Texas Tunnels

We were visiting my grandmother again in Texas. She lived near El Paso near a small town on a Ranch. The land was owned by close friends who turned it into an equestrian facility. My grandparents lived in a small trailer not too far from the owner’s house. The gulley floods everytime it rains and the ranch is surrounded by mountains and hills. Above the main mountain in front of Grandma’s house there is a cell tower. Mike, a family friend comes onto the ranch quite frequently to observe rattlesnakes and various other critters scattered around the mountains. He came in on his ATV, typed in the passcode at the cattle guard and entered the long dirt road towards the house. After having Grandma’s famous burritos he got on his ATV and disappeared onto the sandy trails to search for critters among the cactus-infested land.

I went out hiking, as I always do on the trail to the left of the house of the owners. The trail then forked off into a crook in the mountain. I went down that trail and over the boulders in its way and walked up the gravel road. On the ground I saw the tracks of Mike’s four-wheeler. There was only one set of them, indicating that he was still on the deeper trail in the mountain itself. In the opposite direction of where Mike had gone, the gravel road led back to the main trail and towards my grandparent’s house. After an hour I finally came back onto the main trail. It was a very long walk and I was exhausted. Knats swarmed about my face as if they enjoyed my agitation.

Upon walking back into the house, Grandpa had the TV on a news channel and it was very loud. I hated the news, because the news is just bad news. My mom was in the guest room sleeping and my grandma was in the living room with the TV, puttering on her phone. I always love going to Grandma's, but when I get there I forget how boring it is. There was still some light outside but sunset was approaching. I figured after I freshened up, I would go for another hike. Maybe a new trail.

I walked down from the house again and past the gate straight in front of the house where there were other trails to the right of the house. Me and my cousin Callie used to go hiking on those trails and she would enjoy sleeping on a flat rock in the middle of one of them. I never ventured there very much now. I would only go if someone else was with me when I was young. The trail that I remember was narrow and it led to a large patch of prickly pear cacti, so it was a very short trail but on the other side of the cactus, one could see another trail of which I had never ventured.

I walked to the spot where I thought the trail was and immediately found it among some overgrowth behind an old tree. At that moment I wasn’t but a hundred yards from the house when I began on the trail. Not long after I found the flat rock and then the cactus tower. It was getting slightly darker so I figured I should go home but I didn’t want to die of boredom there, so I gave my best try at circumventing the cacti and succeeded. Instantly a cold chill hit me. The trail after led to a crease in the towering mountain that I had never noticed before. I walked another two-hundred yards before leaving the small valley and I ventured deep onto the land surrounding the ranch.

I figured I should be able to see the highway from the high spot where I stood but I couldn’t. There was no sign of humanity. Just the trail. I traversed a long way despite the strange aura about me. Through large bushes and around more cacti, I arrived, quite a distance from where I started, in an area with no weeds or plants, only sand.

A large lot of sand big enough to hold a playground set similar to that which McDonald’s has for children, and it was that. A large playset like at a school playground. Most of it was wooden with a long plastic tube slide. Most of the structure seemed to be enclosed with glass or plastic. There were no swings attached. Just tunnels on the inside it seemed, like how you crawl through the smelly ones in fast food places. Even stranger, I walked around it and could find no openings except for the tunnel slide itself. No stairs or bars. Sand filled my shoes and I felt drowsy. I have been away from home for a very long time now, maybe an hour, but the sun seemed to be at the same horizon and the day had not aged a second from the original sunset. An hour would have given way to night time.

Still frightful of the boredom that awaited me there, my curiosity peaked and I entered the playset through the slide.

It was very dusty and creaky. I had to hold on to the sides to reach the top of the old thing. Sand from the lot around it gathered on the inside of the slide. The smell of soot and old drawers. The smell of moss and mold. When I got to the top, It looked just like how I imagined, except abandoned. The glass windows were slightly grimey with a little moss. Around the corners there were just more tunnels to crawl through. My body barely fit in the small spaces. The plastic and wood rattled under my weight. In continuing curiosity, I left the slide opening to crawl through the plastic tunnels and around corners. I traveled for about ten minutes before a feeling of dread entered my mind.

