Down the Door I Go



The first thing that I wanna point out is that I'm not too big with creepypasta.

Don't get me wrong, I know what creepypasta is and, for the most part, know how it works in terms of story. But I never understood how the whole thing got so popular. With Jeff the killer, Slender Man, Ben, the Rake, and others, I can understand how they got popular the first time they were presented, but it always perplexed me how these characters can be popular for so long. Now I have nothing against creepypasta, it’s just that short stories never appealed to me in general, now the reason for that is that to me, creepypasta (and short stories in general) are short and sweet, and there’s my problem.

Most short stories seem to go by too fast, there's not as much content to read and visualize, with just a few paragraphs to tell the story. Now before you jump to conclusions, I'm not here to criticize creepypasta, I HAVE read some good creepypasta, stories like Abandoned By Disney and Midwest are great because they put you in the situation, and personally, I always loved stories with just one character going through the events of the story and somehow making it out in the end.

The reason why I'm starting off with my less-the-popular opinions is to help y’all know that since I’m not a huge horror fan or too familiar with the genre, the story that I’m about to tell of what happened to me 3 months ago won’t be written in the typical fashion, so if there’s a few things off pace, I apologize.

So now that you know how I feel about creepypasta, you're probably wondering why I'm even here and why. Well as to why I'm here, honestly, I just am. I sometimes do get on this site, despite my general disinterest in creepypasta, if I have nothing better to do or look up.

Now as to WHY I’m posting my story here of all places is because it’s really the only place I’ll visit from time to time to read short horror stories. I’ll sometimes visit Reddit, but I’m more familiar with this site, and I already had an account here (A friend back in junior high was a big fan of slender man and insisted that I look it up. Honestly, I made the account here just to get him off my back). Another reason why is because if there’s a crazy chance someone else has encountered what I had, then at least I can take comfort in knowing that I’m not alone, plus I wanna get this off my chest while I’m thinking of it and have the time to. So whether or not you believe me or not is up to y’all, I can only relay to you my experience by word.

But before I get into what most of you would consider the "good stuff", let me talk about one more thing; A foreboding warning from my drunken mother back when I was around 9. As to why I going to talk about something that most (if not all) of you are wondering what THAT has got to do with anything. It's because it’s the closest thing that I can find to almost explain what I encountered, although truth be told, I have doubts, as to this day I can't imagine anything of familiarity to properly identify what I’ve encountered, but I'm getting ahead of myself. So let me get on with what my mother told me and my brother, who was 12 at the time, one night after she had a few too many drinks.

Now I should clarify, my mother was by no means a drunk, she drank about the same amount of alcohol as everybody else, she only got drunk every 2-3 months, and even then it was only when she took it with her medicine (she had a failing liver if I remember correctly, it's been 12 years since she passed), or when she had an exceptionally good day and wanted to celebrate with booze. So as alcohol consumption goes, she was normal. My father was the one who was the drunk of the family, at least that’s what I heard from my older brother, Jimmy. My father died in a car crash when I was 2, so I have no recollection of my dad asides from a memory or me and him playing on a swing set, and even then I'm not sure if that’s a real memory or a dream, I never brought it up with my brother for reasons I can't remember, anyway-

Whenever my mother did get drunk, she wasn't loud or abusive like what maybe some of you might think, she was one of those people who'd be in a stupor state of half conscience and awake. She'd be on her chair, laying there until she'd sober up or fall, my and Jimmy never bothered her unless it was important, and she never bothered anybody. She'd watch TV or occasionally mumble to herself, the only time she would be bothersome was when either me or my brother made a loud noise, and she'd yell at us to keep quiet, but other than that she wasn't very responsive. I can recall 3 times where she would break that routine, the first was her asking for a glass of water, and another time for either me or my brother to go check the mail, the third time is when she told us about angels.

It was around the evening sometime around October of 1997, I just turned nine 3 weeks before and was playing on a NES, along with my brother, that I got for my birthday from my grandmother. When she called us to the living room, we’d paused the game to check on her, and when we got to her, sitting on her arm chair sipping on a cup of tea (Which was weird since she'd hardly have the strength to get up and make herself anything whenever she's drunk, and she never drank tea after getting drunk before or after). Before we could ask her what's up, she told us to sit on the floor, which was even weirder since we also had chairs in the living room across just about 4-5 feet from her, and could heard her just fine sitting there, and the fact that she told us to sit on the floor right in front of the chair, which kinda annoyed us (We were kids mind you, but not little kids), but we did what we were told without protest, since we both knew that arguing with her the way she was would lead to nowhere.

As we sat down and got comfortable, she took another sip out of her cup, and gently sat it down on the counter table right of her chair, than she calmly asked:

“You boys know about angels, right?"

"Of course." We both replied.

While we didn't go often, we did attend the Church of Christ whenever we could. Mom wanted to go every Sunday, but she had a part-time job a grocery store, and they hardly gave her any hours, so she couldn't request Sundays off, though she would have a Sunday off once in a while, and that’s when we went. We never went to church on Wednesday because mom never saw the point of it. After our reply, she said:

"Well boys, you know of bad angels, right? The ones that are weighed down by their sins, or evil thoughts, and fall right down to earth, and sometimes even further down to hell?"

"Yeah..."

I could tell by the way that Jimmy responded that we were both confused by what she said. Not that we didn't know what she meant, we learned from church of angels that were cast from heaven and stripped of their wings, but we never heard it like THAT. But it wasn't what she said that bothered us, it was the way she said it.

Since she began talking, she spoke in a calm, yet cautious voice, which when me and my brother talked about afterwards, really shocked us. Asides from this event, she never was able to fully speak a sentence properly whenever she got this way, and we knew she was drunk since we saw her drink a booze bottle after another (She drank 3 total) earlier during the day, so we didn't know what to think for a while. After we replied, she looked down on us for what felt like a whole minute, before we could ask her what's wrong; she finally spoke, slowly at first like she was finally remembering either where she was or what she was talking about.

"Well sometimes they get stuck between earth and hell, and when they do, they age with anger."

"Ok.....” We both replied slowly.

At this point, we were wondering if she's finally lost it. Now she wasn't in anyway mentally ill or handicap. Asides from a failing liver due to cancer, she was 100% healthy. The only time she would get a little loopy was when she took her medicine while drinking, which her doctor advised NOT to do, but she was forgetful when it came to those things sometimes, and when I mean loopy, she'd mumble to herself, having conversations with people who weren't there, and even then I only recalled that happening 3 times at most. The last thing she told us before sending us off to bed was something that stuck with me up to my high school years.

"Just remember, never look for the bad ones, because once you encounter one, they will never forget you, understand?"

"We Understand"

"Now, off the bed, the both of you."

Now I’m sure what most of you are thinking, and believe me, me and my brother would’ve laughed out loud too. But that calm serious look on her face, and slow cautious tone of her voice, suggested to us, as young as we were, that she wasn’t kidding.

After we went to our room (We lived in a 2 bedroom so we had to share until 3 years later when mom finally got her a better job), we stood up for a while speculating what went down. Now there’s not much that I remember from that day, but my mother’s and the conversation between me and my brother are things that I remember perfectly.

"You think she's finally lost it? The doctor said she shouldn't take her medicine while drinking like that."

"I don't think so, I didn't see her medicine bottle anywhere, and now that I think about it, I remember her taking her medicine earlier, so that can't be it"

"Was she trying to scare us?"

"Maybe, Halloween is next week, she might be planning something."

"Like What?"

"Scaring us with a surprise."

"Come on, a bad angel? That's stupid"

"Well if you remember in bible class while back, they said that the devil himself was once an angel."

“Yeah, but she talked about how some other bad angels get stuck and 'age with anger', like how does that work Jimmy, aren't angels immortal?"

"Well maybe she meant it in a metaphorical sense, like when they get stuck here; their anger grows, so the longer they stay here, the more evil they get."

"Wouldn't that make them demons then?"

"I don't know Joseph; I think demons are born evil, while angels are born good. Although like Mrs. Everhart said, 'Sometimes good people and things can be corrupted by evil', so I'm sure she wasn't talking about demons."

"You think something bad happened to her while back and now she's remembering it?"

"I don't know Joseph, I just don't know. If nothing happens during Halloween, we'll ask her, ok?"

“Ok.”

Well Halloween of that year came with nothing remotely relating to moms story taking place, the day after, we confronted mom about it, and she just told us that ‘It's nothing you need to worry about’. We looked at her, and I guess she heard our silent pleas and finally said.

"Ok...when Jimmy turns 18, I'll tell you both what happened, ok?"

"Ok!"

We were kinda disappointed that we'd had to wait 6 years to know what happened, and we asked if she didn't want us to know about it then why she brought it up so vaguely, to which she respond it was 'spur of the moment', which confused us, like so many things, but we dropped the subject and decided to wait. Unfortunately, almost 5 years later in January of 2002, her liver finally gave out on her while we were at school. By the time we got home, she was already gone, we never even got the chance to say goodbye, though she was asleep when she passed, so she didn't suffer at least.

With Jim being 16 (He didn't turn 17 till February of that year), and me being 13 at the time, our grandparents took us in. Up until that point, we lived in Houston TX, and only moved and lived round town, so when our grandparents took us in, we had to move all the way to northern Colorado, where we finished our (mostly mine) high school years. Jim got accepted by Harvard and decided to get a Bachelor's degree there. We promised each other after he got his bachelor's degree, he'd come back, and when we had the time, we would try to figure out what happened to mom during her college days (Our grandparents didn't know anything about what mom meant about angels, the only thing they could recall is that she acted strange and secluded one time she came home to visit while attending Woodcrest College in Dallas).

Her college closed in 1985, the same year my brother was born, and 3 years after she left. So we'd have to go to Dallas to pull up records or find somebody that attended the same classes as she did, which we knew wouldn't be easy since whatever did happen to her probably won't be in the records, but regardless my brother promised in 2007 to meet up with me, but the day he left for Harvard would also be the last time I ever hear from him.

We kept in contact up until 2006, he was going to a trip to Europe to explore Italy and France (He was a practicing linguist). The last time we talked he was just about to leave for Sicily. From what I can gather, he was last seen in Sicily before he disappeared, some of the locals said they saw him get in an argument with some shady characters that they believed might’ve been mobsters. The authorities over there are still looking into it, but it’s coming more apparent that he may never be found.

The news of my brother’s disappearance shock me to my core, I gave up on the idea of finding out what happened to my mom. I decided from there to figure out what happened to my brother. The idea of him being dead filled me with dread, finding out if he was still alive was more important the finding old ghosts of my long dead mother.

‘The past grief’s of the dead should stay with the dead’, I told myself firmly at the time, and I promised myself that after I got MY bachelors in 2010, I'd go to Italy myself to see what happen (which understandable was in a way stupid, but at the time I was more worried about Jimmy then myself).

2006 came and went, and I started my summer semester of my second college year at Colorado Community College in 2007, which would lead the fourth worst thing to ever happen to me (The 1st being the event that I’ll get to, the disappearance of my brother, and death of my mother). I'm not going to talk about that mess because it'll take too long, but to put it bluntly, I got my ass kicked and got sued, and got kicked out. It’s a story that I may-or-may-not talk about in the future.

For the next five and a half years, I struggled to find a decent paying job, and thankfully round the summer of 2012, I found it in a small town not far from my grandparents.

Sorry if this seems dragged out, I'm one of those people that gets easily nostalgic, and I felt that I should give y'all some background so that you can understand where I'm coming from. So again, sorry to kept you waiting. So let me get to what you've been waiting for...the good stuff.

It was around February of 2013 that I finally got me a 2 week vacation from my job as a mechanic. They normally wouldn't give workers paid vacations unless they worked there for at least 2 years, but I won a game of cards with the boss and he decided to let me do it, as long as I was willing to work more hours than usual when I got back, which of course I agreed.

I decided to head out to Las Vegas to try to gamble so that I can hopefully win enough cash to head out for Italy. I still haven't given up on finding my brother, even with everybody telling me that Jimmy was probably dead by now, I still wanted to know what happened to him, even if he was dead. I was heading south to reach the famous Route 66, which will lead straight to Las Vegas, when I came into view of the Rocky Mountains. I'm not usually in nature watching or whatever it’s called, but even I gotta admit to the Rockies are a beautiful site, even as a kid visiting my grandparents, I also wanted to mountain hike there sometime in the future.

I was traveling on a road, which I won’t reveal the name of. It was on the other side of Route 66 with the mountains in between, and I wanted to get on the other side without having to drive another hour to do so. So after putting up my map (My phone didn't help me out since Verizon didn't cover in this particular area, go figure), I eventually stopped at a worn out looking gas station to fill up and to take a leak. After doing my business and filling my tank, I visited the two gas station workers/owners, both wearing grease stained flannel shirts and blue pants and looking like they were reaching their 50's, and asked them about any short cuts through the mountains.

"No." One of them bluntly replied.

Not willing to give up just like that, and desperate on saving time. I asked:

"Come on, are you sure? I don't mind taking a dirt road."

The guy who replied first seemed to be thinking about it and looked like he was going to reply, but the other guy behind spoke up.

"If there are any roads out there, they probably ain't no good no more."

Taking that as it is, I thanked them for their 'help', and drove off a little irritated. I was really hoping that I wouldn't have to drive an extra hour just to get to that route. There was a road that went straight through the Rockies to Route 66, but there was a huge pile up caused by an 18 wheeler, and it would've taken hours just to wait. It wasn't that I was low on cash to pay for extra gas, oh no. I had plenty of money save just for this occasion; I just didn't want to waste a cent of it if I could help it. It’s not that I was planning to blow it all on gambling, I'm not that stupid, but I wanted to save what I could so that in the event that I'd blow half my cash on gambling for nothing (Which I knew was more possible than actually winning anything), I could at least buy me something nice with in the Neon City.

Several minutes passed, and I eventually got over my irritation of having to pay for extra gas. It wasn't too bad; after all, I've certainly been through worse. The only thing that still bothered me a little was the fact that my phone still had no signal. Now it didn't creep me out like what some of you might be thinking, it was more annoying than anything. It wasn't so much that I was expecting anybody to call or vice versa, it was that if something were to come up, how would I contact anybody? This road wasn't exactly known for being notorious in crashes or found dead bodies or stuff like that, but the nearest town was like 5 miles on the other side, and that gas station that I stopped by earlier was like 15 miles back. So say if I found someone injured, whether car crash or victim of attempted kidnapping/rape/murder, how will I get help?

I tried to calm myself down, saying that the chances of something like that are high, and as long as I kept cool I should be fine. The road that I driving to that'll get me through the Rockies is only 30 miles, so for half an hour, I can just drive and enjoy the scenery. Then that’s when it hit me, I may not be able to receive or give calls, even messages are lucky to get through this area, I can still take pictures, and I've always wanted a beautiful backdrop on my phone screen, so I decided to park on my right hand side of the road, so I can be further away from the mountains to get a better shot. As I was done snapping what I'd like to consider the perfect picture, I looked down at the forest for a quick second and spotted something. I had to look around again to find it, but I eventually found what caught my eye; an open path between two trees, large enough for a regular sized vehicle to pass through.

I crossed the road to the other side to look much better, and sure enough-It was a dirt road!

The clearing for it was at an angle that made it nearly impossible for a typical driver to spot, and honestly it was probably blind luck that I found it at all. Another thing that made it hard to spot was the fact that there were three bushes blocking the trail. At first I began to think that those hicks at that gas station were lying, and that they had a secret hideout where they kept their torture victims, or that satanic cults were using it, shit like that, with the bushes as cover. But I quickly dismissed that theory since the bushes, about 3-4 feet high each, looked pretty damn rooted, and it didn't look like anyone just put dirt over the roots to make it look like so either. Another thing that gave them authenticity was the way they looked, they weren't dying, but they sure as hell weren't young either. It might have been possible that someone planted them there to cover up the trail, but that would've been years ago, decades even. The only recent sign of human activity around this path was a single tire track of a large BX/mountain bike going in between a tree and a bush on the left hand side, and seemed to continue on as far as the road went, and I knew it was a road, since, while faint and barely noticeable, there were signs of tire tracks, despite mother nature trying to erode the ground back to the way it was before.

I was ecstatic, I found something that no one else has found, a possible short cut (Excluding the bike rider, and even then it was one track, and it looked months old)! Now I didn't rush in right away, I wanted to make sure that this wasn't a reserved or private properly, so I looked around those trees and bushes for any 'keep out' or human made signs that would've fallen off through the years, but nothing. Asides from that single bike track that was fading away, everything seemed so natural and undisturbed, no foot prints, not even a single piece of trash, nothing.

Now what made me want to drive down this long forgotten road was how far it seemed to go, I couldn't see the end, and while I couldn't figure out how far it went, the fact that Route 66 was just 5-6 miles on the other side gave me hope. So after analyzing the area, which had generally flat terrain, I pulled up those bushes (while big, age certain had an effect), and gently placed them on the side of the dirt trail. I kinda felt bad for doing so, but they were old anyway, and generally were in the way of a man made path. So I got back into my car, and slowly and cautiously began to drive down the dirt road, now I had spare tire in the trunk, so I wasn't going in completely unprepared. The drop off where the trees and the dirt road meet was pretty steep, but my van was well built, and I had experienced riding rough terrain with it before. So I drove down the path, and asides from the occasional bumps and fallen tree branch, it was smooth sailing.

Unlike the bushes that blocked the path, the trees surrounding each side of the trail looked fairly young, at least the leaves and occasional patch of grass did. But the wood and even the ground itself look faded. The ground looked dry, as the wood looked like it’s been eaten away slightly by termites and woodpeckers through the years, which struck me as odd. The woodpeckers and termites I can accept for the most part (I never actually saw any termites, or birds in general, but the way the wood looked, it was evident something was eating them on a small scale, insects at least, maybe a disease.), the ground looking so dry was what bothered me. It wasn't hard earth drought dry, but the ground looked like it haven't gotten any rain in weeks, which I knew wasn't true, since I knew for a fact that it rained 3 inches in this area the week before I got here, and this area gets plenty of rain, especially during the spring and summer seasons.

So while riding I kept trying to understand why the ground and wood was so dry, while the greenery looked as fresh as it should. Was it disease? But wouldn't it affect the greenery as well? Termites I almost accepted, since they do eat wood and live underground, so they might have somehow collected the moisture from the wood, but again, wouldn't it affect the greener as well to some extent?

Another thing that made me doubt it was termites was that they were hardly any in this area for what I've heard. But I'm no nature expert by any means, so I stopped thinking about it and drove onwards, if it was a natural dilemma, the forest rangers or whatever could handle it.

I drove for a steady speed of about 10 mph, so sure enough; I reached the end of the road, which stopped at a damn cliff.

Now the cliff itself wasn’t that huge, at least compared to the mountains, if I had to guess, it was roughly 50ft high and about 120ft wide, and was maybe 100ft long going towards the direction that I wanted to go.

I wasn't too mad, I had a feeling that this road probably lead to a dead end, but there was a small part of me that really wanted to get to the other side, but I quickly got over it at that moment as I looked at what was between my car and a cliff.

It was a small stream of water, would say river but it was only 4-5 feet, and when I got closer to investigate, it didn’t look like it was deeper than 3 feet. The water was running at a steady pace going east. It was crystal clear, like there was no pollution or human interference whatsoever. If I was thirsty at the time, I probably would’ve drunk right out of it, just to see if it tasted as good as it looked.

Speaking of human interference, I finally noticed a small wooden bridge just 15 feet to the right, surprised how I missed it up until now. Going towards it, I noticed the bike track heading the same way. Finally remembering it since I almost forgot about at that point, I followed it back to the dirt road, and from what I can gather, he/she did stop just a foot where my van was parked and looked around, I can only guess since I can’t find any footprints. It looked like he/she went to the wooden bridge to look as well, than when they were done, rode off westward as far as I can see. Where they went from there I’ll never know.

I went to the bridge to look for myself; it went over the small river, going about 2 feet above it in an ark. It didn’t look to fancy, in the sense that it didn’t look like it took much to make it, though it wasn’t by no means ugly. It was actually the nicest looking thing here, and looked practically brand new asides from some dried up leaves here and there, the wood that it was constructed was light tan. The panels that held the rails had swirly designs, the kind that you see on doors of old houses. The only thing that gave away its age was a scratched on drawing and letters on one of the panels in the middle. It was a decently well craved out heart, and in its center was:

HG & AE 57

So that let me know that this bridge was at least over 50 years old, though as to why it was built here of all places, was what got me thinking.

Was this a park at one point? If so, seemed like a weird place to build one. The area was pretty secluded, and asides from the bridge, dirt road, and bike track, there was no sign that anybody’s been here period. This area was one of the very lucky pieces of earth that humans haven’t (for the most part) tainted in one form or another; there wasn’t even any trash like paper or plastic bags that would’ve been carried by the wind. This place was truly left alone.

Other questions began popping up: WAS this private property? This place was secluded, with only one entrance, which was blocked by bushes until I came, and again, asides from that one cyclist, no one’s been here for years. I can understand having pieces of land to yourself and not been able to visit all the time (My grandfather owned a pent house in Miami that he hasn’t been to since 99), but if you’re not going to visit PERIOD, what’s the point of owning it, or keeping it private at all? Asides from its seclusion, there was nothing here that really made that special. The bridge, river, and even the cliff looked nice, but the trees didn’t look that great, the trunks looked healthy enough, but all the leaves were dead and dry, then I remembered.

Going onto the road, the tree’s looked like they had rotting wood while the leaves were full and green, and here, it was opposite. The wood looked healthy as can be, but the leaves were as dry as possible, and most of them were on the ground, with some still barely holding on to the branches up above. And like I mentioned earlier, it rained a week before, so the leaves shouldn’t be this dry, although unlike the previous trees, there was evidence that it did rain here, because the wood looked plumped with moisture, and hell, even the ground, while not wet, was soft.

At this point I was getting confused, I’m just a mechanic in a small town in northern Colorado, so I don’t really know or even care about nature, I’ll do my part and recycle ever now and then, but asides from that I could care less about nature. But as I was there in the middle of nowhere in an area that hasn’t had any human visitors for at least a few months, I couldn’t help but ponder over the weirdness of this place.

Was it some disease? I don’t know shit about plants, and I’m well aware that there’d be dead leaves since its still winter, but I was beginning to doubt that this was a natural phenomenal. Was it the creek? That water DOES look too clear to be natural; surely there should be some moss or even fish in there. Now that I was thinking about it, there was no wildlife, aside from a few birds up high in the trees chirping, and even then they didn’t stick around long.

I quickly told myself not to worry about it since it’s not your problem, and that you only came down this forgotten road because you wanted to find a short cut to the other side. Then I remembered to check the time, being here pondering this and that made me lose track of why I rode down here in the first place, so I got my phone out to check the time, I clearly remember my jaw dropping seeing the time.

I have spent 30 minutes here, 12 riding down the dirt road, about 2 miles, and the next 18 minutes looking around and asking myself questions that I had no answers to.

NOW I was mad. It wasn’t like I needed to be in Vegas at a specific time, but I’m one of those people who hates wasting their time, Being used to a very tight schedule at my job has made me like that. Now I’m normally a calm person even in the worst situations, and asides from what I was about to do, there’s only one time before that I remember losing it, and it was in college. I wasn’t frantic mind you, but I wanted to do something to blow off some steam before turning back around (I thought of riding down the flat terrain all the way to the other side, but I only had one spare tire, if more than one went flat, I’d be screwed). I spot a great big pile of leaves a few feet from the trunk of a large tree about 15-20 feet north of the bridge. I decided I’ll run and take one swift kick at it to see how far up I can kick the leaves.

Thinking back, there probably was something else about that place asides from the weird natural phenomenon, because I’ve been in worse situations beforehand and got out of them only slightly annoyed.

So taking my stance, I got ready, and then I sprinted towards the pile, got my right foot ready, and kicked as hard as I could, and as soon as I did, I fell back screaming and cursing, grabbing on to my foot, with a broken big toe searing in white hot pain.

Still cursing at myself for being a dumbass, despite the pain, I got up and crawled towards the pile, which hardly looked like anything happened to it asides for some leaves pulled out and crushed by my now damaged right foot. I wanted to see what I struck so brightly because it was no tree root, otherwise I would’ve just crawled back to my car. What I struck was not wood, but metal, hard metal. I at first thought it was a pipe since it wasn’t that thick, and just as I was sweeping away the pile, expecting to see the pipe that I struck so I can curse it out one last time, I saw something that made me stop in my tracks and replaced my anger with curiosity.

“No, it can’t be”.

But sure enough it was.

Instead of a pipe, what I struck was out of all things, a door handle.

