Office Basement Coal Mine

JonThought of the Day #16

As the Metro rumbles above, all the earth below crumbles. This is how we discovered the office basement coal mine.

What we had assumed was a leak (overlooked by the city water authorities for years) in our basement storage unit, was actually the trickling from a damp shaft of 10,000 tons of coal. It burst one day (ruining the several teddy bears we hand out to kids) and exposed the slick veins of a billion years of compressed fossils.

I was the first to enter, prepared with N95 and a bright yellow hardhat plus lamp that lit the way forward. My co-expeditioner was the Bacon Girl AKA Egg Girl AKA The Girl I Said “It’s Warm” To. She decided on a pink N95 with yellow daffodils and a red hardhat.

—“Oh,” I said.

—“What is it?”

—“I thought – well, I thought we’d be matching.”

—“Do you wanna match?”

—“I guess it doesn’t matter…”

—“I can still change.”

—“No, it’s all right – the hat is in your color palette, anyways. As is the mask.”

—“Thank you!”

—“So…shall we?”

—“Sure.”

We started down the shaft, which felt fresh and untouched. However, as we crawled deeper into the earth, we realized this was the exception and not the rule. We were in only one minor tributary of a great river of shafts belonging to one, great abandoned mine just below Union Station. And, there was more than just coal.

—“Oh my God! Is that a diamond?”

I inspected. It was. I said as much.

—“Dude, that would look great with my watch, no?”

I looked at her watch. It would. I said as much.

—“Are you interested at all in what I’m saying?”

—“Hey! I am. But are you missing the fact that there’s a massive abandoned mining operation just below the city?”

—“Sure, yeah, but I mean…it’s been here.”

—“What? What do you mean?”

—“Well, this was our old basement unit.”

—“The abandoned mineshaft?”

—“Whoa, whoa, no – not the whole mine. Rent would be crazy! Shaft 38F. God, it was so hard to lug up stuff for events from there.”

—“Can you show me?”

—“Sure, I think I remember the way.”

She led the way, occasionally picking at some vein here and there with an old iron pickaxe she brought along.

—“Ugh, look, this is straight up gold – I think it could make a nice bracelet…or maybe some hoops?”

She held the little nuggets against her wrist, then her ears. I preferred the hoops.

—“Me too.” She pocketed the nugs.

Eventually, we reached a vast cylindrical chasm. At its lip, a rickety elevator.

—“Watch your step,” she said, hopping a sizable gap between the edge of the cliff and the elevator’s platform. She cranked a lever nearby and the whole structure shuddered. We began our way even deeper into the mine.

Looking out from the elevator more closely at the chasm, I could see it was glittering. Clearly, there were veins of ores and gems of every kind here – it was the kind of place the U.S. would’ve liberated. And, decaying signs hung around its circumference, each organized into floor numbers, followed by corresponding shaft letters. I could see the branding of some familiar companies and government departments still breathing a pale ink on the walls beside their shafts. In a word, it was wonderful – a utopia for geologists and office managers, alike: the world’s greatest warehouse.

—“So, what happened?” I asked, as the elevator continued its descent. “Was it always abandoned?”

—“Nooooo way. It used to be suuuuuper busy. Everyone was here – there was even a cafeteria that had really good, cheap salads – definitely cheaper than the ones upstairs.” She stopped herself to pick a glowing mushroom off the wall the elevator passed. She bit into it. “Wanna try? It’s like cotton candy.”

I tried. It was like cotton candy. I said as much.

—“Well, anyways,” she restarted, sucking the sugary leftovers from the tips of her fingers, “there is a great evil at the bottom of the mine, and we dug too deep.”

—“And it’s just roaming around?”

—“What? No! Floor 38 – including our office – sent an expedition to seal it away, which we did. No one died, if you’re wondering, but some of us were irrevocably changed. Not me, though – and don’t worry, the others are getting the treatment they need to get rid of the dream virus.”

—“Dream virus?”

—“Yes, the great evil’s true form is a goat with Biblical angel wings, and if you make eye contact with one of the eyes on its wings, you instantly fall asleep, wherein the evil tries to infect you and keep you permanently in a dream state so it can feed off your consciousness and emotions.”

—“And how did you seal it away?”

—“We each took turns poking its eyes. And then we bonked him with an iron hammer.” The elevator thudded. “Oh, look! We’re here.”

Beside the barely recognizable etch of “38F” was a fading image of our brand logo. The door to the shaft was slightly ajar, and a rank smell emerged from the opening.

—“Oh, bruh, this better not be –” she started in without me, heaving the pickaxe to an attack position.

