Free Harlan County Horrors by Anthology

few minutes of talking about black bears, we shake hands
again.
    “ See you tomorrow night, Mr. Carter,” the curator says.
“Assuming you and the missus are planning on attending the
show.”
    “ Show?” I say.
    “ I’m surprised you haven’t heard. All of Kingdom Come’s
buzzing about tomorrow’s guest. He’s supposedly quite the
comedian.”
    “ I
doubt we’ll be in attendance. I’m not a comedy fan.”
    “ Well, to each his own.”
    Outside the hut, my son approaches one of the glowing
rhododendrons, and I have to grab him by the arm.
    “ Don’t touch those,” I say. “Don’t even get near
them.”
    “ Why?” my son says.
    “ Because I told you not to.”
    And
that’s the end of that.
    One
good thing about my son, he knows when to shut up.

    Thankfully, my Filter’s sophisticated enough to differentiate
between the day-to-day screaming in Kingdom Come and the yelling of
my wife. So the machine lets me hear her, and I wake up.
    And
I find her on her knees, a few meters from the tent.
    “ What’s wrong?” I say.
    “ It took our son,” my wife says. “It took our son.”
    I
glance around. I don’t see him. “Who took him?”
    “ A
monster.” She cries.
    I
feel like shaking the truth out of her, but there’s no time for
that. “Which way did they go?”
    “ I
don’t know. It pushed me into a bush, and when I got up, they were
gone.”
    By
now, a small group has formed around us, and a middle-aged woman
steps forward. “I seen what happened. They went that way.” She
points.
    “ Call the Guardians,” I say, and look down at my wife. “Don’t
tell them what you think you saw. They’ll lock you up.”
    “ Your wife ain’t tetched,” the middle-aged woman says. “I seen
the creature too.”
    But
I trust this hick even less than my wife.
    “ Tell them you can’t remember,” I say to my wife.
    She
nods.
    And
I run.
    A
few times, I stumble on steps and the roots bulging from the earth,
and I remember the veins that swelled on my mother’s forehead
whenever she exercised or threw my father’s porcelain horses at the
wall. She limited herself to only destroying a couple every few
weeks, because she wanted them to last.
    Eventually, I end up catching my breath beside what looks like
a fallen petrified tree. But no, I read about this in the brochure.
Log Rock’s a natural sandstone bridge, and my Filter’s supposed to
edit out all the vandalism, the names and messages scratched and
spray painted into the stone.
    For a few moments, however, I see enormous letters that run
a lmost the entire
length of the bridge.
    THE
MONSTER IS INSIDE.
    And
I hear a chorus of screams.
    Then, silence.

    I
follow the escort into the Coal Mining Museum and Guardian
Headquarters, up the stairs, to a large office on the fourth
floor.
    Standing in front of Warden Rose is almost like looking in a
mirror. The same buzz cut. The same color suit. And if you
squinted, you might mistake one tie for the other.
    While the escort whispers into the warden’s ear, I let my eyes
explore the photographs on the wall. Photographs that the warden
obviously acquired from the exhibits, because the pictures impart a
bloody history of the coal industry. Mining accidents, burning
houses, dead families. I also see some newer photos of the
reconstruction, when the mines were transformed into the jail it is
today.
    Warden Rose shakes my hand, smiles. “Do you always bring suits
along on your camping trips, Mr. Carter?”
    “ Yes,” I say.
    He
sits, and motions for me to do the same.
    I
obey.
    Then he leans forward, frowning. “I want you to know, we’re
making every effort to find your son. We already tracked down his
Filter, but I’m afraid the device wasn’t attached to his
head.”
    My
head vibrates with a shiver. “Would such a removal cause him any
permanent damage?”
    “ That depends on our enemy’s knowledge of Filters and the
tools at his disposal. For now, let’s assume your son is alive