The Leprechaun

A tale of things much older and deeper in the earth.

The air in Hazleton, even here along the Stockton Mountain road, always smells of two things: wet pine needles and the faint, cold scent of pulverized coal. Much like the early autumn air, it clings to everything. Come sit on this weathered grey wooden bench and let me share a seasonal tale I gathered in these hills some time back.

Many years back, I was sitting on this very bench, the same creaking slats, the same faded green paint watching the dusk fall over the ridge when Liam stumbled out of the roadhouse yonder. He was a middle-aged man then, but the memories he was carrying seemed centuries old. He was swaying slightly that evening, his canvas overalls thick with the black, greasy dust of the deep tunnels. He saw the silver gleam of my flask and made a beeline for the bench, sat right were you are now.

“A drop o’ that good water for a story, mister?” he slurred, that thick Irish brogue of his turning the simple request into music.

I poured him a generous measure, and as the whiskey hit his empty stomach, the words began to flow. He spoke of his youth, of crossing the ocean on the promise of a life free of the famine’s hunger, only to find himself trading one hardship for another, the brutal, choking depths of the Pennsylvania coal mines.

Liam's Story: The Descent with Sean

It was deep in the earth, in a newly opened area of the mine, that the story began. He was riding the tram down with old Sean, a man Liam knew well from the pubs, a man obsessed with a peculiar theory. Sean had believed that the Leprechauns had left Ireland, escaping the ceaseless demands for their gold, and had relocated to the wilds of America some time ago, explaining why they are never seen in the “Old Country” anymore. And where better to hide their vast treasure than in the unexplored, black tunnels of the deepest coal seams, in green forested mountain of the “New World”?

Sean was a prophet of the darkened pathways hewn of ancient stone. He swore he'd seen things, flickers of green and quick movement, deep in the earth. That’s why he spent his days eking out a living with the pick, patiently waiting for his grand meeting, and a lavish life of luck and gold.

“But Liam, boy,” Sean had whispered on the tram, his eyes wide and earnest in the carbide light, “ye must watch for the other ‘Things’ too. Older things. Things older than the hills, that know the black rock better than any of us. They take offense to our chipping, and they cause the collapses, they do. They guard the deeper places.”

We were assigned to scout for a place for our reinforcement timber, He took a long silent swallow. As We walked toward the new workings, we could hear a pair of exhausted men returning, muttering about a stench, and something being “down there.” They had refused to return prompting the foreman to send us in their place.

However we continued. The new section was rough, the walls natural and sweating, the air thick with dank humidity. But beneath the wet stone and coal, there was a new, unsettling smell, something foul, like copper and rot, wafting from the depths.

As we followed the dark rich vein, our carbide headlamps dancing, Sean cried out, startling excitement. He bent down on the path in front of me, his slender frame shaking with controlled excitement, and retrieved it. It was a large, round coin, the size of a silver dollar, but made of solid gold with unfamiliar markings.

Sean’s gruff face, usually etched with exhaustion, was transfigured by pure, joyous thrill holding the coin. His voice rose to a screech. “I told ye, Liam! The wee folk are here! We’ve found them!” He was practically skipping now, his fear dissolved into a joyous childlike glee. He found another coin, and another, his momentum increasing until he was practically running down the cavern, deeper than anyone was ever meant to go.

The Flickering Light

I had no choice I scrambled after him, the excitement contagious, pulled by the impossible promise of a quick fortune.

Then I heard it.

It was here, on this very bench, that night when I saw Liam freeze. The light from that sputtering streetlamp outside the old roadhouse, a miserable thing of glass and rusting metal, flickered on with a long, drawn-out HUUUUMMM.

I remember Liam's deep green eyes going instantly clear, the numbness of alcohol chased away by sheer terror. He was now-then stone-cold sober. His voice dropped to a low, serious rasp, barely above a whisper, as he continued the tale.

I instantly felt the uneasiness of being watched, a prickling on the back of my neck. And beneath the dripping water, the stale breeze, I heard it, a low, rhythmic chanting, accompanied softly by the frantic, scurrying sound of what must have been a thousand tiny feet.

Sean, who was already incensed by his own manic thrill, only laughed harder. “They’re singin’! The little people are singin’!” His frantic giggles faded into the echoing distance as he disappeared around a corner.

Then, as suddenly as the excitement started, it stopped. A terrifying silence in the darkness.

I rounded the bend to find a solid, impenetrable wall of natural rock blocking the path. I scanned the stone with his lamp, but Sean was gone. As I panned across, the beam settled on a large, jagged hole, roughly ten feet in diameter, punched clean through the barrier. I could only figure that Sean had gone through.

Slowly, cautiously, I moved toward the hole, both terrified and thrilled in equal measure. He wanted the gold, but the doom that I felt radiating from the darkness was paralyzing.

I recall that at this moment, Liam was shaking. He lifted the flask I'd given him and took a long, desperate swallow, chasing the memory, not the buzz. The man was completely sober, trying to drown a terror that had lodged itself deep in his bone marrow.

The Horror in the Dark

Slowly, with my work pickaxe gripped tight, I moved to peer into the hole, and my eye caught a slick, dark patch on the rock face near the jagged rim of the opening, a pool of something i swear must have been blood.

And then, without sound or warnin of any kind, something jumped at me from the blackness.

It had skin of a sickly, dark green, and oily, greasy shocks of dark hair clung to its scalp. Its teeth were razor-sharp, and a long, red tongue flickered out like a snake’s. A clawed hand, impossibly long, grasped for my face. This was no Leprechaun. It was a goblin, a creature of the cold, hungry depths.

I raised my pickaxe in defiance to defend myself, but my heart seized when I looked past the the gnashing single creature. In the absolute blackness behind the snarling creature, I saw dozens of tiny, yellow, gleaming points of light. They were tiny eye sets, reflecting the light of my carbide lamp, denoting what must have been a dozen or more of the things, silent and ready to join the attack. An army of them.

My shaking hand released the worn wooden handle I had been holding so tight, dropping the pickaxe, my only tool, my only defense, and I turned to run.

It was a flight of pure, blind panic, scrambling and falling back toward the light, chased by the scuttling, chittering army of these things that were certainly NOT Leprechauns. I ran, forcing myself stumbling forward, until my lungs burned and the cold, blessed air of the surface hit my face.

I collapsed, shaking, and reached deep into the pocket of my canvas overalls. My hand closed around a hard, impossible weight. And I pulled it out, it was that single, shiny golden coin.

It was then that Liam looked at me, his eyes wide and vacant. He finished his tale with a quiet certainty. He somberly relayed that he had never saw Sean again, and he swore he has never gone that deep into the earth, not since that day, and never will. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out the gold coin he’d held onto all these years, it was heavy, scarred, and undeniably real, flipped it onto the wooden bench between us. He stood and nodded to me tipping my own bottle to me and glancing to the coin as it settled on these very wooden slats. He gave a quiet, grave nod in acknowledgment of our transaction, and walked slowly, steadily, away down the Stockton Mountain road, disappearing into the dark.

That night I picked up this coin, adding the tale to my collection. And now I sit on this bench, telling this story, whenever I come through town, ever since.