023 - The Tunnel

​The tunnel was just getting smaller and smaller. I was literally crawling on my belly with hardly enough room to even stretch my arm out in front of me. Through the darkness, I could just barely see the other side of the tunnel with my flashlight as I strained my eyes to see. I could have sworn I saw a shadow. Something was down there. I'm Tom Stewart and this is my paranormal story. If you've listened to any of my past podcasts. You've probably figured. Out by now that I was a rather adventurous kid, always looking for places to explore and things to discover. One of the places that helped fulfill my Goonies, like tendency, was at my father's house. My parents divorced when I was young, and I ended up living with my mother most of the time in Pawtucket, RI. But on most weekends I could spend time at my dad's place in Woonsocket, RI. He lived in a small apartment on the third floor of a large house in a historic neighborhood. They had a big yard basketball hoop and lots of wooded areas to explore. And there was also another boy my age living in the house named Andy. He lived with his family on the 1st floor. His parents owned the house and were always quite caring and patient with me. The pain in the ***, kid who would show up every weekend. And Andy and I quickly became good friends and we had lots of things in common. Sometimes we would set up a tent in the backyard and cook food over the outdoor fireplace and just talk about all the different adventures we wanted to go on every weekend. We were always exploring the woods or building tree houses and forts. Two houses down from Andy's house was where Jenny lived. She was a girl our age who lived with her family in an old historic house built around 1900 or so. Even at my young age, I was always intrigued by old houses, but her house turned out to be interesting for more reasons than just history. Behind Denny's House was a large patch of woods. And one day, while Andy and I were out exploring like usual, we found a strange looking hole in the side of a hill. It was made from large stones that appeared to have been built by someone many years ago, and it was directly behind Jenny's house maybe 250 yards away. The opening was small. Barely big enough for anyone to crawl into. But Andy and I were two scrawny 13 year olds, so we fit just fine. And we were anxious to explore this strange looking tunnel. But we decided to be smart about it. So before going in, we went back to Andy's garage to get some gear. Now we had no idea what we might find in that tunnel, so we grabbed everything we thought we might need. Flashlights, a multi-tool, walkie talkies and a hunting knife for protection. We quickly ran back. Through the woods and up to the mysterious opening in the hill. Andy went in first, crawling on his belly with a flashlight out in front of him. He went in about halfway and then stopped. And I stood outside, staring down at his feet. He suddenly screamed out. It's OK. I'm just checking it out first before I go any further, and after a minute or two, he crawled in further and his legs disappeared into the darkness. I waited a minute or two and then got down on my belly and slowly crawled in behind him. The tunnel was dark, dirty and cold, was at least 15 to 20 degrees colder than the summer air outside. From what I could see, the entire tunnel was made out of stone. The walls were damp and it was almost like they were sweating. And the floor had a thick layer of dirt that had just piled up from years of not being used. I looked ahead with my flashlight and could see Andy making his way deeper into the tunnel. And I continued to crawl on my chest. And I could tell the tunnel was man made when you looked at the stone walls, they looked like they were hand cut and placed there on purpose. We continued to crawl in further and. The tunnel started getting taller, to the point where we could get off our bellies and crawl on our hands and knees. And the deeper we went, the taller it got. Soon we were able to walk on 2 feet while crouched over. It was uncomfortable, but we continued to move deeper into the tunnel and I kept examining everything, looking at the walls, hoping to find writing or evidence of other people having been there. And step by step, the tunnel continued to go deeper into the hill. And add a slight incline too. So eventually the light from the opening behind us disappeared. And all we could see was what was. Illuminated by our flashlights. When we finally reached the end, we were stunned at what we saw. The tunnel opened up into a large stone room. Tall enough for us to crawl into and stand up. And much to our disappointment. There was nothing there. We were hoping to find a treasure chest or maybe some hidden scrolls or relics, but. It was empty. But we did notice one strange thing. There was light coming in from the top. There was a small opening in the corner of the ceiling that somehow was letting daylight into the room, and as we looked up to try and figure out what it was, we noticed that the ceiling was made out of wood. And in the middle of the ceiling was what looked like a trap door, but it was too high for us to reach. Even with me boosting Andy up on my shoulders. But we figured it must be connected to Jenny's house somehow, but none of it seemed to. Make much sense. We inspected the room some more and then decided to make our way back down through the tunnel into the woods again. As we were heading back to Andy's house, we noticed Denny's dad was just getting home, so we ran up to him to tell him about our discovery. But he wasn't too surprised. He'd already known about the tunnel. But he did share in our boyhood enthusiasm for having explored it. He said that because the opening was so small, he couldn't fit in there and never got a chance to explore it himself. And he assured us that the trap door did connect to his house, but that it was sealed and buried under the flooring in his kitchen. He said that as long as we. Were being safe and quiet. And if we didn't tell anyone else about the tunnel that we were welcome to continue exploring it, and he made an agreement with us. If we ever did find anything of value in the tunnel, he'd split it with us. Oh, and he hit us with one more bombshell. He said that supposedly from what he was told, there was another tunnel just like that one running parallel to it on the other side of the house. A second tunnel. This was all we needed to keep us busy for the rest of the summer, but little did we know things were going to start getting a little bit scarier. The next day and for several weeks later, we searched those woods looking for an opening to a second tunnel. We cut away brush, we dug holes. We measured and scanned the entire patch of woods behind Jenny's house with no luck. But we did figure that if there is a tunnel, it probably leads to another underground room, just like the first one. And there just happened to be a large hill against the house that had a stone. Wall built into. Stone wall very similar to the one above. The room of the first tunnel. It was those carefully placed stones on that wall that allowed sunlight into the underground room. So