CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - Every Twenty Years, The Faceless Ones Come out Creepypasta

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

 CREEPYPASTA STORY►by Frequent-Cat:   / every_twenty_years_the_faceless_ones_come_out  Creepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO-SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd...iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS-►"Good Places to Start"-    • "I wasn't careful enough on the deep web" ...  ►"Personal Favourites"-    • "I sold my soul for a used dishwasher, and...  ►"Written by me"-    • "I've been Blind my Whole Life" Creepypasta  ►"Long Stories"-    • Long Stories  FOLLOW ME ON-►Twitter:   / creeps_mcpasta  ►Instagram:   / creepsmcpasta  ►Twitch:   / creepsmcpasta  ►Facebook:   / creepsmcpasta  CREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only

I've been contracted by the Bureau a dozen times in the last four years. Mostly sinkhole reports or rural spill assessments. The kind of work no one notices until it costs someone money. This one came through late in the season. An old mine outside a place called Ever Creek tucked in a valley that didn't show up on GPS until we were nearly there. The brief was minimal. A collapsed shaft from the night.

1930s, reportedly sealed after 17 fatalities. The town's records were inconsistent, and what little had been digitized didn't match the states. Our job was to assess any remaining liability, test for subsistence, and determine if the land could be safely reclassified for Timberlees. In and out, no contact needed with the town's folk beyond a courtesy head's up. We hit the edge of town around noon. October had already stripped most of the trees, and the wind blew low through the bare branches in irregular pulses, the way wind does when the landscape feels hollow.

Fog clung to the roots of the hills, moving only when we did. Ever Creek was smaller than I expected. A gas station, a diner, a short main road that curved lazily around the church, and disappeared back into the trees. Maybe 300 people, if that. Some looked up when we passed, but no one waved. No one asked what brought us. They just watched, silent, still,

returning to their tasks only when our car moved on. We checked into the motel. Four rooms, flat gravel lot, russed around the fixtures. The woman at the front door, desk handed me the key without asking my name. There was a small guest book by the window, but the last signature was dated two weeks ago. My apprentice, Seth, took the room next to mine. After dropping our bags, we drove the half mile to the mine site. The access road had been overgrown with vines and thistle, but the path was still clear enough to follow on foot.

old warning signs hung loose from metal ruts faded to near illegibility. A half-rotted fence surrounded the mouth of the mine, with caution tape haphazedly fluttering from rusted stakes. We walked to the perimeter, marking out potential weak points in the soil and flagging erosion spots. The ground was mostly stable, though I noted a shallow depression near the north side that looked fresh. I was jotting notes when Seth called me over. Just outside the broken section of the fence was a bundle. It looked deliberately placed, not dropped or blown in. A small scuffed baby shoe, a hand mirror with a crack spider webbing out from one corner,

and a velvet pouch its straw string rotted. Seth opened it. Inside was a single child's tooth, browned with age. He turned to me with a half smile. Guess Halloween starts early out here. I shrugged, reached for a nitrile glove for my kit, and bagged the items. Probably old memorials, I figured. Maybe a local tradition or just some grief left a wither out in the open.

Either way, we couldn't leave it there. Wildlife might get to it, and there was no reason to let someone find it and think it meant anything now. Seth made a face as he watched me seal the bag, but didn't say anything. I made a note to include it under potential public safety debris. I'd seen weirder things. Back in the car, we loaded the first round of soil data

and logged the day's findings. The mine wasn't visibly unstable, but the fence needed replacing, and we'd have to get a look at the shaft itself if we wanted to close the file properly. I figured we'd head in tomorrow and get the rest of it done in daylight. Two more days of work at most, then we'd be gone, and the town would have their forest back.

The next morning, we decided to split the day between paperwork and local logistics. Seth wanted to get breakfast and see what the town was actually like in the daylight. I agreed, mostly because the state records, on the mine was such a mess that it made sense to check the town's clerk office while we were here. I figured we might find original filings or at least some version

of the truth closer to the source. The diner was the first stop. It was the same one from the previous night, though it looked warmer in the morning light. Wood-panelled walls, a faded jukebox, and a specials board written in hard-to-read cursive.