I swiped away most of the leaves, and occasional dirt and twigs, and what was there right in front of me was what looked like a cellar door, like those outside doors to the basements of houses you see in movies, although this door, being about 3x2 feet, was made completely of metal, iron by the look of it.

NOW I found something interesting, a small secluded area with a nice small bridge over a crystal clear river is one thing, but a metal door hidden under a pile of leaves is something to talk about back home.

About a thousand things ran through my mind of what could be down there, but two things were on my mind the most; either a murders hideout or a thieves place for treasure, either way I had doubts whatever was down there was put there legally. Of course I wasn’t going to go down there in a heartbeat, if there were dead bodies down there, I didn’t wanna be next to them. But at the same time, you always hear about people going missing all the time, and if there were bodies of missing people down there, I can contact the authorities and they can determine the identities of the victims, maybe even find out who put them there, and I could even get some reward money for it.

If there were stolen goods or money down, again, I could get a reward for it, maybe even a percentage of it. I’m well aware of how selfish and cheap that sounds, but I didn’t wanna leave that forgotten place without at least something to talk about, and if I can get something out of it, then I know I didn’t waste nearly 20 minutes for nothing.

While I may not be too big on the genre, I’ve seen and read enough horror stories to know that going down a door in a middle of nowhere isn’t the smartest thing to do, and was aware that the killer(s)/thieves could come back for their prize(s), since that pile of leaves that I swept away was obviously put there. But two things convinced me otherwise; one was that I had nothing better to do and wanted to find something worthwhile, and as soon as I found something, I get in my car and drive back to the main road, and straight to the authorities. Another was while looking at the door; I noticed how old it looked judging by the rust on it, if was to the point that if I was daring enough, I could jump on it and probably fall through. Though what sealed the deal for me was the lock.

The door was connected to a metal base about 3 inches thick, with two hinges facing the tree (west), and a hatch lock at the bottom. Now I’m a car mechanic, but every once in a while, I’ll go to the junk yard downtown to find spare parts, and dealing with old rusted metal for about 5 years has given me experience. So looking at the lock, and the amount of rust on it, I can tell that it hasn’t been opened in YEARS.

So with that knowledge at hand, I went back to my van and opened my trunk to get two things. My night vision googles, which were old, and when seeing through them, you see static green, though they had new batteries and worked ok. And my switch blade, I wasn’t expecting to find anything alive down there, but on the off chance that the criminal(s) came back while I was looking down there, I’d want a better chance at fighting them off. Finally, as a precaution, I took my keys out of my van, and locked the doors, and headed towards the door.

It took a while for me to pull the lock out; the rust on there wasn’t for show. After a minute of pulling, I thought of going back to the van to get WB-40 (felt stupid not getting it in the first place), when the lock finally gave way with a big scrap.

With the lock out of the way, I got myself ready, putting on the night vision goggles and placing the blade in a easily reachable position in my back pocket (blade facing upwards in case it unlocks by accident). I got in between the door and the tree and squatted down, gripped the handle that I struck with my throbbing big toe (I lost most of my feeling at that point, I could still keep it up, as long as I didn’t lean on it, it didn’t hurt as bad. My curiosity overshadowed the pain, if that makes any sense).

While not as bad, there was rust nearly-fusing the door and the base, so with all the strength I could muster, I pulled.

The door creaked.

I pulled again.

The door creaked even more, and I saw and heard some ripping of rust.

Finally, with the third tug, the door gave way with a loud bang, which sounded almost like an explosion. The sudden burst caused me to fall back, but I turned around fast enough and caught myself before crashing into the tree. I turned around after catching my breath and looked down into the hole. It was pitch black, and I could faintly hear the echo of the bang that happened earlier, though that’s not what caught my attention at first. What got to me was that everything around became quiet.

It didn’t go mute mind you, but it was like right after that big metallic bang, everything stopped moving, the calm breeze that was blowing the leaves and branches stopped, the birds stopped chirping, and stood still, even the ones in mid-flight immediately landed on the nearest branch, and sat there like statues, not moving a feather. Even the creek quieted down, I could still faintly hear it, but it was like the water slowed down running, if that’s even possible.

Had it been under different circumstances, I would’ve taken it as a sign to just close that door and leave, but at that moment, I figured it was that loud bang that made everything quiet. It would explain the birds being still and ceasing their chirping, their probably never heard anything like that and feared of a predator (that was what I thought was the case at the time; I know that birds usually fly AWAY from loud noises). The calm breeze stopping was what I believed to be coincidental since around that time, breezes come and go. As for the water, I could still hear that loud bang ringing in my ears, and I contributed it to a momentary deafness caused by that.

Although, thinking back to that particular moment, and what I should’ve noticed then, was that I could still hear my footsteps, breaking the leaves and twigs, even my breathing was crystal clear, while everything else was silent. But my curiosity prevented any second thoughts.

But even with my curiosity at its peak, I was still cautious. Loud unfamiliar bang or not, I knew enough that if everything quieted down in nature, something was up.

So I stood a few feet from the hole, looking down for about a minute or two, half expecting something the fly, jump, or crawl out, but alas, nothing.

Feeling that it was ok, I squatted down, and looked down into the hole to see how deep it was, but it was too dark down there. I couldn’t see anything, and I didn’t wanna peak my head down there completely out of fear of slipping and falling down head first who knows how far. So I felt down there with my hand, and sure enough, I felt a bar of a metal ladder.

I gripped it better and pulled down on it to see if age has taken its toll, but it held up good.

So with that, I put on the goggles and turned them on while looking down into the hole. While I could only see about 4 feet in front of me in complete darkness with them on, I could make out the ladder going down, I couldn’t see the bottom, but I had a feeling it wasn’t that deep. So I cautiously turned around and placed my left foot on the bar below the one I recently griped, and while holding onto the metal base to make sure the ladder could handle my weight, I took one last look at my surrounds, which was eerily still quiet despite the time that has passed since the metallic bang, and I finally and cautiously, transcended down the ladder. The last thing I noticed before going down was the rust was a slightly different color then the metal of the door and base. I didn’t think about it too much at the time, but with my experience, I should’ve realized that the door wasn’t fused by rust, but fused by a different metal, it was welded.

I took each step down with caution, while the ladder was handling my weight pretty well, I could still hear a slight grown with every step down. The ladder was in good condition considering its age, but I’d make sure that if it were to suddenly break, I could jump up and grab onto the metal base up above.

After 8 steps down, my right foot (with the big toe still throbbing, thou it was becoming numb at that point) finally came in contact with soft ground. Finally at the floor of the underground place, I eagerly got off the ladder, and looked up. Judging by how far apart each ladder step was, I figured I was about 8 and a half feet underground. The light from above gave me enough sight to figure out where I was; it was a tunnel.

I couldn’t see enough even with the light above to figure out or see which way to go, so I got my goggles ready. It’s been about 3 years since I used them last when I went camping out one time with my grandfather, so it took a few seconds to turn it on, and I had to get out of the light for them to work. So I took a big step to the left of me to be in complete darkness.

The goggles finally came on, and with the green static vision that I haven’t seen since exploring the woods in Oregon for Bigfoot with my grandfather (he was a paranormal junkie and searched for cryptid’s whenever he had the money and time, despite being close to his seventies by now), and just a foot away from me, in which I would’ve walked right into had I’d taken another big step in that direction, was a wall.

Looking around with the night vision on, it was a dead end. Looking around, I saw that the tunnel wasn’t that wide, maybe 9 feet at best. Looking at the dead end at, I realized that it was man made by Indians. How I knew that was by the way it was built, it wasn’t built with bricks and with straight lines in between, not even like an amateur way of brick building either. While it wasn’t straight, it was clear that the rocks were fitted the best possible by human hands, with dried up earth in between to act like concrete. You know of those pots made of mud that those Indians in the desert make, it was like that. Another thing that convinced me it was Indians was how old it looked. Judging by the roots growing down into it, I’d figured the wall must’ve been there for centuries. Of course at the moment I didn’t know why they’d build it down here seeming in the middle of a tunnel. ‘Was it to keep something in or out?’ I remember asking myself at that moment.

Knowing I won’t figure it out standing there, I decided to turn round and look on the ground, to see if I can find something to enlighten me on this mysterious tunnel that I just began to explore. Sure enough going to the right, just inches from the ladder was a penny. How I managed to spot something like that in the clumpy dirt clod filled floor I’ll never know, but I caught sight of it and immediately went to pick it up. It may not seem like much to get excited over a penny, but in places that have been abandoned for years, the date on it would give me some insight on how long it’s been since people of modern times have been down here. Picking it up, it felt like a brand new penny, asides from the dirt on it, it was smooth, and was well preserved down here after all these years. Turning it around I saw the date it was made, 1961.

So it was at least in the 60’s the last time people were down, thou why and how they found this tunnel was lost to me at the time. Looking at the ground some more, I only saw a butt of a cigar near the wall going east, but I wasn’t going to pick that up to figure out how old that was (never smoked, never will). Now unlike above, there were footprints down here, but they were so cluttered in the middle, like whoever walked down here last walked in a straight line back and forth to the other end, I could only pick out maybe 5 different patterns of shoes, thou it mostly looked like the majority was boots and tennis shoes. Only a few footsteps would trail off the middle and go right or left, but never got closer than an inch to the walls, and looking at the walls, I really begun to get the lay out of this tunnel.

The walls at each end were undoubtedly natural, there weren’t smoothed out in the slightest, and looking around, I saw an occasional tree root going around the tunnel to the other side, which struck me as odd since don’t tree go downwards, but they need soil to grow, and I heard somewhere that trees were smart enough to keep their growing roots away from open spaces (i.e. this tunnel) and such, didn’t know how that works, but I didn’t question it at the time.

While slowly going right, looking around, the walls did seem the go on forever. The tunnel didn’t feel that big, but with the night vision only allowing me 4 feet of visibility, it seemed to stretch onwards right with no end. While I was thinking about it, I stopped for a moment and really thought about it.

The walls weren’t smooth out like I’d just said, but how did this tunnel came to be? I’m no geologist, but I know that caves and tunnels are made either by erosion by water or wind, or being dug out by animals.

I couldn’t see any water down here, the dirt was soft, but it could’ve been from the past activities of people decades before, and surely it wasn’t wind. I’m aware that tunnels and caves take hundred or even thousands of years to form since it take that long for landscapes to change and erosion to take effect. But walking down further made me realize that this tunnel was going straight.

The walls weren’t smooth like you would expect, but maybe they didn’t need to be. The tunnel was spacious enough for several people to walk through with each. But the walls looked more natural then that wall at the other end. So I was sure that this tunnel was older then the wall, I even begun to suspect that this tunnel was around before Native Americans settled here.

Then something occurred to me right then and there. Why the hell was I pondering so damn much all the sudden? I NEVER took time to ponder, not even back in college when trying to figure out answers to complicated questions in tests. Not that I didn’t take time to think before acting, but never before or after this event did I take minutes to ponder questions that I knew right from the start I had no answer to.

A part of me then and even now wanted to believe it was because that I found something that could get me something really worthwhile, something that has been hidden for decades just waiting to be discovered and examined. But the more I think about it even as I’m typing this, I feel that either the area itself affected my critical thinking, or that even subconsciously, I was trying to warn myself of what was ahead and turn back. Either one wouldn’t surprise me.

I was confusing myself again at that point, but I somehow got over my mid thoughts of speculation and firmly told myself to leave it to the experts.

‘You’re no expert of nature by any means, you know a few things and can make good guesses, but you’re a fucking car mechanic. Leave the pondering and speculating to people who know what they’re doing, you just move forward and see what you can find.’

I remember telling myself that in my mind, it’s one of the things I remember best from being in that tunnel.

With that in mind, I moved forwards with a slightly quicker pace than before. I just remembered the ladder I climbed down off of, and looked back to see how far I walked. From what I can tell, the ladder and the ray of light, which was dimmer then the last time I’ve seen it, meaning the sun was going down, was about 15 feet behind. So that meant I spent all that time pondering/speculating about this weird tunnel, and I only covered 15ft.

I wanted to curse myself out again for wasting time (didn’t even dare to look at the time on my phone), but stopped myself and reminder myself to just move forward, find what’s down here, and leave, I took about 4 steps while looking back at the ladder, and turned around, and what I saw just 3 feet in front of me nearly made my heart skip a beat.

It was a door, not a small metal door that lead to the surface, but a fucking average, white with 4 rectangles, little window shaped like the ‘eyes’ of the Amityville horror house, even a damn knocker on the upper center, fucking door. The frustrated confused determination that I was barely hold onto at the moment was replace was fear.

Seeing something so out of place really threw me off guard. Now I’ve been in weird situations and places before, but there was always something to explain it. I’ve seen some weird things like most people have, I’ve been to San Francisco, and I’ve seen some things while exploring the country with my grandfather, whether a glimpse of the supposed cryptid or something else entirely, it’ll take to damn long to recount. But I wasn’t unfamiliar with weird things and places, but beforehand when I’ve seen or experienced those things, I always felt safe.

In the woods, my grandfather, and the first few times my brother, was with me and armed if the worst scenario happened, in California there were people around to witness something, and in my backyard a year after my mother passed, my brother was with me when we both spotted in our tree, out of all things, a grinning cat. But this took the cake.

Even that grinning cat looked at if some sick fuck or fuckers made it that way, whether by cutting of the cheeks of somehow stretching them back. My brother got a better view of it and said it looked like it was in great pain. But I’m getting off topic.

I was alone this time, with night vision goggles that had limited reach of seeing, and a small switch blade that my grandfather loaned me the last time I visited.

As you’d expect with fear, my wildest imaginations overcame the logical thoughts in me. Not only was it out of place, it looked brand fucking new. None of the paint was peeling off; there was a crack near the hinges, which were to the right. But judging by the wall surround it, it probably wasn’t a perfect fit to begin with. It just didn’t look like a door that’s been down there for more than 50 years.

I began to have crazy thoughts. Was wonderland behind it? Was this the place where Cthulhu and Slender Man had secret tea parties? If I knocked, would some only-god-knows-what thing politely invite me in to an all-expense paid trip to hell? Just stuff like that ran through my mind for about a whole minute. I wasn’t like I wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary going down this tunnel, but...

I was expecting either some stolen goods or even bodies of long forgotten victims, but I can’t picture anybody period going through the trouble of getting a front door straight from a house and putting it here of all places. I began to think that whoever did put the door there wanted it there to be a final entrance to their treasure, whether stolen loot or bodies.

Hesitant at first, I peeked through the window, half expecting something to come out of nowhere and scare the shit out of me, but alas nothing happened, and with the limited vision supplied by the goggles, I couldn’t see jack shit through them (sorry for the excessive language in advance, just trying to show you guys how I felt as I went further down that tunnel).

I backed away from the door, and got my switch blade out and ready. I finally remembered the thought I had before entering the tunnel, of whoever responsible coming back for what they left behind while I was down here looking around.

While the fear I had was still there, I coaxed myself with the idea of having to defend myself from whom, or what might be behind door #2, WHATEVER might pose a threat to me. That was what made me get my nerves on straight, the idea of having to fight my way out did, in a bizarre and messed way, it was what motivated me to keep going.

I’m not one to fight firsthand, but I’m by no means a pacifist. If push comes to shove, I will fight back. And like I mentioned in the beginning, I’ve also be a fan of lone heroes barely making it out of a crazy situation with something to brag about. Indiana Jones, Alien, my favorite genre is action, hands down.

Feel free to speculate how that got me to open that door. I tried to make sense of it myself, whether the place messing with my thoughts, something to calm down the fear, or a secret desire to come out like a badass. Any of those reasons could’ve been what drove me towards my fate.

So with my ego peaked, I took the blade and got ready with it, took one last look back at the ladder, and that ray of light from the surface. Both looked smaller than the last time I looked, which struck a nerve since I was only a few feet back last time, and finally the light looked even dimmer than before. The sun WAS going down.

Even an idiot in the same situation would’ve known to do what he had to do and leave ASAP when he was done.

I took a big breath and slowly signed, mentally preparing myself, with the blade in my right hand ready to strike. I took my left hand and gripped the knob. It turned with ease, which again nearly spooked me, but I quickly got over it as I discovered that the door was unlocked (like it really needed to be down here), and just as I turned it, I slowly pulled it open.

I pulled the door with enough force so that it’ll swing towards the left. The door barely creaked as it swing open up until it was near touching the wall, which again unnerved me how unnaturally functional this door was despite being down here for decades. Then another thought occurred to me. I only speculated that that door has been down here since the 60’s, I didn’t know what was on the other side as the door came to a stop, for all I knew, there were probably other entrances to this pl-

‘QUIT SPECULATING, MOVE FORWARD, THAN GET OUT!’

That loud thought got me back to the situation. I’ll apologize again in advance; I don’t mean to type every single thought I had down there, just the more I think about it as I’m typing, I can’t help but type away. For those getting impatient (which I imagine is a lot of you), just wait a little more, we’re about to get into the ‘good stuff’

With the door swung open, I took a stance, expecting something to come out, and I made sure I could hear behind me well in case someone or something came or appeared from behind and …nothing.

Nothing for at least 3 seconds, right after that small time period of standing still in anticipation, a small, gush of air came out from that door escaping in all directions. There wasn’t no sound, no roar, hiss, sigh, nothing to suggest that that pocket of air that escaped with intentionally sent out by anything living or even undead. It was mealy air that’s been sealed away for decades behind that too-damn-fancy-for-this-tunnel door, as I quickly realized that, as well as being slightly disappointed at the same time.

Although it wasn’t foul, it had a smell to it that wasn’t made by dirt. I almost recognized it, but whatever it was, it was lost to me at the moment, but I didn’t take a second sniff, as I pull my over my nose the moment I smelled it.

It didn’t stink; it just smelled odd, although that’s not why I covered my nose. I’ve been told in school that if you’re in a tight, closed off area, and smell something that you’re not familiar with, it’s best to not to keep smelling it in case it was poisonous gas like CO2 or methane. While I knew that whatever that odd smell was wasn’t any of the gases I’ve smell intentionally or accidently in my lifetime, it did smell organic, like some sort of plant.

With my shirt over my nose, I stepped inside the door, and got a better view of what was on the other side.

Another tunnel, shorter in length then the tunnel I just came through, and at each side of it and at the end was more doors, 2 on each side, and one at the end.

Again the fear began to come back, but before I let my imagination go wild again, I stopped myself and thought to myself that if something was here, it would’ve done something by now.

Although even with that in mind, it didn’t stop me from nearly having a heart attack when I stepped into the second hallway, and heard a small clump as my foot made contact with something hard.

I jumped back a bit and looked immediately down. The floor of the secondary hallway was covered in light tan wooden boards.

‘Come down.’ I told myself. ‘Quit being so damned paranoid, you going to turn 25 this year for god’s sake.’

‘Either nut up or shut up’, my high school coach would always say whenever someone complained about something in his class, and that’s what I told myself then and there.

I reasoned with myself that it was natural to feel fear. Would the hell wouldn’t be in such a place? But there’s nothing to be afraid of.

‘Air escaping after opening that door is evidence alone that you’re the first person to come into this clearly forgotten place in decades. If there were other ways to get in, the air wouldn’t have been as held up; it would’ve gotten out sooner.’

‘That odd smell probably does belong to a plant that someone left down here; you just can’t remember what kind.’

‘If there was something here that meant harm, it would’ve, in one form or another, let you know it didn’t want you here. What the hell would it be waiting for? If this place was haunted, the ghosties or demons had plenty of time to do something by now. You’ve been cautious.’

Yeah, I have been cautious.

I’ve been slowly moving, and stopping half the time to question the strangeness and oddities of this area. From the moment I drove down the hidden dirt road, I’ve taken extra care to not overstep my boundaries in a sense. You know in movies, especially horror, the group that enters an abandoned or forbidden place, and there’s that one arrogant prick that strolls right in like he owns the place? And big shock, he usually is the first one to go? I’ve been the complete opposite. I’ve taken my time with my actions, I analyzed the situation and the possibilities of what could happen. I’ve been everything an old friend of mine would say would be perfect for surviving a horror film. I’m well aware that this was reality, but out of all things that came to mind while I was down there. THIS was the one that gave me the most hope. The fact that I have taken every step with careful judgment, and spent most of the time thinking about what’s to come and how to handle it. As silly as it sounded, I was proud of myself.

I have convinced myself at that point forward that I can handle anything that comes my way down there, and I both am thankful and regretful for that childish spark of motivation. For while it did lead to the worst experience of my life, I believe now that I think about it, it gave me just enough energy to escape.

Walking into the second hallway, I noticed up above hanging, were two light sockets. One had a light bulb perfectly intact, the other one had one that looked like it busted at one point. I saw some wires connecting them and going down to the right wall, and sure enough, lead right to a switch. Though I knew not to try the flip it on, you don’t need to be an electrician to know that something that’s been on or off for decades would not work now.

I began to take small steps forward, not out of fear off awakening something, but of along the lines of not disturbing the long, tranquil silence that this place has held onto for so long. But no matter how light I made my feet touch the floor, it still made that soft clump.

I stopped just a few feet, right between the first 2 doors to my left and right. I knew at that point I had to go into them and see what’s in. I was cautious of course, but there was still that twinge of fear in me of not knowing what could be behind them, for all I knew, they each could lead into other tunnels. I told myself AGAIN not to get paranoid, but there were still many things bothering me. The existence of this tunnel ALONE, it confounded me how it can even exist barely 2 feet below ground without caving in at one point.

‘Quit it, just pick a door, look, and leave.’

Now unlike the door I previously walked through, these, with the exception of the one to my right, were open to a certain degree, and unlike the first door, while white too, they were just regular doors, no patterns, no little windows. They even had peeling paint. None of the 4 were open completely, just slightly to some different degree each. The one that was open the most was the one at the end, it was about half way, the two doors next to it and the one to the left of me, was open quarter way, give or take inches.

I decided that I’ll start with the closed one to the right. Maybe it was because I was closer to it, or maybe it was a slight fear that made me think that if something was there, it’d be hiding behind that one, and that I might as well face it while I can. Although I knew how stupid that sounded since, asides from me, I haven’t heard one decimal of anything each moving.

Finally nutting up, I walked towards it, only taking 2 steps to get right in front, and gripped the knob the same way I did with the last door. I twisted it, not surprisingly, it was unlocked. I pushed it in, and I heard that slight creak that you’d expect from an old door, which made me even more suspicious of the door I recently passed.

I forgot to mention that since I entered this second tunnel (which considering the work done on it decades past, I could practically call it a hallway), the visibility of my goggles greatly improved somehow. I didn’t question it at the time as you’ll see, but now that I’m on the subject, I heard of places like the Bermuda triangle and other areas that have ‘energies’ that affect electronic devices for good and bad, and in the case of that tunnel, it was good.

So with the greatly improved visibility, I saw behind the first door a room, no bigger than my own bedroom in fact, about 10x9 feet. I couldn’t tell if it was made or natural, since, again, like the walls of the previous tunnel, they weren’t smooth, but went straight none-the-less. And it was evident that this was someone’s room.

I immediately noticed a dresser just a foot from the door to the left, and another foot behind it, a spring cot, like you see in old war movies, with a worn out mattress, and a pillow and about two sheets. At the foot of the bed, I saw some books and papers. I looked back at the wall on the other side of the dresser, and spotted about 3 buckets at the corner. I was about to walk over there to check them out, but judging by how filthy they looked and the fact that they were at the very corner away from the rest of the room. It was apparent they were used for waste. Taking that as it is. I decided to investigate.

I didn’t know what to start with, looking at the books or the dresser for clues. I was getting excited. I finally found something that I can recognize and understand. There was still caution, but I at least knew someone for whatever reason lived here at one point, and with the stuff that I was in front of, I can FINALLY find clues to this place.

I looked at the dresser again; I remembered seeing a small thin wire going into this room, and sure enough, right at the top was a small light socket with an intact light bulb. Between it and the dresser was a mirror about 2 feet long and over, leaning against the wall. Asides from the buildup of dust, it looked practically brand new. I could almost see my reflection, and taped on the right of it was a small black and white picture of a Hispanic looking woman, a much taller man who looked as white as I did (in skin color and style), and two little kids, probably no older than 5 each, sitting at their feet, smiling.

See that both touched and creeped me out. It was nice to see something so comforting in this long forgotten tunnel, but it unnerved me why something like this would be down here of all places.

My thoughts began to go rampant again of who could’ve lived here, and whether or not they choose to. I took a closer look at those books on the floor and discovered they were medical books. I was about to pull out the drawers for answers when I spotted it just below the mirror, a journal.

I finally found something big, something that could tell the deal with this place, and maybe even why it existed. So without second thought, I picked it up, whipped off the dust, and with great anticipation, opened it.

