The SCP Experience - The Dark Depths | SCP-1671

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

SCP Foundation EUCLID class object, SCP-1671: The Dark Depths This story was derived from https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1671, and is released under Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Author: Matt Doggett Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/MatthewDoggettAuthor/ Website/Newsletter sign up: matthewdoggettauthor.com New Book Releases: https://www.amazon.com/Matthew-G-Doggett/e/B08FD5378Z DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content. Parental guidance is advised for children under the age of 18. Listen at your own discretion. #thescpexperience #scp #scpfoundation #scpencounters #securecontainprotect #scpstories #scpexplained #whatisscp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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depop minimum, de dollars, Veillershue by the way the way the conditions apply. I turned to look back at the teenage boy who stands with his mother in the clearing of green Pennsylvania grass. His eyes are rimmed with tears. And he shakes as his mother caresses his head. His name's Clay.

He's 16. But he looks like a nine-year-old who just woke from a vivid nightmare. Something scared him real bad down in the old mine. What exactly? I don't know. His story doesn't make sense. It isn't possible. Maybe it's just wishful thinking.

If the kid's having some kind of drug-induced episode, maybe we won't find a dead teenager in the depths of the mine. But if we do, I'm guessing Clay will be the one with blood on his hands. I turned back and follow the three other men I'm with. We're walking along old mine cart tracks toward the mine entrance. I have a flashlight in hand. just as Sheriff Hardin does. The first thing the sheriff did after hearing the boy's story

was call Old Gil Grady, the caretaker of the mind and its associated property. Grady has a flashlight, too. He's in the lead, wearing threadbare overalls over a blue and black flannel shirt. The fourth man in our little group is Clay's dad, Elias Clifton. His son showed us the way through the hole in the fence

surrounding the abandoned coal mine. When Gil saw the hole, He grumbled for a good two minutes, cursing under his breath about delinquents and troublemakers. I think I even heard him say scallywags. He's a good old boy, and he didn't make a fuss about taking us down into the mine. If there's a boy down there, we better go and get him out, he said. Now here we are. I adjust my equipment belt.

I'm still not used to the weight of it on my waist. Hell of a first week as a deputy. First, a drunken brawl turned shooting at the thirsty goat. Now this. If Clay was telling the truth, we'll find the oldest Dotson boy dead down there. But I can't see how he was telling the truth. At least, not about how the boy died. It just isn't possible.

I duck on instinct as I step into the mine entrance, even though I don't think I'd hit my head on the rocky ceiling. Moving out of the sunlight and into the shade of the mine, I feel the temperature drops several degrees. The ground slopes gently down as we follow the tracks. Elevators are bad, Brady says, gesturing with his flashlight into the complete gloom awaiting us. No one speaks for a while. The only sound is that of our boots crunching along the ground

and the occasional ring of a rock kicked into the metal tracks. It smells of musty earth, with a faint undertone of decay that seems to grow stronger as we progress. My flashlight beam picks out a structure ahead. Metal scaffolding, wires, machinery, the elevator. As we approach, Sheriff Hardin clears his throat and speaks without turning his head. Elias, I know you run a godly house, but I have to ask, is it possible your boy is on some kind of drug? Elias looks at the sheriff in the limited light, then turns his head forward again. He's in his late 30s, and Clay is his only child. Elias owns a little garage in town and works on a lot of the cars himself. Even now, he's wearing navy blue coveralls, and his hands are smudged back with grease, oil, and grime.

Hell, Hardin, he says. I guess anything's possible. But when they're at that age, you don't know what the heck they're thinking half the time. But judging by his behavior, I'd have to say no. I've seen him scared like that before, but not in a long time. And I don't think there was anything clouding his mind. All right, Arden says. Had to ask.

We come to the elevator and wait, while Grady shines his light around, looking here and there at different components. He finally steps into the cage and looks at what I assume is the control panel. Well, I'll be damned, he says. The sucker's getting power. You didn't think it would be? Arden asks. No, sir, I did not.

Last to check, there was no electricity going to this facility. I'll have to call water and power when I get back to town. Hardin looks over his shoulder at me. Maybe just seeing if I'm still with him. I nod, holding my flashlight up at shoulder level. Well, come on in, Grady says, gesturing into the cage. Is it safe? Clifton asks.

