Long

Tommy told me about the tunnel when I was 13.

Deep in the overgrown woods past the Miller property, leading into the soil beneath a hill was a large, circular drainage tunnel that had long been discontinued. Tommy brought me there one March afternoon.

"Check it out, is this creepy or what?" Tommy pulled a tin of rolling tobacco and twisted up a cigarette. He licked the paper and smirked, lifting an eyebrow as he watched for my reaction.

"Just an old drainage ditch, not really." But it was creepy. A black mouth of shadow that looked far out of place among the green leaves and yellow sunlight of Spring. Tommy was 15, though, and I always tried to act braver than I felt.

"If it ain't creepy then let's see you go in."

And that's how it began. A rivalry between two close friends. The ennui of growing up in the backwoods with nothing better to do. And a pitch-black circle leading into the unknown.

"I'm not getting rabies from some nest of raccoons, man."

"So you're scared." Tommy looked up at me from under his greasy black bangs. It was that belittling look he gave me when he beat me at Street Fighter. The look he flashed when he corrected me in front of another kid.

"Psh, watch me," I hissed, and marched through the rustling leaves and sprouting grasses up the bank to the large tunnel. I took a step inside and felt my neck hairs rise. It was at least ten degrees colder in the darkness of the concrete tube. My ears struggled to listen, wary of any sound that might alert me that something was in the shadows with me. Nothing but a dense silence.

"See? I went in. Big deal." I said it nonchalantly as if it truly were nothing, but there was a palpable horror working its way into my skin every second I was inside. I wasn't claustrophobic or afraid of the dark, but something about that tunnel filled me with the worst kind of dread. I stepped outside into the sunbeams that poked through the canopy of leaves. It felt good to be out.

"OK, bigshot, my turn. Bet I can go deeper than you." Tommy did a little jog in place, shuffling his sneakers like a boxer before shadow boxing the air. I giggled a bit watching him punch in his baggy sweatshirt. He dropped his arms and paused, and then he stepped inside the tunnel. And then he began to count.

"One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven," Tommy counted each step he took deeper into the darkness, and with every step, he became harder to see within the shadows. His voice grew more distant and reverberated as he counted.

"Eight. Nine. Ten."

Tommy was no longer visible by the tenth step, and that awoke some primordial fear in me. The concept of being swallowed by shadows on such a lovely Spring day.

It felt like an eternity as I stared into the black circle inset into the hill. I was about to call his name when he spoke.

"Nine, Eight, Seven," Tommy continued backtracking, and soon his fuzzy form appeared as he returned.

"Zero! Ha, won't lie, I got a rush, man! Pretty creepy when it's just pitch blackness all around you. Anyhow, new world record, baby!" And then that smug grin to top it off. God, I hated that look.

"I can do better," I said.

I stepped inside the mouth into the earth, shaking my arms all floppy to get a laugh out of Tommy. I felt my heart begin to speed up as I took my first steps in.

"One. Two. Three. Four."

It was much colder after stepping in a few paces. My eyes struggled to make out what they saw where there was no light, but only blackness met them.

"Five. Six. Seven. Eight."

I was in complete shadow then, no longer able to see the curved concrete walls around me. It was, indeed, a rush. Some optical illusion that made me feel as if I was plucked outside of the physical world.

"Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve." I was cold, far colder than seemed right. And with each number counted, my voice changed. It no longer seemed to reverberate as it had before, almost as if the tunnel was opening up wider as I went.

"Thirteen." I stood then, as my fears culminated in a wave of paranoid horror about what lay in the darkness surrounding me. My mind conjured up things too horrific to pen. Things left to adapt to such a black world they had no use for eyes; only ravenous jaws and long, sharp fangs. I heard a chattering that nearly sent me screaming until I realized it was the clacking of my shivering teeth. I'd beaten Tommy, and so I abruptly turned, feeling my hairs stand on end at the thought of turning my back to whatever might be lying in wait in those shadows. I walked back to the ring of sunlit woods far faster than I'd entered.

"Twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four three, two one."

I stepped outside, feeling the sunlight warm my goosebumped skin. I clenched my jaws tight so Tommy wouldn't hear my teeth and know I'd been shivering.

"Thirteen, sucker," I bragged.

"Ha, you win this round," Tommy huffed, and with that, I was king for a day, at least in my own mind.

And with that, the tunnel game was born.

Tommy and I came back to the tunnel, again and again, chasing that thrill. Each time, we broke our previous records as we tried to outdo one another. We began treading farther into the deep, dark tunnel, counting our steps with pride as we broke new depths. My record of thirteen was quickly bested by Tommy, who walked 25. I beat that when I got to 35.

The farther we went inside that black unknown tunnel, the harder it was to hear. Soon, our voices wouldn't even carry enough to register how many steps we had taken. Tommy had the idea to speak out the steps to each other on our phones.

My record of 35 was beaten by Tommy, who made it to 50. My confidence had grown and with it the enjoyment of chasing the thrill of being that far into the unknown. The realization it was just my mind playing tricks on me bolstered my nerves. On one particular day, I was determined to avoid that snide gaze of Tommy. Despite my growing dread of the absolute isolation in that tunnel, I decided I was going to beat him.

