A little background: Pretty much as soon as I turned eighteen I started saving up for a house, I guess just because it was a thing I felt like I was supposed to do to count as an actual adult. But the prices just kept going up and up, faster than I could save money, and eventually I gave up and spent it all on other things. That's why when the housing market finally crashed I still couldn't get the kind of house I wanted. I had to settle for a smaller, older, fixer-upper way outside of Phoenix. Still, it was a nice property and the house backed right into what a lot of us here in the Phoenix area call mountains but reasonable people in the rest of the country would probably call a pointy hill.
The house was two stories, which isn't common for older places in Arizona and especially not for out in the desert, and the lower level was partially underground due to the slope of the "mountain". That meant it stayed much cooler than it otherwise would have but I also think it was to blame for the scorpion infestation. The walls were covered in that awful dark faux-wood paneling that I associate with 1970s rec rooms for some reason, and when one of the panels popped out a bit I wasn't sad because I thought that might give me the needed motivation to replace it all. I tried to press it down but could feel that there was damage of some sort. Pulling it away, it was clear that the drywall behind it had pushed into the room, and through the hole I could see a void. Now I was worried that some wild animal had made a den in some crawlspace between my house and the mountain and was scratching at the wall.
I cleared that side of the room and pulled off the paneling, then cut a section of drywall off so I could get a better look at the space behind. First thing I saw was a metal bar, and then as I pointed a light in I could see it was a concrete tube. It looked like some sort of huge drainage pipe, though I couldn't for the life of me think of why there would be a drainage line - especially one big enough for me to walk down (or at the very least kinda crouch and waddle down) leading into or out of the mountain. I called the city and eventually got through to someone who told me very authoritatively that it wasn't a city works thing and had to have been put in place by a private party who had owned the land.
The house had been foreclosed on so I bought it from the bank after the foreclosure auction didn't get an acceptable bid. My realtor said the person that had it before the bank hadn't actually lived there and had intended to flip it, so that meant the last actual owners were a few steps back. I figured I could go through the title for the house and see if I could get names, I know in theory it's all out there to find but it seemed like a lot of work and my immediate issue was the hole I had left in the wall. I could have repaired the drywall pretty quickly, but in a fit of curiosity I made the hole bigger instead. I borrowed some bolt cutters and removed the padlock and chain that was holding the bars shut and opened the thing up.
There was a layer of dried mud and grass on the bottom, but no actual moisture and no smell. I crouched down and headed inside, flashlight making the concrete walls around me very bright and yet still leaving a circle of total blackness in front of me. I wasn't too spooked yet, and was kinda enjoying the adventure of it. Eventually I came to a fork, and headed to the left where I quickly hit a dead end. There was a circular concrete room, about ten feet across and totally covered by a nest. Dry grass or hay, a shredded blanket, some other bits and pieces I couldn't identify. There was a stuffed animal or maybe a dog toy - a blue bear clearly without any stuffing in it. Just like before, everything seemed dry and there was no smell. I heard something behind me and nearly jumped out of my skin, but when I spun around there was nothing there and I started to wonder if I had imagined it.
Still, there was that other fork to investigate so I headed down it - but that, too, stopped at a circular concrete room. No nest in this one which let me see that the floor was slightly indented towards a tiny little drain in the center which was almost comically small considering the size of the tunnel and room; it wasn't any bigger than a sink drain. There were also some random bits of debris. Some rocks, about one beer bottle's worth of green glass, and a pile of what I thought at first were little white pebbles. I leaned down and got a closer look, and when I saw they were teeth I felt a sense of absolute panic overtake me. I stopped thinking at all, and if I could have run I would have but instead had to settle for a frantic shuffle - banging my head into the top of the tunnel repeatedly.
When I got out, the room was trashed. The television was on the ground, papers from my desk were everywhere, and the door was open. I called the sheriff’s department and a deputy came out, and he looked at me like he had seen a ghost. He walked right past me into the house and looked around like he owned the place, and only snapped out of it once I tapped him on the shoulder. He apologized and said that he hadn't heard anyone bought the house, and I got the distinct feeling that he thought it should have remained vacant but I can't promise that was anything other than my imagination which I think you can imagine was running wild at that point. I told him my whole story, and when I got to the part about the teeth I realized they hadn’t been bloody or anything. They looked like baby teeth that had just fallen out naturally, which was somehow both better and worse than the alternative. The deputy headed into the tunnel and came back later with red-rimmed eyes and a blank expression. "Allergies," he said, but I swear to god he had been crying. He told me to seal it up, and said I must have left the door open and let a coyote in while I was in the tunnel.
I wanted to object to that, but honestly it was the best explanation. Sure, something could have been in there and passed me while I was in the other side of the fork - but the tunnel had no food, no water, and had been closed up for years. There was simply no way there could have been anything living in that tunnel. The deputy left, and as he got into his car I saw something fuzzy and blue peeking out from his pocket. I can't say if it was the stuffed animal for sure because I couldn't bring myself to go back into the tunnel to see if it was still there. I found a padlock I used at the gym and re-chained the entrance, and as fast as I could I put the drywall back up - I even put the hideous faux-wood paneling back on so I could be done faster. I sold the house at a slight loss but nothing too terrible, and tried not to think of it again.
But the part that haunts me is that when I was cleaning up the mess, after the deputy had left and while I was still trying to convince myself everything was fine, I lifted that television off the ground and uncovered a dusty human footprint on the floor.
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