Twitch and Die!

Ch.14: Old Friends and New

Angelo threw the lever for the hoist. Jerking to life, a large spool coiled cable, lifting the 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 barked, flashing her knife.

Chancho waved her off, keeping his eyes and pistol leveled at the barred 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, dimming to nothing.

In the beat of an eyelash, the twitcher exploded through the wood and glass of the break room window. Chancho sparked the darkness with his .38, popping off two frantic rounds 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, heading for Angelo.

“Angel!” Chancho spun. Latching onto the board that had struck him, he hurtled it, catching the twitcher across the back of the legs.

Howling, the beast flailed headfirst into the rail surrounding the hoist. Standing on the controls, Angelo fired his weapon into the body of the stunned twitcher. “Go! Now or never!”

A second screech, lower pitched than the first, emerged from the break room. On the run and firing blindly into the corner, Chancho stretched toward the dismal light beyond the door. Behind him, Angelo reversed the direction of the hoist, starting the skip back down the shaft.

Feeling hot breath on the back of his neck, Chancho dove. As he struck the ground and rolled through the door, 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 twitcher’s pounding chest and pulled the trigger.

An ear-shattering shriek rattled the tipple before cutting short as the twitcher crashed into a coal car. A second later Angelo burst through the clapboard siding with two metal buckets in hand. Rolling, he spilled half their contents into the dirt. “Get up, dammit!” He scrambled for his feet, a gurgling scream emanating from the engine house.

Chancho shook off his shock and jerked upright. Out of bullets, he holstered his pistol while securing his sombrero. Over the top of Angelo he spotted the frantically waving hand of Chloe dip below the collar of the shaft and disappear.

Fear girding him, he galloped toward the hobbling Italian at full tilt. With an arm around the smaller man’s waist, Chancho lifted him from the ground and sprinted the final thirty feet to the mouth of the shaft. “Hold on, mi amigo!”

He 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, he felt arms wrap around him. Yanked 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 steady descent.

Overhead, the blood-curdling cry receded with the dim patch of afternoon light. Angelo’s voice croaked in the darkness, “Nice throw, Motorcycle.”