Inside the Forbidden Paris Catacombs

fall never arrives all at once first the air then the light and slowly the things you love begin to find each other a jacket meets a dress a hoodie slips beneath a blazer an old cap finds a new scarf because you don't simply step into the season you create it layer by layer until it finally feels like fall find fall your way at ross hank joined bj's wholesale club the day he became a father of 30 i coach football now coach hank saves up to 25 off grocery store prices 30 pounds of pasta three cases of protein bars 75 sports drinks and that's just pre-game he knows teamwork and bj's knows savings this is your home coach home of the save join for just 20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only bj's home of the save 400 euros in 50s on a table in a bar on the rue de guerre i counted it out on the table and then it went into his jacket and that was us i fit windows have done since i was 19 our dad did it before me and i took it on when his back went and fred never wanted any part of it i'd never been to paris before that week and i'd never been down a hole in my life my brother went into the tunnels under paris on the 15th of february 2024 and he didn't come out fred four years younger than me he'd been living over there about 18 months and he'd never mentioned the catacombs to any of us at the end of january a letter came to say the file was closed an english page on top from the man at the foreign office who'd been dealing with our family folded together in my inside pocket that night i'd had it on me for six weeks the man i'd paid was remy carpentier he took people down into the tunnels for cash two or three times a month no permit no insurance nothing in writing and i'd found him on a forum he was 44 bad left knee i'd never seen him again and i'd never seen him again and i'd never seen him again and i'd never seen him again he called me dew glass with the weight on the back half of it and when i corrected him he said he liked his own better and kept it up all night i told him i was a tourist who wanted to see the catacombs he didn't ask me anything about it there was no reason he should have as far as he knew he was taking a tourist down to look at some carvings he had rules three lights each he had rules three lights each and he was looking for some carvings he was looking for some carvings and he brought two of my three himself and he brought two of my three himself and he brought two of my three himself because he didn't trust what i'd have because he didn't trust what i'd have because he didn't trust what i'd have turned up with turned up with turned up with he told me to bring water and i had a he told me to bring water and i had a he told me to bring water and i had a liter and a half of it in a bottle in my liter and a half of it in a bottle in my liter and a half of it in a bottle in my jacket jacket jacket the phone was for photographs and nothing the phone was for photographs and nothing the phone was for photographs and nothing else else else it'd be flat inside two hours and after it'd be flat inside two hours and after it'd be flat inside two hours and after that it was a lump of glass in my pocket that it was a lump of glass in my pocket that it was a lump of glass in my pocket he said it's the cold that does them he said it's the cold that does them he said it's the cold that does them more than the battery and to keep it more than the battery and to keep it more than the battery and to keep it inside my coat inside my coat inside my coat i was to walk where he walked and if i was to walk where he walked and if i was to walk where he walked and if water came over the top of my boot i was water came over the top of my boot i was water came over the top of my boot i was to stop and say so to stop and say so to stop and say so the one he said twice was the junctions the one he said twice was the junctions at every junction he'd say my name and at every junction he'd say my name and at every junction he'd say my name and i'd say his back i'd say his back i'd say his back and if i didn't say his back he'd stand and if i didn't say his back he'd stand and if i didn't say his back he'd stand there until i did there until i did there until i did he made me practice it in the bar with he made me practice it in the bar with he made me practice it in the bar with the beer still in front of us we went down a bit after 11 out of a we went down a bit after 11 out of a we went down a bit after 11 out of a street in the 14th about 10 minutes street in the 14th about 10 minutes street in the 14th about 10 minutes from the bar it was a road with cars on it he got the it was a road with cars on it he got the it was a road with cars on it he got the cover up and laid it down quiet cover up and laid it down quiet cover up and laid it down quiet a woman walked past on the far pavement a woman walked past on the far pavement a woman walked past on the far pavement with a dog with a dog with a dog and a scooter went by and i put my legs and a scooter went by and i put my legs and a scooter went by and i put my legs into a hole in a public road and nobody into a hole in a public road and nobody into a hole in a public road and nobody looked at me looked at me looked at me he went first and he went slow one leg at he went first and he went