Far as I can tell, Grady says. The sheriff and I step on, feeling the cage sway slightly. It creaks and settles. I look down through the wooden slats on the floor, seeing nothing but darkness below. Clifton stands on the threshold. No one would blame you if you want to stay here, Elias, Hardin says. Your boy isn't the one down there. It's not your responsibility.

It's true. We try to get a hold of the doctor. Hudson Boy's mom, but she wasn't answering her phone. She commutes to Altoona for work, and the boy's father is serving a prison stint for cooking meth. If he is down there, like Clay says he is, it's up to us to find him and bring him out. After considering for a moment, Elias shakes his head and steps into the cage. Let's get on him down then, Brady says. He presses a button in the control panel and the elevator lurches into motion.

its old joints creaking and groaning as it lowers us down. Soon enough, we're surrounded by carved rock on all sides as the cage descends. Then we come to a roughly square tunnel cut into the wall. We all shine our lights down it as we pass, seeing nothing but tracks curving away into darkness. The elevator continues to descend. We pass one more tunnel in the stone before coming to the bottom of the shaft in the final tunnel. As the elevator lurches to a stop, and the sound of its machinery fades away, I can hear a faint sound coming from down the tunnel.

You guys hear that? I ask. I hear you talking, Grady says. That's about it for my old ears. I hear it, Hardin says. Yeah, Clifton agrees. Sounds like something's moving around down there, I say. Maybe the boy's alive, Grady chimes in. We're all shining our flashlights down.

down the tunnel. Like the ones we passed, there are mine, cart tracks on the tunnel floor, but our flashlight beams pick up some kind of large structure in the distant dark. We all start forward, hardened leading the way this time. The far-off sound of movement gets slightly louder as we approach the large object that sits across the tracks in a widened portion of the tunnel. It's a large dome-like metal structure made out of what looks like to be cast iron. I'm guessing about eight feet tall and 15 feet in diameter. It has a closed square hatch in the side facing us, about four and a half feet on each side.

What the hell is that thing? Hardin asks. Grady shakes his head. I don't rightly know. No peace of minding equipment I ever seen. We move closer, inspecting it. It's a hemisphere, like a giant metal ball cut in half and laid on the flat part. It must weigh a couple of tons, I say.

And it's bigger than the elevator shaft. How would he get down here? Grady just shrugs and shakes his head. He steps around the side, shining his flashlight along the metal flank. It's got another hatch on this side, he says, continuing his walk around while the rest of us stand and look at the thing. I wonder what's inside, Grady says. I hear the scrape of metal, and I know Grady has reached out and grabbed the hatch handle. But there's another sound, like the quick shuffle of feet on the tunnel floor coming closer.

Alarms go off in my head, and I start around the other side of the object. But before I can get Grady in sight, I hear the sickening sound of metal striking flesh and hard bone. Grady cries out in pain. I circle the object, my flashlight picking out Grady on his knees at the back of the thing. His flashlight is on the ground, pointing deeper into the tunnel. And in that shaft of light, I see. a short but stocky bald man in black coveralls rushing into the darkness, carrying some kind of tool.

Oh, Jesus, I say, looking at Grady. Blood is streaming down his face from a massive gash in the top of his skull. He's trying to blink the blood out of his eyes. His mouth moves up and down, and he makes pained nonsense noises. Hardin and Clifton rush around the other side. What happened? Hardin asks. A man, I say, on my knees while holding Grady steady.

He ran off into the darkness. Grady's eyes roll into his head, and he goes limp, falling forward from his knees. I catch him and ease him to the ground, then check for a pulse. I feel the last few beats of his heart. They're erratic and weak, and then there's nothing. He's dead, I say.

That son of a bitch killed him. Hardin shines the light on the gouge in Grady's skull. I can see where the weapon went into his brain. The sight makes me queasy. One hit, Hardin says. One hit, that must be one strong son of a bitch. He has his revolver out in his right hand, his flashlight in his left. My boy was telling the truth, Clifton says, like he can't believe what he's saying.

There's someone living down here. He didn't have a flashlight, I say. How could he see? Godwin, let's go. Hardin says to me. Clifton, you stay here. You'll have to come past us to get to you. Clifton nods blankly, staring at Grady's lifeless body.

