Each city has its ghost story. In Kanab, Utah, it isn’t a few haunted home or a shadow within the woods—it’s a few tunnel. The place appears innocent to outsiders. However the locals know higher. They name it the Stomach of the Dragon.
Trailhead elevation 5,160′
Do not miss making it out alive
The Actual Story of Kanab’s Stomach of the Dragon
In case you ever cross by Kanab, there’s a tunnel carved into the sandstone cliffs. Vacationers suppose it’s nothing however a drainage tunnel—a simple photo-op, a shortcut beneath the street. They stroll in, snicker concerning the “dragon’s stomach” nickname, and submit their footage on-line.
However ask anybody who’s lived in Kanab lengthy sufficient. They’ll let you know to not go inside. They’ll let you know it swallows folks.
The very first thing you discover whenever you step inside isn’t the darkness—it’s the partitions. They don’t appear like stone. They curve and ripple like ribs. The ceiling arches above you in jagged waves, like a throat frozen mid-swallow. Shine a light-weight lengthy sufficient, and also you’ll swear it strikes, flexing barely with each breath you are taking.
And the air… it isn’t nonetheless. It flows, heat and off, like breath drifting from lungs too deep to measure.
Deeper in, the partitions change. They’re carved with names. Not spray paint, not graffiti. Scratches. A whole lot of them. Some shallow, some deep. Some crumbling with age, some so contemporary the mud nonetheless clings to the grooves.
Each child on the town is aware of what the names are. They belong to those who didn’t make it again. Individuals trapped within the dragon’s stomach. Individuals who have been eaten alive.
Two of the dragon’s most up-to-date victims have been Bridget and Liam. One summer season night, only a few years in the past, they went in laughing, their flashlights flickering towards the sandstone partitions. A hiker passing by noticed them disappear into the tunnel, their voices echoing for some time earlier than fading into silence. Hours later, their bikes have been nonetheless leaning towards the juniper tree by the trailhead, untouched. Search groups combed the realm for days, however there was no hint—no footprints main out, no sign from their telephones. Weeks later, somebody swore they noticed two contemporary names scratched deep into the sandstone, proper the place the tunnel grows darkest: Brig D and Liam.
If the names don’t persuade you, the bones will.
Scattered within the sand, half-buried and damaged. Lengthy femurs, cracked spines, grinning skulls. At all times simply sufficient to make you second-guess what sort of animal they belonged to. At all times human-shaped sufficient to maintain you awake at evening.
Some say the bones shift round when nobody’s wanting. That they transfer deeper into the stomach because the dragon digests its prey.
Individuals who’ve stayed too lengthy inform the identical story.
First, the sound: bones clinking collectively, echoing from the darkish like tooth chattering. Then the bottom trembles, the ribs of the tunnel squeeze in, and sizzling air rushes over your pores and skin just like the dragon simply exhaled.
That’s whenever you hear it. A low, guttural hiss, stretching into one thing that just about appears like a phrase. “Hungry.”
Run when you can. Most do. However not all.
Yearly, somebody doesn’t make it again. Vacationers, hikers, thrill-seekers. They’re by no means reported lacking on the tunnel. Households don’t blame the dragon. They only… disappear.
However the locals know. The names develop in quantity. The bones pile increased.
Typically at evening, when you stand close to the cliffs, you’ll hear it shifting. The bones rattling, the hiss echoing by the sandstone.
The dragon doesn’t have to hunt. It waits. Affected person. Silent.
And when you step inside, when you pause for even a second too lengthy, you’ll really feel the partitions shut in, and also you’ll know precisely what it’s wish to be swallowed alive.
So when you’re ever in Kanab and somebody dares you to stroll by the Stomach of the Dragon—don’t.
As a result of if the dragon notices you, you received’t be coming again. Simply one other identify carved into its ribs. One other set of bones rattling at the hours of darkness.
