CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "The Cambridge Catacombs" Creepypasta

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Starting point is 00:00:24 only modder. Drove blithe? Goar for. Find what you need to get on Amazon.com. My dad spent over 20 years as an officer with the Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Department, and he told me about the tunnels that run under the city.

Starting point is 00:00:40 There are a few different names for them, the Harvard tunnels, the Cambridge catacombs, the Crimson Catecomes. They're a well-kept secret, shrouded in mystery. Mention them, and most people will assume you're talking about the subway tunnels and will show little to no interest. Discovered by settler Elliot James Smith in 1634, and, later bought by Harvard, when Smith disappeared in 1641, nobody knows who built them, or why. They have spawned many legends over the centuries. In 1775, a British soldier abandoned his outfit during the siege of Boston, made his way into Cambridge and hid in the tunnels. Less than a day later, he emerged, wide-eyed, babbling about a Latin-speaking child with charred, black feet, who taunted him until he fled.

Starting point is 00:01:28 In 1827, Edgar Allan Poe ventured down there or stationed in Boston and wrote of a pale child who materialised out of black fog and changed form in front of his very eyes. Despite few people knowing about their existence and technically being off limits to the public, people still occasionally find an access point. The most frequently use entrance lies in the basement of Memorial Hall, a high Victorian Gothic theatre at the north end of Harvard Yard. In 1991, a four-year-old girl went missing from her home in the middle of the night. There were no signs of a break-in, and a bedroom windows remained closed and locked.

Starting point is 00:02:08 Her body was discovered a week later, deep inside the catacombs, with not a mark on her, or any other evidence of foul play. The two teenage explorers who found her say they initially thought she was alive, as her body was standing perfectly erect against the wall. Since then, its standard procedure, to search the tunnels in the event of a missing person's case. My dad has been down there three times. The first was in 1997.

Starting point is 00:02:37 The young boy had gone missing after leaving his grandmother's house and a massive search effort was underway. My dad entered the tunnel with three other officers and they walked the entire six miles of it with no sign of the boy. Shortly after exiting empty-handed, they were radioed that, tragically, the body of the boy was discovered in a river. in Maine and suspects were in custody.

Starting point is 00:03:01 The second time was just a year later. An 80-year-old man with dementia wandered away from his daughter's apartment and my dad was again assigned to the catacomone search. The team hadn't gone more than a half mile in when they were told to come back. The man had been found,

Starting point is 00:03:17 perfectly lucid, enjoying a scoop of ice cream at the Ben and Cherries in Harvard Square, a bit peaved that his afternoon chaunt had been deemed a demented walkabout. The third time. He doesn't like to talk about. It began much like the other two, missing person, in this case, a four-year-old girl,

Starting point is 00:03:38 Alicia Hughes, last scene playing in a backyard. As usual, Dad was one of the four who drew the shorts drawer and had to check the tunnels. No, he hadn't yet had any disturbing experiences down there, but nobody is just going to up and volunteer to walk through a dark, creepy, damp tunnel of unknown origin and questionable stability. Since his other two experiences had been uneventful,

Starting point is 00:04:03 Dad took the opportunity to study the structure. Shining his flashlight on the walls, he could see that they weren't composed entirely of dirt, as he had initially thought. There was a thick layer of clay there was eroding in spots, revealing light, very old-looking orange bricks underneath. While it didn't dispel his uneas entirely,

Starting point is 00:04:22 the realization that the tunnel was more structurally sound than he had thought, lifted a bit of weight off his shoulders. He noticed the lack of graffiti on the walls. You think there would have been a plethora. But no, not a single tag. The place would have made a great hangout for adventurous youths, homeless and drug addicts alike. But there was no trash, no used needles, nothing,

Starting point is 00:04:47 almost as if people didn't want to stay for very long. Dad showed his flashlight and the darkness in front of him, ready to resume his duty, and startled when the beam fell to illuminate the three other officers who'd been in front of him not 30 seconds before. Had they fallen behind him when he was preoccupied with the construction of the place? He whipped around, but the flashlight illuminated a tunnel of nothingness. He stopped in place, thinking maybe if he quieted his boots,

Starting point is 00:05:15 he'd be up to hear theirs, or maybe their voices, far up ahead, or around a corner where his flashlight couldn't reach. Silence. He tried his radio. Nothing. Not surprising. Coverage down there was very spotty. Just walk fast and you'll catch up to them, he told himself, quickening his pace.

