The houses I flip have been normal. It's easier than you'd think. After busting my ass and getting a business degree in college I continued bussing tables and looking for a place in the economy I could really sink my teeth into. For a long time, I wanted to open a bar. Then I wanted to open a chain of taco trucks. Neither of these things ever took off. Then something happened.

My best friend invited me to tour a house she was thinking of buying. The place was a standard single-family home, but in the end, she decided it was probably too big for her. Alyssa is the minimalist type. Last I heard she was still in the market for a tiny home. While I was touring the house with her, I ran into a guy that was really intense. The guy was asking the realtor all sorts of questions about plumbing and electrical. He was handsome but had deep personal eyes underneath a neat crew cut. He noticed I was watching him and turned to introduce himself, putting his hand out. I took it; his hand was coarse and strong and broad.

Me and Daniel went out on a few dates and slept together twice before he started showing me what he did for a living. He flipped houses. He'd briefly talked about it a few times over dinner, but this would be the first time I'd ever seen one of his projects. Everything in the ranch-style home was gutted. Wires were sticking out of the bare frames of the walls, there was no toilet or sink, and parts of the ceiling were missing. I spent lots of time with Daniel and learned a lot from him. His favorite thing to do was demo. He'd light a cigarette in between his grinning teeth and swing a sledgehammer against cabinets like John Henry competing against the steam engine. The majority of the time, Daniel was reserved and quiet, but when he was doing that kind of work, he was jovial and laughing straight from his stomach. He looked good doing it.

We stopped seeing one another about two years ago; he just seemed disinterested or preoccupied with other things. Since then I've remodeled several homes and sold them at a decent enough profit. I paid down some of my loans and was feeling the pressure of the world start to lift a little. Then I looked into a property just outside of Austin, Texas. I was surprised. The realtor was attempting to get rid of the small one-bedroom home for the local government. Apparently, it had been abandoned. After looking over the property, I noticed that the kitchen had mostly been left bare. The carpet had been pulled up. It looked like someone had already done half the work for me. I figured this small house would be a quick project. It was an older property so I would still have someone come in and test the house for any pollutants.

The process of buying the house was much shorter than I thought it would be. Normally it takes a few weeks, but the contracts showed up within a few days. This should have startled me, but this was to be a quick job, after all. Roughly two weeks after the initial tour I was already ordering tile and paint and light fixtures. By my estimate I could make a quick ten grand and take a small break before looking for my next house.

Then I found the hatch in the cellar underneath an old rug. Immediately, images from the TV show "Doomsday Peppers" shot through my head. I won't even lie. At that moment I was giddy. I thought for sure there was no way this could hurt the house's resale value. After all the realtor didn't seem to know about it. The house was old so maybe I was about to stumble upon some kind of bunker built way back whenever. I would still have to inspect what was underneath the hatch though. If this had been abandoned without anyone to maintain it then I could be looking at a real foundational problem. Still, I was excited about this.

I jumped onto my hands and knees and attempted to pry the roughly hewn hatch with my fingertips but couldn't get a good grip, so I ran up to the floor level of the house and found my prybar. The tool made quick work of the hatch. After shifting my body against the horizontal door and pushing it up with my knees burning, I stood and wiped my brow, looking down into the dark pit. There was a rusty wrought iron ladder that led down into an inky thick black hole that beckoned and threatened to swallow me whole. I turned on the flashlight of my phone and peered down. Even with the light pointing directly down into the hole's open mouth, I could only see down a few feet more. The vertical tunnel's sides were like one big pipe. I felt like Mario stepping down onto the ladder. What can I say? Curiosity got the best of me.

I took a few steps down until the hatch was well above my head. It was difficult moving with the prybar stuffed underneath my left armpit and my phone in my right hand. I peered down again and still found no bottom. This was strange and a little scary, but in a fun way. I took a few more rungs down the ladder and stopped again, looking down. Then I heard a deafening clang and smash. Looking up, I saw that the tunnel had swallowed me up. I scrambled up the ladder, dropping the prybar and almost dropping my phone. I heard the sound of the prybar ringing against the sides of the tunnel, but I never heard it hit bottom. "Fuck. Fuck." I whispered.

At the top of the ladder I banged at the closed hatch, attempting to push my fingertips in between the ground and the hatch. Nothing. I balled up my fist and tried slamming against the rough metal a few more times. Then I looked down. I'd need that prybar. Goddammit. My hands slick from the panic, I started shifting down the ladder slowly and carefully. The last thing I needed to do was break my legs.

It took forever before I started hearing the sounds of dripping water plinking against metal from somewhere far off. I started taking the rungs two at a time, still careful not to lose my footing. Then I felt warmth in the air around me. It was like that feeling you get when someone is breathing down the nape of your neck, but this sensation ran over my entire body. I stopped on the ladder, looking down into the open air beneath with my phone's flashlight.

Then I felt a hot wind come blowing up from under me shortly followed by a thunderous roar that echoed throughout the chamber. I clung to the ladder and stayed that way for a long time, shaking. I was certain that some giant underground worm was going to slime its way up the tube to pull me into the darkness below. Ten or fifteen minutes passed before my arms and legs began to protest so I took the ladder down a few more rungs. Then a few more after that. I went slowly again, creeping with one hand on the ladder and one hand holding my phone's light over the abyss. I don't know how long it took before I finally saw ground, but when I did, I started picking up speed again and landed on the slippery concrete surface beneath the ladder.