Hardin leads the way down the tunnel. His wrists crossed so he can aim his weapon and the flashlight in the same direction. I follow behind, pulling up my own weapon, a Beretta 92FS. The sounds coming from down the tunnel are now louder. Noises like picks hitting rock and shovel scooping up loose debris. We don't go far before we see a body on the ground. As we close on the body, I can tell it's a teenager. Ryan Dotson, no doubt.

I keep watch down the tunnel while Hardin checks the kid for signs of life. He's dead, Arden says after a few moments. He's bashed in. What the hell is going on down here? I ask. Hardin stands up and moves down the tunnel without a word. I move to keep up with him. It sounds like there's a lot of people down here, Sheriff, I say, whispering as we go,

maybe we should come back with more guys. Hardin's face is set in stone. He doesn't say a word. Just keeps moving down the tunnel toward the noise. His jaw clenched and eyelids narrowed. We come to a Y in the tunnel, and Hardin moves left without so much as pausing. Left is where all the noise is coming from, and it's close.

Sheriff's Department, he shouts. Put your hands up, or I will shoot every last one of you child-killing sons. We round a shallow bend and our flashlights pick out the backs of four men in black coveralls. They're all under five feet tall and they all have pale shaved heads. Two of them work with pickaxes striking at the wall, while the other two work with shovels, throwing the debris from one side of the tunnel to the other to get it out of the way. They all wear strange metal collars around their necks.

Put your goddamn hands up! Harden calls. The men keep working. They all have their backs to us, and we can't see their faces. But I know something's wrong with them. They're not right. Something in the wall catches my eye. I shift my flashlight beam over and shout in fearful surprise as the shaft of light lands on a rotting human face sticking out of a divot in the wall. A woman's face. Her eyes are open and her mouth is agape, but she's clearly dead. Beyond the dirty, lifeless face, a putrifying foot sticks out of the wall. Jesus God Almighty, Hardin says, apparently seeing the same things I've just noticed.

What unholy hell is this? In the course of his work, one of the shovelers turns toward us. His face is completely pale and hairless, and his eyes are as white as his skin. There are no irises, no pupils, just milky white. One of the men working with a pickaxe strikes a chunk of rock next to the woman's face, and a large piece of the wall falls down. The men scramble away so as not to get crushed. Then they rush back in and start pulling bodies out of the wall.

Hardin and I watch in stupefied silence as these men, these things, pull the woman out of the wall and toss her down next to the track. With a woman out of the way, I can see a jumble of other bodies in the widened hole. Normal bodies, not like these strange, hairless miniatures. Three of these humanoid creatures go to work pulling the bodies out, while the fourth moves further down the tunnel, coming back seconds later with a large, low cart that he pulls along the tracks.

They pick up the bodies they've already taken from the wall and toss them into the cart. The first one in makes a resounding thud. While two of them work to put the bodies in the cart, the other two grab their picks and go to work widening the hole so they can get at the rest of the corpses. Did you kill them all?

Hardin asks. Did you kill all those people? I've never heard his voice like this. He almost sounds drunk with rage. The workers ignore him. Answer me, damn it! He yells, then lunges forward and grabs one of the pickaxe men, yanking him backward by the collar of his black coveralls.

The man swings his pickaxe up and back over his head, burying the pointed end of the tool in Hardin's face with a sickening crunch. The sheriff stumbles back with the tool sticking out of his ruined face. As he falls, he fires his weapon three times, blowing the man's head apart with the second shot. I point my weapon at the three other workers, waiting for them to make a move. I can't believe what I've just seen.

Like something has just broken in my mind, and I'm unable to recognize that this is, in fact, reality. I shake with fear. The light from my flashlight bobbing as I keep it pointed at the three remaining workers. They don't even look at their dead compatriot or at the sheriff where he lies twitching next to the track. Instead, the other one,

with the pickaxe drops his tool and moves over to the cart. He reaches into the thing and drags one of the corpses out, pulling it away from where the other two are still working. I follow him with the flashlight, watching as he sits down with the naked and decomposing body of a man and starts eating. He chomps down on the right hand first, crunching on bone and tendon and muscle. He eats quickly with teeth that seem designed for such a thing.

