Subway Workers & Explorers of Reddit: What's Your Scariest Unexplained Underground Story?

Subway Workers & Explorers of Reddit: What's Your Scariest Unexplained Underground Story?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Story one.

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I was nineteen, living into Moore, Belgium, working part time
at a bike repair shop while volunteering with Scouts on weekends.
The fort outside town, Fort Demean was the place we'd
sneak into, partly for the thrill, partly to prove you
weren't soft. Everyone in town knew it was there, gut
it out from the inside after the war, left with
tunnels that felt like lungs still trying to breathe.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
This was in November.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
It was raining that morning, so the mud on the
slope up to the wall clung to my boots, made
them heavy as I climbed up to the breach. We
used the one behind the tree line so drivers wouldn't
spot us scaling over. You could feel the fort before
you got inside. I can't explain that part well, but
the closer you got, the quieter the air felt like
it was waiting for you to step in. That day,

(00:45):
I was on my own because I was meant to
be the checkpoint, the person who sits in the dark
in a side tunnel so the scouts don't get lost,
making sure they turn at the right passage so they
end up at the exit point later on. No one
tells them there's someone waiting in the dark. Part of
the initial is the fear of the dark, of getting lost.
I wasn't scared of the place, at least not until

(01:05):
that day. Inside it smelled like wet stone and metal.
The air was cold, but close, like you're breathing someone
else's breath. I didn't use a light. We weren't allowed to.
You rely on touch and memory of the layout. I
got to the small corridor I was meant to wait in,
just off the main tunnel. I pressed my back against
the damp wall and let my eyes adjust. I was early,

(01:28):
and they weren't due for at least thirty minutes. I
don't know how long I was there before I noticed
it first. It was a flicker of light down the tunnel,
like someone with a candle cupped in their hands, moving slow.
At first, I thought one of the younger kids cheated
and brought matches. But there was no sound, no footsteps,
no scuff of boots. I crouched lower, watching it come closer,

(01:50):
and the light just bobbing there, too steady to be
a flame, too warm to be a flashlight. It stopped
maybe ten meters down and just hovered there. I leaned
forward a little, trying to see who it was, but
the light went out, like someone pinching a candle. No sound,
no shuffle of feet leaving. I tried to convince myself

(02:11):
it was one of the kids, messing around, maybe standing
still to scare the next person. I settled back into
the nook, rubbing my hands on my knees to keep warm.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Then I heard breathing. It wasn't mine.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
It was shallow, shaky, coming from directly in front of
me in the dark. I held my breath to listen.
It stopped. I couldn't see anything, but I could feel it.
The air changed, like someone was taking up the space
right in front of me, close enough that if I
lifted my hand, i'd touch them. It smelled like sweat,
old clothes and damp earth. I could hear my own

(02:44):
heart beat in my ears, and I didn't move. I
didn't even blink. I don't know how long we stayed
like that, both of us frozen, breathing each other in
the dark. I was trying to convince myself it was
a kid, but the smell was wrong, and there was
something about the way the air felt that made me
want to crawl out of my skin. It was like
standing next to something that used to be alive but

(03:05):
wasn't anymore.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Then it moved. It didn't walk away, it.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Just passed, like a warm draft brushing against my knees,
my chest, my face, and then it was gone. I
could feel the air rushing back to fill the space
where it had been, like the fort itself was exhaling.
I stayed there, shaking, trying to breathe quietly, listening for footsteps,
but there was nothing. Then a faint light appeared from

(03:31):
the right corridor, not the same as before, more like
the glow from a dying phone screen, and it drifted away,
disappearing around the corner.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
I didn't get up. I couldn't.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
I just waited, eyes burning, mouth dry, feeling like if
I moved it would come back. I started to wonder
if I had lost track of time, if the scouts
were late, or if something had gone wrong and I
was alone in there for hours. Then I heard boots
coming down the tunnel, the sound of someone heavy, not
trying to be quiet, echoing off the walls.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
I stood up fast, my.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Legs almost giving out, and stepped out just enough to
catch the first kid coming through helmet on, flashlight in hand,
eyes wide. When he saw me, keep going, I told
him my voice cracking first, right, keep moving. He nodded
and started walking, and I followed him a few steps
to the junction. Before he turned, I asked, Hey, who
came in first before you? He looked at me, confused,

(04:28):
No one, I was first. I didn't say anything else.
I just stood there, watching him walk away into the dark.
I didn't go back to my spot. I walked the
rest of the route behind them, pretending I was checking
for stragglers.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
But I just couldn't stand in that tunnel alone. Again.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
I didn't tell the others what happened. I don't know
if they would have believed me. That night, I couldn't sleep,
and when I closed my eyes, I could feel that
breath on my face again, Smell that mix of earth
and sweat, feel that space being taken up by something.
I couldn't see, something that knew I was there. I've
been back to the fort since, but I won't stand
in that tunnel anymore. If they need a checkpoint, I

(05:06):
take a different quarridor closer to the entrance. I can't
explain what it was, but I know I wasn't alone
in there, and I know it knew I was there.
That was the only time it happened, and it was enough.
Story two. I'm Chris twenty nine from Philly, and I've
worked tunnel inspections for a private contractor under SEPTA. We
check the older disused lines, measure for structural issues, clear debris,

(05:30):
stuff like that. You'd be surprised how many tunnels under
the city don't even appear on maps anymore, or how
many go deeper under layers.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
No one talks about.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
This happened two years ago, and I don't care if
it sounds stupid, but I haven't taken a solo shift since.
We got a call about a partial cave in near
an old maintenance spur under Market Street, supposedly sealed off
since the sixties. They wanted us to check stability because
of nearby construction. It's the type of job where you
go in, take photos, record air quality, mark cracks with chalk,

(06:01):
and get out before the rats get curious. My partner
Tom called out sick, but I needed the overtime, so
I went in alone. I dropped down the service ladder
into the tunnel around two am, when the active lines
above us were shut down for maintenance. It was humid
and smelled like old rust and wet cardboard. My headlamp
only reached maybe twenty feet ahead, but the tracks ran

