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Chapter Twenty Five

Cataphiles belong in the strange category of Urban Explorers, kind of a subculture that, instead of getting entertainment from hiking or fishing or playing baseball, they spend their time exploring man-made creations. They search out abandoned buildings and go spelunking in storm drains and sewers. While sewers don’t really appeal to me, I must admit that I’m drawn to this kind of thing—I never really do it, but it interests me quite a bit.

Anyway, while researching the book I found an article in an urban explorer magazine written by an American who was visiting Paris. He’d contacted some cataphiles via internet, and then met them at a specific time and place, and gone underground. A great deal of my descriptions of the catacombs come from that article. Unfortunately, for the life of me, I can’t find it again to give you the link.

Among the things that the article talks about are the cataphiles’ culture, the endless tunnels of dried bones, and, last but not least, the Catacyclist. Yes, the Catacyclist is not my own creation. Instead, he appears to be something of an urban legend—he’s the guy that no one has ever met, but has heard about from the friend of a friend. Granted, all that exists in the myth is that there’s a cataphile who rides his bike around the tunnels, but he seemed like a perfect candidate for an Illuminati-informed conspiracy theorist.

I like to picture The Catacyclist as kind of an educated, British Smeagol.

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