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​A lantern; a knife © Philip Charter

28/3/2021

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That thing looked at me like an alligator protecting a fresh kill. Angry eyes burned through its 
fleshy face. Did it even count as a human?
Five years since I left that dusty mine in Northern Mexico and I haven’t earned since. Two 
men went missing, workers went home and they closed the site. I’m the only one who knows 
why, but nobody in Sonora listens to a gringo whose only friend is a crate of Tecate. Each year 
Jacinta asks to move back to Texas and each year I tell her I have unfinished business.
First, we heard of the chaneque was from a local boy, Ramón. We all called him the fairy 
for spreading rumours and for once I wasn’t the butt of the joke. It wasn’t funny when he 
disappeared.
After a few days searching, the gold started flowing again and the others forgot him and 
the spirits protecting its underground riches. I didn’t.
I convinced Maza, another local, to trap the thing in the deep chamber where Ramón saw 
it. Maza claimed he’d seen chaneque before. We drank coffee and talked about anything to 
avoid the topic of Ramón. I must have dropped off to sleep, ‘cause when I woke, our pyrite 
bait was gone. So was Maza. A trail of boot scuffs led deeper into the mine. No sounds, just 
cold black air. 
The orange lamp light lowered to a flicker. I withdrew the twelve-inch blade from my belt. 
“Maza?” My voice disappeared into the tunnel. 
A sound! My body stiffened. Dust flew up. Something was wrong. The air went cold. I 
turned, and again, and again, whipping my body around to locate any movement in the dirt. 
Electric pain shot up my leg as its claws clamped on. I shone the light and saw its terrible 
form for the first time. Chiselled teeth tore at the flesh behind my knee. I dropped the lantern 
and flailed to get hold of its waxy body. Furious eyes.
As the knife went into its neck it shrieked a primal cry. Before I could twist the life out of 
it, the thing scurried into the dark. It took the knife and the pyrite rock with it. The lamp was 
no good against the miles of dark so I hobbled back to camp to examine the damage. I 
breathed shallow and dragged my bleeding leg. There was no sign of Maza.
The police called the wound a dog bite even though the teeth didn’t match. ‘Gringo loco’
they said. They never found the body. Just like Ramón. I couldn’t work, so the jefe told me to 
go. A few months later the whole place closed anyway.
My leg still gives me trouble and I don’t sleep much. Liquor keeps me company during the 
day and at night I sit with a flask of coffee and rocks of fool’s gold scattered around. My hand 
never strays far from the knife and my lantern flickers orange-yellow light over the stoop.
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    Issue #2

    JULY 2020​



    The Stories

    All
    ​A Discovery/Saying Goodbye By Emily Dixon
    ​After Life By Hannah Burgess
    ​A Lantern; A Knife By Philip Charter
    ​Caught In A False Sunbeam By Roghan David Aran Duggan Metcalf
    Cross The Eyes By Josh Cassidy
    ​Dead On Time By Jeff Jones
    Discovery By David Darling
    ​Don’t Turn Around By Alexander Gerolimatos
    ​Equal Rights By Andrew Ball
    Escape And Evade By Jeff Jones
    Euthanasia By Pragya Rathore
    ​Failing By Ruth Makepeace
    ​Forbidden By Meg Isaac
    ​Homecoming By David Darling
    ​In The Footsteps Of The Paediatrician By Liz Berg
    Layover By Rebecca Redshaw
    ​Letters Home By Daniel Clark
    Leviathan By Owen Reilly
    ​Little Dove By Shelley Crowley
    ​Lord Old Timer By Robin Mortimer
    ​Love By Edward Breen
    ​Love Letters By Adesola Adewale
    ​Memory By Matthew Thorpe-Apps
    ​Memory Stones By Chloe Winterburn
    Morning Coffee By Susan Hoffmann
    ​No More Heroes By Melanie Roussel
    October October By Andrew Ball
    ​Opal By Jessica Disney
    Out Of The Flow By Dharmavadana Penn
    Rise And Set And Rise Again By Jenni Cook
    ​Speech! Speech! By Andrew Galvin
    ​Tattoos By Martin Flett
    The Difference Between... By Robert Raymer
    ​The Funeral Procession By Robert Raymer
    ​The Glitch By Vaibhav Sharma
    ​The Key By Victoria Huggins
    ​The Mystery Of The White Ghost At Chrisard School By Anna Jozefowicz
    ​The Queen’s Attendant By Catherine McCarthy
    ​The War And The Wall By MacKenzie Tastan
    The Year Of The Dying Fish By JB Polk
    ​Unheard By Lois Chapin
    ​We Still Don’t Use The Garage By S.J. Townend


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Secret Attic - Founded March 2020