There were only two other customers, both elderly, both watching us over their mugs without speaking. A waitress greeted us with a smile that didn't quite touch her eyes. She handed us menus, asked where we were from, and then made no further comment when I said we were working on a state assignment near the mine. We're just cleaning up some liability stuff, I added, trying to keep the tone casual. She nodded slowly. best not to linger past sundown then Seth gave me a quick glance but didn't say anything

breakfast arrived quickly everything was hot and everything tasted fine the silence around us remained fixed in place when Seth asked the waitress what she meant earlier she wiped her hand on her apron and said ain't much up there worth surveying anymore

then walked away He looked over at me, eyebrows raised. They were all weirdly cagey about this. He noticed that. I had noticed, but I also knew that rural towns protected their dead fiercely. Tragedy becomes folklore, and folklore turns into boundaries people stop questioning. I figured it was better not to push. When we stopped at the general store afterward to buy some bottled water and replacement gloves,

Seth mentioned the baby shoe. Just a passing comment to the woman at the register, asked if they did any sort of local memorials up by the mine. She froze mid-scan. Her hand rested on top of the register for a full second before she looked up. That's not for you to handle, she said. Seth blinked. I mean, we already bagged it, part of sight clean up.

Her expression shifted, but only slightly. Then she handed him the receipt without saying another word. We left in silence. Seth kept shaking his head the whole way back to the car. They're acting like we dug up a grave. Maybe we did, I said. Not literally, but to them, could be. At the clerk's office, I asked for records from the mine's operational period.

The woman behind the desk handed me a heavy binder without asking any questions. Her nameplate was chipped and the corners of the folder were stained from time and handling. It had clearly been opened more than once, but not recently. I brought it to one of the black tables and started scanning through it while Seth looked over some landplats. About halfway through the binder, I found two sheets clipped together, both labelled, Casualty summary, Evergreek Collapse, March 1937. The first listed 17 names, each followed by a cross symbol and a four-digit miners' ID. The second listed only 11.

The others were marked simply as unrecovered. There was no explanation, no red ink or notes in the margin, just two nearly identical documents that contradicted each other completely. That alone would have been worth noting, but deeper in the binder tucked into a folder labelled post-collapse correspondence, I found something stranger. Photocopies of town death certificates bundled by decade. Some were handwritten, others typed in fading carbon. Most were routine, old age, farm accident, the kind of mortality you expect in rural places. But until recently, every two decades, always in late autumn, a name would appear

with no cause of death listed. Just missing. The latest entry was 20 years old, October 2005. Written by hand was a note saying her solution was found, but no other details were given. Seth came over and asked if I found anything interesting. I showed him the list. He whistled low through his teeth. Could be coincidence, he said, but his voice didn't sound convinced. It could, I agreed,

but someone had grouped them altogether across nearly a century of town records. That wasn't standard filing. That was curation. When I asked the clerk if anyone was expecting us at the site tomorrow, she shook her head. We don't go up there, she said. Not anymore. She didn't elaborate.

I didn't ask her to. Outside, the wind had picked up. It came down from the ridge in slow, cold currents, the kind that settles into your clothes when you stay there. We drove back to the motel without speaking. The next day, Seth stayed behind to catalogued soil data while I return to the mine site alone. The air was colder than it had been the day before. The sky was grey but dry, and the woods held a heavy stillness that felt deeper than weather. I paced the perimeter again, noting where the ridge sloped toward a cluster of collapsed timbers

that had probably once supported the original access trail. From there, the forest pushed right up against the edge of the old fence, its roots lifting the earth in stone in uneven patterns. It wasn't dramatic subsistence, but it suggested slow movement beneath the surface, the kind of thing that wouldn't appear on modern records unless someone went looking. That was when I heard it. A faint metallic sound, sharp, rhythmic, rhythmic, It came from somewhere beneath the ground, distant but consistent, the kind of sound that might have been dismissed as wind dragging through old ventilation shafts or water dripping from rusted struts onto a hollow steel plate. But the intervals were too clean, steady.

It struck stone and rang out in short echoes, as if whatever was causing it was focused on something specific. I stopped walking, crouched and pressed my palm to the earth, felt nothing. The vibrations, if they existed, were too faint. Still, the sound continued for another ten seconds, then it stopped all at once. I stood slowly and scanned the surrounding slope. Just past the trail collapse, behind a clump of buckthorn, I saw something that didn't belong. A small clearing, half swallowed by moss and leaf litter.

