each hand. Rolling, he spilled half their contents into the dirt. “Get up, dammit!” He scrambled for his feet. A gurgling scream emanated from the engine house.
Chancho shook off his shock and jerked upright. Out of bullets, he holstered his pistol and secured his sombrero. Over the top of Angelo the frantically waving hand of Chloe dipped below the collar of the shaft and disappear.
Chancho galloped toward the hobbling Italian at full tilt. With an arm around Angelo’s waist, Chancho hefted him from the ground and sprinted the final thirty feet to the mouth of the shaft. “Hold on, mi amigo!”
Chancho threw Angelo, buckets and all, and leapt.
Crossing himself with one hand and holding his sombrero with the other, Chancho’s boot struck the side of the shaft first. Blind and tumbling backwards, arms wrapped around him and yanked him downward. He slammed into the side of the skip car with a thud. His ribs compressed, forcing out his breath. The car grated against the side of the shaft and bucked on its cable but continued its descent.
Overhead, the blood-curdling cry receded along with the dim patch of afternoon light. Angelo’s voice croaked in the darkness, “Nice throw, Motorcycle.”
Chancho tried to laugh. Instead he gasped for breath. Chloe gripped his hand in hers and pulled him to a seated position. He embraced her, begging for her warmth now more than ever.
She returned the gesture, but without the passion he’d felt the day before. The humanness of her touch still managed to tether him to reality. He closed his eyes and allowed the scent of her hair to overwhelm the nightmares waiting below. If vision isn’t for the good of the human race, it isn’t good at all.
“So now what?” Chloe spoke the words softly but without desperation. Chancho continued to struggle for a full breath.
Angelo grunted, “We find Serge and hope he remembers an old friend.”
The air warmed as the skip dropped deeper underground. What had been almost freezing rose to near fifty degrees and humid.
Angelo groped around the bottom of the car until he located what remained of the supplies he nabbed on his way through the engine house wall. “We have two carbide lanterns that should give us a couple hours light each.” He sparked one to life and adjusted the drip. Within seconds it whispered softly off the limestone walls. Its bright yellow light became a blinding sun in a world of pitch black.
“Hold this. We are almost to the bottom.” Angelo handed the lantern to Chloe. His voice echoed off of a floor that wasn’t there moments ago. “Steady.” He grunted and leapt out of the car as it struck solid ground with a jolt. A second later, he slammed his palm down on the shut-off, stopping the cable with only a couple feet of slack.
Chloe held the lamp over her head. Her gaze followed its glow thirty yards down the cramped tunnel—six foot high and as wide as the car they were sitting in. “This isn’t so—”
The cable yanked taut again, tugging the car from the mine floor. “Out, now!”
Chancho scrambled for the extra carbide and the buckets while Chloe bailed over the edge with the glowing lamp in hand. The light from Chloe’s carbide faded rapidly. The ceiling of the mine slipped downward as the car rose more quickly than it had fallen.
With a desperate last grasp, Chancho snatched what he could and rolled over the edge of the car. He scraped his back on the vertical shaft before dropping six feet to the floor. He struck the ground on his side, pinning his arm and the second lamp beneath him. Eyes open, Chancho laid still as the bottom of the floating skip disappeared into the darkness above.
“Chancho!” Chloe lifted his shoulders so he could wrestle his arm from underneath him. He still held the mangled brass carbide in his hand.
Angelo fetched the bucket that had careened into the corner. “Rope and water.” A scraping sound deeper within the mine silenced them. After listening for a few seconds, Angelo unscrewed the cap on the canteen and poured out the water. “I think I would rather die of de thirst.”
With Chloe’s help Chancho gained his feet. He straightened his serape. “They know we’re here.”
“They?” Chloe squeezed his hand.
Chancho shrugged. “Whoever’s been operating the hoist.”
“Twitchers,” Angelo said emphatically and then nodded toward the surface, “and I figure they are planning to follow.”
“Right.” Chancho offered the crushed lamp to Angelo. “Will this still work?”
“Probably. As long as it still wicks and de spark wheel has not jammed.” He dropped the lamp into the bucket and hung it from his belt before ambling down the only passage before them. “The main gate collapsed in de explosion, but de tailgate is supposed to still be passable.” Chloe fell in behind Angelo, holding the lit lamp head-high.
“My sombrero.” Chancho clasped his hand to his bare head and scanned the ground around him. Coming up empty, he cursed.
“No need for it down here.” Angelo was already yards away.
Chloe beckoned for Chancho to catch up. “Besides, no one’s gonna take it.”
“Oh, so we’ll just pick it up on the way back?”
“You really should find a winter hat, something that doesn’t make your head look small,” Chloe spoke over her shoulder as the three of them quickened their pace.
“Che, insulto a lesión.” Chancho rubbed his shoulder and rolled it in the socket.
Chloe snorted. “Don’t be a baby.”
