This happened 8 years ago when I was a sophomore
in high school.
My "urbex" friends and I were on a bike ride
looking for cool places to explore in a relatively
dilapidated area when we discovered a really
creepy cave (which we later learned was an
old abandoned cement mine ). We did some mild
exploring that first day but quickly realized
it would require more gear to thoroughly explore
(flashlights, respirators, etc).
About a week later 5 of us came back with
the proper gear and a camera to see what we
could find in the mine.
We discovered there was basically one main
shaft that sloped downward and deeper into
the earth so we followed that main route.
It was wide enough for a car to drive down
and was pretty well graded so the walking
was easy.
There were many rooms, old machinery, and
rusting equipment off of this main shaft but
we mostly avoided it in the beginning; we
were trying not to get lost or confused.
Along the way the walls were littered with
the classic abandoned graffiti: "x was here,"
swastikas, initials and dates, phallic drawings,
etc.
As we got deeper and deeper though, the graffiti
really thinned out.
At this point the light from the entrance
was long gone and we were relying solely on
flashlights.
The air was so stagnant and hazy with particles
that the light from our flimsy flashlights
would only go 20 feet or so before getting
totally obscured by dust (thank goodness for
the respirators).
The glow sticks we had brought to mark our
way to prevent getting lost were also basically
useless because they would disappear in the
haze only a few steps after dropping them
and we had only brought ten or so.
At this point we started arguing amongst ourselves.
Several of the crew was nervous about going
any deeper with the air quality being so terrible
and without a good way to prevent us from
getting lost (we were probably a quarter mile
into the earth now).
The rest of us managed to override that sentiment
of fear by assuring them that the path was
easy and straightforward so we'd have to try
to get lost.
We were going to rely on our levelheadedness,
sense of direction, and flashlight battery
life to get out.
Despite the agreement to push on it was becoming
very creepy for everyone.
We walked for a while in silence, hearing
nothing but our own movements and the steady
drip of water coming from somewhere deep in
the cave.
I think we were all pretty scared at this
point but no longer willing to admit it to
each other.
Then we stumbled across something that made
all of us stop cold in our tracks.
Dug into the side of the deep stone shaft
we were slowly descending was a tunnel - an
offshoot.
It was narrow, you'd have to crouch to go
through it, and it was also a good few feet
off the ground so it required us to scramble
to reach it.
But that wasn't what made us stop.
It was the graffiti.
We hadn't seen any for 10 minutes or so and
had assumed the "artists" never came this
deep.
But someone else clearly had and the message
they left was ominous.
The tunnel was lined with words written in
white, all of them somehow relating to death
and destruction.
Scrawled throughout the tunnel were words
like "Suffering," "Pain," "Plague," "Disease,"
and "Hell."
It was terrifying.
Who else would come this far just to write
such a terrible message in a mysterious tunnel
that broke from the main path.
But there was no turning back now, we had
to see where the tunnel led to.
Despite our fear we were overpowered by intense
curiosity.
So one by one we crawled through the tunnel
to the other side.
What we found was a strange flooded chamber.
Around the pool of water were many large stones,
each covered with dozens of burned out tea
candles.
There must've been hundreds of used tea candles
in the place.
The walls had a few creepy monster faces poorly
graffiti'd on them and the tunnel entrance
back to the main shaft was ringed with a spray-painted
blood-stained mouth.
What the hell was this place?
Some weird ritual site for local Satan worshippers?
Some sort of elaborate hoax set up by a bunch
of kids?
We couldn't find much evidence to figure it
all out and we were running out of adrenaline
to keep exploring.
We all crawled out of that weird hell hole
and back into the mainshaft where we promptly
headed towards the exit.
When we finally saw that pin prick of natural
life coming from the real word outside we
were flooded with relief.
We never did figure out what that mysterious
cavern was for and I think I'm content to
leave it a mystery.
No we didn't hear any monsters in the depths
of the tunnel or find any bloody Satan-praisers
themselves but just finding that room, buried
deep in an old forgotten mine, and thinking
about the horrible things that may have taken
place inside there, was enough to creep all
of us out for a very long time.
A few years ago, I got a text from a friend
while I was at work saying he found an abandoned
house deep in the woods off of a trail.
And that he tried approaching the house but
some old lady came up to him and told him
not to go in there.
This was on a Tuesday and I told him I was
at work so we'd have to go that night.
Night comes and I make my way over to his
place a couple of cities over, and we head
down this trail to go find this house.
This house looked as if it had been abandoned
for years.
It was in the middle of the woods, at the
end of a long driveway surrounded by trees
and darkness.
I mean you couldn't hear a single sound or
see a single light.
We walked around the house to try and find
an entry point but all the windows had been
smashed in and replaced by boards, nails and
2x4's.
Our only option was the front door which was
also boarded up and locked with a pad lock.
My buddy decides we should try and break in
seeing as no one probably lives here and no
one would be around to see us or even care.
So we hike back down the trail to go find
something we could use to break in, and we
end up finding a park where the city had planted
trees.
