My First Day On The Job At A Substation In Texas Was Nothing Short Of Terrifying

I got ready for my second shift at Electronic Solutions Of Texas and couldn’t help but feel an anxious air crawl over me. The drive out to the concrete square in the desert was another long and haunting one. Summer nights in Texas are beautiful and unforgiving. The stars numbered beyond comprehension and you could trace the edge of the Milky Way like a raging river across the black-blue sky. But the humid air was thick, like just stepping out of a scalding hot shower that went on for too long. There was a layer of fog that sat lazily on the air, content with not moving an inch. My AC was broken in my truck, so I drove with the windows down and my head half out, trying to keep a breeze through my hair. I cranked up Jimi’s “Wind Cries Mary” to actually hear it over the wind, and smirked when I caught on to the irony of it.

I got there, and my Chevy was the only vehicle. No Bronco, meaning no Walter. I suppose he figured I could handle it on my own. I was at once proud and pissed at the same time. Both of those dissolved quickly into plain worried. I had a ton of questions for Walter about the night before, and now there were going to be no answers. I walked inside and it was cold to the point of sanctifying. The tiny concrete block had central air. Right then I didn’t mind the absurdity of it, and just enjoyed the cold air. I headed for the table in the break room, but stopped at the reception window when I noticed something off.

The old touch-tone phone sitting on the reception counter/window frame had a single blinking red light. The phone had a thick plastic shell and was a dull beige color that had crusty gunk and age-old stains all over. I pressed the blinking red button and Walter’s voice played on the machine.

“Heya’ Billy. Sorry I can’t make it tonight, you’re on your own big fella’. I’m confident you can hack it,” Walter chuckled, his voice echoing mechanically from the answering machine. “As far as the power actin’ all willy-nilly, it’ll do that. The cold you were experiencing is to be expected as well. Just a side effect from all that electrical equipment.”

“My ass,” I muttered to myself. Walter was feeding me bullshit, or blowing me off. Neither made me happy, but the idea it might be the former worried me.

“You just keep up the good work and make sure you make that Endless Walk on time. And remember, no more than 25 minutes down there,” Walter said, in a tone as if he was reminding a child not put his hand over the stove again. I was beginning to dislike Walter. “Alright then. You have a productive night there, young fella’.”

There was a childlike giggle that snuck out of Walter right at the end there, then a click, and that was it.

I felt like I had been let down a little, but I’ve had plenty of employers with that “hands-off” approach, so it wasn’t a huge letdown. I went to the security room and heard the old leather squeak as I sat down in the ancient office chair. I looked over the monitors and saw about what I expected, a whole lot of nothing. Every room, every flat expanse of land, and every angle of infinite tunnel was still and quiet. I leaned back in my seat, put my headphones in, and continued listening to Jimi’s “All Along the Watchtower”.

The sun set and 10 o’clock came by sooner than I expected. I grabbed my light and clipboard and headed down in the narrow elevator. Thankfully no power outage while heading down this time. I was dreading it like a kid who did something wrong and was waiting for their father to get home. Luckily, the darkness stayed away and the metal door slid open to reveal a lit tunnel. Not well-lit, but that seemed to be the norm.

I made most of my walk without any intensely cold gusts of wind or sections of tunnel suddenly turning into shadow. I jogged from meter to meter, making my time down there a little shorter and getting in a bit of exercise while I was at it. I told myself it had nothing to do with the creepy experiences I’d already had down there. No, not at all. I got to the last meter on my “route” and quickly jotted down the levels. I decided to stroll back instead of jog. I still had about 15 minutes left out of my 25, so I decided to take my time.

Before I got very far from the last meter, I heard a quick shuffling of feet behind me. It startled the shit out of me (not literally, thank Christ), and I spun around so fast it almost made me dizzy. There was nothing but tunnel, of course. But I could still hear the sound of the footsteps fading into a distant echo deep down the tunnel. Still, I saw absolutely nothing aside from pipes and wires and the long infinite tunnel that extended before me. I could feel every hair on the back of my neck standing at attention. I shone my light down the Endless Walk, angling the beam to light up the dark patches where the shadows took hold. Still nothing, but I noticed it was beginning to get exceptionally cold.

I peered down the tunnel, frozen in my boots from both the fear and cold. That’s when I saw movement. I couldn’t tell what it was at first, but it moved slowly and without pause. Then it got closer and I could see it was fog. A thick layer of icy-white fog that covered the bottom of the tunnel and attempted to crawl up the sides as it advanced towards me. I took a quick step back, and felt a moist coldness creep up the back of my ankle and slither around my calves. I looked down and the fog had moved in from the other end. I had no idea how it could’ve snuck up on me like that. I’d glanced behind me plenty of times during my jog, and not once did I see an encroaching two-feet tall carpet of fog. I was genuinely freaked out at this point.

I had just turned back towards the elevator and noticed the fog coming from both sides when I heard it behind me again. That odd, inorganic howl that rested on the wind like a distant nightmare waiting to happen. There was also the metal scratching. A skittering sound that was both light and heavy at the same time, somehow.

I didn’t turn around, and I was no longer frozen in place. I ran down the tunnel at full speed. The pages of paper flapped on my clipboard and my hair pulled back from my face. I pushed off hard from the rounded floor of the tunnel and could feel the soles of my shoes heat up. My heart felt like it was pumping a gallon of blood with each massive beat. As I neared the section of tunnel with the elevator, I could hear the skittering get louder and bounce off the narrow tunnel walls. It felt like the sound was escaping the tunnel and trying to burrow into my brain through my ears.

I made it to the elevator door and latched my hands onto the metal frame to stop my momentum. I pressed the call button and heard the elevator begin to shake and rumble in response. The skittering and scratching was getting louder, and I frantically looked left and right, expecting to catch a glimpse of my doom. All I saw was fog, but the lights were now repeating their behavior from last night and beginning to flicker off one by one in my direction.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I muttered as I focused back on the elevator panel, mashing its single button repeatedly like my life depended on it. It sure as hell felt like it did.

When I heard the “bing” of the elevator arriving at its destination, the skittering all stopped at once. Somehow, the sudden lack of the noise actually startled me. I jumped and quickly looked both ways. The lights had stopped flickering, but the ones already off did not come back on. Nor did the fog leave or the cold drift away. The atmosphere was still one of paranoia and hesitant fear, but I couldn’t help but stop and wonder what the hell was going on.

As the door fully opened, I noticed something far down the Endless Walk. It was as far as my last stop, maybe farther. It was completely dark at that point of tunnel, save for a single hanging light. It blinked off and on in sporadic little twitches of light as it dangled back and forth. In the spastic light, through hundreds of feet of dark tunnel, I could just barely make out a single object. It was a white figure, glowing dimly. I was way too far to make out any distinct features, but it looked naked and very pale. It was human-shaped, but it didn’t really look human. It had long arms and short legs, a hunched down head and neck, and it was tall enough to be crammed from floor to ceiling and still need more room. I could stand on my toes in the tunnel and still have a foot of head space at least. It stood there for a moment, motionless and eerie as all fuck. Then, it just appeared to fade away. The darkness and the fog just seemed to envelope it and it was gone.