The Devil is Real and I Met Him in New Straitsville Ohio

"It's just like it goes to sleep. When it gets some air, it awakens again. People might forget about it for a while. But you know, it's always burning down there somewhere."

- Connie Dunkle, New Straitsville Historian. 

Transcript

You chose your house because it had character. There was a sunroom, a loft, and a balcony. The landscaping was immaculate, the walls all colorful, but tastefully so. Oh, and there was a Cold War-era bunker underneath it. You didn’t pick it because of that, of course, but you thought it added to the charm. You thought it was a fun, whimsical reminder of the past. A little piece of history from a time when people worried about such things. You turned it into a hangout spot, and given that you didn’t have a basement, you used it for storage too. You always felt like you were communing with the builders of the house when you took extra canned goods down there, extra rice that wouldn’t fit neatly in your pantry. Then, when the news started to shift and people started to joke about the end, you bought a few extra things here and there, and you started to keep water down there too. It was stuff you needed anyway, and you always put it in the bunker jokingly, of course. When things got worse, you started to feel less and less silly, and you reminded your friends, the ones who knew you well enough that they knew about the bunker anyway, that they could always hide with you. But you were all just joking. When the day finally comes, though, and you get the message, you only have a few minutes. You know none of your friends can get there in time, so you seal yourself in alone. You wait out the explosions, the sirens, and the heat. You wait until you’ve nearly run out of food, and you’re completely out of water. And then you decide to see what’s waiting for you in this new world. You fix your hair and you put on pants for the first time in weeks. And finally, you steel yourself, and you open the hatch. On the other side, you find; The Podcast Inside Your House. 

Just east of Gore, and a bit north of Nelsonville, lies a little town called New Straitsville. It boasts not one, but two caves said to be haunted by horse ghosts, a whole mess of ATV trails, and exactly one restaurant. But perhaps the most interesting thing about the town is that the ground underneath it has been on fire for 140 years. 

By the time I found the town, the fire had mostly left it alone. See the fire runs along an underground coal seam, so it can only burn in one place for so long. But every once in a while, the fire finds its way back, just enough to remind people where it started. Every now and then, the residents of New Straitsville look out at the hills and see smoke.

I found the fire before I knew anything about the town, though. The coal seam it runs along isn’t a straight line. It branches out and snakes in different directions, mostly to the south. It’s massive, but you never hear about it because it’s burning under the Wayne National Forest, the biggest stretch of wilderness in Ohio. 

On those rare occasions when the fire finds a crack to the surface, and things above erupt in smoke or flame, it’s usually in the middle of nowhere. Only the animals see it, and Ohio usually isn’t dry enough that anyone feels a need to investigate smoke in the distance. But most of the time, it just smolders along underground. Think about that the next time you’re hiking in the winter and you see a bare patch in the snow. Or the next time you walk through a clearing where the foliage is strange, and the trees are dead. You could be walking right over it and not even know. 

That’s how I found it. I was backpacking off-trail. It’s easy enough to do in Ohio in forests where the underbrush is thin and the game trails are prevalent. I did that a lot back then. I’d always loved the idea of going places that other people had rarely, if ever, been. Seeing things that no one else had seen in decades, centuries, even. I just wanted to experience something new, I guess.

And boy, did I get what I wanted the day I met the Devil. 

I was only thirty minutes or so into my adventure when I spotted him: another man out for a hike in a part of the forest we weren’t meant to be in. On more proper trails, I was never apprehensive about other hikers or backpackers. Usually, it’s a very caring and chill group of people. But seeing a person in a place I was expecting to be alone set me a little on edge.

He greeted me first, showing none of the apprehension I was feeling. Like meeting someone else in the middle of nowhere was the most natural thing in the world. Like it was expected. It was strange, but it put me at ease.

“Hello there!” He shouted the greeting from a few yards away, as if I was an animal he didn’t want to scare off. 

I responded with a “Good morning!” And I let him close the gap between us. 

“Are you looking for the fire too?”

“What fire?” I asked. 

“The one underground, of course.” He gestured for me to follow him, and he seemed nice enough. Just a trail hippie looking to make conversation.