(06:22):
on into the dark like black water. You get used
to weird sounds down there, pipes ticking, distant water drips,
the hum of the city above, so I didn't think
much about it. When I first heard the scraping. It
was coming from deeper in the tunnel, where the spur
split off into that abandoned section. I kept walking, shining
my light around to check the ceiling for cracks, marking

(06:44):
a few spots. The scraping stopped. I told myself it
was rats or a shifting piece of metal. Then it
started again, closer, like someone dragging something heavy across the concrete.
I said, hey, if someone's down here, you need to
clear out. Nothing just that scraping, and then a weird shuffle,
like feet moving too fast, then too slow. I thought

(07:08):
it might be a junkie or a copper thief, so
I stood still, trying to listen. The tunnel felt like
it was pressing in heavy.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
With old air.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Then I saw a shadow move across my light beam,
but it didn't match the shape of a person. It
was long, but hunched, like it crawled on elbows. The
scraping sound got louder, and I could hear this breathing,
deep rattling, like someone with fluid in their lungs. I froze.
I don't know why, but my chest locked up and

(07:36):
I felt cold, even though it was hot down there.
The breathing got closer, and the shadow moved again, closer
to the tunnel wall, sticking to the edges. I yelled,
do you need help. It stopped for a second. It
was dead quiet, except for water dripping somewhere behind me.
Then it started moving again, faster, scraping hard against the

(07:57):
concrete like nails. I pointed my flashlight directly at it,
and I swear to God, it ducked out of the light,
like it was avoiding it. I stepped back, keeping the
light on the spot where I last saw it, and
then the breathing got so loud it felt like it
was right next to my ear. I turned fast, shining
my light around, but there was nothing. The air felt heavy,

(08:17):
and I could hear it breathing from different directions, like
it was circling me in the dark. I tried to
radio in, but all I got was static. I said, Tom,
if you're screwing with me, man cut it out.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
No answer. The breathing was still there, moving.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Behind me, then in front, then behind again, like it
was pacing. I decided to back up toward the ladder,
but as I turned, the breathing turned into this whispering.
I couldn't make out words, just this harsh, fast whisper,
like someone chanting through broken glass. I shined the light
back down the tunnel, and for a split second I

(08:53):
saw it. It was on the wall, long and gray,
with arms too long for its body, and it pressed
its face against the tunnel bricks. I saw its mouth moving,
but it wasn't looking at me. It was facing the wall,
whispering fast. It pulled its head back slowly, and I
saw a hole in the bricks, like a service crawl space,
and it started to pull itself into it, headfirst, like

(09:16):
it was being sucked in. The whispering got louder, angry,
but still quiet, if that makes sense. I backed up,
tripped over a piece of old rebar, and my flashlight slipped,
spinning its beam around. I saw that gray arm sticking
out of the hole. Fingers scraping at the bricks like
it was deciding whether to come back out.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
I got up and ran.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
I don't think I even touched the rungs climbing out,
I scraped up my hands, dropped my meter, and didn't
look back until I was out on the street, breathing hard,
covered in tunnel dust. I called my supervisor and told
him the air was bad down there and I needed
a check before going back in. I never told him
what I saw. He just thought I was being cautious,

(09:56):
signed off, and sent a two man team the next week.
They didn't find anything, but said they heard water moving
behind the walls and the meter I dropped was gone.
I haven't gone back in alone since, and I don't
take the market line anymore if I can help it.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Story three.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
I grew up in a small town outside Saint Louis,
the kind where everyone's uncle knew a guy who worked
for the city, so we all heard stories about the
tunnels under the old buildings downtown. I work for a
plumbing company now, but this happened when I was seventeen,
the summer before graduation. That day, I wasn't looking to
find anything weird. I was just trying to impress Kyle

(10:32):
and Nate, who were with me waiting for a ride
after summer band practice. We were sweaty, still in our
stupid marching band shirts, and decided to kill time in
the basement of the old admin building, which was being
used to store busted chairs and boxes of yearbooks nobody wanted.
In the corner, behind a stack of rusted folding chairs
was this big panel with hinges on the bottom.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Kyle found it first.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Dude, help me pull this up, he said, kicking the
chairs aside. I pulled, and the panel popped up, heavy
and loud. Dust flew everywhere. The smell hit us first,
wet dirt, metal, and something sour like old mop water.
It was dark inside, but when we shined our phone
flashlights down we saw it was a tunnel, maybe five

(11:15):
feet down, with an old ladder bolted to the side,
concrete walls, water stains, spiderwebs. Bet you won't, Nate said, grinning.
I went first because I didn't want them, saying I
was scared. My shoes slid a.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Bit on the metal rungs.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
When I hit the bottom, the water soaked through my
socks immediately. It was cold, ankled deep and smelled like
a mix of rust and sewage. The tunnel was maybe
five feet wide, barely high enough to stand up straight
if you were under six feet. The walls were rough
concrete pipes running along the top, some dripping steadily. Kyle
and Nate came down after their lights, bobbing, making shadows

(11:51):
dance on the walls. At first, it felt like the
kind of dumb adventure you have as a teenager, with
us joking about finding hidden treasure or old bones. The
tunnel split in two directions. One way led toward the
school's boiler room, the other headed out under the street,
where it shouldn't have led to anything. We went the
second way. The deeper we went, the more the air

(12:12):
felt heavy, thick, like a damp basement with no windows.
We saw graffiti on the walls, dates, names, random curse words,
and crude drawings, but some of it was different, scratched in,
not sprayed on, with these weird shapes, circles with lines
through them, and something that looked like an eye with
extra lines. After maybe fifty yards, the tunnel split again

(12:35):
and the pipe stopped. The water was deeper here, and
when we stepped in it went up to our shins,
cold enough to make my calves ache. We didn't want
to go further, but then we heard it. It was
a noise that didn't fit, like a metal scraping, but slow,
almost careful, from the tunnel ahead. Then it stopped, and
we heard what sounded like a single footstep in water,