A shallow pile of items sat at its centre, arranged with deliberate spacing. Not trash, and not abandoned. A silver ring, tarnished and bent at the edge. A folded photograph warped from moisture, but still showing the face of a man standing beside a truck. A pale braid of hair, tied at both ends with twine. All of it was placed with care, though the elements had done their best to erase the intent. I stood there for a long time, trying to piece together whether this was grief, folklore, or something else entirely.

It was too far from any graveyard to be a memorial, and the items were too personal to have been discarded by chance. I photographed the scene from a distance. then log the GPS coordinates and return to the motel. Seth was in the lobby, working through the geology report over a coffee that had long since gone cold. I dropped into the armchair across from him and relayed what I'd found. Second one, huh? he said. You think it's part of the same tradition, like another offering site? It has that feel to it, I said.

But nothing official, no plaques, no town maintenance. All of it looks like it's meant to be forgotten. He leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. I tried asking that waitress again. Just normal questions. You'd think I'd asked about somebody's funeral. She said they don't go near the fence line, told me to mind the season and let it rest,

whatever that means. I nodded. Stone I got to the clerk's office. Everyone's polite, but they're not confused. They know something. Seth looked out the front window. The sky was starting to dim. The clouds had thickened since I got back.

Do we tell them we're opening the shaft soon? No point, I said. It's not a conversation they're interested in having. It was just afternoon when I decided to stretch my legs and walk the edge of town. town. Seth had returned to the motel to sort data, but I needed to escape the screen for a while. The air was still, pressed down under low cloud cover. Nothing moved in the trees, even the birds had gone quiet. The streets were empty in that in-between way rural towns often are. Shops open, but unattended, wind chimes moving without sound. I passed the church, and we were

one-room schoolhouse and a shuttered gas station that still sold cold sodas through an ancient vending machine. Near the edge of the church, I spotted a boy crouched beside a dry culvert. He was fiddling with something in the dark, maybe a stick or a bit of wire, the way kids do when they have more day than structure, no older than seven. He didn't notice me at first. I slowed as I passed, and gave him a quick nod. Hey there, I said, keeping the tone casual. You know any scary stories about the minds? He froze.

The object in his hands slipped from his grip, but he didn't move to pick it up. I just sat there, my shoulder's stiff, and my head lowered. I waited for a moment, then smiled. I was thinking of going to play up there, I added. keeping it friendly. I thought I should ask if there are any monsters to watch out for. That got him to look up, but not with amusement.

His eyes were wide in the way kids get when they've been told a rule that feels larger than them, something that feels older than their parents. He looked around, then leaned in slightly. I'm not supposed to talk about it, he said. I crouched the little, hands of my knees. knees, staying a few steps back. Fair enough, but I won't tell if you don't, the boy hesitated. Then, in a near whisper, he said, The faceless ones are there. They only come out if someone

opens it. Every 20 years or so. That's why we leave stuff. It stops them from coming. He stood up and dusted off his pants. Then he turned and walked away without another one. word. Not running, but quick, head down. He never looked back. I stood there for a few moments after he disappeared around the corner, letting his words settle, faceless ones. The phrasing was strange, not monsters, not ghosts, not even minors. Faceless. It was the kind of story a child might inherit, without understanding. Something passed down through repetition, never fully explained,

just accepted. To me, it was a bit of folklore, probably rooted in grief, a way for the town to ritualize the collapse, a quiet warning wrapped in superstition. It was an uncommon.

I'd heard dozens of versions in other towns across the state. Still, as I made my way back to the motel, I found myself repeating the phrase onto my breath. The faceless ones. We started early the next morning, just after the sun cleared the ridge. The sky was flat and pale.

The clouds stretched thin across the horizon. Seth looked half awake when he met me by the car, but his boots were laced and he was already double-checking the survey gear. The drive to the site was short. trees pressed in from both sides of the access road, brittle with a change in season. By the time we reached the mine entrance, the frost and the undergrowth had already started to melt. The boards covering the main shaft entrance were old and brittle. They cracked easily under pressure, and pry them loose while Seth cleared the debris.

