I’ve lived in this house for years now. I thought I knew everything about it, until recently at least. Now I don’t know what to think at all.
It all started two days ago. I’d been doing some renovation work in our garden. Our house is at the top of a hill so our garden is on a bit of a slope. In itself, that isn’t an issue, but since having kids it’s been a bit of a hazard to them.
We don’t want them to fall from the top and hurt themselves as they roll down, plus it’s hard for them to play when everything rolls away from them. So I’d resolved to flatten it into two levels. They could play outside to their heart’s content without fear of tripping and rolling all the way to the bottom of the garden.
I knew it was a big undertaking, our garden wasn’t exactly small, but if it was for my kids’ happiness then it would be worth it. Shovel in hand, and fueled by a sense of determination, I started the backbreaking work of moving the soil. I put on my favourite podcast and got to work.
It was taxing, and my muscles ached. Periodically I would check the time on my phone, expecting hours to have passed, only to find it had been 10 minutes since I last checked. It didn’t help that we were in a heatwave either, the harsh rays of the sun battering my back and shoulders as I moved shovel after shovel of earth.
I was tired, sore and thirsty but I was happy with the progress I was making, it was finally beginning to take shape. I was making great progress and the majority of the garden was getting flatter. It was all looking good. I stopped for a while, allowing myself to have a small break and a snack, admiring my work.
Pleased with my progress and slightly more rested, I pressed on, eager to complete as much of my labour as possible before the sunset. As I drove my shovel into a large mound of soil in front of me, the tip stopped dead with a dull, muffled thunk.
Not another rock, I thought to myself, irritated. The soil in the garden had been full of them, small things but embedded firmly into the soil. They broke apart easily enough after you hit them a few times but sometimes it was easier to just dig underneath them and rip them out. Aiming my shovel slightly lower, I forced it into the earth again.
I was met with the same resistance and dull thunking sound as before. It was an odd sound, almost a hollow echo but it was very dull. I was confused now, this couldn’t be a rock, it had to be over a foot long. It didn’t sound like the clanging of metal on rock that I’d heard several times already today, it was more of a wooden sound if anything.
Then a thought struck me. I wonder if there was something buried, a time capsule or lockbox or something. The house was old so one of the previous owners may have left a cache of something buried for safekeeping. Then again, it could just be nothing, a plank of wood or something similar, trapped for aeons under the earth.
Excitedly, I began to move what dirt I could, trying to bring into view the item that had halted my progress. I imagined a chest, with cast iron bindings, like in the stories about pirates and knights. As the earth began to fall away, with each shovelful I removed I could see the top of what looked like a large, flat piece of wood. Excitement welled up in me.
It was thick, like oak, stained a dark brown colour by the slick mud that covered its surface. Tapping the shovel against this exposed surface I could hear that same hollow sound, less muffled this time.
Frantically clearing the remaining soil away I was met with the most peculiar sight. My excitement immediately vanished, replaced by a sense of hesitancy. The obstacle that had blocked my progress was….a door?
A small, ornate wooden door, about three feet tall and two feet wide. It was thick, made from oak as I’d suspected before, bound in iron. It looked heavy, despite its small size. Adorning its front were strange carvings, odd patterns that seemed to have no rhyme or reason to them. The craftsmanship was amazing.
It looked antique. What the hell was it doing buried in my garden? It must have been here for ages, I’d had to move a lot of soil to get down to it. The strange thing about it, I thought to myself, was that it still looked pristine. Other than the staining from the mud it was immaculate, there were no signs of rot or damage anywhere on its decorated surface.
Gently rapping my knuckles against it, it produced a loud echo, as though knocking on the door of some large Manor house, buried halfway into the ground. There was obviously some kind of empty space behind it.
It’s strange. When I looked at the door it was almost like I could hear something muffled behind it. Like an odd chittering sound, something like a bat but deeper, larger. It sounded distant, far away. Just what the hell was behind this door?
Driven by morbid curiosity, I reached for the ornate, iron handle of the door, needing to see what was on the other side. As my hand reached towards the handle, a warning tingle of unease tugged at the back of my mind. I shook this off, my hand clasping around the cold wet iron. And, with great effort, I heaved the small door open.
I was nearly knocked off my feet, the stench that hit me when the door opened was like nothing I’d experienced before. It smelled as though I’d opened the lid of a dumpster that had been left sealed for decades. The smell of rot was strong, as though it had been fermenting down here. I turned away retching.