“What do you mean?” I asked. 

“You’ve never heard of the World’s Greatest Mine Fire?” He reminded me of a carnival barker or a tour guide. I liked him instantly. 

“I haven’t,” I said. “Tell me about it.”

And he launched into a story then, and I found myself following him deeper into the woods, taken in by his theatrics. As we walked, I sized him up and quickly decided that even if he was crazy, I could easily take him in a fight. He was taller than I was, but he hunched over and walked like he was in pain, and he looked very pale. It seemed obvious he had some kind of health issue.  

The man had a soothing voice, and the way he spoke was almost hypnotic, every sentence a cliffhanger. It seemed like he’d told this story before, like he’d been searching for this fire for a long time, and his excitement at being close to finding it was infectious. 

The story he told me was about the coal wars, a series of labor disputes at the end of the 1800s between coal miners and the government. There were protests, unions formed and broken, and even a few gunfights.  

And in this little town in Ohio called New Straitsville, the miners had chosen to rebel in a very unique way. They’d decided to light the mine they worked in on fire. On a cold night in 1884, they pushed a cart full of flaming tar down into the mine. They hoped it would be destructive, but they couldn’t have known just how much. Back then, no one could have guessed it would still be burning over a century later. 

Every now and then, the man would stop to cough, sometimes leaning on me for support. It tugged at my heartstrings. He was about my age, but he seemed so much older. When he finished his story, I asked him if he was okay, and he told me, “What I have can’t be fixed, son.”

It was then that I realized I hadn’t told him my name. “I’m Lee, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Lee, I'm Edgar.” 

With that, we shook hands, and his grip was shaky. 

“It should be somewhere around here, I reckon,” Edgar said when we got to a clearing. “I got a good tip from one of the locals.”

I looked up for smoke, but the skies were clear. Looking down though, that brought promise. The trees all around us were either dead or dying. The underbrush had taken over, but only a few plants were able to survive the heat. There was an abundance of honeysuckle and moss, but ferns and flowers found no place there. 

I reached down to touch the ground, and it was warm. Too warm to attribute even to the sun-dappled heat of the summer.

“Should we be walking on this?” I asked Edgar. “Is it safe?” 

He answered me with another question. "Where's your sense of adventure?”

And you know what I thought? That he was right. Isn’t that what I was always looking for when I wandered off the trail? Something different and new.

“So the mine is below us right now?” I asked. 

“Probably not the mine this far from town, but the coal seam, yes.”

I took out my phone to get pictures, and we spread out a bit, taking in the strange environment. We wandered in that mostly wordless way people do when they’ve found what they’ve been looking for at the end of a long hike; the mountaintop, the waterfall, the ruins. We’d stop occasionally to point out a patch of discolored earth, or a rocky area with just a hint of smoke or steam coming out. It was fascinating, a completely alien place that didn’t seem to fit in Ohio. It was what I imagined Yellowstone would be like, the strange geology beneath shaping the surface. 

I was lost in taking pictures of some multi-colored algae when I realized I’d also lost Edgar. I wanted to show him the plants, but when I looked up, he was nowhere to be found. I felt responsible for him, sure, this was his idea, but he was clearly very sick. I knew I couldn’t end this adventure without bringing him back to civilization. I was just starting to worry when I heard him yell-

“Over here, Lee, you have to come look!” 

And though I couldn’t see him, I wandered into the treeline, following the sound of his voice. I spotted him quickly, standing in something that resembled a tree well, but all around the edges, there was smoke coming out. 

“Hey man, I don’t think you should be on top of that,” I said. 

And he started to repeat his earlier question, “Where’s your sense of-” But a coughing fit interrupted him. He doubled over, and this fit was the worst one yet. 

Against my better judgment, I went to help him, and I stepped down into the depressed ring of earth with him. He leaned on me then, and the smoke around us started to get to me too. Then he did something strange. He pressed on my shoulder, hard, and he stomped his feet even harder. Hard enough that I felt the earth rumble beneath us. Then, I heard a snapping and a booming, and all of a sudden, we were falling. 