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I pivoted all around quickly, searching for the prybar I'd dropped. I couldn't find it anywhere. Panic set in and I had to force my back against the ladder and focus on my breathing, holding the phone's light up into my own face. I took my surroundings into account and saw that I could either move left or right down a concrete tunnel. This wasn't some underground bomb shelter. What it really reminded me of was sewer tunnels. The roof went up about ten feet; the walls were cracked and curved. Moss and vines and small streams of water decorated the walls. I knew I would have to find that prybar if I wanted to escape. I searched the ground around me again. Aside from a skittering insect that ran from the beam of my light, I saw nothing. Even though my prybar had fallen a fairly good distance, there was no way it could bounced that far away from the opening above me. I looked left and then right and couldn't believe I was really debating on moving further into the tunnel network, but maybe there was another exit.

After a riveting game of eenie-meenie-minie-moe, I started moving down the right bend in the tunnel, keeping my hand on the side of the curved wall and listening hard to every sound that echoed through this subterranean lair. Lair. That was the only word I could muster when really thinking about that place. It didn't feel like anyone that had ever worked in sewage distribution had ever seen this place. This was not some metropolitan waterworks project. Moving through those tunnels more and more, I am sure there is a nefarious purpose to them. I walked, sure to always look over my shoulder. It felt like the tunnels were moving- changing behind me. I know that's crazy.

When I came upon the first chamber in this underground network I was in awe. It was about forty feet at its tallest domed point. In the center of this massive room, there was a tree with huge roots sinking into the concrete floor of the chamber. Its branches were gnarled and twisted upward unnaturally, it's tendril-like roots reminded me of an octopus's limbs, its bark was pitch black, and it had no leaves. I rounded the chamber with the tree in its center, sticking close to the wall. I could see that on the opposite side of the room there was another small opening. I followed it.

It wasn't long before I was totally lost and couldn't remember the way I'd come. Eventually I came upon a staircase. It led down. Nope. Fuck that. Nope. So, I turned away and started moving through the network of tunnels again. Had I taken a left here? Or right? I couldn't recall. I made my best guess, and I was constantly having to rub my arms and console myself into thinking that I'd chosen the correct direction.

I rounded another curve in the tunnel and stopped in my tracks, pointing the light in front of me. I saw in the tunnel ahead, a shadowy form hunched over near the ground. I swallowed hard and felt my skin grow cold right down into the soles of my feet. Whatever it was, it hadn't seen me just yet. I started backing away slowly, attempting to conceal myself in the curve of the tunnel, holding my breath. Just as I was losing sight of it, it reared up and I saw a pair of glowing cat-like eyes looking directly at me. I ran.

It was gaining on me. I could hear the thing's raspy breath echoing off of the walls and I swear its claws were scratching against the concrete with every quickening step. The slippery ground threatened to give my footing a tug, but I kept pushing through the network. My knees were burning, and a stitch was developing in my side. I craned around a corner and found the massive chamber with the tree. I cantered forward, jumping over the tree's raised roots. I felt like I was running through an obstacle course with those damned pieces of vegetation clinging to my shoes. I slammed into the trunk of the tree and caught my breath, looking over my shoulder, the shadowy animalistic creature slid around the corner and my breath was caught in my throat. I kept running.

I reached edge of the opening on the other end of the massive chamber and that's when I felt it. Something struck me in the back. It stung and sent me spinning over my own feet. I slid across the concrete and onto my knees and whatever hit me rang metallically next to me. My phone fell out of my hand facedown somewhere in the cavern. I heard the thing behind me. I rolled myself over onto my back, attempting to scramble backwards on my bottom. I saw the vague shape of something coming towards me in the dark and steeled myself against it.

The thing slammed into me and straddled my body, clawing at my clothes with coarse strong hands; I felt its nails ripping into the flesh around my collarbone. It growled and I recognized it. It was the same roar I'd heard when I was coming down the ladder. I slapped and swung at the thing and it batted my defenses aside easily. I began feeling around on the ground next to me for a rock or anything. Then my hand wrapped around a long flat metal piece of something. I swung the prybar out towards the thing and warm blood sprayed onto my face; it fell on top of me, unmoving. I shoved the creature off, and it rolled with a thud.

I started moving my hands through the darkness, searching for my phone. I pulled it up and pointed the light towards the dead creature and saw it was a man. My stomach dropped and I quivered. The man was lying on his side, facing away from me. I stepped forward, moving him onto his back with the end of the prybar. I knew that face even with all of its changes. His once self-assured stare was now a milky blue next to the sharp wound near to his left ear, his clothes were ragged and falling away from him in places, and his skin was loose and starved. Looking at his bare hands and feet I saw that the nails there had grown out several inches. I rifled through his pockets and found a wallet. I had to be sure. Inside I found Daniel's driver’s license. I wish I could have cried. I wish I felt something sentimental in the moment, but my muscles were stiff, and my back was stinging from when he'd thrown the prybar at me. I came up to my feet the same way you might wake up from a nightmare.

I made sure to keep his crumpled form out of my line of sight. After standing there in a daze for a little while, I walked away from the massive chamber with the tree, wiping Daniel's drying blood from my face with the hem of my shirt. The tree room was relatively close to the hatch, I knew that. So, after a few moments I set off in the direction that I was sure I would find the ladder. I came to the tunnel where the ladder should have been. At first, I was sure that if I just went a few feet further, I would find it and finally be able to escape this place. Just a few more feet, c'mon. But the ladder had disappeared.

I tried using my phone. The operator answered my call and after hearing the distress in my voice, she tried calming me down with general pleasantries. When I gave her the address to the house I'd been working on, the line cut off. I tried calling back again several more times to no avail.

I've been wandering these concrete halls for hours now, and I’m starting to get hungry.