slow one leg at he went first and he went slow one leg at a time on every rung because of the a time on every rung because of the a time on every rung because of the knee knee knee the rungs were wet and my hands were the rungs were wet and my hands were the rungs were wet and my hands were cold on them before i was halfway down cold on them before i was halfway down cold on them before i was halfway down at the bottom it was 14 degrees there at the bottom it was 14 degrees there at the bottom it was 14 degrees there was water on the floor was water on the floor was water on the floor the air had a taste to it more than a the air had a taste to it more than a the air had a taste to it more than a smell smell smell plaster dust near enough plaster dust near enough plaster dust near enough the first four hours were good the first four hours were good i hadn't expected them to be i hadn't expected them to be i hadn't expected them to be he took me through a room somebody had he took me through a room somebody had he took me through a room somebody had painted the whole of every wall and the painted the whole of every wall and the painted the whole of every wall and the ceiling with it a job that must have ceiling with it a job that must have ceiling with it a job that must have eaten a year of somebody's weekends and eaten a year of somebody's weekends and eaten a year of somebody's weekends and he knew whose it was and told me a name he knew whose it was and told me a name he knew whose it was and told me a name i didn't catch i didn't catch i didn't catch there was a stone bench in it there was a stone bench in it there was a stone bench in it we sat on that and ate the sandwiches we sat on that and ate the sandwiches we sat on that and ate the sandwiches he'd brought at about one in the morning he'd brought at about one in the morning he'd brought at about one in the morning and he told me about a bloke who'd and he told me about a bloke who'd and he told me about a bloke who'd proposed to his girlfriend down there proposed to his girlfriend down there proposed to his girlfriend down there and had to carry the whole lot back out and had to carry the whole lot back out and had to carry the whole lot back out in a rucksack afterwards in a rucksack afterwards in a rucksack afterwards my wife had told me not to come and i'd my wife had told me not to come and i'd my wife had told me not to come and i'd come anyway come anyway come anyway carpe in white and he'd been putting it carpe in white and he'd been putting it carpe in white and he'd been putting it up since he was 24. up since he was 24. up since he was 24. he'd stop and put his light on a bit of he'd stop and put his light on a bit of he'd stop and put his light on a bit of scrawl and tell me who that was scrawl and tell me who that was scrawl and tell me who that was and roughly when they'd come through some and roughly when they'd come through some and roughly when they'd come through some of them he rated and some of them he of them he rated and some of them he of them he rated and some of them he didn't didn't didn't most of what was on the walls was names most of what was on the walls was names most of what was on the walls was names and dates and dates and dates fall never arrives all at once fall never arrives all at once fall never arrives all at once first the air then the light first the air then the light first the air then the light and slowly the things you love begin to and slowly the things you love begin to and slowly the things you love begin to find each other find each other find each other a jacket meets a dress a hoodie slips a jacket meets a dress a hoodie slips a jacket meets a dress a hoodie slips beneath a blazer beneath a blazer beneath a blazer an old cap finds a new scarf because you an old cap finds a new scarf because you an old cap finds a new scarf because you don't simply step into the season don't simply step into the season don't simply step into the season you create it layer by layer until it you create it layer by layer until it you create it layer by layer until it finally feels like fall finally feels like fall finally feels like fall find fall your way at ross hank joined bj's wholesale club the day hank joined bj's wholesale club the day hank joined bj's wholesale club the day he became a father of 30. i coach he became a father of 30. i coach football now coach hank saves up to 25 football now coach hank saves up to 25 football now coach hank saves up to 25 off grocery store prices 30 pounds of off grocery store prices 30 pounds of off grocery store prices 30 pounds of pasta three cases of protein bars 75 pasta three cases of protein bars 75 pasta three cases of protein bars 75 sports drinks and that's just pre-game sports drinks and that's just pre-game sports drinks and that's just pre-game he knows teamwork and bj's knows savings he knows teamwork and bj's knows savings he knows teamwork and bj's knows savings this is your home coach home of the save this is your home coach home of the save this is your home coach home of the save join for just twenty dollars at bj's dot join for just twenty dollars at bj's dot join for just twenty dollars at bj's dot com slash mesquite and save ten cents com slash mesquite and save ten cents com slash mesquite and save ten cents per gallon for six months