The Coal Beneath the Briars

I’m Elara, sixteen, from a small town in Pennsylvania that used to be coal country. I’ve never written about the things I’ve seen, only whispered them to my best friend, Miri, when the fear got too loud. This is the first time I’m putting it down, mostly because the house we moved into five years ago still feels like it’s holding its breath.

We moved when Dad remarried, into a new development built on a reclaimed strip mine. The houses were all fresh and bright, but the soil was thin and black, and nothing green would grow properly in our yard. My new step-sister, Cora, was only eight, and she loved the house because it was new and clean. I hated it from the start. There was a wrongness to it, like the ground was a scab over a wound that hadn’t healed.

Our next-door neighbor, old Mr. Hargrove, was the one who told me about the past. He’d lived here his whole life, watched the mines swallow men whole. ‘They’re still down there,’ he’d say, his eyes cloudy with memory. ‘All them that never came up. You can hear ’em sometimes, if you listen close.’ I thought he was just a lonely old man, telling stories to scare a new kid. But after a week in that house, I wasn’t so sure.

The first sound was a low, rhythmic thumping, like a giant heart beating deep in the earth. It came at night, always starting around 2 a.m., and it would go on for hours. I’d lie in bed, my own heart pounding in sync, staring at the ceiling as if I could see through it to whatever was making that sound. Miri said it was probably just the water heater, but the sound wasn’t mechanical. It was too regular, too heavy, too like a pickaxe hitting rock.

Then the footsteps started. Barefoot, shuffling steps in the hallway outside my room, even though everyone else was asleep. The first time I heard them, I froze, my breath caught in my throat. The steps would pause at my door, and I’d feel a presence on the other side, something waiting. I’d squeeze my eyes shut and hum a tune to drown out the silence, and eventually, the steps would shuffle away. I never told anyone, not even Miri. I was afraid they’d think I was crazy.

One night, the thumping was worse than ever. It wasn’t just a heartbeat; it was a frantic, desperate pounding, like something was trying to break through the floor of my closet. My closet was a walk-in, with a wooden floor that was always cold, no matter the season. I got out of bed, my legs shaking, and opened the door. The closet was empty, but the pounding was so loud I could feel it through my feet. And then, the pounding stopped. In the silence that followed, I heard a voice. It was muffled, like it was coming from underground, but it was clear enough: ‘Help me.’

I slammed the closet door and ran to my parents’ room, but they were sound asleep. I sat on the floor in the hallway, hugging my knees, and I didn’t go back to my room until dawn. The next morning, I told Miri about the voice. She laughed, but then she saw my face and stopped. ‘You really heard something?’ I nodded, and she said, ‘Maybe it’s just the pipes.’ But we both knew it wasn’t.

Things escalated after that. Small objects would go missing, only to reappear in strange places. A hairbrush in the freezer. A shoe on the roof. The feeling of being watched was constant, even in the daylight. Cora started having nightmares, waking up screaming about ‘the man in the black hole.’ My step-mom, Rachel, dismissed it as a phase, but I saw the dark circles under her eyes. She was scared too, but she didn’t want to admit it.

The breaking point came on the anniversary of the mine disaster. I’d looked it up in the local library, and it was a hundred years ago to the day. A cave-in had trapped thirty-seven men, and only three were ever found. That night, the thumping was so loud it shook the pictures on the walls. The smell of coal dust filled the air, thick and suffocating, and I could taste metal, like blood. I went to the closet again, not out of bravery, but because I couldn’t stay in bed. The pounding was coming from the far corner, where the floor met the wall. I pressed my ear to the wood, and I heard dozens of voices, all whispering, all pleading, all saying ‘Help me’ at once.

I staggered back, and that’s when I saw it. The floorboards in the corner were splitting, ever so slightly, and a hand was pushing up through the crack. It was black with coal dust, the fingers gnarled and bent, reaching out. I screamed and ran, but the hand was reaching for my ankle. I tripped, and I felt it grab me, cold as a corpse, and pull. I kicked and thrashed, screaming for help, but no one came. I managed to yank my leg free, but I left my slipper behind. I didn’t go back into that closet again.

I told Miri everything, and she believed me. She came over and we stood in the hallway, looking at the closet door. Miri said, ‘You need to move.’ But I couldn’t just move. My dad wouldn’t listen. He never believed in anything he couldn’t see.

So I made a decision. I figured if the ground wanted its dead, I’d give it something to want. That night, I dug up the yard in the corner where the grass never grew. I dug deep, past the black soil, until I hit the cold hard rock. And there, in the dark, I saw a seam of coal, as black as the night sky. I took one of my old dolls, the one I’d had since I was a baby, and I buried it there, whispering, ‘This is yours now. Leave us alone.’

The thumping stopped that night. The voices fell silent. I didn’t hear footsteps again, and Cora slept soundly. But I knew it wasn’t over. I knew because every time I looked at the spot, the grass still wouldn’t grow, and the soil was always moist, like something was breathing underneath.

We still live in that house. I’ve learned to live with the weight of the dead under our feet. But sometimes, late at night, I still feel it. The coal beneath the briars, calling out to me. And I know that my offering wasn’t enough. There are hundreds down there, and they’re hungry.