our theory was the 2nd secret room. Must be behind or under the other stone wall. And a few weekends later, I arrived at my dad's house and was in my bedroom unpacking. When I looked out my window into Jenny's yard and saw a large hole in the wall where Andy and I thought that second room would be. I couldn't believe it. We'd found it. Her dad must have taken the wall down and found the. Other room. I ran downstairs to get Andy and told him what I saw, and we sprinted over to Jenny's backyard. It was already nighttime and too dark to see. What was in the hole? At best, we could tell that it was a hole and it looked like it led to a room. But we didn't have any flashlights or gear with us. Andy was so excited, he started to climb in, but I grabbed him. I picked up a small rock and dropped it into the hole to see how far it went down. I held my hand into the darkness and let the rock go. 5 seconds later, we heard a faint thump as it hit the bottom. This hole was very deep and that next day we met Jenny's dad out there and he told us that he had suspected there. Might be a well. Behind that wall. And he found it when he took it down in the daylight. We could clearly see that the bottom of the well had no water in it, but it did appear to have something down there. And we were thinking maybe there might be a tunnel entrance too. So with his permission and assistance, Jenny's dad helped us rig up some climbing ropes, and we slowly lowered Andy into the well. And at the bottom, he took his time searching the walls, looking for anything. A secret passage. But there wasn't anything to find. Well, he did find a large ceramic pot, probably used to get water at one time, but nothing of value. For the next few weekends, we spent most of our time digging out the main tunnel. We created some unique tools for the job too, using wood and boom handles, we were able to make some tiny shovels and scrapers to help us get the dirt. Out of the tunnel. The tunnel was too low and narrow to use conventional shovels and tools in there. And we even made a screen sifter to check all the dirt for small items that might be buried. But unfortunately, like most treasure hunts, we didn't find much. Mostly just small rocks that look like coins or buttons and occasionally small animal bones, probably woodland creatures who got lost. But then things got a little interesting. One day we were about halfway deep into the tunnel. And we were both digging up dirt on the floor like usual. When I leaned up against one of the walls and my arm sort of fell through. The stone wall had gave way and 1st we panicked if the tunnel was to ever collapse, we'd be screwed. We were getting ready to quickly scramble out of there, but then I realized that the tunnel wasn't falling. It was just a small section of wall that was different from the rest. Instead of being solid stone like the rest of the tunnel, this small section of wall was just a pile of stones. I don't know why we never noticed it before, but it looked as if somebody had stacked up these stones in front of a hole. A hole that we quickly realized. Was another tunnel. Our best guess was that it was a small connector tunnel or even an air shaft that led to the other tunnel. The one we were looking for to us, this was a major breakthrough. And right away Andy tried crawling into the small connector tunnel which we nicknamed the H Tunnel. Since we figured it probably connected the two tunnels. Like the letter H. He was able to get in a few feet, but that was it. The age tunnel was very small and very narrow, and it had a lot of dirt built up in it. So for the next few weeks, we redirected all of our digging efforts to the high tunnel to see if maybe we could get through to the other side and find the missing tunnel. For weeks, we would take turns sliding into the high tunnel with a scraping tool. Backing out as much dirt as we could, slowly opening it up a few more inches every time. I was the one. Who had gone in the furthest? At one point I wiggled my way in about 20 feet literally on my chest with barely enough room to have one arm extended out in front of me. I had a small headlamp on my forehead and. That was it. I was very deep into this tunnel and it was. A bit scary. I could barely hear Andy in the main tunnel and there was no light. And nowhere to go. But as I crawled deeper and deeper into this H tunnel. I got to a point where I could finally see the other end. Through the darkness and the dust, I could just barely see where the H Tunnel ended and what looked like another tunnel opened. I had finally found it. I yelled out to Andy. I can see it. I can see the other tunnel. But I couldn't reach it. It was still at least another 15 feet away and too small to fit through. So I just laid there, squinting through the darkness, trying to see if I could make out anything at the other end of the tunnel. And that's when I saw. It looked like a shadow move across the opening. I held my breath for a second and just stared down the tunnel. And there it was again. A shadow went right by. Something was moving down there. Got scared and. Screamed to Andy. Pull me out. Pull me out. And with Andy pulling on the rope attached to my leg, I somehow wiggled my way out of that tunnel quickly and as fast as we could. We crawled out into the woods and that's where I told Andy what I saw. I was convinced not once, but twice. I saw something move in that tunnel. It took us a couple of weeks before we. Decided to go back in. By now, we. Had convinced ourselves that it was probably just my eyes playing tricks on me that day. But I'm telling you. To this day, I can still picture that shadow going past the opening of that tunnel. So we went into the tunnel one more time. That summer. We grabbed our flashlights. Walkie talkies and hunting knife and crawled in on our bellies. We slowly made our way up to the middle of the tunnel. And as we approach the opening for the H tunnel, I was thinking. I don't even want to look in there again. Who knows what I might see this time. And as we crawled closer and closer to the. Age tunnel opening. We couldn't believe what we ended up seeing. The stones that I had knocked down that day when we discovered the age tunnel had somehow been piled back up again. Someone or something had closed up the age tunnel again. My paranormal story is written, produced and narrated by me, Tom Stewart. Music from this episode courtesy of [email protected]. I recently added a donate button to my website myparanormalstory.net. Because podcasts cost money, and I really want to keep mine ad free. So if you like hearing my stories, I hope you'll consider making a donation. Even just a dollar. Every little bit helps. Thank you so much. My paranormal story is based on real life events experienced by me. I put out new stories every Wednesday, so please subscribe or follow me for updates on Facebook or Instagram. Just search for my paranormal story. Please feel free to leave feedback, reviews, or comments about any of my stories. And of course I would love to see some five star ratings. You can also e-mail me at [email protected]. Thanks for listening. I'm Tom Stewart and this is my paranormal story.