From June 21 Onward

The Tunnel

July 15, 2002

         Well, once again, nothing much
new. Just a tunnel, a letter, and a printed chat
transcription.
         I spent last night at my youth pastor
Jason's house. Now nearby his house is
what's called "the Tunnel". The Tunnel is a
very large drainage tunnel that goes about 1/4
mile into the ground and opens up into a
spooky pond on the other side. Jason likes to
take youth there now and then. I was gone
last time, but everyone was talking about how
scary it was. I was like, "Yeah, sure. I could
do it by myself!"
         "Yeah right!" they said. Even Jason
said I prolly wouldn't. But last night was my
opportunity to prove myself.
         Me and my bro went to his house,
picked up a lighter for my light source (Jason
said it was the traditional "tunnel lighter"
always used on trips), and went to the tunnel.
It was bigger than I thought. He handed me
the lighter and said go. I went in, the lighter
flickered a bit. The wall was covered in graffiti.
One thing said "Come write in and die". Yes,
"write" was spelled that way.
         I went in slowly and kicked a box. I
heard Jason's voice echoing from the
entrance say that didn't sound good. I called
back that it was just a box and kept going. I
couldn't really catch much of what the graffiti
said in the dim lighter's glow, but one thing
that I did see was a couple of hexagrams.
Hexagrams, similar to pentagrams, are
inverted Stars of David. They're used in
Satanic rituals to cast "hexes", which is where
the term came from. Well they didn't bother
me, so I kept going.
         I got to the "Point of No Return", a
curve in the Tunnel around which you could no
longer see light from the outside. Jason told
me not to go farther, but I told him I would. I
kept going. From this point, the Tunnel
actually began to decline into the ground, and
was gradually becoming a little shorter. I went
back and back. Then my lighter went out.
         It was pitch black. I tried to light it
again, but the metal was too hot to touch. I
told Jason. The echoes made it easy to
communicate; it was like talking to him right
there. He said to come back, but I managed
to use my shirt to light the lighter again and
kept going.
         I read some of the graffiti. One said
"Dustin 1982-2002". Okay. My lighter went out
again. But I could still see. I looked down and
realized my shirt was on fire! I started
laughing and blew it out. Jason told me to
come back this time and I actually did
because I could light it anymore and there
was a big hole in my shirt.
         I got back out. Jason asked if I wanted
to go in again except with him. I said sure,
and he took the lighter. My bro didn't want to
go. He stayed back at the entrance and we
went in.
         Jason took it really slow. He said
there were homeless people and animals. I
told him I figured we could probably take a
homeless person. He agreed but said it
would still be freaky.
         We passed the "Point of No Return"
and kept going. Jason was really scared. I
don't know why, but he was always freaked
about the Tunnel. We got to the "Dustin" thing,
where I was forced to turn back. We kept
going. There was the blood everyone had told
me about. On the night they went in, it was
still fresh, but now it was grossly caked on like
dried maroon clay. We all figured it was
probably from a chicken. It was dripped down
from the top of the wall to the bottom. I told
Jason, "Let's keep moving," and we went on.
About five feet back was more blood. On we
went.
         Then we got back to where we could
see the end of this section. Jason stopped
suddenly, grabbed me, and stepped back
slowly. He said he'd seen something
standing there. I hadn't. Eventually we moved
close enough to see that there was nothing
there. At the end was two pipes, about three
feet wide. One led back in the same direction,
the other to the right. Jason said he'd never
been in the one ahead, so we went in the one
to the right. About five feet in it openned into a
little room with a grate at the top so the
moonlight shined in. Two the left was a pipe
of the same size that we had just been in.
That, Jason said, led to the pond. I said let's
go, and started in. I took my first step into the
pipe. At the end you could see a tiny patch of
light. Jason grabbed me and said, "Did you
see that?"
         I looked in. A shadow moved across
the light at the end, followed by a brighter point
of light, like from a small flashlight or a lighter.
The shadow moved again.
         "Okay, we'll go back now," I said. We
turned, went through the other pipe, and
began to run down the Tunnel. Jason put my
hand on the wall to guide me so I didn't run
into anything. We got out, told my bro
everything, got in the car, and started back for
Jason's house.
         On the way back, I realized something.
"Hey Jason? You know how we put our hands
on the wall as we ran out? We must have run
our hands through that blood."
         Needless to say, we washed our
hands when we got back.
         That was fun. I want to do it again
sometime, except go through the other pipe
and go to the end of the other one to see the
pond.
         There are two other things I said at the
top. A letter and a transcription. Well the
transcription was what the Corvette had still
had from a long time ago. It was a
conversation between a friend and I. It was
when that friend had betrayed me in a very
bad way and I posed as another person
online to get answers. Seems low, I know.
But the situation was even lower.
         The letter was one given to me by
another friend of mine, Katrina. Katrina is
really cool. In the letter, she told me how
much I meant to her and how I'm an
awesome person, and how she wouldn't be
the same person without me. I need to write
back. She means a lot to me, too.
         Well that was longer than I intended.
The Tunnel thing was long. Oh well.
Recommended listening: Beautiful by
Creed. Goodbye again.

~ Dris ~