The Catacombs Part One

     One night while the land shark, the bee, the dear, and the sloth brothers were all busy, the cat went to the giraffe's house to play. The cat was playing with her ball of yarn, and the giraffe was playing with his giraffe toys, but they soon got bored.

     The cat rolled on her back and said, "Remember when I said I wanted to explore the dark parts of the forest some time?"

     "Yeah, I remember," said the giraffe.

     "Can we go explore the tunnels under the forest university tonight?"

     "But it's yucky out."

     "Well what if I made us booties to wear?"

     "Okay... But only for a little while. I still don't like scary things."

     So the cat and the giraffe went to the forest university in their fresh new booties.

     It was dark and cold out when they got there, but there were still a few people walking around. The walked up to a grate in the ground and looked at it for a second.

     The cat said, "This is the grate that my monkey friend told me about. I was friends with a monkey back in high school, and his brother went to college here. His brother said that we have to lift this door in the grate and climb the ladder down to the floor. Then we have to go down a lumpy slide and we'll be in."

The grate. The grate's door is on the bottom left of the grate.

     "Okay," said the giraffe, "I don't see anyone, so on three, I'll lift the grate and we'll scoot down the ladder. One... Two... Three..."

   He lifted the grate's door and they hurried down into the tiny dark room below it. The giraffe had to bend his neck to fit. When they were down there they saw the lumpy tube that they had to slide down. It was rusty and dirty, but this made it even more exciting. It was just a metal tube stuck in the cement wall. (They later found out there were many of these tubes to let air into the spooky tunnels.)

The lumpy metal slide.

     They looked down into the tunnel and saw two pipes at the bottom. It was even darker than the room that they were already in. Luckily they had a flashlight so they could see where they were going. They slid down the tunnel slide and landed on the pipes. They were now surrounded by the spookiest place they have even seen.

Looking down the lumpy tunnel slide at the two pipes they had to land on.

     At this point only a few bits of light made it down the slide and hit their feet. The rest was pitch black. However, even thought the light disappeared, there was plenty of noise. They took out the flashlight and looked around.

     "Catacommbss," whispered the giraffe.

     "My monkey friend's brother told me to go right at this point. Then we have to follow this map," the cat said as she pulled a floppy piece of paper out of her pocket. "So lets go this way."

     They turned and slowly started walking through the underground tunnel system of the university. It held steam pipes, electric lines, and plenty of asbestos. Occasionally the steam pipes let out a "kssssssss" or a "pfffff" which made it seem like there were other animals down there. Nothing was alive, but some things moved around a bit and scared the cat and giraffe.

The pipes and tubes of the tunnels.

     They came to a part in the tunnels where there was a light switch. They hit it and it started a count down from 60:00.

     "These switches turn the lights on for one hour. After an hour, they shut off by themselves," said the cat, "They must never know we were down here."

     The giraffe whispered, "They're not gonna hurt us if they find us... will they?"

     "I don't know, but I don't want to find out."

     They continued exploring the tunnels, and found something very strange. The pipes squeaked and shook, but even creepier than the pipes were the chairs. There were old chairs scattered about the whole tunnel system. The chairs were placed so they were all facing the cat and the giraffe when they walked by. It was as if they were watching them and growling at them.

     The cat and the giraffe walked quicker and quicker. They did as much exploring on their own as they wanted that night. It became less of an adventure and more of a fight to escape. They followed the map and saw the only way out was just a few curves away.

     "Hold on," the giraffe said bending down towards his foot, "I got something stuck in my hoof."

     He started picking at a rock stuck in his foot. The two of them were already scared silly, and this was only making it worse. He picked at it more and it started to come loose. Just as the rock plopped out of his hoof the pipe right by his head went "PFFFFFFFF" and he jumped and charged towards the exit. The cat followed close behind in a fury. They tore through the rest of the catacombs and launched out of the exit not caring whether they would be seen or not.

     They got out safe, but they were both shaking like maracas. They went straight back to the giraffes house and watched happy movies all night long to calm down.