The Showers Part 2

I’m awake now, semi-sober, and ready to finish this for you guys, the internet, and whoever cares to hear it.

I didn’t find out that Mr. Mays had passed away until a couple months after the funeral service. Initially, I was going to seek out his family in order to send my condolences, but it wasn’t as if Mr. Mays and I were best friends or anything like that; so, I refrained. I continued through my college career and graduated a year or so after our bar meeting.

Graduating with English as my major wasn’t a mistake, but it wasn’t exactly something that landed me any sort of immediate jobs after college. Now, I had saved a pretty solid amount of money while I was in school and decided that I deserved a bit of a vacation, if you will. I took my spare cash, got together with my college buddy Steve, packed up and hit the road, aiming for somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. I had lived near Littleton, Colorado when I was younger and remembered loving the area, so this destination was as good as any.

The trip was a success. We made it somewhere around Estes Park, Colorado and found a cheap cabin that we rented for about a month. The days were filled with lounging, hiking, and generally things that involved little-to-no work on our parts. After our rental was through, we packed up again and headed on our way back east.

Sometime during this trip, we had met up with a couple Estes Park natives in one of the local bars. We never typically “hung out” with them or anything like that; we just had conversations now and then over drinks and food. One night, these guys were paying their tab and packing up to leave awfully early; they were usually there until the wee hours of the morning. When we questioned them about it, they told us that they were headed to a little get-together with some friends of theirs, and they invited us. Having nothing else to do, we hopped in the car and followed them to the party.

The party itself was very low-key, and ultimately inconsequential to this story; however, the important thing about it was that at some point in the night, we were all sitting around the fire and swapping ghost stories. At this point in my life, I wasn’t as much of a ham as I was in my younger years. But, with a little bit of encouragement, I started on a couple of stories that I remembered telling in my youth. Eventually, I made it to Mr. Mays’ story about “The Showers.” Every time that I had told it after hearing it from Mr. Mays, I had spiced it up a little bit. But, out of some sort of subconscious respect for my former teacher, I went straight into the version that he told my class in my sophomore year of high school.

The group enjoyed my stories for the most part, “The Showers” being the mutual favorite among the partygoers. Steve and I left for the cabin at around five in the morning, and he asked me about that story on the drive home. I told him all about Mr. Mays, that class, my love for everything horror-related and whatnot, and he suggested that we tried to find the place on our return trip to New York. Initially I was reluctant simply because I didn’t feel like aimlessly wandering through Nebraska for days, looking for some old farm building that was probably demolished at this point. But, a couple of days before we left Colorado, I told Steve that it sounded like fun. We weren’t going to be able to do another trip like this for a long time, so I figured that we might as well make the best of it. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought of it as a little tribute to Mr. Mays, a guy that, in retrospect, helped me realize that I wanted to be a writer.

Anyway, we left Colorado and made the long, boring, and barren drive to Broken Bow, Nebraska, or “Hell on Earth” as Mr. Mays had put it. We found a motel in town and hung around for a couple of days, venturing out a hundred miles or so in any given direction each day after that. I had remembered Mr. Mays telling us that it was somewhere outside of Broken Bow, but I don’t think he got any more specific than that.

We tried asking the townsfolk if they had any information about The Showers, but we were usually met with blank stares or eye-rolling when we told them what exactly this place was. The only person who seemed to know anything about it was an older lady that worked at a gas station on the outskirts of town. I don’t recall her name, but this woman was just one of those cheerful old people, very helpful and generally interested in what anyone had to say to her. Steve had started talking to her at checkout and she asked about our license plate, commenting about the fact that we were very far from home. We had nowhere in particular to be, so Steve and I ended up talking to this woman for about fifteen minutes, at which point we brought up our hunt for the place known as “The Showers.”

Initially, the name didn’t ring any bells with the woman which made sense, seeing as Mr. Mays had just given it the name after his experience there. But, when I began to describe the details that I remembered from his story, the friendly old woman interrupted me. Her tone was not scornful or mean in any way, but she became very terse and deliberate with her words from that point on.

“People don’t deal with anything relating to that sort of business around here anymore,” she told us. “That was all a long time ago.” Following her statements, she attempted to be cheerful again, excusing herself to the restroom and wishing us the best on our return trip to New York.

Steve and I returned to the car without a word. Both of us were thinking about what the lady had said. Again, she didn’t seem to be angry at all, she just didn’t want to hear another word about it. We were driving back to the hotel before Steve said something. “I mean, if I had to live in a place associated with an urban legend or something like that, I would totally mess with anyone who asked about it,” he said. “I mean, eventually you’d just get tired of people asking about it and so you’d just try to scare them to get them to shut up, wouldn’t you?”