Beneath the outer layer, the frame had been reinforced with thick nails and rusted chains. Someone had sealed it thoroughly once. That effort hadn't held. Behind the final boards, darkness pressed forward in a way that felt tangible. The shaft yawned open, lined with rotting timber. No air movement, just stillness. I stepped forward first and checked the air with a handheld reader. Oxygen low but breathable.

No methane, no signs of recent experience. activity, just stale air and the dry rot of long abandoned spaces. Inside, the beam of my headlamp cut through thick layers of dust and old cobwebs. The walls narrowed quickly, then opened into the first main corridor. Carved stone reinforced with wood beams, most of them splintered and leaning under their own weight. We move slowly, pausing often to photograph structural damage and cross-checking support spaces. Seth handled the laser mapping,

marking, marking depth and slow gradients as we went. The process was tedious, but necessary. No shortcuts with work like this. About an hour in, we both paused at the same time. A sound had drifted up from the tunnel ahead, faint, sharp, a metallic tick, followed by a pause, Then another. Regular intervals, clean repetition.

Seth raised an eyebrow. You hear that? I nodded, already listening harder. The sound came again, distant. It echoed faintly along the stone, but not enough to locate a source. Could be water dripping, I said, If this metal piping still embedded in the rock, the echo can carry.

Seth didn't respond, but I could tell he didn't buy it. I wasn't sure I did either. But I wasn't going to say what it really sounded like. Not yet. We kept working. There was still a lot to do. The map had to be completed before we could even submit the preliminary risk report. Neither of us mentioned the sound again.

again, though it returned occasionally, always at the edge of hearing. By mid-afternoon, we were both covered in dust, our knees sore from crouching, our wrists aching from constant notation. The work was good, methodical, but it drained you. Old tunnels had a way of taking more energy than they gave back. We reached the midpoint of the shaft and decided to stop for the day. There was too much to cover in a single pass, and we hadn't brought enough gear for an overnight trip.

Before we left, we stacked our packs near the entrance. It felt safe enough. No one in town would likely come near the mine, not with how they spoke about it, and the equipment wasn't useful to anyone who didn't know how to use it. Specialised tools had a way of protecting themselves. We hiked back to the car without speaking much, The quiet between us wasn't tension.

It was exhaustion, the kind that settled into your shoulders and made you feel older than you were. By the time we rolled back into Ever Creek, the sky had already started to dim. We didn't talk about the sound in the mine. We just drove to the diner and ordered whatever was still on the grill. We were dirty, tired and hungry enough to forget everything else. for a little while. The diner felt warmer than usual when we stepped in.

The windows were fogged at the corners from the kitchen heat and the overhead lights hummed softly above our booth. We sat near the back, away from the regulars who always clustered close to the counter. Seth looked worn out. He rubbed his eyes with a heel of his hand while I flipped through my notebook, cross-checking some of the beam measurements from earlier. Our boots left the trail of dry mud across the floor

and the waitress didn't ask us to wipe it up. She just dropped off two waters and walked away. We ate slowly, tired from the work. Neither of us had much to say at first. Eventually, Seth broke the silence. That place was empty, he said, not even a raccoon down there. I don't get a room.

what they're so scared of. He said it too loudly, not shouting, just casual, the kind of volume people use when they assume no one is listening. Someone was. A man in a booth two tables over turned in his seat. He stood up slowly, eyes locked on us. His voice was sharp enough to cut through the entire room. You opened it. Seth froze mid-bite. I set my fork down. The diner went still. Conversations died.

The clink of silverware stopped. Chairs scraped lightly as people began to stand. Some avoided looking at us. Others stared too directly. The man didn't say anything else. He just stood there a moment longer. Then walked out. A few others followed.

him. A woman near the counter leaned in our direction. Go back to your motel, she said, lock your doors tonight. Seth looked at me, his brows furrowed. I didn't know what to say. The waitress came by with a check. She didn't meet her eyes. Then she walked away. The rest of the meal sat and touched. We paid and left without another word. Outside, the street had emptied. No one was on the sidewalks, no cars passing. The sun had finally dipped behind the ridge, leaving the town in that in-between colour

that doesn't belong to day or night. Windows were shuttered, porch lights were off. The walk to the motel wasn't far, but it felt longer than it should have. The silence pressed in from both sides. even the wind had dropped away. When we reached our room, we didn't discuss it. We said good night at our doors and locked them behind us.

