​Beneath The Iron Door

Five teenagers, Alex, Sam, Mia, Liam, and Jess, had heard the rumors. The abandoned bunker at the edge of town, buried deep in the forest, was supposedly a relic from a secret Cold War experiment. Locals whispered that it was haunted, but the teens brushed it off as ghost stories meant to scare kids from exploring. Determined to prove they were braver than the rest, they ventured out one chilly October evening, armed only with flashlights and their phones.

The bunker was even creepier than they’d imagined. Rusted metal doors hung ajar, revealing a narrow, descending staircase that disappeared into darkness. The air was thick with mildew and a faint, rotting smell. They glanced at each other, daring one another to be the first to go in.

“Ladies first,” Alex joked, nudging Mia forward. She rolled her eyes but took the lead, descending the stairs with a false bravado that quickly waned as the silence grew heavy around them.

The concrete walls were damp, covered in patches of moss and mold, and every sound echoed down the narrow hallway, amplifying their footsteps. Their flashlights barely pierced the gloom, revealing long corridors filled with abandoned equipment, overturned chairs, and doors that led deeper into the maze-like bunker.

They moved slowly, feeling the weight of the dark pressing in around them. Somewhere in the distance, there was a soft scraping sound.

“Probably just a rat,” Sam muttered, his voice uneasy.

They ventured deeper, finding rooms filled with strange diagrams on the walls, notebooks with hastily scribbled notes in a language none of them recognized, and broken glass cases labeled “Specimen”. Each room seemed more unsettling than the last, as though they were unearthing secrets that were better left buried.

In one room, Jess found a strange clawed footprint in the dust. It looked almost human but with sharp, elongated toes. She shivered, snapping a photo to show the others. Before she could call them over, a low growl echoed through the hallway, sending a shiver down her spine. She whipped around to find herself alone.

“Guys?” she called, her voice cracking slightly.

The others returned to find her standing rigid, staring down the corridor. The growl came again, this time closer.

Liam’s flashlight flickered, and in the brief darkness, they saw a shape moving in the shadows, a creature with dark, matted fur, crouched low to the ground, its eyes reflecting their lights like cold fire. Its mouth was lined with rows of sharp teeth, and as it opened its mouth, a raspy, unnatural growl reverberated down the hall.

“Run!” Alex yelled, yanking Jess back toward the stairs. They bolted down the twisting corridors, but the bunker felt like a labyrinth, every hallway blending into the next. The creature’s footsteps echoed behind them, relentless, growing closer with each turn.

They stumbled into a large room, slamming the door behind them. They could hear the creature scratching and snarling on the other side, desperate to get in.

As they caught their breath, Mia noticed an old control panel on the wall with a switch labeled “Emergency Containment”. She slammed the switch down, hoping it would do something, anything, to hold back whatever was hunting them.

The bunker shuddered as metal doors slid shut throughout the facility, sealing off various sections. But the creature’s scratching grew louder; it had found a way through. The lights flickered, and in the brief moments of illumination, they saw it slip into the room.

Alex’s flashlight dropped, rolling across the floor, casting eerie shadows over the beast’s twisted form. It advanced slowly, savoring their fear.

In a final act of desperation, Liam picked up a rusted metal pipe and swung at it, but the creature dodged, faster than they could react. One by one, their screams echoed through the dark, swallowed by the concrete walls as the bunker returned to silence, leaving only faint, fading blood smears and a broken flashlight.

The town never saw the teenagers again, and when local authorities finally entered the bunker, it was empty, nothing but long-forgotten equipment and rooms smeared with claw marks, as though something had waited there, hungry and patient, for the next brave group to wander into the darkness that was beneath the iron door.