Something Buried Under the Foundation - Horror Stories

Something Buried Under the Foundation - Horror Stories

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've worked construction in most of my adult life, but
last year I took a job that made me consider
walking away from the trade entirely. It was a residential
project in northern Pennsylvania, an old lot where the developer
wanted to put up luxury town homes. The land had
been cleared, but you could tell it had history. The

(00:21):
trees around the site were gnarled, the ground uneven, and
there was this weird sunken patch near the center where
the soil never settled. On the second week, our crew
started digging for the foundation. That's when we hit something.
At first, it looked like concrete, an old slab maybe,
but it was too smooth, too solid. We broke through

(00:45):
with the jackhammer and underneath was a hollow space. One
of the guys, Luis, leaned down with a flashlight. Looks
like a chamber, he muttered. Sure enough, Beneath the lot
was an underground room ten by ten, perfectly square. The
walls weren't stone or brick, they were poured concrete, thick

(01:09):
and old. There was no door, no stairs, just a
sealed box. We told the foreman, but he shrugged it off.
Probably an old septic tank. Fill it in keep moving,
so we did, except Louise wouldn't shut up about it.
He swore he saw marks on the inside walls, scratches,

(01:31):
deep grooves like fingernails. That night, while locking up, I
heard something from the pit, a hollow thud, like someone
knocking from inside. I told myself it was just settling soil.
But the next morning the concrete patch we'd poured over
the chamber had cracked clean down the middle. Louise refused

(01:54):
to go back in the pit after that, said he
dreamt of someone calling his name from under the ground.
A few days later, another worker, Dan went missing. We
thought maybe he bailed. He was always unreliable, but his
car was still in the lot, his hard hat too.

(02:15):
The last place anyone saw him was near the pit.
The foreman brought in more gravel, ordered us to bury
it deeper, and threatened to fire anyone who asked questions,
but it didn't stop. At night, tools went missing, our
rebar stacks were found bent out of shape, like something
had gripped them. Once the crane operator swore he saw

(02:40):
someone standing at the edge of the pit while he
was moving a load. When he climbed down to yell
at them, nobody was there. The worst part was the smell.
About three weeks in. The whole sight re reeked of rot,
like meat left in the sun. But there was nothing,
no dead animals, no bursts to a line. The smell

(03:03):
seemed to come from the ground itself. The wei squered
After that, he walked off at lunch and never came back.
The foreman cursed him, said he was weak, but the
rest of us were jealous. He got out. Then came
the collapse. We were pouring the last section of the
foundation when the ground buckled. Half the slab caved in,

(03:27):
exposing the chamber again, Only this time the inside wasn't empty.
I'll never forget what I saw when the dust cleared.
The walls shredded with claw marks, yes, but also dark
stains smeared across the concrete, thick and old, and in
the center of the floor a bundle of something wrapped

(03:48):
in tarcloth, long enough to be a body. The foreman
lost it, ordered everyone out, told us to keep our
mouths shut. He called the developer. The next day. The
pit was filled in with truck loads of gravel fast
like they couldn't risk any one else seeing. They finished
the town homes. Families live there now. Kids play in

(04:12):
the yards right above that buried chamber. I still drive
past sometimes, and every now and then I see the
soil shift along the property line, like the ground's breathing.
I don't work construction any more, because some things aren't
meant to be dug up.