The Quarry

Prompt: Smoke, Fog, Haze

I hiked over the hill from the house to the radio tower, working toward the quarry. As many times as I had trodden this path, I had rarely done it alone. Mom and Dad hadn’t let us come here on our own when we were kids. It was too dangerous. Once we started getting older, however, they’d let me and my brother go play there, as long as we were together and promised not to play near the edge.

I crossed the driveway to the radio tower and continued across the other side, where the embankment got steep and left a gap under the barbed wire fence. I crawled under it as I climbed up the other side. My feet slid slightly on the wet fall leaves, but I scampered up the incline without getting the knees of my jeans dirty.

I was in the glade now. Tall pine trees towered on either side as I weaved through the forest, coming out on the old road. I thought of it as a road, anyhow. It was a flat, obvious area that meandered through the woods, and was wide enough for a vehicle at one time, before trees had fallen over the path and new shrubs had popped. The thick layer of wet leaves carpeting the forest floor here kept most of the shrubs down, though.

I followed the abandoned road through the forest until the trees thinned, and I could see the edge. I left the road and walked to the cliff to peek over the side. It was a source of endless wonder to me what an abandoned quarry was doing in the middle of the woods, just a few properties away from my childhood home. None of the research I did online turned up any records, and none of the locals my parents asked seemed to know much, either. It wasn’t really a big enough quarry to draw attention, and it seemed as if it had been abandoned decades previously, leaving plenty of time for junipers and pine trees to take hold in the cracks along the walls and in the scree piles along the bottom. It was far enough back that it wasn’t visible from the road, especially since the trees grew right in the old entrance.

Staring down into the quarry now, I realized I couldn’t see the bottom. There was a thick blanket of fog shrouding the quarry floor, which was surprising. There were usually a few good sized puddles in the quarry, but I didn’t think there would be enough moisture for fog. I’d been to the quarry in all kinds of weather, and had never seen fog in the bottoms. It gave everything a mysterious quiet. I looked around on the cliff face, and into the forest at my back. There was no fog up here, just in the bottoms. I wished my brother were there with me to see how spectacular it looked, shrouded in cloud.

I turned back to the abandoned roadway to get to a better spot to climb down. I couldn’t wait to walk down in the bottoms and experience the fogged over quarry up close. It was like something out of a storybook, and I was giddy to explore. At the usual spot, I walked through the trees to peek over again. This part of the quarry was full of fog, too. It was like a sheet had settled over the whole brim. I found my path down along a pile of gravel that pushed up against cliff edge where I stood. I slid down, hearing the rocks sliding beneath my feet and listening to them echo as they tumbled down ahead of me.

As I descended, the temperature fell, and it grew much dimmer. Even though it was the middle of the day, once I slipped below the shroud, I couldn’t see the sun. It gave the quarry a timeless feeling, like I could stay there for days only to re-emerge the moment I left.

The fog down here was strange. I got off the gravel pile and stood on the flat limestone surface of the bottom. It seemed thicker around the edges, and it clung to the rock piles and walls especially. The stillness and odd lighting made everything seem eerie. It was beautiful.

I wandered through the quarry, checking out all the nooks and crannies. I walked through the part where the quarry narrows and dead ends, through the scraggly overhanging juniper trees whose roots clutched at the bare rocks and boulders, seeking a soil that wasn’t there. The mist made everything that was familiar seem new and strange in ways I hadn’t seen before.

As I walked back toward the gravel pile I had climbed down on, I came across a pile of boulders where the fog seemed especially thick. Oddly thick. Not wispy and cloud-like at all, but a milky white that seemed almost solid. I stopped and stared for a moment, and felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up as the fog stared back. My mind went to all manner of fairy tales and fantasy monsters that lurk in such places…wraiths and dementors and the like. I have always prided myself on being a rational person, however. There’s no such thing as monsters. I’ve been to this quarry a hundred times; it’s just a pile of rocks.

I approached the boulder pile slowly. As I got close, I reached out. I don’t know what I was expecting. I guess I wanted to prove to myself that my slight fear response was unfounded, and there was nothing to be wary of. But as my hand reached into the fog, it grew cold. Unnaturally cold, like going into a bucket of ice. I gasped as the fog swirled upward over the tops of the boulders into a tall pillar, but no wind swayed even the small hairs that hung down in my face. My hand jerked away, and I turned on my heel and ran - scrambling up the gravel pile faster than I would have thought possible for how the loose rocks slid below my feet. I was back in the forest before I processed my reaction.

I kept running, throwing glances behind me. I only slowed when the quarry was no longer in sight. There was no fog in the woods. It was a beautiful, sunny day. I stood there, panting, my heart racing. I felt foolish. But I didn’t turn to go back.