Ghost Mining
Published by Scott Weaver
Copyright 2012
Jimmy vaulted down the stairs, imagining he was Spiderman webbing his way from building to building.
“I’m taking off, mom!” he announced as he put his old pair of sneakers on.
“Is your room clean?” mom asked from the laundry room
“Spotless,” he replied without looking towards her.
“Better be,” she warned.
Jimmy said nothing in reply as he opened the door to leave.
“Hey!” mom called out as she came into the hallway behind him. “Since when do you leave this house without telling me where you’re going?”
Jimmy held his hands out. “Old man Miner’s house,” he replied, as if it was obvious.
“Doesn’t that poor man ever get tired of you kids bothering him?”
Jimmy shrugged. “Sometimes he tells us he needs to take a nap, or he is feeling under the weather, but usually he’s glad to see us.”
Mom nodded her head lightly; “I imagine he gets lonely in that creepy old house.”
“Yeah, with it being just him and that cat,” Jimmy said, taking another step outside, trying to slowly slip away.
She pointed at her ten-year-old son, “Mr. Miner is a nice man, but you stay away from that cat. It looks diseased.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Jimmy replied with a shiver. “That thing is nasty.” He moved out onto the porch.
“Is anyone else going over there with you?”
“I’m going by Bobby’s on my way there,” he said as he jumped on his bike.
“Be careful and be home by five,” she called out to him.
“Will do,” he said, riding away from both his mother and a significant piece of the innocence of youth.
Bobby lived five houses down the street, so Jimmy was there in seconds, but nobody came to the door, even after he rang the doorbell twenty-seven times.
“Shoot,” he said aloud, looking down the street at old man Miner’s house, which stood right next to the dead end street that marked the end of the neighborhood and the beginning of the woods.
The dark brick building stood at the end of the road like a bouncer guarding the door to a meeting of gangsters in some backroom in a seedy bar. It seemed to loom over the street, as if daring anyone to approach it.
“You lookin’ for trouble,” Jimmy asked it in his best gangster voice. He stuck his thumb in his chest. “You wanna piece a me?”
He jumped on his bike and rode around in slow circles, hoping Bobby would suddenly come home. He didn’t like going to Old man Miner’s by himself. The old guy was nice enough, but that house was creepy. It was the kind of place you wanted to make sure you had a buddy with to watch your back.
Jimmy came to a stop with a long sigh, looking at the spooky house again. “I ain’t no pansy,” he said as he spit on the road like a cowboy, and steered towards the old haunted landmark.
Dumping his bike on the sidewalk he made his way towards the slightly crooked porch. As his foot touched the first step something shuffled from the broken lattice beneath the porch.
Jimmy immediately stepped back, bending over to see what made the noise. “I forgot my pocket knife,” he thought to himself.
A small furry form moved out from beneath the porch like smoke. It was dark gray and most of its left ear was missing and the right ear didn’t look much better. It glared at Jimmy with its one good eye, for its right eye was nothing more than a clouded orb, like a dirty marble. It drew its tongue slowly over its remaining fang, and looked at him in silence.
“Hey, nasty cat,” he tried not to act uncomfortable. “Is Mr. Miner home?”
It answered with a mean hiss that turned into a spit, making Jimmy stumble back in surprise.
“Get outta here!” Jimmy growled, acting like he was going to kick it. “Or I’ll go get my dog!”
The cat shot out towards the woods, quickly disappearing in the weeds.
“That’s what I thought,” Jimmy said as he straightened his T-shirt. “Clyde would have you for lunch.” He walked up the steps and knocked on the door.
After a moment the door slowly opened and an old man with kind blue eyes smiled down at Jimmy. “Hey there young mister, what brings you down to my neck of the woods?”
Jimmy smiled back. “It sure ain’t that pleasant cat of yours.”
Mr. Miner chuckled quietly as he let Jimmy in. “Hospitality is definitely not one of that cat’s qualities. You flying solo today?”
“Yeah, Bobby wasn’t home.”
“Well, that just means more cookies for us.”
