“Bullshit.”
It was clear that Dave was skeptical of my discovery.
“No man, for real, like one-hundred percent for real! The lock was all rusted to shit, so one good kick and it just fell off!” I gesticulated excitedly to try and convince him.
“Scott, man, you gotta stop with these stories, I know you love those ghost hunting shows or whatever, but this ‘hatch’ of yours really takes the cake.” Dave air-quoted the word “hatch” as he shook his head and started to walk away.
I grabbed Dave my the shoulders and spun him around to face me, and shook him while nearly shouting:
“DAVE! This shit is for real! We gotta check it out this weekend!”
Daves eyebrows raised, clearly understanding the seriousness of the hatch if I was willing to show him where it was.
“Seriously? You actually found something out in the woods? About time all that pointless ‘exploring’ you did paid off...”
I had a tendency in the past to exaggerate when I found something weird or spooky while wandering around the woods behind my house, or out in the abandoned construction site by the school, so I always conveniently “forgot where it was,” or “just found out it was demolished,” whenever Dave tried to press me on details from my accounts in these places. But as I said, this was the real deal.
While aimlessly walking through the woods a few blocks away from my grandfather’s house, I had found a huge rock. Deciding to take a break, I clamored up the rock, and pulled out my camera to take a few pictures. As I was taking a picture of the view from the rock, I noticed something at the edge of the frame. Whatever it was, it was rusted and metal, which meant it would be great for a creepy picture, so I hopped down, and headed towards it.
When I found it, I just couldn’t believe it. It was an old metal hatch, with an enormous rusted padlock holding it shut. In my excitement I put the camera away, and tried to get the hatch open. It wasn’t quite as easy as I had made it sound to Dave. The lock was ridiculous big, and still pretty solid despite being rusted. I had to find a sizeable rock, then spent about fifteen minutes whacking it until it finally popped off.
When I opened it with a creaking whine of the rusted hinges, I looked at what was inside: total blackness. It looked like a ladder led down, but it was too deep to let the fading late afternoon sunlight give any hints as to its contents. That’s when I decided I would come back prepared to adventure into what lay beyond the darkness. And tell Dave, you know, so I wouldn’t have to go in alone.
“So what was in it?” I turned to Dave, setting down my phone on the lunchroom table, giving him a confused look.
“What was in what?”
“The hatch!” Dave shouted.
I muttered a hasty response. “Oh, right! Um... well, huh. I actually don’t have any idea. It was too dark to see inside, so I have no clue.”
Dave sighed, putting his attention back to his laptop. “Well, I’m only asking because I googled those woods, and I got nothing, like literally no information on the place. Like it’s there on the map, but that’s about it. You’d think if there’s like a bomb shelter there or whatever, I’d find out there used to be housed there or something, right?”
I furrowed my brow. “That’s weird, I figured the same thing. That it was some guy’s old storage hatch way back when or something. I guess we’ll find out.”
Dave shrugged. “Yeah, I guess we’ll know soon enough.”
It was finally Friday, so we were all ready to go the hatch after grabbing the stuff we needed from our places, and meeting up in front of the forest. We told our parents that we were just going to go to the park, since we both agreed our parents wouldn’t be down for us delving into some old rusty hatch. So we packed our respective backpacks with flashlights, batteries (just in case), some granola bars, and some bottles of water. I also found some masks used for taking out old asbestos insulation in my garage. Figuring at the very least they’re be cool to get pictures wearing them.
Thankfully, the hatch was pitch black already, so we didn’t need to wait for sundown to already feel anxious about heading into the location beyond the hatch. As we approached the forests that contained the hatch, I could already spy the huge rock in the distance. Dave spoke out, making sure this wasn’t another desperate attempt to unnerve him.
“So... you’re sure it’s there right? This isn’t another attempt to freak me out, right? I mean, it’s for sure there... right?” Dave was never really good with the creepy stuff I was interested in, but he would never admit that.
I laughed. “Yeah man, I’m sure. I saw it from that rock over there, remember?”
Dave simply nodded as we headed towards the rock.
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