The Man in the Storm Drain: A Suburban Nightmare That Won’t Go Away

We moved into the house on Maplewood Drive when I was eight. A quiet cul-de-sac in a sleepy New Hampshire town, the kind of place where Halloween decorations stayed up until Thanksgiving and neighbors waved whether they liked you or not.

But beneath the corner of our street was something no one talked about.

A storm drain.

Just a regular storm drain—square, rusted, with bars wide enough to see inside. As a kid, I was obsessed with it. I’d toss in pebbles and listen for the splash. I once dropped a Matchbox car down there and cried for days. But then I saw something that changed everything.

One late October afternoon, as the wind chased red leaves through the street, I knelt at the edge of the drain. I was humming something stupid and childish when a whisper slithered up from the darkness.

“I like your red shirt, Tommy.”

I froze. The air tightened. I looked around—no one. Then, slowly, I peered into the drain.

Two pale eyes blinked back.

I don’t remember running home. Just screaming until my mom slapped me and said I’d had another “episode.” Dad was more blunt: “There’s no one down there, and if I catch you sneaking out again, you’ll wish there was.”

Eventually, I convinced myself it was a dream. A child’s brain doing cartwheels in the void of boredom and too many scary stories.

Until last week.

Now I’m 34, divorced, with a daughter of my own—Emily. She’s seven, and I’d taken her back to Maplewood to visit my parents. Same quiet cul-de-sac. Same neighbors. And yes… same storm drain.

It had rusted more, but was still there. I noticed Em staring into it that first morning.

“Don’t go near that,” I told her. “It’s filthy.”

She nodded. But later that night, as the adults sipped wine in the living room, I saw her through the window, crouched at the edge of the drain.

Talking.

I bolted outside, grabbed her wrist. “Who were you talking to?!”

She blinked up at me, annoyed. “You don’t have to yell. His name’s Walter. He said he used to play with you.”

I felt my lungs shrink.

Inside, I asked my mom, “Do you remember when I said there was someone in the storm drain?”

Her face dropped. For the first time in my life, she looked… scared.

“Tommy,” she whispered, “you used to scream at night about ‘the man under the road.’ We thought you’d seen something awful. But you wouldn’t say more. Then it just stopped. You were ten.”

No one ever believed me. But someone—or something—had been down there all those years ago. And now it was talking to my daughter.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. Every creak felt like a whisper. At 3:14 a.m., I checked her room.

Empty.

I sprinted down the hall, checked the backyard door. Open. Cold wind blew in.

The storm drain.

I tore down the street barefoot. The moon was hidden behind clouds, the trees like claws above me.

She was there, kneeling.

Whispering.

I grabbed her—harder than I meant to—and shouted, “What did he say to you?!”

She didn’t cry. She just looked up at me, her eyes wide.

“He said he misses you.”

I stared into the darkness of the grate, heart pounding. No eyes. No movement. Just silence.

Until it spoke.

“Hello again, Tommy.”

I dropped Emily and stumbled backward. The voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t echo. It was… wet. Like it crawled out of something that shouldn’t speak.

“You don’t belong here,” I said, voice trembling. “You’re not real.”

A chuckle. Low. Like gravel sliding down a throat.

“Then why do I know your dreams?”

I didn’t sleep that night. We left before sunrise. My parents said I was overreacting. Said Emily probably heard stories from me when she was younger. Imagination. Stress. Nostalgia turning sour.

But something followed us.

Two nights ago, back home in Connecticut, Emily woke me up.

“He’s here,” she said, eyes like marbles. “He found a drain near our house.”

I wanted to say it was just a nightmare. That monsters don’t follow people.

But then I heard it.

From the bathroom sink.

Just a whisper.

“Don’t run, Tommy. I remember how you taste.”

Now, every drain is a mouth. Every pipe a tunnel.

I don’t know what it is. A ghost? A demon? A thing that lives where light never reaches?

All I know is, it remembers.

And it’s hungry again.