The clicking sound rose from the hole like teeth chattering in the dark. I pulled Tommy against my chest and crawled backward on my elbows, dragging him across the grass. Brutus stayed at the edge of the pit, barking into the black.
“Grandpa, what’s down there?” Tommy’s voice was small and tight.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My mind was still catching up to what I’d seen. The well cap—four inches of pressure-treated plywood—had just caved into nothing. And that sound. That clicking.
I got us to the driveway and stood, hauling Tommy up with me. His polo shirt was torn at the collar where Brutus had grabbed him. There was a red mark on his neck.
“Stay right here. Do not move.”
Tommy nodded, his eyes huge. He wrapped his arms around Brutus’s neck. The dog was still trembling, but he’d stopped barking. He was watching the hole.
Mrs. Henderson was still on her porch. “Gary, I called 911. They’re coming.”
“Good.” I turned back to the yard. The hole where the well cap had been was maybe three feet across. The rose bed had collapsed around it, pulling in dirt and mulch and my wife’s favorite climbing roses. The bush was gone. Swallowed.
I walked toward the edge, slow. The sulfur smell was stronger now. Like rotten eggs mixed with something metallic. I stopped about six feet away and leaned forward.
The hole dropped straight down for about eight feet, then opened wider. I could see the brick lining of the old well, dark and slimy. But below that, the bricks stopped. The opening widened into something else. A cave. Or a tunnel.
And there, about fifteen feet down, I saw light.
Not sunlight. Not a reflection. A dim, greenish glow. Like a nightlight in a basement.
“What in the hell…”
I heard the sirens then. Coming up from town.
—
The sheriff’s car pulled into my driveway first, followed by the volunteer fire department’s old pickup. Sheriff Grady got out with his hand on his service weapon. He’s been sheriff for twenty-two years. He was my wife’s second cousin, which made him family by marriage even though we’d never been close.
“Gary, what’s going on? Margaret called dispatch screaming about a child being attacked by a dog.”
“Dog didn’t attack nobody. Dog saved my grandson’s life.”
I pointed at the hole. Grady walked over and looked down. He stayed quiet for a long time.
“That’s the old well,” he said finally. “I remember that thing from when I was a kid. Your daddy capped it in the seventies.”
“It ain’t capped no more.”
“I can see that.” He turned to the fire chief, a man named Roy who’d worked at the lumber yard before he retired. “Roy, we got a collapse. Need to secure the area and figure out what’s down there.”
Roy nodded and started barking orders at his men. Two of them rolled yellow tape around the yard. A third brought a long pole with a flashlight taped to the end and lowered it into the hole.
“Floor’s solid,” he said. “About twelve feet down. And there’s a tunnel leading east.”
“East toward what?” I asked.
“East goes under your house, Gary. And under the church.”
I felt my stomach drop. St. Mark’s was two blocks over. Built in 1892.
Grady looked at me. “When’s the last time you were down that well?”
“Never. I’ve lived here forty-three years. Never once went down.”
“Your daddy ever say anything about it?”
I thought about my father. Hard man. Died of a heart attack in 1987 while he was changing a tire. He didn’t talk much. But I remembered something. A memory I hadn’t thought about in thirty years.
“He told me once not to play near the rose bed. Said there were things under there that would swallow me whole.”
Grady’s face went still. “What else did he say?”
“Nothing. That was it. He said it once and never brought it up again.”
The clicking sound came again. Louder this time. Faster.
Everyone went quiet.
“That ain’t no animal,” Roy said. “That’s mechanical.”
Grady pulled out his phone and made a call. I heard him say “geologist” and “state police” and “right now.”
—
Tommy was sitting on the front steps with Brutus’s head in his lap. His mom, my daughter-in-law Rachel, had arrived. She was pale and shaking, holding Tommy’s face in her hands.
“Ma’am, I need to ask your son a few questions,” Grady said.
Rachel nodded. She didn’t let go of Tommy.
