MicroHorror

It seemed that the venue was perfect: a disused colliery yard, which had once felt the heavy footfall of a thousand men as they reluctantly made their way towards the mineshaft at the beginning of their shift. They, the miners, would say “Who needs Hell when we’ve got this place?” Nevertheless, their Hell was only underground–come the union movement.

The headstocks looked down onto the minors as they crouched below in the darkness waiting– they had been ignored for too long. Whereas the miners had been well rewarded for their toil at the coalface, the minors were not paid well for their Sisyphean labour.

Looking upward their preternatural eyes could see a sturdy fellow with raven hair looking out for them from the top of the headstocks. He was quite well known hereabouts; his name was Nusi. He usually worked the doors at the nightclubs in Market Town; tonight, however, he was to look out for Marshal as he addressed the minors–or rather his comrades, as he preferred to say.

They had waited too long and they were feeling unsettled; Marshal was not yet with them. Not before time, a tall man with straggly grey hair stepped onto a makeshift rostrum to the front of the minors; he raised his hand to silence them. They became immediately silent and Marshal began his speech.

“Comrades,” he bellowed, “we are able to be together tonight because the majors are amused elsewhere– they watch and gamble on our brothers as they fight each other to the death in a warehouse not too far from here.”

“Shame on them,” said one. His comrades agreed. Marshal raised his hand and once more the throng was silent.

“It may be that our brothers have the right idea and that death is a far better option than our eternal damnation whilst we work the nightshift in their factories for a pittance–and for what?” He paused in the silence and then raised his voice for effect. “Doesn’t anyone have the answer? It’s simple really: we work for our soul to be made as black as the coalface a kilometre below our very boots.”

Nusi’s ears pricked as he heard muffled voices to the north, coming from the cover of the thick plantations that used to supply the pit props that had held up the roof for the coalface workers. He could hear their dogs snuffling and restrained behind their leather muzzles. He flicked open his cigarette lighter and allowed the flame to burn into the still night air. He held it up at arms length for a moment–its kind was returned from down below. He felt useless from his lofty perch; he saw Marshal being ushered into a car, which was parked behind the pithead baths. There was mayhem below; the minors did not know which route of escape to take–they had come from the north themselves; fearing discovery if they should take a more public route. Nusi ran towards the steel steps that would take him to their midst. They were getting closer; there voices silenced by their laboured breathing as they negotiated the higher ground of the spoil heaps half a mile from the colliery land. He grabbed hold of the handrail and swung himself down the first landing; he landed heavily and stumbled against something in the darkness. A rusted can was sent going and he heard it come to rest at the next landing–he could smell petrol. He leaned over the rail to see Marshal’s car beneath and slowly headed for the gate–two of his henchmen guarded his exit. He jumped the next few steps and lifted up the petrol can.

He took out his handkerchief and stuffed it into the top. He took his lighter and lit the clean cotton.

He smiled as Marshal’s car became an inferno and he could hear the great man scream.

He could join the others now–the fight had only just begun.