Where The Ground Bleeds Black

The ground shifted softly under my boots as I crawled out from beneath Michael’s trailer. Pinesburough’s night air wrapped around me, colder than it had been an hour before, sharp enough to sting my lungs. I brushed dirt from my hands and scanned the quiet yard with a tight, practiced sweep of my flashlight.

No movement. No voices. Good.

The crawlspace looked just as I had left it earlier. The soil beneath the north beam remained undisturbed. The plastic case I buried there was still hidden. Safe, for now.

I stepped toward the woods, breathing slowly, trying to steady my nerves. Moments like this always brought my grandfather’s voice back to me, as clear as if he were standing beside me in the dark.

Watch not the words people say, but the truths that they believe go unseen.

I hadn’t heard the ticking of his old pocket watch in years, but sometimes, in moments like this, I imagine it again.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Just memory. But tonight, each imagined tick felt sharper, louder, like a warning rising in the dark.

I slipped into the tree line. The woods behind Ironwood Hollow were thick and uneven, the kind of place where shadows stretched long and sound carried. As a boy I learned to navigate forests like this, but Pinesburough swallowed light in a way Willowford never did.

I followed the same route I mapped earlier in the week until the air changed.. I could smell damp earth. Pine sap. Then something sharper.

Rotten eggs?

Crude oil.

I found the clearing and knelt beside the disturbed soil. The siphoning site looked fresh. The earth was too dark, too slick, the sheen unmistakable even in a weak beam of light. A narrow trench cut across the ground, exposing a metal pipe that should not have existed.

Blackwell Energy claimed this well had been decommissioned long before I was born. But the sulfur rising from the soil said otherwise.

I pulled out my phone and pressed call. Shane’s voicemail picked up.

“Shane, it’s me. Listen, something’s not right out here. I found… look, I can’t say this over the phone. You need to meet me as soon as you get this. It’s about the company and… someone’s been”

A crack sounded deeper in the trees.

I turned sharply.

“Call me back right away. Do not tell anyone you heard fr—”

The voicemail cut off, battery dead. I lowered the phone, pulse thudding.

The woods had gone silent.

A chill slid down my spine and the ticking in my mind grew louder.

Tick… Tick… Tick…

Each beat sharpened, cutting through the quiet, an echo of my grandfather’s warning.

A figure stepped out from behind a cluster of trees.

A man in a black suit.

He moved with calm, deliberate certainty.

“Daniel Blackwell" he said.

Not asked. Stated.

My breath hitched.

​

Run.