And so I set out into the black hole underground, deeper into the concrete drainage tunnel. I made it to ten, then twenty, then thirty. The air on my skin was cold, and the reverberation once again dampened as if the tunnel itself was widening.

"35. 36. 37. 38."

I held the phone tight against my ear, counting off the steps as fuzzy shadows danced in front of my struggling eyes. I continued counting as I paced, attempting to conceal any sign of fear, but once I counted past 50, I was very much afraid.

"51. 52."

I heard my voice on the phone, but my stomach sank in the pitch-black void as I realized I only heard it through the cellphone's receiver. I took it from my ear for a second as I took another step.

"53." My heart was pounding. There was no echo at all. I raised the phone, using the lit screen to shine into the darkness before me. I aimed it to the walls, expecting to see the curved concrete arching up on either side.

But there was nothing. Just black space around me, so thick it made me queasy and disoriented.

And then my eyes began to play tricks. Darker shadows in the absence of light seemed to form and shift. The shapes of tall, stretched figures seemed to lean in from the recesses of the space. A hallucination caused by sensory deprivation, I gathered. But I swore I could almost make one out dead ahead of me; a long face, three feet tall with black ovals of eyes and a vertically stretched, gaping mouth.

I stopped. It was too dark to make out, but I felt as if something was in there, watching me. I lifted the phone to my ear and spoke. "I'm heading back," and with that, I turned in an about-face, but my throat closed. The entrance was no longer visible.

"I can't see the entrance," I panicked. "Where's the entrance?"

"Quit fucking around, just turn around and count backward."

My heart was pounding in my chest, but having Tommy on the line with me seemed to lessen the feeling of being lost.

"53. 52. 51. Tommy, I can't see it!" I was panicking then. I was completely disoriented.

"Quit it, keep walking," Tommy stated bluntly.

I then felt warm eddies of air waft onto my neck from behind. It felt like breath; tangible, actual breath. I smelled it too. A bitter reek of something long decayed. Something arcane and meant to be forgotten. My throat closed and my eyes widened, straining to make out that bastion of an exit. I walked faster.

"50, 49, 48," I counted as panic screamed in my brain.

"47, 46, 45,"

I finally saw the tiny green circle ahead, and I raced towards it, watching it grow as I drew closer. I didn't realize until I was counting down from 20 that I'd been jogging.

There in the entrance was Tommy with folded arms, a smug look on his face.

"Nice try," he stated defiantly.

"I think something was in there," I panted, trying to catch my breath. "I couldn't see the entrance.

"It's harder to see after 50, huh?" he flashed that smug look again. "And nice try."

"I'm serious," I pleaded, but it was no use.

"You ain't beatin' me, nice fucking try," Tommy glowered at me then grinned before stepping in. He counted to twenty aloud before ringing me on the phone.

"Oh man, there's a killer clown in here!" Tommy joked and continued walking deeper into the shadowy depths.

"30. 31. 32. 33." He was toying with me, convinced I was trying to psyche him out. And he wasn't going to let me win.

Time stretched on forever as his voice tallied up the number of steps he took as he strolled into the underground tunnel.

"50!" he punctuated with pride and continued, "51. 52. 53. Beat you, loser."

"54. 55. Stop fucking with me." I felt a wave of shivers. I was just listening intently, my throat dry and tight. The confidence in his voice faltered then.

"56. 57. 58. 59. 60." His voice had become a monotonous whisper then. It was as if he was reading off in a trance.

"61. 62. 63. 64." Every number spoken the same way, lacking emotion and weakly spoken.

"OK you win man," I spoke to him. "You are the all-time champ, come back." I swallowed the lump in my throat, but it only grew as he counted on past 70 and then 80. Tears were streaming down my cheeks.

"100. 101. 102. 103." He sounded hollow, like some distant memory of himself, carrying deeper and deeper into the blackness.

I pleaded with him, snotty-nosed and running with tears as I begged him to turn around. I didn't care if he'd make fun of me, I just desperately wanted it to not be real, but the numbers kept rising as time passed on and on. He made it to around 250 when his voice became so faint and staticky that it was inaudible.

And there I sat in the woods, staring at the black hole to oblivion. Covered with tears and screaming at the trees.

I dialed the police and told them my friend was stuck in a tunnel in the woods. I dared not leave the mouth of the thing in case he came back, but he didn't. The officer that arrived drew a gun and blindingly bright flashlight, and once he shone the beam in to illuminate the dark tunnel, every single hair on my body raised.

You could see where the cemented tunnel ended from the entranceway. It was no more than 50 paces in.

I went over the story repeatedly, but they insisted he pulled a trick, sneaking out at some point. Opinions changed when he didn't return home, and the missing posters went up. Some people spread a rumor that I'd killed him and buried him, making up an outlandish story, but the woods were searched by groups and dogs, and finally, the rumor went away.

I can't ever forget the shapes in the shadows I saw after 50 steps. After where the tunnel ended, and the darkness opened up to something else. Something far more horrifying than a person should ever know.

I can't forget the feeling of breath on my neck. I can't forget the pungent smell. But far worse, I can't forget the tally.

Every so often when I'm on the phone, I can hear it ever-so-faintly through the static. I can hear Tommy's emotionless voice listing off his steps. He's in the hundreds of