I wasn’t supposed to be driving that night. Pat was our designated driver, but they forgot about halfway through the night and started drinking heavily. I, having nursed the same cocktail up until I saw them getting red in the face and wobbly, knew my libations were over with then and there, and that their responsibility was now mine. I was annoyed, but since I hadn’t intended on getting shit-faced that evening, I suppose Pat thought sobriety was wasted on them and figured I’d all but offered to take their place.
In any case, once the night was done, I helped Pat and our other friends, Cynthia and James, into the car and slipped into the driver’s seat. Pat was mumbling something about what a great friend I was and got nothing but daggers from me in return. The other two passed out before they even buckled up, forcing me to lean over them like a mother to secure them in place. Was I this bad when I drank?
Another flash of annoyance hit me. They could all sleep soundly, leaving me alone, having to stay alert and awake to play taxi for them. What’s more, I wasn’t so keen on driving specifically Pat home. See, there’s this tunnel between their house and center town. And, while it’s just an ordinary tunnel as far as everyone else is concerned, I can’t stand it. It makes my skin crawl because of something that happened when I was a kid. Honestly, it scares the shit out of me. I usually take a different route just so I can avoid it, but doing so adds an hour to the trip, and at 2 in the morning in a car that stank of crusted puke, I made the mistake of picking the tunnel.
I want to be clear that when I said the tunnel scared me, I could never have predicted what happened that night. When I was a kid, my brother told me the tunnel was the mouth of a giant and the only way to survive was to hold my breath the whole way through. Stupid, in hindsight, but kids believe the weirdest superstitions. So, I held my breath until I couldn’t – until the world was almost nothing but darkness with a few small spots of light – and then I let in the faintest of inhales and heard a shriek coming from the other end of the tunnel. I was convinced I’d made the giant aware of me, and now we were going to die. Can you imagine? Experiencing the genuine, honest-to-goodness fear of death at that age?
Now, of course, since I’m writing this, I didn’t die in the belly of a monster. Instead, I hyperventilated with my hands slapped over my mouth, bracing myself for the worst, until we came upon a wreck. Someone had lost control of their vehicle and had driven right into the tunnel wall. That was the sound that I’d heard. I didn’t see a simple accident, though. Through the lens of a child’s imagination, I saw the twisted metal as a car gnashed by the teeth of the giant. I saw the accident as somehow being my fault. All because I took a breath. I never wanted to go through that tunnel again after that. And if I had to, I held my breath the entire time just in case. As I got older, that fear morphed into avoidance of the tunnel.
Which leads us to this story – to me pulling up along the side of the road near the mouth of the tunnel with my three friends passed out in the passenger seats. I think I was more anxious than scared. Something about the way the wind moved through the entrance put me on-edge. I could hear the howl even with the windows rolled up. I figured I’d wait for another car to drive in first. It felt a little silly, but you know what they say: safety in numbers.
It wasn’t long before a little Corolla passed me and was engulfed in the darkness. I hit the gas and followed behind, trying not to be too creepy about it. It was nice to see the taillights blazing the trail in front of me. I followed it to about the halfway point of the tunnel – to the point where I used to start struggling to hold my breath. I could feel myself unintentionally holding it now. So far, it was going fine, and I even started to relax a little.
It was the calm before the storm.
Suddenly, something weird happened. The car in front of began to shrink, as though it had violently sped up. I accelerated to give chase, not wanting to lose its light, but no matter how fast I went, the distance between us only grew. I couldn’t hear the revving of its engine and I couldn’t understand why or how it was going so fast so quietly. It kept shrinking, illuminating what seemed like ever-encroaching tunnel walls. I would have stopped and turned around if I wasn’t sure it was only an optical illusion. Likewise, I would have turned around if I’d realized I should have been long out of the tunnel by then. Sometimes, you miss the forest for the trees, and that Corolla was my tree.
By the time the Corolla became a blip on the horizon, I realized I was white knuckling the steering wheel. I stopped focusing on my convoy partner, slowed, and took in the surroundings. Where was the left lane? Gone, I realized. I was tucked between narrow tunnel walls with the roof so low, if I’d been driving a van, the top would’ve scraped against it. My first thought was that I’d somehow veered into a maintenance tunnel, and I was lucky I hadn’t scratched Pat’s car in the process. And then I noticed how dark it was. With the Corolla now completely out of view and no hanging lights, I could only see as far as my headlights shined. Everything beyond that was pitch black, like in the deepest recesses of the ocean. I wasn’t sure how far into the maintenance tunnel I was, nor whether it looped back to rejoin the main road. I didn’t have room to turn the car around, and the thought of backing up the whole way filled me with a potent sense of dread. I didn’t want to not look forward. Something told me I needed to keep my eyes on the road ahead.
What was safer? The road not travelled, or the road I could barely see because Pat cheaped out and didn’t get LEDs for his taillights? I swallowed a knot of apprehension, imagining myself in the throat of the giant. I tried to open the door, but I found the wall was so tight, I only had room to squeeze one foot out. Had the tunnel gotten…narrower? No, there was no way. I closed the door and decided to keep going. If nothing else, I hoped the tunnel would widen enough for me to turn at some point. But I took it slow, the tires crackling beneath me.
