Dear Creepypasta [#Wattys2016]

The pit

My town is one of those back country middle-of-nowhere places in which word-of-mouth folklore and wild superstition defines its population. It's the kind of place a visitor might hear ethereal music in the woods, or catch a glimpse of an out-of-place animal roaming the empty fields. If your senses are attuned to such things, then you might even notice strange graves carved into the slopes of gullies, or old ropes tied to the limbs of withered trees; their trunks riddled with bullet holes.

But we know of something else, ineffable horrors dwelling in the depths of an abandoned, isolated coal mine.

Local legend tells of a pit: a dark place in which some three hundred miners lost their lives in a colliery disaster over a century ago.

So the story goes, a number of miners had complained about the perilous conditions in the mine on several occasions, many citing bad omens, including the presence of carrion crows in the subterranean depths, and some even claiming to hear the unlikely neighing of startled horses in the ghastly, myriad passageways.

But the miners' pleas went unheard, resulting in the catastrophic explosion that led directly to their deaths.

Whispers exchanged over an ale at the Painter's Greyhound tell of survivors: starving miners entombed in the labyrinthine tunnels honeycombing the cold earth beneath our town. Occasionally, the ground opens up and swallows things: dilapidated sheds and the corners of houses... sometimes people. Fodder for the ravenous miners?

And pets abandon their owners: dogs disappearing into shadowy recesses and cats straying deep into the wilderness; never to be seen again. As the saying goes here in my town, "All victims o'th pit."

II

The location of the pit-over the course of a century-was mostly forgotten; knowledge of the disaster itself conveniently buried by those with more pressing political and financial interests. The 'owdies' though-as they're known in these parts-are still in possession of memories, and often recount unsettling tales passed down through the generations.

If it hadn't been for my grandfather, I, at the tender age of fourteen, might never have set out to find the pit that day. The route related to me was both protracted and disorienting:
"Seekers of the pit must first descend into the old ravine," my grandfather muttered through false teeth, "a route at one time commonly frequented by my sort. Follow the oaks and the silver birches along the old trail marked by the red bricks of Scoothe's cottage and you'll reach the bald 'ills. You know the Bonnies don't you boy?"

I nodded, for I did know the Bonnies, and still do: unnatural rucks carved out by the long-perished miners; barren and unwelcoming; suggestive of untold mysteries and the forbidden knowledge they serve to protect.

My grandfather continued:
"That awkward terrain boy, coupled with those dark ponds can lead one to Dog Wood, a forested area intersected by confusing, abandoned lanes leading deep into what we call the sterile heart of the backcountry. You'll know Dog Wood by the density of the underbrush, though you'll have to look closely if you want to find the accursed entrance."

To this day I still don't fully understand why my grandfather encouraged me to seek it out. His warning as I left that day often returns to me on dark, foreboding, autumn afternoons:
"Boy, 'tis nothing to look, 'tis everything to see. See yourself and know thee escaped the darkness."

But I was just a fourteen-year-old lad.

How was I to know what he meant?

III

My best friend, Key, knocked on my door at 7:15 a.m. that fateful October morning. We walked the length of Park Road, and plunged headlong into the old ravine. The thing we sought, somehow, was already with us, and was working to discourage us, descending upon the golden brown foliage in the form of mist.