I agreed with Steve and kept driving, but the whole experience wasn’t sitting right with me. If this was some sort of well-known legend in the area, why did no one else in the town seem to know anything about it? But, I managed to shrug it off. Mind you, neither of us was scared of finding The Showers; this little excursion on our road trip was more like a scavenger hunt, a cap-off to an overall relaxing vacation. Steve and I were basically like tourists, hunting for the site at which a famous movie was filmed or something like that. We went into the whole situation with little to no expectations and a fleeting hope that we would be able to find this place.

We spent another day in Broken Bow before we took our next trip out to try to find The Showers. Nebraska isn’t as terrible of a place as people make it out to be, but it really isn’t all that exciting. We found a bar and spent some time there, and that was just about the extent of our activity on our “day off.”

When we did get back on the road, we decided that we would attempt to stay off of main roads for as much of the day as we could. I knew that there was no way that this place was going to be off of the highway and I remembered some detail about a dirt road in Mr. Mays’ story, so we went looking for those. This was a fairly futile effort; most of Nebraska is dirt roads.

It was seven in the evening when we came upon a small, but thick forest. I use the term lightly, but for Nebraska, this place was like an oasis. The trees were full and thick, shrouding most of its insides in darkness. The sun was setting and even though we had run into a few of these random crops of trees, we agreed that this one showed more promise than any of the others. There wasn’t really a road, but there looked to be a path where a dirt road might have been at some point, so we drove along that. If the car was able to handle the Rocky Mountains, a dirt path in Nebraska would give us no trouble.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">We moved slowly and carefully along this trail, making sure to clear any fallen trees in the road or rocks that would render the car useless, when the sun finished setting. It was pretty dark in this place during the day, but when night came, it was something else entirely. I had an inkling at this point that we had found the right place, but I didn’t want to jinx it, so we continued onward. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the little bits of light that managed to penetrate the canopy in this miniature forest actually did make it look as if the tree branches were trying to grab the car, just like Mr. Mays had mentioned in the story. I’m still convinced that he made up the part about the animal eyes, though; the most aggressive creature we saw in the woods was a dead rabbit on the side of the trail. It didn’t have any obvious signs of death; it just looked like it had simply lay down and never bothered to get up.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">We drove around in the darkness for quite a while before we found a clearing. We had to move several smaller clusters of branches out of the way before, but right in front of our exit was a giant, dead, monster of a tree. There was no way we were moving this one, so we got out and turned on the bright headlights in the hopes that it would illuminate the area in front of us. There was a feeling of excitement mixed strangely with fear when I saw what lay fifty feet beyond the clearing.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">There, lit partially by the headlights from the car and the little bit of light from the crescent moon, was what appeared to be an old barn house. This wasn’t a typical farmhouse, it was larger than the barns that I had seen in films and didn’t have any sort of crest. It basically looked like a small warehouse. I wasn’t entirely sure at this point if this was the place we were looking for, but this was definitely the closest we had come.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I moved through the brush until I was roughly twenty feet from the entrance, at which point all of the growth seem to stop. I don’t know if the owners had done something to the soil, but the whole structure had a border around it that was clear of any sort of plant life. I approached the entrance to the building, a large sliding door, as Steve came up behind me with two flashlights in hand.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“So you were just going to run off into that place in the dark?” he laughed.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I gave a half-hearted chuckle and grabbed one of the lights from his hand. Mine was a little, but pretty bright flashlight; it was the kind that hikers would most likely fasten to their backpacks, just in case they were stranded at night. It worked well enough. I grabbed the metal door with both hands, holding the flashlight with my mouth, and gave it a tug. It moved slightly, creaked a little bit, but there was no way I was doing this by myself. Steve came up from behind, set his flashlight on the ground, grabbed the door, and said “one, two…three!”