(12:57):
sloshing once, then silence. We all froze. I remember looking
at Nate and his face was pale in the flashlight glow,
probably a rat. Kyle whispered, but his voice cracked. We
should have turned back, but instead I called out hello
because I didn't know what else to do. My voice
echoed down the tunnel and came back to me, all warped.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Nothing.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Then the water moved ahead of us, like something big
shifted under it, making ripples come toward us. My light
caught the surface, and for a second I swear I
saw something rise just under the water, like pale fingers,
then sink again. I felt the cold of it in
my knees, even though I wasn't in that deep. Nate
started breathing heavy. We got to go, man, but before

(13:40):
we could turn, we heard a voice. It was right
there in the dark ahead of us, maybe ten feet,
but we couldn't see anyone. It said, clear as day,
in this low shaking voice, don't leave.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
I froze.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
I felt something in my chest drop, like my body
knew it was wrong before my mind did. It wasn't
a cording, wasn't an echo. It was a voice alive,
but it was off, like whoever it belonged to hadn't
used it in a long time. Then it repeated, louder,
don't leave, and something started coming toward us in the water,
slow at first, then faster, splashing, and we turned and ran.

(14:18):
The water slowed us down and I slipped, scraping my
arm on the concrete wall. I felt something grab at
the back of my shirt, just for a second, tugging
me backward. It was cold, wet and strong. I screamed, kicked,
and tore away, falling face first into the water. Kyle
and Nate pulled me up and we ran, the splashing

(14:39):
behind us, getting louder closer, and then stopping as we
hit the ladder. I don't remember climbing up, just that
when we got out, we slammed the panel down so
hard it shook the floor. We could still hear the
water below moving like something pacing. We didn't speak for
a while, just stood there, soaked, bleeding, breathing hard. My

(14:59):
hand were shaking so bad I could barely hold my phone.
When we finally left, we told ourselves it was a
homeless guy or a prank, but deep down we knew
it wasn't. I don't know what it was, but it
wasn't someone living down there. The way it moved, the
way it spoke, the way it grabbed me, cold and heavy,
it wasn't. Right later, I checked city maps and there's

(15:20):
nothing under that part of the building except dirt, no
records of a tunnel or drainage system going that far out.
I asked one of the janitors, an old guy who'd
worked there for decades, if he knew about any tunnels.
He just looked at me and said, best not to
mess with what's under there. We didn't go back. I
still have the scar on my arm from where I
scraped it on the wall, and sometimes when I get

(15:42):
it wet, it feels cold in a way that reminds
me of that day, like the water from that tunnel
is still clinging to me.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Somehow, that was it.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
It only happened once, and it's the reason I don't
mess around in places I'm not supposed to be anymore.
If you ever see an old panel under a staircase,
leave it alone. Whatever's down there doesn't want to be alone,
and it doesn't want.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
You to leave. Story four.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
I don't usually talk about this, but I guess you asked,
so here goes. I grew up outside Dayton, Ohio, in
a small duplex with a backyard that dropped straight into
a patch of woods nobody really took care of. I
was nineteen, working nights at a sheet metal place, and
on weekends, me and my buddy Dave would go crawling
through storm drains, sewers, old culverts anywhere we weren't supposed

(16:26):
to be. It sounds stupid now, but it was the
only thing that made me feel alive back then. This
was around early October. We had a buddy Rick who
came along that day. The plan was to hit this
rusted out pipe sticking out of a hill behind the
abandoned trailer park. Dave said he'd scoped it before and
it went deep, way deeper than usual. We crawled in

(16:46):
with cheap headlamps and gloves from Harbor Freight, expecting raccoon bones.
And graffitied concrete the usual. It was tight, had that damp,
sharp metal smell, but we were used to it. We
kept pushing in maybe a couple hundred feet when it
opened into a concrete room just big enough to crouch,
with three pipes leading off in different directions like veins.

(17:07):
We figured it was one of those overflow junctions. But
it felt off because we could hear something a drip
but heavier, like water hitting something soft. Rick went first
into the narrowest pipe, belly crawling. We egged him on,
joking about tunnel ghules and body dumps, the dumb shit
you say to keep from freaking out. Then Rick stopped.
He goes, yo, something's here. We thought he meant a

(17:30):
possum or a dead dog. I could hear him gagging, saying, bro,
it's on me, It's on me. I crawled up and
the stink hit me so hard I almost puked. It
was like iron and rotting mud, but thicker. I put
my hand down to crawl over whatever was blocking the pipe,
and it felt weird. It wasn't fur, it wasn't bone.

(17:51):
It was soft, but not like decaying meat. It was
like pushing into wet carpet, but warm in places, cold
in others. My glove came back black and slick, like
tar with strands in it. Dave came behind me, cursing
under his breath, and when he touched it, he shouted
and started scrambling. But there was nowhere to go, so

(18:11):
we just kept sliding over it.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
I felt it move, I swear on everything.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
I felt it move, like something under there was shifting,
slow and heavy, like a stomach contracting. Rick was whispering
it's breathing, and I told him to shut up, but
I could hear it, a slow suck and push of air,
like it was pulling from somewhere deeper in the pipe.
We kept moving because we couldn't turn around. I could

(18:36):
feel it on my clothes, sticking to my jeans, the
stench getting into my mouth every time I breathed. We
got maybe another fifty feet before Rick's light hit something ahead.
He started screaming, no, no, no, I'm not going and
started to backpedal, pushing against me. I looked and my
light caught it to something big, hunched, pale like skin,

(18:56):
but wrong, folded over itself in the darkness. I can't
say it was human, but it had a shape. I
saw a hand, or something like a hand, but the
fingers were too long, black at the tips. I only
saw it for a second, but it was enough to
freeze me. It moved or twitched, and Rick lost it,
kicking at me to move, screaming, it's looking at me.