Covering my nose to avoid the stench, I could now see clearly what lay behind the door. It was a tunnel. A very old, narrow tunnel lined with thick, grey bricks of odd sizes. It narrowed to the point where I speculated I would only be able to fit my head and shoulders through.
What the hell was this? There was a tunnel in my back garden. I don’t remember any records showing this on the surveys that were done before we bought the house. It should just be plain earth for miles. I wonder how long this has been here for.
I glanced back at the tunnel. Something about that gaping maw made my stomach churn. I’m not sure if it was the smell or if it was the way that it seemed to swallow the light like the mouth of some horrific nightmare. It made me feel claustrophobic just looking at it, that nagging unease in the back of my brain was getting stronger and stronger. As though the primal part of my brain was screaming at me to get away.
My eyes flicked over something that made the hairs on my neck stand on end. Lining the wall of the tunnel in several places were thin, deep slashes, carved in the brick all over. Grouped in threes they looked as though they’d been made by especially long, sharp claws grating against the solid stone with some force. The sense of unease was growing even stronger now as I noticed that the claw marks seemed to be more abundant at this end of the tunnel, where the closed door would have sat.
With a growing fear, I leaned around the door, inspecting the back of the thick oaken barrier. It looked like whatever had made the marks on the tunnel walls had been violently attacking the back of the door. There was a deep depression in the centre, where the wood had been ripped away. I shuddered, thinking about what could have done that, images of a horrific monster viciously trying to dig its way out filled my mind.
As I was staring, mortified, at the back of the door, I was acutely aware of how dark it was getting. The sun was beginning to set beneath the hills behind me, making the near-impenetrable darkness of the tunnel feel even more oppressive.
With a knot in my stomach, I also realised just how quiet it was. Our house was on a hill that backed out over a small patch of wasteland separating us from the nearby builder’s yard. There were all sorts of creatures that lived in that overgrowth so the air was always full of the sounds of animals…..except for right now. It was silent as the grave, there were no sounds to be heard.
My ears pricked as I heard that same chittering sound I’d heard before. It seemed to be coming from deeper in the tunnel, accompanied by an odd tapping sound that I hadn’t heard last time. It was like tiny nails being dropped on a patio slab.
The nagging sense of unease now turned to that of unmistakable fear as I realised that whatever was making that chittering and tapping sound was most likely the same thing that had torn away at the back of the door. Panic gripped me as I got to my feet and forced the heavy wooden door closed again, all the while that chittering was getting louder and louder.
I ran to the house, not wanting to find out the cause of that terrible chittering. Slamming the door and locking it, my wife, who was making our dinner in the kitchen, looked at me with concern. I explained what I’d discovered out in the dirt, the door with its claw marks, the tunnel, the nauseating stench and the unnerving chittering.
She looked at me with a mix of concern but also confusion. She couldn’t remember anything to do with a door or tunnel being present in anything we’d seen related to the house either. She assumed it must have been some kind of maintenance pipe or something similar that had not been used for years, something that had not seen use and had been forgotten. She looked me in the eyes before saying in a sympathetic voice that I should probably not worry about it, that the heat had probably baked my brain a little so I was hearing things. I had been out there all day after all.
Now that I was safely within the confines of my own home, the toll of everything that occurred crashed down on me. I ached from digging in the garden and I was exhausted from the fear that I’d felt looking at that tunnel. I sat down in our living room, putting a movie on the TV to help me relax and within minutes the darkness of sleep fell over me.
I don’t know how long it had been but when I awoke it was still dark. It took me a minute to come to my senses but when I was able to identify my surroundings I found I was still on the sofa covered in a blanket that had not been there when I drifted off. My wife must have seen me sleeping and left me there, turning the TV off and covering me so I didn’t get cold.
The house was silent in the darkness, but I still felt an odd sense of unease as I looked around, unable to place exactly what it was. Just as I went to stand up and make my way upstairs to bed, there was an awful sound which pierced my ears. My head snapped to the back door. It seemed to be emanating from the outside.
Shakily, I made my way over to the kitchen, all the while that growing sense of unease gnawing at me, telling me to just leave it and go back to bed. Looking out of the kitchen window, I couldn’t make out much. The garden was only partially illuminated by the moonlight before turning to utter blackness where the boundary met the overgrowth.
