The Catacombs (A Psychological Suspense Horror Thriller Novel) by Jeremy Bates Page B

the ocean. We paused
to listen. It lasted for about ten seconds before silence returned
once more.
    “That is the Metro,” Danièle explained.
“There are tracks nearby.”
    Late-night workers returning to their homes
and families, younger men and women heading out to meet friends. In
other words, life going on as usual. These mundane images made
burrowing beneath Paris in the dark and dirt seem all the more
surreal.
    Pascal, who seemed anxious to keep moving,
said, “ Monter la garde ,” and continued on.
    “Yes, be careful,” Danièle told us. “The
ceiling height varies. You must watch your head. And watch your
feet. You do not want to step into a crevice or a well. Some can be
very deep.”
    “How deep?” Rob asked.
    “I do not know, Rosbif,” she called over her
shoulder. “I have never seen the bottoms.”
     

Chapter 10
DANIÈLE
    The trick was to remain close behind the
person in front of you, so you could see in their backsplash of
light, and Danièle remained so close to Pascal she could reach out
and touch him if she were so inclined. She was not kidding when she
told Will and Rob to watch where they stepped. Last December a
couple of cataphiles reportedly broke through a wall in the remote
western portion of the tunnels and discovered never-before-seen
galleries, one of which featured a series of life-size statues
carved from the limestone. While on an excursion to see the statues
for themselves, Danièle and Pascal came across a man sitting by
himself in a small chamber. He was weak and delusional due to
dehydration. A single candle burned next to him. It was his last
one. After it went out, he would have been plunged into total
blackness. They gave him food and water, and when he was lucid
enough, he showed them his ankle, which he explained he’d broken
when he’d stepped in a two-foot-deep crevice. The ankle had swollen
to the size of a cantaloupe and was marred with splotchy purple
spots. His friend had left to get help but never returned. The man
didn’t know when that had been, he could barely remember what day
he’d entered the catacombs, but given his deteriorated condition,
it was likely it had been several days before. It was also likely
his friend had not been an experienced cataphile and hadn’t been
able to find his way back again.
    So, yes, the dangers were real down here,
she thought. But if you were smart, if you had a guide as
experienced as herself, or Pascal, chances were you would be
fine.
     

Chapter 11
    For the next fifteen or twenty minutes I
forgot about the graffiti and returned my attention to the ground,
watching for the apparently bottomless crevices and wells Danièle
had spoken of. I didn’t see any, but I did spot discarded water
bottles, candy wrappers, and other sundry items. At some point the
monotonous crunching of our footsteps was joined by the dripping of
water.
    Pascal kept up his fast pace, and the rest
of us followed close as he turned one corner after another, passing
numerous branching hallways, each surely leading to others, and
those to others still, hinting at the enormity of this underground
realm. Danièle had not been exaggerating when she called it a
labyrinth. It was a chaotic maze of more than—what had I read—two
or three hundred miles in aggregate? If you stitched the tunnels
together into one long Frankenstein worm, they would surpass the
width of the state of New York. This got me wondering about their
construction. Who were the men who had dug them, likely with
nothing more than pickaxes and shovels and wheelbarrows? Convicts
who couldn’t get employed elsewhere? Destitute farmers looking for
regular work that didn’t rely on the seasons or the climate?
Whoever they were, they likely would have toiled away underground
in the dust, humidity, and sometimes pitch dark for their entire
lives—if they weren’t first crushed to death, buried alive, or
knocked off by infections and disease.
    From ahead Pascal hollered “ Ciel! ”
While