There was movement in my peripheral vision, and my eyes shot to the side-view mirror, where I could have sworn I saw the concrete buckle behind me. I grit my teeth and tried to shove Pat awake, to no avail. I could feel my skin. Every inch of it. It’s like I was suddenly hyper-aware of myself. It itched. Blood rushed to my head and I swear I could feel my eyeballs move. I needed to expand. I needed to get out of the oppressive closeness. The walls were getting tighter. My throat was getting tighter. Breathing was getting harder. Was it my imagination? I smacked Pat in desperation, and although I wanted to try Cynthia and James, I couldn’t bring myself to look in the back seat. I don’t know why, but something in my gut told me if I turned around, I’d find a concrete wall encasing me in the front.
I don’t know whether it was stubborn or stupid not to turn around. I don’t know if it was false hope or logic or fear. I have no idea what compelled me to keep going, even as I began to hear the scraping of metal-on-concrete. Even as my nails dug into the steering wheel and splintered, even as I grit my teeth trying to will the tunnel to release me.
That’s when I heard a slap. It was strong. WHAM! Against Pat’s door. When I dared to look, the blood drained from my face. There was something in the wall. Something coming out of the wall, more like. Rocky fingers attached to palms squeezing against the glass. The wall rippled like a wave, and the hands rode it, giving chase. I sped up, not knowing whether I was being lead like a lamb to the slaughter or closer to my salvation. The hands kept pace, following me at 80km/h like it was nothing.
The walls were getting tighter.
I was entombed in darkness.
The walls were moving.
Solid, but malleable.
Soft, like liquid concrete, but when they hit the car, sparks flew.
I realized I was screaming.
I pushed down on the accelerator, testing the speed of the car.
The hands followed.
More hands.
I could see them in the rear-view mirror.
In the side mirrors.
In front of me.
They were everywhere, scratching and tapping at the car, trying to get in.
I was still screaming so loud, my throat turned to sandpaper.
Faces began to pull away from the walls. Mouths and eyes and noses stretching out like shapes pushed through fabric. I couldn’t tell whether I was still screaming, or if the yowls I heard were coming out of these concrete mouths. I just knew I needed to keep going. I needed to reach safety. I couldn’t let them catch us. Catch me.
Suddenly, I heard the familiar click of the door handle being pulled. Pat’s door. In any other context, the sound wouldn’t be so heart-stoppingly terrifying. In this one, it pushed me beyond the edge, in a place so deep into the well of horror, that I became almost numb. My nervous system couldn’t handle the sensory and panic overload. I think it’s resignation. I think the realm beyond fear is a kind of acceptance to your fate – to your inevitable death. It’s a kindness your body offers you in the last moments of your life so that an imprint of fear isn’t left behind when your soul leaves your body. Or maybe it’s for your loved ones, so they can see you died peacefully and can move on easier than if you kicked the bucket in wild thrashes of agonizing fear, begging for help and sobbing.
Point being, when the door began to jostle open, I felt this wave of near-calm and closed my eyes to let it happen. I took my hands off the steering wheel and slowly released the gas pedal.
And then there was silence.
There was no longer the grinding sound of metal-on-concrete, no screaming, no tapping or scraping or anything else like that. I opened my eyes in time to see the car puttering out of the tunnel finally, with the night sky blissfully far away and the tree line giving me a very wide berth. The false calm turned into relief. The relief soured into fear as I thought about what had just happened and it all sank in. You hear stories of injured people capable of incredible feats to save themselves, and the moment they reach safety, they collapse. That was me, essentially.
I drove the car a bit farther down the road and pulled off to the side. The stress had me shaking violently, and I could barely get my legs out of the car. I fell on all fours. I must have looked like a drunk.
As I reeled on the grass, I could hear Cynthia and James waking up and asking questions from the back seat. Trivial “Why are we stopped?” or “Where are we?”
I couldn’t care less what they were saying.
Now I know what you’re thinking. The second I closed my eyes and accepted my fate, I was freed from the tunnel. It must have been all a bad dream or some weird allegory for dealing with my childhood fear.
You would be wrong.
The car was scraped to all hell. There were dents in the metal shaped like large hands. And then, there was Pat. Pat, the designated driver who got drunk and forced me to take their place that night. Pat, my friend since grade school. Pat, who for the duration of the tunnel, had been unresponsive to my screams and shakes and pleas to wake up.
Pat, who was dead, their face twisted in abject horror, as though they woke up just in time to see death coming for them. Pat, who hadn’t had time to go through the stages of fear and reach that bliss before the end – the reason I now believe that the peace is more for everyone else’s sake then one’s own. Because now I know they died screaming. I know exactly what they felt like in those final moments, because I’d felt every rung from that ladder of fear, but I had survived to tell the tale.
Ultimately, Pat’s death was ruled a heart attack. Officials think I fell asleep at the wheel, causing the car to veer into the wall before regaining control. Which makes no sense – the scratches were on all surfaces of the car. Even the undercarriage. But I suppose they were looking for an explanation, whether true or false.
As for the tunnel, I don’t intend to ever drive through it ever again. But from my research, I know one thing I didn’t know when it happened: there is no maintenance tunnel. There’s just the main road, which means the only mistake I made that night was ever driving into the mouth of the beast in the first place.