Seth double-checked the deadbolt, then said through the wall, See you in the morning. I didn't answer right away. Eventually, I said, Yeah, morning, but it was hard to believe. believe that tomorrow would feel the same. As today, we woke early, though neither of us had slept well. I kept waking to small noises that never repeated, moments that might have been dreams,

but left the hair on my arms standing straight. When we stepped outside, the air had turned colder. A fine mist clung to the gravel lot, and the sky had the flat, heavy colour that usually meant snow by nightfall. The town was still, not just slow, not quiet in the way small places often are. It was still in the way of shut doors and drawn curtains, the kind of stillness that implies watching. The diner was closed, no chairs on the porch, no light inside. The gas station had its metal shutters down. The general store was locked, its windows dark.

We knocked on a few doors, more out of instinct than hope. We could hear the shuffle of feet inside. Once there was the distinct sound of someone inhaling sharply when we knocked, but no one opened up. Seth looked around and rubbed his neck. They're hiding. They're waiting, I said. For what? I didn't answer.

We made our way back. Back to the mine, the path had the same emptiness as the town did. At the mine entrance, everything wasn't touched. The boards we had pried loose still lay in a neat stack by the opening. Our gear sat just where we left it, the dust undisturbed. It felt wrong to step into the shaft again. But we did. The job wasn't finished.

Inside, the air had grown heavier, not from weather or lack of oxygen. There was simply a pressure to it now, the kind that settles behind your eyes and makes your chore clench without knowing why. We worked in silence, mapping, photographing and logging. I tried to focus, but every few minutes the sound returned.

Tick. Metal on stone. Pause. Tick. It is. echoed from deeper in the tunnel, always past the last point we'd explored. Never louder than a soft chime, but enough to hear, enough to feel in the joints of your teeth. Seth stopped once to ask what I thought it was. I gave the same answer I had before. Groundwater, pressure shifts,

old machinery. But I knew he didn't believe me. We left earlier than we had the day before. Neither of us wanted to be in the shaft when the light failed. Back at the motel, the hallway smelled faintly of cedar and dust. Our doors were closed, but something had changed. Inside my room on the table beside the window sat a basket. Wicker lined with cloth, no tag, no note. Inside was cheese, wrapped in wax paper, jerky. salted and dense, bottled water, six tall containers, labels peeled off. Seth called from his room. He had one too. We stood in the hallway a moment, baskets in hand. This isn't hospitality, I said. No, he said. It's rations. We didn't talk about what that meant.

but I left the basket sealed when I went to bed. I woke to the sound of something slamming against the door, not knocking, not a fist. It was heavier than that, blunt, deliberate, pace with the kind of weight that didn't need to rush. The first strike rattled the frame, the second made the bedside lamp flicker. I sat up too fast and nearly fell out of bed.

My mouth was dry. I hadn't heard any footsteps or voices leading up to it. Just the bang. Then another. Then the silence in between. I thought at first that the townspeople had decided to force us out, that the warnings had turned into action. I imagined a group outside with flashlights and tools,

fed up with our presence, tired of whatever they thought we had stirred. But I didn't hear voices. no muttering or yelling. Just one more slow, heavy impact against the door. The hallway light under the door flickered once, then dimmed. I backed into the bathroom, shut the door and locked it. It was a flimsy bolt, the kind meant for privacy, not protection.

I sat down in the corner beside the toilet and tried to slow my breathing. Another blow shook the walls. then came the sound of wood splintering, long, drawn out cracking, the groan of material given way under pressure. Whatever was out there had started breaking something apart, but it wasn't my door. The sound shifted, I heard a scream. Seth. It came from the room next door, not just one shout, it stretched out, ragged,

panicked. I heard furniture scrape, then crash. Something was being dragged. Not fast. A slow pull across the carpet. Seth screamed again. Then it cut off, sudden and sharp. I pressed my hand over my mouth and stayed completely still. My own breathing felt too loud. Then came the creaking, not footsteps, just the sound of something shifting weight, a slow movement, wood bending under uneven pressure. The hallway groaned, minutes passed, then more. No more sounds, no more movement. I didn't open the door, I didn't speak, I sat curled on the tile floor, knees pulled to my chest,

staring at the space beneath the bathroom door and waiting for the sky to turn grey again. It was a long time before dawn came. When morning finally came, I stepped out into the hallway, expecting to see the remnants of a break in, maybe even the police.