open soon per gallon for six months open soon per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only limited time offer new members only limited time offer new members only bj's home of the save bj's home of the save bj's home of the save somewhere around two he stopped at a somewhere around two he stopped at a somewhere around two he stopped at a mouth on the left put his lamp down it mouth on the left put his lamp down it mouth on the left put his lamp down it and said we weren't going that way and said we weren't going that way and said we weren't going that way i asked why not i asked why not i asked why not he said he didn't go down there and he he said he didn't go down there and he he said he didn't go down there and he was already walking was already walking was already walking i let it go i let it go i let it go about an hour after that we were in a long about an hour after that we were in a long about an hour after that we were in a long gallery he told me 10 minutes before was gallery he told me 10 minutes before was gallery he told me 10 minutes before was empty empty nobody comes down this end he'd said nobody comes down this end he'd said nobody comes down this end he'd said it's dead ends the whole way it's dead ends the whole way it's dead ends the whole way and there were voices in it they weren't and there were voices in it they weren't and there were voices in it they weren't close close close and they weren't words or not for me and they weren't words or not for me and they weren't words or not for me a low run of talking more than one person a low run of talking more than one person a low run of talking more than one person off to the right somewhere or in front off to the right somewhere or in front off to the right somewhere or in front of us of us of us he put his hand up then his lamp went he put his hand up then his lamp went he put his hand up then his lamp went out and he reached over and put mine out out and he reached over and put mine out out and he reached over and put mine out and the hand torch went off in his pocket and the hand torch went off in his pocket and the hand torch went off in his pocket we stood in it i had my eyes open we stood in it i had my eyes open we stood in it i had my eyes open and then i had them shut and there was and then i had them shut and there was and then i had them shut and there was no difference no difference no difference i put a hand flat on the wall to keep i put a hand flat on the wall to keep i put a hand flat on the wall to keep hold of which way was which hold of which way was which hold of which way was which the stone was wet and colder than the the stone was wet and colder than the the stone was wet and colder than the air air air my legs were all right and my hands my legs were all right and my hands my legs were all right and my hands weren't weren't weren't and i could hear him breathing about a and i could hear him breathing about a and i could hear him breathing about a foot to my left and nothing else of him foot to my left and nothing else of him foot to my left and nothing else of him at all at all at all we were in it two or three minutes i we were in it two or three minutes i we were in it two or three minutes i think think think the talking went on for some of that the talking went on for some of that the talking went on for some of that then it didn't then it didn't then it didn't his lamp came back on he didn't mention his talking went on for some of that then it didn't mention it it it he started walking and i went after him he started walking and i went after him he started walking and i went after him we were in water to the ankle for a good we were in water to the ankle for a good we were in water to the ankle for a good half hour and then it came over the top half hour and then it came over the top half hour and then it came over the top of my left boot and i said so the way of my left boot and i said so the way of my left boot and i said so the way he told me to he told me to he told me to he didn't make anything of it my socks he didn't make anything of it my socks he didn't make anything of it my socks stayed wet the rest of the night stayed wet the rest of the night stayed wet the rest of the night i couldn't tell one corridor from the i couldn't tell one corridor from the i couldn't tell one corridor from the next next next we'd be in one for 20 minutes and come we'd be in one for 20 minutes and come we'd be in one for 20 minutes and come out somewhere else that looked like out somewhere else that looked like out somewhere else that looked like where we'd gone in where we'd gone in where we'd gone in i stopped looking at the walls after a i stopped looking at the walls after a i stopped looking at the walls after a while and looked at the back of his while and looked at the back of his while and looked at the back of his boots instead boots instead boots instead my neck ached from having the lamp on my my neck ached from having the lamp on my my neck ached from having the lamp on my head so i took it off and carried it in head so i took it off and carried it in head so i took it off and carried it in my hand my hand my hand and that was worse i asked him how far and that was worse i asked him how far and that was worse i asked him how far it all went he said 300 kilometers it