Starting point is 00:05:37 Then, a tiny voice echoed through the blackness. Hello? It asked. It was a little girl. Hello? He parroted, breaking into a jog. Help! Alicia, Alicia Hughes, is that you?

Starting point is 00:05:54 I want to go home. Keep talking to me, Alicia, so I can find you, okay, honey? He jogged for another minute or so, swinging his flashlight every which way, and slowed to catch his breath when it illuminated a small figure huddled against brick wall with a tunnel dead ends. He was a tiny girl with flame red hair. His first instinct was the radio that he'd found her, but it occurred to him that if he had no reception before, he most certainly wouldn't at the deepest end of the maze.

Starting point is 00:06:24 "'Hi. Is your name Elysia?' he asked the frightened girl softly, in his best, soothing dad voice. "'Yes.' She stood on shaky legs, propping a hand against the wall to push herself up. "'My name is Officer Reynolds, but you can call me Dan, okay? Are you hurt in any way, sweetie?' "'No.' "'That's good. Do you want to hold my hand so we can get out of here?' She slipped a little hand into his, and he gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze, I want mommy, she said, tearfully.

Starting point is 00:06:59 You're going to see Mommy very soon, okay, honey? Okay. They walked as quickly as Alicia's little legs could carry her, with Dad trying his radio every several hundred feet, wanting to communicate with his team as soon as they got within range. They were about 50 feet from the rotted wooden staircase that would lead them to the entrance when his radio crackled to life, finally.

Starting point is 00:07:23 He was garbled, but he could make out of the room. the important words. Alicia Hughes, located, Somerville Avenue, Grandmother's House. Dad shook his head, certain he'd misheard, and then asked them

Starting point is 00:07:38 if they could repeat themselves. They reiterated that Alicia had been found, shoeless, and wondering along the sidewalk near a grandmother's house in Somerville. They were positive it was her, and her parents had just arrived unseen to confirm it. So, if Alicia

Starting point is 00:07:53 was at a grandmother's house, Whose hand was my father holding? His mind was suddenly inundated with the legends of the tunnel. Little girl, black feet, ghosts, shapeshifters, demonic activity. His stomach felt like it dropped into his colon. His extremities went cold and a tingling began on the roof of his mouth, like the prelude to a panic attack. So, this was it, he thought to himself.

Starting point is 00:08:20 This was how he was going to die. Or worse, he was about to be dragged to hell. He had been too cocky about the tunnels and hadn't taken the story seriously. He'd been lured in by the innocent little girl and was now literally in its grasp holding its hand. He didn't dare look in the face, afraid that it would change into something evil in front of his very eyes. So he did what any burly police mail officer would do. He snatched his hand out of his grasp and hightailed it out of those tunnels, not looking back, not even when its sad little voice called after him.

Starting point is 00:08:56 He wasn't falling for that again. Dad had nightmares for weeks and was so shaken up by what he encountered that he informed his boss that he would never, ever return to the tunnels, even if it meant his job. Surprisingly, his boss was sympathetic and told him that there were several rookies

Starting point is 00:09:13 he'd sent down there the next time a tunnel search was required. They needed the experience after all. Two months later, just as my father was beginning to forget his experience, Alicia Hughes was once again reported missing. A welfare check and a family, requested by a neighbour, revealed that her parents had been murdered in their bed. Their throat slit and their daughter nowhere to be found. On their nightstand sat a torn corner of construction paper. On it, scrawling green crayon was a message.

Starting point is 00:09:48 Thank you for letting me out. Upon learning of this turn of a vision, Hence, my father did something he swore he would never do. He returned to the tunnels. He had a hunch, a hunch that he hoped to God wasn't true. He and two other officers walked nearly six miles before they found the flame-haired body of Alicia Hughes. Her little form was curled up in the fetal position on the dirt floor, as though she had died trying to keep herself warm. She was in the process of mummifying, the soil surrounding her was dark,

Starting point is 00:10:25 as it had acted like a sponge for the fluids that her body had leached, allowing her to dry out. An autopsy revealed that she had been dead for approximately two months. My father never recovered from this, and retired from the police force the following year.

CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "The Cambridge Catacombs" Creepypasta

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