The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 13 Ghosts

The darkness closed around Samuel and Katka, as they ventured further into the long, wide tunnel. Katka was lagging behind, but as it grew darker and darker, she felt as though some giant had thrown them into a large black bag and was tugging at the pull-string to completely close off the light, snuffing out any last vestige of hope. Eventually, only the stiletto beam of the headlamp pierced the pitch blackness, so as a consequence, Katka changed her mind and caught up with Samuel, not wanting to be too far away from the only light source.

"You've decided to join me then!" Samuel teased, chuckling to himself. "It's fascinating down here isn't it! Can you taste that in the air? It's salt. Like the seaside"

Fascination wasn't the first thing that came to Katka's mind about the mine and Katka didn't feel in the mood, for sniffing anything currently, though she had to admit that the mine did smell distinctive. What she could actually detect was all the dust in the air. Furthermore she had never been near the sea in her life and she thought that it was unlikely that she ever would.

"Don't you think that it's pretty creepy in here!" Katka commented, the echoes of her hoarse little voice atmospherically heightening her unease. "Do you think that there are ghosts here?"

"Well there are all the traditional ingredients for ghosts. It is hard to find a mine where no-one has died... there were always a lot of accidents." Samuel said, "But I don't believe in ghosts. Do you?"

"I do! Lost souls of dead haunt earth until..." Katka said, "Well I can't remember what it is that sends them on beyond!"

"Oh I don't think so." Samuel said. "The ghosts in people's minds, are simple manifestations of man's attempts to rationalise death and guilt."

"Oh thank you for setting my mind at rest,  Katka said sounding wounded. "I thought that my friends had gone to better place and you want to take that from me?"

"They have gone to a better place!" Samuel assured her and thought, "Sometimes oblivion is a far better place than this hell that we call life!"

"That makes everything very clear. Just as long as you explain that to ghosts." Katka said sarcastically, trying to look around herself but seeing only blackness, apart from the steadily receding light from the entrance and the bright but narrow beam, bobbing about in front of Samuel.

"You're entirely welcome!" Samuel said.

Samuel's reassurance was wasted on Katka, whose lurid imagination was running wild. She wondered what a ghostly miner would look like and whether the horrific injuries that caused their deaths would really persist into the spirit world. She seemed to expect grossly disfigured phantoms to leap out of the darkness in front of her any second. 

To increase her disquiet, Samuel had been lost in the memories that he had shown Katka. It was most un-Mík to brood about things, so he was meditating, to suppress the raw emotions that he had felt. Concentrating on this, he had forgotten to wind the handle, so the light went out. 

Katka screamed and grabbed Samuel's arm for comfort. A now a familiar crackling occurred between the two of them. This time it was so dark that she could clearly see the faint, but unmistakable light of the static.

"Sorry Katka. I need to wind the generator with that hand." Samuel said," If you don't like it in here then you can always head back to the entrance. I'll find some way to carry the stuff back"

Saying this, he tried to shake her loose but she clung on like a limpet.

"But I wouldn't be able to find my way out!" She protested. " I don't have silly hat with light!"