“Definitely,” Jimmy said with a smile.
“You grab the cookie jar and I’ll get the milk and we’ll meet at the table.”
"You got it," Jimmy grabbed the old cookie jar that looked like a beehive off the counter and placed it on the table.
Mr. Miner sat down two coffee mugs that looked like bees, which were part of the set with the beehive, then grabbed the milk from the fridge. "So, how's your summer been so far?"
"Pretty good," Jimmy replied. "How about you?"
Mr. Miner chuckled. Amused that Jimmy considered the summer any different for him than any other time of the year. "Other than the heat, I've got no complaints," he said, pouring milk into the cups.
"I hear that," Jimmy agreed. "Only thing worth doing outside is swimming." He said, grabbing a cookie from the beehive and dunking it into the bee. Waiting for the cookie to absorb the milk he looked over, seeing an old metal helmet sitting on the end table, a light was strapped on it. "That you're old mining helmet?"
"Sure is," Mr. Miner replied, without looking over at it. "I was cleaning out the closet and came across it.
It was a tarnished old silver color, with the strap worn and frayed in several places that kept the light on it. The bulb looked blackened and partially broke.
"Can I see it?" Jimmy asked.
"When you're done eating cookies," he replied. "It's filthy, so you wouldn't want to touch it until you're done."
"Okay, thanks," Jimmy said, dropping the dripping cookie in his mouth. He quickly repeated the cookie dunking three more times and then finished the rest of his milk. "Okay, all done," he announced, making his way to the ancient hardhat.
"You find that old brainpan that interesting, do ya?" Mr. Miner asked with a smile.
"Yeah, this is so cool. The ones they got now are all plastic. A bullet would probably bounce off this bad boy," he put it on. "They just don't make 'em like this anymore."
"You could say that about a lot of things now a days, Jim," Mr. Miner was looking off down the hallway, looking more into the past than the corridor that led to his bedroom.
"You okay?" Jimmy asked. Mr. Miner rarely called him Jim, and when he did it usually meant he wasn't feeling well.
"Just a little tired," Mr. Miner rubbed his eyes. "Think I need a nap."
"Oh, okay," Jimmy took the hardhat off. "I'll get out of your hair then.
"You can keep that if you want," Mr. Miner pointed to the old helmet.
"Really?" Jimmy quickly scooped it back up. "Are you sure?"
"I would have just ended up throwing it back in the closet. You and Bobby might as well have some fun with the old relic."
"Cool, thanks!" Jimmy put it back on. "We can take it back to the old mine shaft and act like we're searching for diamonds."
Mr. Miner was suddenly wide awake. "What mine shaft are you talking about? Not a real one, right? Just make believe stuff you boys do."
"Oh no, there is one about two miles back," he pointed towards the back of Mr. Miner's house. "It's all boarded and chained up though. We can't get anywhere near it. We just act like were going in there, and then we just pretend
we're underground."
"We'll I'll make a deal with you," Mr. Miner said. "I'll let you keep that old hardhat, so long as you promise to never go back to that mine entrance ever again."
Jimmy shrugged. "But it's like I said, they got it all boarded up and then chain-link fence after that with barbed wire on top. We can't get within six feet of it."
"Well, that's still six feet too close," Mr. Miner explained. "There could be weak spots close to that hole way before that fence starts that could cave in at any time." He grabbed the rim of the hard hat, tipping it up. "You promise, if it's two miles from here I don't want you getting any closer than one mile from it. That still gives you plenty of woods to play in, but I don't have to worry about you boys getting into anything worse than a patch of poison ivy."
"Okay," Jimmy said with another shrug. "I'll see you later," he made his way outside back to his bike.
"Bye," Mr. Miner replied, making his way back to his bed, deciding that first thing tomorrow, he was calling city hall to tell them that they had a mine shaft that needed sealed up since some young kids stumbled upon it.
Jimmy saw Bobby and his dad go by in their car as he climbed on his bike.
"Cool," he said, peddling after them.
Jimmy skidded his bike to the side on the