(19:19):
I couldn't see a face, but I felt it, like
when you know someone staring at you in the dark.
We scrambled backward, scraping our knees, dragging mud and that
black sludge with us. The pipe felt like it was
closing in, getting tighter with every push backward, the air thick,
tasting like pennies and rot. I could hear Dave's sobbing,
whispering prayers, Rick gagging, and all I could think was

(19:42):
if it touched my foot, I would die right there.
We made it back to the junction room and kept
crawling out daylight, looking like a pinprick. The longest crawl
of my life. My arms were shaking, knees raw. That
smell burned into me. When we got out, we collapsed
in the weeds, gasping. Rick was crying, clutching his shirt,
which was smeared with that black stuff. It looked like

(20:05):
fur in some places, but it was mixed with something jelly,
like dark as oil.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
We tore our clothes.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Off right there, throwing them into a trash bag we
found nearby, scrubbing our arms with dirt and leaves, trying
to get the smell off. We didn't say much after that.
We told ourselves it was a raccoon that died, or
maybe a homeless person's camp or sewage reacting with something,
but we knew it wasn't. I had rashes on my
legs for weeks after, and my boots smelled like that

(20:32):
place until I finally threw them away. Rick stopped hanging
out with us after that. Dave and I made a
pack that we'd never crawl into another pipe again, no
matter how bored we got. Story five. I never planned
on working underground. I grew up in Yonkers worked loading trucks.
Then when my uncle got me a job with the MTA,
I figured it'd be easy overtime sweeping the tunnels on graveyard.

(20:55):
Nobody tells you how heavy the air feels down there
at two am, when it's just your boots, the rats, scuffles,
and the echoes of your own breath. This happened back
in twenty sixteen under the J Line in Brooklyn around
the Gates Avenue station. I was still new. They paired
me with this older guy, Sal, who did most of
the real work, and I just followed him around with

(21:17):
the big flashlight and a trash bag for debris. It's
not exciting work, but it's good money if you don't
mind the dark. That night, Sal told me to do
the small service tunnel checks alone while he handled some
trash by the platform edge. Just don't wander, he said,
which I thought was a joke, but he wasn't smiling.
There's this maintenance tunnel off to the side, an older

(21:38):
one with these heavy wooden doors with rusted latches, leads
into what used to be a crew storage area before
they shut it off. It was supposed to be locked,
but the latch was hanging open, almost like someone wedged
it with a piece of cardboard. I radioed Sal, told
him I was going to take a quick look, and
he didn't answer, but I figured maybe the signal was
dead in the tunnel. It was colder in there. You

(22:00):
could hear water dripping somewhere, the walls sweating that old
concrete stink. I kept my flashlight low, watching for rats,
and I saw a bootprint in the dust, clear as day,
going deeper in. No one was supposed to be in there,
no reason for fresh prints. I was about to call
it in when I heard something like a cough far

(22:21):
down the hall. I turned off the light just for
a second, and there was a tiny red glow in
the dark, like a cigarette cherry, way too high to
be someone sitting. It moved just a little, like it
swayed side to side, and then it blinked out. I
don't know why I didn't run right then. Maybe I
thought it was some junkie. But there was no smell,

(22:41):
no shuffle, nothing but that drip, drip, drip.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
I turned my light.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Back on, took a few steps forward, and then I
heard this voice, clear as anything, coming from up ahead.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Help me.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
It wasn't a whisper. It was a man's voice, strained
like he'd been crying or choking. It echoed weird, like
it wasn't coming from just one direction. I froze. I
tried my radio again, but it just crackled. I said,
hello you okay man, thinking maybe someone was trapped in there. Nothing,
just the drip. I took another step, and that's when

(23:17):
I saw the water on the ground was spreading from
under a door, and it was dark, darker than it
should have been, almost black. My light caught on something
shiny in it, like metal, but it was gone when
I stepped closer. Then that voice again, right on the
other side of the door, louder.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Help me.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
I reached for the handle and the door yanked forward,
like someone was pulling it from the other side. I
fell back, dropped my flashlight and it rolled, spinning the
beam around the room. In that flash of light, I
saw something standing in the corner behind the door. It
was tall, skinny, wearing something dark, but its head was wrong,
like it was tilted too far, almost touching its own shoulder.

(23:58):
The light stopped spinning, and it was dark again except
for the tiniest glow right where its face would be,
like that red cherry, and I realized it was an eye,
just one looking right at me. I heard the voice again,
but this time it was right in my ear, even
though I could still see the shape across the room.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Help me, I ran.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
I don't remember getting up, but I remember the hallway
stretching too long, like I wasn't getting closer to the exit,
the darkness swallowing the beam of the flashlight. I dropped
the bag, heard it splash, and kept running, scraping my
shoulder against the concrete to keep my balance. When I
finally burst out, Sal was standing there, smoking, staring at

(24:40):
me like I was crazy. I tried to tell him,
but I was shaking so bad I couldn't get the
words out.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
He just looked at me, then looked past me into
the tunnel.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
Don't go down there alone, he said, flicking his cigarette
onto the track bed. You hear it once, You're lucky,
you hear it again. It follows you home. I quit
two weeks later. I couldn't handle going down there anymore,
not after I started hearing the dripping in my apartment
at night, or seeing that little red glow from the
corner of my room just for a second before I

(25:09):
turned on the light and it was gone. I don't
know what I saw down there, and I don't care anymore.
But if you ever work the tunnels and you hear
someone asking for help from the dark, don't answer. Just
keep walking, because whatever it is, it isn't stuck down there.
It's looking for a way out, and it will follow
you if you listen. Story six. I used to live
in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in one of those dead end row

(25:32):
houses near an old scrapyard. This was when I was
twenty four, working nights on loading trucks. I spent most
of my off days with two friends, Rich and Tommy,
who were into urban exploration. We'd hit abandoned mills, drained tunnels, whatever.
It sounds stupid now, but it made us feel alive,
I guess. One Saturday afternoon, Rich told us about an

(25:53):
abandoned limestone quarry outside town, the one that cut into
a mountain with a maze of tunnels and old mining
tracks still in it. He'd found it on some form.
We decided to check it out, bringing flashlights, cheap walkie talkies,
and a couple of gatorades. We told ourselves it was
just another spot, But the second we stepped past the
rusted chain on the broken fence, the air felt different, quiet,

(26:15):
like the whole place was holding its breath. The main
tunnel was wide enough to drive a truck through, cutting
straight into the mountain before branching into side shafts every
twenty or thirty feet. There were weird piles of gravel,
old hoses, and busted tools scattered around like the miners
dropped everything and walked out. It smelled damp, but not
like a normal wet basement, more like wet stone, metal

(26:37):
and something sour. We kept following the tunnel until we
couldn't see daylight anymore, just our flashlights bobbing against the
rock walls.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
Every now and.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
Then we'd hear water dripping in the dark, echoing down
the shafts like footsteps you could never pin down. Nobody
said it out loud, but all of us felt it
like we weren't alone in there. About forty minutes in
we found a bigger clearing. It looked like a room
blown out of the rock. The ceiling high enough that
our lights couldn't catch it fully, shadows swallowing the upper parts.

