The Deep Hole

My creepiest experiences often didn’t happen on ghost hunts. I was recently reminded of one strange occurrence. This happened when I was in my early 20’s at a local fishing spot in my hometown called, The Deep Hole.

The Deep Hole was a place where two streams merged into one larger stream. When the water was high it would run rapid and the two streams flowed together creating a circular whirlpool effect. Growing up, I was told stories of two children drowning in the flooded stream. The children’s bodies were found trapped in the Deep Hole’s swirling waters. I was never able to verify that story, and it sounded like an Urban Legend, but out of the thousands of times I visited that place one thing did happen to me that I’ve never been able to explain.

It was a nice normal summer day. My friend Chad and I arrived with our fishing gear. We crossed the concrete train bridge that ran overtop the stream and heard children laughing and playing in the water underneath the bridge. This wasn’t unusual. The Deep Hole was a familiar spot for a lot of people who fished, went swimming, and played in the water. We stopped and listened for a couple minutes trying to figure out who was under the bridge, but we couldn’t quite make out what the kids were saying. We picked up a handful of stones from the train rails with the plan of tossing them out into the water. Maybe scary the kids a bit, but a few days earlier we saw a man here fishing with his two children and decided it wasn’t a good idea to throw rocks without knowing who was under the bridge.

I got the bright idea to climb down the side of the bridge and find out who was under it. So, I slowly descended the side of the bridge being careful not to make too much noise. I reached a point where I could peek my head under the bridge. As I put my head around the corner the laughing suddenly stopped. I saw no one under the bridge. No children. No father. Nobody. And all of a sudden everything became eerily quiet. In the exact moment I looked under the bridge the playful sounds of splashing water, giggling and laughter, all completely and instantly disappeared. I was sweating from the summer heat and from the climb, but it felt like a cold chill froze my entire body. I climbed quickly back up repeating to Chad and myself, “there’s no one under the bridge!” We knew something strange had just happened. We stayed there for while trying to explain it, but there wasn’t an explanation.