“You’re going to need these. You know you will.” I took the two large duffel bags from Harper’s backseat. Harper gave me a serious look and said, “Good luck man”. He immediately drove off in the direction of the old barracks we were staying in, which had been repurposed into a hotel called the Bunker Inn. I walked over to Dan and held the bags up. “What’s in there?” he asked. “I’m not sure, Harper dropped them off,” I said. Dan and I looked at each other with a mix of confusion and concern. “Why do we need hazmat suits?” Dan asked. “I don’t know, probably something to do with like ” I replied. Our trip to the building where we found the tunnel entrance in the last spring was filled with a feeling of dread. I felt like someone was behind me the whole walk through the woods. My duffel bag was heavy, and I kept wondering if I would really need it. Did Harper know something? Had he been here before? We took two rights on the old roads and then cut into the woods just before the fenced-in compound. Our point of entry into the compound was a hole under the fence on the side farthest from the old road. It looked like a bear or some other large animal had been using the entrance we made last spring. I saw a small yellow scrap of fabric stuck to the sharp bottom edge of the fence. Weird. After using our screwdriver to unscrew the metal plate on the door I put my arm through the tiny, now broken, reinforced glass window at the top of the door and pushed it open from the inside. We crept inside. Finding our way to the basement was harder than I remembered, the building was a copy of itself in 4 quadrants, with barely any differences in each hallway. The temperature dropped ten degrees when we went down the ramp to the basement.
Dan picked up the plywood we had left on the floor, uncovering the crack. I shined my headlamp down the hole and once again saw the mysterious wet concrete about 15 feet below. Cold air flowed up through the crack, making me shiver. As I began to lower myself into the hole I spotted another piece of torn yellow fabric. I realized the fabric was the same shade as the hazmat suits. I chose not to mention my observation to Dan. “Why am I going first?” I thought. The air was wet and had a sharp metallic sting to it. I arrived at the bottom. Half an inch of water covered the floor in most places, barely entering above the soles of my converse. I guess now would be the time for the suits” I said. Dan spotted a red glow on the wall, and after inspecting it realized it was a bright white plastic light switch. Power? The bright LEDs hurt my eyes. Dan and I began walking down the tunnel, our voices echoing as we guessed what we were going to find. After only a few hundred meters the white LEDs came to a stop at a gray industrial door. A keypad sat in the middle. The tunnel continued into darkness after the door. “I guess we keep going unless you want to go back,” Dan said. We continued on until we saw something yellow on the ground. “Oh no,” I said. It was a piece of a yellow suit, with the mask still attached, only, the mask had been shattered. Just then I heard a low grunting followed by the splashing of an animal with four legs. Shining my light down the tunnel I saw two large glowing eyes moving towards us. We turned and ran. Whomp The door we passed earlier opened into my face shattering my mask. As I lay on my back I saw a person in a hazmat suit emerge from the door, dragging me inside. I blacked out.