For some reason, there was some sort of an award show or something going on near our store. Each department was supposed to do a demonstration, but we were all supposed to be dressed up in fancy clothes and such, just like movie awards.
Anyway, Andrew and I were chosen to do the presentation for our department, so we decided what we were going to do and just waited til it was time. Well, that was the plan. Things didn't exactly go as planned.
Behind the stage there was an entrance to an underground railroad type place. It was fairly small, and the tracks didn't really go anywhere. Now that I think back on it, it almost reminded me of what I would think of when I think of the old coal mines or something.
Shortly after the awards show thing started, two of my old teachers told us all that the underground rails were off limits and that we weren't allowed to go in there, then the two of them went in. I couldn't understand why they would be off limits, so after a half hour or so, I went down into the "mines" and took a look around.
It was a very dark place and I could see the circles of rails. What was strange was the visions of rail cars speeding around in circles. They were all going extremely fast. So fast, that the faces of the riders were a blur, but I could tell they were afraid.
The visions looked very real, and I was scared to cross the tracks, even though I knew that I had to if I ever wanted to know anything more. I watched and timed the speeding "trains" and ran across the tracks when I felt it was safe to do so.
Once I reached the other side, I almost ran into someone. I hadn't noticed him before I crossed the tracks and it didn't occur to me that he wasn't really there in the physical sense. He looked very sad and he was holding a single sheet of paper in his hand.
I was curious and I felt sorry for him, so I asked him what was wrong. He told me that his girlfriend had been upset about something, that he had made her mad, but didn't know what he did. He wanted to make it up to her, so he had gone and gotten the recipe of her favorite meal from her mother. He remembered making the meal for her, but he didn't think she ever knew he made it.
We walked and talked and walked some more. All the while the "trains" were still going, but for some reason I forgot that this was an odd thing.
The two of us ended up in a small room at the end of a corridor. My two teachers were sitting in a circle along with some other people, all of whom looked as sad as the gentleman I had found out in the main entrance. My teachers didn't seem too surprised to see me. Perhaps they knew that my curiosity would win out.
The gentleman and myself both joined the circle. I sat between my teachers and they explained to me what this was all about. It seemed that the "mines" were haunted. They were haunted by many different spirits, most of whom were fairly evil most the time. There were a few times during the day when they would all get in the moods they were in then. Any other time of the day, it wasn't safe for anyone to go down into the "mines," and that I should never try to come down without them.
They told me the names of all the spirits that made contact with them, including a few that weren't in the circle with them.
I couldn't imagine any of the spirits that were sitting in the circle being evil. They all looked too depressed.
After a little while, my teachers said that it was time to go, we couldn't console them any more today, so the three of us went back above ground and rejoined the awards.
I was shocked to see that my department was in the middle of their demonstration. Andrew wasn't anywhere to be found and the people who were there were none too happy about the two of us flaking on them. I ran up on stage as quickly as I could and started helping out. We were demonstrating the use of our new shakers or something like that, and there were a few people lined up to try it out.
I went down the line to make sure everyone's stuff was ready to be put into the machine, but found that the last person in the line had a paint bucket with a hole in the top. For some reason I felt that I needed to take it down into the "mines" to get a new lid.
Without thinking on the warning I had been given, I wandered down through the entrance and I saw the speeding "trains" as I had the first time, but I knew that none of it was really physically there. I stepped out onto the track and felt the breeze as the "train" sped right through me. Once I crossed the tracks, I saw the same gentleman that I had spoken with earlier, but he didn't seem to recognize me. His face was angry and he just started at me for a moment before growling and starting for me.
I was completely shocked and I ran back across the tracks and back up above ground. By the time I reached the stage again, I had spilled paint all down my leg.
Right about then, a friend of mine in the audience, Gracie, started yelling out all sorts of not-so-nice things about me. (I don't really remember what she said now, but anyway.) I just listened for a little while, then I calmly walked down to where she was sitting, leaned down to her and told her that she had best shut the fuck up.
After that I seem to recall seeing the gentleman's face again and reading something about how he was a horrible person when he was alive. He terrorized people just for fun.
