The Catacombs (A Psychological Suspense Horror Thriller Novel) Read Free Page A

is this painting that scared her. Or
maybe she heard something. But, look, she has begun to walk
faster.”
    Indeed, the woman was now moving at a trot.
The footage became jumpy. Her breathing was loud and fast.
    Not from exertion, I thought, but fear.
    Twice she whirled around, as if to see if
anyone was behind her, the camera moving with her.
    “She keeps going, faster and faster,”
Danièle said in a soft voice, “deeper and deeper, and then…”
    All of a sudden the woman dropped the
camera. It landed with a bang and kept filming.
    “…she just drops it. See! She does not stop
to pick it up. You can see her feet disappearing, splashing in the
puddles. And then—nothing.”
    The footage continued to roll, filming a
close-up of pebbles and the ripples in the nearby puddle.
    “What happens next?” I asked.
    Danièle held up a finger: wait. She used the
trackpad to skip a slice of footage and pressed Play. The image was
exactly the same.
    “What—?”
    “Listen.”
    A harrowing scream erupted from the tinny
speakers. It sounded distant, coming from deep within the black
tunnels. It escalated to a banshee-like fever—
    The screen went blank.
    “What happened?” I demanded.
    Danièle looked at me. “The camera went dead.
That is it.”

Chapter 2
    “What do you mean, ‘That’s it?’” I said,
frowning.
    “You saw,” Danièle said. “The battery
died.”
    “And?”
    “And nothing.”
    “You don’t know what happened to her?”
    “How could I? Nobody has ever seen her
again.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “Well, I do not,” she admitted. “But she
left the camera there. She never came back to retrieve it. And you
heard her.”
    I sat back. My stomach felt unsettled, as if
I had just downed a shot of paint thinner. “Is this for real?”
    “Of course, Will.”
    “How did you get the camera?”
    “Pascal found it.”
    “Why was he so deep in the catacombs?”
    “That is what he does. He explores, even
more than me. He has visited the catacombs hundreds of times
before.”
    I looked at Danièle, then the laptop, then
Danièle again.
    “So you weren’t with him?” I said.
    “No, I was not.”
    “Where’s the actual camera?”
    “Pascal has it. I copied the files to my
computer.”
    “Maybe he’s playing a joke on you?”
    “Why are you so skeptical, Will?”
    “Why? Because this seems like something out
of The Blair Witch Project .”
    “Pascal did not make this up.”
    “Then maybe the woman did.”
    “Why would she do that? The catacombs are
very large. As I told you, the camera was in very deep. The chances
of someone finding it were small. Also, there is no footage of her.
Not on any of the video clips. Just her voice. The camera could
never be traced back to her. She would never have any idea who
found it, if someone did. Why would she make a joke like that?”
    “She was running, right?” I said. “At the
end she was running. She was scared. She thought something was
coming after her. But she keeps filming? Would you do that? They
only do that, keep the tape rolling, in those found-footage
movies.”
    “No, Will. She was not filming. She was
using the video camera’s LED light to see ahead of her. If she
turned the camera off—it is perfectly dark down there.”
    I chewed on that. “So what do you think
happened? She believed someone was behind her. Did someone run past
the camera in pursuit?”
    “No.”
    “So who made her scream?”
    “I have no answer for that.”
    I knew Danièle well enough to discern
whether she was pulling my leg or not. Looking at her now, I didn’t
think she was. Right or wrong, in her mind she was convinced this
was genuine footage. A woman had gotten lost in the catacombs, and
she had the unfortunate luck to run into someone who had done
something terrible to her.
    And why not? I thought. Why was I so adamant
this wasn’t the case? Bad shit went on in the world every day. A
lot of bad shit. Some truly horrible shit. You could pretend