"The Dweller Beneath" - October 17, 2024
On an isolated Ohio farm in a century past, an Irish immigrant discovers a dangerous secret under the earth...
Every Thursday, Silver Gecko Publishing highlights one of my stories, either a work of short fiction, a novel, or an audiobook. This week’s selection is the short story “The Dweller Beneath”
This story premiered in my horror anthology 13 MORE TURNS. At the time I was writing it, I was trying to learn the authentic Irish language… which is a challenge, to say the least. I dabbled with some of my own Irish heritage here, but I’m sure it still reeks of prose from an American.
If you want a real treat, check out the audiobook for 13 MORE TURNS, which I narrate myself. I, of course, butcher the Irish accent for the characters. What can I say?… accents aren’t encoded in our DNA.
If you like the story, be sure to pick up your own copy of 13 MORE TURNS on Kindle and in paperback.
-Kevin Carr
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Illustration by Pixabay
“The Salts of the Earth” by Kevin Carr
Séamas... called the ethereal voice across the flowing plain.
Séamas Ó Conaill’s horse, Pádraig, erupted with a painful noise, then suddenly reared up. Pádraig snorted a moist blast of air through his nostrils and slammed his hooves onto the firm earth. Séamas let out a startled gasp, toppling off the saddle. He failed to control the reins and found himself staring at the vast blue sky. In a moment, he fell sharply onto the ground, his tailbone suffering a painful twinge as he landed.
“Pádraig!” Séamas yelled, catching his breath. The horse, already several paces ahead of him, slowed to a stop and turned to face the man.
Normally, Pádraig was completely obedient and docile under the seat of his master. Séamas had branded such behavior into him with years of training in the Gaeltacht on his grandfather’s land. This all took place years before Séamas ever contemplated needing a mighty steed on a large prairie in the northern American land. Moving to the New World only became part of Séamas Ó Conaill’s life after the sudden, premature death of his wife, Síne, a year ago. Her memories saturated his beautiful home, emotionally darkening the land of the Irish countryside. Too painful for Séamas to endure, he needed change to stop the heartache.
“Come here, Pádraig,” Séamas ordered, beckoning the animal as he sat up and began to rise.
Pádraig took several cautious steps closer to his master and stopped again. Séamas, never having such trouble with the beast before, quickly grew irritated.
“Come here, Pádraig! Now!” he said firmly. The horse took three steps forward and snorted. Then, it paced in a tight circle, breathing heavy sighs that seemed to indicate frustration.
“What’s the matter?” Séamas asked, standing erect and taking a step toward his animal.
Séamas... called the eerie voice again, riding the air rather than traveling through it.
At the sound of the strange voice, Séamas spun around suddenly to see nothing but a sea of tall grass, stretching for acres across his newly-purchased Ohio countryside. After several moments, Séamas turned his attention back to his horse, sure that the sound was simply the wind calling to him from his own imagination. But then it came again:
Séamas... the voice flittered though the wind.
“Who’s there?” Séamas asked, spinning around and crouching in a defensive pose. In his wide arc of sight, he caught a glimpse of Pádraig pacing back and forth not twenty meters away, nervous, but unwilling to leave his master stranded.
Séamas...
The voice was so faint, Séamas could not even tell if it belonged to a man, or a woman, or even a child. But after he pinched his arm and shook his head to clear his mind, he still heard the call.
Séamas...
“I can hear you,” Séamas said, “but I cannot see you. Show yourself.”
As if responding to the request, the land itself grew brighter. A patch of grassy field, ending where Séamas stood, seemed to rise from the earth itself and reach out to him. The grass looked mysteriously richer, fuller, and more lush than that which surrounded it. It’s glow called to him... hypnotized him... beckoned him towards its center.
Séamas... the land called. Such a nice place to dig... Séamas...
Séamas Ó Conaill found his feet moving towards the center of the glow, but he could not seem to consciously control them. Almost below his threshold of sensation, but enough for him to be cognizant of it, Séamas felt a light pressure which seemed to originate far beneath his skull. Too much in awe to resist, Séamas allowed the pressure to increase. Although it felt restrictive on his mind, it served a purpose for Séamas, numbing the residual pain he still felt from Síne’s death. As contentment and security grew in his mind, Séamas began to smile.
“Such a nice place,” Séamas said softly and he knelt to the ground to touch the flesh of the earth. “Such a nice place to dig.”
He did not notice that the pressure beneath his skull began to steadily increase.
• • •
Séamas set the heel of his boot squarely behind the blade of the shovel and pressed the thin sheet of metal into the hard soil. It sank beneath the weeds and sliced a ragged crack through the dirt. Séamas smiled distantly. Ever since feeling the first presses against his mind after Pádraig threw him, Séamas felt lost in a dream. Every time he found himself at the house, a growing urge asked him to return to this area of land. Something wanted him to dig.
The light pressing on his mind made his brain feel a bit numb, and he felt his thoughts suffering. Though he had no basis of perspective, living a life of seclusion, he was becoming less independent. It was a price Séamas was willing to pay because being subservient to the pressure kept the pain of Síne’s death at bay. He only hoped that digging in this land would take it away even more.
