Day 296 – Specter – Short Story

The water drips from the caverns roof, splashing quietly in a puddle beneath, circular ripples glitter out and dissipate until the next drop slashes down. A light flickers through the cavern as two silhouetted figures make their way through it.

“How many years do you think it’s been since someone’s been down this far?” One of them asks.

“Thirty years, ever since the killings no ones been anywhere near this place, too many bad vibes, and the fact he was never caught,” the other replies.

“That’s what I don’t get Francis, you say it was a he, but why couldn’t it have been a she?”

Francis laughs, “Really? You’re going to start on that one again Riley?”

“No one ever saw who did it, no one survived, it could have been a she, Gloria Fitzpatrick went missing around the same time, and she had motive.”

“God, seriously? Fitzpatrick was a bona fide but case, but she wasn’t capable of the brutality that took place down here, sure, the mine was stole out from under her, and the workers supported Cranshaw instead of her, but, she still couldn’t have done all this. It was Hancock, the pit-boss, he had more motivation that Fitzpatrick, and his body never showed up either.”

“That’s where your wrong, there’s documentation that Hancock’s body was amoung the dead, but he was incorrectly identified after the first autopsy, Danny MacFagden was incorrectly listed amoung the dead, but six years later here turned up in a bar three states away, remember, they originally tried to pin the murders on him, but he proved that he was nowhere near the mines at the time. When they dug up the grave to identify the body through D.N.A. It was gone.”

“That doesn’t mean it was Hancock, you’re just grabbing at straws, anyway, you’d say that because he was your grandfather.”

“That’s got nothing to do with it and you know it. You’re holding onto the woman killing them all shite, it’s like you’re obsessed, why can’t you just entertain the thought that maybe Fitzpatrick just ran off a short pier somewhere?”

“Because, she swore they’d all pay, as would their offspring, and theirs after that.”

“Well, hello, my Mum and Dad are very much alive, so I’d say her threat was as empty as the possibility of her killing everyone in the mine.”

“Are you sure? When did you last talk to them?” Riley asks.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I think you know,” she says, Francis slowly turns, the blade in her hand glimmers in the light.