Tell My Sorrows to the Stones by Christopher Golden Page A

name that came out of his mouth was
Ostergaard
.
    His eyes felt even heavier. He slumped back to the ground, unable to keep himself propped up any longer. As he lay there listening to the silence, to the weight of the mountain closing around them, he knew that there would be no rescue. They were alone.
    Pain began to spread in a band across his chest. Every breath felt more difficult than the last. For several long moments, he succumbed to unconsciousness again. Then a sound made his eyes flutter open—a low moan, accompanied by a hideous choking noise.
    Again he rolled his head to the side, searching for the source of that sound. His upper lip curled and for a moment he ceased breathing at all. A man stood in the midst of the enclosure. He was dressed in full mining gear, but wore an old-fashioned sort of miner’s helmet with a light on the front and a black gas mask beneath it.
    A flutter of hope went through Tommy.
Him
.
    Barely conscious, he managed a smile.
    Until that figure leaned down and touched Wisialowski on the shoulder, and the crying man went silent and still. No weeping. Not so much as a shudder of breath. And then the strange figure, a coal-smeared silhouette, began to move through the enclosure, pausing to reach down a comforting hand to the other men. As he passed amongst them, he almost seemed to float, and the edges of the figure blurred like heat haze over summer blacktop. And when he touched them, one by one, they became still.
    As the Lost Miner moved toward the coal rib—toward the place where he had seen his father raise one weakened hand—Tommy closed his eyes. He heard a rattling hiss of breath and then nothing.
    He felt so cold.
    Something jostled him awake. Tommy winced at the smell of exhaust. Only vaguely aware of his surroundings, of a sense of motion, he felt the rubber strap against the back of his head and plastic over his nose and mouth.
    “Fuckin’ sick irony,” a voice said.
    Tommy tried to open his eyes. He caught a glimpse of the two paramedics working to keep him alive, and he heard them talking about him . . . about the sole survivor of the collapse, and how if those other poor bastards had lived any longer, he wouldn’t have made it either.
    “The only reason he had enough oxygen is ’cause the other guys died first.”
    The ambulance went over another bump and he felt himself slipping into darkness once more. Fading to black.
    “Babe? You all right?”
    Tommy stood just inside the screen door off the kitchen, looking out onto the backyard. June had come so fast. He held a cold beer in his hands the way a child might hold a doll, close against him, fingers wrapped around the neck. Out in the yard, Jake ran through the spray of water thrown by the sprinkler, whipping his arms around and cackling like a lunatic. Katie Hoyt from next door followed right behind him. Their laughter did not make him smile, but somehow it seemed to protect him. He felt like if he could record that sound and play it back while he slept, it might keep the dreams away, the nightmares of suffocation.
    “Babe?”
    Melissa touched his arm and he blinked, turning to look at her.
    “You look like you’re in a trance,” she said, smiling innocently, though her eyes were full of concern.
    “I was. Still a little tired, that’s all.”
    She kissed his cheek. “Dinner’ll be ready in a little while. You should get Jake in here, get him into something dry.”
    Tommy nodded. He took a sip of beer and set the bottle down on the kitchen table, then went out into the backyard.
    “Daddy!” Jake called, racing toward him.
    Once, Tommy might have caught him and dangled the boy away from him to keep from getting wet. Not now. He let Jake jump up into his arms and hugged the boy to him. His son wrapped his legs around him, soaking his shirt. Tommy actually laughed.
    “Sorry, Katie,” he told the girl. “Jake’s gotta come in for dinner now.”
    “Can he come out after?” she asked, all wide