I suppose "found" isn't exactly the right word. It's a bit complicated. You'll see what I mean.
I'm a Cop based in eastern Nevada. Been one for about 12 years. Experienced a lot of things during that period that I could've gone lifetimes without.
But everything that I've seen up until this point - as sick and twisted as they might've been... at least they've made some kind of sense, or yielded some kind of logical conclusion.
But this... I just don't fucking know.
The call came through late at night. A panicked-sounding man was breathing heavily into the phone, saying something along the lines of:
"We need help, it's out, they let it out."
It was hard to say for sure. He was barely coherent. After a few minutes, the line goes dead. We trace the call to a small shack in the middle of a forest on the other side of town.
We found a cell phone that looked like it'd been smashed, lying in the grass a few feet away from the entrance. And no man.
We go into the shack and search around, but find nothing but a small stool. We scoped the place inside-out, but there seemed to be nothing. Eventually, one of my partners - a 240 lb beefcake named Jeff, plopped down onto the stool in frustration.
As soon as he did this, the entire floor under it gave way. He didn't fall too far, thankfully. Only about four meters. But he'd uncovered something... truly bizarre.
It was a man-made tunnel. Undergoing the standard protocol and taking extreme precautions, we jumped down.
Here was the disconcerting part... the tunnel went both ways. In other words, this was not the starting point. We decided to send four guys one way and three the other. I was part of the three that went backwards from where we'd initially broken through.
From the illumination of the flashlights, the tunnel seemed to be pretty barren. Rough, muddy walls and ceilings, along with wooden supports about every half-meter.
It got me thinking who the hell would go through the process of making this place.
Eventually, we came across what appears to be a ladder descending further downwards. I could sense the hesitation in the air. This was not what we'd expected.
We all stood there for a second, not wanting to admit to each other that we really didn't want to go down there.
But then we heard the scream. Ear-piercing. It wasn't faint, nor was it distant. It sounded like it was coming from only a few meters below us.
Fueled by a sudden adrenaline rush, I decided to go down first. The climb was short, only taking me about 15 seconds.
I found myself in what I can only describe as a small computer lab. Dirty concrete floors and walls, but there were four monitors, all displaying an error screen, all hooked up to what I thought was some kind of power source.
But I can't say for sure. I was never a computer guy.
Actually, not all of them had the error screen. One out of the four had its screen smashed to bits.
Suddenly, we heard another scream. We turned our attention to a half-open door in the far corner of the room.
For a brief moment, I saw a dark, shadowy figure move past. The screaming stopped as abruptly as it started, being replaced by the sounds of something dragging on the floor.
We barged into the room, guns drawn.
But it was about the size of a closet, and there was nothing there. Well, not nothing.
There was another tunnel, smaller and a lot more crude than the one we'd first entered. It led straight vertically down. We shone our flashlights through it, but were met with only black.
Safe to say, we didn't pursue whatever had presumably just gone down there. We were all beyond petrified.
I could hear hearts beating and rapid, scattered breaths as we sprinted back out and up into the shack again. When we did, we were alone.
We waited in stunned horror for the other officers to come back out. But they never did.
Now, I know that cops are supposed to be the bravest of the brave. But at that moment... we simply couldn't move.
Eventually, we just called it in. Backup arrived, and we told them what had happened. Their collective faces morphed into one of abject confusion. But I could tell that they were horrified just listening to our accounts.
I decided to take a break from work. They allowed it. In fact, they never even followed up and told me what had happened. At the time, I thought that was a good thing. But I could never sleep. It's not even that I was having nightmares. I was just too terrified to let my brain rest.
Even with my wife lying at my side, I still felt a vague, perpetual sensation of danger.
I needed some kind of closure. I decided to go into the station and ask around myself.
I knocked on the Captain's door, and he let me in. The first thing that I saw when I entered was his expression. I'd never seen him look so terrified before.
"You want to know what happened, don't you?"
I nod. He lets out a dry, humorless laugh.
"Well...I don't know." Was his response.
He stopped speaking after that, instead simply staring at me in silence for about a minute before I finally decided to leave. I was too shaken by this to discuss the issue with anybody else.
That encounter certainly didn't help my case.
I went back home and sat on my couch, going through marathons upon marathons of every comedy movie I could find on Netflix.