Written just on the other side of the first page:

The Diary of Annabelle Estevez

AE…could it have been the same as the one on the bridge?

The first few pages were blank, but on the 6th or 7th page, writing began to appear.

Now I didn’t bring the journal with me, although I remembered quite a lot as you’re about to see. After I was done reading it, I did plan to bring it with me as evidence after I was done looking thru the rest of the tunnel, but as you will figure out, it’ll was the last time I’ll see it along with the place. Leaving it behind would be one of my biggest regrets.

There were about 21 pages of writing in total; the first 11 were about her experiences in medical collage as one of the first Hispanic female doctors in the state in the late fifties, while the last ten were what I was looking forward to the most, her forced time in this tunnel.

She had made exceptionally well scores in college, and while racial prejudice was still apparent in that area. They were low on medical staff in the town at the time, so they had to put up with her. She talked about how she made many friends at the college and met the love of her life, Harold Green (‘so it WAS them!’ I remembered nearly saying out loud to myself). She talked about having to deal with the occasional racists, and how Harold would tell them off. Asides from that, it was about figuring out medical mumble jumble that I could care less about. While she never wrote down about going to the bridge, I was confident at that point they were the ones. Finally I reached what I was hoping for, the part where she was kidnapped, along with two other doctors, and brought here to make illegal drugs for a small time drug dealer.

Basically, she’d married Harold in 57 (further convincing me they were the ones on that bridge), and moved to a small town near Denver. They would a year later have two kids, and as one of the head doctors in Denver, and Harold being a leading contractor, they’ve had it good for 6 years (At that point I picked that photo off the mirror and turned it around, written on the back was simply; “Annabelle, Harold, Lou, and Fernando. 1964” I was almost right about the kid’s age). Up until mid-April, when while walking to her car after a long late night shift, someone came from behind and knocked her out. By the time she awakened, she, along with two other doctors, one whom she recognized as a classmate from college, the other worked at the same hospital he did, were in the middle of the secondary tunnel that I was currently in.

The guy who hired the two thugs that kidnapped each of them was a wealthy man by the name of Ernie McGee, someone from a wealthy family that owned some private land (one of them being this area that I was in), and not long before actually tried to buy out, out all things, KFC, but failed.

Mr. MG, as he liked himself to be referred to, explained to the doctors that since he failed to buy out KFC, he lost a bet with some stock holders in Wall Street and lost some bonds. He admitted it was foolish of him to bet something like that, but he was convinced at the time he could succeed. He further explained that since losing his bonds, he needed some way to make up for it, and since it was the 60’s and more people are getting ‘into the drugs’, he decided to get into the drug trade until he could make up for what he lost.

‘That’s where you 3 come in’ he told the doctors. He didn’t personally know anybody who dealt with illegal drugs since he was a public figure of shorts (as he proudly proclaimed), and didn’t know much about it. But he knew that doctors dealt with drugs all the time. So he figured He’d get his ‘boys’ to get some for him, as he knew flat out asking would ruin his ‘image to the people’. So he basically kidnapped 3 random doctors in hopes that they knew how to make the drugs. One of the male doctors, the former classmate, named Jeremy, spoke up. He told MG that making medicine and the drugs that they wanted were two different tasks, and further demanded to know where they were. MG would calmly explain that they had ‘instructions’ and since they were too busy to do it themselves, the doctors would do the work. MG then told him they were underground in the middle of one of his private properties, and that’s all they needed to know.

He explained the purpose of the five ‘rooms’; one would be the ‘ladies room’ (Where I was currently in), across it would be the ‘boys room’, next to it was ‘the office’, where MG did his dealing, across from that would be the largest of the rooms, ‘the lab’, where the drugs would be made. And finally at the end, being the highest of the rooms (ceiling being 12 feet high), would be the ‘supply closet’.

Mr. MG ended his speech by saying that this tunnel was accidently discovered by Joe (the taller thug) about a week beforehand, and he and Michael spent the time fixing it up. MG explained he only had them working on the tunnel around the rooms because that’s where all the activity would be, and he didn’t want to waste resources and time on the first half. He then pointed to the door that splits the tunnels (the fancy one), and knowing that they can see through the window, confessed that the ladder at the end was the way to the surface, but he told him that the door to the surface was always locked, with the exception of them being down here themselves of course. The front door (yes that’s what MG called it), would also be locked most of the time unless supplies were coming in or out.

He further explained that the instructions for making the drugs were in the lab and that by next week, he’d expect a certain amount produced or else they’d be consequences. He also said that he’s been talking to one electrician to come down here and install some lights. But until then, the doctors had to use flashlights and candles to do their work.

‘What about the police, they’d be looking for us wouldn’t they?’ The other male doctor suddenly brought up, whose name was Jacob. MG just said, ‘I have connections, now go to your rooms, you got work to do tomorrow.’

The only way the doctors could tell whether it was day or night was when their captors said so, they had no watches on them and there were no clocks asides from in the office, but they weren’t allowed in there since that’s where MG does his ‘transactions’. Before they really went to sleep the first night, MG got them out and promised that when they make him enough supplies, not only will he let them go, he’s also give them ‘something for their trouble’, on the condition they don’t speak a word to anybody about what they went through. Below the page was a date; April 23rd, 1964.

It’ll be a month before the electrician came down to install. The doctors have managed to make enough of what MG and his boys wanted despite the lousy lighting and working conditions. They had to do their business in buckets, which were only taken out once per week, so that had to deal with the smell most of the time, they eventually each got some clothes, medical books, and even dressers that MG had handed down to him by family. The doctors never got the chance to talk to one another, whenever they tried some form of conversation while working in the lab, the thugs would tell them to shut up and keep working. The only reason why they knew each other’s name was because they still had their name tags on them. They were only given food only once per day, but MG did make sure they had enough to eat, being rich, he managed to get still warm, well cooked food for them, so to some extent, he was a good captor, even getting onto one of him boys from nearly stealing some chicken from Jacob one time.

With the electrician finally came, the doctors were given the chance to rest up until the man was finished. MG made his boys help out the guy with the installation. It took hours, but they had no problems whatsoever installing the lights in the first 4 rooms. In the supply closet however, when the electrician was done installing the light right above the door inside, he told Michael to flip the switch. But when he did, the light bulb and the socket literally exploded right into the electricians face. The guy fell back screaming (the doctors only heard the commotion; they were in their respective rooms). By the time MG came out of his office to see what happened, the electrician was barely conscious, with a ‘fucked up face’ as Joe said out loud. MG was clearly frantic and called the doctors out of their rooms to ‘fix the guy’. Before they could get near him, MG bent down and was face-to-face with the mangled man, who was whimpering at that point. Telling him when asked, he was on a hunting trip when the gun back fired, otherwise he wouldn’t be leaving. MG got up and told the doctors to fix him up.

Despite having little to use, they did patch he up ok and got the glass and metal out of his face and mouth in about two hours. She explained in great detail the injuries that goy had, but to sum it up; He had cuts, some burns, some teeth broken, and even his right eye was completely smashed in. May 30th 1964.

The next 3 months would be uneventful for the most part; Annabelle kept mostly to herself since no one could really talk to anybody, Jacob and Jeremy would act the same, although since they shared a room, they could have conversations as Annabelle would often hear when the lights went out for ‘night-time’. The doctors eventually discovered they could communicate with each other via notes while working on the drugs, finally being able to get to know each other better. After graduating himself, Jeremy moved south to New Mexico with his fiancée, and had it fairly easy until Joe and Michael came into his home one night and knocked him out cold before he knew what happened. Jacob lived most of his life in Albuquerque until his father passed (mother died giving birth to him) and he moved to the same town where Jeremy would move to 5 years later. He, like Annabelle, was walking to his car after a long night shift when he heard something behind him, by the time he turn around, Joe already knocked him out with a swift punch, Anabelle was the last to be kidnapped. Jeremy’s wife was expecting their first child sometime in September, and Jacob had no relative’s asides from a sister in Michigan (he had no other family worth mentioning). The going on’s of the ‘supply and demand’ was going smoothly, the supply closet would be full of the drugs they made, and emptied the next week for the ingredients and necessary chemicals to make. (To answer what some of you are eager to know, she never wrote down what they had to make for MG, at least not in normal English, she wrote down these scientific long ass names of them, but I sure as hell couldn’t figure out what was what, or cared to remember the words to remember them now).

Although sometimes when they did go in there to get what was needed, they, even Jacob who wouldn’t admit it at the time, got this strange feeling that someone else was in the room with them (for some damn reason, MG didn’t let more than one person go in there, asides from the delivery boys, Joe and Michael.). Before you start thinking ghost, the way Annabelle described it, it wasn’t like that, the room wasn’t colder than the rest, and it wasn’t like there something there that couldn’t be seen. I clearly remember the passage from that journal word-for-word; she would describe it as;

‘Whenever you went in there, you had this gut feeling like there was someone there with you hiding in plain sight. It wasn’t like they were invisible, but more like who or whatever was in there was somewhere you haven’t thought to look. The room had built in selves for the glass containers, which reached about 8 feet high, with the ceiling being nearly 12. There were boxes where we put MG’s goods in, ready for delivery. It wasn’t like a ghost or anything supernatural like that; the room was no colder than the rest of the tunnel. I and Jeremy have speculated that maybe MG and his boys have been spying on us, but looking at the walls for any peep holes, we found nothing, and thinking it through, why would they? It’s not like we’d be dumb enough to try to steal MG’s good’s, especially since we’ve whenever we could, asked him we can we leave. With him in that damned cherry southern accent, ‘Just keep working, I’ll let you know if something comes up.’ Fucking bastard… We speculated that it might have been gophers, but we haven’t heard one nibble, and we’ve looked up at the root infested ceiling countless times and nothing. It wasn’t that we felt threatened by ‘the presence’ as me and Jeremy named it, it’s just not a comforting feeling knowing that there might be someone in there with you who won’t, for whatever reason, reveal themselves.’ July 13th 1964

She didn’t write anything down until the next month, August.

While they were working in the lab one day, one of the new delivery boys (sometime around June, MG began bringing in new guys to get the drugs. He wouldn’t say, but Annabelle and the others suspected that he’s connected his little drug ring with the Mexican cartel.), Jose, was putting in the newer supplies. Everything was going slowly and dull as usual, until out of nowhere he started screaming. His brother (whose name she didn’t know) ran into the room and got him out, and the next few minutes was them talking frantically back and forth in Spanish. Annabelle was Hispanic, but didn’t know much Spanish since she lived all he life here in Colorado, though she did knew some.

From what she could make out, and relay to Jacob and Jeremy later, while putting up the last of the chemicals on the top self, Jose suddenly heard, loud and clear, his children crying out for him, and as soon as they did, he heard ‘the devil’s laughter’, and heard something else whispered right into his ear. As to what it was, Annabelle couldn’t translate that, but whatever it was caused Jose to scream like he did, and from what she saw peeking through the lab door before it being shut right in her face by Joe, gave his brother a look of ‘worry and dread’. As expected, MG stormed out of his office, demanding to know what the hell was going on, obviously in a foul mood over something else unrelated to the situation. Before Jose’s brother could explain, MG saw something staining Jose’s shirt that wasn’t sweat. Turned out it was liquid LSD that Jose spilled on himself after his freak out, and since those bottles are forbidden to touch, MG concluded right then and there that that was the cause. Furious, him and his boys decided to ‘punish’ Jose for ‘wasting the good stuff’. From what the doctors heard behind the closed lab door, Jose’s brother put up a hell of a fight, but with 2 against one (Jose was still in shock over what happened, and MG wasn’t the fighting type, being overweight and not wanting to stain his suit, which he always wore), he was beaten to a pulp. Afterwards, they got hold of Jose, and the doctors just heard him scream and scream, and something being nailed in the supply closet door. After a few minutes, Jose and his brother were dragged out of the tunnel. When they could finally look out the lab, they saw a puddle of blood near the office, and looking down the tunnel they saw a faint trail of it going down the ‘hallway’. As to why that was, the answer was nailed to the supply closet door, it was a human ear, and since they could still faintly hear Jose’s crying near the exit, they were sure it was his.

The next day, they had to work longer to make up for what that ‘wetback’ wasted. MG still looked mad, but he also looked worried, even Joe and Michael who’re normally emotionless looked depressed, like they were actually guilty for what they did. Annabelle and the other doctors began to suspect that MG was probably dealing with people he couldn’t handle. Ignoring the Jose incident, him and his boys has been acting timid recently, rich or not, you make one wrong move with the cartel, they’ll get you back one way or another. August 20th 1964

The next few pages were ramblings of Annabelle missing her family. I suspected something like this since I began reading, being stuck down here for months would drive anybody up the wall. It was basically just her ranting about missing her kids, husband, her life, her home, and this and that over and over. I was just about to skip over it and get to the next part when near the end of it, between her cursing out her captors and the last ‘I miss you Lou and Fernando’ speech was-

‘Damn that room, why do I hear their screams in there? IT’S NOT THE DRUGS, I’VE ONLY SMOKED THE POT, NO DRUGS CAN CAUSE THAT! Did killing that man and cutting off his brother’s ear curse this place, is it a curse? I and Jeremy think so, why won’t Jacob admit it too?! That stuck up atheist, he looks like a ghost, so pale coming out of the room every time. He just won’t admit it, hates the idea of ‘supernatural speculations’ as he puts it. That fat fuck and his cronies know something, they got to! What’s in there, if no ghost, then what?! (Ironically this paragraph is the most cohesive of the last three pages and the most memorable) This part of the journal didn’t have a date to it, just ended on ‘between the time of hell and madness’.

The last part of the journal was better written, though there was still that twinge of despair from the last. The writing was definitely more frantic, in that it was written more rushed, and opposed to the soft, clean writing of previous passages.

It was apparent that the captors and the doctors were becoming more timid and frantic for their own reasons, although one thing seemed to connect their paranoia, the supply closet. It was apparent at that point that MG and his boys have bitten off more than they could chew with this drug business. What finally convenience Annabelle and the other doctors was that their made, ready-to-go drugs weren’t being taken out lately. They were still required to make them, but there was no feeling or pressure of urgency like before. It got to the point where the doctors took as much time as they wanted in making the drugs. It was also apparent that the supply closet was affecting the captors as well.

It wasn’t that Annabelle heard her children crying all the time whenever she had to go in there. It was that she just knew SOMETHING was in there, but she couldn’t figure out what. Same with Jeremy, sometimes he heard his wife coldly scolding him for all the mistakes he made and ones he haven’t made yet, sometimes he wouldn’t, but he felt that something was there, in plain sight, but what? Both she and Jeremy were getting angry towards Jacob. ‘When will he just spill it?’ she wrote with such force that it showed on the other side of the page. What convinced Annabelle that the captors KNEW something was what she saw in the early morning one day. MG came in like usual, Anabelle was awake early (normally they had to be woken up), and could see peeking out her slightly open door, MG had something in his hand, which looked like a baggie with white powder in it. He unlocked the supply closet door, and as soon as he walked in, he came back out, walking backwards, slowly, with surprising ease for someone so big, and he went to his office, unlocked it, and swiftly walked in, pale as a ghost while doing it, he saw something, she was convinced he did.

She’d wrote a note about what she saw and handed it to Jeremy (Jacob still wouldn’t talk about the supply closet, and at that point Annabelle, or even Jeremy, wanted nothing to do with him.), to which he’d, while slightly hesitant at first, be to the one that day to get what they needed from that room. The first time he went, he didn’t see or hear anything. The second time he went, he’d wrote down that the selves look ‘shorter’ at one point while walking towards them, but asides from that, nothing. It wasn’t until he went to third time when he came back clearly shaken by something. It took a while for him to answer, but sure enough he wrote;

‘Bulge, there’s a circular bulge coming out in the center of the room.’ October 12th 1964

There’s no light in there, but looking in good enough, she saw it. Just about in the middle of the room, 4 inches high, 5 feet wide, was the bulge. What really got to her and the others was that it looked like something was going to come out, but what?

More weeks passed with nothing happening, then in the middle of December. Jacob finally opened up. From what’s she’s described, Jacob was a calm calculating individual, he wasn’t cold or emotionless, but he was like those scientist’s you see in a lot of movies, always serious. But she (and I) knew that no matter who you are, you can only hold back your emotions for so long.

Near the end of November, the necessary ingredients for the drugs stopped coming in, and MG just flat out told them that in short time, ‘he’ll get them home, alive and well, just need to find the right time to do so’. Now Anabelle, Jacob, and Jeremy have given up on the idea of leaving at that point. Not that the news disappointed them, they didn’t want to stay, but they’ve been here for so long that hearing that, they thought he was joking. Although no one there was in a joking mood. Everybody was still distraught as Annabelle explained. The thugs looked less ‘muscular’, thou they still looked big. Even MG himself looked like he’s lost weight, thou it didn’t look like he lost it doing exercise. The doctors themselves were skinner, though it wasn’t because of worry.

Since the Jose incident, they’ve been getting less food than usual, it was still good and had quality to it, but it was clear that MG wasn’t able to get as much as he normally could. Another thing was instead of one week, they had to wait 2 weeks to clean out their waste buckets. Joe and Michael brought more buckets to handle the extra waste, but that didn’t help with the smell. So as you can picture, it got worse from there. While the idea of finally going back home to her family got her hopes up, there was still that filling of dread that has been with her and the others for so long. She worried about if they’d forgotten about her. The doctors have never once gotten any info from the outside world since being down here. They didn’t know if anybody was looking for them, or if they’ve given up on searching for them, believing them to be dead.

And MG, at that point in the journal, she practically filled an entire page cursing that guy with everything imaginable, and it’s no mystery as to why. Good host or not, anybody who’d kidnap someone to make up for their own mistake, keeping them away from their families, and the outside world entirely, deserves all kinds of hell. And the fact that that man was one of the richest in that state at the time, and who could’ve fixed his own problems had he’d not been so cheap, he deserved even worse.

After that, she’d written another emotional speech about her kids. I felt so sorry for this woman.

The incoherent writing about missing her family was there again, I mostly speed read through it again. It was practically the same thing over and over. I don’t mean to sound like a dick, but it was beginning to annoying me a little.

It wouldn’t be until I reached the last 4 pages that the writing went back to normal, at least in terms of coherent English, at this point the hand writing was get sloppy.

These last pages were the most memorable to me, and knowing how long this is already dragging on; I’ll sum it up as fast as possible.

The first page was about Jacob finally speaking out.

Basically, with their captors only coming once per day to feed them, and not having to deal with the drugs anymore, they were given free rein to talk and move around as they pleased. The only rooms they couldn’t enter were the office and supply closet, which they were proud of, they couldn’t care less about the office, but with the closet, they were PROUD of not having to go in there, since the last person to enter, Jacob, said that the bulge was getting bigger. With freedom like that, they visited each other in their respective rooms, used what they could from the lab to mask the smell of feces and piss. She explained that they mixed some chemicals up and poured it in the buckets, only downside was the new order was exceedingly powerful, smelling plant-like (‘So THAT’S what that smell is!’). Overall, despite the decline in food, they had freedom to do almost anything they wanted down, and with that, her and Jeremy finally got the chance to talk to Jacob.

While they did finally got him to admit what personally got him to be weary of the supply closet, he talked about other subjects first. Like where would he go IF their captors kept their word on letting them go. Out of the 3, he was the most skeptical of their promise. He explained that no one would miss him. He and Jeremy worked together at the same hospital, but they weren’t friends, he had no relatives alive that care about his existence, no wife, no friends. He’d admitted that being kidnapped was annoying, but only because he wanted to go back home. He flat out said that he didn’t care about leaving. He didn’t wanna stay, but he had no reason to go back up either, asides from his well-paying and house, but he was sure that they were both gone at that point. But asking him again finally got him to spill.

He started off saying that the reason why they THOUGHT they heard their loved ones either cursing or crying for them was because of a mixture of being down here for so long and fear of not being able to see them again. He finally admitted that he himself heard his dead parents calling him out, ‘welcoming him to finally die’. He explained that as to why that affected him was that truthfully he didn’t want to die. If there was one thing he cared about, he’d told the two, it was being a doctor. If he couldn’t help his own life, he could make the lives of other people better, and that he felt there was ‘one last thing’ he wanted to do. But before he’d get to that, he started on something else more personal to the others.

He began questioning them if they actually believed that their captors would let the go. He pointed out that it was obvious MG has messed with something that not even he could ‘wiggle his fat ass out of’, mainly the Jose incident. He then began talking about their families, like if they couldn’t tell the truth, what lies would they tell? You could only lie so much. He brought up the subject of the authorities butting in, and even if they could ‘spill the beans’, would their loved ones feel comfortable knowing that they (being Annabelle and Jeremy) have being making illegal drugs for a ‘amateurish drug dealer’, without having a gun pointed at them, and even THEN, would MG really let kidnapped witnesses go, after all the trouble he went through these past months. He even went as far as to ask Jeremy if he even remembered that he was supposed to be a father in September. He went on saying that he knew he wasn’t perfect himself, and justified his atheism by saying that he did believe in god when his was younger. But with the life he lived, and having to move countless times, he figured out that there was no god or destiny, just ‘finding you path and sticking to it’. He knew that there were things in this world that are still beyond human understanding, thou he doubted it was that room in the back (he thought that bulge was a buildup of gas), but he believe that in time, anything could be understood with the advancements of science and philosophy in the future.

He ended his speech by telling the 2 his plan to ‘tell off’ the captors when they came back tomorrow. Before the others could intervene, he told them it was the least he could do before ‘going out in style’. If he was going to die down here, he could at least go down fighting, maybe even give the other’s the chance to escape. He’s last words to them that day was that even though he may have not showed it properly, even being a dick to them these past months, it was nice meeting them.

I think that’s the only time reading that journal that I was ‘whoaed’ by. A part of me actually admired Jacob, never letting fear or paranoia get in the way of pure logical thinking. He might’ve been a dick to them, but he did had his heart in the right place, knowing what he wanted while also knowing what he had to do for others. At the bottom was the last written date; December 15th 1964.

With what Jacob was planning, the last page seemed like the most exciting to me. So I looked over to the next page, but only found that it was half written, no date below it, thou I knew by reading it that it was written the day after, December 16th.

Annabelle was woken up by both Jeremy and Jacob early; they heard what they could only describe as a ‘pluck’ inside the supply closet. They stood on the other side of the hallway, with the lights on, waiting for something else to happen. When they began to believe the Jacob was right about it being a buildup of gas, they heard another sound in there, something moving around. They began to quietly talk amongst themselves about what could be in there, ranging from miniature gas eruptions to some animal that fell down there from digging from above. They couldn’t hear any more movement, but they weren’t going to go near that room to find out. They suddenly heard the cellar door opening, and looking back, they saw MG and his boys coming down with shot guns, Jeremy and Annabelle went back into their rooms like they promised Jacob, while he stayed to confront the captors. Annabelle immediately went for this journal, and started writing down what just occurred and what was happening afterwards, writing down what she heard from there. Just as she was writing down about the captors coming in confused over the lights being on and Jacob standing calmly in the middle of the hallway, the journal just stopped on; ‘There’s a tapping on the other side of the closet door, MG is calling out for whoever the fuck was in there to get out now or be shot, more tapping-‘

The journal ends on just that, there a drawn line coming down from where she was writing the next letter, as if she was taken by surprise by something.

I sat there for maybe 3 minutes, letting all that information sink in, and deciding what to do next. It was a lot to take in as you can tell, and remembering it all is something that still amazes me.

So it’s the ‘supply closet’ that holds something unusual. At that point, while all the knowledge I recently processed, I felt I can look through this tunnel with no problems, with the exception of that room at the end, which contained god-knows-what.

I was of coarse beginning to speculate what happened where the journal left off. The best I could come up with was that while she was writing, the captors busted in wondering why she was awake as well, and probably was taken out to the hallway to figure out who or what was tapping on the closet door from the inside. Looking on the ground (only the hallway had boards, the rooms had the dirt), I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, at least in the sense of what I can gather based on the journal, not until I entered the hallway to look.

Round the lab door were bullet shells, shot gun bullet shells. I couldn’t spot any spots of blood or even minimal damage, at least with what the static filled vision provided by the goggles could provide. The only thing I could find was that the shells looked like they ricocheted off of something and (while keeping my distance from the closet) looking into the lab, I saw the generator in the corner in pieces. Whether it was by gun fire, or the thing somehow exploded on its own accord, I couldn’t tell, but it was evident that it wasn’t taken apart manually. Taking my eyes off what’s left of the generator, I saw that the room truly was big.