He finishes the arm within mere minutes, then switches to the leg of the same side. I can see his belly bulge as he continues gorging himself. Meanwhile, the other two were finishing filling up the cart. I hear footsteps behind me, and I spin around, seeing six more of the bald, sightless things coming toward me. Don't! I say, pointing my shaking gun at them.

Don't touch me! They pay me no mind as they move past, their white eyes staring blankly at nothing. Two of them step over to their dead compatriot. The top half of his head is gone, but his face is still intact. They flip him over and gouge out his eyeballs. Then they jam a rock in each eye socket and a larger one in his mouth. I watch as they lift the dead creature up and place it on top of all the other bodies in the cart.

Then all eight of them stop working and just stand there. The ninth one has just started on the corpse's torso. He continues eating, his belly pressing hard against the front of his coveralls. The thing stops eating when there's the head and half the torso left. He reaches down and unbuttoned the front of his coveralls, then lays back on the rocky ground. His stomach bulges, and then the white skin splits open. A fully grown, pale, and bloody creature identical to all the others

comes out of the cavity, unfolding itself like a circus performer. It's naked, with no apparent reproductive organs. The one with the ruptured stomach fold, the stretched and bloody skin back inside his coveralls and buttons them back up. Then all of them start back up toward the elevator. Two of them pushed the cart and the other eight, including the naked one, walk behind. Not knowing what else to do, I follow them up.

When they reach the strange metal hemisphere, Clifton is nowhere to be found. I hope he's gone back to the surface. Grady's body is still there, lying next to the metal structure. I watch as they open one of the hatches and load all the corpses inside, including their compatriot with the stones in his eyes and mouth. When they're done, all but the naked one head back down into the mine, passing me without a glance. The naked one waits a few minutes and then opens a side hatch and pulls out a pair of black coveralls, a shovel, a pickaxe, and a metal collar, which he places around his neck. After dressing in the coveralls, he grabs a very much. He grabs a

tool in each hand and starts off down the tracks following the others. I point my flashlight at his back until he's so far down I can no longer see him. I turn off my flashlight and sit in the dark next to Grady's body. He tried to open the hatch. That's why they killed him. Sheriff tried to interfere. That's why he's dead. According to Clay's story, Ryan Dotson accidentally ran into one of these things when they were horsing around down here, and he got his head smashed in for him. I sit for a long time, long enough to come to terms with what I've seen, at least as best I can. When I hear another group of them coming up out of the dark depths, I scramble to my feet and run toward the elevator. Three words repeat like a mantra in my mind.

Do not interfere. When I get to the surface, I send the elevator back down, and then I smash the control panel with the butt of my heavy flashlight so it can't be brought back up. Do not interfere, I whisper as I walk out. Do not interfere. I come out into the fading daylight and see that Clifton is there with his wife and son. As I walk toward them, I know he'll ask me what happened. I can see the questions on their faces. I don't know what I'll tell them, but it won't be the truth.

It can't be the truth. SCP 1671 is an abandoned coal mine, located in rural Pennsylvania containing anomalous entities. SCP 1671-A is a hemisphere of cast iron, measuring approximately 14 feet in diameter and 8 feet in height, located in the lowest chamber of the abandoned mine. Four hatches are located at 90-degree intervals on the cast-iron hemisphere. The lower levels of SCP 1671 contain seams of human corpses,

designated SCP-1771-1. These corpses are... of varied age and race, with no apparent pattern to these traits. The specimens are generally in a state of advanced decay due to the conditions within SCP 1671. Genetic testing has not matched any SCP 171 specimens with known individuals living or dead. The total amount of corpses within SCP 1671 is unknown. Seems do not appear to decrease in size. That is, when corpses are removed, further instances are pushed to the front of the seam. SCP 1771-2 designates a group of 243 blind, hairless, humanoid entities found within

SCP 171. These specimens stand an average of 4 feet 9 inches in height and weigh an average of 187 pounds. Each specimen is in possession of identical personal belongings, an iron collar, a black boiler suit, a pickaxe, and shovel. Damaged or lost equipment is replaced by SCP 1671-A through the North Hatch. These entities work in shifts and will ignore intruders unless their work is prevented, at which point they will become violent. Current Foundation protocol involves allowing them to perform their work

while ensuring that non-foundation personnel are not able to enter the mine for any reason.