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">We pulled at the door with all that we could muster. Once we had managed to move it a couple of inches, it must have latched back onto its track because it slid very easily, stopping hard with a loud and echoing thud when it was completely open. Steve picked up his flashlight and walked behind me; I had already moved inside.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">The inside of the structure was exceptionally bare, almost troublingly so. I wasn’t entirely sure how far we were from the nearest home or small town, but there wasn’t even the slightest bit of evidence that anyone had been in this building for years. There were no broken beer bottles or empty bags of chips; there weren’t even any animal droppings or eager plants that managed to grow here. The room was expansive, larger than your average farm, but not the warehouse-sized monstrosity that I believed Mr. Mays had described in his story. I was sure that it was simply a holding area for farming equipment or something similar at some point.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Disappointed, I wandered near the entrance while Steve ventured into the expanse of darkness. As I was running over the details of the story in my mind, something struck me like a sack of bricks; in Mr. Mays’ story, there was a silo near the barn. I ran outside, my eyes adjusting easily because at the very least it was brighter outside. I looked in all directions, running around the perimeter of the building. Surely, if there was ever a silo near this place, there would be some evidence of it somewhere. But, despite my hopes, there was nothing but a cluster of thick bushes on one side, brush and dirt everywhere, and the forest that we had come from.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I walked back into the building, frustrated and tired. Steve was still excited, eagerly running around the inside of the building. “Even if I could just find a showerhead or a pipe,” he said. “Then we’d know it was true. Just keep looking with me.” I didn’t want to ruin his excitement; I had told Steve the story several times, but obviously he didn’t realize that this just wasn’t the place. The building was weird, yes. It was out of place and oddly pristine, but it wasn’t the location of The Showers. I let him explore for a little bit before I called him over.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“This was probably as close as we are going to get, man,” I said. “But this isn’t it. Remember the silo?” His face went from excitement to disappointment in an instant, much like a young child who didn’t get the presents he wanted on his birthday. I patted him on the shoulder. “This is still pretty cool, though. I mean, we could still tell people that we found it.” I was reverting back to my old habits quickly.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Steve laughed. “Yeah, man, I guess we could. It is definitely creepy enough. We should get some pictures as ‘proof,’ you know?” I agreed with him. “I’m gonna go grab the camera really quick,” he said as he bolted out the entrance of the building. I was left alone in the building.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">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.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">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.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">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.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">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.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Jesus, Jack! Jack, can you hear me? Dude, wake up. Please, wake up,” he screamed.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">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.”

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“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.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“What?” I asked, quietly.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“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.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">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.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">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.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I pointed my flashlight to my left, the direction from which I thought I heard the sound. The light didn’t reach the other wall; it was too far away. But, I was comforted to see absolutely nothing there. I breathed deeply for a couple more seconds before I heard another noise in the darkness. It was very quick, and I cannot be sure that it wasn’t my own body moving around without my noticing; but I thought that I heard a scraping sound not ten feet in front of me. It sounded like the noise your feet make when you are walking across a dirt-covered floor. Before I could react, I heard the breathing to my left again, closer this time. There was no way this was real. I hadn’t seen so much as a spider web in this building and now I was convincing myself that something next to me was breathing?

