u/therealglosetik

My family’s lived in a small, rural town for decades at this point. It’s the kinda place where you know everyone, and everyone knows you. Where stories last longer than the people who tell them. But as all these ghost stories and urban legends came and went, one has always remained. A simple story about a bunker by the edge of town which we only ever refer to as “The Devil’s Basement”.

A lot of the older folks told stories about it all the time, but my grandpa wouldn’t ever shut up about it. He’d tell stories about it during road trips, family dinners, any time we were together. Most of the stories were obviously fake, changing details depending on his mood or how much he had to drink. But sometimes, when he had enough whiskey, he’d give a story which was almost always the exact same.

Basically, he and a few friends got really drunk back in the mid-60s. Around this point in the story, he’d talk about how they didn’t have the Internet back then and say something along the lines of “Kids are always staring at their damn phones nowadays...” before getting back to the meat of the story.

One of his friends dared him to go into The Devil’s Basement, which was a short walk from his house, for 10$. Again, he’d lecture me about how much you could get with that amount of money back in his day, before getting back on topic. Of course, he took the bet. In his mind, it was basically free money, and he wasn’t gonna pass up on free money.

Back then, it was already a bit of an urban legend. Nobody knew who’d built it, or even why, for that matter. It sort of just... was, to be honest. Nobody questioned it. Some people said that the bunker was unusually hot, something my grandpa immediately found to be true. Sure, it was the middle of summer, but this was different. It was dry, almost like standing next to a bonfire. The air itself felt unnaturally lived in.

At that point, my grandpa considered turning back, but the thought of the money kept him inside. He was probably just being paranoid anyways. So, he ventured further into the bunker, only recognizing the impossible scale of the bunker after about 30 seconds of walking. Not only was the bunker impossibly large, though, it also felt unnaturally dark. Almost like something was swallowing all the light like a black hole.

That was the exact moment he realized something was wrong. The bunker wasn’t empty, it just felt empty. Once the thought came to his mind, he paused, and then, he realized that something else had paused.

He hadn’t even realized it until that point, but a sort of dragging sound had been following him up until the moment he stopped. It was a slow, uneven noise. Like something pulling itself across the stone by its hands.

To him, that was the worst part. Hearing it was terrible enough, but the horror came from the fact that he couldn’t hear it anymore. Whatever was making the noise was stalking him, and knew he’d stopped. He didn’t run right away. Instead, he slowly turned back, walking carefully and quietly.

For a moment, it worked. Then, that dragging noise started again. But this time, it sounded like it was right behind him. Following him. That’s when he ran.

He didn’t look back, he didn’t even breathe until he saw the light again. And despite the sheer amount of time he swore he’d been down there for, he got out in under 15 seconds.

Outside the bunker, his friends were right where he’d left them. Sitting in the tall, yellowish-green grass and passing around a bottle of whiskey. Almost like he’d barely stepped inside the bunker.

“It’s creepy down there, man...” my grandpa said with a nervous chuckle. But they weren’t even listening, they just kept laughing.

That should’ve been the end of it. For everyone else, it was. But not for my grandpa. He went back. Not right away, but years later. Then again after that. And again. And again. He never stayed long, never went far. But he kept going. Sometimes, he’d just stand at the entrance, looking in like he was waiting for something, or checking to see if something was waiting for him.

Over time, the heat got worse, and the bunker only seemed to grow in size. Occasionally, unusual things would occur sooner than they had originally, but one day, the door stopped working. He tried the handle a few times, but nothing happened. He pressed his ear against the door, and that’s when he heard something new. Breathing. Slow, deep, patient breathing.

Toward the end of his life, he became more quiet and reserved. I ended up asking him why he kept going back all those years after Thanksgiving dinner last year. He didn’t answer the question right away, sort of staring off into the distance for a bit, as he tended to do.

But then he turned to me, slowly and silently, and answered with a line that made my stomach drop.

“Because a part of me never left.”