The Tunnel

The tires of two bicycles crunch through the dense covering of autumn leaves ridden by a ghost and a skeleton respectively. The sun is going down and the little kids have already been around to the houses in their fairy costumes and their superhero masks to get candy.

 

Tomorrow is a school day and the kids have been ushered back into their houses. Candy buckets dangle from the handlebars of the ghost and skeleton’s bikes. They swing as the bikes skip to a stop.

 

“There it is,” says the skeleton. He points his thin finger towards the bend in the road up ahead, half hidden by trees and overgrown bushes.

 

“Yeah,” says the ghost. He’s chubbier and shorter than the skeleton and less certain about the darkness creeping in. He looks at the small road, long since abandoned, and is grateful that the sheet is covering his face so that the skeleton doesn’t see that he’s frightened.

 

“Come on,” the skeleton says. He jumps from the bike and leaves it on the side of the road.

 

The ghost follows more reluctantly, leaning his bike carefully against his friends’.

 

“Are you sure this is a good idea? It’s getting dark,” the ghost says. But the skeleton has already crawled crablike under the low-hanging moss covered tree limbs and disappeared into the dark. Ghost follows.

 

The tree limbs grab and clutch at his sheet and the small twigs and sharp stones hurt his hands as he crawls after his friend. He can barely see where he’s going. The sun sinking has cast a hazy glow over everything and the shadows are long. He’s suddenly very aware of the birds and animal sounds, each snapping twig seems to ricochet, every bird call is the harsh cackle of a raven.

 

“Hurry up, it’s just up here,” says the skeleton. The ghost can’t see his friend but he can hear him not too far away and he pushes through the bushes. The skeleton is standing on an abandoned railroad tie, its rotten wood is crawling with formless white things, leading to a dark, covered tunnel. The skeleton is staring at it wide-eyed with wonder.

 

“Isn’t that cool?” the skeleton asks.

 

The ghost stares in horror at the dark opening of the leaning and abandoned tunnel. A wind blowing just right causes it to moan. It is black in the tunnel. No light appears from the other end. It looks like it would swallow them each up never to be seen again if either of them went inside. A shiver of apprehension slides down the ghost’s spine.

 

“Yeah,” says the ghost.

 

“I heard that it was an old train tunnel back in the day and they had to shut it down because too many people died in there. They thought they’d make a really short route between here and Carterville but they ran the tracks right over the unholy ground of a witch’s graveyard which opened up the gates to hell right underneath that tunnel. Now, you can go in, but there’s no exit,” he pauses for effect, “in this world.

 

“That’s not true,” says the ghost.

 

“Yes, huh. My dad told me.”

 

The skeleton’s father was the local historian and usually didn’t lie. The ghost shut up.

 

“I bet you I can touch it,” says the skeleton. There was a challenge in his voice and the ghost

knew that he had to play along.

 

“Go ahead, then,” he says.

 

“I will.”

 

He walks brazenly along the wooden ties all the way up to the rickety tunnel. Then, falters ten feet away. The blackness inside is absolute and it reeks of something earthy. There is no light at the end of the tunnel and something inside is dripping rhythmically. He can only see about five feet into the darkness.

 

“Oh man,” he breaths under his breath. Then, because the ghost is watching him, he takes ten more hesitant footsteps and touches the wood. He smiles back at the ghost and then rushes ten feet away from the tunnel.

 

“See,” he says. “It wasn’t that bad. You do it.”

 

The ghost shakes his head.

 

“You’re chicken,” says the skeleton.

 

“Am not.”

 

“I touched it.”

 

There’s no arguing with that logic and so the ghost has no choice but to go up to the tunnel. The sun has disappeared behind the trees now and it’s darker and cooler. He walks slowly, slowly, slowly to the tunnel, thinking, sure, that at any moment the ghost of the witch is going to catch him. Maybe the skeleton got away with it, but he was always thinner and could run away, the ghost can’t run. He starts shaking and his heart starts pounding loudly in his ears.

 

He can hear everything in the woods now and everything in the tunnel. The steady dripping of the water, the twigs breaking, trees groaning as they rub against each other, the wind making a moaning sound against the tunnel opening.

 

The wood is ancient, cracked and warped with age and abandonment. It is wormholed and splintered. The thick beams leaned to the right, hanging nearly off the side of the ditch.

 

The ghost reaches a trembling hand forward and touches the wood. It’s rough and soft at the same time, a piece crumbles off into his hand revealing a fat grub. The wind catches the opening just right and it moans, loud and cold and fetid. The ghost jumps back but the skeleton is already there.

 

“Come on, let’s explore it,” the skeleton says. The ghost doesn’t want to. Something is very

wrong with this tunnel, something about it terrifies him. He doesn’t believe the skeleton’s stupid story, but he doesn’t want to go inside.

 

“We need flash lights.”

 

“Nah, come on,” says the skeleton, bold now that he has someone weaker than him to bully.

He steps into the darkness of the tunnel and his glow-in-the-dark bones are the only things lit. He turns and smiles at the ghost. The ghost follows.

 

“Come on, it’ll be an adventure,” says the skeleton.

 

Together, they walk further into the tunnel, the darkness swallowing them.