Jack and Crutchie stood outside the mouth of the Horton mine. "You know Jack when you said you wanted to honeymoon out west I'd thought you'd be content with going to Santa Fe. I didn't realize you'd make me drive 950 miles further to visit an abandoned mineshaft."
"You're just scared," he teased back. "Come on babe, this is so cool!"
"No it's not." Crutchie meant it. It wasn't just reading the "DANGER: UNSAFE MINE" sign that put him off from going further. It wasn't just the pooled water or inaccessibility to him because of his disability. Crutchie could feel the negative energy coming from the mine; never in a million years would he be willing to enter.
Jack swung his leg over the short fence blocking the mine. "You coming or what?"
"Absolutely not."
"Your loss."
"Of what, getting tetanus?" Crutchie yelled after him.
Jack snorted in reply. He saw Crutchie sit in the dirt and use his phone, likely reading on his Kindle app. Recently he had been enthralled by the Vango series. He had read the first book on the plane and had almost finished the second on the drive from New Mexico to Nevada. While Jack hunted for ghosts in an abandoned mineshaft; his boyfriend read about a quest for vengeance in the 1940's. Technology really was the ultimate bridge.
Jack used his phone flashlight to light up the dark shaft. He saw chains dangling from the ceiling; some of them were attached to yellow ventilation tubing while others hung free. He noticed a swinging chain; it was only swaying gently really. He let out a chain then started moving rapidly back and forth. "Crutchie you've got to see this."
"No I don't," Jack heard Crutchie's call waft faintly into the tunnel.
"Coward!" he teased his husband as he proceeded into the tunnel. He stepped into a particularly deep patch of mud that sucked his foot in up to his ankle. He pulled it free and examined the sticky mud that coated his boot. He made a face of revulsion at the smelly grey mud. "Ugh."
He made it all the way into the back of the shaft before he starting feeling the evil that his husband had been wise enough to avoid. It weighed down on him from all sides and chilled him to the bone. He finally understood; it was time to turn back.
He turned to go. There was speaking around him. "Mayer where are the children? Mayer where are our kids?"
"Mom! Davey, Sarah help me."
He heard panicked breathing and coughing and even footsteps. Jack ran but mud was sucking him down. He was forced to prise his feet from the mud with each step. He made it to the mine's exit only to be slapped by the chains. He rushed for the exit but chains wrapped around him, preventing his exit.
"Crutchie!" he screamed in terror. That was what finally caught Crutchie's attention, but it was too late. Jack was dragged back into the shaft by an unseen force and suddenly the mouth of the abandoned mine finally gave way to time and decay, or other forces, and collapsed.