—“Hey, wait!” I slipped through the door right behind her but was stunned by the intensifying stench. I lost pace, and I could only tell where she was by the coming and going of her headlamp. I raced through past old filing cabinets, loose sheets of tax forms, ancient and obliterated desk phones, a toaster, and about a hundred thank-you drawings from little kids, taken on a new creepiness after decades abandoned in a hidden mine. As I plodded, I realized sounds squished beneath my feet. I shined my light down. Rivers of blood. I shined my light up and decided to forget about it.

I nearly crashed into her at the end of the shaft in a perfectly spherical room. In front of us was a pool of blood, the source of what I was stepping in. In the middle, there was a raised platform with something on it, draped over with an old cloth.

—“Hold this.” She handed me the pickaxe and climbed swiftly up the platform. There, she ripped the cloth down. Revealed was a stone coffin dripping with viscera and letters of languages unknown and unheard since the last gods died off. She began to shift the coffin’s cover, and the room began to hum. It was like we were surrounded by a dread choir. I was scared but mainly frustrated because I really only needed to grab an extension cord for my boss and now I was missing lunch with my other friends. It was nice to explore with Bacon Girl, though – very straightforward and very informative.

The stench reached its apex once the coffin lid slammed into the bloody pool, barely splashing onto my coworker’s shoes.

—“Ah, fuck! See what you did, Vlad!”

A real Nosferatu-looking motherfucker cranked open his shut eyes.

—“Wha– Oh! Oh, no…”

—“I told you you could stay IF you cleaned up after yourself. But it stinks like shit in here because you let alllll that blood overflow from your death pool and now it’s sticking to everything! And what’s that? Ohhh, ohhh – leftovers from last night? Disgusting! If this isn’t cleaned up by the next time I’m down here, I’m putting a fucking stake through you, got it?”

—“Yes, ma’am.”

—“Good, now – how are you doing?”

—“I’m fine. I’m fine. Same ol’, same ol’”

—“Good! No fuss with downstairs?”

—“No, but we’re due anytime for– wait, who’s that?”

He unstuck a crusty arm and pointed a spindly finger with a long nail at me.

—“Oh, that’s my coworker. He’s pretty new. This is Vlad, he’s a vampire we accidentally stored when we moved from here to the new spot. Obviously, it was too bright up there so we let him stay down here – on a few conditions.” She turned to Vlad the Vampire and scowled. Vlad blushed.

—“Oh, well. Nice to meet you.”

—“Same,” I replied.

—“As I was saying–” and before Vlad could continue, the ground rumbled. Not above, as with the Metro – but far underneath, where angels fear to tread.

—“Ah, exactly as I had thought. You two better get out of here. I have some poking to do!” And with that, Vlad turned into a bat and nosedived deep into the earth.

My coworker poked me on the shoulder.

—“Let’s go – it’s going to get loud.”

—“What’s going on?”

—“The first condition of Vlad getting to stay is cleaning up his space. Fail. The second, and more important, is that every few years he has to poke the eyes of the great evil to keep it at bay. It takes a while, and there’s a lot of screeching. Totally unpleasant.”

I didn’t argue. We started a light jog to the elevator, which transformed into a sprint as the whole mine began to tremble. The veins of ore glowed with a sick crimson.

—“Not good!” My coworker yelped.

—“Why? What does it mean!”

—“It means Vlad has failed, and he’s activating a failsafe to bring the whole mine down on himself and the great evil.”

—“Why didn’t you all do that in the first place?”

—“Ummm, because of this!” She scooped up a handful of rubies lying on the ground. “Anyways, let’s go!”

We were able to hop on the elevator with no trouble, but it was stop and go. Apparitions of strange, otherworldly creatures screeched past us, while giant bats (Vlad’s cousins, I was told) fluttered through the higher levels to dive down to support their family member. It was looking dicey, until we heard a terrible death rattle following up a massive stalactite dropping 1000 feet to the devil pit below.

—“That was close.”

—“What happened?”

—“They found a different way other than blowing up the whole place. I’d guess they trapped Vlad’s soul and the great evil in the same stalactite monument by stabbing them both. That way, they can duke it out without damaging the physical world.”

—“Ah, alright.”

We emerged from the shaft and sealed it with a stone we had lying around. I wasn’t going to ask anymore questions, so we just dumped our mining gear and head back upstairs.

I was slumped from the strange adventure and decided I might as well go home early. But, my boss stopped me on the way out.

—“Hey!”

—“Hey!” I said, taking out an AirPod.

—“Did you get it?”

—“Get what?”

—“The extension cord.”

—“Oh…fu–”

—“Here, I got one!” My coworker slipped in from the front storage closet. (I don’t know why I didn’t look there in the first place).

—“Ah, thanks! Lifesaver! You guys have a good weekend!”

—“You, too!” We said together.

—“So, are you heading out? Wanna walk out with me?”

—“Ah, not yet – maybe next week. I got something to wrap up.”

And behind her, through the closet door, I saw a furnace, a mold, and a thousand jewels ready to be laid into a glorious future heirloom.