An overwhelming presence began to make itself known. It felt similar to that feeling when I walked past the cactus and towards the mountain. Like reality had turned on its head. I began to look around me frantically but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary besides the structure itself. I felt like there was something watching me. Feeling ridiculously uncomfortable, I decided to leave and head home. I followed the turns and corners I remembered taking, but when I came to the spot where I was certain the slide entrance was, it wasn’t there at all. The slide wasn’t there! Logically I looked out one of the windows to guess where it was outside and I saw it, but when I turned to find it where the entrance should be, it still wasn’t there. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. I pressed the plastic wall where the slide ought to be but it was firm. Maybe I miscounted the number of turns I made. Perhaps the slide was around the next corner, but I checked and it wasn’t

In a panic I crawled quickly through the tunnels in the direction of the way I came, trying to find a way out, but there was none. Maybe in the direction I went to begin with? Nothing. Just tunnels and tunnels and tunnels. It was like going in mad circles with no road off to the side. The maze was infinite. The presence hit my mind again and I looked about me for an answer to what could be making me feel this way. Was it just panic? Was I imagining things?

Crackle Crackle. A sound came from a tunnel behind me. It was someone else crawling over the plastic! Coming closer and closer. It wasn’t family, they would have called my name. How could someone else possibly find this obscure place? Was there any way out? Should I warn them?

Terror seized me and I didn’t stop to see who it was. I only kept going as fast as I could. I entered tunnels that seemed to be new and different, darker, mossier, colder. The sun may have been setting and it was making the playset dark. But I didn’t even feel like I had the time to look outside. I kept hearing the sound of someone chasing me. They seemed to be trying to go faster to catch up. I was certain now. The tunnels were different. The plastic became a darker hue and the wood seemed to be rotting as I progressed. I wasn’t getting anywhere but infinitely forward!

In the midst of my panic I turned my head behind to see my pursuer. It did not make me any easier to see his face. A creature. A zombie. A deformed man with burnes. These were all apt descriptions for him. The figure of snarling teeth and drool, and blood oozing from his being. I crawled faster. Still getting nowhere. Now I could hear the sound of sweat dripping from his forehead and hitting the plastic as he clamored to reach me.

This won’t end. As the tunnels began to change, it felt as if time was speeding forward. Like watching an apple rot. The tunnels were rotting. Was I rotting too? Was I aging like this? It didn’t feel like it.

He continued to get closer. His flesh looked rotten and red. Black smudges littered his body and face. I could only tell because I had decided to stop. This thing of a man is going to kill me one way or another. In exhaustion, I leaned my back against the wall of the tunnel. His speed slowed and he crawled cautiously towards me. His face got very close and then he stopped getting closer. His eyes, with very little eyelid to cover them, looked over and studied my face. His hand lifted. I thought he was going to grab me or hurt me in some way, but he did not touch my person. His hand lifted to make a gesture. He backed up in a squat like a monkey and his fingers motioned for me to follow. What choice did I have? Hesitant, I followed.

The creature man led me back all the way through the tunnels. Time reversed, and the rotten wood and mossy plastic looked newer but still dusty like it was when I entered. We reached the opening of the slide, in the exact spot where I thought it should be, but wasn’t. My heart nearly stopped. I really didn’t think this nightmare would ever end.

Briskly going down the slide, I looked back at his face but he did not seem to follow. Now I was back outside in the sand. It’s still just sunset. It had been hours now and it was still sunset. Wearlily I walked in the direction I had come from. Stopping to look back I peered into the dark opening of the slide and saw only his face with his body leaning upward behind it. He gave me an almost sinister-looking smile but I sensed in it the comfort of a friend.

Back on my way home I passed the cactus and followed back onto the trail with the flat rock. It was darker. Looking up, I saw the moon. It had turned nighttime almost instantly.

Description: This dream is one I once had as a very young child. At the time I had a series of horrible nightmares with monsters and demons galore. This is the only dream I had in my entire life where the villain helped me. I suppose the deformed zombie man wasn’t a villain at all but he was horrific. His face so hideous, that just thinking about ever seeing him in a dream again, scares the crap out of me. Nothing, not even the other monsters in other dreams, has ever scared me more than this man. My nightmares have always been an important part of my life since they started but I have always felt detached from the characters in them. Like people always say, “It’s just a dream, it’s not real”. This has felt true for all of my dreams except a small few, including this one. It felt like a place on another plane of existence where a real man was suffering alone in this very real place. He was very much not a figment of my imagination but a person I cannot see how it would ever be possible that I would dream him up. A thought so random, unlike many of my dreams, there is no way it came from my own mind. I cannot remember exactly what age I had this dream but since then I have had other dreams at my Grandmother's house, and every time I am there, I try and fail to find the trail that leads to this ominous playground set. I know that if I can never find the trail and the playground set with tunnels, I can never see him again. Even though he scares me very much, I know that I must meet him again, now that I am an adult. A man that suffered a terrible fire, perhaps in the playset itself, and is destined to wander the tunnels of a magical maze forever. Suspended in time, like the tunnels age the further you go, his bleeding will never stop and his wounds will never heal. A real person. A real human being suspended in eternal suffering for reasons I do not know. I want to know.