This helped, but only a little.
And then I got a text from Jeff.
"Come see this. Right now."
I could only assume it had to do with that room. I thought about it for a few hours before finally making my way over to his apartment.
I needed some kind of closure. I needed to take any chance of finding it.
As soon as he invited me in, I noticed that he had the same look of indistinct dread that the Captain had. But he was a little more willing to talk.
After a quick and somewhat reserved hello, he gestured to a laptop sitting on a table behind him.
"What the hell is that?" I asked him.
He lets out a long exhale before answering.
"Recovered. From that room in the tunnel."
I thought back to the time that we were down there. I did remember seeing a laptop on one of the tables. I guess this was it.
"How do you have it?" Was my follow up question.
This time, his response was simple.
"I just took it."
"Why?"
He looks away for a second, his demeanor turning contemplative.
"Something's gotta make sense here. Something that they're not telling us."
Silently, I agree.
I asked him what he'd found on it.
"Five video files." He says. "All 5-10 minutes long."
"Have you watched them yet?"
"Only one."
"Things making more sense?"
He shakes his head before sighing. "No. But I think you should see it anyway."
He leaves the room to grab me a cup of coffee before sitting back down at the table.
I open up the video folder and see the names of the five clips:
"Train to oblivion"
"Investigation"
"Fireworks"
"Triangle"
and
"The obscure man"
"Watch Train to oblivion" Jeff says.
I take a few moments to think about it before ultimately obliging.
This was better than nothing, I thought to myself.
I press play. This is what I saw:
It starts out with what I assume is handheld footage. As expected, we were on a train. However... there was something immediately wrong. The person behind the camera - it sounded like a woman, was near-hyperventilating. She was running down a narrow aisle, while lights flickered above her. In addition to that, it looked as if they were in a tunnel, with the windows only showing darkness.
As she ran, she kept opening the cabin doors and peering inside. Every one of them had people. Lifeless people, with limp faces contorted into inhuman expressions. Mouths stretched out way too far, eyes sunken inwards and noses turned completely sideways.
At some point, she tries opening a door, but it seems to be locked. We hear hushed whispering coming from behind it as she starts banging on it, begging to be let in.
This is interrupted by heavy footsteps coming from somewhere to her side. She quickly turns her head, facing what looks like 3, extremely tall figures about fifty meters away.
She shrieks and starts running again. The video goes on like this for a while. Her just sprinting around the tight space and screaming, while we see intermittent glimpses of the figures following her. However, it wasn't until the end where we got a good look at them.
She finds a bathroom and runs into it, locking it from the inside. She sits there, whimpering for a while before the door starts rattling. Her screams become deafening as it finally breaks down.
I nearly scream myself when I see what did it.
Tall, pale... things wearing what looked like dirty suits. But it was their faces that got me. I don't even think that I can call them faces, in all honesty.
They were just... swirls of skin, if that even makes any sense. Like a pale of vortex of flesh. One of them reaches out a bony hand and grabs the woman's wrist. A brief struggle ensues that ends with us facing the mirror. The woman's face was now twisted into the same horrendous expressions that we'd seen on countless other passengers just before.
We hear a loud horn blare before the video finally ends.
But... here's the weird part. Not that all of this hasn't been weird so far. This just added another level of horror on what we'd already experienced.
In the mirror's reflection, there was no indication that the woman was holding anything to film with. No camera, no phone, nothing. In fact, her hands were down to her sides. And the creatures sure as hell weren't filming.
I remained in downright silence for what felt like an hour after watching this. Jeff said nothing, just staring at me.
I didn't know what to make of this. Eventually, I decided to get up and leave. Jeff didn't protest this.
I'm back home now. There's no clear solution here. It's obvious that my sleeping woes aren't going to end. Not until I figure something out.
But... that seems like a daunting task. And one that I don't think I'm prepared to handle right now.
I think that the best course of action may be to go back and watch the rest of the videos. Surely, there's some clue as to what happened within them.
However... one thing is pushing me away from that decision. As I was getting ready to leave Jeff's, I saw something out his kitchen window.
There was... a figure, standing behind a street sign. Actually, it was barely a figure at all. It looked more like some kind of shadow. And I think it was looking right at me.
---
Credits
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