Book Excerpt

As a paranormal investigator, these words were music to my ears: abandoned train tunnel. I had received an invitation to go there one night in late May with six other investigators. The group was kept small because of how easily sound travels in the tunnel. This place is hard to find if you’ve never been there and hard to see even though it’s very close to a busy road.

After an uphill scramble on a barely used trail, it was a short walk to the entrance. Even though the night was warm, I felt a chill run all over me when I saw the mouth of the tunnel. I knew something was watching and it didn’t like us being there.

I just stood, staring into the tunnel. The stone walls flanking it were covered in graffiti and dead tree trunks were on the ground just before you would step inside. The tunnel is straight and about three-hundred feet long, so we guessed that the tree trunks were a way of discouraging ATV’s and motorcycles from entering.

I had not yet stepped inside. The feeling was still strong that we were being watched. Reassuring myself that the group leaders knew the location and that I was safe, I followed them in. After about fifty feet the smooth poured concrete walls and ceiling had become all rock, carved from the surrounding hill. Even though it had not rained that day, there was the sound of water dripping from the ceiling and a trickle of water running down gullies on both sides, echoing with every drop. This certainly added to the creepiness of the place. The only light was from our flashlights and bursts of camera flashes. We were headed to the middle of the tunnel to start our first EVP session when I heard something “whoosh” overhead. One of the group leaders saw me react to the sound and said, “Oh, there are a few bats in here.” The next two and a half hours were spent walking from one end to the other and back again. As time went by, the feeling of being watched became less intense; but never completely gone. I stayed close to the group all night. Being more than twenty or thirty feet away from them was an uncomfortable, almost vulnerable feeling.

Everyone stood outside about one-hundred feet away from the tunnel and talked for a little while when the investigation was finished. I was very glad to be out of there. But I kept looking back, feeling as though we were still being watched from inside. I took a few more pictures of the tunnel entrance before we headed back to our cars.

When I reviewed the photos from inside the tunnel I only noticed insects, water droplets, and a bat. Looking at the final shots I had taken from outside peering into the empty tunnel, I was suddenly covered in goose bumps.