But the corridor was clean, the carpet undisturbed. My door stood intact, latch untouched. I crossed the few feet to Seth's room and felt the shift as soon as I reached it. His door was split down the centre. The frame had been torn at the corners where the bolts used to be. The handle hung loose on one screw and the paint around the lock had buckled outward.

Four clean holes had been punched straight through on the bottom half of the door. They weren't ragged. They were narrow and round, drilled. deep and deliberate about the width of a pickaxe tip. Inside the room, the sheet had been stripped halfway down the bed. The nightstand lay on its side. The floor was scuffed in a wide arc, the carpet torn where something had been dragged. A dark red smear trailed from the bed to the door, then turned toward the parking lot.

Outside, a woman in a plain grey sweater was mopping the pavement with slow, practice strokes. She worked in silence, pushing the soaked fibers across the concrete. The red line faded behind her with each pass. She never looked up. I stood there for a long time, waiting for someone else to appear, for a police cruiser, a medic, a crowd. But no one came.

Eventually, I left the motel and walked into town. The streets were no longer empty. The diner had its chairs back out. The gas station pumps were humming again. A man was putting out a sandwich board for the lunch special. People passed me on the sidewalk without stopping. Near the post office, I found a small group gathered in the street, half a dozen men and women, all standing in a loose formation.

They weren't holding anything. They weren't armed. just waiting. One of them, a man in a tan coat with sleeves too short for his arms, stepped forward. He was maybe 50. His expression was neither kind nor angry. It's time for you to go now, he said. I stared at him.

What happened to my partner? No one answered. I tried again. What happened last night? night, where did you all go the day before? Why are you acting like this is normal? The man's mouth twitched once at the corner. Not quite a smile, more of a signal, a recognition that my questions didn't need answers. An offering has been made, he said. I looked past him to the others. None of them met my eyes. They stared just over my shoulder, waiting.

I turned and walked away. No one followed. The sky was dull grey when I returned to the mine. The streets along the road was still, the leaves half dropped and wet from a slow morning drizzle. The tires cracked over gravel, but the rest of the world held its breath. No one followed me.

No one had asked where I was going. The entrance had been sealed again. Fresh boards crossed the mouth of the shaft, cleaner than the old ones we had pulled away. New bolts reinforced the frame. Someone had worked quickly and quietly, and they had done it before sunrise. I walked to the fence.

The grass around the path was damp, but a few red droplets stood out on the pale soil leading toward the base of the entrance. The colour was too bright to be old. Then I saw a bundle. It had been placed carefully, resting against the lower beam of the gate. A handkerchief knotted into a loose satchel bulging at the centre. I crouched and opened it.

Inside were the same kinds of items we had found before. A ring dulled by age, a lock of hair braided and yellowed at the tip, two small teeth that looked far too human and nestled among them in the pile of offerings the plastic corner of a clipped work badge Seth's His name, his face Still clean, still laminated

It must have been taken from the pack we had left behind I stood slowly holding the bundle against my chest chest, then lowered it again, and left it there. I pieced it all together. Something in the minds, the faceless ones that I heard about, were in there. Whether their lost souls from the collapse or something far older, I did not know. But what I did know is how they kept them back. memorabilia memories from when they're alive

left on their doorstep maybe a reminder of their humanity to stop claiming more souls they had solved this worked this out over decades and we came in and messed things up and how could this have gone any different

if some here came up raving about monsters and rituals we'd have pushed them aside to do our work. No one had told me what to do next. There was no official protocol for this. No field manual entry labelled folklore. No checkbox for an offering made in someone else's name. I sat in the driver's seat of the truck with the engine off and opened my field log.

Mine structure remains unstable. Conditions hazardous. Collapse risk high. I paused. Secondary fatality during inspection, body unrecoverable, recommend indefinite closure. I didn't sign it right away, just close the book and rested it on my lap. Then I looked back at the mouth of mine. I never heard the ticking sound again.

But I also never went back.