all went he said 300 kilometers it all went he said 300 kilometers i asked whether people lived down here i asked whether people lived down here i asked whether people lived down here and he said a few and he said a few and he said a few on and off not as many as you'd think on and off not as many as you'd think on and off not as many as you'd think fred was the one of us who went places fred was the one of us who went places fred was the one of us who went places i'd done paris that week in spain twice i'd done paris that week in spain twice i'd done paris that week in spain twice and that's about the size of it and that's about the size of it and that's about the size of it he'd been all over before he stopped he'd been all over before he stopped he'd been all over before he stopped anywhere anywhere anywhere and then he stopped in a city he never and then he stopped in a city he never and then he stopped in a city he never said much about said much about said much about he'd been living in paris 18 months that's he'd been living in paris 18 months that's he'd been living in paris 18 months that's what i was asking about what i was asking about what i was asking about i wasn't asking about tunnels then i i wasn't asking about tunnels then i passed what a tourist asks passed what a tourist asks passed what a tourist asks he did the knee playing football when he did the knee playing football when he did the knee playing football when he was 26. he was 26. he was 26. he told me about it while we walked by he told me about it while we walked by he told me about it while we walked by then i'd been bent over or down on my then i'd been bent over or down on my then i'd been bent over or down on my knees more in four hours than i manage knees more in four hours than i manage knees more in four hours than i manage in a week and i do it for a living in a week and i do it for a living in a week and i do it for a living there are street names cutting into the walls down there. The inspectors did it a couple of hundred years back so they'd know which road they were under, and the dates cut in underneath, and Remy would put his light on one and tell me what was over our heads. A hospital. A square with a fountain in it, and a street he said his aunt used to live on. I couldn't read a single one of them. I'd stand there with my lamp on a name in the stone that meant nothing to me and wait for him to say it out loud. Somewhere after three we came into a room with things in it. Not rubbish. There was a blanket folded on a ledge and a camping ring with a gas bottle stood next to it. There was a battery on the floor out of a head torch, and I picked it up and pressed the button on the side of it, and three of the four lights came on. There was food, and it wasn't moldy. There was a carrier bag from a supermarket, one of the ones with the handles on, and what was in it was the same brand I'd gone past in a shop on the Rue de Guerre four hours before. Remy didn't stop walking for it. He said people sleep down here, it happens, and on a Saturday there might be sixty of them in the tunnels. Okay. And he kept going. The gallery after it had a mouth on the right about halfway along, there was a man standing in it. He was forty meters off, maybe more. My light got to him, and not much passed him, but he had a coat on with the collar up, and I could see his boots. He was stood square in the mouth of it with his hands down at his sides, not doing anything. He was looking at us, and he didn't move when the light went over him, and he didn't put his hand up. I'd have put my hand up. I had him in the beam for five seconds. I didn't say anything. Remy was in front of me with his lamp on the floor by his own boots, the way he'd walked all night, and he walked past that mouth without turning his head. I put my light back down and followed him. We came back through a junction we'd been through about two hours before. I knew the one because there was a length of blue pipe on the floor at the corner, and I'd stepped over. Then he stopped and put his lamp on the wall and held it there. There was a mark on the stone at about chest height, in chalk. He asked me if that was there when we came through. When we came through, I said I didn't know because I hadn't looked at the wall. On the way in, I'd been looking down at the pipe, and I told him that. He said it wasn't there before. He didn't say anything else, about it, and he didn't rub it off. He stood there a bit longer. Then he said okay, and we went on. We stopped somewhere around half four so I could get at my water, and when I pulled the bottle out of my jacket, the letter came out with it and went on the floor. Both pages. They'd been folded together in the same pocket for six weeks and landed by his boot. He picked it up to hand it back. Then he had it in his light, and he stopped. The top page was the English one, and he didn't bother with that. He turned it over and read the French. One page, a stamp on it, and my brother's name in the middle. He read some of it out. He was doing it in English for me, and he wasn't much good at it, so it came in bits. Frederick Bexley. The date. Then there was a word he couldn't get across, and he handed me the page back. I already knew what it said. I'd read the English one enough times to say it without looking. I'd never had it