I’m not too ashamed to say I made some stupid decisions in my teenage years. Most of them resulted in little more than scrapes and stories, though on more than one occasion I found myself in the back of a squad car pleading my case with an annoyed sheriff. No, me and my buddies would’ve told you that for the most part we were relatively harmless.

But one day, early in my senior year, I had an experience that still haunts me, a memory that I can’t look at directly without a wave of goosebumps sweeping over my skin.

Travis was the one who suggested it, of course. Travis, the undisputed king of horrible, awful, awesome ideas. Travis, who had once suggested tying sleds to the back of his truck while he did burnouts in a snow-covered parking lot. It’s been nearly twenty years, but I’m still picking pieces of gravel out of my elbows from that one.

But that’s not the memory that keeps me up at night. No, I earned those mental scars on a crisp fall afternoon, still a month from the year’s first snow. Travis had approached me and two other friends after football practice, his trademark chipped front tooth making him seem like a crazed moonshiner.

“I know what we’re doing tonight,” he’d said. “The hotel down by Highway 43 got bed bugs. We’re going there with Leah and her friends.”

I shot him a quizzical look. “You want to get bed bugs?”

“What are you stupid?” he asked. “No, they’re not gassing the bugs until later this month. In the meantime, the entire place is deserted! We’re going to go swim in their indoor pool. My uncle worked on their A/C system a few years back and he said that they never lock the back door to the pool house.”

My still-underdeveloped brain did a quick risk analysis. Not about whether we should trespass and risk arrest, but whether I’d be able to lie to my old man about our plans for the night. I figured it was about even odds, so I agreed.

Travis swung by my place later that night in his truck. Unfortunately, my Pop was out at a church activity. If he’d been home, maybe he would’ve stopped me. Maybe I wouldn’t have gone into that pool. Maybe none of what was to follow would’ve happened.

I suppose there’s no point in going down the long list of what-ifs. I joined a half-dozen friends in the bed of his truck, holding on for dear life as he careened down Main street. The night was warm for early October, but the wind whipping across the bed of the truck was still cool and crisp on my bare legs below my swim trunks.

We passed by a house where Leah, Travis’ girlfriend, was waiting along with a few more girls and two cases of beer.

The hotel was dark when we arrived, its faded facade looking even more forlorn and forsaken than usual. Most of the windows had already been covered in the black plastic sheeting to prepare for the bed bug fumigation that would soon occur, cutting out almost all light.

Not the pool house though.

No, the interior of the pool house shone with a faint neon green light. We poured out of the truck with our cans of beer, peering through the still-locked glass doors and the pool that lay beyond. The mysterious neon green light was emanating from a few EXIT signs hanging above the interior doors.

Travis shook out his shoulders and ran at the fence, leaping over it with a few confident motions before disappearing behind the poolhouse. A few seconds later, what sounded like a heavy door opened on the other side of the building. He reappeared inside the poolhouse under one of the EXIT signs, the hazy green washing out the color of his appearance. He approached the door where we waited, then popped it open with a grin that displayed his half-tooth.

I’d like to tell you that I felt some sense of foreboding, that I was nervous, that I had some inkling of what was going to happen. I wish I’d felt something to clue me in. Maybe if I did, I would feel better about swimming nowadays.

I didn’t.

We all immediately jumped into the water in a cacophony of screams and shouts. A game of chicken was set up almost immediately. Jane, one of Leah’s friends, hopped on my shoulders, fighting with Travis and Leah. We gave a valiant effort, but eventually lost when Travis swept my leg. At the time, it just felt like another night in a small Maine town.

I got out of the water and downed another long sip of warm beer before walking over to the deep end. The signs along the side of the pool warned me in no uncertain terms that diving was prohibited, that the water was only six feet deep, that serious injury could occur. But perhaps due to the pleasant tipsy sensation I was beginning to feel, I dove into the dark green water anyway.

I opened my eyes underwater, expecting to see little more than green-tinged darkness. But instead of the dim bottom of the pool, I saw the shimmering surface of the water, and beyond that, bright lights. I swam towards it, immediately confused. Had I been turned around somehow? And had someone turned on the lights?