I’ve always been the kind of person to react with rage when I get hurt. It doesn’t matter if it’s a genuine fight, or just stubbing my toe on the coffee table. My body only goes into fight or fight. So when I crawled up out of the rubble, I was grabbing Edgar before I even checked to see if we were hurt.

“What the fuck was that?” I asked, pulling him closer by his shirt, and noticing for the first time just how old it looked. The fabric crinkled in my hand, and threatened to tear. When Edgar just kept coughing and coughing, trying in vain to get out any words, I snapped out of it. I let myself think that I’d imagined him trying to stomp open the ground. I thought to myself, ‘Why would he do that?’ And I let him go. 

“Sorry,” he rasped, finally getting the smoke out of his lungs. “I fell.” And I believed him, and I tried to redirect my anger to the strange predicament we now found ourselves in. 

We’d fallen in some kind of sinkhole, and though the air was smoky, it was breathable. The walls around us were smooth and covered with lichen or algae, but whatever it was it was rapidly drying and crisping up. Though I didn’t see a fire anywhere, the heat was bordering on unbearable. A quick glance up showed just smooth stone walls to get out the way we came, and it was high, maybe twenty feet up. The smoke was coming from behind us, and ahead of us, the ravine we were in looked like it widened out. There was no scaling the walls where we were, but I had no idea what going ahead would bring. Going back toward the fire, though, that was not an option.

As I joined Edgar in coughing, I knew we needed to move. “Let’s go that way and find a place to climb up!” I yelled the words, even though it was quiet down there, my adrenaline still pumping. 

Edgar paused for just a moment, and he stood just a little taller than he had before. He said something strange then. He said, “Looks like the only way out is through.” His voice was finally clear, the coughing cut off.

We jogged, knowing we needed to get away, but not able to run fast in the slick ravine. Up above us, the windows to the surface were sporadic, but never vanished. It was like we were in a really deep ancient creekbed rather than a true cave. The ground overhead had mostly covered it up, but not quite. Just when we thought we were getting too far underground, a ray of sunshine would let us know we weren’t completely lost yet. 

When we got far enough that we could breathe, we slowed down. And when Edagr regained his breath faster than me, I started to worry about a different kind of danger. He no longer walked like something was wrong, like he had one foot in the grave. He stood tall, and while I was still wheezing from jogging in the smoky air, he was the picture of health.

We fell into a steady but tense pace after that. Every now and then, I’d check my phone to see if we had reception, but even on the surface, it was rare to get half a bar in the Wayne National Forest, let alone underground. That cut out my emergency satellite phone, too. I’d accounted for getting lost in the woods, but I hadn’t accounted for getting lost underground. We looked up constantly for a way to climb out, to see if the surface was getting closer, but the little gaps in the rock started to vanish. The tunnel we were in turned from a mostly closed-off ravine to more of a true cavern, and I worried we were just going farther into danger. But Edgar talked me out of trying to go back. He pointed out that there was a very faint breeze coming from ahead of us. 

“The air has been okay this whole time; there’s got to be a way out ahead.” He said. “And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to break a leg in here trying to climb out. I don’t know how a rescue crew would even get down here.”

And I let him talk me into moving forward, even as the gaps overhead vanished completely, and the walls of the cave turned from smooth to jagged as we entered an old mineshaft. I’d brought a backpack with me with everything I might need if I decided to camp overnight, so I put away my phone light and pulled out a flashlight. I also gave Edgar a small portable headlamp I had. When he put it on, I couldn’t help but be reminded of some old-timey miner. I studied his clothes then, too. I’d clocked them as being just ratty clothes from someone not doing well in life. But when I looked closer, they looked old in a different way, vintage and made of stiff fabrics not suited for hiking.

As we walked, Edgar tried to get to know me better, and I iced him out, giving short, terse answers. He hadn’t coughed once, and he looked much less pale and tired than he had when we first met. I felt like he’d been putting on a sick act to get me to let my guard down. I felt like I was doing a delicate dance of not being too friendly, but also not outright starting a fight with him. 

Eventually, he stopped asking me questions and instead asked if I wanted to hear more about the mine fire. And I told him, sure, why not? Might as well fill the silence with something. 

