The Darkened Obelisk

The Jefferson St. Catacombs

I always liked my childhood home. Loved it, even. I grew up there, and was nearly born in the place due to my mother's precipitous birth. Though the house I lived in was quite calming, it unnerved me during the evening hours. I always felt far less safe once the sun had gone down and the lights strained to reach the distant corners of the colonial manor. I always thought it strange the basement door had a lock on it. For a number of reasons we weren't allowed into the basement of the old home. The foremost being that it was dangerous.

When young, we were guided away from the door with distractions of other, more interesting items and promises. Then, when we were old enough to inquire further they said because the basement was unfinished, or they kept tools and other hazardous tools for rebuilding the house. This, of course, we took as fact and continued on our way. What reason would they have to lie? I was glad my parents did not tell me the truth until high school. Knowing it would have done several things to me as a child.

Firstly, I would have never slept well at night knowing an extensive system of catacombs ran through our neighborhood. In our town of Virginia the neighborhood was dedicated to assisting slaves in escaping the South and was, I believe, an important stop on the Underground Railroad in the East. Nearly ten houses surrounding my own had tunnels running around and connecting them all to move escaped slaves around. The second effect this would have had on me as a child would have been a drive in my curiosity. I would have taken the key, found a flashlight, and probably gotten myself lost in the dark tunnels below.

I know this because it was my own curiosity that drove me to explore the abandoned mines in a neighboring town several years prior, so learning we had something so similar under my own home drove me insane with a burning desire to see for myself. It was then my dad informed me most of those tunnels were probably walled up and sealed off, the neighbors consistently moving in and out all the time most likely would have taken care of that obvious intrusion point of animals and pests. Most people don't particularly have a taste for history or the preservation of such things. Not when it is inconvenient for them.

It was then I made a deal with my dad. I wouldn't go exploring if I could at least take a look with him at my side. I said no further than the first tunnel if possible. I can't say where he produced the key from, some secret drawer in the hallway or from his own pocket as if he were expecting this from me. We descended old wooden steps (that clearly needed to be replaced) to the dirt coated stone of the basement. Brick walls lined every aspect of the room and dirt tumbled past the cracked mortar onto the floor from the small segments along the walls. The bare bulbs in the basement truly helped the atmosphere as I felt like an entire century behind just being in that room.

My father pointed the light to the left of the rotted staircase to what looked like an old farm cellar door. Slanted wood and ancient metal strapped together a door that led to a descent deeper into the earth if that was at all possible. He promised that I wouldn't see much down in the gloom, and that I shouldn't go too deep, as it wasn't uncommon to have the ground collapse and the tunnels below completely sealed by earth and time. The fear of being crushed by dirt or even worse, sealed away to suffocate or die of dehydration alone in the dark murdered my curiosity. Being trapped down there, even if people on the surface knew you were down there, was next to a zero percent chance that you would be rescued in time.

My dad pulled open the door and we peered down into the gloom of the decrepit tunnels. If it were not for the ancient wooden beams supporting the tunnel I would be inclined to believe that I was peering into a crypt. The stale air and dust that rose and fell in the beam of light produced by my flashlight showed me the age and it seemed each mote in the air marked a year since it had last been opened. My bravery and curiosity both shriveled and died the moment I saw peered into that abyss. The curiosity I felt for this place became an uncontrolled fear, and I think my dad saw it in me, because it was then that he closed the door. He promised they would be putting a lock on that door as well as probably seal it up, but other things had gotten in the way of taking care of the home's basement. Leaks in the attic or roof, mold, or the constantly bursting pipes of the aged home all worked to distract from this strange tunnel.