What's Happening On Hell Bent Road?

Questionable Mechanics Of Darkness

Another day, another death. There is an old tunnel about fifty yards down from my home. It leads off from the main road, into the woods, away from the civilized world. Built sometime in the late 1800's. Made of stone, covered in vines, prone to be the stuff of legends. One such legend involves a man and his wife, in their thirties, with no kids, if I remember correctly. They were driving across the country to visit the lady's parents. The drive had become monotonous and they made a decision to take in some of the local communities they came into. One of those communities happened to be mine. 

Apparently, they had been driving down the windy stretch when they came across the tunnel. The tunnel itself is only about fifteen feet end to end but, looking into it, you can't see any light whatsoever coming through. Having a friend stand on one side, while you stand on the other, will result in you being able to hear one another but have no way to see them, no matter how you move. Any attempt to shine light through, like with a flashlight or the headlights of a car, has no effect and you will find yourself shrouded in black, a ball of light failing to grow from your hand. The questionable mechanics of the darkness are nothing when compared to what happens to the rare unlucky soul that gets stuck inside. 

Ben Rathineer was the most recent of these sad souls. Him and his wife, as I was telling you, were travelling through, enjoying the sights, when they came upon the old tunnel. Who know's what it was that made them stop instead of just driving through, but for whatever reason, that's what they did. Pulling off to to the side of the road, the couple walked to the edge of the tunnel and stared into the void. The wife, Reneah, made an assumption that the tunnel must be blocked since they couldn't see through it. She felt safe, thinking that they had avoided a crash by stopping early. Ben instructed her to climb over the path on the left, leading into the trees, and find a way to the other side. He had decided to venture into the tunnel and attempt to clear out whatever was blocking their path. Reneah took hold of her husband, giggled at the thought of their "ruffian" plight, and walked away from him, still touching until only the tips of their fingers brushed apart. She climbed over the tunnel and didn't see her husband for another forty years. 

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Ben Rathineer was a loving, faithful husband, or so I suppose, and had no intention of leaving his sweet bride that afternoon. However, without hesitation, Ben entered into the tunnel and gave up the life he had grown accustomed to. His mundane job supplied adequate compensation and his traditional home brought him the prescribed joy he needed to live. But the tunnel knew it wasn't enough. The tunnel gets a bad wrap sometimes for eating people but it I believe it knows what it's doing. 

Ben was long gone by the time Reneah found her footing on the other side. She stared into the tunnel, perching her hand over her brow, like she could see through the darkness. This went on a while, too long for me to pay attention, so I went out for a while, picked up some dinner from down the road, and came back just in time to find Mrs. Rathineer screaming into the empty concrete hole.

Her clothes seemed to have been stretched and pulled; rearranged in disarray across her body. She must not have heard me, or perhaps didn't care to look, as I pulled up the gravel hill to my shack. I watched her throughout the night from the comfort and safety of my porch; my rocking chair moving with the cool night air. 

She was still there in the morning; her right arm resting on her husband's concrete cage. I could tell she was feeling the strain of staying awake all night, her body seemed ready to collapse. I thought of going to help her but knew that it was truly none of my business. She was still there that night when I went to sleep. I thought she had left the next morning but before long I spotted her struggling from the bushes, more of her clothing having torn and shifted on her body. A few days after that, having ingested nothing during the time, her body seemed ready to give out and she dragged herself into the tunnel and out of my view. That was the last time I thought I would ever see her again. 

Years went by, the tunnel stayed quiet, aside from having a few disembodied voices being reported from kids too young to be taken seriously. The adults knew that no voices could possibly come from that tunnel. Many of the locals had lost friends and relatives to the impossibility that stood in the middle of the trees. The adults knew that their kids had to learn those same lessons on their own and that no amount of stories warning about the dangers of an old, decrepit tunnel would ever be enough to scare them away. 

One day, not unlike any other out here on The Road, an old man walked out of the tunnel. His clothes seemed out of place, his demeanor even more so. He wandered through the woods, stepping on twigs, tripping on roots, rustling leaves, and proving to be a likely meal for any sort of wild thing that might live out among the sticks. Feeling that the law would have a hard time believing that I didn't see someone get mauled to death in my backyard, as cluttered with deadwood limbs as it may be, I opted to save the old man the trouble of having his insides hung like festive decorations. I invited him inside, asked him where he had come from, who he was, where he thought he was, what he wanted to be; the usual garb you ask someone who wanders. He informed me that his name was Ben and that he was searching for his wife. Not having seen the couple in quite some years, and having no reason to really remember them, it took me a little while to recall the events of the past as he explained them. He told me that he had gone into the tunnel in an attempt to clear it out. His wife had thought it would be a lovely way to spend the day; driving through the woods, eating lunch in the leaves, the sun shining down on them. The way he told it, it did sound pretty damn lovely. Unfortunately, as we all know, that's not how things worked out.

Ben had gone into the tunnel, turned back when he realized the light had receded, and found himself in a dark place with nowhere to go. He told me how he had hollered and called for his lovely bride but she never came. After what felt like his entire life spent walking into a sightless abyss, he spotted a bright light at the end of a long stretch. Following the light, he finally found his way out into the world, coming out on the side that should have held his wife. 

I brought a cup of hot tea, some bread, and a mirror to show the man his reflection. He gasped and tried to shield his eyes from what he saw. Incredulous, he asked how long he had been away. I told him that it had been well over a decade, perhaps even two or three. He asked what had happened to his wife, his beautiful bride, the woman in his dreams. I told him that I had seen her wait; for days she had waited. When he still refused to come find her, she took it upon herself to enter into the tunnel and was lost along the way. I told him this as his eyes watered and he begged me to speak no more. I told him that there was no reason to lie to himself about the situation. Honestly, after realizing who he was, I wanted no part in his whole debacle and couldn't wait to get away from him. I advised him that his best course of action would be to go back to the tunnel and try to find her inside the void. With a look of withered acceptance he stalked out of my house and back through the woods. I watched him to be sure he found his way back inside the hole where he belonged. Just a few feet from the entrance, with no warning whatsoever, Ben fell to his knees and bashed his head against the tunnel wall. His blood dripped into the cracks in the concrete and his feet shivered in defiance of death. 

A skeletal hand reached from the darkness. Shreds of clothing hung from what was left of Reneah Rathineer. Her fingers folded over the edge of the tunnel and her face fell at the sight of the sun. Taking one slow step at a time into a world she had lost for so long, she stumbled over the heap on the ground. Letting her old eyes adjust to the light, she focused on the pile of a person that resembled her husband. Recognizing the little bit of his face not yet covered by blood, she leaned down and kissed her husband one last time. With her remaining strength, she pulled the corpse into the hollow and disappeared. Kids still say that if you listen close, real late at night, you can sometimes hear the sound of the old woman chewing on the only thing she has left.