read out to me before. He asked me if that was my brother. I said it was my brother. He didn't shout. I'd rather he'd shouted. He stood there with the page in his hand and asked me what I thought I was doing down here, and I told him. Fred went down. On the 15th of February, two years ago, and never came up. They looked until about the spring after, and then they stopped. In January, they wrote and said they'd finished with it. Our mother's in a home in Rugby, and she asks me about him every Sunday, and I tell her they're still working on it, and that's a lie I've been telling for over a year now. I said all that stood in two inches of water with a man I'd known six hours. He said I'd lied to him. I said I had. I'd sat in a bar and had a drink off him and lied to his face. He'd taken me down through a flooded gallery without knowing what he had behind him. Then he told me what it costs. No permit. No insurance. Cash and a jacket. He said he'd taken 400 euros off a man who'd sat in a bar and lied to him about why he wanted to come down here, and that man's brother is a missing person, and did I understand what I'd put on him? I said I understood it, and I did understand it. I wanted to keep going anyway. He said we're going up. Not in a bit. Now. He said he'd be at the bottom of the ladder, and he'd give me 20 minutes, and after 20 minutes, I was on my own down here. Then he called me an idiot. He said it in French first, and then he said it in English, so there wouldn't be any confusion about it. Then he went. He told me where he'd be and how long he'd be there, and he did exactly what he said he was going to do. I stood and watched his light go off down the gallery and get small and go around the corner. I didn't follow him. 20 minutes was more than plenty. It was one gallery. I'd come in through it, so I could go back out through it. I'd have a look at the mouth he wouldn't go down, 5 minutes, 10 at the outside, and then I'd walk myself back out. I'd go back out to him, and he'd be stood at the bottom of that ladder with 400 euros of mine in his jacket. I stood up and patted myself down, back left, front right, and everything was where it should have been. I'd drunk most of the water in the first hour after he went, which was stupid, and I knew it was stupid while I was doing it. I gave it the 5 minutes, and then I gave it another 10. There was nothing down there. It was a gallery like all the other galleries, and there was a bit where the roof came down, and I went under it on my knees and came out into another one the same. Then I turned round to go back, and I put the light on the wall, and there was nothing on that wall I'd seen before. Then I stood still and worked it backwards. I'd come under the low bit. Before the low bit, I'd come out of a mouth on my right, which going back the other way made it a mouth on my left, except there were 3 of them in that wall, and I'd been looking at the floor the whole time because the floor was where the water was. I picked one. About 20 minutes after that, I was in water over the ankle, and I hadn't been in water over the ankle since before he left. The phone had gone off in the cold somewhere about 1. I'd have put it at half 5. There were arrows painted on the wall in that section. Red ones, done a long time back and faded into the stone. And they all pointed the same way. I followed them, because arrows go somewhere. I followed them for a long time. Then they took me to a wall. It was bricked up. Old brick, painted white, and there was French on it in black letters about a foot high. I put my light on that for a while. It could have said anything. It could have said 'this way out'. I sat down on the floor with my back against it. My legs had gone, not given up, but I'd been on them since 11 the night before. The cold got into me inside about 10 minutes of sitting still. It hadn't touched me once all night while I was walking. The headlamp went while I was sat there. It didn't fade down, it was on, and then it wasn't, and I sat in the dark a while before I got the hand torch out. There was a little one in my other pocket as well, and I left it where it was, because I wasn't going to be down there long enough to need it. That wasn't shock. I'd put the torch in the left side of my jacket, and I was sat on my left side, and I couldn't be bothered to shift. I got it lit, and I'd go back up the arrows to the room with the bench in it. I said I'd sit down there and stay where I was, because that's what they tell you to do. I'd sit down there and stay where I was, because that's what they tell you to do. And when it got to morning up top, I'd start shouting. I got up to look for a way round the bricks. The bricks went the whole way across. But off to the left of them, there was a low bit I'd have walked past without looking twice. I went down on my front and through it, and after that, it was downhill. I'd been holding that hand torch for hours. Both hands were cold, and the right one had gone stiff round the barrel of it, so I moved it over to my left. And the fingers on the right stayed in the shape of the thing, and I had to open them out with my other hand. The stone changed somewhere in there. The walls I'd been walking past all night had straight lines in them, all of them the same, done with a machine. This wasn't. This was cut by hand. I