“Tommy, can you tell me what you were doing before the dog started pulling you?”
Tommy sniffed. “I was looking for my ball. It went under the rose bush.”
“And then what happened?”
“I heard the noise. The clicking. It was coming from the ground. And then Brutus grabbed me.”
“Where did he grab you?”
“By my collar. He pulled me backward. I was screaming ’cause I thought he was gonna eat me.”
“But he was pulling you away from the well.”
Tommy nodded. “He didn’t want me near it. He was trying to save me.”
Brutus thumped his tail against the porch boards.
Grady stood up and walked back to the hole. The firemen had set up a tripod with a rope. Roy was suiting up in a harness.
“You ain’t going down there,” I said.
“Gary, I’ve been doing this forty years. I know what I’m doing.”
“You got a family?”
“Three kids and a grandbaby on the way.”
“Then you ain’t going down there.” I looked at Grady. “That’s my property. My well. Whatever’s under my house is my responsibility.”
“Gary, you’re sixty-seven years old.”
“I know how old I am. And I know that dog knew something was wrong before any of us did. That tunnel goes under the church. What happens if whatever’s down there destabilizes the foundation? People die.”
Grady rubbed his face. He looked tired.
“What are you proposing?”
“I’m proposing I go down with a rope and a camera. See what’s there. If it’s bad, we call the state. If it’s nothing, we fill it in and I never think about it again.”
“You’re not trained for this.”
“Neither is Roy. He just volunteered because he’s got a harness and a hero complex.”
Roy started to argue, but Grady held up his hand.
“Give me five minutes,” Grady said. “I’m making some calls.”
—
While we waited, I went inside and got my old hard hat from the garage. It had a light on the front that still worked. I found a length of rope, thicker than the fire department’s, and a camera I’d bought for a hunting trip ten years ago that could shoot video in the dark.
Rachel came in while I was gathering stuff.
“Gary, you can’t go down there.”
“I can and I will.”
“That thing nearly killed my son.”
“It didn’t. Brutus stopped it. And I need to know what that thing is.”
She started crying. Quietly, the way women do when they’re trying not to fall apart in front of their kids. “I already lost my husband. I can’t lose you too.”
My son Mark died three years ago. Construction accident. Scaffolding gave way on a job site. He was twenty-nine.
I put my hand on her shoulder. “I ain’t dying today, Rachel. I promise.”
She didn’t look convinced, but she nodded.
Grady came back in. “I called a guy from the state geological survey. He said there are old limestone mines under this part of the county. Abandoned in the 1930s. Most of them were sealed or collapsed by the 1960s, but nobody kept good records.”
“Limestone mines?”
“The town was built on them. Before St. Mark’s was a church, it was a mining office. The mines ran under the whole downtown area. They were used for storage during Prohibition. There are stories about tunnels connecting the church, the old bank, and a few houses.”
“Stories?”
“Old timers talked about them. But nobody ever documented them. The county records show the mines were ‘abandoned and sealed’ in 1938. But there’s no map.”
I looked at the hole. The green glow was still there.
“That explains the clicking,” I said.
“What does?”
“Old mining equipment. Pumps, generators. If there’s still electricity running down there, something could be activated.”
“Gary, that’s a stretch.”
“You got a better explanation?”
Grady didn’t.
—
I tied the rope around my waist. Double knots. Roy checked them and added a backup line.
“You go down slow. If you feel anything weird, you yell and we pull you up. Got it?”
“Got it.”
I put the hard hat on. Turned on the light. Stuffed the camera in my jacket pocket.
Brutus stood at the edge of the tape, watching me. He whined once, then sat down.
“Good boy,” I said. “Watch Tommy.”
He thumped his tail.
I stepped over the yellow tape and approached the hole. The sulfur smell was worse now. I could taste it in the back of my throat.
I sat on the edge, swung my legs over, and lowered myself down.
