Have you ever felt like you’re being watched, then you look around and no one’s there. Have you ever felt like there was just someone peeking around the corner at you and then when you go to check, nothing.
The reason I say this is because of my recent experience at my new job. My name is Robert and I’m a subway maintenance repair man. I have never really liked the job, but based on my current life circumstances, I couldn’t afford to quit. After high school I really didn’t know what to do. I passed through many jobs working at fast food places, then ended up at a hardware store.
After 4 years of rotating through jobs I made my decision to go to college. After getting my degree I started getting minor work at different factories and ultimately settled at the subway station.
I usually just do maintenance checks in the more populated area but recently there have been a few workers who have quit, so now I have been bumped up to do their work. My boss was confused and wondered why 5 workers quit in the past week. I was about to find out why.
It was early one morning when I got a call to repair a leaking pipe. I had never been somewhere that deep before to repair and I was going alone. I was always paranoid about going into deep dark places alone so I really wanted to get this over with.
I arrived at the entrance early in the morning, like 5:30. It was still dark outside. There was a door beside the subway entrance apart from the entrance for the general public. After fiddling around with my thousand keys I opened the large, heavy door. It squeaked as I looked down the grimy stairs that led to the blackness that laid under the city.
There were small lights on the wall. I walked down the stairs and closed the door behind me. I also had a light on my hat just in case I went into a darker area. I slowly crept down the stairs. The stairs were moist and the air was very thick in this area. After my trek down the stairs, I made it to the bottom.
The hallway was very thin at the bottom and it was dead silent, except for the sound of dripping water. I took a look at the map. I hadn’t looked at it in a while but right now the subway lines looked huge. I didn’t realize there were so many paths in the subway. I saw where the pipe was and I wasn’t too far.
As I approached I heard the sound of a subway passing by. The hallway started to shake, as I was just under the tracks. There was some dirt falling from the ceiling and some of the lights started to flicker. After about 30 seconds it stopped. I stood there in silence. Some of the flickering lights stayed off. I waited for a second and then decided to continue.
After a few more minutes of slowly walking through the path, I made it to the spot where the pipe was. I took out my flashlight and started the inspection. After a few seconds I discovered the problem. It was nothing too hard, just a crack in the pipe. I grabbed my walkie talkie to report the problem to the maintenance office.
“There seems to be a crack in the pipe.” I said into the walkie talkie.
I heard the static noise through the walkie talkie. No response?
“Is there anybody there?” I tried to get a hold of someone.
I decided that no one was going to answer so I marked it down on my clipboard and marked off the pipe. I would come back later anyway to fix the pipe which I was already dreading.
I started to walk back when I realized that there were 2 paths.
“What the fuck?” I muttered to myself.
I don’t remember 2 paths when I came down here. The darkness had to blame for this. I didn’t see the path beside me when I came down, now I didn’t know which exit was the right one.
I stood there looking at both paths. Then I remembered that map. I could use it to see which one leads up to the exit. I reached in my pocket. Where was it? I looked around me to see if it fell out of my pocket. I started walking back to the pipe where I had been working to see if I had dropped it there. I shined my light around and there was nothing.
Then suddenly I had a feeling. It was a feeling I dreaded ever since I was a little kid. I had a feeling that there were eyes on me. I know it might be hard to explain but my heart just dropped.
I tried to calm myself down. People do this all the time. There’s no one in here, the doors are locked from the outside unless you have a key.
The sound of the ambience and lack of movement made little noises very loud. Could it be a rat? It was the subway after all and there’s always rats and other things living down here.
Just as I composed myself and was ready to walk back I heard it. It was a slight footstep. I could hear the slight splash of the moist dirt ground. I looked left and right but the lack of lighting made it really hard to see. I slowly walked back to the 2 paths. I told myself there was nothing there and it was just my paranoia playing tricks on me.
When I arrived at the paths I looked at both of them and realized something. I came down from the stairs and neither of these 2 paths had stairs, they just went straight in slightly different directions. Maybe one of them led to the stairs and when I was coming down I didn’t realize because I was tired or scared.
Whatever the reason I had to get out of there. I chose the left path. I walked down it at a moderate pace hoping it would lead to stairs. I walked down the path for almost five minutes before I met the end.
It was a big black door with a padlock on it. I knew this wasn’t the way and I had to turn back but then I realized the door was unlocked. Did I unlock this when I came down? I couldn’t remember. As I approached the door there were scratch marks on the door. It almost looked like long, sharp fingernails were digging into the cold steel of the door. There were also blood marks all over the door and the surrounding walls.
I slowly opened the door. Then a sound was heard as I jumped in fear. A chain had fallen off the back of the door and hit the hard concrete ground. The sound echoed through the hallways. I went into the room and saw blackness. The room was so dark that I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or closed. I turned my light on the hard hat up to a brighter mode almost blinding me.
It was a giant room. There were about 4 or 5 desks in the corner with a bunch of papers on them. What the fuck was going on? The room was very big but also very empty. Other than the desks there was nothing in the room except for one thing at the back.
I walked up closely to it to take a look. It was a metal outline of a man almost like someone had laid in a body in something to make a cast of their entire body. But it was metal and if this was something someone laid in they must have been 8 feet tall.