I rubbed the water from my eyes as my head broke the surface of the water, pure confusion taking over me.

I was floating in a pool, but I was no longer in the pool house surrounded by my friends. Instead, I was treading water in a brightly-lit pit flanked by four high square walls that extended up at least forty feet to several large fluorescent lights in the ceiling above.

I swam over to one of the walls, looking for an exit or a place to rest. The walls consisted of smooth tiles and grout, the kind you’d see in a nice bathroom. I slowly swam around the four sides, but found no purchase, no exit, no markings of any kind.

“Hello!?” I shouted. My voice bounced off the walls, returning my own greeting back at me from every angle. “Is anyone here?” Again my voice echoed back for nearly ten seconds before fading into silence.

Not silence.

Even at this distance, the incessant BUZZ of the fluorescent lights overhead was faintly audible over the sounds of my treading water. The next several minutes passed with me alternating between calling out for help and trying to wake up from whatever this nightmare was.

My arms and legs were already beginning to ache. If I didn’t get help soon, I’d drown. I thought back to my dive, back to when I’d first seen the shimmering surface of the water. I had seen it where I’d expected to see the bottom of the hotel pool. That didn’t make sense to me, but-- A new thought suddenly occurred to me.

I stuck my face into the water and looked down. The water was at least twenty feet deep, but at least it was clear. The tile walls continued down below the surface, and there, way down at the dark bottom of the pool, the ground shimmered, almost as if it were the surface of water.

I felt myself beginning to hyperventilate, so I took a deep breath and leaned to float on my back. The water rushed over my ears, replacing the sound of buzzing lights with the thunderous pulse of my own heartbeat.

I floated on my back for what felt like an eternity, but what was probably no more than ninety seconds. When my heart rate had slowed from thundering to merely drumming, I took a few deep breaths, then dove down and began swimming towards the shimmering surface far below me. The pressure built up in my ears, but I knew enough to blow out my nose to equalize. After a few final panicked strokes, I reached the surface of the water at the bottom of the pool and burst through.

There was no neon green light on the other side, no sounds of my friends. Nothing but pitch black darkness and echoing drips as my breath returned, gasping and sputtering. I appeared to be in a cramped concrete tunnel of some kind. The walls were rough and met in an arch just a few inches over my head.

“Hello?” I called out again. My voice shot down the tunnel in either direction, bouncing off the raw concrete as it traveled out into the distance. After a moment of terrified thought, I picked one direction as ‘forward’ and started swimming, all too aware of my rapidly decreasing energy. I did my best to move straight, but in the pitch blackness I still found myself bumping my head into the concrete arch when I drifted off course.

I was bringing my arm forward to pull another stroke when my hand suddenly hit the tendrils of something organic and sticky. I jerked away in a panic, bumping my head hard against the concrete ceiling. My left hand swung towards the other wall of the tunnel where yet more organic tendrils awaited me.

They reminded me how the octopus tentacles at our local aquarium felt wrapped around my hand when I visited back in elementary school. I paddled water for a moment, slowly reaching out. The entire surface of the concrete walls below the water was covered in organic tentacles.

Then, the worst of all. Off in the distance ahead of me, a distant metallic clinking sound grew steadily louder, like iron chains scraping against concrete. The tendrils on the walls responded to the sound, reaching out for me. The tunnel was still dark, pitch black, but I couldn’t help but imagine some horrific creature making its way down the darkness of the tunnel towards me.

Those horrible scraping chains were rapidly getting louder, but the echoing made it almost impossible to tell exactly how far. I dove down in the water searching desperately for any light. There, some distance below me, I found yet another shimmering spot. I came up for a quick breath of air, the metal-on-concrete coming from close enough that I feared I’d touch it if I reached out a hand. With a terrified moan, I dove down once more, fighting off the organic stickiness that attempted to wrap around my arms.

I burst through this new surface and was immediately grateful that there seemed to be at least some light in this new location, even if it wasn’t the green neon light I’d been praying for. I spun around, taking in my new surroundings.

