Part 2
The Well From Hell — A Halloween Tale from the Rig Floor
Blood on the shakers and voices down the pilot hole
Editor’s Note: In Part 1, after dropping a six-inch steel cam roller down the hole and hearing a raspy witch's voice cough greenish mist out of the surface casing, Jim fled the Melbourne sewer plant in terror and woke up the next morning in the sea grapes on the beach.
"It was like nothing out of the ordinary happened last night, except for the pipe floating the rig up off the jacks."
Image: Generative AI image created via Gemini Pro
I walked about five miles back to the sewer plant and got there at about nine in the morning. I was surprised to see most of the big rig's crew standing around, grinning and staring at the back of our smaller rig, which the casing had pushed up about a foot off the jacks. Sr. told me to get to work and not be late again, or he'd tell my stepdad next time. It was like nothing out of the ordinary happened last night, except for the pipe floating the rig up off the jacks. Maybe it was a dream. We used all of the timber we could scrounge up to jack the front up to match the height of the back, found some more timber for the back, leveled the sides, unchained the casing, pulled the tubing that was inside of it, cut the casing, and put everything back low and normal again. All this extra work allowed Mike time to locate, buy, and bring us the replacement roller for the swivel. We center-punched the cement plug and started to drill a twelve-and-a-quarter-inch pilot hole to around four hundred and something feet.
Everything on our side was going good. We logged the pilot hole and started to put a hole opener together. We took the table out again, put the pilot-hole tricone in front of probably an eighteen-inch hole opener and maybe a twenty-two-inch hole opener on that, hung it from the tripping blocks by tying half hitches with the chain around the stem of it, and lowered it down on beams that were set on the surface casing. Right when it was about to touch down on the beams, I heard the raspy voice come from the well again saying, "Thanks for giving me the pipe, boy, and by the way, you should never trust a chain to lower tools in the hole." That's when the chain slipped and the hole opener hit the beams, bounced, and the bounce caused the beams to spread a little. The big roller cones on the bit came down and barely landed on the beams. A hand from the big rig walked up to me with a lifting bell for the bit assembly. "I bet you will use this next time, Jimmy," he said, grinning and showing his teeth. His teeth were fangs coated with blood that was dripping down his bottom lip. I took the bit bell, then went to the blue room to clean the crap out of my underwear. We put the box-by-box sub on by hand and screwed on a twenty-inch reaming barrel that was about thirty feet long. We connected that to the blocks with a cable sling and a lifting plug. We were lowering the reaming barrel down the hole when I saw someone had written "death to the drillers" in soapstone on it. I asked Sr. to pick it up again so I could show him, and he did. I pointed to it and said, "Look what someone wrote." I was still pointing at it when he read it out loud. "Jesus loves you," he said. "Probably one of Brother Dale's kids at the shop," and he spit about three ounces of tobacco juice onto the rig floor.
"I went up on the mud system to check the shaker screens, but there was no mud coming over them, only blood. It was a blood system now, and the screens were full of human teeth."
Image: Generative AI image created via Gemini Pro
While we were tripping in, work on the big rig stopped, and nobody was up on the floor. Everyone was gathered around the side of the pipe rack staring at the tool pusher on the ground with two six-inch drill pipes on top of his legs, screaming. A bunch of us lifted the drill pipe, and someone pulled him out, and for some reason he spun him around so that he wasn't on his back anymore, but the feet end of his legs didn't spin, and his legs were now on backwards, so the guy continued to spin him in the same direction to get him back on his back, making it even worse. Someone tried to spin one of his feet back into the same position as the top side of his legs; he started screaming worse and kicking, but with only the top half of his legs. An ambulance finally showed up, then a helicopter. As I watched them load him in the helicopter, he stopped screaming, looked at me, and in the same raspy woman's voice that came from the well, he said, "Death to the drillers," and we never saw him again.
We were reaming, and everything seemed to be back to normal. I went up on the mud system to check the shaker screens, but there was no mud coming over them, only blood. It was a blood system now, and the screens were full of human teeth. Hundreds of them bouncing and vibrating, up and down, back and forth until reaching the edge and falling into the cuttings pit that was three-quarters of the way full, but not with cuttings. It had dead bodies in it. I screamed, but nobody could hear me over the shaker motors. I jumped from the top of the mud system to the ground and ran from the sewer plant as fast as I could.
"I swam deep down, closer and closer to the source of the pale green light. I was able to go deeper than the hole was drilled, all the way down into the boulder zone where the wastewater is injected."
Image: Generative AI image created via Gemini Pro
I woke up the next morning in the sea grape plants again on the beach. I walked to the rig again, and Sr. warned me about being late again. The hole was at T.D., so we tripped out and rigged up the loggers for a caliper log. While I was on the rig floor helping the logger to get his tool depth, I looked into the hole, and it lit up with a pale green light and spoke to me again. This time it was the voice of my grandmother coming from it, saying, "Jimmy! Help me, help me, Jimmy, please!!" I yelled, "I'm coming, Granny!" and dove headfirst into the hole. I swam deep down, closer and closer to the source of the pale green light. I was able to go deeper than the hole was drilled, all the way down into the boulder zone where the wastewater is injected. I was no longer in my body, but somehow still alive in the earth. I was surrounded by all sorts of things that Floridians had flushed down the toilets. There were Happy Meal toys, baby alligators, prescription drugs, feminine products, contraception devices, lots of poo, a set of spooky vampire teeth, and the six-inch roller was there too, but not my Granny. She wasn't down there, so I tried to return to the rig, but I couldn't, because I didn't have a body anymore. I resigned myself to being part of the boulder zone forever; it was all I could do.
I woke up the next morning in the sea grapes again, but this time I didn't return to the sewer plant. Instead, I went to my Granny's house and ate spaghetti with her. Happy Halloween!!
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