On a recent trip to France with a few of my friends We overheard an old man talking in a pub in Paris about the Catacombs. I have always been rather repulsed by the idea of them, though my friends find it fascinating. We asked the old man about them, he told us a story of when he was younger, he and some friends found a hidden entrance to the Catacombs and went very deep underground.

Apparently this was a rather daring pastime when he was younger. He and his friends - Catophiles - went under every weekend, seeing how deep they dared go before chickening out. One weekend, in 1961 he told me, when he and his friends where 18 they all went under. There were 7 of them, the same number as my group, they stayed under for 17 hours, with lamps and torches burning all the time, when suddenly everything failed, all the lights went out. He told me "one thing you don't want to happen is to be lost down there with no lights, even if you think you remember the way, because when the lights go out the tunnels change and move." I asked him what happened after the lights went out. "We grouped together and started praying, and one lamp came on, mine, so we held hands and I led the way, we knew this tunnel so I was able to lead the way." I got an uneasy feeling listening to this wizened old man telling this story, I really didn't want to hear the end. "So I reached the surface, and looked back at my friends to find they weren't there. I could feel Louis holding my hand all the time, but when I looked back I saw my hand clasping a dark shadow." He then told us that he never saw any of his friends again, and doesn't know what happened to them. I don't know if I believe that story or not, but it sure grabbed my friends interest. They had to go into the Catacombs.

We did some research and found that you can actually go into the 'combs without finding a hidden entrance. Right across from the Denfert-Rochereau Metro station is an entrance that is open to the public.
Before I carry on, I'll tell you about the Catacombs. Under Paris is a vast network of tunnels, even today no one knows all of the tunnels, the plans to them lost long ago. Some of the tunnels are so small you have to crawl through, and some so big you could walk ten men abreast and still not touch the sides. You may think that this doesn't sound scary at all. You're right, but there is more to the story. The tunnels are full of human bones. The bones of 7 Million Parisians to be precise. In the 1700 and 1800 it was pretty obvious that Paris was running out of grave space. The Les Halles district above was suffering from contamination of poor burials and mass graves in the churchyard cemeteries; there was much sickness in the area, and in some cases the ground level in the church yards had risen 10 to 20 feet just from the volume of the human remains in them. So in a sort of mass-desecration the oldest graves where dug up and the bodies dumped in the tunnels under Paris. There are pa rts of the 'combs where the bones are piled so high on the ground that when you walk down them you are actually crushing hundreds of them to dust. So in we went, I didn't want to go but my friends dragged me along. It was horrid, I will say though that on this visit the bones were stacked along the walls, though that was hardly a blessing. You walk through the tunnels, and come to a sort of alter, with a Latin engraving. It reads:

Man, like a flower of the field,
flourishes while the breath is in
him, and does not remain nor
know longer his own place.
In peaceful sleep rest great people.

It was very sad. I could almost feel the sorrow down there. We walked around the room, we were the only ones there at this time. All of a sudden we hear a little girl crying. We could hear it echoing around us, everywhere. I have had enough and run back upstairs and in to the cool fresh air. About 15 minutes later my friends came out. The told my they heard a loud crashing, like the bones all falling onto the floor at once. They came out pale-faced and breathing hard. I knew they were telling the truth about what they heard.
Far from being scared off by what we heard all of my friends were dying to go back, but this time they wanted to find a hidden entrance. I was vehemently against this, I had had all I wanted and more from the Catacombs. I sat on my own in a little café the next day while my six friends, Mark, Thomas, Helen, Keith, Chris and Alyson all went in search of someone who would help them see the "real tunnels"

They came back a few hours later, to find me very jittery from nerves and caffeine. They had with them a man in his 40's who said his name was "Henry, just Henry." He said he had spent many years of his youth in the 'combs and that for a price - 300 Euros - he would show us where to go and give us a sort of tour. I said no right away. I was not going back in there. My comrade's however were up for it. They chipped in 50 Euros each and set off on the tour. I told them I would be waiting here for them. They left at 9am and I didn't see any of them until 9pm that night. But Alyson was missing. They said that one minute she was there and then they took a turn and she wasn't. They backtracked for about 2 hours but couldn't find her. We went to the police but they said it was unsafe to go down there and they couldn't help us. To be honest they sounded terrified at the mere thought of going down there. We asked Henry to come back down with us and search but he said if she was lost then she was already dead. We were frantic with worry when all of a sudden Alyson walked through the door of the Café (we had gone back there after talking to the police.) She was in a terrible state, her clothes were torn, she was filthy, scratched and had smears of blood and dust all over her. Her eyes were staring and vacant. God knows how she found her way back to the café to us. We brought her back to our Hotel and gave her more then a few stiff drinks to revive her. She came back after a few whisky's. We asked her what had happened down there. When she replied it was in an awful flat tone, like she wasn't even aware she was talking. She told us she had seen a light glimmering down a tunnel that forked off of the one they were in. She followed it, thinking someone might be lost, the light moved ahead of her, so no matter how fast she went it was always just around the next corner. Before she knew it she herself was lost. She called out for the rest of the group but heard only her own cries echoed back at her. She carried on following the light, hearing only her harsh breath, and her own footsteps. Then she realised she should hear the footsteps of whoever was holding the light. She ran faster, catching it up and before she knew it she had run headlong into a dead end. Against the wall was a skeleton sitting down, it's clothes ragged on it's bones. She then saw something that made her blood run cold. Nike trainers. This skeleton wasn't from the 1700's, it was from the late 1900'. Someone else had been lost. And died. She ran from the dead end as fast as she could. Making random turns at she fled. Her torch started to dim and she started panicking more. She ran into another dead end, but this one had a ladder on the wall, she climbed up and onto the surface, she scrambled away from the exit and sat on the ground and cried. She then started looking for us, to find the café where I was. She kept hearing footsteps behind her, looking back and seeing a dark shadow on the ground. She was lost in the city but finally found us. I then helped

We decided to fly home the next day. Back in London we all told just our closest family what had happened. None of them believed us. Sadly Alyson never quite recovered from her attack. She is now in a psychiatric hospital. We visit her every week but she seems to respond less and less. Her doctor told us that whatever happened to her just affected her mind too much and she becomes more introvert and lethargic everyday. We all have sleeping problems now. I barely get 3 hours a night and get by only by consuming mass amounts of caffeine. I have no idea what happened to us in Paris, only that I will never go back. And that every night I pray to God that whatever did that to Alyson stays in Paris and doesn't come to finish her off, or us.