Once again, I found myself transfixed by his words, almost hypnotized. When Edgar talked, you could picture the feel of everything, the smells, and the sights; it was like you watched it yourself, like you were there. 

This story was about a cult that had come to New Straitsville a century earlier. A cult that you won’t find anything about in the history books or the papers. Its evidence has been largely scrubbed from existence, but Edgar knew all about it. 

The cult was formed sometime around the start of the 20th century. It started the way many others do, by an unstable man with big ambitions. His name was Willis, last name unknown. He and his followers shed their family names, declaring each other the only family they needed. 

Willis’s followers were all lost souls. Those who had been cast out of their families, or those who’d never had any in the first place. People without homes or friends, or jobs. Willis became whatever they needed; he was their shepherd, their father, their brother, or to some even their husband. He gave himself to each follower in whatever way would help guide them best. 

Where the cult had originated was anyone’s guess; they weren’t supposed to talk about where they were from, only where they were going. And in the 1920’s their destination was New Straitsville. The little town had become quite the sensation in the news. By then, the fire was controlled enough that it wasn’t dangerous, so it had become a novelty. The locals would wow tourists by frying eggs on hotspots on the sidewalk. People came from far and wide to watch the fire flare up and burn in little spots in the hills at night. 

Willis and his cult wanted to marvel at the fire, too, but they felt it had a different purpose. It wasn’t a roadside attraction to them. No, to them it was a sign from God himself that the end was near. Like every cult, they had their own spin on things, but Willis and his followers were essentially just another doomsday cult. 

Willis believed that God and the Devil had to work together to bring about the rapture. He told his followers that, although they were serving God, they had to work with the Devil to do it. Willis had a way with words, and he had his followers eating out of his hands. They would have believed anything he said. 

I pulled out of the trance just a little then, and asked Edgar, “Where did you hear about this? They said all that in some history book?”

And he laughed and answered me with a question, “How else would I know all this?”

At that point, we’d come to a part of the mine where the wooden rafters overhead were crumbling and coal black. We’d come to a place where the fire had already burned, and that made me feel just a bit safer, like we might be heading away from danger at least. And the air still tasted just as clear, I even got hints of flowers and pine sap every now and then. 

I let Edgar get back into his story then. We had to do something to pass the time. 

Willis and his followers kept to themselves when they came to New Straitsville, but not so much that their shyness would arouse suspicion. They claimed to all be extended family in some way or another, traveling to find a better life after their family business had gone under. They went to church as much as everyone else did back then, but at night, they held their own sermons. 

They also started putting down roots. Willis fathered several children with the women in the cult. The other men would help hide this arrangement to the outside world, of course, pretending to be the fathers, but the resemblance was undeniable. Willis had the most striking gray eyes, and all of his children bore the same. 

I thought about interrupting the story once again, asking Edgar if he knew so much because he was descended from someone in this cult. His light gray eyes had been the first thing I’d noticed about him. And he smiled like he wanted me to ask him, but I didn’t. The only interruption was the sloshing of our feet as we made our way into a wet part of the mine. 

“People around town gossiped and whispered, of course, but they would never directly accuse Willis and his followers of such a thing. It would be impolite.” Edgar said, lulling me back into the story.

And as we sloshed along, I found myself worried less and less about the rising water, transported back to a place I’d never been. I found myself picturing the town so clearly as he talked, like I remembered it personally. There was the main strip, with all of about a dozen businesses, and the houses were all scattered throughout the hills. And looming under it all, the mine and the fire.

As Willis and his followers raised up their children, he would periodically receive messages from God about how best to serve him. One day they’d need to teach the children different languages, so they could go all over the world and spread his message. The next week, that mission would be dropped in favor of teaching the children survival skills and hunting. They had an abnormal, but not altogether bad, childhood for the better part of a decade. 

Eventually, Willis levelled off somewhat. He’d get messages less often, and he’d stick to them. Messages that were meant for the adults in the cult, too. Willis had all of his followers studying the book of Revelation over and over again. He had them studying other religions and mythologies, too, and looking into their version of the end times. He taught his followers to harden their hearts and be ready to do whatever was needed to bring about the end. 

