Hole in a Field, Chap 1

A little while ago I wrote a short story for the L. Ron Hubbard "Writers of the Future Contest".  I did not win, and I know why, my story is really more horror than Science Fiction or Fantasy.  But I decided that I will post each chapter here on my blog.  There are 37 very short chapters, for a total of 15,000 words, about a fifth of a modern novel.  Here is the start.

Chapter 1:

            The hole was new, as the farmer had evidently not noticed it before driving his tractor over the edge and disappearing into the maw of the thing.  Unfortunately, any other feature that would denote newness or method of construction was distinctly absent.  Were it not completely impossible it could be concluded that the hole had fallen from the sky and made itself at home in this particular field.  Then having fallen proceeded downward in the way holes tend to, such a thing being in their nature.  Those riddles of the nature of most holes aside, this hole’s nature remained entirely and wholly in the unknown category.  Sent to discover the origins of this thing was a group that currently stood some dozen feet from the hole's mouth, among the untrimmed corn that filled the non-hole portions of the field.

            “Well?  Does anyone have any thoughts about this thing?”  Maxwell was not the team leader, or really all that key a person to the function of the investigation, but he was good at asking questions and that skill did tend to denote a great potential for growth in the investigative arts.

            “Aside from how it got here, we know everything we really need to about this particular phenomenon for the moment.”  Wilton was the sensible one, never failing to put things as simply as possible, and was the senior man on the field.  “One, it is a hole; perfectly round, nearly 6 meters in diameter, that extends to an unknown depth into the earth.  Two, it is a new and distinctive feature that quickly drew the attention of the White Hats.  And three, there appears to be no immediately evident supernatural thing about this geographic feature beyond its inexplicable existence.”

            “And why are we here looking into this hole?”  said Maxwell.

            “Because it’s weird and that is the sort of thing we look into,” replied Wilton.

            “Yeah, that sums it up," said Clair.  She knew what they had to do next.  "Except for what we are going to have to do next.”

            “Do I have to ask?”  Maxwell, not-quite-cringingly, asked.

            “It is time we went spelunking.”