Séamas pried the shovel back, causing crumbles of dried soil to burst forth. Even with the tiny amount of dirt removed from the earth, Séamas felt the pressure grow stronger, and the remains of his pain diminish a tiny bit more. He let out a stuttering sigh. Although it seemed a rather ludicrous inference, Séamas was sure that the more dirt he removed, the more he could lessen his pain. Eventually, he hoped he could remove enough earth to abolish the pain entirely.
Thank you... a soft voice whispered from within his skull. Dig deep...
“I thank you,” Séamas said softly.
This ethereal moment of peace was suddenly shattered by an audible human voice off to his right: “Mr. Ó Conaill?”
Séamas looked up to see the powerful form of Brian Raymond, a first generation American from farther south who had come by Chillicothe looking for work. Séamas had hired Brian as full time help while he worked to fix up the land he had purchased. However, for now, Séamas knew the land could wait. He needed Brian’s strong arms and powerful hands to help dig through the ground below and release his emotional salve.
“Yes, Brian?” Séamas asked.
“Where do you want these?” he asked, wiping a layer of sweat from his forehead.
Séamas looked next to the man to see a large brown wheelbarrow carrying an assortment of shovels, posts, and various other digging tools.
“Just keep it there,” Séamas said, nodding at the load Brian had brought over. “We’ll use the barrow soon enough. The other instruments will be fine where they are. Right now, we just need to dig.”
Brian nodded. He allowed a smile to creep across his face as his new employer bent forward again over the hole in the earth.
Brian suppressed a laugh, wondering what the urgency was for this project. However, not to be one to refuse work and wages, he picked up a large shovel from the assortment in the wheelbarrow.
“Where should I dig?” he asked.
“Anywhere close,” Séamas said, not even bothering to look up from his own shovel and the hole he had started. “Do not worry about the size of the dig for right now. We can fix that later.”
Again, Brian forced himself to swallow the laugh that had risen in his throat. At twenty-three, Brian had done more than the average man’s share of manual labor. He had been asked to do many seemingly crazy things before – the most notable being one of more than thirty men that transplanted a massive oak tree to the other side of a Georgia plantation owner’s yard because it blocked the sunrise. Upon coming to Ohio, Brian found plenty of jobs in stump removal to clear the land for the future passage of railroads and the building of towns. However, the orders he received from Séamas Ó Conaill held their own eerie uniqueness.
For one thing, Brian realized as he wandered several yards from Séamas and began to cut through the dirt, he could see no animals around the men. He couldn’t even hear the often deafening buzz of the crickets and cicadas that populated the land. Also, Séamas had refused to bring any beasts of burden to the site. Although the tools would be easy to carry back and forth from the main residence, Brian could not understand why they did not bring a horse or oxen out to haul the dirt they would be excavating. Séamas demanded the presence of no animal, not even his trusted steed Pádraig. He had made that very plain before he ever invited Brian to the field.
For hours, the two men shoveled dirt, piling it high in the wheelbarrow and wheeling it far away from the site, creating an artificial hill. At first, Brian complained about not using horses or oxen to haul as much dirt as they would dig up, but Séamas ignored the pleas. He knew Brian would not understand that beasts of burden refused to set foot on this patch of land. Séamas felt no need to explain the actions, for Brian was simply a hired hand. As long as the work flowed and the money came with it, Brian would remain loyal to the Ó Conaill family.
The morning passed quickly, turning into a sweltering, humid day. Séamas felt no fatigue, for he burned with desire to uncover the land at any cost. He was not drawn from his own thoughts until after the noon hour when a soft, feminine voice called to him.
“Father,” it said.
Séamas stood up straight to see the delicate figure of his daughter approaching. She wore a flowing blue dress that sparkled in the warm sun. Although her dark black hair had been crudely pulled into a long braid to expose her neck to the wind, she still held a simple beauty.
“Hello, Crystal,” Séamas said. Although her name was Ma’re Ní Chonaill according to their traditional Irish Gaelic, Séamas called his daughter Crystal in reference to her stunning blue eyes. “They opened wide like the mouth of heaven,” his wife used to say. At seventeen, she had developed into a stunning woman that often reminded Séamas of Síne a little bit too much.
“Did you walk out here alone?” Séamas asked, leaning against the shovel.
Crystal shook her head. “I brought Ocras with me.”
Séamas looked over his daughter’s shoulder to see the hulking, gray-coated body of a Wolfhound lying contentedly in the grass several yards away, panting heavily in the heat.
“He wouldn’t come any farther,” Crystal said.
“He looks rather friendly,” Brian said with an alluring drawl, walking up behind Séamas and leaning on his own shovel. Crystal looked up to the Southerner and smiled. The light perspiration across her brow caused her face to glow in the hot sun. Thin wisps of her hair had curled out from under her bonnet and lay glued to her forehead with her sweat. Brian grinned as he admired her radiance.
“He’s very friendly,” Crystal said, brightening up instantly at the sudden attention. “We brought him with us from Éire. Ocras was a gift to me from mum and dad when I was younger. He hasn’t left my side since I got him.”
