Melvin Hayes did not die in 1998
This all begins during the cold war in mid 20th century America. The space race was not a literal race to space like many people believe, instead it was a race to get the first interview continental ballistic missile or ICBM. The United States was always ahead in discovery but never delivery, so we had the most powerful nukes, but no good way to deliver them across the globe. Russia was clearly ahead in making an ICBM so we decided that it was best to come to a treaty with Russia that we would move our nukes from Poland if they removed theirs from Cuba. We followed through with the deal bit what the Russians didn’t know was that we had stationed nuclear submarines in the black sea ready to strike if Russia tried anything. Eventually the United States worked out that if either of us tried were to initiate conflict that we would destroy each other, so we built tunnels and bunkers capable of housing people during a nuclear winter. Obviously not every U.S. citizen would fit in the bunkers so scientists at MIT deduced that to sustain a society we would only needs the societies “seeds” ie. The president, congressmen, the presidential cabinet, etc.
After the construction of these tunnels in a major city in Western PA a middle school was built which I’ll refer to as Greenroad was built on top of the tunnels with an access door in the basement. I did not attend the school at the time of these events, however my teacher who I’ll call Mr. Bryce for privacy purposes who was new to the school at the time was hearing footsteps in the hallways which he originally thought were people avoiding him because he asked many questions, but often times when he went to check which teachers had signed in that day he saw that he was the only one. One day, he had enough of hearing footsteps from nowhere early in the morning so he asked one of his colleagues -an old, eccentric science teacher- who it could’ve been to which he responded with the following story:
On a day at this school in the late 70s not unlike any other, a young student of the middle school came upon the access door to these tunnels, and, being the curious kid he was, he wandered into the tunnels and found himself lost in the depths of this government project with no foreseeable way out. His teacher, Mr. Melvin Hayes was looking everywhere in the building for the boy. He searched high and low and was not willing to give up even if it meant searching late into the night for the boy. Eventually he came upon the creaky metal door that lead to the tunnels, hanging slightly ajar on its hinges. Without a second thought, Melvin dive into the tunnels which were barely tall enough to stand in. He searched and searched but he never found the boy so he turned around and tried to find the exit to the narrow passageway, but he never did.
On the door to the tunnels was a sign that stated that if anything happened in the tunnels not to go in and not to call 911, but instead to call the local branch of the FBI. When the FBI arrived on scene they immediately went into the tunnels and immediately began scouring them. They never found Melvin or the student, but what they did find was another set of tunnels intersecting the ones under the school. The FBI agents were outraged and called the construction personnel responsible for the tunnels and discovered that there was already another set of tunnels where they built the ones for the government and they simply made them intersect.
7 days later, the search was still ongoing and an employee a bank was putting money into the safe when all of a sudden, from a metal door at the back of the vault came a knocking so faint it was like the person on the other side couldn’t muster up enough strength to knock any harder. The employee mustered up all the courage she could and opened the door, revealing the frail body of the barely-alive student, curled up on the ground. The boy had survived on nothing but licking condensation from walls to get tiny amounts of hydration. The boy was rushed to the hospital ASAP and immediately put into a coma for 5 days. Upon waking up the boy was asked if he had seen Melvin to which he responded “I heard him calling my name but didn’t answer in fear of getting in trouble.”
The search for Melvin Hayes continued until 1998 and when they couldn’t find him they planted a tree in his honor in front of the school and it still stands to this day.
That is the story of Melvin Hayes and there are 2 working theories as to where he is. 1.) He is dead in a collapsed tunnel underneath a school that has been forever closed off. 2.) He found a bunker and is living off of supplies left by the government to sustain many people for many years.
As far as I know my teacher and his students are the only living people who know of what truly happened to Melvin Hayes. Feel free to ask any questions and I will try my best to respond.