Episode 1: The Path To The World of Men

Blurb
Darkness comes to the tiny town of Barlo in the form of the worst mining disaster in Kentucky history. Young Sarah Avery runs.

Plot Synopsis
The Narrator begins to tell the story of the events leading to the downfall of Barlo, Kentucky, a tiny coal-mining town in the mountains, saying, "A lot of us are pretty sure the mines are what started it; see, the places we dug were places that hadn't ever been opened. The things that were there had never seen the sunlight, and were never meant to."

In August of 1917, a few days following school resuming after summer break (confirmed to have happened in August, according to You Ready to Go Home), the Old Number 7 mineshaft exploded, killing 62 people--mostly scabs, or non-union workers who broke the picket line of an ongoing strike that had been organized by the miners of Barlo--leaving horribly disfigured bodies, enough to make the undertaker run out of coffins, and forcing the town to bury the scabs, two or three at a time in rough-hewn crates, in unmarked graves; the Narrator calls this the second mistake of the town, after digging too deeply in the mines, saying that a barrier cracked, "somewhere in the Underneath," calling it "an invocation, an invitation: worship. A darkness stirred, and a path to the World of Men stood open." The entire town felt the explosion when it happened, and rushed up the mines to try to find their loved ones. The men on the picket line survived unhurt, though two, Ed and Pinky Avery, ran into the mines in a rescue attempt, but were never seen again.

A week or so after the explosion, Pinky's daughter Sarah Avery had not been to school. The family lived on the other side of Barlo, almost in total isolation, not even attending church in the town. The schoolmaster, Miss Annie, took the town pastor, Cletus Garvin, to go and check in on the family. Upon arrival, they found Sarah's mother, Carol Anne, hanging from a tree by a noose, dead for several days; the yard was torn-up and in turmoil; the house, ransacked; and Sarah, nowhere to be found.

For her part, Sarah had fled the house after it was attacked by something--a Low Thing in the form of a shadow-creature. It is worth noting that Sarah had found Carol Anne hanging from the tree before this attack, and attributed it to suicide. She ran until she could not, and then found a main road, hearing someone calling her name. She climbed up to the road, finding her father Pinky walking along it--covered in ash, partly on fire, having suffered third degree burns, with black smoke pouring out of holes in his body; he had been converted into a Low Thing. Sarah ran from the Thing as It pleaded for her to come with It, saying, "You gotta come with me--they won't let me come to you," just before lunging for her.

Relevant Characters

 * Sarah Avery
 * Cletus Garvin

Trivia

 * It is worth noting that Pinky refers to a collective, stating "...they won't let me come to you." It is possible that this is the same collective Horn-ed Head refers to when he uses the term "we."