It wasn’t huge, but it looked like you could fit a big pick up in there, with still some room to walk around in. There were about two tables in between the room, spaced out by about 3-4 feet. There were only 3 fold in chairs for the doctors to sit. On the tables were bottles with some chemicals and powder in them, even a baggie or to. Some of the substances were spilt onto the ground below, as some of the bottles were broken. There were about 3 drawers on each side of the walls (asides from the one to the right of the door), with some stuff on them. Nothing too important from what I can tell, except from a stack of papers on the drawer just left of me, I never got close enough to look, but I think it was the instructions by MG to make the drugs he wanted.

I’m aware of how far-fetched the account provided by the journal seemed, but I read and heard of weirder stories out there, especially surfing the web. Not including the parts about the supply closet, it seemed authentic to me. Couldn’t imagine anybody fabricating all that, just to leave it down here, and the existence of this place ALONE confirmed it for me.

I couldn’t find anything else worth noting in the lab, saw some bottles and tubs under the tables, some broken, and some weren’t. But the police can deal with that shit, I thought to myself while exiting the room.

Standing in the hallway, I didn’t know whether to check out the ‘boy’s room’ or the office. Since I was weary of the closet, I decided to check the room furthest away from it. Like I mentioned earlier, I did intend to take something if it was worth it, but after reading the journal and the experiences that those people had to go through, I was pretty much against it.

Like with Annabelle’s room, I didn’t go in right away.

While I knew nothing would attack me, I still wasn’t sure what was on the other side, I could walk in and see rotting bodies, I slightly thought to myself. I knew it would’ve been a miracle if the doctors got out after what I’ve read. Ignoring my fears, I pushed the door, as it slowly opened, with that creaking sound that I nearly forgot about, I saw right into the room.

Like Annabelle’s, the dresser was right at my left, along with the light right above it, although there was no mirror. The dresser was bigger than Annabelle’s since there were two people living here, on top were notebooks and pieces of paper scatted here and there. Before I could look at them, my eyes noticed on what was behind it slightly to the right. Out of all things, it was a bunk bed. It was the sorriest looking thing I ever saw, the wood looked well beyond rotted, and the mattresses looked in worse condition then Annabelle’s, with just a sheet and a pillow to sleep with. What really got me intrigued by it was the fact that two grown men managed to sleep on that tiny thing with it fallen apart, at least from what I could tell, as I saw no signs that any of them slept on the ground. Finally spotted the waste buckets at the corner, there were 3 of them, with one on its side, didn’t wanna check if it was empty, so I left.

The moment I started walking towards the office, I spotted something sticking out at the bottom of the entrance to it. It didn’t look thick, maybe 3 inches at best, or even threating, but it stopped me in my tracks none-the-less. It might have been that I was closer, but I still didn’t recall seeing that, even when coming out of the lab.

Just check it out.

I walked towards it cautiously, though I was sure it posed no threat, and pushing the door open, I paused yet again.

Asides from that creak that I expected from the door, for a split second, I thought I heard something, couldn’t say what exactly, but it sounded like it was coming from the supl-

QUIT IT!

‘Don’t let your imagination run wild, it’s because you’re afraid that you think you’re hearing things, remember what Jacob explained.’

Yeah, what Jacob said, the logical one of the 3 captives here, the one who stood up to MG and his boys. ‘You have nothing to fear but fear itself.’

But even he was wrong, there WAS something in that closet, whether it’s alive or not by now, and after exploring the office, I knew I had to go in the closet last. I just had to.

Opening the office door, I saw that what was sticking out was the barrel of one of the shot guns brought here, although it was just that, the barrel. The other half I didn’t even had the time to question as what I saw right behind it to my right caught me completely off guard, almost making me gasp out loud.

Two bodies, both lying on their backs, with one sloped slightly against the wall, and by the white coats on them, I knew it was two of the doctors. What really unnerved me was the fact that both bodies were missing their heads.

MG and his thugs decapitated the doctors, I thought to myself in disgust, and left their bodies to rot here, those fuckers.

I, despite being repulsed by the horror of it, looked closer to see if I could identify them. They had no name tags on the coats, and they were rotted to the point where it was nearly impossible to tell the sex. The only way I could tell who was who, was by looking at their shoes, and sure enough. I knew it was Annabelle and Jeremy.

Both corpses were about the same length, but the one at the corner seemed thicker, and had bigger feet. I at first thought the slimmer one might have been Jacob’s, but I caught eye of both their hands, which were in a sad and disturbing scene, holding hands. Both hands had rings on them.

I only had to turn around to find Jacob.

It was evident that he was shot down, or at least that’s what I thought at first. Like the two at the corner, he too was missing his head, but he was slumped even more so against the wall, right behind the desk, with scatter papers and what looked like cigars on it. But there was a splash of old, dried out blood, like you’d expect to see, right above him. Just as I was beginning to think that his head was blown to pieces, looking around the ground proved otherwise.

No pieces, no shells asides from that half of a gun barrel right near the door. No evidence to show that any of the three were shot. It didn’t make any sense, and looking back at the corpses, I noticed something else that was just as confusing.

Like I’ve mentioned more than once in this long story, I’m only a car mechanic, asides from that, I’m no expect in any other field, but even I knew that there was something wrong with the two corpses of Annabelle and Jeremy.

Have you ever seen Poltergeist? Remember that scene when all the coffins started coming out at the ground at the end, and one opened to reveal a corpse in a wedding dress? Well the three corpses were rotted to that degree, although Jacob’s looked more natural, mainly due to the color or the skin.

Now you already know that I can only see so much through the goggles that I’m wearing, and seeing only green out of them doesn’t really help it differentiating colors. But Jacobs seemed to be the brownish-grey that you’d expect from a 50 year old corpse; the other two were completely black.

Another thing that really bothered me was that the two looked smoother, and actually looked more dry then Jacobs, whose corpse, if I was insensitive and ballsy enough, looked like it would crumble to dust if I kicked it. It’s really hard to describe.

I didn’t know how to feel at that point, whether I should be scared that the two corpses were infected with some virus and being near them would get me infected, or if MG did something to them to make them like that. I knew they weren’t burned because well…their clothes weren’t burned and were nearly spotless (asides from some obvious blood stains and dirt), and why WOULD they burn them, but then again why is everything here so damn screwy?!

‘Calm down, leave it to the experts when they come to investigate. Just go into that closet, and get it over with.

Agreeing with myself, knowing that standing around won’t do anything, I’ve been though that with myself already before.

Knowing what was ahead, I felt that somehow I was being disrespectful standing near the corpses of these poor, long gone souls, so I left the room, and stood face-to-face with the room I’ve been dreading since I’ve seen it coming into this hallway, the supply closet.

As you’d expect, a thousand things began running through my mind yet again.

‘THIS WAS IT.’, was what popped up the most. Even the more logical side of me agreed that this room would be different from all the other areas in this place that gave me fear. This was the room that has tormented the captives and captors who entered it nearly 50 years ago. This was the room that held something that had, at the end of Annabelle’s recollection in the journal, made noise and physically moved around in.

Was it an animal that somehow found it was in there? What about the bulge? Was there EVEN a bulge? Some of Annabelle’s writing was crazed in some areas like I’ve explained. It wouldn’t be surprising if she and the other’s believed they saw something and heard things, being trapped down here for so long. Was it drugs?

‘Enough questioning, get to the answers!’

With that latest thought in my mind, I took one big breath, and slowly exhaled, griping my knife, which I had out for so long in my right hand, feeling practically fused with my hand sweating from holding it for so long. Lastly, I got out my phone out (still no service) to check the time, been in this tunnel for an hour and a half.

Let’s do this.

Like with the other doors, I pushed it with minimal effect, and much like the others, it had that same, slow creak will moving. I stepped in.

At first, I couldn’t make out anything because just as soon as I went in, the batteries began to drain. It didn’t surprise me, seeing that I had them on for more than 90 minutes, but I did begin to worry if it’ll stay on long enough for me to finish up and leave without having to stumble in complete darkness.

Thou the vision from the goggles was being to fade, I did see into the room. There were about 5 shelves on the wall opposite me, with some boxes and bottles. Due to what I’ve seen from the previous rooms, I first looked to the left, and seeing nothing asides from some more boxes, some being knock over and even crushed.

I took about 2 more steps into the room, nearly expecting to hear or see something. Looking at the wall to the left, I really began to suspect that even if the tunnel was natural, the rooms weren’t. Thinking back, the walls were too straight, and the dimensions as a whole didn’t match what I’ve seen in previous caves (Visited the Carlsbad’s caverns in New Mexico one time with my family in the summer of 2001). But just when I was nearly done thinking that, my right foot hit something on the ground that I missed with the now failing night goggles, causing me to jump back.

Looking immediately down, I saw ANOTHER blacken corpse, on its stomach right in front of me.

Like the three prior, it too was missing its head, but of course there were differences.

The first being that this one was cut cleanly in half, through the right shoulder, chest, and through the lower left side.

What the hell could’ve down that?

The other thing that was noticeable was that it belonged to a very overweight individual.

No…it can’t be. But looking at the white suit, I knew it was Mr. McGee himself.

But why, who could’ve-

I heard the noise again.

It was still barely audible and faint, but being closer to it, my heart sank as I realized what it was.

Mumbling.

Like if someone was trying to tell you something, but couldn’t pronounce the words properly. But it was so faint, it was like someone was trying to whisper right to you from the other side of the room.

As childish as it sound, I shut my eyes at that point. I was being to fear that the voices were in my head, and if I heard them clearly, it would be the voices of my long dead parents and brother.

It’s all in your head, it’s all in your head, it’s all in your fucking head!

But it wasn’t

By focusing my hearing and calming myself down slightly, the voices (I couldn’t tell the sex, but I knew it was more than one) were outside my thoughts.

They were physical, they were real, and it didn’t long to figure out where it was coming from.

I knew that if I opened my eyes, looked up, away from the corpse of MG, at the right hand corner, I’d see what was making the noise.

Like a child I didn’t want to at first, I wanted my eyes to stay completely shut, and wanted to turn around, and get out. But I had to, I had to know. I know it was crazy, but I needed to know! And I promised myself on last time I could handle anything down here.

So I opened my eyes, and caught sight of what was on the bottom self at the corner, and I froze completely.

I’m no horror fan by any means, there some stories and some films I like. I don’t scare easy, I’m cautious mind you, but being an adult, the fears that once plagued you as children go away as you mature and grow. There things that still creep me out, but I could sit through practically any horror film and not be scared once. Granted films like Texas Chainsaw, Exorcist, and even The Shining came close, but they were movies, going into them, you knew they were fake, even the ‘based on true story’ ones.

But what I was staring at on the shelf, right above ANOTHER blacken corpse, was really there. It took me a minute to finally accept what I was looking at, not only because of the horror of the macabre, sickening site before me, but also because it took me that long to finally accept that what I was seeing was real.

What I saw, looking up from the corpse of MG, at the corner on the bottom self, were 6 heads, but they were…alive.

The head to the furthest left was blackened dead, like the corpses I’ve seen prior, but the other weren’t

It was them; it was the heads of the corpses I’ve seen!

While I only saw 5 corpses, I didn’t even thought of were the other one was, or cared. I was beyond in shook, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even breathe.

The way they were moving and the expressions on their faces suggested that they stilled felt the pain of being decapitated these decades past.

They were aged, not in that they looked old, they still had their youthful features to them, but like objects that had been abandoned and left undisturbed for decades, they were darkened with what I could only guess was a mixture of dried blood and mold.

Looking at them, I could hear their jaw movements; it cracked while sounding wet at the same time. They had lines of spit coming out of their mouths, with some trails of it being clearly dry.

They also looked like they haven’t slept PERIOD since being decapitated. Judging by the darken areas under their eyes.

They were trying to speak, despite how much it pained them. They were looking right AT me, trying to tell me something.

Some were trying to scream it out; other’s tried to actually take their time with their ‘words’

I still stood there paralyzed, I was beyond confused. Grasping it was madding enough, understanding was beyond reason.

They weren’t even hooked to anything, no wires, and tubes, nothing on the self near them, thou it was clear that who or at that point, WHAT put them there made sure they couldn’t fall off.

A million things were running through my mind, and I TRIED to calm myself down, but how the fuck could I with what I was seeing right in front of me?!

Then I heard one word from the middle head, one word from the head of whose journal I’ve recently read through, the thing that used to be Annabelle said, thou still faint, said:

‘Ruuuun…’

That one, drawn out word, was what snapped me out of my paralysis. Not because it was the only word I could understand from the still somehow alive heads, but because I knew right then and there, after she said it, the thing that was responsible for this sick, maddening twisted scene, was right behind me.

I gripped the knife, not knowing that even with it I could fight off something capable of what was still trying to speak at the corner, and turned around slowly.

How I could’ve missed something so big in that room entering it still baffles me.

It was big, had it not been hunched down looking at me, it probably would’ve been 7ft tall.

It had no facial features, no mouth, no nose, just huge, pale white valley ball sized eyes, bulging at the sides of its ‘face, like that of a fly, although I saw no pupils to speak of.

It only had one arm to its left; it was kept to its side away the doorway, probably so that I wouldn’t notice it when I came in. It ended with what I could only guess was a dark, metal rod. The other arm was missing, I couldn’t tell it was taken off long ago, or that it was born or created like that.

On its upper back, reaching up almost to the roots on the ceiling was what I could only describe as a wing, curving upwards in the middle, and coming down in a steeper angle, like a scythe.

It had a humanoid figure, but it wasn’t human, the proportions were all wrong to be, and despite its size, it was skinnier than me, not like Slender Man, but something else entirely. It looked old, REALLY old, maybe not as old as those Egyptian mummies, but it didn’t look that much younger either. It had bumps and what I could only describe as ‘grooves’ going down its, wing/tail?, arm, body and legs, which were outwards curved down, kinda like a cowboy walking, although minus the humanness of it.

Finally, based on how the light from my now-dying night vision goggles seemed the go ‘into it’; it seemed to be the same color as the shade of green that my goggles projected as my sight.

I was again petrified, but somehow, despite the terror, I managed to actually speak out.

“What are you?”

At first, silence, it stood perfectly still looking down upon me. I was beginning to wonder if it even understood me, or was even alive. But sure enough, it spoke, how and where I couldn’t and still can’t figure out to this day, out loud and clear.

“An angel”

Perfectly…in my mother’s voice.

I dropped the knife.

I froze again, near the verge of tears. Whether it was because it was all too much to take, the heads, the fucking thing right in front of me that spoke in my long dead mother’s voice, even saying those words that I haven’t heard since 97, perfectly! In the same calm tone no less! It might have been all. But whatever reason, whatever fucked up and macabre reason that plagued me, I couldn’t move until I saw its wing move upward slowly.

I knew what it was going to do, and I knew then what I had to do.

Somehow, maybe God, maybe my past loved ones, maybe even the Devil himself snapped me out of my paralysis, so that I wouldn’t end up the same way as those poor souls behind me trying their best to scream from what I could faintly hear behind me.

Spiritual or not, something gave a kick to my reflexes, and I immediately ran, ducking low, directly towards the door, and when I was just 3 feet away, I launched myself right through it.

As soon as I did, I heard the wing come down, and thanking myself later that I was ducking low while running, I learned that it WAS a scythe of sorts. I heard it cut right through the open door like it was nothing, and barely out, it cut my back, down from my left shoulder to the center of my back.

The cut wasn’t deep, but the pain immediately after was incredible. Worse than what I felt with my foot nearly two hours before, it was white hot blinding.

It was thin, like a paper cut. The reason why those hurt so much was because they can damage you on a cellular level, only this one felt even thinner and hurt 100 times worse. I truly believed (and the doctors would confirm later on) that it damaged my nerve cell round my spine, because I was moving in places that I weren’t trying to move. Asides from that, the split second the blade or whatever was in me, I felt one side was warm, while the other was cold

Just move forward.

I heard that thing maneuvering its way out of the doorway, I tried to run, but I slipped on one of those bullet shells, landing right on my stomach, sending my night vision goggle flying right off my face. It broke on impact with the wooden floor; I saw the lights on it got out.

Shit!

STOMP.

The thing had finally gotten into the hallway; it was heavier than me, from the sound of the wooden boards creaking under its feet. I didn’t know if it could see in the dark, but I didn’t care to find out. Despite my movements being uncontrollable due to that damn cut, I managed to crawl.

‘Just keep moving forward, you can’t see shit, but you know where to go.’

I started moving forward the best and as fast as I could, I knew that thing was right behind me-

“You damn right boy”

It spoke in a gruff male voice that I didn’t recognize, but I knew who it belonged to, it was my father’s.

I sped up; I finally came in contact with my busted goggles. I doubted throwing it at that thing slowly coming from behind would do jack shit, so I pushed it aside and kept going.

WHAM!

My head came right into contact with what I believed to be the wall right next to Annabelle’s room, I was heading left.

‘Gotta move righ-‘

My thoughts were interrupted by agonizing pain coming from my left lower leg. The thing has stabbed me with the metal rod for a hand, and started pulling me back with slow ease. Just as it was pulling me back, I felt a sucking sensation.

It was sucking my blood!

Somehow, I kicked with my other leg, and managed to get out of its grip, though I think it might’ve took out iis needle out of enjoyment over my feeble attempts to escape, I can’t be sure.

A scythe AND a sucking needle, what the-

“-Hell Joseph?” My brother’s voice coming from behind calmly said.

It can-

“-Read minds? Yes.” This time my mother spoke again.

RUN

“Run faster…”

Shut up coach.

“Slow down son, You can’t leave”

Shut up Grandpa.

I just kept speaking in the voices of people I knew, Family, former teachers, classmates, even those hicks from the gas station joined in.

It was mocking me, reading my thoughts……no, it was reading my FEARS!

How I guessed that I’ll never know, but it was the best guess I ever made in my life. Whenever I stopped thinking about the things that were scaring me, the thing was silent. It was only when I THOUGHT of something that scared me would it speak up in voice(s) that’ll enhance it.

‘Just move, get out.’

I was still crawling.

‘Move.’

Was getting tired at the point, wanted to curl up in a ball and cry.

‘FUCKING GET OUT NOW!’

The moment that last thought was done, my head hit the front door, how’d it closed on its own I never know or care.

Despite my movements still being jacked up, despite the pain, despite the fact that I could hear that thing coming closer, I stood up and was damn well lucky enough to find the knob.

I pushed it open as hard as I could and as soon as I was out, I slammed it shut, right as that thing was close.

Despite the trembling, I found the lock in the dark above the knob (the same switch locks most people have), and locked the front down.

Backing away slowly, still not being able to see shit, I heard that thing stop just on the other side.

Whether it didn’t know how to get through the door (considering it can just smash through it, it would’ve been a stupid reason), or it was waiting for me to drop my guard. Whatever the reason, it just stood there on the other side.

Not even bothering to try to understand its game, I turned around, and was stuck with awe, as I saw the light coming down from above, looking brighter than it ever did.

I was close to freedom.

I began to rush towards the ladder when-

TAP TAP TAP

It was knocking on the other side with its metal needle for a hand. What the fuck?

It tapped 3 more times.

I was near the ladder, just inches from gripping the bars that’ll lead to heave-

CRASH

It smashed through the door.

I didn’t even bother to look.

I grabbed those bars, and with all my strength, climbed towards the light.

OUT… I was finally out.

I wanted to laugh, I wanted to cry, but there’s one thing I had to do.

I turned around and slammed that metal door shut, and with the last ounce of strength in my arms, pushed the lock in.

The moment I was done, the silence that was there when I opened that damned door 2 hours ago was lifted. The birds started to fly and chirp again, I heard the water from the stream, even the breeze came back.

Had I haven’t been so injured and exhausted; I’d been jumping up and down with joy.

I was alive, I made it, and I’m free.

I began to think of what to do next. I remembered that I had some welding equipment in the back that I was intending to selling in Vegas, so I had one last thing to do before leaving.

Those poor people, even MG didn’t deserve that kind of hell. I hope that someday that thing will get wh-

TAP TAP TAP

The silence came back.

No…

TAP TAP TAP

It climbed the lad-

An explosion of metal and ground interrupted my thoughts, and I just ran.

‘The key’s, where the fuck are my-‘

“Joseph.”

Got them out.

“Come on Joseph”

Running to my car, I spotted the reflection of the thing.

“Don’t Leave”

“Shut up mom”

I started the vehicle, and turning round as fast as possible with my oversized van, and drove onto the dirt road, back to the main road.

I spotted something when I glazed up at my rear view mirror. It wasn’t that monster, it was something else. Something that’ll made me snap and drive faster, something that caused me to be in a state of shock near brain dead, with only one thing on my mind and my only piece of consciousness up until I awoke in the hospital.

GET AWAY, DRIVE, JUST GET AWAY!

It was a blur after that, with only pictures in my mind of some things. Driving through the woods, speeding up, flying through the sky as I hit that step exit that was previously hidden, Flying next to a car with people stomping in the gas to avoid hitting me, crashing into a ditch, cursing from outside, flashing light, just light.

I would awake the next day round 11am in a hospital bed, not going to say which town for personal reasons.

The crash broke two of my ribs and bruised my right arm something fierce, thankfully I had insurance to cover it. Since I had no drugs or alcohol in my system, they questioned my for an hour on what drove me to fly out of the woods like a maniac, as well as my other injuries, the broken toe, hole in my lower left leg with some flesh missing, and the extremely thin cut on my back. I told them that I wanted to find a short cut through the mountains, and found an old dirt road, but I reached the end which lead to a cliff, I was suddenly attacked by a huge man with a scythe, the hole in my leg I explained that I got shot by one of his buddies, and I took the bullet out myself.

They knew there was more to it than that, but they didn’t bug me and let me rest. They didn’t have any trouble fixing me up, asides from that scratch that baffled them to no end, which had completely dead nerve cells on one side, and “rejuvenated ones’ on the other. They told me they could only stitch it up, and that I couldn’t move my back in certain ways anymore. They questioned me again about the weapon the guy used, because they found it hard to believe there was a blade that was sharper and thinner than a scalpel.

They contacted the authorities to search that area for the ‘scythe swinging maniac’, especially since no one’s supposed to been living in those parts. I told them that if they were going there, they better bring big guns.

I know, I know, but what else was I supposed to tell them? Half of what I said was technically correct, and as dumb as it sounds, I figured they had much of a chance at taking care of that thing they I ever could.

You all might have a million questions, but I can only give a few answer I’m afraid.

They discharged me the next day. The cut on my back will hinder my movements from now on, so it’ll take a while getting used to they told me. They were nice enough to get a cab for me to go to my vehicle.

The front was banged up pretty bad, and the windows in the front were broken, but using the money I originally intended to gamble away in Vegas, I got it fixed up pretty good.

With only enough to get back home on, I gave up on going to Las Vegas, just wasn’t worth it with all that’s happened to me.

Even though I was supposed to work more hours, my boss told me to take two more weeks off due to what happened, even paid me for it.

My life as of now is about the same, still a mechanic, still by myself. Although with this cut on my back that’ll never heal, it’s harder to do heavy lifting or stretching.

I never go into a dark room with finding the light switch first, I bought me a shot gun, which I hang, depending where I’m at in my house, in either the living room or over my bed.

I never bothered to do research on those people, which may disappoint some of y’all. But seeing what’s become of them, I felt I knew enough.

I do feel guilty over what happened 3 months ago, Though I keep telling myself you couldn’t help them, there’s a small part of me that feels I could’ve down more, even thou its clear I couldn’t.

Recollecting on what happened to me, telling you all my experiences and my background as I’m typing this. There’s one thing that I brought up in the beginning that I’ll end this story on.

I mentioned that what I’ve heard from my mother that one night was the closest to explain the thing that I’ve encountered, and the reason I think that is not what you think.

I have thought and speculated on what it was, but only two things come to mind; alien or demon.

I refuse to believe that what I’ve encountered, or what even my mom encountered in her college days, was what she thought see saw. While I didn’t go to church anymore, I still remember a few things.

Angels and spirits are essentially the same, beings that exist outside the physical realm. That thing (which I’ll call The Green Reaper for your amusement, and I need to name it something, as much as I don’t like thinking about it) was physical.

It may have been able to read my fears, I may have a way to keep its victims head alive and as trophies, it may be huge and strong. But there’s no way it could be connected to anything human, scientific or spiritual wise.

Right?

Though I can’t help but wonder sometimes, did mom encounter something like that? I have thought of continuing what I and my brother wanted to do for years, and find out what I can, though a part of me still thinks I should just leave it be.

I have been keeping track the best I could of the news in that area in case anything comes up that could relate to what I’ve released upon the world. I try to tell myself that you can’t blame yourself for what happened, but I did let it out.

I supposed its best to stop dragging out my guilt on this post and leave you all on a final note of what I saw in the mirror that made me temporally snap before driving away from that forsaken place.

Instead of the monstrosity I saw down there in that tunneThe first thing that I wanna point out is that I'm not too huge with creepypasta.

