“Tonight is the night I’ll make history. After this nothing will ever be the same”.
I lay awake in the darkness. The sound of crickets is the only thing I can hear right now. Where the fuck am I?
A tent?
I hear footsteps crunching in the leaves. I try to get up to turn the light off but I can’t move. I hear the sound of a maniacal laugh in the distance. It echoes through the night and in my mind. Then suddenly I see a moonlit silhouette approach the tent. Move, move. I can’t move at all.
The tent is slowly unzipped as I hear the laugh get louder and louder. It is so loud my ears start ringing in pain. Then a skinny figure grabs my neck and starts choking me. It’s a tall, skinny gray figure with a blank face.
The sweat makes my grip weak. I can’t breathe. The laughing gets so loud I just hear the ringing. I can’t fight back. Suddenly I black out. Just the sound of ringing in my ear.
Then I’m in my bed. I’m soaked in sweat but I can breathe and my ears aren’t ringing. Must have been a nightmare. It was the third one this week. I looked at the clock and it read 5:03. I needed to get ready soon. I got out of the bed with the image of the face of the man from the tape still on my mind.
I walked into the bathroom and splashed water on my face. This needed to end. I couldn’t take it. Maybe if I figured out what happened then I could put this all behind me. This couldn’t possibly end well, but no time to think about it now, I needed to go to the job now. At least this time I won’t be alone. I’ll be with another worker, Bradley.
I had met him once or twice but never talked to him for more than a few seconds. If I could have him see this then maybe we could confront the boss about this. I couldn’t really call the police because there was really nothing I could prove. It was so dark there the blood stains might have been dirt or mud and unless they saw what I saw, then they couldn’t do much.
I got dressed and skipped breakfast. I ran outside and got in my car. It was cold this morning and I could see my own breath. I hopped in my car and raced down to the location.
By the time I got to the station it was already 5:45. I saw Bradley waiting on the outside. He had driven the van there with the tools and the pipe in the back. I pulled up and got out of the car.
“Ready to start?” He said as he got out of the car.
“Yep.” I replied.
He immediately started explaining the plan.
“We have the pipe in the back and the tools as well. We’ll bring the pipe down first. I assume you marked off the point where it needed to be fixed?”
“Yes, I marked it down on the clipboard and I have the coordinates in the tunnel.” I responded.
I reached in my bag and took out the clipboard. It showed the coordinates.
“Well if you’re ready we can start and hopefully finish this as soon as possible,” he said.
“Alright, sounds good.” I replied.
He walked up to the back of the van and opened it up. There was a large pipe laying on the floor in the back.
“Hey, open the door and I’ll take the pipe out,” he said, “After you’ve got the door open, grab the tools and help me take this pipe down the stairs.”
“Alright.” I replied.
I walked up to the door and took out my key and unlocked it. I opened the door and it made a massive scrap as it opened and echoed. I looked down into the darkness remembering my events from the previous week.
“Hey you got that open?” He yelled over.
“Yep.” I replied.
“Grab the tools.” He said to me.
I walked over to the van and picked up the heavy leather pouch with the tools in it. I strapped it to my belt. He started walking over to the door and I lifted the other end of the pipe to help him carry it down the stairs.
“Watch your step.” He reminded me.
We slowly moved down the stairs. The door’s would be left open this time because neither of us could close the door because we were carrying the pipe. All the horrors slowly started coming back to me as I remembered what had happened the previous time.
We slowly descended the stairs. I felt the wetness of the floor get inside my boot. As we approached the bottom the light at the top door was getting smaller and less bright.
We finally got to the bottom. The light at the door was almost completely gone. We slowly moved down the path. The sound of our footsteps echoed through the ambient tunnels.
“Just down here.” I told him.
We finally made it to the section where the pipe was. I was already sweating and I felt that if I turned around there would be someone or something there. Bradley wasn’t that big of a guy so it’s not like he would be able to fight anything off.
After some time had passed we quickly fixed the pipe. Just for maybe a split second I was not scared. I had nothing to fear. I would leave this place and leave the darkness behind me.
“Alright, the pipe looks good. We just need to get maintenance to turn the water back on and see if anything leaks on the side.” Bradley told me.
He grabbed his walkie talkie.
