The Mouth Under Greywater

Greywater had the kind of silence that made every door feel already shut from the inside.

Eli stepped off the last bus and found the old mine still breathing under the hill, vents sighing steam into the dusk like the town itself could not forget what had happened there.

The sheriff met him with blood under her nails and a list of names no one should have been hearing whispered back from empty tunnels.