They kept the scariest things from the children, though. They taught them in broad strokes what they believed, but they also taught secrecy from the outside world. They tried to shelter them, at least a little bit. That is, until one day when God delivered a disturbing message.

God told Willis that one of his children was the antichrist. 

Willis couldn’t be sure which one, so he started preparing all of the children to be ready to live in a harsher world. He’d pit them in fights against each other, and taught them to be able to hurt things, starting with animals. After just a few short weeks of this, though, God told him to stop punishing all of the children. God told Willis which child was the dark messiah. It was a young boy who was the son of his youngest wife. This boy had the Devil in him, and Willis was tasked with raising him up to reign over Armageddon. 

The other children were allowed to be children again after that, Willis let them play and run and have fun. To a degree, of course, they still had to prepare to be the shepherds of the end times. But the boy who was named the Son of Satan, he was not allowed these small freedoms. 

I came out of the trance just a little bit then, feeling a deep pity for this boy. I wasn’t about to share anything about my life with Edgar, but I understood religious extremism well. And had the circumstances been different, had me and Edgar been friends talking casually and not two strangers in a mine that we might never find our way out of, I might have confided in him. I realized too, in my brief moment of clarity, that we were hitting the part of the mine where it started branching off into bigger rooms. That was good, that meant that we were getting closer to an entrance. 

Edgar and I fell into the pattern of wordlessly pausing at forks in the road and waiting to feel the breeze. We were in sync, and I let myself be lulled back into the story of the alleged Antichrist.

Maybe if the boy had been raised from birth as someone who was supposed to conquer the earth, things would have been different. But this boy had known kindness, albeit in a strange family. He’d known friendship and joy and all those other important things, and he resisted his destiny. He did not want to be the one to end the Earth. 

Willis couldn’t have that. 

Willis got the rest of his followers to isolate the boy, to teach him how to hate. Everyone in the cult, in what had been his family, started to be cruel to the boy in their own unique ways. Even the boy's own mother, being so young and so enamoured with Willis, was easily swayed.

It was hard for Willis, he wasn’t a cruel man by nature. But he believed in his mission so intensely. He truly believed that to serve God, sometimes one must become the Devil, at least a little bit. And who’s to say it was even Willis’s fault? The visions from God, the voices, we have a better understanding of all of that now. 

“Willis was sure he was doing the right thing.” The sadness in Edgar’s voice pulled me out of the trance just a bit. It was like he knew him. 

“But it doesn’t matter if he thought he was doing the right thing.” Edgar steeled his voice, “Because he still hurt people, his youngest son more than anyone.”

Training the anti-Christ took years. By then, the cult had embedded itself in the town, going to church and dinner and laughing with the locals, then coming home and planning their demise. The demise of everyone on Earth. 

The boy, Hell’s little prince, never got such luxuries, though. He was told not to go out, not to play. When he was shepherded between different houses, it was always in the dead of night. It got to the point where he almost forgot what it was like to have a family. Almost. But no matter how hard Willis tried, he could never fully erase those happy early years from the boy’s memory. And Willis tried just about everything. 

By then, Willis had hammered out what he thought God was telling him in his visions. He thought that the cult and its followers were meant to stay on earth, for at least a little while. The rapture was going to take time, and they’d be made immortal to rule over the burning earth for as long as God needed them to. Before they ascended to heaven, of course. 

When the boy finally came of age, he started to exhibit his true nature. Fire no longer hurt him, and he started to display his father’s way with words. He could almost sweet-talk the cult members into letting him go, into not hurting him anymore. Almost. 

When it became clear that he was becoming hard to control, Willis knew that keeping him in different houses was not enough. He and his followers built a church in one of the abandoned mines, one that had already been burned through. The church also functioned as the boys’ prison

When they locked him away down there, God told Willis that the doomsday clock was starting. God said that the boy would become adapted to the mines, to a place closer to Hell, and that soon he wouldn’t be able to survive on the surface. At least not the way it was. They’d have to start destroying the world soon, making it more habitable for him. 

