This is inspired by Eshel's ghost story, and I may reveal too much personal information about myself by telling it, but here goes.

I grew up in a little, tiny backwood town in the middle of Kentucky called Campbellsville.  And next to Campbellsville is an even smaller, almost forgotten community of a few dozen people called Spurlington.  The only attraction Spurlington has to offer is a giant hole in a mountain called the Spurlington Tunnel.

Supposedly this tunnel is haunted by the ghost of a woman named Nancy Bass, or at least that's the story everyone knows by heart who was raised in that area.  But before I can tell you about Nancy Bass, you have to know about the tunnel.

In the mid to late 1800's, around the conclusion of the Civil War, the citizens of my little town decided to lay train tracks in order to connect with the nearby town of Lebanon.  The only problem was this giant fucking mountain separating the two towns.  So, a crew of workers slaved away day and night to dig a hole through the mountain near the community of Spurlington.

It took seven years to dig the Spurlington Tunnel, with a crew of 75 men working to advance only a few feet through the solid rock each day.  When they finished by reaching the other side of the mountain, the tunnel was nearly half a mile long.  The crew also dug a 50 ft. wide shaft from the top of the mountain down to the tunnel below.  The purpose was to create a way for the exhaust from the trains to escape.  According to the legends, as they were digging the hole, they left donkeys (they didn't have bulldozers back then, obviously) in the hole has they dug deeper and deeper.  Since the animals stayed in the hole permanently for so many years, they eventually turned blind.

If you go to Spurlington Tunnel today, all the train tracks have been long removed, and all that remains is the giant hole in the mountain.  If you stand in the middle of the tunnel, when it's broad daylight outside, you cannot even see your hand in front of your face.  Someone posted a home video of the tunnel on YouTube, and the camera operator is only a couple of hundred feet from the entrance.  This should give you an idea of the lighting of the cave.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu4VzPkr-f8

Around the same time this tunnel was being created, an old haggard lady lived in the small isolated town.  Enter Nancy Bass.  This much is known about her:  She roamed the town as an outcast, sleeping in people's barns and under stacks of hay.  Everyone in the community hated her and wanted her dead.  Farmer's blamed her for early frosts that had killed crops, for illnesses of their children, and any other tragedy that struck the small community.  She was know to all that lived in the community as a witch.  Some threatened to hang her, some threatened to burn her alive.  In response to one of these threats, she declared, "The only way you'll ever kill me is with a Silver Bullet!"  Ironically, someone took her up on that offer.  Late one night, she knocked on the door of a man named Wright.  Once he opened the door she fell inside and onto the floor, she exclaimed, "The silver bullet!  I'm being killed with a silver bullet, I'll be dead in 24 hours!"   She was telling the truth.  She died shortly after, and the town coroner declared that he had found a silver bullet in her body and that it had pierced her heart.

The towns' people did not want to bury Nancy in the graveyard with the rest of their community's dead, so they gave her body to the workers of the tunnel to dispose of the corpse.  Her remains were buried somewhere in the mountain, perhaps only a few feet away from the surface of the walls themselves.  But no one knows where Nancy Bass' final resting place is to this day.  The people in the community continue to tell stories of her ghost coming out in the darkest of nights, as she rides blind donkeys, etc. etc.  There are even made up stories involving train robbers like Jesse James being scared away by her ghost.  A lot of lame stories, to be sure, but the tunnel was real, and Nancy Bass was indeed murdered and buried there.

Now skip ahead to 1999.

I'm in high school, and my step-grandparents own the farmland this tunnel is located on.  The tunnel itself is far away from any houses, isolated in the middle of nature.  But the legend of the tunnel is well known in the community to this day.

Since my family owns the land the tunnel is on, I'm obviously allowed on the property.   So one night in the middle of the summer between my Junior and Senior year of high school, me and three other friends decided to spend the night in the tunnel.  Not near the opening, but a quarter mile inside of it, where even in the daytime you can't see a goddamn thing.

We packed up all our supplies; munchies, a bag of weed, a tent, flashlights, a couple of lanterns, sleeping bags, a CD player (this was the 90's), a fifth of tequila and a fifth of vodka (thanks to my friend's older brother), and other camping supplies.

We arrived at the mouth of the tunnel at dusk, as the sun was setting, and checked with each other to see if anyone was going to puss out.  All set, we ventured in.  Once inside, we proceeded to do the normal shit immature teenagers do when camping:  Get fucked up, and acting like dumbasses.  But eventually, it was time to pass out.

Once all the lights were out, and my friends stopped making stupid comments, there was nothing but the sound of water trickling down from the chasm above.  At first it was a little freaky, but I was finally starting to drift off to sleep.  That's when I started to hear foot steps.

It was a light crunching sound off in the distance, like the sound of someone walking on gravel, but more muted.  The other weird thing is that it came in quick successions.  A fast paced series of crunches and then it would stop.  I thought the guys were fucking with me.  We were all in the tent though, and whatever this was, it was outside, in the darkness.  I didn't know if I was the only one asleep or not, and I didn't know if the other guys heard it too.

I laid there motionless, my ear reaching into the pitch black and utter silence for any sound... anything to confirm or deny what I had just thought I heard.  At this point my heart was beating faster and the ring in my ears from the blood pumping through my veins was deafening.  I didn't want to turn on the light and give myself away.  I didn't want to speak to my sleeping friends and have whatever was outside the tent hear me.

I continued to listen... and heard absolutely nothing.

Was my mind just fucking with me?  Then I heard it again!  A quick scuff scuff scuff sound from several feet away, and this time I heard something that sounded like snort.  That's when I whispered to one of my friends.

"Hey... you awake?"

In a choked off reply, ".....yeah."

"What the fuck is that?!"  I whisper.

Then out of nowhere comes a blood curdling howl. 

"AAAARRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"

I actually pissed my pants a little.  We all screamed.  One of the guys jumped straight up out of his sleeping bag and onto his fucking feet. 

It was my step-grandparents fucking dog, Buster.  He lived outside, and he had followed us to the tunnel.  He was sniffing around our campsite in the tunnel and just wanted to hang with us.

We all turned the flashlights and lanterns back on, and I lit a much needed cigarette and we all laughed about how scared we all were.  We stayed up until dawn and then ended our stay in the tunnel.  As soon as I got home the next day, I passed out from exhaustion.

I'll never forget that night.