My Latest Missing Persons Case Led Me To A Cabin In The Woods — And A Horrifying Underground Secret

Part 1

The phone ringing at two in the morning is never good news in my line of work.

I rolled over in the dark and grabbed the receiver.

Professional hazard of being a private investigator.

A desperate mother named Diane was on the other end.

Her daughter, Brenda, had been missing along with two friends for nine days.

They were on a cross-country road trip, posting constantly on social media, until the updates abruptly stopped.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes.

Nine days is an eternity in a missing persons case.

Diane had contacted the police, but they brushed it off as young adults just wanting some space.

She knew her daughter wouldn’t just vanish like that.

I took the case immediately and started digging into their digital footprint.

The phone records painted a chilling picture of their final known moments.

All three phones had gone dark at the exact same time on the eighth day of their trip.

That doesn’t happen by accident.

I traced their last known location from a social media photo to a tiny gas station in Wyoming.

I packed my gear and drove twelve hours straight to the town of Elkridge.

It was a desolate place surrounded by endless national forest.

I found the gas station from the photo and went inside.

The attendant, an older woman named Barbara, remembered the three girls.

She told me they had asked about the scenic route west.

I asked if she noticed anything unusual about them or their departure.

Barbara hesitated and lowered her voice.

She admitted she had a bad feeling, like someone was watching the station while they were there.

I thanked her and headed out to retrace their route along the desolate mountain highway.

Cell service dropped entirely after five miles.

The radio faded into static.

I was completely alone on a winding road with steep drop-offs.

At mile twenty, I saw the fresh skid marks burned into the asphalt.

I pulled over and examined the heavy black lines.

They showed a sudden, panic-induced swerve straight toward the sheer drop-off.

I grabbed my flashlight and camera and carefully descended the steep embankment.

The rocks shifted under my boots as I navigated the treacherous slope.

Ten minutes later, I found the blue car wrapped around a massive pine tree.

It was a severe crash, but the airbags had deployed.

The interior had small smears of blood on the dashboard and steering wheel, but the seats were completely empty.

I found their phones, wallets, and suitcases still inside the wreckage.

Nobody abandons their cash and cellphones after a crash unless they are forced to.

I stepped outside the vehicle and found drag marks leading away from the wreck.

Someone had pulled them out of the car against their will.

The trail led through the dense trees to an overgrown dirt road.

Deep tire tracks from a heavy truck pointed north into the forest.

I hiked back to my car, drove until I got a signal, and called the local sheriff.

Sheriff Greg met me at the station an hour later.

He was a seasoned local who didn’t appreciate an outsider poking around in his jurisdiction.

I laid out the evidence of the crash, the abandoned belongings, and the drag marks.

He leaned back in his chair and told me to step away.

He claimed his deputies would handle it, but I could tell he didn’t care about a few missing city girls.

I refused to back down.

I drove back to my motel and started digging through property records for the land near that hidden dirt road.

I found an isolated farmhouse registered to a man named Brian.

He had a clean record, but the property was perfectly positioned for someone trying to hide something.

I drove back out the next morning and parked my car a mile away in the dense woods.

I hiked through the undergrowth, avoiding the dirt road to stay hidden.

The old farmhouse eventually came into view through the trees.

It looked abandoned from a distance, but thin smoke drifted from the chimney.

I set up a position uphill and watched the property for hours.

Around noon, a rusted truck pulled up and a heavily built man went inside.

He came out twenty minutes later with garbage bags and drove off.

I knew this was my only chance to check the property.

I moved quietly across the yard and tried the back door, but it was deadbolted.

The main floor windows were boarded shut from the inside.

I circled the foundation and found a small basement window obscured by bushes.

It was unlocked.

I squeezed through the narrow opening and dropped down onto the cold concrete floor.

The basement was massive, filled with dusty furniture and the smell of rot.

I crept upstairs and checked the main floor.

The kitchen was filthy and the bedrooms were unmade, but the house was empty.

I was about to leave when I heard a muffled sound coming from beneath me.

It sounded like someone crying.

I rushed back down to the basement and pressed my ear against the walls.

I found a section of the north wall that sounded hollow when I tapped it.

I searched the edges and discovered a concealed mechanism.

I worked the hidden latch until the panel swung open to reveal a narrow dirt tunnel.

I crouched low and followed the path deeper underground.

The tunnel opened into a reinforced room carved out of the earth.

The three missing girls were tied to chairs, bruised, terrified, and gagged.

I pulled out my knife and rushed forward to cut their bindings.

The tunnel entrance suddenly went dark.

A towering man stood in the doorway, leveling a shotgun directly at my chest.

He slammed the heavy metal door, sliding the bolt into place and burying us alive.