(27:07):
The floor was uneven, with puddles reflecting our lights and
mounds of rock that had caved in from somewhere above.
Tommy stopped dead, shining his flashlight across the far side
of the clearing.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
Dude, what the hell is that?

Speaker 1 (27:20):
At first I thought it was just another pile of scrap,
but when Rich angled his light over, I realized it
was an old floor model TV, one of those wood
paneled ones with a curved glass screen. It was tipped
on its side, partly buried in the rubble screen facing
the wall. It didn't make sense. Who would drag a
heavy ass TV down here? There were no power lines,

(27:40):
no cables, no extension cords, just that TV sitting.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Like it had been waiting for us.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Rich laughed it off, probably miners man generator or something.
Tommy didn't laugh. Why would they watch TV in a
hole like this? I couldn't think of anything to say,
and the silence in that moment felt laud like it
was pressing down on us. We stood there, all three
lights on the TV, breathing hard for no reason. Then

(28:08):
the screen turned on. I swear to god, it just
flickered to life with a static glow, even though it
wasn't plugged into anything. No hum, no crackle, just a
dim gray fuzz like an old TV with the volume
turned all the way down. I took a step back,
almost slipping on the wet rock, my heart pounding so
hard I felt sick. Tommy whispered, turn your light off.

(28:31):
I don't know why we listened, but we did. One
by one, the beams clicked off, leaving us in darkness
except for that faint gray light, flickering like it was breathing.
At first, it was just static, but then the image
started to shift. It looked like dark shapes moving across
a gray background, like shadows of people walking back and forth,
stopping turning. We couldn't hear anything, but I swear it

(28:53):
felt like we could, like the static was vibrating in
our heads, humming in our teeth. Rich whispered, it's a recording, right, someone,
Someone set this up.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
But I knew nobody set that up. We all knew it.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
The shadows on the screen weren't moving like people in
a movie. They were moving like they knew we were there,
pausing and turning like they could see us. Tommy took
a step closer, his face pale in the glow. Do
you see that in the middle of the screen. One
of the shadows stopped, turning its head slowly, and the
dark shape of its face pressed.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
Up against the glass from the inside.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
I can't explain it, but it was like it was
looking out at us, not from a recording, but from
wherever it was trapped in that screen. Its head tilted
and I saw what looked like a hand pressed against
the inside of the glass, smearing the static, leaving a streak.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Like black oil across the glow.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
My stomach dropped and I felt the sharp cold pressure
in my chest like I couldn't breathe. Tommy reached out
like he was going to touch it. Don't, I hissed,
but it was too late. His finger brushed the glass,
and the TV screamed. There was no other way to
describe it. The static didn't get louder. The entire room
filled with a screech like metal tearing, and a voice

(30:07):
screaming under it, and the screen flared white, lighting up
the rocks like daylight. I saw the shadow's face pressed
against the glass, a black shape with a gaping mouth,
and then I saw my own reflection next to it,
my eyes wide, mouth open. Before everything went black. My
flashlight hit the ground, rolling the beam cutting across the

(30:28):
wet rocks. The TV was off again, just a dead
black screen, the scream still ringing in my ears. Tommy
was on the ground, gasping, clutching his hand. Rich grabbed
his arm, pulling him up and we ran. We didn't
look back at the TV, didn't talk, didn't stop just
ran down that tunnel until we saw the crack of
daylight and stumbled out into the weeds. We drove home

(30:51):
in silence, Tommy shaking so hard the seat rattled. The
skin on his fingertip red and blistered where he touched
the glass. We didn't go to a hospital, didn't tell
anyone one. We just went home and didn't talk about
it for weeks. Story seven. I used to live in
Philly West Kensington, in this old row house we rented
above a corner store. I was nineteen, working nights at

(31:11):
a kitchen downtown, smoking too much weed and hanging around
with my buddy Eric, who lived across the street. We
didn't have much to do, so we started hitting up
the old storm drains under the neighborhood. Not because we
were urban explorers or anything, but just because it was
a spot to get high without getting hassled. There's a
spot near Lehigh Avenue where the drain grate is loose,

(31:32):
and if you slip down carefully, there's this low tunnel
you can walk hunched over for a bit before it
opens up into this bigger section where you can stand
and smoke and talk. It smelled like rot and rust,
but we didn't care. We tagged the walls with cheap
spray paint and carved dumb jokes with pocket knives, thinking
we were hard. One night, it was me, Eric and

(31:54):
his cousin Luis, and we'd gone down there with a
couple of cheap Swisher blunts. I remember it was to
see your breath, but the tunnel was warmer and everything echoed,
so you'd hear yourself breathing like it wasn't you. We'd
been down there maybe twenty minutes, laughing about something when
Eric's flashlight caught something on the wall behind us. It

(32:14):
was a message, big red letters, sloppy but deliberate. Smoke
the Reefer, Meet the Reaper. Eric's like, yo, did you
do that? I said no, and Louis swore he hadn't either,
But we'd been tagging other walls down there before, so
we weren't too freaked out yet. We just stared at
it for a second, laughing nervously, and Eric said, damn,

(32:35):
that's some creepy pasta shit. We sparked up another blunt,
trying to ignore it. But it felt different down there
that night, like the air was thicker or there was
something waiting around the corner. You know how it gets
quiet sometimes and you can hear the water dripping. It
was like that, but we heard something else under it too,
a voice. At first I thought it was someone on

(32:56):
the street above us, but it was too clear, too close.
It was laughing, low, wheezy, like whoever it was couldn't
catch their breath. Louise froze, looking at me, eyes wide.
Eric turned his flashlight off for a second, whispering, shut up,
shut up, listen. The laughing stopped, and there was this scrape,

(33:17):
like shoes on wet concrete, coming from the darkness past
the bend in the tunnel. We backed up and I
could see Luis was shaking, and I felt my heart
beating in my throat. Then from around the bend, I
swear I heard a second voice, higher, giggling, like a
kid trying to copy the first one. Eric hissed, let's go, man,
But we were standing there, frozen because you could hear

(33:39):
them getting closer. Footsteps splash, drag, splash, and then they
started saying something, a whisper at first, but it got
clearer as it echoed off the tunnel. We're watching you.
I don't remember deciding to run I just remember moving,
slipping in the shallow water, scraping my hands on the concrete.