I could see the mounds of earth that I’d moved earlier in the day, the shed where I kept my tools. I could see the patch where the tunnel was as well, it was like it had a hypnotic effect on me, and my eyes seemed to be drawn to it. As I stood there staring at it a chill ran down my spine. It didn’t look the way I’d left it. Although I couldn’t see it clearly from here I could just make out the top of the heavy wooden door protruding away from the tunnel over the mound of dirt that separated it from the house.
How the hell had that opened? I made sure it was shut before I ran back into the house. Then another wave of fear hit me as I thought about the claw marks on the back of the door. Had whatever made them manage to get the door open?
Just as these thoughts were whirling around in my mind, I was snapped back to reality by that sound I’d heard in the living room. I could hear it more clearly now, it seemed to be getting closer. It sounded almost like a wounded scream, like some kind of animal in pain. It seemed to be coming from the overgrowth behind the garden.
I tried to focus on the overgrowth, to see if I could make out whatever was making that chilling sound. As my eyes began to adjust, I could just about make out movement of the weeds, before something burst through the border. I jumped back, startled, attempting to determine exactly what it was.
It took me a few seconds to make it out, but the thing bursting from the overgrowth appeared to be a deer. It wasn’t the majestic kind of deer that you see in the documentaries, this one looked haggard and bloody, as though it had been attacked by something vicious. It was being dragged by its hind legs through my garden by something that I couldn’t make out. The deer let out another pained scream, its eyes darting wildly around as whatever was dragging it pulled it closer and closer towards the maw of the tunnel. I could hear another sound now too, that same chittering that I’d heard earlier, louder than ever.
I was horrified, but I couldn’t take my eyes away. I watched, frozen in terror, as the deer was pulled into the gaping tunnel. It seemed to stop suddenly, as though it was slightly too big to fit through that small hole. It was thrashing frantically, trying to pull itself away, to free itself from whatever had hold of its back legs. As it was about to let out another scream, the air was filled with a sickening snapping noise and it shot down into the tunnel, disappearing into the abyss.
I couldn’t help standing there, slack-jawed, mortified by what I’d just witnessed. Then the final test of my sanity came as I saw something exiting the nightmarish tunnel. It was hard to see, but I could make out small, spindly, long-clawed fingers wrapping themselves around the top of the door.
They looked dead and grey, emaciated, as they slithered their way over the thick wood and began to pull it shut. As soon as the door closed, the horrific chittering seemed to quiet down with it, as though whatever that was had descended further into the tunnel.
I couldn’t sleep after that, I just stood there, staring. What the hell had I seen? That poor deer. What had dragged it into the tunnel? I couldn’t get the image of those spindly fingers out of my mind.
My wife found me in the kitchen the next morning, still rooted to the same spot, shivering while blankly staring out of the window. She sat me down in the living room and made me a hot drink to calm my nerves. I shakily sipped at it absentmindedly while relaying the tale of what I’d seen that night.
Once I’d finished my wife tried to comfort me, offering suggestions as to what I’d seen. I could tell from her tone that she didn’t believe me. She thought I’d had a vivid dream, that was all. Had I dreamt the entire thing? I couldn’t have, it seemed so real.
I asked her if she’d heard the deer screaming, almost pleading in the hopes that she’d heard it too, that I wasn’t going crazy. It was so loud that she must have heard it, you’d remember a sound like that. To my dismay, she shook her head and said she’d not heard anything last night. I was dumbfounded.
For the rest of the day, I mulled over what I’d seen last night in my mind, refusing to accept that it was a dream. It couldn’t have been. Then, like a bolt of lightning, an idea came to me.
Quickly rushing upstairs to my children’s room, I found their remote control car and their video baby monitor. Grabbing them, I ran back downstairs and dug out a flashlight and some duct tape from the kitchen. I strapped the baby monitor and flashlight to the remote control car, the camera facing forward.
I couldn’t fit down that small tunnel, but I didn’t need to fit, I could use this instead. I could see what was down there and prove to myself that I wasn’t losing it, if I wasn’t crazy the deer would still be down there, along with whatever else was dragging it.
I made my way out into the garden, now illuminated by the morning sunlight. The door stood closed, my eyes drawn to the place where I had seen those terrifying spindly fingers the night before. The door was firmly back in place, the same as I’d left it the night before.
That noxious stench filled my lungs again as I forced the door back open to reveal the dark abyss that it concealed. A chill ran down my spine as I remembered the deer, frantically attempting to pull itself free from whatever was dragging it. I could see scuff marks in the dirt in front of the tunnel and fresh dragging marks leading further in.