“Hello, just hoping we can run a quick test for the pipe.” He waited for a response.
Then suddenly there was a voice over the walkie talkie.
“I got a guy there right now, he’ll turn the water on.”
“Alright, we just have to wait now.” Bradley said to me.
After a few seconds of waiting the voice came back over the walkie talkie.
“It’s on. Is everything good?”
He waited a second.
“Everything’s good. We’re coming back up now.” Bradley responded over the walkie talkie.
“Good to go?” I asked him.
“Let’s go,” He said, “Just help me carry the old pipe back up to the van.”
We picked it up and started carrying it to the stairs. Then suddenly I heard a sound that took me back to the feared state I was in a few days ago. It was a footstep. The same moist footstep on the wet dirt echoed through the tunnel.
“What the fuck?” Bradley said, “You hear that?”
“Yeah.” I responded.
“Probably just a rat or something.” He said.
We quickly walked toward the stairs and suddenly I heard something that I haven’t heard since my nightmares. It was the faint sound of laughter. It was almost identical to the video.
“What the fuck?”
Bradley sounded more worried this time.
“Put this down for a second.” He said.
We set it on the ground.
“Wait,” I said, “what are you doing?”
“I’m going to go check it out.” He replied.
He started to walk back.
“Don’t do that,” I tried to explain, “the other day I was down here and I heard something and there was some creature down here.”
I had to tell him no matter how obsurd it sounded
“Creature,” He laughed, “There’s no creature. It’s probably just some kids playing some tricks on us.”
“No it’s not,” I pleaded with him not to go down there, “There’s something down there. It chased me. If you go down there it will chase you.”
“If it’s a fucking creature then we’ll find it and get rid of it.” Bradley said.
I ran up to him and grabbed his arm.
“You can’t go down there.”
I tried my best to stop him. He pushed me away.
“Wait here, I’ll be back.” He assured me.
I waited. He slowly walked down into the dark path. Suddenly the lights on the wall went out.
“Bradley!” I yelled.
“What the fuck!” He yelled from down the hall.
I then heard the sound of him screaming in pain. I walked slowly up to the hallway. Just then another subway started to come down and the halls started shaking.
“Fuck.” I yelled to myself.
Just then I saw the bold outlined shadow of what looked to be a creature, almost 8 feet tall. It was gray and skinny but other than that, I couldn’t make out much more. I started sprinting towards the stairs. I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. I reached the stairs and started running towards the light at the top. I didn’t hear the creature following me like last time, but I didn’t stop to look back.
I finally reached the top of the stairs. Without hesitation I jumped into the van and drove away. I didn’t think the creature would come into the light of day, but I wasn’t going to risk it. As I was in the car I fiddled through my bag to reach my phone. Why did he have to go down there? Fuck. There’s no way he’s safe. He’s definitely dead.
I couldn’t blame myself. If I went down there to save him, I’d be dead too. I couldn’t have told him before, he never would have believed me.
I finally got a hand on my phone and I called the police. I waited until the police arrived before turning back. After hours of talking with police they let me go. I returned home and immediately laid down. I couldn’t not for the life of me explain properly what happened in the tunnels.
Weeks passed and I couldn’t sleep. I was having nightmares on an almost daily occurrence. If the first time wasn’t hard enough, this was even worse. I had watched a man be taken, killed or I don’t even know, by that thing in the tunnel. All I know is that the only thing the officers found when they went down there was a pile of broken tools and old clothes.
I asked them about the door and they said they found one but it was locked. They couldn’t break into it because they didn’t have any warrant from the city and even if they did, it was a very thick door and very hard to break down.
This means that whoever or whatever was behind this had come back after I was there and closed the door to cover up their tracks. I couldn’t take this anymore so I went to my boss the next day and told him I quit. He understood and I left never to return.
But thinking back on it raised a lot of questions. What was the thing on the wall? What was the newspaper doing there? What was the tape in the VCR? There were so many questions. The most concerning one though, if there was blood on the door, then had people gone down there before? If they couldn’t find Bradley, then was he taken to some lair somewhere? Were others taken there? If they didn’t find the creature and the doors were left open, then did it leave?
I could have made this the end and just moved on with my life but no, in fact it was just the beginning.