The outline looked very skinny but tall. There were also blood stains on the wall. After examining the wall I walked slowly over to the desk. There was an abundance of papers there all folded and wrinkled up. I picked one up to see what it had on it. There was a diagram of the subway system. Fuck, I had gone the wrong way.
Then I flipped the page and saw a news article. It was mostly ripped up but I could see the head line in bold. It read Doctor At Lastberg Hospital Arrested For Murder. What the fuck? I looked at the paper more but couldn’t find the name of the doctor.
I was about to leave when I noticed a television on the desk. In front of the television was a VCR player. I looked in the VCR and there was a tape that read, September 23rd. It looked like it said a year after that but it was crossed off by black marker.
I made a decision then and there that changed my life forever. I pressed play and it showed a cameraman outside in the forest. He was walking at night and the sounds of the leaves crunching were loud. There was a narrator’s voice, very deep, talking over the video.
“Here we are in the woods. It is about 1:46 in the morning and it’s almost time. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”
The voice spoke in a deep yet somewhat calming tone.
The camera looked around when it spotted a tent in the woods. There was a small light in the tent with the silhouette of 2 people. I slowly approached the tent.
“Tonight is the night I’ll make history. After this nothing will ever be the same.”
The camera slowly walked up and then stopped in its tracks. The camera slowly turns around to face the camera man. I jumped in fear.
His face. It was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. It was almost distorted in the night but he was wearing a crooked grin. He let out the most sinister laugh I had ever heard. I ripped the plug out of the wall at the sight of this.
I thought this was way too weird for me so I started to leave when I heard a sound. It sounded like breathing. I stopped for a second. This I could hear. The footstep earlier might have been nothing but I stood there listening, making sure I was not dreaming or making this up. I could hear heavy breathing like a bear.
This was it, the worst of my fear actually coming true. I stood there hoping it would go away, hoping I would wake up and find out it was all a dream.
I decided to slowly walk out of the room when I hit something. It was the chain and it was connected to something. I looked at the door and the chain had been cut from a metal pole beside the door.
I then heard a footstep. The same one as before. I didn’t even look back. I started to run as fast as I could down the hallway. I could hear the footsteps coming up behind me. I finally got to the section where the hallways part. I went the other way, the way I should have gone the first time. I ran up the stairs.
I could hear the sound of something running fast up the stairs behind me. The metal from the stairs clanged together and it was loud.
As I was running I reached for my key. It was in my pocket and was hard to get when running, but I couldn’t stop running. After struggling with my keys I finally stopped for a split second to grab them. I took them out of my pocket and started to run. My foot slipped and I fell on the stairs.
“Fuck!” I yelled as I smashed my elbow on the steel stairs.
My hat had fallen off and the light broke as it hit the ground. It was completely black.
I had dropped the keys and I couldn’t find them. I flashed my light around looking for the keys and then suddenly stopped. I heard the footsteps stop. There was a heavy breathing sound as I heard the footsteps slowly approach. I just laid there not even breathing.
Then I heard the sound of the breathing getting quieter as the footsteps walked away back down the stairs. As soon as the footsteps got far, I moved my hand around on the ground looking for the keys. Luckily that didn’t fall through the metal holes so I picked them up and slowly headed for the door. I reached it and as quietly as I could and unlocked the door and left.
It was very bright outside. I was there for about an hour. I went back to the maintenance office to notify my boss of the pipe issue. Should I tell him about what happened? Would he even believe me?
I decided not to tell him because thinking about it there was no logical explanation. I entered his office to see him sitting at his desk.
“Hello, sir.” I said to him,
“Hey, Robert. Come on in and take a seat.” he replied.
I walked in and took a seat on the one chair that was in his office for visitors.
“You look warm. It’s not very nice down there. Would you like some water?” he said.
“No thanks,” I replied, “I’m fine.”
I really just wanted to go home and forget this ever happened.
“What seems to be the problem down there?” he started.
“The pipe cracked.” I said hesitantly.
“Oh, not too bad I hope. We’ll order one and replace it in a few days,” he said, “It’s not causing that much damage so we can afford to wait a bit.”
I looked at him to consider whether I should let him know about what just happened. He looked at my elbow.
“Hey son, what happened to your arm?” he inquired.
“Um, I tripped. Hey, what’s down their other than the pipes?” I quickly changed the subject.
“Nothing really.” he replied, “why do you ask?”
“I was down there and I took a wrong turn and ended up in a large room with lots of chains in it and a desk.”
“Wait, what,” he replied, “what are you talking about, there’s no room with a desk and chains.”
Based on his reaction here I decided to leave out the part about the thing that chased me.
“Alright never mind, pretend I never asked.” I said.
“Hey, watch out down there, it might be dangerous,” he said, “stick to the path.”
“Yes, sir.” I replied.
We sat in silence for a few seconds when he decided to speak.
“Hey, I’ll send Bradley with you to change the pipe, right?”
My heart dropped. There was no way I was going down there again, but I had too. He was my boss and I couldn’t tell him no. I needed this job or I would have no money at all.
“Alright” I said.
I walked out of the office and went home. I sat at home wondering what to do. After days of thinking about it I did nothing until today.
The new pipe came in last night and in a few hours I’m going to go down there and change it.