Something is buried beneath Salt Flat. When Cole Masters moves his family into an aging house on the edge of town, the worst he expects is creaking pipes and sleepless nights. But the sounds in the walls aren't settling noises—and the darkness under the floor isn't empty. Miles away, a mining operation shuts down without warning. New owners arrive. Strange cargo is delivered deep below the earth. Then the workers start disappearing. At first, the two worlds don't connect. A restless child. A cut finger. A vent that won't stay closed. Small things. Easy to ignore.
Until they aren't.
As Cole digs deeper—into the town, the mine, and the people who run both—he uncovers something far older than Salt Flat. Something broken. Something scattered. Something that has waited a long time to be made whole again. And it's not staying buried. Now, with his family caught in the middle and the town unraveling around him, Cole is forced to confront a truth no one else is willing to see: The danger isn't what lies beneath. It's what's coming up.
This was a really likable story. This comes together incredibly well with a great central storyline about the history of the small town and the series of strange incidents that take place around the suspicious mine that serves as the kind of haunting incident lingering over the town that a story like this works quite well with. The detailed history of the town and what's gone on creates the kind of starting point where the introduction of the characters in this environment brings up a lot of well-established sidestories about the various residents in this area. With plenty of impressive focus on the various characters here, from the corrupt police force, the corporations looking to keep their power over the town, and the gangsters running everything behind the scenes, with more violence bubbling behind closed doors, there's a deep, well-connected storyline at the center of this one.
The resulting escalation of these events, with the burgeoning emphasis on supernatural beings from within the mine trying to come out and attack others that ties into this eons-old entity holding a grip over this town, makes everything feel all the more unbearable and tense. The series of disappearances and the undiscovered connection to the mine leading into the revelation about what's going on gives this an immersive atmosphere alongside the wild action that comes later on, making everything here quite likable. The main issue here is that, with so much going on and the need to spell out so many of the various figures involved with their own interconnected stories with everyone else, it makes this take a while to get going and start getting to the main point of everything, but that's not too detrimental and doesn't impact this too much.
4.5/5
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