Don't get me wrong, I know what creepypasta is and, for the most part, know how it works in terms of story. But I never understood how the whole thing got so popular. With Jeff the killer, Slender Man, Ben, the Rake, and others, I can understand how they got popular the first time they were presented, but it always perplexed me how these characters can be popular for so long. Now I have nothing against creepypasta, it’s just that short stories never appealed to me in general, now the reason for that is that to me, creepypasta (and short stories in general) are short and sweet, and there’s my problem.

Most short stories seem to go by too fast, there's not as much content to read and visualize, with just a few paragraphs to tell the story. Now before you jump to conclusions, I'm not here to criticize creepypasta, I HAVE read some good creepypasta, stories like Abandoned By Disney and Midwest are great because they put you in the situation, and personally, I always loved stories with just one character going through the events of the story and somehow making it out in the end.

The reason why I'm starting off with my less-the-popular opinions is to help y’all know that since I’m not a huge horror fan, the story that I’m about to tell of what happened to me 3 months ago won’t be written in the typical fashion, so if there’s a few things off pace, I apologize.

So now that you know how I feel about creepypasta, you're probably wondering why I'm even here and why. Well as to why I'm here, honestly, I just am. I sometimes do get on this site, despite my general disinterest in creepypasta, if I have nothing better to do or look up.

Now as to WHY I’m posting my story here of all places is because it’s really the only place I’ll visit from time to time to read short horror stories. I’ll sometimes visit Reddit, but I’m more familiar with this site, and I already had an account here (A friend back in junior high was a big fan of slender man and insisted that I look it up. Honestly, I made the account here just to get him off my back). Another reason why is because if there’s a crazy chance someone else has encountered what I had, then at least I can take comfort in knowing that I’m not alone, plus I wanna get this off my chest while I’m thinking of it and have the time to. So whether or not you believe me or not is up to y’all, I can only relay to you my experience by word.

But before I get into what most of you would consider the "good stuff", let me talk about one more thing; A foreboding warning from my drunken mother back when I was around 9. As to why I going to talk about something that most (if not all) of you are wondering what THAT has got to do with anything. It's because it’s the closest thing that I can find to almost explain what I encountered, although truth be told, I have doubts, as to this day I can't imagine anything of familiarity to properly identify what I’ve encountered, but I'm getting ahead of myself. So let me get on with what my mother told me and my brother, who was 12 at the time, one night after she had a few too many drinks.

Now I should clarify, my mother was by no means a drunk, she drank about the same amount of alcohol as everybody else, she only got drunk every 2-3 months, and even then it was only when she took it with her medicine (she had a failing liver if I remember correctly, it's been 12 years since she passed), or when she had an exceptionally good day and wanted to celebrate with booze. So as alcohol consumption goes, she was normal. My father was the one who was the drunk of the family, at least that’s what I heard from my older brother, Jimmy. My father died in a car crash when I was 2, so I have no recollection of my dad asides from a memory or me and him playing on a swing set, and even then I'm not sure if that’s a real memory or a dream, I never brought it up with my brother for reasons I can't remember, anyway-

Whenever my mother did get drunk, she wasn't loud or abusive like what maybe some of you might think, she was one of those people who'd be in a stupor state of half conscience and awake. She'd be on her chair, laying there until she'd sober up or fall, my and Jimmy never bothered her unless it was important, and she never bothered anybody. She'd watch TV or occasionally mumble to herself, the only time she would be bothersome was when either me or my brother made a loud noise, and she'd yell at us to keep quiet, but other than that she wasn't very responsive. I can recall 3 times where she would break that routine, the first was her asking for a glass of water, and another time for either me or my brother to go check the mail, the third time is when she told us about angels.

It was around the evening sometime around October of 1997, I just turned nine 3 weeks before and was playing on a NES, along with my brother, that I got for my birthday from my grandmother. When she called us to the living room, we’d paused the game to check on her, and when we got to her, sitting on her arm chair sipping on a cup of tea (Which was weird since she'd hardly have the strength to get up and make herself anything whenever she's drunk, and she never drank tea after getting drunk before or after). Before we could ask her what's up, she told us to sit on the floor, which was even weirder since we also had chairs in the living room across just about 4-5 feet from her, and could heard her just fine sitting there, and the fact that she told us to sit on the floor right in front of the chair, which kinda annoyed us (We were kids mind you, but not little kids), but we did what we were told without protest, since we both knew that arguing with her the way she was would lead to nowhere.

As we sat down and got comfortable, she took another sip out of her cup, and gently sat it down on the counter table right of her chair, than she calmly asked:

“You boys know about angels, right?"

"Of course." We both replied.

While we didn't go often, we did attend the Church of Christ whenever we could. Mom wanted to go every Sunday, but she had a part-time job a grocery store, and they hardly gave her any hours, so she couldn't request Sundays off, though she would have a Sunday off once in a while, and that’s when we went. We never went to church on Wednesday because mom never saw the point of it. After our reply, she said:

"Well boys, you know of bad angels, right? The ones that are weighed down by their sins, or evil thoughts, and fall right down to earth, and sometimes even further down to hell?"

"Yeah..."

I could tell by the way that Jimmy responded that we were both confused by what she said. Not that we didn't know what she meant, we learned from church of angels that were cast from heaven and stripped of their wings, but we never heard it like THAT. But it wasn't what she said that bothered us, it was the way she said it.

Since she began talking, she spoke in a calm, yet cautious voice, which when me and my brother talked about afterwards, really shocked us. Asides from this event, she never was able to fully speak a sentence properly whenever she got this way, and we knew she was drunk since we saw her drink a booze bottle after another (She drank 3 total) earlier during the day, so we didn't know what to think for a while. After we replied, she looked down on us for what felt like a whole minute, before we could ask her what's wrong; she finally spoke, slowly at first like she was finally remembering either where she was or what she was talking about.

"Well sometimes they get stuck between earth and hell, and when they do, they age with anger."

"Ok.....” We both replied slowly.

At this point, we were wondering if she's finally lost it. Now she wasn't in anyway mentally ill or handicap. Asides from a failing liver due to cancer, she was 100% healthy. The only time she would get a little loopy was when she took her medicine while drinking, which her doctor advised NOT to do, but she was forgetful when it came to those things sometimes, and when I mean loopy, she'd mumble to herself, having conversations with people who weren't there, and even then I only recalled that happening 3 times at most. The last thing she told us before sending us off to bed was something that stuck with me up to my high school years.

"Just remember, never look for the bad ones, because once you encounter one, they will never forget you, understand?"

"We Understand"

"Now, off the bed, the both of you."

Now I’m sure what most of you are thinking, and believe me, me and my brother would’ve laughed out loud too. But that calm serious look on her face, and slow cautious tone of her voice, suggested to us, as young as we were, that she wasn’t kidding.

After we went to our room (We lived in a 2 bedroom so we had to share until 3 years later when mom finally got her a better job), we stood up for a while speculating what went down. Now there’s not much that I remember from that day, but my mother’s and the conversation between me and my brother are things that I remember perfectly.

"You think she's finally lost it? The doctor said she shouldn't take her medicine while drinking like that."

"I don't think so, I didn't see her medicine bottle anywhere, and now that I think about it, I remember her taking her medicine earlier, so that can't be it"

"Was she trying to scare us?"

"Maybe, Halloween is next week, she might be planning something."

"Like What?"

"Scaring us with a surprise."

"Come on, a bad angel? That's stupid"

"Well if you remember in bible class while back, they said that the devil himself was once an angel."

“Yeah, but she talked about how some other bad angels get stuck and 'age with anger', like how does that work Jimmy, aren't angels immortal?"

"Well maybe she meant it in a metaphorical sense, like when they get stuck here; their anger grows, so the longer they stay here, the more evil they get."

"Wouldn't that make them demons then?"

"I don't know Joseph; I think demons are born evil, while angels are born good. Although like Mrs. Everhart said, 'Sometimes good people and things can be corrupted by evil', so I'm sure she wasn't talking about demons."

"You think something bad happened to her while back and now she's remembering it?"

"I don't know Joseph, I just don't know. If nothing happens during Halloween, we'll ask her, ok?"

“Ok.”

Well Halloween of that year came with nothing remotely relating to moms story taking place, the day after, we confronted mom about it, and she just told us that ‘It's nothing you need to worry about’. We looked at her, and I guess she heard our silent pleas and finally said.

"Ok...when Jimmy turns 18, I'll tell you both what happened, ok?"

"Ok!"

We were kinda disappointed that we'd had to wait 6 years to know what happened, and we asked if she didn't want us to know about it then why she brought it up so vaguely, to which she respond it was 'spur of the moment', which confused us, like so many things, but we dropped the subject and decided to wait. Unfortunately, almost 5 years later in January of 2002, her liver finally gave out on her while we were at school. By the time we got home, she was already gone, we never even got the chance to say goodbye, though she was asleep when she passed, so she didn't suffer at least.

With Jim being 16 (He didn't turn 17 till February of that year), and me being 13 at the time, our grandparents took us in. Up until that point, we lived in Houston TX, and only moved and lived round town, so when our grandparents took us in, we had to move all the way to northern Colorado, where we finished our (mostly mine) high school years. Jim got accepted by Harvard and decided to get a Bachelor's degree there. We promised each other after he got his bachelor's degree, he'd come back, and when we had the time, we would try to figure out what happened to mom during her college days (Our grandparents didn't know anything about what mom meant about angels, the only thing they could recall is that she acted strange and secluded one time she came home to visit while attending Woodcrest College in Dallas).

Her college closed in 1985, the same year my brother was born, and 3 years after she left. So we'd have to go to Dallas to pull up records or find somebody that attended the same classes as she did, which we knew wouldn't be easy since whatever did happen to her probably won't be in the records, but regardless my brother promised in 2007 to meet up with me, but the day he left for Harvard would also be the last time I ever hear from him.

We kept in contact up until 2006, he was going to a trip to Europe to explore Italy and France (He was a practicing linguist). The last time we talked he was just about to leave for Sicily. From what I can gather, he was last seen in Sicily before he disappeared, some of the locals said they saw him get in an argument with some shady characters that they believed might’ve been mobsters. The authorities over there are still looking into it, but it’s coming more apparent that he may never be found.

The news of my brother’s disappearance shock me to my core, I gave up on the idea of finding out what happened to my mom. I decided from there to figure out what happened to my brother. The idea of him being dead filled me with dread, finding out if he was still alive was more important the finding old ghosts of my long dead mother.

‘The past grief’s of the dead should stay with the dead’, I told myself firmly at the time, and I promised myself that after I got MY bachelors in 2010, I'd go to Italy myself to see what happen (which understandable was in a way stupid, but at the time I was more worried about Jimmy then myself).

2006 came and went, and I started my summer semester of my second college year at Colorado Community College in 2007, which would lead the fourth worst thing to ever happen to me (The 1st being the event that I’ll get to, the disappearance of my brother, and death of my mother).I'm not going to talk about that mess because it'll take too long, but to put it bluntly, I got my ass kicked and got sued, and got kicked out. It’s a story that I may-or-may-not talk about in the future.

For the next five and a half years, I struggled to find a decent paying job, and thankfully round the summer of 2012, I found it in a small town not far from my grandparents.

Sorry if this seems dragged out, I'm one of those people that gets easily nostalgic, and I felt that I should give y'all some background so that you can understand where I'm coming from. So again, sorry to kept you waiting. So let me get to what you've been waiting for...the good stuff.

It was around February of 2013 that I finally got me a 2 week vacation from my job as a mechanic. They normally wouldn't give workers paid vacations unless they worked there for at least 2 years, but I won a game of cards with the boss and he decided to let me do it, as long as I was willing to work more hours than usual when I got back, which of course I agreed.

I decided to head out to Las Vegas to try to gamble so that I can hopefully win enough cash to head out for Italy. I still haven't given up on finding my brother, even with everybody telling me that Jimmy was probably dead by now, I still wanted to know what happened to him, even if he was dead. I was heading south to reach the famous Route 66, which will lead straight to Las Vegas, when I came into view of the Rocky Mountains. I'm not usually in nature watching or whatever it’s called, but even I gotta admit to the Rockies are a beautiful site, even as a kid visiting my grandparents, I also wanted to mountain hike there sometime in the future.

I was traveling on a road, which I won’t reveal the name of. It was on the other side of Route 66 with the mountains in between, and I wanted to get on the other side without having to drive another hour to do so. So after putting up my map (My phone didn't help me out since Verizon didn't cover in this particular area, go figure), I eventually stopped at a worn out looking gas station to fill up and to take a leak. After doing my business and filling my tank, I visited the two gas station workers/owners, both wearing grease stained flannel shirts and blue pants and looking like they were reaching their 50's, and asked them about any short cuts through the mountains.

"No." One of them bluntly replied.

Not willing to give up just like that, and desperate on saving time. I asked:

"Come on, are you sure? I don't mind taking a dirt road."

The guy who replied first seemed to be thinking about it and looked like he was going to reply, but the other guy behind spoke up.

"If there are any roads out there, they probably ain't no good no more."

Taking that as it is, I thanked them for their 'help', and drove off a little irritated. I was really hoping that I wouldn't have to drive an extra hour just to get to that route. There was a road that went straight through the Rockies to Route 66, but there was a huge pile up caused by an 18 wheeler, and it would've taken hours just to wait. It wasn't that I was low on cash to pay for extra gas, oh no. I had plenty of money save just for this occasion; I just didn't want to waste a cent of it if I could help it. It’s not that I was planning to blow it all on gambling, I'm not that stupid, but I wanted to save what I could so that in the event that I'd blow half my cash on gambling for nothing (Which I knew was more possible than actually winning anything), I could at least buy me something nice with in the Neon City.

Several minutes passed, and I eventually got over my irritation of having to pay for extra gas. It wasn't too bad; after all, I've certainly been through worse. The only thing that still bothered me a little was the fact that my phone still had no signal. Now it didn't creep me out like what some of you might be thinking, it was more annoying than anything. It wasn't so much that I was expecting anybody to call or vice versa, it was that if something were to come up, how would I contact anybody? This road wasn't exactly known for being notorious in crashes or found dead bodies or stuff like that, but the nearest town was like 5 miles on the other side, and that gas station that I stopped by earlier was like 15 miles back. So say if I found someone injured, whether car crash or victim of attempted kidnapping/rape/murder, how will I get help?

I tried to calm myself down, saying that the chances of something like that are high, and as long as I kept cool I should be fine. The road that I driving to that'll get me through the Rockies is only 30 miles, so for half an hour, I can just drive and enjoy the scenery. Then that’s when it hit me, I may not be able to receive or give calls, even messages are lucky to get through this area, I can still take pictures, and I've always wanted a beautiful backdrop on my phone screen, so I decided to park on my right hand side of the road, so I can be further away from the mountains to get a better shot. As I was done snapping what I'd like to consider the perfect picture, I looked down at the forest for a quick second and spotted something. I had to look around again to find it, but I eventually found what caught my eye; an open path between two trees, large enough for a regular sized vehicle to pass through.

I crossed the road to the other side to look much better, and sure enough-It was a dirt road!

The clearing for it was at an angle that made it nearly impossible for a typical driver to spot, and honestly it was probably blind luck that I found it at all. Another thing that made it hard to spot was the fact that there were three bushes blocking the trail. At first I began to think that those hicks at that gas station were lying, and that they had a secret hideout where they kept their torture victims, or that satanic cults were using it, shit like that, with the bushes as cover. But I quickly dismissed that theory since the bushes, about 3-4 feet high each, looked pretty damn rooted, and it didn't look like anyone just put dirt over the roots to make it look like so either. Another thing that gave them authenticity was the way they looked, they weren't dying, but they sure as hell weren't young either. It might have been possible that someone planted them there to cover up the trail, but that would've been years ago, decades even. The only recent sign of human activity around this path was a single tire track of a large BX/mountain bike going in between a tree and a bush on the left hand side, and seemed to continue on as far as the road went, and I knew it was a road, since, while faint and barely noticeable, there were signs of tire tracks, despite mother nature trying to erode the ground back to the way it was before.

I was ecstatic, I found something that no one else has found, a possible short cut (Excluding the bike rider, and even then it was one track, and it looked months old)! Now I didn't rush in right away, I wanted to make sure that this wasn't a reserved or private properly, so I looked around those trees and bushes for any 'keep out' or human made signs that would've fallen off through the years, but nothing. Asides from that single bike track that was fading away, everything seemed so natural and undisturbed, no foot prints, not even a single piece of trash, nothing.

Now what made me want to drive down this long forgotten road was how far it seemed to go, I couldn't see the end, and while I couldn't figure out how far it went, the fact that Route 66 was just 5-6 miles on the other side gave me hope. So after analyzing the area, which had generally flat terrain, I pulled up those bushes (while big, age certain had an effect), and gently placed them on the side of the dirt trail. I kinda felt bad for doing so, but they were old anyway, and generally were in the way of a man made path. So I got back into my car, and slowly and cautiously began to drive down the dirt road, now I had spare tire in the trunk, so I wasn't going in completely unprepared. The drop off where the trees and the dirt road meet was pretty steep, but my van was well built, and I had experienced riding rough terrain with it before. So I drove down the path, and asides from the occasional bumps and fallen tree branch, it was smooth sailing.

Unlike the bushes that blocked the path, the trees surrounding each side of the trail looked fairly young, at least the leaves and occasional patch of grass did. But the wood and even the ground itself look faded. The ground looked dry, as the wood looked like it’s been eaten away slightly by termites and woodpeckers through the years, which struck me as odd. The woodpeckers and termites I can accept for the most part (I never actually saw any termites, or birds in general, but the way the wood looked, it was evident something was eating them on a small scale, insects at least, maybe a disease.), the ground looking so dry was what bothered me. It wasn't hard earth drought dry, but the ground looked like it haven't gotten any rain in weeks, which I knew wasn't true, since I knew for a fact that it rained 3 inches in this area the week before I got here, and this area gets plenty of rain, especially during the spring and summer seasons.

So while riding I kept trying to understand why the ground and wood was so dry, while the greenery looked as fresh as it should. Was it disease? But wouldn't it affect the greenery as well? Termites I almost accepted, since they do eat wood and live underground, so they might have somehow collected the moisture from the wood, but again, wouldn't it affect the greener as well to some extent?

Another thing that made me doubt it was termites was that they were hardly any in this area for what I've heard. But I'm no nature expert by any means, so I stopped thinking about it and drove onwards, if it was a natural dilemma, the forest rangers or whatever could handle it.

I drove for a steady speed of about 10 mph, so sure enough; I reached the end of the road, which stopped at a damn cliff.

Now the cliff itself wasn’t that huge, at least compared to the mountains, if I had to guess, it was roughly 50ft high and about 120ft wide, and was maybe 100ft long going towards the direction that I wanted to go.

I wasn't too mad, I had a feeling that this road probably lead to a dead end, but there was a small part of me that really wanted to get to the other side, but I quickly got over it at that moment as I looked at what was between my car and a cliff.

It was a small stream of water, would say river but it was only 4-5 feet, and when I got closer to investigate, it didn’t look like it was deeper than 3 feet. The water was running at a steady pace going east. It was crystal clear, like there was no pollution or human interference whatsoever. If I was thirsty at the time, I probably would’ve drunk right out of it, just to see if it tasted as good as it looked.

Speaking of human interference, I finally noticed a small wooden bridge just 15 feet to the right, surprised how I missed it up until now. Going towards it, I noticed the bike track heading the same way. Finally remembering it since I almost forgot about at that point, I followed it back to the dirt road, and from what I can gather, he/she did stop just a foot where my van was parked and looked around, I can only guess since I can’t find any footprints. It looked like he/she went to the wooden bridge to look as well, than when they were done, rode off westward as far as I can see. Where they went from there I’ll never know.

I went to the bridge to look for myself; it went over the small river, going about 2 feet above it in an ark. It didn’t look to fancy, in the sense that it didn’t look like it took much to make it, though it wasn’t by no means ugly. It was actually the nicest looking thing here, and looked practically brand new asides from some dried up leaves here and there, the wood that it was constructed was light tan. The panels that held the rails had swirly designs, the kind that you see on doors of old houses. The only thing that gave away its age was a scratched on drawing and letters on one of the panels in the middle. It was a decently well craved out heart, and in its center was:

HG & AE 57

So that let me know that this bridge was at least over 50 years old, though as to why it was built here of all places, was what got me thinking.

Was this a park at one point? If so, seemed like a weird place to build one. The area was pretty secluded, and asides from the bridge, dirt road, and bike track, there was no sign that anybody’s been here period. This area was one of the very lucky pieces of earth that humans haven’t (for the most part) tainted in one form or another; there wasn’t even any trash like paper or plastic bags that would’ve been carried by the wind. This place was truly left alone.

Other questions began popping up: WAS this private property? This place was secluded, with only one entrance, which was blocked by bushes until I came, and again, asides from that one cyclist, no one’s been here for years. I can understand having pieces of land to yourself and not been able to visit all the time (My grandfather owned a pent house in Miami that he hasn’t been to since 99), but if you’re not going to visit PERIOD, what’s the point of owning it, or keeping it private at all? Asides from its seclusion, there was nothing here that really made that special. The bridge, river, and even the cliff looked nice, but the trees didn’t look that great, the trunks looked healthy enough, but all the leaves were dead and dry, then I remembered.

Going onto the road, the tree’s looked like they had rotting wood while the leaves were full and green, and here, it was opposite. The wood looked healthy as can be, but the leaves were as dry as possible, and most of them were on the ground, with some still barely holding on to the branches up above. And like I mentioned earlier, it rained a week before, so the leaves shouldn’t be this dry, although unlike the previous trees, there was evidence that it did rain here, because the wood looked plumped with moisture, and hell, even the ground, while not wet, was soft.

At this point I was getting confused, I’m just a mechanic in a small town in northern Colorado, so I don’t really know or even care about nature, I’ll do my part and recycle ever now and then, but asides from that I could care less about nature. But as I was there in the middle of nowhere in an area that hasn’t had any human visitors for at least a few months, I couldn’t help but ponder over the weirdness of this place.

Was it some disease? I don’t know shit about plants, and I’m well aware that there’d be dead leaves since its still winter, but I was beginning to doubt that this was a natural phenomenal. Was it the creek? That water DOES look too clear to be natural; surely there should be some moss or even fish in there. Now that I was thinking about it, there was no wildlife, aside from a few birds up high in the trees chirping, and even then they didn’t stick around long.

I quickly told myself not to worry about it since it’s not your problem, and that you only came down this forgotten road because you wanted to find a short cut to the other side. Then I remembered to check the time, being here pondering this and that made me lose track of why I rode down here in the first place, so I got my phone out to check the time, I clearly remember my jaw dropping seeing the time.

I have spent 30 minutes here, 12 riding down the dirt road, about 2 miles, and the next 18 minutes looking around and asking myself questions that I had no answers to.

NOW I was mad. It wasn’t like I needed to be in Vegas at a specific time, but I’m one of those people who hates wasting their time, Being used to a very tight schedule at my job has made me like that. Now I’m normally a calm person even in the worst situations, and asides from what I was about to do, there’s only one time before that I remember losing it, and it was in college. I wasn’t frantic mind you, but I wanted to do something to blow off some steam before turning back around (I thought of riding down the flat terrain all the way to the other side, but I only had one spare tire, if more than one went flat, I’d be screwed). I spot a great big pile of leaves a few feet from the trunk of a large tree about 15-20 feet north of the bridge. I decided I’ll run and take one swift kick at it to see how far up I can kick the leaves.

Thinking back, there probably was something else about that place asides from the weird natural phenomenon, because I’ve been in worse situations beforehand and got out of them only slightly annoyed.

So taking my stance, I got ready, and then I sprinted towards the pile, got my right foot ready, and kicked as hard as I could, and as soon as I did, I fell back screaming and cursing, grabbing on to my foot, with a broken big toe searing in white hot pain.

Still cursing at myself for being a dumbass, despite the pain, I got up and crawled towards the pile, which hardly looked like anything happened to it asides for some leaves pulled out and crushed by my now damaged right foot. I wanted to see what I struck so brightly because it was no tree root, otherwise I would’ve just crawled back to my car. What I struck was not wood, but metal, hard metal. I at first thought it was a pipe since it wasn’t that thick, and just as I was sweeping away the pile, expecting to see the pipe that I struck so I can curse it out one last time, I saw something that made me stop in my tracks and replaced my anger with curiosity.

“No, it can’t be”.

But sure enough it was.

Instead of a pipe, what I struck was out of all things, a door handle.

I swiped away most of the leaves, and occasional dirt and twigs, and what was there right in front of me was what looked like a cellar door, like those outside doors to the basements of houses you see in movies, although this door, being about 3x2 feet, was made completely of metal, iron by the look of it.

