The Cone Keeper’s Vigil

The new year had slithered in like a frost-bitten serpent, and here I was again, wrapped in a hi-vis jacket that smelled of stale coffee and regret, stationed at a crossroads that seemed to exist solely to test my patience. My name is Dan, and I was ‘traffic control’ for a water main replacement that had ground to a halt days ago. The road, if you could call it that, was a gravel track snaking through a forgotten corner of the county, leading to a hamlet called Hollow Creek, though the only hollow thing around was my enthusiasm.

My post was a ridge overlooking a dip where the workers had dug a trench, but today the trench was empty, the diggers silent, and the only sign of life was a flock of crows arguing over something in a nearby field. My equipment: three traffic cones, a folding chair, and a Volvo that had seen better decades. The rain was a constant, miserable drizzle that soaked through my jacket and turned the gravel into a slick, grey paste. My phone had been dead since noon, and I’d left my CD player on the kitchen table, so the only entertainment was the rhythmic squeak of my chair and the occasional rumble of a distant lorry that never came.

By three in the afternoon, the light had gone from dull to dim, and I was beginning to think I’d been forgotten by the universe. Then, I saw her. A woman, perhaps in her late fifties, with white hair plastered to her scalp, wearing a tattered raincoat that flapped like a wounded bird. She was walking up the road from the direction of the hamlet, and as she drew closer, I noticed she was holding a small, rusted metal box, about the size of a shoebox. She stopped at my cones, looked at me with eyes that seemed too large for her face, and spoke in a voice that was eerily calm.

‘You’re new,’ she said. ‘The other one couldn’t take it. He left in the middle of the night, didn’t even take his chair.’ I shrugged, not knowing what to say. She continued, ‘They told me the water pipe’s been down for a week. They say it’s a leak, but I know better. It’s them. They’re moving again.’ I asked who ‘they’ were, and she smiled, revealing teeth that were surprisingly white. ‘The ones who live beneath the ridge. They come out when the water runs low. They like the silence, you see. And the cones? They think the cones are little doors.’ She laughed, a brittle sound that didn’t reach her eyes, then turned and walked back the way she came, leaving me with a crawling sensation on my neck.

I told myself she was just a local eccentric, the village weirdo. But as dusk fell, the rain stopped, and an unnatural stillness settled over the land. The crows had gone. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath. I decided to check the cones, just to have something to do. I walked to the first one, and as I bent to adjust it, I noticed something: a thin, hairline crack in the asphalt around its base, radiating outward like a spider web. The second cone had the same, and the third. I knelt, pressing my ear to the ground, and for a moment, I heard it—a faint, rhythmic tapping, like a finger on glass, or a pickaxe on stone. I stood up, my heart thudding, and backed away.

I rushed to my car, fumbling for my keys, but when I turned the ignition, the engine just coughed and died. The battery was fine, but the gas gauge was on empty—impossible, I’d filled up that morning. I tried again, and this time, the radio crackled to life on its own, playing a scratchy old record of a woman singing a lullaby I didn’t recognize. The tapping grew louder, coming from under the car, and I saw the gravel on the road begin to shift, as if something was burrowing just beneath the surface. I jumped out, and the three cones were gone. In their place, three small holes gaped in the asphalt, each about the size of a fist, and from them, a thin, oily smoke began to rise.

I ran. I didn’t know where, just away from that ridge. I slipped and stumbled down the gravel track, the hamlet’s lights flickering in the distance. When I reached the first house, a squat stone cottage with a thatched roof, I banged on the door. An old man with a face like crumpled newspaper opened it, and before I could speak, he said, ‘You’ve seen them, haven’t you? The cone minders. They always come for the cone minders.’ He pulled me inside, slammed the door, and I saw that his living room was filled with an impossible number of traffic cones, stacked in pyramids, arranged in circles, some wearing little knitted hats. He handed me a hot mug of tea and said, ‘They come up to fix the water, but they’re not fixing anything. They’re digging down. The water line’s just an excuse. You need to leave this place. Tonight. They don’t like the light, but they love the silence. And you, my friend, you’ve been keeping the silence for them.’

I stayed the night, shivering under a pile of moth-eaten blankets, listening to the sound of digging that seemed to come from all directions. In the morning, the old man was gone. The cones were still there, but he was nowhere to be found. I walked back to my post, and the road was smooth, the holes filled, the cones back in place. My car started fine, and the gas gauge was full. I drove out of that place without looking back, but as I passed the ridge, I saw her again—the woman with the white hair. She was holding a new metal box, and she waved at me. I didn’t wave back.

I quit the next day. Told my boss I was done with traffic control. He said, ‘You’re the third one to quit this month. The others said something about the cones singing.’ I didn’t ask. I moved to the city, got a job in a call centre, and I never speak about Hollow Creek. But sometimes, late at night, when the rain is steady and the city is quiet, I hear that faint tapping. And I look at my floor, and I see it: a hairline crack, spreading from the wall, like a spider web. And I know they’ve found a new pipe to dig, and a new cone to keep the silence.