Brian smiled and approached Crystal, not completely invading her space, but noticeably giving her a chance to step away from what could be considered crowding in such a wide-open field, which she did not take.
Séamas snorted softly, breaking the concentration of the two young people who had momentarily forgotten his own presence.
“Yes, father?” Crystal asked.
“What brings you out here into the hot sun while we work?” Séamas asked.
“Why, lunch, of course,” Crystal said with a smile. “I have it ready for you both back at the house. It’s awfully late, and I thought you two would head back sooner seeing how much work you have done.”
Séamas looked around. “But it can’t be that late,” he said. “We’ve only just...” but he stopped before he could finish. With a sweep of his eyes across the field, Séamas was taken aback by the vast pit the two had dug. It stretched for several meters in all directions, and in the center, it was already almost two meters deep.
“Just begun?” Brian asked, anticipating Séamas’s unsaid remark. “I never knew you had the energy in you, Mr. Ó Conaill. I thought I could hold my own at this manual labor, but you severely put me under. I was almost ashamed to admit my exhaustion.”
“This is so deep...” Séamas said softly in amazed disbelief.
“Yes,” Crystal said. “And you both just started this morning.”
“Don’t give me the credit,” Brian said with a grin. “Your father did most of the work. It was a lot of earth we hauled out of here this morning. If you would have told me it would be that much, I would have never believed you.”
Crystal smiled and tugged at Séamas’ sweat-drenched sleeve.
“Come along, father,” she said. “Let’s have some food and get you out of the sun for a while.”
“Yes,” Séamas said, still mesmerized by the size of their excavation. “You two run ahead. I’ll be there in a moment. I just wanted to finish this small patch.”
Crystal did not move, but continued to look at her father.
“Are you feeling well, father?” she asked. “Perhaps you should move out of the sun.”
“I will. I’ll be back at the house in a wee bit.”
Brian let his shovel fall to the ground, and he grabbed Crystal’s hand.
“I, for one,” he said, “am famished. I can’t wait to see what you have to offer.”
Crystal’s face flushed pink, yet she beamed when the young man touched her hand. She grasped his own firmly, entwining her fingers. Almost hypnotized by Brian’s Southern drawl, ripe with the smell of hard labor, she turned from her father and walked towards Ocras. His tail began to swish back and forth and his ears fell back across his skull as he saw the two people approach.
Uncharacteristically, Séamas ignored the obvious attraction between the two. He stood at the lip of the area the two had dug that morning. A thin veil of dust hung over the pit, clouding it slightly.
Just a little more... the ethereal voice wafted across Séamas’s ears.
“I will...” Séamas responded, tightening his grip on his shovel.
Just a little more digging... came the voice again. I am almost there...
Séamas lifted the shovel and knelt on the edge of the pit. He was just about to slide into its gaping mouth when he looked over his shoulder. In the distance, he saw Crystal walking with gaiety in her step as she held tightly to the hand of his hired help. Alongside the two, Ocras trotted with his tail a mast in the air.
Just a little more digging... Séamas...
Séamas shook his head suddenly, dropped the shovel and stood, poised over the edge of the pit. Determined to keep an eye on his daughter, Séamas marched away from the gaping maw in the earth.
The voice continued its plea:
Just a little more... Séamas... just a little more digging...
Even though the house was hundreds of yards away, Séamas continued to hear it all throughout lunch.
• • •
Crystal looked out of her bedroom window as her father and the lovely Brian Raymond walked off into the fields carrying digging equipment. It had been two weeks since they had begun to dig out there, and Crystal found herself often curious as to the reason. Surely any find beneath the ground would have been found by now. However, she did not really care about why her father wanted the dig to continue. She only cared that Brian continued to live in the small shack just off the house.
Eagerly, Crystal watched out her window. Although she knew it would be at least an hour before she saw the sun-bronzed form of Brian emerge from the stand of trees just over a small ridge, she could not concentrate on anything else. She longed for his touch and his breath. She longed for the scent he carried after a short time in the sun, shoveling dirt. Although Crystal feared her father’s response when he discovered – if he had not already – that she had fallen in love.
Crystal endured the time, and she endured the heat of her second-story room. In slightly over an hour, her waiting paid off. A tall, sun-darkened figure emerged from the trees. He wore no shirt, and even from the far-away window, she could see his muscles rippling under his taut flesh. As fast as she could, Crystal padded down the stairs and ran out the front door. Brian met her in the front field with a warm embrace.
“Are you sure he doesn’t know?” Crystal asked her lover after sharing a passionate kiss.
“I am sure,” Brian said, taking her hand and leading her to the house. “I leave him every day at this time, and every day he is so engrossed in that damned digging that he never notices. When I return, he is quiet, but not mad. He doesn’t even see me come and go.”
“I’m just so scared that he’ll make you leave.”
Brian shook his head. “That will never happen. All he cares about right now is that blasted hole. I doubt he would even notice if you brought Ocras out there and played fetch not ten yards from us.”
“It scares me out there,” Crystal admitted sheepishly.
Brian nodded slightly. He did not offer words of security and reassurance because he understood her fear. He too felt odd out there at the dig. Although he would never admit it, he was scared out there as well…