Short Story: “King Brian’s Bells,” Part 1

24 November 2025

Another early short story, inspired by actual events, described below.

18 February 2013

Beginning in the summer of ‘78 and continuing through ‘79, there were an unusual number of plane crashes of DC-9s & 10s, and the reasons for this rash of accidents were inadequately explained. Probably the strangest was the DC-10 (I think) that, for no apparent reason, took a nosedive into Antarctica. There were so many, and they were so strange, that people began to fear flying, many of whom refused to board any DC-9 or 10.

I remembered these incidents in the early 90s, when I was working as a handyman/contractor for a company that sold refurbished airplane parts: the owner would travel around to airports, buying up dented or damaged parts, have them refurbished, then sell them back to the airline shops. The company bought an old fuel depot, closed during the ‘73 oil crisis, and we converted it into a warehouse for these parts. While we were digging the foundation for an addition to the old building, we dug up a strange, cement object, not identifiable by anyone, the building inspector finally telling us to ‘form and pour around it.’ We did, and one of my fellows made a joke about aliens . . . and the following story was the result.

King Brian’s Bells, Part 1

On August 31, 1973, Standard Oil Company’s fuel depot located at 5th and Elm in Clarkston, WA closed its doors for the last time. Five years later, the warehouse was sold to George Lee, owner and operator of Ductwork Enterprises, a Las Vegas-based company which refurbished and sold ducting for commercial, military, and private aircraft. In late November 1978, NorSmit, a small, local contracting firm began excavation for an addition to Ductwork’s small warehouse. Smitty sat in the bright yellow backhoe, moving the levers that controlled the steel toothed arm. The foundation trench was nearly complete. I walked through the trench, checking the depth and clearing out loose rocks and sand. A large tumbleweed had fallen into the trench. When I took hold of it, a rat squeaked and scampered out of the trench. I jumped back, cursing and dropping the round, bushy weed–I hate rodents! After prodding the tumbleweed with my shovel to shake loose any others, I gingerly picked it up and threw it aside. I heard Smitty curse over the roar of the backhoe’s diesel engine. Smitty rested the arm on the ground, throttled the engine back, and jumped down, landing next to the trench. I stopped shoveling and walked to Smitty’s end of the trench.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Smitty shrugged and pointed to the ditch at the object he uncovered–an object shaped roughly like a cement sarcophagus. The backhoe rested beside the ditch at idle, the concussion of each cylinder like a hammer striking an anvil repeatedly. I spat twice, but the gritty taste from wind-blown sand remained. The soil smelled of old oil. The breeze blew heat and diesel exhaust into our faces.

“What is it?” I asked.

“No idea,” Smitty replied. “Give me your shovel.”

He climbed into the trench, bringing down part of the wall. Pebbles dislodged and rolling down struck the object, emitting dull, almost hollow sounds.

“Look here, where the backhoe scratched it,” Smitty said, squatting next to and touching fresh scratches on the object. “This thing looks like cement.” He handed me a splinter of steel and nodded toward the bucket. “Broken off the teeth.” I turned the splinter, nearly the size of my little finger, over several times in my hand. Smitty scraped away more of the sand, dirt, and stones around the mysterious object, trying to find its ends. I sat on my heels to watch. Several brown, dried leaves flew past, carried along by the late fall breeze.

“Sewer line?” I suggested without conviction.

“Nah,” Smitty replied, gesturing with the shovel. “Sewer’s over there, runs under the building and connects in the alley.” His shovel scraped again.

“It looks like a stone coffin,” I said.

“Without ends.” He stopped digging, leaned on his shovel.

There was a lull in traffic, the only sound the monotonous hammering of the diesel motor. I looked around, expecting something was about to happen. A siren stabbed the silence. I fell into the trench, nearly knocking Smitty over. An ambulance exploded from the building next door–the local fire station. It flew past, northbound on Fifth.

“Damn!” Smitty cursed, pushing me off him. “I got to thinking about coffins, alien graveyards. . . .”

“You ‘been watching reruns of that UFO show again.”

Smitty laughed. “And then the siren went off–I’ll never get used to working behind the fire station.” He looked back at the object in the trench and scratched his head. “Let’s go rent a jackhammer–we’ve got to get the foundation poured before it turns cold.”

An hour and three chisels later, we’d managed only to punch a small hole in the object.
Smitty scratched his head again. “I’ve never seen anything so hard!”

I nodded, not sure what to make of the object. “Better call the county inspector–maybe he can make something of this.”

I gave Ken a hand out of the trench. He brushed the sand and dirt from his trousers.
“I don’t know what it is–maybe it’s an old foundation.”

“It’s harder than any I’ve ever seen, and it interferes with our foundation,” Smitty said.
He stared at the object for a time before answering. “Form and pour around it,” Ken replied.

“Do what the inspector tells you,” I said.

Late in the spring, we finished the addition to Ductwork’s warehouse, having completely forgotten the strange object. Mr. Lee offered us the job of sorting, cataloguing, and generally taking care of the warehouse for him. Since we had no other job prospects at the time, we accepted his offer and were trained in the business. George, Mr. Lee, traveled to airports around the country, visiting maintenance hangers and buying damaged or unlabeled ducts. He shipped them to the warehouse where Smitty and I would identify and tag them, adding them to current inventory. We filled orders, and if the duct was damaged, shipped it to be repaired. If not, we shipped it directly to the buyer. George paid salvage price for the ducts and resold them at refurbished prices. He made a good profit on the ducts, and we got a flat rate plus 10 percent of the sale–a mutually beneficial arrangement for all concerned.

Stay tuned for part 2!