The metal railings holding the tunnel entrance could be pulled back with little effort.
Jim slipped through and entered the gloom beyond.
The tunnel was full of trash, and empty bottles. The tunnel had been the haven for many dossers, the evidence for this was clear and very abundant.
It looked a mess.
'No train has used these rails for a long time,' Jim commented as he walked forth.
"I am going to go to the end of the tunnel and find the hostel Greg wrote about."
The tunnel was dark and dirty, and full of rubbish.
It stank as well... Very unpleasant.
But it was the perfect place for a ghost to hide.
And so Jim pressed on.
He had to reveal the mystery of the tunnel!
His footsteps echoed back and forth and all around.
He saw a rat scuttle by - the scariest thing he had seen up until that moment.
'Rats can attack if cornered best keep away,' he said.
The tunnel was longer than he thought, he had to go quite a way.
Eventually the natural light disappeared and all was darkness. Luckily Jim had thought ahead and came ready for this: 'I imagine things are going to get dark in the old tunnel,' he said himself before he set out.
So he remembered to pack a torch before setting out, and it was at this moment of his adventure he switched it.
He saw another rat scuttle off and hide under a pile of garbage.
'What a dirty place,' he said. 'If I trip and break something I am stuck! No one is going to find me here! So better go careful. I am not turning back. I have got to find that hostel. I just hope Greg wasn't making it all up. I would be so angry if it all turned out to be a joke!'
A few feet later, splashing through the mud and the garbage, and dashing by the rats, Jim was reaching the end of the tunnel. The light of the sky was returning to him at the end of a tiny dot - eventually it opened like a cave mouth, and he was through to the other side.
He could hear the main road to the north of him, but the highway, and the way home, was cut off by a wire fence and many yards of wild shrubbery. If he wanted to get back to his place again his only course of action was to return back down the tunnel.
To the left of him was a ramshackle building - it's walls were literally rotten, just a mesh of metal and sandstone. It looked the sort of mess where you could pull out one dodgy brick and the whole structure would literally collapse.
This had to be the hostel!
'Well there's something I guess,' said Jim, standing there with his hands on his hips and staring at the horrid old building.
He felt he had to go into the place.
It would be a wasted journey if he turned back without taking a little look around the miserable place.
The front door would not open. The handle had been ripped off, but if you pushed against the wood there was something blocking it from the other side.
Probably rubble...
'The roof has probably fallen down!' Jim said to himself.
He had a little scout about and found a large opening, that must of been a window, and he was able to use it to gain entry of the wreck.
But there was nothing to see on the inside - just more garbage... more rats...
And a strange drawing on the far wall - a large spray-painting that stretched from floor to ceiling of a green bottle with LOVE ME written on the label.
Now what one earth could that be about?
'There is something going on here,' he said Jim. 'I think there is some kind of message in there. Otherwise it's just too random and out of place.'
He loved exploring the old ruin.
It made him feel like what he always wanted to be - an investigator... a detective!
One of those characters out of those sad dreary noir books he used to read, the sort of thing written by Swerve and Sovensky. He was a 1920s private detective on a mission!
...At least in the fantasy world inside his head.
So Jim snooped about, till he felt he had looked under every stone, and then he felt ready to head on and out, and go back home.
And then he heard a sound...
It was the creaking of wood and it came from the ceiling above his head.
Something was moving up there.
Jim had to admit he was pretty rattled by the sound.
There was a chance that he wasn't alone on the hostel.
So far the only living thing he had seen were rats - but what made that sound above was something larger than a rat for sure.
Then he heard another sound.
It was a loud moan!
It was a human making the sound for sure.
It couldn't of been any other animal.
Jim started thinking - was it a ghost?
He could only hope as much.
Ghosts didn't frighten him. Ghosts were just dead people. What could dead people do?
No.
Dead people didn't scare him.
But the living did.
There was nothing more dangerous on the earth than another living man...
A living breathing psychopath was a thousand times more terrifying to him than a shade in the dark.
What if he was sharing is company with a loosed madman!
It was time to get out...
As he started to move for the exit he started to hear footsteps.
There was someone in the building with him.
He was certain of that now for sure.
It was now time to put his legs into gear and make a run for it!
Previous part here
[I shall release the story in bits. Thank you for reading and best wishes!]
{Scroll down for earlier parts... until I figure out how to link them altogether]
[This story for me is an experiment in spontaneous writing. I am just doodling about with this one, throwing down ideas and see where it will lead me and the characters. Scroll down to see the earlier parts of this story. Thank you.]
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