NOW I found something interesting, a small secluded area with a nice small bridge over a crystal clear river is one thing, but a metal door hidden under a pile of leaves is something to talk about back home.

About a thousand things ran through my mind of what could be down there, but two things were on my mind the most; either a murders hideout or a thieves place for treasure, either way I had doubts whatever was down there was put there legally. Of course I wasn’t going to go down there in a heartbeat, if there were dead bodies down there, I didn’t wanna be next to them. But at the same time, you always hear about people going missing all the time, and if there were bodies of missing people down there, I can contact the authorities and they can determine the identities of the victims, maybe even find out who put them there, and I could even get some reward money for it.

If there were stolen goods or money down, again, I could get a reward for it, maybe even a percentage of it. I’m well aware of how selfish and cheap that sounds, but I didn’t wanna leave that forgotten place without at least something to talk about, and if I can get something out of it, then I know I didn’t waste nearly 20 minutes for nothing.

While I may not be too big on the genre, I’ve seen and read enough horror stories to know that going down a door in a middle of nowhere isn’t the smartest thing to do, and was aware that the killer(s)/thieves could come back for their prize(s), since that pile of leaves that I swept away was obviously put there. But two things convinced me otherwise; one was that I had nothing better to do and wanted to find something worthwhile, and as soon as I found something, I get in my car and drive back to the main road, and straight to the authorities. Another was while looking at the door; I noticed how old it looked judging by the rust on it, if was to the point that if I was daring enough, I could jump on it and probably fall through. Though what sealed the deal for me was the lock.

The door was connected to a metal base about 3 inches thick, with two hinges facing the tree (west), and a hatch lock at the bottom. Now I’m a car mechanic, but every once in a while, I’ll go to the junk yard downtown to find spare parts, and dealing with old rusted metal for about 5 years has given me experience. So looking at the lock, and the amount of rust on it, I can tell that it hasn’t been opened in YEARS.

So with that knowledge at hand, I went back to my van and opened my trunk to get two things. My night vision googles, which were old, and when seeing through them, you see static green, though they had new batteries and worked ok. And my switch blade, I wasn’t expecting to find anything alive down there, but on the off chance that the criminal(s) came back while I was looking down there, I’d want a better chance at fighting them off. Finally, as a precaution, I took my keys out of my van, and locked the doors, and headed towards the door.

It took a while for me to pull the lock out; the rust on there wasn’t for show. After a minute of pulling, I thought of going back to the van to get WB-40 (felt stupid not getting it in the first place), when the lock finally gave way with a big scrap.

With the lock out of the way, I got myself ready, putting on the night vision goggles and placing the blade in a easily reachable position in my back pocket (blade facing upwards in case it unlocks by accident). I got in between the door and the tree and squatted down, gripped the handle that I struck with my throbbing big toe (I lost most of my feeling at that point, I could still keep it up, as long as I didn’t lean on it, it didn’t hurt as bad. My curiosity overshadowed the pain, if that makes any sense).

While not as bad, there was rust nearly-fusing the door and the base, so with all the strength I could muster, I pulled.

The door creaked.

I pulled again.

The door creaked even more, and I saw and heard some ripping of rust.

Finally, with the third tug, the door gave way with a loud bang, which sounded almost like an explosion. The sudden burst caused me to fall back, but I turned around fast enough and caught myself before crashing into the tree. I turned around after catching my breath and looked down into the hole. It was pitch black, and I could faintly hear the echo of the bang that happened earlier, though that’s not what caught my attention at first. What got to me was that everything around became quiet.

It didn’t go mute mind you, but it was like right after that big metallic bang, everything stopped moving, the calm breeze that was blowing the leaves and branches stopped, the birds stopped chirping, and stood still, even the ones in mid-flight immediately landed on the nearest branch, and sat there like statues, not moving a feather. Even the creek quieted down, I could still faintly hear it, but it was like the water slowed down running, if that’s even possible.

Had it been under different circumstances, I would’ve taken it as a sign to just close that door and leave, but at that moment, I figured it was that loud bang that made everything quiet. It would explain the birds being still and ceasing their chirping, their probably never heard anything like that and feared of a predator (that was what I thought was the case at the time; I know that birds usually fly AWAY from loud noises). The calm breeze stopping was what I believed to be coincidental since around that time, breezes come and go. As for the water, I could still hear that loud bang ringing in my ears, and I contributed it to a momentary deafness caused by that.

Although, thinking back to that particular moment, and what I should’ve noticed then, was that I could still hear my footsteps, breaking the leaves and twigs, even my breathing was crystal clear, while everything else was silent. But my curiosity prevented any second thoughts.

But even with my curiosity at its peak, I was still cautious. Loud unfamiliar bang or not, I knew enough that if everything quieted down in nature, something was up.

So I stood a few feet from the hole, looking down for about a minute or two, half expecting something the fly, jump, or crawl out, but alas, nothing.

Feeling that it was ok, I squatted down, and looked down into the hole to see how deep it was, but it was too dark down there. I couldn’t see anything, and I didn’t wanna peak my head down there completely out of fear of slipping and falling down head first who knows how far. So I felt down there with my hand, and sure enough, I felt a bar of a metal ladder.

I gripped it better and pulled down on it to see if age has taken its toll, but it held up good.

So with that, I put on the goggles and turned them on while looking down into the hole. While I could only see about 4 feet in front of me in complete darkness with them on, I could make out the ladder going down, I couldn’t see the bottom, but I had a feeling it wasn’t that deep. So I cautiously turned around and placed my left foot on the bar below the one I recently griped, and while holding onto the metal base to make sure the ladder could handle my weight, I took one last look at my surrounds, which was eerily still quiet despite the time that has passed since the metallic bang, and I finally and cautiously, transcended down the ladder. The last thing I noticed before going down was the rust was a slightly different color then the metal of the door and base. I didn’t think about it too much at the time, but with my experience, I should’ve realized that the door wasn’t fused by rust, but fused by a different metal, it was welded.

I took each step down with caution, while the ladder was handling my weight pretty well, I could still hear a slight grown with every step down. The ladder was in good condition considering its age, but I’d make sure that if it were to suddenly break, I could jump up and grab onto the metal base up above.

After 8 steps down, my right foot (with the big toe still throbbing, thou it was becoming numb at that point) finally came in contact with soft ground. Finally at the floor of the underground place, I eagerly got off the ladder, and looked up. Judging by how far apart each ladder step was, I figured I was about 8 and a half feet underground. The light from above gave me enough sight to figure out where I was; it was a tunnel.

I couldn’t see enough even with the light above to figure out or see which way to go, so I got my goggles ready. It’s been about 3 years since I used them last when I went camping out one time with my grandfather, so it took a few seconds to turn it on, and I had to get out of the light for them to work. So I took a big step to the left of me to be in complete darkness.

The goggles finally came on, and with the green static vision that I haven’t seen since exploring the woods in Oregon for Bigfoot with my grandfather (he was a paranormal junkie and searched for cryptid’s whenever he had the money and time, despite being close to his seventies by now), and just a foot away from me, in which I would’ve walked right into had I’d taken another big step in that direction, was a wall.

Looking around with the night vision on, it was a dead end. Looking around, I saw that the tunnel wasn’t that wide, maybe 9 feet at best. Looking at the dead end at, I realized that it was man made by Indians. How I knew that was by the way it was built, it wasn’t built with bricks and with straight lines in between, not even like an amateur way of brick building either. While it wasn’t straight, it was clear that the rocks were fitted the best possible by human hands, with dried up earth in between to act like concrete. You know of those pots made of mud that those Indians in the desert make, it was like that. Another thing that convinced me it was Indians was how old it looked. Judging by the roots growing down into it, I’d figured the wall must’ve been there for centuries. Of course at the moment I didn’t know why they’d build it down here seeming in the middle of a tunnel. ‘Was it to keep something in or out?’ I remember asking myself at that moment.

Knowing I won’t figure it out standing there, I decided to turn round and look on the ground, to see if I can find something to enlighten me on this mysterious tunnel that I just began to explore. Sure enough going to the right, just inches from the ladder was a penny. How I managed to spot something like that in the clumpy dirt clod filled floor I’ll never know, but I caught sight of it and immediately went to pick it up. It may not seem like much to get excited over a penny, but in places that have been abandoned for years, the date on it would give me some insight on how long it’s been since people of modern times have been down here. Picking it up, it felt like a brand new penny, asides from the dirt on it, it was smooth, and was well preserved down here after all these years. Turning it around I saw the date it was made, 1961.

So it was at least in the 60’s the last time people were down here, thou why and how they found this tunnel was lost to me at the time. Looking at the ground some more, I only saw a butt of a cigar near the wall going east, but I wasn’t going to pick that up to figure out how old that was (never smoked, never will). Now unlike above, there were footprints down here, but they were so cluttered in the middle, like whoever walked down here last walked in a straight line back and forth to the other end, I could only pick out maybe 5 different patterns of shoes, thou it mostly looked like the majority was boots and tennis shoes. Only a few footsteps would trail off the middle and go right or left, but never got closer than an inch to the walls, and looking at the walls, I really begun to get the lay out of this tunnel.

The walls at each end were undoubtedly natural, there weren’t smoothed out in the slightest, and looking around, I saw an occasional tree root going around the tunnel to the other side, which struck me as odd since don’t tree go downwards, but they need soil to grow, and I heard somewhere that trees were smart enough to keep their growing roots away from open spaces (i.e. this tunnel) and such, didn’t know how that works, but I didn’t question it at the time.

While slowly going right, looking around, the walls did seem the go on forever. The tunnel didn’t feel that big, but with the night vision only allowing me 4 feet of visibility, it seemed to stretch onwards right with no end. While I was thinking about it, I stopped for a moment and really thought about it.

The walls weren’t smooth out like I’d just said, but how did this tunnel came to be? I’m no geologist, but I know that caves and tunnels are made either by erosion by water or wind, or being dug out by animals.

I couldn’t see any water down here, the dirt was soft, but it could’ve been from the past activities of people decades before, and surely it wasn’t wind. I’m aware that tunnels and caves take hundred or even thousands of years to form since it take that long for landscapes to change and erosion to take effect. But walking down further made me realize that this tunnel was going straight.

The walls weren’t smooth like you would expect, but maybe they didn’t need to be. The tunnel was spacious enough for several people to walk through with each. But the walls looked more natural then that wall at the other end. So I was sure that this tunnel was older then the wall, I even begun to suspect that this tunnel was around before Native Americans settled here.

Then something occurred to me right then and there. Why the hell was I pondering so damn much all the sudden? I NEVER took time to ponder, not even back in college when trying to figure out answers to complicated questions in tests. Not that I didn’t take time to think before acting, but never before or after this event did I take minutes to ponder questions that I knew right from the start I had no answer to.

A part of me then and even now wanted to believe it was because that I found something that could get me something really worthwhile, something that has been hidden for decades just waiting to be discovered and examined. But the more I think about it even as I’m typing this, I feel that either the area itself affected my critical thinking, or that even subconsciously, I was trying to warn myself of what was ahead and turn back. Either one wouldn’t surprise me.

I was confusing myself again at that point, but I somehow got over my mid thoughts of speculation and firmly told myself to leave it to the experts.

‘You’re no expert of nature by any means, you know a few things and can make good guesses, but you’re a fucking car mechanic. Leave the pondering and speculating to people who know what they’re doing, you just move forward and see what you can find.’

I remember telling myself that in my mind, it’s one of the things I remember best from being in that tunnel.

With that in mind, I moved forwards with a slightly quicker pace than before. I just remembered the ladder I climbed down off of, and looked back to see how far I walked. From what I can tell, the ladder and the ray of light, which was dimmer then the last time I’ve seen it, meaning the sun was going down, was about 15 feet behind. So that meant I spent all that time pondering/speculating about this weird tunnel, and I only covered 15ft.

I wanted to curse myself out again for wasting time (didn’t even dare to look at the time on my phone), but stopped myself and reminder myself to just move forward, find what’s down here, and leave, I took about 4 steps while looking back at the ladder, and turned around, and what I saw just 3 feet in front of me nearly made my heart skip a beat.

It was a door, not a small metal door that lead to the surface, but a fucking average, white with 4 rectangles, little window shaped like the ‘eyes’ of the Amityville horror house, even a damn knocker on the upper center, fucking door. The frustrated confused determination that I was barely hold onto at the moment was replace was fear.

Seeing something so out of place really threw me off guard. Now I’ve been in weird situations and places before, but there was always something to explain it. I’ve seen some weird things like most people have, I’ve been to San Francisco, and I’ve seen some things while exploring the country with my grandfather, whether a glimpse of the supposed cryptid or something else entirely, it’ll take to damn long to recount. But I wasn’t unfamiliar with weird things and places, but beforehand when I’ve seen or experienced those things, I always felt safe.

In the woods, my grandfather, and the first few times my brother, was with me and armed if the worst scenario happened, in California there were people around to witness something, and in my backyard a year after my mother passed, my brother was with me when we both spotted in our tree, out of all things, a grinning cat. But this took the cake.

Even that grinning cat looked as if some sick fuck or fuckers made it that way, whether by cutting of the cheeks of somehow stretching them back. My brother got a better view of it and said it looked like it was in great pain. But I’m getting off topic.

I was alone this time, with night vision goggles that had limited reach of seeing, and a small switch blade that my grandfather loaned me the last time I visited.

As you’d expect with fear, my wildest imaginations overcame the logical thoughts in me. Not only was it out of place, it looked brand fucking new. None of the paint was peeling off; there was a crack near the hinges, which were to the right. But judging by the wall surround it, it probably wasn’t a perfect fit to begin with. It just didn’t look like a door that’s been down there for more than 50 years.

I began to have crazy thoughts. Was wonderland behind it? Was this the place where Cthulhu and Slender Man had secret tea parties? If I knocked, would some only-god-knows-what thing politely invite me in to an all-expense paid trip to hell? Just stuff like that ran through my mind for about a whole minute. I wasn’t like I wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary going down this tunnel, but...

I was expecting either some stolen goods or even bodies of long forgotten victims, but I can’t picture anybody period going through the trouble of getting a front door straight from a house and putting it here of all places. I began to think that whoever did put the door there wanted it there to be a final entrance to their treasure, whether stolen loot or bodies.

Hesitant at first, I peeked through the window, half expecting something to come out of nowhere and scare the shit out of me, but alas nothing happened, and with the limited vision supplied by the goggles, I couldn’t see jack shit through them (sorry for the excessive language in advance, just trying to show you guys how I felt as I went further down that tunnel).

I backed away from the door, and got my switch blade out and ready. I finally remembered the thought I had before entering the tunnel, of whoever responsible coming back for what they left behind while I was down here looking around.

While the fear I had was still there, I coaxed myself with the idea of having to defend myself from whom, or what might be behind door #2, WHATEVER might pose a threat to me. That was what made me get my nerves on straight, the idea of having to fight my way out did, in a bizarre and messed way, it was what motivated me to keep going.

I’m not one to fight firsthand, but I’m by no means a pacifist. If push comes to shove, I will fight back. And like I mentioned in the beginning, I’ve also be a fan of lone heroes barely making it out of a crazy situation with something to brag about. Indiana Jones, Alien, my favorite genre is action, hands down.

Feel free to speculate how that got me to open that door. I tried to make sense of it myself, whether the place messing with my thoughts, something to calm down the fear, or a secret desire to come out like a badass. Any of those reasons could’ve been what drove me towards my fate.

So with my ego peaked, I took the blade and got ready with it, took one last look back at the ladder, and that ray of light from the surface. Both looked smaller than the last time I looked, which struck a nerve since I was only a few feet back last time, and finally the light looked even dimmer than before. The sun WAS going down.

Even an idiot in the same situation would’ve known to do what he had to do and leave ASAP when he was done.

I took a big breath and slowly signed, mentally preparing myself, with the blade in my right hand ready to strike. I took my left hand and gripped the knob. It turned with ease, which again nearly spooked me, but I quickly got over it as I discovered that the door was unlocked (like it really needed to be down here), and just as I turned it, I slowly pulled it open.

I pulled the door with enough force so that it’ll swing towards the left. The door barely creaked as it swing open up until it was near touching the wall, which again unnerved me how unnaturally functional this door was despite being down here for decades. Then another thought occurred to me. I only speculated that that door has been down here since the 60’s, I didn’t know what was on the other side as the door came to a stop, for all I knew, there were probably other entrances to this pl-

‘QUIT SPECULATING, MOVE FORWARD, THAN GET OUT!’

That loud thought got me back to the situation. I’ll apologize again in advance; I don’t mean to type every single thought I had down there, just the more I think about it as I’m typing, I can’t help but type away. For those getting impatient (which I imagine is a lot of you), just wait a little more, we’re about to get into the ‘good stuff’

With the door swung open, I took a stance, expecting something to come out, and I made sure I could hear behind me well in case someone or something came or appeared from behind and …nothing.

Nothing for at least 3 seconds, right after that small time period of standing still in anticipation, a small, gush of air came out from that door escaping in all directions. There wasn’t no sound, no roar, hiss, sigh, nothing to suggest that that pocket of air that escaped with intentionally sent out by anything living or even undead. It was mealy air that’s been sealed away for decades behind that too-damn-fancy-for-this-tunnel door, as I quickly realized that, as well as being slightly disappointed at the same time.

Although it wasn’t foul, it had a smell to it that wasn’t made by dirt. I almost recognized it, but whatever it was, it was lost to me at the moment, but I didn’t take a second sniff, as I pull my over my nose the moment I smelled it.

It didn’t stink; it just smelled odd, although that’s not why I covered my nose. I’ve been told in school that if you’re in a tight, closed off area, and smell something that you’re not familiar with, it’s best to not to keep smelling it in case it was poisonous gas like CO2 or methane. While I knew that whatever that odd smell was wasn’t any of the gases I’ve smell intentionally or accidently in my lifetime, it did smell organic, like some sort of plant.

With my shirt over my nose, I stepped inside the door, and got a better view of what was on the other side.

Another tunnel, shorter in length then the tunnel I just came through, and at each side of it and at the end was more doors, 2 on each side, and one at the end.

Again the fear began to come back, but before I let my imagination go wild again, I stopped myself and thought to myself that if something was here, it would’ve done something by now.

Although even with that in mind, it didn’t stop me from nearly having a heart attack when I stepped into the second hallway, and heard a small clump as my foot made contact with something hard.

I jumped back a bit and looked immediately down. The floor of the secondary hallway was covered in light tan wooden boards.

‘Come down.’ I told myself. ‘Quit being so damned paranoid, you going to turn 25 this year for god’s sake.’

‘Either nut up or shut up’, my high school coach would always say whenever someone complained about something in his class, and that’s what I told myself then and there.

I reasoned with myself that it was natural to feel fear. Would the hell wouldn’t be in such a place? But there’s nothing to be afraid of.

‘Air escaping after opening that door is evidence alone that you’re the first person to come into this clearly forgotten place in decades. If there were other ways to get in, the air wouldn’t have been as held up; it would’ve gotten out sooner.’

‘That odd smell probably does belong to a plant that someone left down here; you just can’t remember what kind.’

‘If there was something here that meant harm, it would’ve, in one form or another, let you know it didn’t want you here. What the hell would it be waiting for? If this place was haunted, the ghosties or demons had plenty of time to do something by now. You’ve been cautious.’

Yeah, I have been cautious.

I’ve been slowly moving, and stopping half the time to question the strangeness and oddities of this area. From the moment I drove down the hidden dirt road, I’ve taken extra care to not overstep my boundaries in a sense. You know in movies, especially horror, the group that enters an abandoned or forbidden place, and there’s that one arrogant prick that strolls right in like he owns the place? And big shock, he usually is the first one to go? I’ve been the complete opposite. I’ve taken my time with my actions, I analyzed the situation and the possibilities of what could happen. I’ve been everything an old friend of mine would say would be perfect for surviving a horror film. I’m well aware that this was reality, but out of all things that came to mind while I was down there. THIS was the one that gave me the most hope. The fact that I have taken every step with careful judgment, and spent most of the time thinking about what’s to come and how to handle it. As silly as it sounded, I was proud of myself.

I convinced myself at that point forward that I can handle anything that comes my way down there, and I both am thankful and regretful for that childish spark of motivation. For while it did lead to the worst experience of my life, I believe now that I think about it, it gave me just enough energy to escape.

Walking into the second hallway, I noticed up above hanging, were two light sockets. One had a light bulb perfectly intact, the other one had one that looked like it busted at one point. I saw some wires connecting them and going down to the right wall, and sure enough, lead right to a switch. Though I knew not to try the flip it on, you don’t need to be an electrician to know that something that’s been on or off for decades would not work now.

I began to take small steps forward, not out of fear off awakening something, but of along the lines of not disturbing the long, tranquil silence that this place has held onto for so long. But no matter how light I made my feet touch the floor, it still made that soft clump.

I stopped just a few feet, right between the first 2 doors to my left and right. I knew at that point I had to go into them and see what’s in. I was cautious of course, but there was still that twinge of fear in me of not knowing what could be behind them, for all I knew, they each could lead into other tunnels. I told myself AGAIN not to get paranoid, but there were still many things bothering me. The existence of this tunnel ALONE, it confounded me how it can even exist barely 2 feet below ground without caving in at one point.

‘Quit it, just pick a door, look, and leave.’

Now unlike the door I previously walked through, these, with the exception of the one to my right, were open to a certain degree, and unlike the first door, while white too, they were just regular doors, no patterns, no little windows. They even had peeling paint. None of the 4 were open completely, just slightly to some different degree each. The one that was open the most was the one at the end, it was about half way, the two doors next to it and the one to the left of me, was open quarter way, give or take inches.

I decided that I’ll start with the closed one to the right. Maybe it was because I was closer to it, or maybe it was a slight fear that made me think that if something was there, it’d be hiding behind that one, and that I might as well face it while I can. Although I knew how stupid that sounded since, asides from me, I haven’t heard one decimal of anything each moving.

Finally nutting up, I walked towards it, only taking 2 steps to get right in front, and gripped the knob the same way I did with the last door. I twisted it, not surprisingly, it was unlocked. I pushed it in, and I heard that slight creak that you’d expect from an old door, which made me even more suspicious of the door I recently passed.

I forgot to mention that since I entered this second tunnel (which considering the work done on it decades past, I could practically call it a hallway), the visibility of my goggles greatly improved somehow. I didn’t question it at the time as you’ll see, but now that I’m on the subject, I heard of places like the Bermuda triangle and other areas that have ‘energies’ that affect electronic devices for good and bad, and in the case of that tunnel, it was good.

So with the greatly improved visibility, I saw behind the first door a room, no bigger than my own bedroom in fact, about 10x9 feet. I couldn’t tell if it was made or natural, since, again, like the walls of the previous tunnel, they weren’t smooth, but went straight none-the-less. And it was evident that this was someone’s room.

I immediately noticed a dresser just a foot from the door to the left, and another foot behind it, a spring cot, like you see in old war movies, with a worn out mattress, and a pillow and about two sheets. At the foot of the bed, I saw some books and papers. I looked back at the wall on the other side of the dresser, and spotted about 3 buckets at the corner. I was about to walk over there to check them out, but judging by how filthy they looked and the fact that they were at the very corner away from the rest of the room. It was apparent they were used for waste. Taking that as it is. I decided to investigate.

I didn’t know what to start with, looking at the books or the dresser for clues. I was getting excited. I finally found something that I can recognize and understand. There was still caution, but I at least knew someone for whatever reason lived here at one point, and with the stuff that I was in front of, I can FINALLY find clues to this place.

I looked at the dresser again; I remembered seeing a small thin wire going into this room, and sure enough, right at the top was a small light socket with an intact light bulb. Between it and the dresser was a mirror about 2 feet long and over, leaning against the wall. Asides from the buildup of dust, it looked practically brand new. I could almost see my reflection, and taped on the right of it was a small black and white picture of a Hispanic looking woman, a much taller man who looked as white as I did (in skin color and style), and two little kids, probably no older than 5 each, sitting at their feet, smiling.

See that both touched and creeped me out. It was nice to see something so comforting in this long forgotten tunnel, but it unnerved me why something like this would be down here of all places.

My thoughts began to go rampant again of who could’ve lived here, and whether or not they choose to. I took a closer look at those books on the floor and discovered they were medical books. I was about to pull out the drawers for answers when I spotted it just below the mirror, a journal.

I finally found something big, something that could tell the deal with this place, and maybe even why it existed. So without second thought, I picked it up, whipped off the dust, and with great anticipation, opened it.

Written just on the other side of the first page:

The Diary of Annabelle Estevez

AE…could it have been the same as the one on the bridge?