(34:00):
Eric's flashlight was swinging wildly, and I saw flashes of
the walls, more red writing I hadn't noticed before, like
you belong to us, and breathed slow. The footsteps were
following fast, now splashes getting closer, and I heard that
giggling again, but it was closer to me than it
should have been, like it was right behind my neck.

(34:20):
We hit the spot where we usually climbed out, and
Eric was already pushing up on the manhole cover. It
was heavier than I remembered, and he was grunting, trying
to shove it up, while Luis kept looking back, shaking, whispering,
they're coming, They're coming. I turned and I saw them
just before we got out, two figures way down the tunnel,
but close enough for the flashlight to catch them. One

(34:42):
was tall, hunched and wearing something dark and wet, with
a hood or maybe long hair hanging down. The other
was smaller, like a kid, holding the taller one's hand,
head tilted pale, and the flashlight's beam. They weren't walking,
They were standing in the water, but the water around there,
legs was rippling like they were breathing heavy. Eric shoved

(35:03):
the cover aside, and we scrambled out into the street,
into the noise of cars and the cold air that
hit us like a slap. We almost got hit by
a cab climbing out into the middle of the high
The driver leaned on the horn, cussing us out, but
we just stood there, breathing hard, looking at the open manhole.
Eric kicked its shut and it clang so loud. People
on the corner turned to look. We didn't care. We

(35:25):
didn't even look at each other. We just left. I
never went back down there, not once. I don't know
what we saw, if it was junkies messing with us
or something else. But that laugh, the way it echoed,
the way it felt like it was breathing right behind me.
I still hear it sometimes when I'm trying to sleep.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
Story eight.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
I grew up in Pasadena, east of Houston, where you
can smell the refineries on some mornings, and the Bayous
cut through every block like.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Veins under the skin of the city.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
My name's Tommy, and when I was fifteen, I used
to sneak into the storm drained tunnels with my friend Carlos.
We'd heard you could get anywhere in Houston underground if
you knew which grades to drop into, and for a
while it was just dumb fun, making maps with blue
big pens, lighting cheap Walmart candles, and daring each other
to crawl into smaller offshoots just to say we did this.

(36:14):
One Saturday late July, we told our parents we were
going to the Pasadena town Square Mall, but instead we
dropped into a storm drain behind the Fiesta on Southmore.
We were planning to follow the tunnel system all the
way to a spot behind the mall where we knew
there was a shallow outflow ditch. We thought we could
pull it off before lunch if we hustled. Carlos had

(36:34):
this yellow waterproof flashlight he'd gotten for Christmas, and I
had a tiny backpack with a couple of cokes and
some beef jerky. We dropped down and the air was
heavy with that sour stink of wet concrete and mildew.
It always felt colder in there, like a stale refrigerator,
and the echoes of our steps would bounce back weirdly,
sometimes sounding like someone was following us.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
A few steps behind.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
About an hour in, we realized them we had was
missing some of the turns we needed. Houston's tunnels all
looked the same, stained walls, puddles reflecting your flashlight, the
low ceiling forcing you to hunch. I remember, I stopped
and said, man, you sure this is the right way.
Carlos looked back, his face pale in the flashlight. Dude,
I don't know. We're close, though, I can feel it.

(37:20):
But then we heard this sound, like metal scraping against concrete.
It wasn't super loud, but it wasn't like the usual
drip or distant rush of water.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
We both froze. You hear that, I whispered.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Carlos swung his flashlight around, but the beam just caught
the curves of the tunnel, shining off puddles. The scraping
came again, closer, like something heavy being dragged. We thought
maybe it was an animal, but it sounded too deliberate,
too slow, almost like it was wading between drags. Let's
just keep going, Carlos said, but his voice was tight, shaky.

(37:54):
We kept walking faster, the sound behind us, sometimes stopping,
sometimes picking up again closer. Each time we paused, there's
this feeling you get when you're underground, where you can't
tell if a noise is right behind you or one
hundred feet away, and it messes with your head.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Then, like Houston does, the rain came.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
It started with a soft, constant tapping above, and then
it was like someone turned on a faucet. Water started
pouring from cracks in the ceiling and from side grates,
and the little trickle along the floor turned into a
fast moving stream.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
I remember yelling, we.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
Need to get out now, but there was nowhere to
climb out, just these walls that were too slick and high.
We tried to run, but the water was rising ankle deep,
then shin deep, the current strong enough to push against
our legs. We were screaming for each other to hurry,
our lights, dancing on the walls, trying to find a
ladder or a maintenance hatch. Then the scraping came again, louder,

(38:51):
but it wasn't behind us anymore. It was in front
of us, around a bend, and it was coming toward us.
I stopped so hard I almost fell, grabbing Carla arm.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
What the hell is that? I yelled? We backed up.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
The water now at our knees, rushing faster, pulling trash
and sticks and oil slicks past us. The flashlight beam
caught something around the corner, a shadow that moved, but
it didn't move like a person. It was hunched wide,
and when the light hit the water near it, there
was this shape like long fingers or claws, dragging along
the concrete, pulling itself forward. Carlo screamed, I can still

(39:26):
hear it in my head sometimes when it's raining. The
thing didn't rush us, It just kept pulling itself closer, scraping, scraping,
like it had nowhere else to go but toward us.
I saw it lift its head, no face, just a
wet black shape like a burlapsed sack soaked in oil,
with this shifting under the fabric, like something crawling underneath it.