I set the car down at the entrance to the tunnel, then loaded the baby monitor app on my phone. The screen sprang into life, showing me the same gaping darkness that I could see in front of me. Clicking the flashlight on, the tunnel illuminated slightly, but I was still unable to see the end from the camera.
With a deep breath and a feeling of apprehension, I commanded the car to move forward with the control, all the while keeping a constant eye on the feed to my phone. I watched tentatively as the car moved further and further into the tunnel before eventually disappearing from sight.
Looking at the screen I could see the same brick walls, all containing several claw marks, just like the brick near the entrance. I held my breath as the car continued onwards. It seemed to carry on for ages, going further and further down into this strange, black tunnel.
The feed started to become distorted slightly as the car continued, pushing the end of its range. I don’t know how far it had gone, but suddenly the feed seemed to move frantically, showing spinning images from inside the tunnel. It took me a moment to realise that the car must have fallen down a hole in the bricks.
Taking a second to orient myself with the images I was seeing in the feed, I could make out some kind of black, resin-looking substance covering what I assumed was the walls and ceiling. It didn’t look like a natural substance, it looked almost weblike, coating everything I could see.
As I squinted at the distorted feed, I could see things poking out of it, strange, pale white protrusions, hanging down from the ceiling. There were several of them, in a long line, like a gnarled skeletal hand spreading its fingers wide.
There was a brief moment of clarity in the feed, the image coming through stronger and clearer and I could now clearly see what was in front of my makeshift camera. I was horrified at the sight before me, my blood ran cold.
Those stalactites hanging from what I thought was the ceiling, were actually a skeletal rib cage. As the car had fallen, it must have landed upside down, I couldn’t tell because of the interference. Looking at the ribs they seemed to have been picked clean, a shining white in that sea of black webbing. I could make out something else at the other end too, it looked like it could possibly be an antler.
As I leaned in closer to my phone to get a better look, the feed cut off suddenly, leaving only the reflection of my face on the now-dark screen of the phone. A message “unable to connect” flashed on the screen.
Then I felt my legs go numb as a sound emanated from inside the tunnel. That chittering, scraping noise that I’d heard before, and it was getting louder. That primal fear emerged in my brain again. I couldn’t let whatever this thing was get out. If it could drag a deer back to its lair it could certainly drag me, my wife or my kids down there.
Terrified for my family’s safety, I did the only thing I could think to do. I threw my weight against the old wooden door, slamming it as hard as I could into the hole. All the while I could hear the chittering and tapping echoing around the walls of the tunnel, getting ever closer.
I grabbed my shovel that I’d left in a mound of soil nearby and began to hurl the earth at the door as quickly as I could. I don’t know how long I was there for, reburying the door and its malevolent contents. I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings. I wasn’t paying attention to anything other than making sure there was enough earth between me and that thing that it would never be able to get out.
I could still hear the chittering, coming from below the mound of dirt as well as a soft thud, as though something had slammed into that ornate door at full speed. They were muffled, but I could still hear them.
By the time my wife came out to check on me and my progress in the garden, I’d covered the thing in a mound taller than myself, taking soil from other areas of the garden to add to my makeshift barrier.
When she asked what I was doing, confused and slightly annoyed, I explained about the baby monitor and what I’d seen on the feed. Much to my dismay, she rolled her eyes as though I was making it up. She turned and walked back into the house, yelling over her shoulder that she was going to get a professional in.
I didn’t care to be honest, all I cared about was making sure that whatever was down there never saw the light of day. A slight sense of relief washed over me as I gazed upon the mound I’d made. There was no way it was getting out of that.
Try as I might over the next few days I couldn’t shake thoughts about the door from my mind. I still had no idea what was down there, I didn’t think I wanted to know. But there was a part of me, the curious part, that wished I’d had some kind of explanation.
I couldn’t talk to my wife about it, she seemed annoyed at the entire thing, thinking that I was suffering from some kind of delusion or heat-related sickness that was making me hallucinate. While it was odd that she hadn’t seen or heard any of the noises, I was convinced what I’d seen was real, it was too vivid to be a hallucination.
What’s worse is that I swear that for the last two nights, I’ve heard a strange scraping noise coming from the floors downstairs. It sounds muffled, but unmistakably like something sharp being dragged along stone. Sometimes I swear I can hear that same horrible chittering too, getting closer each night.
I don’t know what to think anymore. Am I going mad?