could see where somebody had gone at it and where they'd stopped and started again. The color was browner and there was more water underfoot than before, and there was nothing written on it. I'd been looking at walls since eleven o'clock the night before. Every wall down there had somebody's name on it, every single one, paint or chalk or scratched in with a nail and a date under it. In here there was nothing, not one mark the whole way along. I'd no idea how long any of that took. My watch is my phone and the phone was off and somewhere before the bricks I'd stopped being able to tell an hour from twenty minutes. My knees had been wet for hours. Both of them were stiff and hot and the left one clicked every time I straightened it. My mouth had gone. The water was finished. The dust down there got into my teeth and stayed in them and I kept running my tongue along the front of them, which did nothing at all. I dropped the torch a bit after that. It came out of my left hand and hit the floor and rolled. It stayed lit, and I got down and picked it up. Four seconds, maybe. But I'd rather not have done it. The writing was cut into the wall on the right where the passage went narrow. Proper letters, deep ones, and old. Somebody had done that with a chisel and taken their time over it. Two lines. French. I stood and looked at it a long while. It was meant to be read. I couldn't read it. It had been inside my coat since it went off, the way he'd told me to keep it. I pressed it. I pressed it and it came on. One percent. I took one photograph of that wall and it went off again with the picture still up and I put it away. Then I went in. The floor in there was slick and I went over once, not badly, and put a hand down in the water to stop myself and came up with my sleeve wet to the elbow. Remy's tag was on the wall about thirty meters in. Carpy. White. Off that stencil of his. There was another one further along and another after that. One of them had gone grey and sunk down into the stone and it had been there years. He'd stood at a mouth in a gallery about six hours before and told me he didn't go down there. I looked at it and I kept walking. My nose started bleeding on the way down. It does that on a dusty job and it's never been anything. I held the back of my hand on it until it packed in and I had it down the front of my jacket after that. The air got warmer. Then I could smell cooking, onions, and something else with it. I'd not had anything since the sandwich. I put the torch off. There was light coming up the passage in front of me, proper electric light, and I got down on my front and looked into a room. There were bulbs strung along the ceiling on a wire, the round ones in a line, off a cable that came in from somewhere on the left. Camp beds down one wall. Plastic tubs stacked with the lids on. A chemical toilet with a curtain round it. Bottled water in crates with the wrap still on the top one. A line strung across the corner with washing pegged out on it. "Hank joined BJ's Wholesale Club the day he became a father of thirty." "I coach football." "Now Coach Hank saves up to 25% off grocery store prices, 30 pounds of pasta, three cases of protein bars, 75 sports drinks." "And that's just pre-game." "He knows teamwork, and BJ's knows savings. This is your home, Coach. Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com/mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer, new members only. BJ's, home of the save." "Fall never arrives all at once." "First the air. Then the light. And slowly the things you love begin to find each other. A jacket meets a dress. A hoodie slips beneath a blazer. An old cap finds a new scarf. Because you don't simply step into the season. You create it, layer by layer, until it finally feels like fall. Find fall your way at Ross." There were bin bags by the passage on the far side, tied shut. Four or five of them stacked up and waiting to go somewhere. And there were people. Ordinary clothes on them, coats and fleeces. One of them had a phone plugged into the cable. One bloke was getting a wet coat off. His boots were clean ones. I was lying on wet stone with my chin on the backs of my hands and I'd stopped shivering. Then they stopped what they were doing. One of them said something and they came into the middle of the room and they were at it about an hour. They stood, most of them, and a few sat on the ends of the beds. There was one voice doing the bulk of it and then all of them coming in together at the ends of things. It wasn't singing. One of them said most of it and the rest answered at the same places every time and nobody had to be told when. It was French, all of it, so I had nothing. An hour and I didn't get one word. There was a name in it. I couldn't tell you a single other thing out of that hour. They got on with it. I was there a long while after that. Long enough that my hands had stopped being any use to me. The one in the wet coat found me. He came round the outside of the room and into the passage I was lying in and his boots were in front of my face before I knew he'd moved. He said something over his shoulder into the room and it went quiet in there. Then two of them came and got me up under the arms and there was no arguing about it. Twenty odd people took a step back and made a space in the middle of that room. And the