This happened not even a month ago. I am a senior in high school and I lived in Nevada. My whole life there is not a whole lot to do here, but one thing, my friends and I have always been into this urban exploring.
We had look for abandoned buildings, old service tunnels, dead malls, anything that felt forgotten. Broken fences, take pictures sometimes, sneak up to the roofs or down into basements...it wasn't about breaking stuff or doing anything illegal it was just about the thrills.
The only guy in our group who always found the weird space for adventure is Charles. He was kind of the quiet mysterious type; he had show app with the locations none of us had heard of half the time, I didn't even ask how he found them.
One day, he sent us a screenshot from some sketchy Instagram account, low follower account blurry photos, all kinds of creepy comments under the posts.
The caption on the post in question, just said something like "dozens of abandoned mineshafts in the Mojave Desert If you know where to look".
According to Charles, he had been in contact with the account and whoever was running, it had given him some areas to check out that's all Charles needed.
He was instantly obsessed with the idea.
So that Saturday, it was me Charles and our other friend, James, I had a Wrangler that was perfect for off-road dessert driving so we took that. We didn't have a specific address or anything. Just a general area and a pin drop.
Somewhere in the middle of the Mojave desert, the spot Charles had marked was way off in the desert, like really far from anything. We turned off the main road almost half an hour earlier. And the dirt paths we were on barely looked like a road anymore. We drove around for what felt like forever, no signs, no structures, no landmarks, just endless, nothing.
I kept checking my phone, even though I knew we didn't have service. James was in the back... getting more and more irritated. He started telling Charles, this whole thing was a waste of time and that he had been scammed by some troll account.
Charles insisted that we keep looking so we did, he always been stubborn with navigation, so I figured i had indulge him a little while longer.
Eventually, just as we were about to call it quits, James pointed out something off to the right at first. It looked like just more rock and sand but as we got closer, we saw it does half collapsed wooden structure built into the side of a part of the entrance looked like it had been caved in, but you could still see a dark hole behind the support beams.
It wasn't huge, but it was definitely man-made definitely a mine shaft. Charles didn't say anything at first he just pulled out his phone opened the offline map, he downloaded when we still had service and dropped a pin on it. Then he turned to James and said "I told you" to which James said "just got lucky" but even I had to admit it was kind of crazy.
We had been driving in circles out in the middle of nowhere. And somehow we had actually found one I parked a few yards from the entrance just off on the side on a flat patch of dirt, we all climbed out and geared up. Charles had even brought masks for us to wear.
The three of us walked up to the entrance. And it looked even deep inside up close, Charles picked up a rock and tossed it in, we waited a few seconds later, we heard it clank 3 times then nothing..... it was really deep.
Charles look back at us and said "if it tripped out on the way down, we were probably dead".
We started the decent. Luckily, the shaft wasn't a straight drop it sloped down on steep angle, but not enough that we had to climb hand over hand the ground was loose and uneven, and there were also wooden beans lining parts of the wall. Surprisingly, they seemed pretty sturdy. The deeper we went, the colder it got and quieter. It was really eerie down there, we couldn't even see any light coming through from the entrance anymore. Eventually, we made it to what felt like the bottom.
The shaft levelled out and opened into a wider tunnel that branched off in a few directions, it looked exactly how you had imagined old support beams every few yards rested rails, half buried in dirt and a thick layer of dust on everything.
There were scraps of wood and metal scattered around maybe parts of old cars or tolls, it smelled kind of stale in there if that made any sense honestly, I didn't realise how much of a blessing the masks were, until that point we picked a tunnel and just started walking. None of us really said much. We weren't looking for anything specific, just exploring, there honestly wasn't much cool stuff down there.
The place looked like it had been mostly cleaned out of it. Anything worth taking, but then we heard something it was faint somewhere further down the tunnel. It sounded like something being dragged at first I thought I imagined it, but I looked over and saw Charles had stopped to, James motioned for us to turn off our flashlight. So we did.
We just stood there in total darkness. Listening.... The sound came again, it was sort of scraping sounds like metalwood, maybe even wood being dragged along the ground. It was hard to tell with the echo. But it seemed like whatever it was getting closer, we stood there in the dark for maybe 30 seconds, maybe of a minute, it was hard to tell the scrapping sound kept coming slowly getting louder. It didn't sound too close to us, but that didn't make it any less terrifying. Then James accidentally flicked his flashlight on then off again, I wanted to kill him, but scrapping stopped and everything went silent. Then out of nowhere there was this loud metallic clank from somewhere deep in the tunnel, like whatever was being dragged, had just been dropped right after that came the most awful demonic scream. I had ever heard.
It barely sounded human.
We turned and ran, not even caring about how loud we were being. I've never run faster in my entire life, I could hear footsteps coming from somewhere behind me and I thought I was going to have a panic attack, I was in the back trying to keep up and then I tripped on something. One of my shoes came off and I struggled to stay upright, I didn't have time to go back for it. So I just kept going trying to ignore the pain in my head up ahead, Charles and James had already reached the incline and were climbing, practically, threw myself up the stairs when I tell you climbing those stairs, half the effort was the most painful thing I had ever experienced, I'm not exaggerating, it was excruciating, I've picked up a new splinter, every few seconds, if not for the adrenaline coursing through my veins, I don't think I would have been able to make it out of there.
By the time I finally made it out into the open air. My foot was shot, I read James and Charles to drag, near carrying me over to the car, I couldn't drive like that so James jumped in the driver's seat and barely got the door closed before; he threw it in a gear and flowed it.
I don't think we were followed up the shaft. But we weren't sticking around to find out, he drove in silence all the way to the nearest hospital, I thought was the pain was going to make me pass out, I ended up having. We get a tetanus shot and even after all, my wounds were clean and all the splinters were removed. I couldn't walk normally for days.
A few days later, once I could walk without limping too, James told us he dropped his wallet somewhere near the shaft. Probably when he was helping me to get into the car, he hadn't said anything at that time, but now he figured it was worth going back just to the entrance. No way we were going back inside.
So the 3 of us drove back out there using the pin that Charles had saved, obviously James wallet was nowhere in sight but we did find something.....my shoes, it was sitting a few feet from the mine entrance, I cautiously walked over to and picked it up.
It was torn up like someone or there, I say something had bitten into it. There were little teeth marks and my shoes and entire chunks of it were missing. We didn't stick around much longer after that, none of us can come up with any rational explanation, you might be quick to say, just It was some homeless person living down there, but if that were the case how the help had they managed to stay alive for so long. There was no food down there. What in the world would they eat?
Charles said that Instagram account never responded to him when he explained him about what happens.
Its going to be a long time before I do any urban exploring in the desert again.