(39:48):
The water hit our waists and the current was so
strong we had to hold onto each other to keep
from falling. I looked back and saw another tunnel splitting
off wider, and without thinking, I pulled Carlo and we
let the water take us into that tunnel, away from
the things scraping its way toward us. We were half swimming,
half being dragged by the current. Our heads hitting the ceiling.

(40:10):
Sometimes we couldn't see where we were going, the flashlight
bouncing around wildly. At some point, the tunnel dropped and
the water sucked us down.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
Like a slide.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
I remember the roar of water, the darkness, the feeling
of Carlos's hand slipping from mine.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
Then light.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
We shot out of the tunnel mouth and into a wide, brown,
swirling bayou, gasping, choking on water, grabbing at tree roots
and mud to pull ourselves to the bank. We crawled out,
coughing up water, our legs scraped up, covered in mud.
We sat there for a long time, soaked, shaking, looking
back at the tunnel we had come out of. I
kept expecting to see that black shape crawl out, dragging

(40:50):
itself into the daylight.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
It didn't.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
When we finally got back to the main road, we
realized we were almost a mile from where we'd started.
Carlos wouldn't talk about what we saw, said it was
the rain in shadows. But I saw the look on
his face when the light hit that shape in the tunnel.
He saw it too. We never went back underground after that.
We burned the maps we made, the ones we spent
months drawing and we never talked about it again, not

(41:15):
even years later, when we were both working at the
same auto shop and it would rain and flood the street,
water swirling around the drains, sucking everything down into the dark.
Story nine. I've worked in the New York City Subway
maintenance division for ten years, mostly graveyard shifts, fixing electrical
boxes and clearing debris after hours.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
You get used to the.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
Rats, the dripping ceilings, the strange quiet under tons of
concrete while the city above never stops breathing. I live
in Queens, but I was stationed near the Bowery Line
that night, two stops down from Delancey. It was one
of those muggy summer nights where the tunnels feel like
a throat, wet and breathing. The assignment was routine swap

(41:56):
out a corroded panel near a decommissioned maintenance stairwell deep
in one of the older sections of track. We call
those parts the hollow, where the tunnels widen out for
storage and there's weird airflow, like wind that comes from nowhere.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
I was alone.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
The guy who was supposed to help me called out,
so dispatch just told me to finish up if I
could since it was low risk. I had my headlamp,
my tool bag, and a portable radio. Once you've spent
enough nights down there, it stops being scary even when
you're alone.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
Until that night.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
I set up on the catwalk near the wall, careful
not to slip on the oily spots. The panel I
needed to replace was inside a crawl space past a
rusted gate, about twenty feet back from the track. I
radioed in before I ducked in there, just so control
would know where I was. The smell hit me first.
People always think the tunnels smell bad, but they don't really,

(42:50):
just like damp metal and old dust. This was different.
It was sweet and rotted at the same time. Clinging
to the back of my throat, I figured maybe a
rat died somewhere close. I crawled in, scraping my shoulder
against the brick, the concrete sweating around me. My headlamp
caught weird shapes in the shadows, like pipes that twisted wrong,

(43:10):
or an old, chewed up work glove someone left decades ago.
Then I heard something move further down. It wasn't a
rat rats scurry. This was deliberate, like a knee shifting
on gravel something heavier. I froze, My radio crackled, and
I almost smacked my head on the concrete control Say again,
I whispered static. I kept going. I just wanted to

(43:33):
swap the panel and get out. My headlamp flickered, which
happened sometimes, but it picked the worst possible moment to
do it. That's when I saw the stairwell. It was
about fifteen feet past where I was supposed to stop,
but the brick wall had collapsed on one side, opening
it up like a mouth. I didn't even know there
was a stairwell there. It went down, and I don't

(43:53):
mean a few steps, It just went down into blackness.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Swallowing my light.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
I should have left right there, but I don't know
if it was the heat or the way the air
moved around that opening, or maybe just curiosity that got
the better of me. I leaned over the edge and
shined my headlamp down. The smell got worse, like burnt
hair and old blood. The steps were slimy, black with something,
and there was graffiti all over the walls, old tags

(44:18):
from the seventies or maybe older. Then I heard it,
someone whispering. I jerked back so hard I smacked my
elbow on the concrete. The whispering didn't stop. It was
like a woman or a kid, or something in between.
I couldn't make out the words, just the rhythm, like
a wet, breathy chot. And it was coming up the stairs. Hey,

(44:39):
I shouted down, thinking maybe it was another worker messing around. Yo,
you good down there. The whispering stopped. I held my
breath and the silence in that tunnel pressed down on me, heavy,
like the entire city was leaning on my shoulders. Then
one step down in the dark, I saw a hand.
It was pale, thin, like a child's hand, but the

(44:59):
fingers were too long, curled around the edge of the step,
nails scraping on the concrete. Another hand came up beside it,
and then a face. It wasn't right. It was pale, wet,
the eyes black like holes, the mouth too wide, like
the skin had split at the corners, the teeth too
many and too small, clicking together like sewing needles. The

(45:22):
thing's hair hung in wet strands, and it opened its
mouth and made a noise like air being sucked through water.
I fell backward, scraping my hands and dropping my flashlight,
which rolled and pointed back toward that stairwell. The thing
crawled up another step and its head twitched to the
side too fast, like it was sniffing the air. I
couldn't move. It made that wet sucking sound again, and

(45:44):
the whispering came back, but now it was in my
head too, like it was whispering directly inside my skull.
Come down, Come down, Come down. I don't remember standing up,
but I did. I grabbed my flashlight and ran, smashing
my shoulder on the brick. As I squeezed back through
the crawl space, I could hear it behind me, the
wet slap of its hands on the concrete, the whispering

(46:05):
turning into a screech. I stumbled out onto the catwalk, tripped,
and nearly fell onto the tracks. My radio was buzzing,
and I heard someone calling my name, but I couldn't answer.
I just ran, sprinting down the catwalk until I hit
the next junction, where the lights were still working.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
I looked back.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Nothing there, just the tunnel, dripping and empty like it
had been before. I called in for an emergency exit
and got the hell out, Shaking so bad, I dropped
my tool bag in the tunnel. When I got to
the surface, I threw up in the gutter and couldn't
stop shaking. Nobody believed me, of course. They said I
had heat exhaustion, or maybe I was dehydrated. I know