two that had hold of me let go and stepped back. I had the torch tight in my fist. I flashed the beam right into his face. Put that down. Throwing a hand up to block it. Put it on the- He stopped dead. He leaned forward, squinting hard, and his mouth opened. "Doug?" My knees nearly gave. I couldn't get air into my chest. "Fred?" My voice came out cracked and ruined. "Fred, you're alive?" "What the hell are you doing here?" He took two fast steps toward me, his eyes wide and panicked, staring at me like he was looking at a ghost. "Doug, what the fuck are you doing down here?" "We thought you were dead," I said. "Everyone thinks you're-" "Shut up," he hissed. He grabbed the front of my jacket, his face right in mine, shaking. "Shut up. Don't say that. You weren't supposed to find this. You should have stayed away, Doug. You were never supposed to come down here." He looked back over his shoulder at the beds. At the twenty-odd people standing there in the dark, dead quiet, watching us. "The light," he whispered, desperate now. "Put the light down. Doug, please, put it on the floor right now." My fingers wouldn't work. The torch slipped out of my hand and hit the wet stone with a hard clatter, rolling until it stopped against the toe of his boot. Lit from the floor, he looked like a corpse. He'd lost all the weight out of his face and his neck, his cheeks, sunk right in, and he had no color on him at all. If he'd passed me on the street in rugby, I wouldn't have known him. But his sleeves were rolled, and the bend was there in the left forearm from when he came off the garage roof when we were kids. "Fred," I whispered. "What even is this place? Come home with me. Please." He looked down at the torch on the ground. The panic in his eyes was starting to go cold. Behind him, nobody moved. They were just standing there, waiting to see what he was going to do. I could feel the ends of my fingers again, and I'd have rather not. "Did you read the sign on the way in?" he said. "I couldn't read it. I took a photograph of it." He told me what it said. "All of you who come in here give up hope, or near enough." "I've come to take you home," I said. He didn't laugh at me. "How's mom?" he said. I told him she asks about him every Sunday and that I've been lying to her for over a year. He nodded at that and left it alone. "Why?" I said. He didn't answer that. "First time I came down, a lad from my work took me," he said. "Him and some people I'd never met. I was frightened the whole night. Didn't sleep right for two days after. I was back the the week following. He said a man sat down next to him in a gallery in his second month and talked to him for four hours. What about, I asked. His job, mostly, he said. And his sister. I was ill that first winter. Somebody sat up with me eight nights running. I've never had that off anybody in my life. That's not what I asked you, I said. I know it isn't, he said. Then he said the name. Bifrons. The same one that had been coming back all through that hour. It meant nothing to me. He could see that, and he didn't say it again. You're not going back up, he said. He said it flat. You stay down here and you're one of us, he said. Or I kill you and we put you in the water at the bottom end. We've had it before, he said. He sounded tired saying it. I thought about it. I'm not going to say I didn't. I'd been on my feet the best part of a day with nothing in me and no water since before it got light up top. If it had got light, and there was a bed eight feet from where I was stood, and it was my brother asking me. I'm not joining anything like that, I said. That's not how mom and dad brought us up. Then you leave me no choice, he said. Somebody put a knife into his hand from behind him. Wooden handle gone dark at the end. One of them picked my torch up off the floor and moved it onto the side. The rest of them stepped back off us. So I started telling him things. I told him he came off the garage roof when he was nine and broke his arm and it never set right. I was supposed to be watching him and I got a hiding for it. I told him about dad's van and the windows and how he never wanted any of that and dad never once held it against him. I was going fast because I could see I was getting to the end of it. Don't you remember? Who we used to be? I said. Mom's waiting on Sunday, Fred. Don't you remember saying your prayers with her? I remember, he said. He brought the knife up. The steel caught the dull grease light of the candles. He stepped in close enough that I could feel the cold coming off his clothes. You know what she taught us? Our father, who art in heaven. He shook his head, his voice cracking into a dry, breathless whisper. Nothing in heaven can hear you through sixty feet of limestone, Doug. Nothing gets down here but the dark. He laid his left hand on my neck. His skin felt like damp clay and pressed the flat of the cold steel against my collarbone. Say it for me, our kid, he whispered into my hair. Give your soul to Lucifer. Say the name and I'll do it clean. That's it from me. I'm Rex, thanks for your time tonight. Subscribe and ring the bell if you want the next one. Comments are always open. Good night. Soon, limited time offer, new members only. BJ's, home of the save. Fall never arrives all at once. First the air, then the light. Find fall your way at Ross.