They continued in silence for several seconds. Angelo stood erect and strode with confidence. Both Chloe and Chancho slouched to avoid scraping their heads on the roughly hewn ceiling. Their movements filled the confines around them with a constant rustling. Chancho found the inability to hear anything beyond themselves both comforting and disturbing.
The mine became tight as a womb, or perhaps more aptly a tomb. The walls hugged them and erased the outside world. While tight could be comforting, it could also be a noose. Chancho knew the world beyond their bubble to be deadly.
His shirt clung to his skin. He had begun sweating the moment he’d realized his sombrero was gone. Stupid, but in tight spots he clung to the familiar for strength. Hemp, straw, wool—they connected him to the earth. Now he was planted deeper than he liked. He spoke to release the tension. “Señora Marcon mentioned that light irritated her eyes.”
Angelo nodded. “Marcello always wanted de curtains drawn. He had not gone outside in days.”
Chloe asked, “You think it might blind them?”
Angelo responded, “Or pain them enough to protect us.”
Chancho changed the subject, “You called them twitchers.”
“The locals had started taking up the name for de infected. I thought it dehumanizing. Now I understand.”
Chancho flashed back to Marcello’s blinding quick movements in the stone house. The word twitch was a perfect fit. Chancho shook the memory and sniffed the air as they moved deeper into the mine. “What’s the danger of another explosion?”
“No telling.” Angelo removed his hat and used it to beat the air in front of him before scratching his head and putting it back on. “It has got me flummoxed. The ventilation, it is too good down here. Better than operating conditions. So unless there is a buildup of fire damp, heavier than de regular air, we should be good.”
The echo of the skip slamming into the mine floor reverberated from behind them. “Maybe you two should stop your yammering,” Chloe ended the conversation.
Chancho watched Chloe reach into her boot for her knife. The eight-inch blade gleamed as she rotated it in her grip. The motion sparked a memory of his last spelunking adventure—initiated at the bioluminescent tip of a Kickapoo knife carved straight from the crystal of the cave walls. That had turned out better than expected. Maybe this would too.
Angelo stopped and placed his ear on one of the steel rails sunk into the mine floor. “Time to get going.” He turned off the main shaft onto what Chancho assumed was the tailgate. “The rest of that is all back-mined, unstable. I am surprised it did not completely collapse.”
As Chloe followed with the lamp, Chancho paused to scan the blackness. So far, the mine had been a honeycomb of pillars—coal left behind to support the ceiling. Here, the pillars ended, leaving a low, open expanse cluttered with fallen rock.
Paranoid feelings swelled in Chancho’s gut—tentacles groping upward, searching for his thoughts. The light receded as Chloe and Angelo continued on without him. The constant rustling of their movements faded.
Chancho froze—unable to leave, afraid to stay. Slowly, alongside his beating heart rose a second sound.
Wind? Breath. A raspy breathing swelled to fill the entire chasm. It swept outward as far as his imagination could stretch—penetrating rock, steel, and bone. It permeated everything, all the way to the core of the earth, as if the earth itself were breathing. His skin chilled against the sweat streaking down his back. The lamp’s light had nearly gone.
He needed to go, to protect the others. But the breathing intensified, grew so close he could no longer distinguish it from his own. Within his head, the breath formed a single word. Who.
The statement sundered his reality. He bristled. Every hair on his body stood on end. Go. He bolted. Guided solely by the basest of human instinct, he ran as his consciousness clawed to catch up. He’d heard something or someone, but he was too lost to reply.
With his hands in front of his face, he ran as fast as his crouched posture allowed. His own breathing returned to wash away the other. The pounding of his heart served as sonar. Groping and blind, he dodged jagged teeth jutting from the ceiling, until stumbling around a corner, the light of the carbide lamp returned.
“Chancho? What in God’s name?”
He hugged the wall and caught his breath while staring back the way he’d come. “Lo siento, mis amigos. I’m good.”
Angelo smirked. “You stopped to listen, didn’t you?”
Chancho nodded.
“Silence. She always speaks louder than words down here.”
Chancho shook his head. “Something else.”
Angelo spit and crossed himself. “That which we seek is ahead, not behind.” He doubled their pace.
With each step Chancho swore the smell of the stone house grew more intense.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read Twitch and Die!, Season Four of the Lost DMB Files. I’ll be publishing FREE daily scenes from the Lost DMB Files until…I die…or something terrible happens. Seriously, I’ve got over 400 scenes written so far, and I’ll be writing more until the story reaches its natural ending. You are totally welcome to read the entire story for FREE! If at any point you decide you would rather finish the story in ebook or print format, just click the buttons below and you can do that as well. If you enjoy reading the serial releases, BUT you would also like to support me as a writer (my kids need wine!) please subscribe to my premium content for bonus scenes, exclusives, and insider access to my process. And of course, I’d be grateful if you would share this post with any of your reader friends who you think would enjoy the Lost DMB Files. Happy reading!