We took the big steel rods planted around
the saplings that were used to help keep them
levelled while they grow and headed back towards
the house.
We get to the house and start trying to break
down the front door.
We're kicking and prying the pad lock with
the steel rods. it's now close to 3 am, in
the middle of nowhere, deep in the woods on
a Tuesday night.
With every kick, the door is moving more and
more, we're getting a solid 2 feet of give
and with every kick, the wood is cracking.
We're almost in.
All of a sudden, it starts getting bright,
I mean really bright.
Too bright to be the sun starting to come
out.
I turn around and see 6 trucks speeding down
the driveway towards us.
I yell at my buddy and tell him we have to
get the fuck outta here.
As, the trucks pull up to the house, we race
around it and sprint into the trees.
This house happened to be at the top of a
very steep hill, in the woods.
We're running down it and tripping every other
step because we're in complete darkness and
can't see what's a foot in front of us.
I look back and there are a bunch of men with
flashlights following us, so I run faster.
All of a sudden, I drop.
I feel a sharp pain in my left thigh and can't
move.
There was a sudden drop in the hill, and I
landed on a fallen tree.
My leg was bleeding but the men were still
following us so I had to get up and keep running.
When we reach the bottom of the hill, our
feet are submerged.
We're in a stream or small river of sorts.
It's only knee deep so we cross it.
Once on the other side, we find ourselves
at the bottom of another hill.
So we climb up and look for an exit to the
forest.
Once, we were at the top, after what felt
like an eternity of climbing, we see some
light piercing through the trees up ahead.
It must be morning, so we head over to the
edge of the forest and find a cul-de-sac.
We hear a car speeding towards us so we hide
in a bush.
From there, we wait to see if the men in the
trucks were coming to look for us on the other
side of the ravine.
It was a fucking cop, doing about 80km/h in
a small residential neighbourhood with no
sirens or lights.
We wait for him to reach the end of the cul-de-sac
and start walking towards civilization.
For the next hour, as we were making our way
back home, we must've see 10 more cop cars
all driving around the neighbourhood we were
walking through.
Every time we would hear a cop, we would jump
into a bush and wait for it to go by.
We got back to my buddy's place by 5:30 am.
He was bummed that we never got into the abandoned
house but I was relieved.
Had we been inside, I wouldn't have seen the
trucks pull into the driveway.
And who knows what kind of trouble we would've
gotten into, or what would've happened to
us
Thinking back to it and seeing that the cops
were involved we assumed it was probably some
type of grow op.
There is an abandoned east coast insane asylum
that I've often seen posted, both on Reddit
as well as various other places around the
internet.
I personally have been there probably 10 or
15 times over the course of a decade, and
each time I've found something new, as the
complex is very spread out, and very massive.
What I've never seen posted, nor even mentioned,
however, is the maze of tunnels beneath the
complex.
Connecting each building is a subterannean
network of tunnels for steam, water, sewage,
and electric.
The tunnels are all roughly 10-15 feet underground,
and quite long.
They lead into the basement of each structure
in a portion of the complex, with an emergency
escape hatch that leads out into the woods
between buildings in a portion.
One really weird thing about this, is that
most of the entrances to the tunnel system
are hidden in the walls - I exited through
a door once and found myself in a room that
was the complex's post office, where I'd literally
been 5 times before, and had never noticed
that there was a hidden passage integrated
into the wood paneling.
The complex has been abandoned for 20-30 years,
so parts of the tunnels are very wet with
leaking water.
When you're down in them, you constantly hear
environmental noise, as well as echos from
your own movements.
There is NOTHING reflective down there, and
there are no outside sources of light.
If you don't have a bright enough flashlight,
it can get kind of difficult to make out features
of things in the distance.
You're relying alot upon the slight tonal
differences of what you can see to determine
when something is off in the distance before
you're right up on it (go out on a moonless
night, and shine an LED penlight against a
concrete wall from like 15 feet away to get
an idea what I'm talking about).
Now, for the terror:
First of all, I have a stupid habit of going
into these places by myself.
I've recently started correcting this, because
you never know when an accident could happen,
leaving you alone, underground, in the dark.
The last time I was in the tunnels, I was
by myself, with a single AA battery powered
75 Lumen LED flashlight (mistake number two).
During this excursion, I decided to follow
the tunnel down to what was the water treatment
building for the complex.
This tunnel slopes downward, so the leaking
water previously mentioned runs down and collects
at the tunnel's end.
So, at the end of the tunnel, I enter this
large room, with two 15 foot tall water storage
tanks.
There is probably an inch of water and muck
on the floor, which makes a "schtuck" noise
when you walk.
I'm standing still, looking around with my
flashlight, and from the opposite side of
the room, around 20 feet away, I hear "schtuck"..."schtuck".
There is someone else in this underground
room with me.
I shine my flashlight across the room, and
don't see anything, but I keep hearing the
wet footprints.
All of a sudden, I shine the light on this
human shaped object that is just black.
There's no difference in shading or anything,
it's just like a shadow against the peach
colored concrete wall.
I stammer out a "Hello?" and all of a sudden,
I can see this person's two eyes flash up.