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I was angry at myself for getting so worked up. I told myself that the human brain is constantly hallucinating. I told myself that while in silence or darkness, the brain will make sounds to fill the gap, or make you think you see things that aren’t there. I channeled my inner-skeptic in order to calm myself; it worked. It worked until I saw a flash of something in front of me. I can’t be entirely sure what it was, but I heard the accompanying sounds of feet scraping against the floor and I began to swell with dread. I decided that the best course of action at this point was to turn off my flashlight, assuming that if they couldn’t see me, they couldn’t get to me, whatever “they” might be.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I turned off my flashlight and was left in complete and total darkness. The bulb of the flashlight faded as it cooled and I put it into my pocket, simultaneously pushing back against the cold cement wall in an attempt to stand. I managed to get up on my feet, well, foot, and found that I couldn’t stand to put any pressure on my injured knee. I limped to the corner, humming to myself, trying to break the deafening silence. I called for Steve, as loud as I could manage, but heard no response. He was probably in the back of the car, still hunting for the rope. There had to be a ladder or something, somewhere.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I continued to hum and my heartbeat, which had been beating almost out of my chest, slowed to a manageable rate. I moved along the cement wall, keeping my whole body against it and the weight off of my injured knee. I had traveled what I guessed to be about ten feet when my head made contact with something in front of me. I tumbled to the ground. My concussion must have amplified the pain, because it was blinding. I reached both hands to my forehead when I felt something warm and wet with my fingers. I searched for a cut anywhere on my forehead, but couldn’t find one. I desperately searched for my flashlight as I sat up and tried to get back against the wall.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I grabbed the light in my right hand, bracing against the wall with the other. I turned it on and pointed it into the darkness where I was just lying. The floor was wet, but the dirt had muddled the color of whatever the liquid was. I tried to get my eyes to focus on the puddle, tried to convince myself that it was my blood when I saw another drop fall into the puddle.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Words lack the ability to describe the way I felt when I heard the “drip” noise again, and saw yet another tiny ball of liquid fall into the puddle. I think I knew, even then, exactly what the source was, but I was endlessly trying to convince myself that I was wrong. I lifted the flashlight up and pointed it at the source of the liquid. What stared back at me was a pipe that protruded at least a foot out from the cement wall. The metal was rusted and cracked; little bits of the liquid began to seep from them. At the end of the pipe was a simple showerhead, aimed down towards the ground.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">You know that feeling when your stomach drops? In this case, I think mine literally did, because I vomited immediately. It got all over my shoe, but that wasn’t the least bit important at the time. I ignored the pain in my knee and shuffled along the wall as fast as I possibly could. I heard noises, but I can’t be sure if it was just the sounds of my own movement or something around me. I managed to duck under the next showerhead. This one was higher up on the wall, and seemed to be leaking the same liquid that the other one was. I felt like I was moving along something infinite. Every now and then I would have to duck or move under another metal bar, another showerhead. They began to pour more profusely, but the liquid was too thick to come out easily.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">The room began to smell. I remembered immediately the way that Mr. Mays had described it. I grabbed my shirt and put it over my nose, trucking onward, but it didn’t stop the smell for an instant. It smelled like vomit; it smelled like shit; it smelled like burnt hair; it smelled like rot.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I was still moving against the wall when I fell into some sort of outlet. I hit the dirt ground hard, adrenaline coursing through my veins; the pain still managed to break through, though. My flashlight was still in my hand; I aimed it and examined my surroundings. Sitting in front of me was a doorway. There was a door there, though it looked aged now. It had a nice little design on it, a doorknob, and a knocker that looked like a snarling demon. Red paint was peeling from it, flaking off and falling to the ground in front of me. I clumsily rose and busted through the door, narrowly missing a piece of hanging sheet metal in front of me. I was crawling now; there was no way that I could run. The walls and ceiling were lined with metal, the kind that you would see on the roof of a farm. Large pieces of wood seemed to brace the sheets, holding this makeshift tunnel together. I couldn’t risk sliding against that and possibly cutting myself on the metal, or hitting the wood and causing a cave-in. So I crawled.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I pulled myself for what felt like miles, running into walls every now and then because the path seemed to curve like a snake. I had no idea where I was in relation to the hole that I had fallen through, but I told myself that there was an exit at the end of this. Had I not been crawling, I would have surely hurt myself far worse. There were parts of the tunnel in which the ceiling dipped down to maybe three feet above the ground. It hadn’t caved in, because the ceiling still lined it. Someone had built it like this. This, again, is in hindsight. I didn’t care at the time. I kept telling myself there was nothing behind me, but I swore that I heard feet scraping only a few inches behind my own.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">My jeans would brush against my legs every now and then, making it feel like someone was touching me, and even now, I still can’t completely convince myself that someone wasn’t. I crawled and crawled until I reached an upslope. With joy I looked ahead of me; there was a cellar door. The door was made of wood; I knew this because I could see light through them. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it might have been the light from the car’s headlights. Besides all of that, I was just so immensely happy to find an exit.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I crawled all the way to the door and threw my shoulder into it. It budged, but didn’t open. I began to scream, but I my throat seared with pain. The most I could manage was a harsh crying noise; it sounded like a dying animal. I collapsed in exhaustion and pain, my eyes staring up at the slits of light before me. I was so close to being out of here; I could taste it.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">It was in that moment of silent defeat that I heard a noise that was, without question, something moving in the tunnel. It sounded like something was being dragged across the floor. It would move, pause for a second, and then move again. I had nothing left in my stomach to throw up, but I began to gag. I gathered myself slightly and tried to steady my hand enough to focus the flashlight into the tunnel.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">What I saw, I can still not rationalize. I know what I saw, but I cannot convince myself that it was actually there. I can’t stop telling myself that I was hallucinating. I saw a child in a dirty sleeping gown. The gown was stained with something dark and brown, with occasional splashes of a deep red. The child was extremely frail, like the pictures that people might see of a holocaust victim. I could only make out one eye, brightly reflecting the light of my flashlight. In between huge tufts of long, dirty hair. It reached down beyond the fingertips of the child, which were caked with dirt. The boy, or girl, I’m not entirely sure which, moved towards me with difficulty. It wasn’t breathing hard, but it seemed that every movement of every muscle took every ounce of strength the child had. The thing that froze me, though, was the eye. It was only visible because it was reflecting my flashlight, but even in that glint, I could feel anger, or deep hatred, or something like it. This is the point in which the English language really lacks the right words to explain the situation. I could tell that this child meant me harm. Whether it was a hallucination or not, the thing was getting closer. I started to cry. It was getting closer and closer when I heard a voice from behind me. “Hey, Jack,” whispered the voice. It was Steve, I was certain.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I tried to talk back, fully intending to say, “Open this up and get me out right now.” However, given my current state, I am sure it just sounded like garbled nonsense. I clawed at the door, pushing against it with everything that I had and finally breaking eye contact with the child. As I did this, the flashlight rolled down the slope, coming to rest somewhere near the child’s feet.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“What do you see?” the voice asked.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“What are you talking about?” I closed my eyes.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I remember hearing a reply along the lines of “Just look at it. Tell me what you see,” but my own screams of frustration drowned it out.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I was mumbling like a maniac when the voice told me, calmly, “Rest for a second, I’ll get it.” The statement took a second to settle in, at which point I closed my eyes tight.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">“Steve, just do it please. Please, just get it open please,” I whimpered. “Just get me out of here.” My voice was beginning to get louder. “Steve, god dammit, open the fucking wooden door.” I opened my eyes for a split second to see nothing but black hair, dangling in front of my face, a small glint of light hidden in the mess of tangles. I slammed my eyes shut and screamed with every ounce of energy I had, “Open the fucking do-“ The door behind me gave way, and I fell onto the dirt, taking in a breath of fresh air. My eyes were still closed, but the first thing that I did was scramble to find the cellar door and close it. Once I had done that, I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I saw the barn in front of me, illuminated by the headlights of the car. My head was pulsing with pain. I was covered in dirt and liquids that I didn’t even care to know the origin of. My knee was, at the very least, dislocated. But despite all of that, I was out of the tunnel. I took a deep breath, buried my head in my hands, and said “Steve, why didn’t you just fucking open the door?”

