The Showers - Reddit Scary Story

2.4

It was very quiet when I was alone in there. I could hear the faint sound of Steve running through the brush and to the car, but once he was far enough away, everything was quiet. I remember not even hearing wind or the chirping of crickets as I walked deeper into the dark, flashlight in hand. I was convinced that there had to be something. As I approached the far corner of the room, the sound of my feet scratching against the dirt was interrupted by a soft, hollow thud. I stopped, trying to figure out what it was. I put my foot down hard against the ground and heard it again. I stomped one more time, realizing that the floor that I was standing on was covering something hollow.

I walked to the wall of the room, looking carefully at the floor to try to spot any holes or gaps. As far as I had known, it was solid ground that this thing sat atop, so I was convinced that I had found a hatch or a basement or something. I heard Steve coming back through the brush as I shouted, "Steve! Come over here, it's hol-" As I went to say the word "hollow," I hopped a little bit, hoping to recreate the sound so that he would be able to hear it upon entering the door. The second that my feet made contact with the floor, I felt it give out beneath me.

The memory of the fall is fuzzy, but I do recall hearing wood splinter. I remember seeing the light from Steve's flashlight falling away into complete darkness. It wasn't a long fall, but I must have fallen in a terrible position because I know that I lost consciousness for several seconds at least.

When I woke up I was staring at a bright light. For an instant I had thoughts about approaching the fabled "light at the end of the tunnel." I was angry at myself. "You died in Nebraska, Jack? Wow, you do know how to fuck up." My self-deprecation in the afterlife was interrupted by what sounded like Steve's voice.

"Jesus, Jack! Jack, can you hear me? Dude, wake up. Please, wake up," he screamed.

I managed to lift my head up off of the floor just enough for him to celebrate. The pain in my head was immense, but it was outweighed by the pain shooting through my knee. I knew I had a concussion, but the pain in my knee was just so much more pressing. I looked around until I found my tiny flashlight, then sat up and reassured Steve. "I'm okay, I just hurt my knee; I bumped my head too, really hard."

"Thank fuck, man. I thought you were dead. Imagine that, though, dying in fucking Nebraska. It'd be awful." His words made me laugh a little bit, but I stopped myself; the slightest shaking hurt my head and made me incredibly dizzy. "I guess, a rope?" said Steve.

"What?" I asked, quietly.

"Should I go get a rope to get you out of here, or do you see a ladder?" I looked around the walls that sat in front of me; they were smooth cement. There was no way that I was climbing out of here. "Yeah, get the rope," I told him. "It's buried under all of our stuff. I think it might be in my red climbing bag, but I'm not sure." Steve nodded, telling me to hang in there and that he would be back in a little bit, and then he ran off.

The silence that followed was uncomfortable. After the sound of Steve's feet scraping the floor above me faded away, I was only able to hear that buzzing that occurs in total silence intertwined with the pulsing in my head. I pushed myself over to the nearest cement wall and braced myself against it, resting and breathing deep in an attempt to calm myself. The cement was unnaturally cold against my back. It was summer, so I only had a t-shirt on, but it felt like ice even through that. Again, this observation was primarily made after the fact. In the moment, it just felt good to lean against something.

I sat there, waiting for Steve in this underground basement, and I began to feel uneasy. I felt like an idiot for falling down here; I felt pain from my injuries as well. That all seemed to fade into one emotion in an instant when I heard what I could only identify as breathing, somewhere to my left. I convinced myself that it was my injured mind playing tricks on me for a few moments until my mind decided to rapidly replay Mr. Mays' story. When I had first heard it in that classroom years before, I was more impressed than I was scared. But now, sitting in a dark basement in the middle of Nebraska, I felt something that I hadn't felt in a long time; it couldn't even be summed up in the word "fear." As I sat there, I felt all-encompassing dread.