Their eyes are reflecting back off my flashlight,
and that's all I can see.
I don't know if the person was in a ghillie
suit or what, but it's impossible to make
out anything distinguishing.
I don't know what kind of weirdo sets out
in a full black outfit to rummage around underground.
So, at this point, I flip out.
I spin 180 degrees on my heels, and BOLT.
I'm flying up the inclined tunnel, slipping
and sliding all over the place on the damp
concrete.
I fell a handful of times, sprained my wrist
badly, and got a number of cuts on my one
knee.
That run through the underground tunnels felt
like an eternity.
If you've ever seen the "subaway scene" from
the movie "28 weeks later", that's the closest
thing I can approximate it to.
It was the closest thing I've ever experienced
to a living nightmare, I've never been so
terrified in all my life.
Looking back, I'm sure whomever I met down
there in the dark was probably as terrified
as I was (unless they were crazy as hell).
I have no reason to believe they followed
me, and they probably ran back the way they
came, same as I did.
I noticed that they didn't have a flashlight
on, so what I think probably happened is that
they noticed my light, and pulled a hoody
up over their head, turned their light off,
and tried to hide as best they could.
Anyway, If there's a takeaway from this, it
can be summed up in a single fantastic sentence:
"Don't enter strange underground tunnels,
through hidden doors, beneath long abandoned
and forgotten insane asylums, with a single
tiny flashlight when you're by your lonesome."
Under a church in my local town, there was
this wooden green door with no handle and
no hinges.
The way that it was put there was meant to
just stop access into there.
I’d like to mention that the door is on
the back side of the church bit and outside
the church grounds.
There is no road near it.
One day me and my friends saw someone had
smashed the wooden door thing to pieces.
Being typical teenagers, we wanted to explore,
but me being me, I said we should research
it first.
In our town, there are quite a lot of tunnels
linking houses, shops etc, that are usually
chained off but a lot of them are still open
and haven’t been explored.
This was the first one where we wouldn’t
have to ask a shop owner to have a look.
During my research, I found that there were
apparently all these ghosts including “The
Blue Drum Boy” who got killed during a war
in the early 11th century.
My friend believes in all the paranormal shit
so he got his cross and ghost related things
ready.
I packed a 500lumen flashlight to light up
the place and had a backpack of batteries,
a walkie talkie each and all the other essential
shit.
Early hours, when it was pitch black, we went
in.
Everyone was completely silent as we crept
down the stairs.
Suddenly, we all realised there was a 90 degree
turn where we couldn’t see to the right.
Everyone was shit scared to go first so my
friend lit a red light flare and threw it
in.
Then, we all together walked in.
There was a huge room with another doorway.
We looked around the first room finding needles
and blood.
We carried on through the doorway and found
a gate that had a ladder coming off of it.
Obviously we were all excited and thought,
what a great fuckin idea to cut through the
lock and climb down the ladder.
Three out of the four of us were down when
the largest of us all started climbing.
The ladder was rickety and kind of rusted
but it just broke when he was halfway.
He fell and hurt both of his ankles really
really badly.
Yeah bad situation as we couldn’t get back
up there (because of the ladder breaking)
and my friend, who was the biggest guy couldn’t
walk.
We had to practically carry him.
The exit from the ladder was a completely
dry and pitch black tunnel.
Me and one of my other friends carried on,
(leaving the others to find help as the Walkie
talkies got no reply.
We walked past rotting rat corpses, live rats
and a shit ton of blood stains at one point.
I remember how HORRIBLE it smelled there.
After about 30 minutes of walking, so about
a mile and a half, we found a crossroad.
Straight, left, or right.
Left was a dead end, right was a dead end
but straight had a ladder.
The ladder was rusted and we were scared to
climb it, especially after the other ladder
breaking.
Eventually, we found the courage to climb
up, and I really wish we hadn't.
What we found, I will never forget, and it
haunts me to this day.
There was a man..
His lifeless body was slumped to the side
sort of leaning towards the wall.
His face on the concrete ground facing me.
One of his arms was slumped to the floor and
had a needle jammed in it with the plastic
part of the needle leaning on his torso.
I remember he had long matted hair, and was
wearing a sleeveless denim jacket.
. As I shined my flashlight on him, you could
clearly see his face was rotting away.
I was about to be sick.
I'll never forget that smell.
My immediate reaction, was that we had to
get the others and leave.
The ladder lead to identical rooms but no
lock on the gate.
I ended up going back down the ladder, got
the others and came back.
We managed to get my larger friend up and
out,nd ended up taking him to the hospital.
We couldn’t say where we went or talk about
the dead guy because we were worried about
how much trouble we would get in for tresspassing,
and just in general, especially after what
we saw.
After all, I was 15 and shit scared.
The story ends there.
Shortly after the user posted this story,
people flooded the comments asking how long
it'd been since the body was found, that it
was important to somebody that the body be
reported,
that they should report it with an anonymous
tip, and things like that.
Eventually, the user responded with pictures,
showing that they had submitted an anonymous
tip to the authorities.