Judging by the sudden lack of echoes, I was outside in a large open body of water. It was still nighttime, just like it was back in Maine, but I appeared to be inside a fog bank that limited my visibility to just a few feet in every direction. A single hazy point of light, the moon I assumed, shone through the fog in the distance.

My arms, legs, and lungs burned in protest as I slowly treaded water. I paused for a moment, allowing the water to slip over my head, then fought back to the surface. I’d been treading water for at least fifteen minutes without rest. If I didn’t find a place to rest, I’d soon drown.

The thought surged a shot of adrenaline through me. “Help!” I shouted. “Is anyone there?” The words had barely escaped me when the fog bank rolled past, giving me a clear view of my surroundings.

I was treading water on the calm surface of a lake. All around me, fog banks were moving across the surface of the water like implacable glaciers slowly sliding down a mountainside.

And, off in the distance, I caught sight of a large metal truss bridge hanging perhaps twenty feet over the surface of the water between the fog banks. I immediately swam towards it, hope rising in my chest.

When I thought I’d be in earshot, I began shouting again, calling out for help. I looked closer as I came to a stop underneath the bridge, staring up at its rusted underside. There were shapes hanging underneath it, shapes that--

My blood went cold. The shapes were bodies. At least a dozen bodies were chained, hanging upside down under the bridge, swaying in the chill fall breeze. Most were decayed, but several still had skin. One of the newer bodies was a young girl, no older than eleven.

I stopped swimming, staring up in horror. The pause caused me to sink, almost dipping below the water.

The scraping metal sound. The same sound I’d heard in the dark tunnel. It was coming from above the bridge. I felt my entire body tense up, then I dove down with only half a lung full of air, half-choking on lake water. I didn’t know what was making that sound, but I knew if I stayed under that bridge I’d end up just like those poor people.

I pulled at the water furiously, diving down towards what I prayed would be my friends. The lake water soon smothered any visibility from the moonlight, leaving me in pitch blackness. I continued to swim, to scan ahead of me for any shimmering water.

My body rebelled, forcing me to take in a mouthful of water. I gagged, then turned back for the surface. For three strokes, I feared that I’d gotten turned around, that I was moving down, or worse, sideways.

But no, on the next stroke I saw a faint flash of moonlight. I swam like mad, and burst through the surface, coughing and sputtering. I threw up into the lake, most of it water. I spun, trying to get my bearings.

He was staring at me from where he hung between the bodies under the bridge. I say ‘he’, because he was wearing a man’s suit coat and slacks as if he were from the late 1800s. But I don’t think he was human. Humans have eyes, not pits. Humans have fingers attached to their hands instead of chains. Humans can’t smile the way he was smiling.

He was hanging from his right hand, chains wrapped around a truss. The chains of his other hand reached out and pushed around a few of the bodies like a child swatting a windchime.

Then he reached for me.

The chains holding him to the bridge slowly uncoiled, lowering him towards the surface of the water. The chains on his other hand spread out, snaking towards me with a supernatural speed.

I didn’t have a master plan. All I knew was that I would do anything rather than be caught, including drown. I took a single sharp gulp of air, then dove down just before the chains reached me. I swam faster and deeper than before, the adrenaline coursing through my veins like fire.

Seven strokes, eight, eleven, fifteen, twenty-three--

He still hadn’t caught me. He was probably waiting for me to re-emerge. I wasn’t going to. I continued to pull, my lungs burning, my already tired arms begging me to stop. My lungs gave an involuntary gulp again, but this time I was ready and locked my jaw and lips.

Thirty-eight strokes. Forty-five.

I was starting to lose consciousness, but I was fairly certain I was still swimming straight down at least.

At last, there, at last, I saw light. Shimmering, neon green light. Darkness crowded at the edges of my vision, but I blew what little air remained in my lungs out in a cacophony of bubbles.

The next thing I knew, I was sputtering water and coughing on a cool concrete floor. I spun around and saw Travis along with all my friends, each watching me with a concerned expression.

“Dude…” Travis said. “Where have you been?”

“Don’t dive into the water,” I said between retching coughs. “Don't go into the water.”

/r/WorchesterStreet