Willis had all kinds of plans, all kinds of ways he was going to make the apocalypse happen. But all of his plans hinged on the boy’s cooperation, on turning him into someone who wanted to end the world. Soon, Willis was the only one who could visit the boy, the only one immune to his silver tongue. The boy's own mother had even turned on her husband and tried to free the boy simply because he’d asked. 

Willis tried to tell the boy that the world was full of evil and sin and hate, that they needed to start over. But the boy never forgot those precious few early years. He’d known love, even if only for a little while, and he knew that outside of his prison, there was good in the world, too. And all the while, the boy was only growing stronger. 

“What was Willis supposed to do, then, with the Son of the Devil?”

I waited for Edgar to continue, but he didn’t. It was like he wanted me to answer. But I didn’t. With his story coming to an end or at least a pause, I felt the spell he’d put me under wearing off. My full attention was back in the mine now.

We walked in silence then. We’d made it out to an area where there was more dug out than left intact, a big room separated by pillars rather than connecting tunnels. I was trying to keep us going in a straight line. Edgar, though, kept steering us to the right, like he was trying to keep us going in circles. I had to stop and tell him “No, I think we should go this way,” over and over again. 

Finally, Edgar said, “You didn’t answer my question.” 

I didn’t want to make him mad, so I did. “I mean, it sounds like Willis was just crazy. And hopefully we know about the kid because someone eventually found him, right?”

“What if he wasn’t crazy?” Edgar asked.

“Look, let’s just focus on finding a way out of here, okay?”

And again he tried to keep us walking in circles, and again I tried to keep us going straight, and finally, finally, I spotted a literal light at the end of the tunnel. I could see the shadow of a fire flickering on a wall ahead. If it was the mine fire, we’d be feeling it; it had to be a torch or a campfire or something man-made. 

“There!” I yelled, overjoyed at some sign of civilization.

“Are you sure?” Edgar said. 

“Of course I’m sure, someone lit that.” 

“No, I mean, are you sure you want to know what’s around that corner?”

But I’d had enough of Edgar and his creepy questions and the way this whole thing felt like a setup. If he was a madman or a serial killer, then I’d have to find out at some point anyway. I was ready to at least stop wandering around in the damn mine. I was ready to skip ahead to the end. 

Pine and flowers, and pollen filled the air, and I knew we had to be close to getting out. And though I thought I was ready for whatever was around the bend, what I saw was something that no one could ever truly be prepared for. 

The first body I saw was dressed like a preacher. It was old, almost completely skeletonized. I only had a second to take that in, though, before I realized that that body was not alone. Scattered throughout a large, cavernous room were dozens of bodies. Most were old, verging on skeletal, but not all. A few looked fresh, like I could still shake them awake. 

Lighting up the room was a bonfire in the middle, and above it a chasm leading to the surface. Even amidst all the horror, the sight of the sun was so sweet. 

The cavern itself looked well-lived in, with an altar and pews near the front. In one corner, there was a bed, and scattered all throughout the cave, among the bodies, were pieces of furniture scavenged from all different time periods. Tables and chairs, and bookshelves were arranged around the carnage, like the bodies were a part of the decor. The only thing I didn’t see was evidence of someone eating; there were no food wrappers, no bones that weren’t human. This had me wondering, and I looked at the fresh bodies. I tried to spot bitemarks, but they were too far away and too bloody to tell for sure. 

Behind me, Edgar sounded calm. “Now I know this is upsetting, Lee, but let me explain -” and I knew then if I let him talk, that would be it. I’d be back under his spell. I had to do the talking. 

I stepped back, slowly and naturally, trying not to shake, and mostly succeeding. I pointed to the skeletal preacher. “So that must be Willis,” I said, playing into the story that I didn’t quite believe. I stepped further, getting on the other side of the fire. “And these must be the other cult members, right, Edgar? Listen, I understand where you’re coming from, okay -” 

He cut me off with a laugh, “Oh no, there weren’t nearly that many of them, let me tell you all about -”

And I took charge again, stepping even further away. “Well, you know you have to do what you have to do to stop the end of the world, right? And I mean, I totally get it. You know, I grew up in a weird church, too. Not that weird, but if you just let me tell you about it, maybe we could understand each other a little bit better, okay?”