The first few pages were blank, but on the 6th or 7th page, writing began to appear.

Now I didn’t bring the journal with me, although I remembered quite a lot as you’re about to see. After I was done reading it, I did plan to bring it with me as evidence after I was done looking thru the rest of the tunnel, but as you will figure out, it’ll was the last time I’ll see it along with the place. Leaving it behind would be one of my biggest regrets.

There were about 21 pages of writing in total; the first 11 were about her experiences in medical collage as one of the first Hispanic female doctors in the state in the late fifties, while the last ten were what I was looking forward to the most, her forced time in this tunnel.

She had made exceptionally well scores in college, and while racial prejudice was still apparent in that area. They were low on medical staff in the town at the time, so they had to put up with her. She talked about how she made many friends at the college and met the love of her life, Harold Green (‘so it WAS them!’ I remembered nearly saying out loud to myself). She talked about having to deal with the occasional racists, and how Harold would tell them off. Asides from that, it was about figuring out medical mumble jumble that I could care less about. While she never wrote down about going to the bridge, I was confident at that point they were the ones. Finally I reached what I was hoping for, the part where she was kidnapped, along with two other doctors, and brought here to make illegal drugs for a small time drug dealer.

Basically, she’d married Harold in 57 (further convincing me they were the ones on that bridge), and moved to a small town near Denver. They would a year later have two kids, and as one of the head doctors in Denver, and Harold being a leading contractor, they’ve had it good for 6 years (At that point I picked that photo off the mirror and turned it around, written on the back was simply; “Annabelle, Harold, Lou, and Fernando. 1964” I was almost right about the kid’s age). Up until mid-April, when while walking to her car after a long late night shift, someone came from behind and knocked her out. By the time she awakened, she, along with two other doctors, one whom she recognized as a classmate from college, the other worked at the same hospital he did, were in the middle of the secondary tunnel that I was currently in.

The guy who hired the two thugs that kidnapped each of them was a wealthy man by the name of Ernie McGee, someone from a wealthy family that owned some private land (one of them being this area that I was in), and not long before actually tried to buy out, out all things, KFC, but failed.

Mr. MG, as he liked himself to be referred to, explained to the doctors that since he failed to buy out KFC, he lost a bet with some stock holders in Wall Street and lost some bonds. He admitted it was foolish of him to bet something like that, but he was convinced at the time he could succeed. He further explained that since losing his bonds, he needed some way to make up for it, and since it was the 60’s and more people are getting ‘into the drugs’, he decided to get into the drug trade until he could make up for what he lost.

‘That’s where you 3 come in’ he told the doctors. He didn’t personally know anybody who dealt with illegal drugs since he was a public figure of shorts (as he proudly proclaimed), and didn’t know much about it. But he knew that doctors dealt with drugs all the time. So he figured He’d get his ‘boys’ to get some for him, as he knew flat out asking would ruin his ‘image to the people’. So he basically kidnapped 3 random doctors in hopes that they knew how to make the drugs. One of the male doctors, the former classmate, named Jeremy, spoke up. He told MG that making medicine and the drugs that they wanted were two different tasks, and further demanded to know where they were. MG would calmly explain that they had ‘instructions’ and since they were too busy to do it themselves, the doctors would do the work. MG then told him they were underground in the middle of one of his private properties, and that’s all they needed to know.

He explained the purpose of the five ‘rooms’; one would be the ‘ladies room’ (Where I was currently in), across it would be the ‘boys room’, next to it was ‘the office’, where MG did his dealing, across from that would be the largest of the rooms, ‘the lab’, where the drugs would be made. And finally at the end, being the highest of the rooms (ceiling being 12 feet high), would be the ‘supply closet’.

Mr. MG ended his speech by saying that this tunnel was accidently discovered by Joe (the taller thug) about a week beforehand, and he and Michael spent the time fixing it up. MG explained he only had them working on the tunnel around the rooms because that’s where all the activity would be, and he didn’t want to waste resources and time on the first half. He then pointed to the door that splits the tunnels (the fancy one), and knowing that they can see through the window, confessed that the ladder at the end was the way to the surface, but he told him that the door to the surface was always locked, with the exception of them being down here themselves of course. The front door (yes that’s what MG called it), would also be locked most of the time unless supplies were coming in or out.

He further explained that the instructions for making the drugs were in the lab and that by next week, he’d expect a certain amount produced or else they’d be consequences. He also said that he’s been talking to one electrician to come down here and install some lights. But until then, the doctors had to use flashlights and candles to do their work.

‘What about the police, they’d be looking for us wouldn’t they?’ The other male doctor suddenly brought up, whose name was Jacob. MG just said, ‘I have connections, now go to your rooms, you got work to do tomorrow.’

The only way the doctors could tell whether it was day or night was when their captors said so, they had no watches on them and there were no clocks asides from in the office, but they weren’t allowed in there since that’s where MG does his ‘transactions’. Before they really went to sleep the first night, MG got them out and promised that when they make him enough supplies, not only will he let them go, he’s also give them ‘something for their trouble’, on the condition they don’t speak a word to anybody about what they went through. Below the page was a date; April 23rd, 1964.

It’ll be a month before the electrician came down to install. The doctors have managed to make enough of what MG and his boys wanted despite the lousy lighting and working conditions. They had to do their business in buckets, which were only taken out once per week, so that had to deal with the smell most of the time, they eventually each got some clothes, medical books, and even dressers that MG had handed down to him by family. The doctors never got the chance to talk to one another, whenever they tried some form of conversation while working in the lab, the thugs would tell them to shut up and keep working. The only reason why they knew each other’s name was because they still had their name tags on them. They were only given food only once per day, but MG did make sure they had enough to eat, being rich, he managed to get still warm, well cooked food for them, so to some extent, he was a good captor, even getting onto one of him boys from nearly stealing some chicken from Jacob one time.

With the electrician finally came, the doctors were given the chance to rest up until the man was finished. MG made his boys help out the guy with the installation. It took hours, but they had no problems whatsoever installing the lights in the first 4 rooms. In the supply closet however, when the electrician was done installing the light right above the door inside, he told Michael to flip the switch. But when he did, the light bulb and the socket literally exploded right into the electricians face. The guy fell back screaming (the doctors only heard the commotion; they were in their respective rooms). By the time MG came out of his office to see what happened, the electrician was barely conscious, with a ‘fucked up face’ as Joe said out loud. MG was clearly frantic and called the doctors out of their rooms to ‘fix the guy’. Before they could get near him, MG bent down and was face-to-face with the mangled man, who was whimpering at that point. Telling him when asked, he was on a hunting trip when the gun back fired, otherwise he wouldn’t be leaving. MG got up and told the doctors to fix him up.

Despite having little to use, they did patch he up ok and got the glass and metal out of his face and mouth in about two hours. She explained in great detail the injuries that goy had, but to sum it up; He had cuts, some burns, some teeth broken, and even his right eye was completely smashed in. May 30th 1964.

The next 3 months would be uneventful for the most part; Annabelle kept mostly to herself since no one could really talk to anybody, Jacob and Jeremy would act the same, although since they shared a room, they could have conversations as Annabelle would often hear when the lights went out for ‘night-time’. The doctors eventually discovered they could communicate with each other via notes while working on the drugs, finally being able to get to know each other better. After graduating himself, Jeremy moved south to New Mexico with his fiancée, and had it fairly easy until Joe and Michael came into his home one night and knocked him out cold before he knew what happened. Jacob lived most of his life in Albuquerque until his father passed (mother died giving birth to him) and he moved to the same town where Jeremy would move to 5 years later. He, like Annabelle, was walking to his car after a long night shift when he heard something behind him, by the time he turn around, Joe already knocked him out with a swift punch, Anabelle was the last to be kidnapped. Jeremy’s wife was expecting their first child sometime in September, and Jacob had no relative’s asides from a sister in Michigan (he had no other family worth mentioning). The going on’s of the ‘supply and demand’ was going smoothly, the supply closet would be full of the drugs they made, and emptied the next week for the ingredients and necessary chemicals to make. (To answer what some of you are eager to know, she never wrote down what they had to make for MG, at least not in normal English, she wrote down these scientific long ass names of them, but I sure as hell couldn’t figure out what was what, or cared to remember the words to remember them now).

Although sometimes when they did go in there to get what was needed, they, even Jacob who wouldn’t admit it at the time, got this strange feeling that someone else was in the room with them (for some damn reason, MG didn’t let more than one person go in there, asides from the delivery boys, Joe and Michael.). Before you start thinking ghost, the way Annabelle described it, it wasn’t like that, the room wasn’t colder than the rest, and it wasn’t like there something there that couldn’t be seen. I clearly remember the passage from that journal word-for-word; she would describe it as;

‘Whenever you went in there, you had this gut feeling like there was someone there with you hiding in plain sight. It wasn’t like they were invisible, but more like who or whatever was in there was somewhere you haven’t thought to look. The room had built in selves for the glass containers, which reached about 8 feet high, with the ceiling being nearly 12. There were boxes where we put MG’s goods in, ready for delivery. It wasn’t like a ghost or anything supernatural like that; the room was no colder than the rest of the tunnel. I and Jeremy have speculated that maybe MG and his boys have been spying on us, but looking at the walls for any peep holes, we found nothing, and thinking it through, why would they? It’s not like we’d be dumb enough to try to steal MG’s good’s, especially since we’ve whenever we could, asked him we can we leave. With him in that damned cherry southern accent, ‘Just keep working, I’ll let you know if something comes up.’ Fucking bastard… We speculated that it might have been gophers, but we haven’t heard one nibble, and we’ve looked up at the root infested ceiling countless times and nothing. It wasn’t that we felt threatened by ‘the presence’ as me and Jeremy named it, it’s just not a comforting feeling knowing that there might be someone in there with you who won’t, for whatever reason, reveal themselves.’ July 13th 1964

She didn’t write anything down until the next month, August.

While they were working in the lab one day, one of the new delivery boys (sometime around June, MG began bringing in new guys to get the drugs. He wouldn’t say, but Annabelle and the others suspected that he’s connected his little drug ring with the Mexican cartel.), Jose, was putting in the newer supplies. Everything was going slowly and dull as usual, until out of nowhere he started screaming. His brother (whose name she didn’t know) ran into the room and got him out, and the next few minutes was them talking frantically back and forth in Spanish. Annabelle was Hispanic, but didn’t know much Spanish since she lived all he life here in Colorado, though she did knew some.

From what she could make out, and relay to Jacob and Jeremy later, while putting up the last of the chemicals on the top self, Jose suddenly heard, loud and clear, his children crying out for him, and as soon as they did, he heard ‘the devil’s laughter’, and heard something else whispered right into his ear. As to what it was, Annabelle couldn’t translate that, but whatever it was caused Jose to scream like he did, and from what she saw peeking through the lab door before it being shut right in her face by Joe, gave his brother a look of ‘worry and dread’. As expected, MG stormed out of his office, demanding to know what the hell was going on, obviously in a foul mood over something else unrelated to the situation. Before Jose’s brother could explain, MG saw something staining Jose’s shirt that wasn’t sweat. Turned out it was liquid LSD that Jose spilled on himself after his freak out, and since those bottles are forbidden to touch, MG concluded right then and there that that was the cause. Furious, him and his boys decided to ‘punish’ Jose for ‘wasting the good stuff’. From what the doctors heard behind the closed lab door, Jose’s brother put up a hell of a fight, but with 2 against one (Jose was still in shock over what happened, and MG wasn’t the fighting type, being overweight and not wanting to stain his suit, which he always wore), he was beaten to a pulp. Afterwards, they got hold of Jose, and the doctors just heard him scream and scream, and something being nailed in the supply closet door. After a few minutes, Jose and his brother were dragged out of the tunnel. When they could finally look out the lab, they saw a puddle of blood near the office, and looking down the tunnel they saw a faint trail of it going down the ‘hallway’. As to why that was, the answer was nailed to the supply closet door, it was a human ear, and since they could still faintly hear Jose’s crying near the exit, they were sure it was his.

The next day, they had to work longer to make up for what that ‘wetback’ wasted. MG still looked mad, but he also looked worried, even Joe and Michael who’re normally emotionless looked depressed, like they were actually guilty for what they did. Annabelle and the other doctors began to suspect that MG was probably dealing with people he couldn’t handle. Ignoring the Jose incident, him and his boys has been acting timid recently, rich or not, you make one wrong move with the cartel, they’ll get you back one way or another. August 20th 1964

The next few pages were ramblings of Annabelle missing her family. I suspected something like this since I began reading, being stuck down here for months would drive anybody up the wall. It was basically just her ranting about missing her kids, husband, her life, her home, and this and that over and over. I was just about to skip over it and get to the next part when near the end of it, between her cursing out her captors and the last ‘I miss you Lou and Fernando’ speech was-

‘Damn that room, why do I hear their screams in there? IT’S NOT THE DRUGS, I’VE ONLY SMOKED THE POT, NO DRUGS CAN CAUSE THAT! Did killing that man and cutting off his brother’s ear curse this place, is it a curse? I and Jeremy think so, why won’t Jacob admit it too?! That stuck up atheist, he looks like a ghost, so pale coming out of the room every time. He just won’t admit it, hates the idea of ‘supernatural speculations’ as he puts it. That fat fuck and his cronies know something, they got to! What’s in there, if no ghost, then what?! (Ironically this paragraph is the most cohesive of the last three pages and the most memorable) This part of the journal didn’t have a date to it, just ended on ‘between the time of hell and madness’.

The last part of the journal was better written, though there was still that twinge of despair from the last. The writing was definitely more frantic, in that it was written more rushed, and opposed to the soft, clean writing of previous passages.

It was apparent that the captors and the doctors were becoming more timid and frantic for their own reasons, although one thing seemed to connect their paranoia, the supply closet. It was apparent at that point that MG and his boys have bitten off more than they could chew with this drug business. What finally convenience Annabelle and the other doctors was that their made, ready-to-go drugs weren’t being taken out lately. They were still required to make them, but there was no feeling or pressure of urgency like before. It got to the point where the doctors took as much time as they wanted in making the drugs. It was also apparent that the supply closet was affecting the captors as well.

It wasn’t that Annabelle heard her children crying all the time whenever she had to go in there. It was that she just knew SOMETHING was in there, but she couldn’t figure out what. Same with Jeremy, sometimes he heard his wife coldly scolding him for all the mistakes he made and ones he haven’t made yet, sometimes he wouldn’t, but he felt that something was there, in plain sight, but what? Both she and Jeremy were getting angry towards Jacob. ‘When will he just spill it?’ she wrote with such force that it showed on the other side of the page. What convinced Annabelle that the captors KNEW something was what she saw in the early morning one day. MG came in like usual, Anabelle was awake early (normally they had to be woken up), and could see peeking out her slightly open door, MG had something in his hand, which looked like a baggie with white powder in it. He unlocked the supply closet door, and as soon as he walked in, he came back out, walking backwards, slowly, with surprising ease for someone so big, and he went to his office, unlocked it, and swiftly walked in, pale as a ghost while doing it, he saw something, she was convinced he did.

She’d wrote a note about what she saw and handed it to Jeremy (Jacob still wouldn’t talk about the supply closet, and at that point Annabelle, or even Jeremy, wanted nothing to do with him.), to which he’d, while slightly hesitant at first, be to the one that day to get what they needed from that room. The first time he went, he didn’t see or hear anything. The second time he went, he’d wrote down that the selves look ‘shorter’ at one point while walking towards them, but asides from that, nothing. It wasn’t until he went to third time when he came back clearly shaken by something. It took a while for him to answer, but sure enough he wrote;

‘Bulge, there’s a circular bulge coming out in the center of the room.’ October 12th 1964

There’s no light in there, but looking in good enough, she saw it. Just about in the middle of the room, 4 inches high, 5 feet wide, was the bulge. What really got to her and the others was that it looked like something was going to come out, but what?

More weeks passed with nothing happening, then in the middle of December. Jacob finally opened up. From what’s she’s described, Jacob was a calm calculating individual, he wasn’t cold or emotionless, but he was like those scientist’s you see in a lot of movies, always serious. But she (and I) knew that no matter who you are, you can only hold back your emotions for so long.

Near the end of November, the necessary ingredients for the drugs stopped coming in, and MG just flat out told them that in short time, ‘he’ll get them home, alive and well, just need to find the right time to do so’. Now Anabelle, Jacob, and Jeremy have given up on the idea of leaving at that point. Not that the news disappointed them, they didn’t want to stay, but they’ve been here for so long that hearing that, they thought he was joking. Although no one there was in a joking mood. Everybody was still distraught as Annabelle explained. The thugs looked less ‘muscular’, thou they still looked big. Even MG himself looked like he’s lost weight, thou it didn’t look like he lost it doing exercise. The doctors themselves were skinner, though it wasn’t because of worry.

Since the Jose incident, they’ve been getting less food than usual, it was still good and had quality to it, but it was clear that MG wasn’t able to get as much as he normally could. Another thing was instead of one week, they had to wait 2 weeks to clean out their waste buckets. Joe and Michael brought more buckets to handle the extra waste, but that didn’t help with the smell. So as you can picture, it got worse from there. While the idea of finally going back home to her family got her hopes up, there was still that filling of dread that has been with her and the others for so long. She worried about if they’d forgotten about her. The doctors have never once gotten any info from the outside world since being down here. They didn’t know if anybody was looking for them, or if they’ve given up on searching for them, believing them to be dead.

And MG, at that point in the journal, she practically filled an entire page cursing that guy with everything imaginable, and it’s no mystery as to why. Good host or not, anybody who’d kidnap someone to make up for their own mistake, keeping them away from their families, and the outside world entirely, deserves all kinds of hell. And the fact that that man was one of the richest in that state at the time, and who could’ve fixed his own problems had he’d not been so cheap, he deserved even worse.

After that, she’d written another emotional speech about her kids. I felt so sorry for this woman.

The incoherent writing about missing her family was there again, I mostly speed read through it again. It was practically the same thing over and over. I don’t mean to sound like a dick, but it was beginning to annoying me a little.

It wouldn’t be until I reached the last 4 pages that the writing went back to normal, at least in terms of coherent English, at this point the hand writing was get sloppy.

These last pages were the most memorable to me, and knowing how long this is already dragging on; I’ll sum it up as fast as possible.

The first page was about Jacob finally speaking out.

Basically, with their captors only coming once per day to feed them, and not having to deal with the drugs anymore, they were given free rein to talk and move around as they pleased. The only rooms they couldn’t enter were the office and supply closet, which they were proud of, they couldn’t care less about the office, but with the closet, they were PROUD of not having to go in there, since the last person to enter, Jacob, said that the bulge was getting bigger. With freedom like that, they visited each other in their respective rooms, used what they could from the lab to mask the smell of feces and piss. She explained that they mixed some chemicals up and poured it in the buckets, only downside was the new order was exceedingly powerful, smelling plant-like (‘So THAT’S what that smell is!’). Overall, despite the decline in food, they had freedom to do almost anything they wanted down, and with that, her and Jeremy finally got the chance to talk to Jacob.

While they did finally got him to admit what personally got him to be weary of the supply closet, he talked about other subjects first. Like where would he go IF their captors kept their word on letting them go. Out of the 3, he was the most skeptical of their promise. He explained that no one would miss him. He and Jeremy worked together at the same hospital, but they weren’t friends, he had no relatives alive that care about his existence, no wife, no friends. He’d admitted that being kidnapped was annoying, but only because he wanted to go back home. He flat out said that he didn’t care about leaving. He didn’t wanna stay, but he had no reason to go back up either, asides from his well-paying and house, but he was sure that they were both gone at that point. But asking him again finally got him to spill.

He started off saying that the reason why they THOUGHT they heard their loved ones either cursing or crying for them was because of a mixture of being down here for so long and fear of not being able to see them again. He finally admitted that he himself heard his dead parents calling him out, ‘welcoming him to finally die’. He explained that as to why that affected him was that truthfully he didn’t want to die. If there was one thing he cared about, he’d told the two, it was being a doctor. If he couldn’t help his own life, he could make the lives of other people better, and that he felt there was ‘one last thing’ he wanted to do. But before he’d get to that, he started on something else more personal to the others.

He began questioning them if they actually believed that their captors would let the go. He pointed out that it was obvious MG has messed with something that not even he could ‘wiggle his fat ass out of’, mainly the Jose incident. He then began talking about their families, like if they couldn’t tell the truth, what lies would they tell? You could only lie so much. He brought up the subject of the authorities butting in, and even if they could ‘spill the beans’, would their loved ones feel comfortable knowing that they (being Annabelle and Jeremy) have being making illegal drugs for a ‘amateurish drug dealer’, without having a gun pointed at them, and even THEN, would MG really let kidnapped witnesses go, after all the trouble he went through these past months. He even went as far as to ask Jeremy if he even remembered that he was supposed to be a father in September. He went on saying that he knew he wasn’t perfect himself, and justified his atheism by saying that he did believe in god when his was younger. But with the life he lived, and having to move countless times, he figured out that there was no god or destiny, just ‘finding you path and sticking to it’. He knew that there were things in this world that are still beyond human understanding, thou he doubted it was that room in the back (he thought that bulge was a buildup of gas), but he believe that in time, anything could be understood with the advancements of science and philosophy in the future.

He ended his speech by telling the 2 his plan to ‘tell off’ the captors when they came back tomorrow. Before the others could intervene, he told them it was the least he could do before ‘going out in style’. If he was going to die down here, he could at least go down fighting, maybe even give the other’s the chance to escape. He’s last words to them that day was that even though he may have not showed it properly, even being a dick to them these past months, it was nice meeting them.

I think that’s the only time reading that journal that I was ‘whoaed’ by. A part of me actually admired Jacob, never letting fear or paranoia get in the way of pure logical thinking. He might’ve been a dick to them, but he did had his heart in the right place, knowing what he wanted while also knowing what he had to do for others. At the bottom was the last written date; December 15th 1964.

With what Jacob was planning, the last page seemed like the most exciting to me. So I looked over to the next page, but only found that it was half written, no date below it, thou I knew by reading it that it was written the day after, December 16th.

Annabelle was woken up by both Jeremy and Jacob early; they heard what they could only describe as a ‘pluck’ inside the supply closet. They stood on the other side of the hallway, with the lights on, waiting for something else to happen. When they began to believe the Jacob was right about it being a buildup of gas, they heard another sound in there, something moving around. They began to quietly talk amongst themselves about what could be in there, ranging from miniature gas eruptions to some animal that fell down there from digging from above. They couldn’t hear any more movement, but they weren’t going to go near that room to find out. They suddenly heard the cellar door opening, and looking back, they saw MG and his boys coming down with shot guns, Jeremy and Annabelle went back into their rooms like they promised Jacob, while he stayed to confront the captors. Annabelle immediately went for this journal, and started writing down what just occurred and what was happening afterwards, writing down what she heard from there. Just as she was writing down about the captors coming in confused over the lights being on and Jacob standing calmly in the middle of the hallway, the journal just stopped on; ‘There’s a tapping on the other side of the closet door, MG is calling out for whoever the fuck was in there to get out now or be shot, more tapping-‘

The journal ends on just that, there a drawn line coming down from where she was writing the next letter, as if she was taken by surprise by something.

I sat there for maybe 3 minutes, letting all that information sink in, and deciding what to do next. It was a lot to take in as you can tell, and remembering it all is something that still amazes me.

So it’s the ‘supply closet’ that holds something unusual. At that point, while all the knowledge I recently processed, I felt I can look through this tunnel with no problems, with the exception of that room at the end, which contained god-knows-what.

I was of coarse beginning to speculate what happened where the journal left off. The best I could come up with was that while she was writing, the captors busted in wondering why she was awake as well, and probably was taken out to the hallway to figure out who or what was tapping on the closet door from the inside. Looking on the ground (only the hallway had boards, the rooms had the dirt), I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, at least in the sense of what I can gather based on the journal, not until I entered the hallway to look.

Round the lab door were bullet shells, shot gun bullet shells. I couldn’t spot any spots of blood or even minimal damage, at least with what the static filled vision provided by the goggles could provide. The only thing I could find was that the shells looked like they ricocheted off of something and (while keeping my distance from the closet) looking into the lab, I saw the generator in the corner in pieces. Whether it was by gun fire, or the thing somehow exploded on its own accord, I couldn’t tell, but it was evident that it wasn’t taken apart manually. Taking my eyes off what’s left of the generator, I saw that the room truly was big.

It wasn’t huge, but it looked like you could fit a big pick up in there, with still some room to walk around in. There were about two tables in between the room, spaced out by about 3-4 feet. There were only 3 fold in chairs for the doctors to sit. On the tables were bottles with some chemicals and powder in them, even a baggie or to. Some of the substances were spilt onto the ground below, as some of the bottles were broken. There were about 3 drawers on each side of the walls (asides from the one to the right of the door), with some stuff on them. Nothing too important from what I can tell, except from a stack of papers on the drawer just left of me, I never got close enough to look, but I think it was the instructions by MG to make the drugs he wanted.