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I waited for a response, but none came. “Steve, seriously,” I began, “I was fucking clawing, screaming for my life,” I said as I looked behind me. My stomach must have been on the verge of falling out of me at this point, because it shifted again. The only thing behind me was the large mass of bushes that I had seen while examining the perimeter or the building. I was angry. “Steve, this is not the fucking time. Come out of the fucking bushes.” I was getting ready to stand up when I heard a yell from the front of the building.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">A flashlight bobbed up and down in the semi-darkness. Steve was running into the open door of the structure, yelling my name and telling me not to worry. I must have lost consciousness at that point. When I woke up, Steve was standing over me, desperately trying to wake me up. His words were almost incoherent, at least to my ears.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">He helped me to my feet and began to walk me to the car. As we walked away, I saw my flashlight sitting just outside the cellar door, the light was fading.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Steve brought me back to the car and then drove me to the nearest hospital. I fell asleep, but he told me that he drove around for an hour before he found a main road. I don’t think I ever told him the whole story. I believe he thinks that I was just injured from the fall. He never really asked about it, and we didn’t stay in contact for much longer. It’s not like we deliberately parted ways, we just sort of stopped hanging out after that trip and went our separate ways.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I have never been able to fully understand what happened that night. There are many things that I can explain away as being hallucinations, but there are still many things that don’t make sense. The showerheads were there and they were leaking something. The door was real, the tunnel was real. Most everything else can be semi-rationalized if I can convince myself that I had a very bad concussion, a very, very bad concussion. But the one thing that I couldn’t have imagined was that cellar door was locked, and then it suddenly wasn’t.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">I am still as skeptical as I have ever been, but I believe in what happened to me at The Showers. I’m not a hermit or a social retard because of this. I drink a lot, but I am still functional. But, I will never return to Nebraska; no one will ever be able to convince me otherwise. I don’t watch horror movies either; there is absolutely nothing entertaining about being so desperately scared. That’s it, really. There is no typical ending for my story. I was changed by my experience, yeah. But, there is no way to change anything about it or “fight back” against it. I can’t even convince myself that I wasn’t just seeing things. Believe me; I’ve been trying for years.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Prior to this, there was really no way to find any information on The Showers. The legend didn’t extend outside the classroom of Mr. Mays. No one told stories like this to keep children away from a certain place or to scare them; it just wasn’t known. I guess that’s really the point of this whole story. I want people to know, first hand, what this place is like. Maybe it is a drunk’s rationale, or the kid inside me wanting to spread these kinds of stories again. I don’t know; I don’t care. But, it’s out there now, for people to mold and warp to their needs. Most importantly, it’s finally out of my head.

<p style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;color:rgb(255,255,255);font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">It’s getting late and I’m getting another drink. Cheers.