And with that, he stepped close enough, putting himself between me and the fire, and I lunged at him, shoving him back into it. He tried to grab me, but he just got my backpack. I shook out of it and I sprang up, stepping over and on top of bodies and bones and flesh. I looked back just long enough to see him thrashing and burning, completely engulfed in flames. 

That sight will haunt me the rest of my life. The room full of bodies, the smell of rot, the man burning in the middle of it all. And it was only made worse by the fact that he didn’t scream. 

I ran then. I ran the fastest I’d ever run in my life. After just a few minutes, I found the exit, I was out of the cave and into the woods, and I kept sprinting as fast as I could. 

I only slowed down when I stopped myself just short of running off a ledge, and then I realized how stupid it would be to go through all of that and die by falling off a cliff. I worked my way around the drop-off and ended up inside a shallow cave. There were a few signs near it and a gravel trail that told me that I’d found civilization. I didn’t stop to read the signs, but a glance told me I was near where the mine fire had begun. I’d found my way to New Straitsville. I followed the trail down, and soon I was in town. And when I looked at it for the first time, it looked so familiar.

I knew I should call the police, but I also knew rationally that I couldn’t explain everything I’d seen. And the almost hypnotic trance I’d been in had me doubting I had even seen anything in the first place. The absurdity of finding a room full of bodies had me wondering if I’d somehow hallucinated the whole thing. Or, if I hadn’t, I pondered whether I might get in some kind of trouble for essentially burning a man alive. An absurd thought, but one to ponder nonetheless. When you grow up feeling guilty about everything, it stays with you, even in moments that don’t make any sense. 

I spotted a bar with an open sign and decided to do my pondering there. They’d have a phone when I made my decision. 

I walked in and ordered the only thing on the menu: Moonshine. Over a glass, I contemplated whether I was losing my mind. The bar was packed, and hearing other people around me soothed me somewhat. Being out in civilization again made me think more and more that I’d simply had some kind of strange drug trip. Or perhaps I’d had some kind of bad reaction to the air in the mine. But soon my thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice.

“Room for one more?” I didn’t believe it until I turned around and saw Edgar. He didn’t have a scratch on him, and he was wearing the backup clothes I’d had in my backpack. 

I accepted then that I was either losing my mind or that I was witnessing something I didn’t understand. I pulled out a stool for him. 

Then I let him tell me one last story. He told me my own story, abridged, of course, but full of details that he couldn’t have found anywhere. He told me things that I’d never shared with another soul. And only when he was done, when I’d accepted that he truly was something otherworldly, the son of the devil himself, did I ask him, “What do you want from me?”

“I wanted to offer you something,” he said. “I wanted to tell you that if you ever want someone to pay for what they’ve done, if you ever think there’s someone you know who deserves to go to hell, you can always send them my way. I get so lonely down in the mines.” 

I started to say something, and he stopped me. “And don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it before. Some people are going there anyway, I just like to help speed things along.”

“But-” He continued, “I also want you to promise me something.” 

I didn’t answer, but he went on anyway. 

“I can’t survive for very long out of the mines. If the fire down there ever goes out, I’ll die and rejoin my father. And he’ll just send me back up here again, and then who knows? In another life, maybe I’d actually do my job.” He took a sip of his drink. “I want you to promise me that every now and then, you’ll check in on New Straitsville. You’ll keep an eye on the news, and if they ever find a way to put out the fire, to cut it off, I need you to come down here. I need you to relight the fire.” He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I like the world the way it is now. The version of Earth that isn’t on fire or radioactive. I’m okay with my small corner of it and I‘d like to burn here, just a little while longer.”

And though I knew I shouldn’t, I made a deal with the devil then. I told him, “I promise.” 

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the podcast inside your house! To hear every tale of terror as they are released, subscribe to our show on your podcast app or on Youtube or follow us on Facebook and Bluesky. Until Next time, remember that the Devil is in the details, but also, if you ever need to get a hold of him, he hangs out in Ohio too.