(46:46):
what I saw, I know what I heard. I know
that thing was down there in the old part of
the tunnel that even the rats avoid. They tried to
send me back down the next week, but I told
them no. I transferred out. I haven't been the tunnels since,
and I won't go back, not ever, no matter how
much they pay me.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Story ten.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
I don't really talk about this, mostly because it still
messes with my head. I live in Morgantown, West Virginia,
and I've been crawling abandoned places with a couple of
friends since high school, mostly mills mines, hospital wings left
to rot. You get used to moldy walls and the
smell of old paper. But the trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
was different from the jump. We weren't drunk or high

(47:30):
that night, just bored and looking for something to break
the routine. It's about an hour and a half from us,
and we'd heard stories for years. The place was supposed
to be self sufficient back in the day, farms workshops,
underground tunnels connecting the main buildings. Most people go there
for the ghost tours upstairs, but we wanted the tunnels.
It was me, Cody and Devon. Cody drove, and Devon

(47:53):
wouldn't shut up about how he'd heard there were rooms
down there that still had straight jackets and files stacked
on desks. He swore some of the the tunnels were
used for bad experiments. But I didn't care about ghost stories.
I just wanted to see the tunnels. We got there
just after midnight, parked far from the entrance, and climbed
in through a broken window we'd scoped earlier. Inside was

(48:13):
dead quiet, the kind of quiet you can hear pressing
against your ears. Paint peeled in sheets, and the halls
smelled like wet plaster and old metal. We walked past
abandoned gurney's, some tipped over, some with leather restraints still
hanging loose. I remember my flashlight catching on a child's
drawing taped to the wall in one hallway, all faded
crayon colors in a big yellow sun. It felt wrong

(48:36):
that it was still there. We found one of the
gates leading down to the tunnels on the east wing,
chains shut with a no trespassing sign. Zip tied to
the bars, but the bottom corner was loose. The gate
bent just enough that if you squeezed, you could slip through.
Cody went first and I followed, the metal, scraping my jacket.
Devon came last, breathing heavy, saying dude, it smells like

(48:58):
a grave down here. That's when we heard it, soft,
almost so faint. I thought it was in my head.
It was music like a toy piano, but old and cracked,
playing some slow, sad tune. I didn't recognize. Cody looked
at me eyebrows up, but we kept going because we
didn't want to chicken out. The tunnel was narrow, brick
walls sweating in the dark, and our lights made the

(49:19):
water on the ground look black. The music kept playing,
getting louder, but never clear enough to figure out what
it was. It didn't feel like it was coming from
one spot. It was everywhere, like the tunnel itself was humming.
Devin whispered, this ain't funny, man, and tried to laugh,
but his voice was shaking. We found a door on
the left rusted but unlocked, and pushed it open. Inside

(49:43):
was a small room, probably fifteen by fifteen, with a desk,
some chairs, and papers scattered everywhere. It smelled like mildew
and iron. On the desk was an old, busted music box,
the kind with the spinning ballerina on top, but it
was missing the figure, leaving only the rods spinning slowly
like something invisible was dancing on it.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
The music was coming from it.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
I walked closer, trying to see if it was battery operated,
but it looked too old for that. It was moving, playing,
and I don't know why, but I felt like something
was watching us from the corners of the room, like
we'd stepped into a place we weren't supposed to find.
Cody said, bro let's get the hell out, But I
reached out and touched the box.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
It stopped.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
The rod froze, the music cut off, and the silence
was so sudden it hurt my ears. Then, just as
I turned to look at Cody, we heard a voice
from the tunnel outside, clear as day, like a woman
calling from far away.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
Help.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
We froze. Devin whispered, did you hear that? But none
of us could even answer. It called again, closer, dragging
out the word like she was choking.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
Help me. It sounded wrong, like the voice was broken.

Speaker 1 (50:55):
Cody grabbed my arm and yanked me back toward the tunnel,
and we all stumbled out of the room. The tunnel
was darker now somehow, and colder, like stepping into a freezer.
We started running, shoes splashing in the water. That voice
following us closer, like it was right behind us, but
when I turned there was nothing. I tripped, smashing my flashlight,

(51:16):
and the dark swallowed us. Devin screamed, get up, get up,
and I felt hands pulling me, dragging me, and I
thought it was Cody or Devon, but the grip was
ice cold, and I couldn't see anything. My chest went
tight like I couldn't breathe, and in that moment, I
swear I felt a face right next to mine, breathing
in my ear. It whispered, Stay. I screamed. I don't

(51:41):
remember how, but I got up, stumbling, clawing at the walls,
following Cody's light until we found the bent gate again.
We crawled through so fast we tore our clothes and
we ran, crashing through the halls, not even looking back,
because we knew if we looked, we'd see it. We
made it outside, lungs burning, and didn't stop running until
we reached the car. None of us said a word.

(52:03):
We just sat there, soaked and shaking, watching the dark
windows of that building, waiting for something to move. A
sheriff showed up while we were trying to catch our breath,
lights flashing blue against the old bricks. He didn't even
look angry, just tired. He took our IDs, sighed and said,
you boys, got no idea what you're messing with. We

(52:23):
didn't argue. We didn't say a word about the tunnels,
the music box, or the voice. He called the owner,
who came out wearing pajama pants and a jacket, his
face pale as the moon. He looked at us, then
at the asylum behind us, and said, you're not going
back down there ever. Dot He agreed not to press
charges if we promised to leave and never come back,

(52:44):
and we took that deal without blinking. Cody drove us
home and the entire ride was dead quiet. Devin was crying,
but I didn't say anything because I was shaking too hard.
I've never been back, and I don't plan to. I
don't go exploring anymore, and I can't even listen to
music boxes without my stomach turning. I still don't know
what was down there, or what that voice was, or

(53:06):
how that music box was playing on its own