The first eight feet were easy. The old brick walls were slimy but solid. I found footholds in the mortar joints and worked my way down until my boots hit something solid.
I was standing on a floor of packed dirt. The tunnel stretched east and west. East went under the house. West went under the church.
The green light was coming from the east tunnel.
I pulled out the camera and turned it on. The infrared setting showed the tunnel in ghostly black and white. It was about five feet high and four feet wide. The walls were cut limestone. Smooth. Hand-carved.
I walked east, hunched over. The floor was dry. No water. No mud. Someone had maintained this tunnel.
After about twenty feet, I found the source of the light.
It was a string of old bulbs, the kind you see in basements, hanging from the ceiling. They were dim but burning. Warm. Someone had turned them on recently.
I followed them.
The tunnel opened into a room. A big room. Maybe thirty feet across. The ceiling was ten feet high. There were shelves carved into the walls. And on the shelves, boxes.
Old wooden boxes. Crate stamped with a name I hadn’t seen in forty years: HENDERSON & SONS MINING CO.
The company that built the town. 1890.
I opened one of the boxes. It was full of papers. Yellowed, brittle. I pulled one out and held it up to the light.
It was a letter. Dated April 12, 1933.
“To the citizens of Jasper County: We regret to inform you that due to declining mineral yields, Henderson & Sons Mining Co. will be ceasing operations effective June 1, 1933. All debts and obligations will be honored. Employees are encouraged to collect their final wages at the downtown office.”
I put the letter down and opened another box. More papers. Payroll records. Maps. Diagrams.
And then I found it.
A map of the tunnels. Hand-drawn on linen. Dated 1928.
The tunnels ran under the entire downtown. Eighteen miles of passageways. There were rooms marked: Storage. Offices. Living quarters. And one room, directly under St. Mark’s Church, labeled:
VAULT.
Below it, in red ink: “Dr. Keller’s specimens. Do not open.”
I felt cold.
Dr. Keller. I knew that name. Everyone did. Dr. Harold Keller was the town’s only doctor from 1910 to 1945. He delivered half the people in this county, including my father. He died in 1948 under mysterious circumstances. The story was that he’d gone into the mines one day and never came back.
But my father told me a different story. He told me once, drunk at a family reunion, that Dr. Keller hadn’t died in the mines. He’d died in his own basement. And there were things down there that nobody talked about.
I didn’t believe him. He was drunk. And he never brought it up again.
But now I was standing in an underground room, holding a map that said “Dr. Keller’s specimens,” and the light bulbs were still burning.
—
I followed the tunnel east. Past the room. Under what must have been my house. The bulbs continued. Someone had maintained the electrical system. Replaced bulbs. Kept the lines going.
After about a hundred feet, I reached another room. Larger. The ceiling was higher. And there, in the center of the room, was a door.
A steel door. Four inches thick. With a wheel crank like a submarine hatch.
I turned the camera on. The infrared showed the door, the walls, the floor. And then I zoomed in on the door.
There was a plaque. Brass. Engraved.
“HAROLD KELLER, M.D. LABORATORY. ENTRANCE RESTRICTED. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.”
I touched the wheel crank. It was cold. Clean. No rust.
I turned it.
The mechanism was well-oiled. It moved smoothly. I cranked until I heard a click, then pushed.
The door swung open.
The smell hit me first. Formaldehyde. Rotten meat. Something dead.
The light was on inside. A single bulb hanging from the ceiling. The room was maybe twenty feet square. There were shelves along the walls. Glass jars. Hundreds of them.
Small jars. Big jars. All filled with yellowish liquid.
And in the jars, things.
Fetuses. Human fetuses. At various stages. Some looked normal. Some didn’t.
There were other jars. Body parts. Organs. A hand. A foot.
I stumbled backward, gagging.
And then I heard the clicking again. Closer. Right behind me.
I spun around.
The tunnel was empty. But the clicking was echoing off the walls. Coming from everywhere and nowhere.