I’m aware of how far-fetched the account provided by the journal seemed, but I read and heard of weirder stories out there, especially surfing the web. Not including the parts about the supply closet, it seemed authentic to me. Couldn’t imagine anybody fabricating all that, just to leave it down here, and the existence of this place ALONE confirmed it for me.

I couldn’t find anything else worth noting in the lab, saw some bottles and tubs under the tables, some broken, and some weren’t. But the police can deal with that shit, I thought to myself while exiting the room.

Standing in the hallway, I didn’t know whether to check out the ‘boy’s room’ or the office. Since I was weary of the closet, I decided to check the room furthest away from it. Like I mentioned earlier, I did intend to take something if it was worth it, but after reading the journal and the experiences that those people had to go through, I was pretty much against it.

Like with Annabelle’s room, I didn’t go in right away.

While I knew nothing would attack me, I still wasn’t sure what was on the other side, I could walk in and see rotting bodies, I slightly thought to myself. I knew it would’ve been a miracle if the doctors got out after what I’ve read. Ignoring my fears, I pushed the door, as it slowly opened, with that creaking sound that I nearly forgot about, I saw right into the room.

Like Annabelle’s, the dresser was right at my left, along with the light right above it, although there was no mirror. The dresser was bigger than Annabelle’s since there were two people living here, on top were notebooks and pieces of paper scatted here and there. Before I could look at them, my eyes noticed on what was behind it slightly to the right. Out of all things, it was a bunk bed. It was the sorriest looking thing I ever saw, the wood looked well beyond rotted, and the mattresses looked in worse condition then Annabelle’s, with just a sheet and a pillow to sleep with. What really got me intrigued by it was the fact that two grown men managed to sleep on that tiny thing with it fallen apart, at least from what I could tell, as I saw no signs that any of them slept on the ground. Finally spotted the waste buckets at the corner, there were 3 of them, with one on its side, didn’t wanna check if it was empty, so I left.

The moment I started walking towards the office, I spotted something sticking out at the bottom of the entrance to it. It didn’t look thick, maybe 3 inches at best, or even threating, but it stopped me in my tracks none-the-less. It might have been that I was closer, but I still didn’t recall seeing that, even when coming out of the lab.

Just check it out.

I walked towards it cautiously, though I was sure it posed no threat, and pushing the door open, I paused yet again.

Asides from that creak that I expected from the door, for a split second, I thought I heard something, couldn’t say what exactly, but it sounded like it was coming from the supl-

QUIT IT!

‘Don’t let your imagination run wild, it’s because you’re afraid that you think you’re hearing things, remember what Jacob explained.’

Yeah, what Jacob said, the logical one of the 3 captives here, the one who stood up to MG and his boys. ‘You have nothing to fear but fear itself.’

But even he was wrong, there WAS something in that closet, whether it’s alive or not by now, and after exploring the office, I knew I had to go in the closet last. I just had to.

Opening the office door, I saw that what was sticking out was the barrel of one of the shot guns brought here, although it was just that, the barrel. The other half I didn’t even had the time to question as what I saw right behind it to my right caught me completely off guard, almost making me gasp out loud.

Two bodies, both lying on their backs, with one sloped slightly against the wall, and by the white coats on them, I knew it was two of the doctors. What really unnerved me was the fact that both bodies were missing their heads.

MG and his thugs decapitated the doctors, I thought to myself in disgust, and left their bodies to rot here, those fuckers.

I, despite being repulsed by the horror of it, looked closer to see if I could identify them. They had no name tags on the coats, and they were rotted to the point where it was nearly impossible to tell the sex. The only way I could tell who was who, was by looking at their shoes, and sure enough. I knew it was Annabelle and Jeremy.

Both corpses were about the same length, but the one at the corner seemed thicker, and had bigger feet. I at first thought the slimmer one might have been Jacob’s, but I caught eye of both their hands, which were in a sad and disturbing scene, holding hands. Both hands had rings on them.

I only had to turn around to find Jacob.

It was evident that he was shot down, or at least that’s what I thought at first. Like the two at the corner, he too was missing his head, but he was slumped even more so against the wall, right behind the desk, with scatter papers and what looked like cigars on it. But there was a splash of old, dried out blood, like you’d expect to see, right above him. Just as I was beginning to think that his head was blown to pieces, looking around the ground proved otherwise.

No pieces, no shells asides from that half of a gun barrel right near the door. No evidence to show that any of the three were shot. It didn’t make any sense, and looking back at the corpses, I noticed something else that was just as confusing.

Like I’ve mentioned more than once in this long story, I’m only a car mechanic, asides from that, I’m no expect in any other field, but even I knew that there was something wrong with the two corpses of Annabelle and Jeremy.

Have you ever seen Poltergeist? Remember that scene when all the coffins started coming out at the ground at the end, and one opened to reveal a corpse in a wedding dress? Well the three corpses were rotted to that degree, although Jacob’s looked more natural, mainly due to the color or the skin.

Now you already know that I can only see so much through the goggles that I’m wearing, and seeing only green out of them doesn’t really help it differentiating colors. But Jacobs seemed to be the brownish-grey that you’d expect from a 50 year old corpse; the other two were completely black.

Another thing that really bothered me was that the two looked smoother, and actually looked more dry then Jacobs, whose corpse, if I was insensitive and ballsy enough, looked like it would crumble to dust if I kicked it. It’s really hard to describe.

I didn’t know how to feel at that point, whether I should be scared that the two corpses were infected with some virus and being near them would get me infected, or if MG did something to them to make them like that. I knew they weren’t burned because well…their clothes weren’t burned and were nearly spotless (asides from some obvious blood stains and dirt), and why WOULD they burn them, but then again why is everything here so damn screwy?!

‘Calm down, leave it to the experts when they come to investigate. Just go into that closet, and get it over with.

Agreeing with myself, knowing that standing around won’t do anything, I’ve been though that with myself already before.

Knowing what was ahead, I felt that somehow I was being disrespectful standing near the corpses of these poor, long gone souls, so I left the room, and stood face-to-face with the room I’ve been dreading since I’ve seen it coming into this hallway, the supply closet.

As you’d expect, a thousand things began running through my mind yet again.

‘THIS WAS IT.’, was what popped up the most. Even the more logical side of me agreed that this room would be different from all the other areas in this place that gave me fear. This was the room that has tormented the captives and captors who entered it nearly 50 years ago. This was the room that held something that had, at the end of Annabelle’s recollection in the journal, made noise and physically moved around in.

Was it an animal that somehow found it was in there? What about the bulge? Was there EVEN a bulge? Some of Annabelle’s writing was crazed in some areas like I’ve explained. It wouldn’t be surprising if she and the other’s believed they saw something and heard things, being trapped down here for so long. Was it drugs?

‘Enough questioning, get to the answers!’

With that latest thought in my mind, I took one big breath, and slowly exhaled, griping my knife, which I had out for so long in my right hand, feeling practically fused with my hand sweating from holding it for so long. Lastly, I got out my phone out (still no service) to check the time, been in this tunnel for an hour and a half.

Let’s do this.

Like with the other doors, I pushed it with minimal effect, and much like the others, it had that same, slow creak will moving. I stepped in.

At first, I couldn’t make out anything because just as soon as I went in, the batteries began to drain. It didn’t surprise me, seeing that I had them on for more than 90 minutes, but I did begin to worry if it’ll stay on long enough for me to finish up and leave without having to stumble in complete darkness.

Thou the vision from the goggles was being to fade, I did see into the room. There were about 5 shelves on the wall opposite me, with some boxes and bottles. Due to what I’ve seen from the previous rooms, I first looked to the left, and seeing nothing asides from some more boxes, some being knock over and even crushed.

I took about 2 more steps into the room, nearly expecting to hear or see something. Looking at the wall to the left, I really began to suspect that even if the tunnel was natural, the rooms weren’t. Thinking back, the walls were too straight, and the dimensions as a whole didn’t match what I’ve seen in previous caves (Visited the Carlsbad’s caverns in New Mexico one time with my family in the summer of 2001). But just when I was nearly done thinking that, my right foot hit something on the ground that I missed with the now failing night goggles, causing me to jump back.

Looking immediately down, I saw ANOTHER blacken corpse, on its stomach right in front of me.

Like the three prior, it too was missing its head, but of course there were differences.

The first being that this one was cut cleanly in half, through the right shoulder, chest, and through the lower left side.

What the hell could’ve down that?

The other thing that was noticeable was that it belonged to a very overweight individual.

No…it can’t be. But looking at the white suit, I knew it was Mr. McGee himself.

But why, who could’ve-

I heard the noise again.

It was still barely audible and faint, but being closer to it, my heart sank as I realized what it was.

Mumbling.

Like if someone was trying to tell you something, but couldn’t pronounce the words properly. But it was so faint, it was like someone was trying to whisper right to you from the other side of the room.

As childish as it sound, I shut my eyes at that point. I was being to fear that the voices were in my head, and if I heard them clearly, it would be the voices of my long dead parents and brother.

It’s all in your head, it’s all in your head, it’s all in your fucking head!

But it wasn’t

By focusing my hearing and calming myself down slightly, the voices (I couldn’t tell the sex, but I knew it was more than one) were outside my thoughts.

They were physical, they were real, and it didn’t long to figure out where it was coming from.

I knew that if I opened my eyes, looked up, away from the corpse of MG, at the right hand corner, I’d see what was making the noise.

Like a child I didn’t want to at first, I wanted my eyes to stay completely shut, and wanted to turn around, and get out. But I had to, I had to know. I know it was crazy, but I needed to know! And I promised myself on last time I could handle anything down here.

So I opened my eyes, and caught sight of what was on the bottom self at the corner, and I froze completely.

I’m no horror fan by any means, there some stories and some films I like. I don’t scare easy, I’m cautious mind you, but being an adult, the fears that once plagued you as children go away as you mature and grow. There things that still creep me out, but I could sit through practically any horror film and not be scared once. Granted films like Texas Chainsaw, Exorcist, and even The Shining came close, but they were movies, going into them, you knew they were fake, even the ‘based on true story’ ones.

But what I was staring at on the shelf, right above ANOTHER blacken corpse, was really there. It took me a minute to finally accept what I was looking at, not only because of the horror of the macabre, sickening site before me, but also because it took me that long to finally accept that what I was seeing was real.

What I saw, looking up from the corpse of MG, at the corner on the bottom self, were 6 heads, but they were…alive.

The head to the furthest left was blackened dead, like the corpses I’ve seen prior, but the other weren’t

It was them; it was the heads of the corpses I’ve seen!

While I only saw 5 corpses, I didn’t even thought of were the other one was, or cared. I was beyond in shook, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even breathe.

The way they were moving and the expressions on their faces suggested that they stilled felt the pain of being decapitated these decades past.

They were aged, not in that they looked old, they still had their youthful features to them, but like objects that had been abandoned and left undisturbed for decades, they were darkened with what I could only guess was a mixture of dried blood and mold.

Looking at them, I could hear their jaw movements; it cracked while sounding wet at the same time. They had lines of spit coming out of their mouths, with some trails of it being clearly dry.

They also looked like they haven’t slept PERIOD since being decapitated. Judging by the darken areas under their eyes.

They were trying to speak, despite how much it pained them. They were looking right AT me, trying to tell me something.

Some were trying to scream it out; other’s tried to actually take their time with their ‘words’

I still stood there paralyzed, I was beyond confused. Grasping it was madding enough, understanding was beyond reason.

They weren’t even hooked to anything, no wires, and tubes, nothing on the self near them, thou it was clear that who or at that point, WHAT put them there made sure they couldn’t fall off.

A million things were running through my mind, and I TRIED to calm myself down, but how the fuck could I with what I was seeing right in front of me?!

Then I heard one word from the middle head, one word from the head of whose journal I’ve recently read through, the thing that used to be Annabelle said, thou still faint, said:

‘Ruuuun…’

That one, drawn out word, was what snapped me out of my paralysis. Not because it was the only word I could understand from the still somehow alive heads, but because I knew right then and there, after she said it, the thing that was responsible for this sick, maddening twisted scene, was right behind me.

I gripped the knife, not knowing that even with it I could fight off something capable of what was still trying to speak at the corner, and turned around slowly.

How I could’ve missed something so big in that room entering it still baffles me.

It was big, had it not been hunched down looking at me, it probably would’ve been 7ft tall.

It had no facial features, no mouth, no nose, just huge, pale white valley ball sized eyes, bulging at the sides of its ‘face, like that of a fly, although I saw no pupils to speak of.

It only had one long arm to its left; it was kept to its side away the doorway, probably so that I wouldn’t notice it when I came in. It ended with what I could only guess was a dark, metal rod. The other arm was missing, I couldn’t tell it was taken off long ago, or that it was born or created like that.

On its upper back, reaching up almost to the roots on the ceiling was what I could only describe as a wing, curving upwards in the middle, and coming down in a steeper angle, like a scythe.

It had a humanoid figure, but it wasn’t human, the proportions were all wrong to be, and despite its size, it was skinnier than me, not like Slender Man, but something else entirely. It looked old, REALLY old, maybe not as old as those Egyptian mummies, but it didn’t look that much younger either. It had bumps and what I could only describe as ‘grooves’ going down its, wing/tail?, arm, body and legs, which were outwards curved down, kinda like a cowboy walking, although minus the humanness of it.

Finally, based on how the light from my now-dying night vision goggles seemed the go ‘into it’; it seemed to be the same color as the shade of green that my goggles projected as my sight.

I was again petrified, but somehow, despite the terror, I managed to actually speak out.

“What are you?”

At first, silence, it stood perfectly still looking down upon me. I was beginning to wonder if it even understood me, or was even alive. But sure enough, it spoke, how and where I couldn’t and still can’t figure out to this day, out loud and clear.

“An angel”

Perfectly…in my mother’s voice.

I dropped the knife.

I froze again, near the verge of tears. Whether it was because it was all too much to take, the heads, the fucking thing right in front of me that spoke in my long dead mother’s voice, even saying those words that I haven’t heard since 97, perfectly! In the same calm tone no less! It might have been all. But whatever reason, whatever fucked up and macabre reason that plagued me, I couldn’t move until I saw its wing move upward slowly.

I knew what it was going to do, and I knew then what I had to do.

Somehow, maybe God, maybe my past loved ones, maybe even the Devil himself snapped me out of my paralysis, so that I wouldn’t end up the same way as those poor souls behind me trying their best to scream from what I could faintly hear behind me.

Spiritual or not, something gave a kick to my reflexes, and I immediately ran, ducking low, directly towards the door, and when I was just 3 feet away, I launched myself right through it.

As soon as I did, I heard the wing come down, and thanking myself later that I was ducking low while running, I learned that it WAS a scythe of sorts. I heard it cut right through the open door like it was nothing, and barely out, it cut my back, down from my left shoulder to the center of my back.

The cut wasn’t deep, but the pain immediately after was incredible. Worse than what I felt with my foot nearly two hours before, it was white hot blinding.

It was thin, like a paper cut. The reason why those hurt so much was because they can damage you on a cellular level, only this one felt even thinner and hurt 100 times worse. I truly believed (and the doctors would confirm later on) that it damaged my nerve cell round my spine, because I was moving in places that I weren’t trying to move. Asides from that, the split second the blade or whatever was in me, I felt one side was warm, while the other was cold

Just move forward.

I heard that thing maneuvering its way out of the doorway, I tried to run, but I slipped on one of those bullet shells, landing right on my stomach, sending my night vision goggle flying right off my face. It broke on impact with the wooden floor; I saw the lights on it got out.

Shit!

STOMP.

The thing had finally gotten into the hallway; it was heavier than me, from the sound of the wooden boards creaking under its feet. I didn’t know if it could see in the dark, but I didn’t care to find out. Despite my movements being uncontrollable due to that damn cut, I managed to crawl.

‘Just keep moving forward, you can’t see shit, but you know where to go.’

I started moving forward the best and as fast as I could, I knew that thing was right behind me-

“You damn right boy”

It spoke in a gruff male voice that I didn’t recognize, but I knew who it belonged to, it was my father’s.

I sped up; I finally came in contact with my busted goggles. I doubted throwing it at that thing slowly coming from behind would do jack shit, so I pushed it aside and kept going.

WHAM!

My head came right into contact with what I believed to be the wall right next to Annabelle’s room, I was heading left.

‘Gotta move righ-‘

My thoughts were interrupted by agonizing pain coming from my left lower leg. The thing has stabbed me with the metal rod for a hand, and started pulling me back with slow ease. Just as it was pulling me back, I felt a sucking sensation.

It was sucking my blood!

Somehow, I kicked with my other leg, and managed to get out of its grip, though I think it might’ve took out iis needle out of enjoyment over my feeble attempts to escape, I can’t be sure.

A scythe AND a sucking needle, what the-

“-Hell Joseph?” My brother’s voice coming from behind calmly said.

It can-

“-Read minds? Yes.” This time my mother spoke again.

RUN

“Run faster…”

Shut up coach.

“Slow down son, You can’t leave”

Shut up Grandpa.

I just kept speaking in the voices of people I knew, Family, former teachers, classmates, even those hicks from the gas station joined in.

It was mocking me, reading my thoughts……no, it was reading my FEARS!

How I guessed that I’ll never know, but it was the best guess I ever made in my life. Whenever I stopped thinking about the things that were scaring me, the thing was silent. It was only when I THOUGHT of something that scared me would it speak up in voice(s) that’ll enhance it.

‘Just move, get out.’

I was still crawling.

‘Move.’

Was getting tired at the point, wanted to curl up in a ball and cry.

‘FUCKING GET OUT NOW!’

The moment that last thought was done, my head hit the front door, how’d it closed on its own I never know or care.

Despite my movements still being jacked up, despite the pain, despite the fact that I could hear that thing coming closer, I stood up and was damn well lucky enough to find the knob.

I pushed it open as hard as I could and as soon as I was out, I slammed it shut, right as that thing was close.

Despite the trembling, I found the lock in the dark above the knob (the same switch locks most people have), and locked the front down.

Backing away slowly, still not being able to see shit, I heard that thing stop just on the other side.

Whether it didn’t know how to get through the door (considering it can just smash through it, it would’ve been a stupid reason), or it was waiting for me to drop my guard. Whatever the reason, it just stood there on the other side.

Not even bothering to try to understand its game, I turned around, and was stuck with awe, as I saw the light coming down from above, looking brighter than it ever did.

I was close to freedom.

I began to rush towards the ladder when-

TAP TAP TAP

It was knocking on the other side with its metal needle for a hand. What the fuck?

It tapped 3 more times.

I was near the ladder, just inches from gripping the bars that’ll lead to heave-

CRASH

It smashed through the door.

I didn’t even bother to look.

I grabbed those bars, and with all my strength, climbed towards the light.

OUT… I was finally out.

I wanted to laugh, I wanted to cry, but there’s one thing I had to do.

I turned around and slammed that metal door shut, and with the last ounce of strength in my arms, pushed the lock in.

The moment I was done, the silence that was there when I opened that damned door 2 hours ago was lifted. The birds started to fly and chirp again, I heard the water from the stream, even the breeze came back.

Had I haven’t been so injured and exhausted; I’d been jumping up and down with joy.

I was alive, I made it, and I’m free.

I began to think of what to do next. I remembered that I had some welding equipment in the back that I was intending to selling in Vegas, so I had one last thing to do before leaving.

Those poor people, even MG didn’t deserve that kind of hell. I hope that someday that thing will get wh-

TAP TAP TAP

The silence came back.

No…

TAP TAP TAP

It climbed the lad-

An explosion of metal and ground interrupted my thoughts, and I just ran.

‘The key’s, where the fuck are my-‘

“Joseph.”

Got them out.

“Come on Joseph”

Running to my car, I spotted the reflection of the thing.

“Don’t Leave”

“Shut up mom”

I started the vehicle, and turning round as fast as possible with my oversized van, and drove onto the dirt road, back to the main road.

I spotted something when I glazed up at my rear view mirror. It wasn’t that monster, it was something else. Something that’ll made me snap and drive faster, something that caused me to be in a state of shock near brain dead, with only one thing on my mind and my only piece of consciousness up until I awoke in the hospital.

GET AWAY, DRIVE, JUST GET AWAY!

It was a blur after that, with only pictures in my mind of some things. Driving through the woods, speeding up, flying through the sky as I hit that step exit that was previously hidden, Flying next to a car with people stomping in the gas to avoid hitting me, crashing into a ditch, cursing from outside, flashing light, just light.

I would awake the next day round 11am in a hospital bed, not going to say which town for personal reasons.

The crash broke two of my ribs and bruised my right arm something fierce, thankfully I had insurance to cover it. Since I had no drugs or alcohol in my system, they questioned my for an hour on what drove me to fly out of the woods like a maniac, as well as my other injuries, the broken toe, hole in my lower left leg with some flesh missing, and the extremely thin cut on my back. I told them that I wanted to find a short cut through the mountains, and found an old dirt road, but I reached the end which lead to a cliff, I was suddenly attacked by a huge man with a scythe, the hole in my leg I explained that I got shot by one of his buddies, and I took the bullet out myself.

They knew there was more to it than that, but they didn’t bug me and let me rest. They didn’t have any trouble fixing me up, asides from that scratch that baffled them to no end, which had completely dead nerve cells on one side, and “rejuvenated ones’ on the other. They told me they could only stitch it up, and that I couldn’t move my back in certain ways anymore. They questioned me again about the weapon the guy used, because they found it hard to believe there was a blade that was sharper and thinner than a scalpel.

They contacted the authorities to search that area for the ‘scythe swinging maniac’, especially since no one’s supposed to been living in those parts. I told them that if they were going there, they better bring big guns.

I know, I know, but what else was I supposed to tell them? Half of what I said was technically correct, and as dumb as it sounds, I figured they had much of a chance at taking care of that thing they I ever could.

You all might have a million questions, but I can only give a few answer I’m afraid.

They discharged me the next day. The cut on my back will hinder my movements from now on, so it’ll take a while getting used to they told me. They were nice enough to get a cab for me to go to my vehicle.

The front was banged up pretty bad, and the windows in the front were broken, but using the money I originally intended to gamble away in Vegas, I got it fixed up pretty good.

With only enough to get back home on, I gave up on going to Las Vegas, just wasn’t worth it with all that’s happened to me.

Even though I was supposed to work more hours, my boss told me to take two more weeks off due to what happened, even paid me for it.

My life as of now is about the same, still a mechanic, still by myself. Although with this cut on my back that will never heal, it’s harder to do heavy lifting or stretching.

I never go into a dark room with finding the light switch first, I bought me a shot gun, which I hang, depending where I’m at in my house, in either the living room or over my bed.

I never bothered to do research on those people, which may disappoint some of y’all. But seeing what’s become of them, I felt I knew enough.

I do feel guilty over what happened 3 months ago, Though I keep telling myself you couldn’t help them, there’s a small part of me that feels I could’ve down more, even thou its clear I couldn’t.

Recollecting on what happened to me, telling you all my experiences and my background as I’m typing this. There’s one thing that I brought up in the beginning that I’ll end this story on.

I mentioned that what I’ve heard from my mother that one night was the closest to explain the thing that I’ve encountered, and the reason I think that is not what you think.

I have thought and speculated on what it was, but only two things come to mind; alien or demon.

I refuse to believe that what I’ve encountered, or what even my mom encountered in her college days, was what she thought see saw. While I didn’t go to church anymore, I still remember a few things.

Angels and spirits are essentially the same, beings that exist outside the physical realm. That thing (which I’ll call The Green Reaper for your amusement, and I need to name it something, as much as I don’t like thinking about it) was physical.

It may have been able to read my fears, it may have a way to keep its victims head alive and as trophies, it may be huge and strong. But there’s no way it could be connected to anything human, scientific or spiritual wise.

Right?

Though I can’t help but wonder sometimes, did mom encounter something like that? I have thought of continuing what I and my brother wanted to do for years, and find out what I can, though a part of me still thinks I should just leave it be.

I have been keeping track the best I could of the news in that area in case anything comes up that could relate to what I’ve released upon the world. I try to tell myself that you can’t blame yourself for what happened, but I did let it out.

I supposed it's best to stop dragging out my guilt on this post and leave you all on a final note of what I saw in the mirror that made me temporally snap before driving away from that forsaken place.

Instead of the monstrosity I saw down there in that tunnel, it was my mother. She looked just as she did in 97, in a white robe, complete with angel wings. She had no mouth or nose, just wide, pale white eyes.

She waved at me.

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