Cresthill Coal Mine

In the Summer of 1929, Cresthill was a town thriving off its recently discovered affluence of coal. It was July 5^th, the beginning of a long day’s work down in the mines, and the foreman of the mine was first to arrive on site. He was greeted by a grisly scene; led in the entrance to the mine was the body of Tommy Gavinski, one of the youngest workers at the mine. The boy was sprawled on the floor, lying on his front. His shoes were missing, and his clothes were torn, but as the foreman’s eyes cast up to the boy’s head, there wasn’t much to see; above Tommy’s shoulders was a mess of blood, splintered bone and what remained of his brain. Cutting straight through the gore was a pickaxe, caked in blood, struck so hard into the ground it remained upright unsupported. Leading up to the mine there was only two sets of footprints – belonging to the foreman and Tommy – but leading away from the body, deep into the mine, was a set of bloody footprints.

In the weeks following the incident, men working in the mine would report seeing bloody footprints leading into the deepest parts of the mine, seeming to start and end abruptly with no obvious explanation.

As the weeks turned into months, one miner, brave enough to follow the footprints into a disused shaft, stumbled upon a pair of shoes, which upon closer inspection had the initials T.G. scruffily written inside.

Entered into Young Writers Ghost Stories competition https://www.youngwriters.co.uk/