I aimed the camera down the tunnel. The infrared showed the walls, the floor, the ceiling. And then something moved.
A shape. Quick. Low to the ground.
“What the hell…”
I took a step forward. The clicking stopped.
Another step. Nothing.
Then the light bulb above me went out.
Dark.
Complete, absolute dark.
My hard hat light was still on, but the beam was weak. I swept it across the tunnel. Nothing.
Then I heard breathing. Behind me.
I turned.
A man was standing ten feet away. Dirty. Gaunt. His clothes were rags. His face was covered in grime. But his eyes were clear. Blue. Wide.
“Get out,” he said. His voice was dry. Cracked.
“Who are you?”
“Get out now. Before it wakes up.”
“Before what wakes up?”
He pointed at the door. “Him. The doctor. He ain’t dead.”
I stared at him. “Dr. Keller died in 1948.”
“He didn’t die. He went down. He’s still down.”
The clicking started again. Louder. Faster. Coming from inside the laboratory.
The man grabbed my arm. His hand was bone-thin but strong.
“Run,” he said.
We ran.
I didn’t know where we were going. The tunnel twisted and turned. The man knew the way. He pulled me through the dark, past branching tunnels, past collapsed sections, past rooms filled with debris.
The clicking followed us. Growing louder.
We reached a ladder. Rusted iron bolted into the stone. The man pointed up.
“That goes into the church basement. Move.”
I climbed. My arms were shaking. The ladder groaned but held. I pushed open a trap door and crawled out onto a concrete floor.
I was in the basement of St. Mark’s. I recognized the furnace. The old pews stacked against the wall.
The man climbed up behind me. He sat on the floor, gasping. His chest was sunken. He was starving.
“How long have you been down there?”
He looked at me. “I don’t know. Years. Time don’t work down there.”
“What’s your name?”
“Tommy.”
I went cold. “Tommy what?”
“Tommy Henderson. I lived on Maple Street. I got lost in the mines when I was twelve.”
I stared at him. Tommy Henderson went missing in 1978. I remembered it. The whole town searched for weeks. They never found him.
He was twelve then. He looked sixty now.
“How did you survive?”
“There’s water. And the tunnels go under the old storage rooms. I found canned food. Cigarettes. Whiskey. Enough to keep me alive.”
“And the clicking?”
“That’s the doctor’s machine. He built something down there. Something that keeps him alive. I don’t know what it is. But it clicks. And it moves.”
I thought about the jars. The specimens.
“What did he do in that laboratory?”
Tommy Henderson shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”
—
We called the state police. They sent a team from the capital. Geologists. Engineers. A hazmat crew.
They sealed the mines. Properly. Pumped concrete into every entrance they could find. They took Dr. Keller’s laboratory apart, jar by jar. They found records. Experiments. Things that would never be made public.
Dr. Keller had been conducting unauthorized medical research in the tunnels for decades. Using subjects nobody would miss. Hobos. Runaways. The homeless.
He died in 1948, but his machine didn’t. It kept running. Kept the lights on. Kept the pumps going. And it kept clicking.
They never found his body.
Tommy Henderson was taken to the hospital. He was dehydrated and malnourished, but he was alive. His parents had died years ago. He had no one left. But the town took him in. Mrs. Henderson, the one who called 911, was his aunt. She cried for an hour when she saw him.
Brutus got a steak that night. Two of them. He ate them on the back porch, tail wagging.
Tommy, my grandson, is still scared of the dark. I don’t blame him. I am too.
But every night, I sit on the back porch with Brutus. The yard is full of new grass where the rose bed used to be. The well is filled with concrete. The tunnels are sealed.
Sometimes, late at night, I think I hear clicking. Coming from underground.
But it’s probably just the pipes.
That’s what I tell myself.
And I almost believe it.
—
If this story touched you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. And maybe give your dog an extra treat tonight. They know things we don’t.
