The Catacombs {Part I} Bricks began to follow the old man and his bottle in a brown paper bag. His dreams were filled with mortar, through the years what had he left to claim? His tiny house on the hillside was never much. Just enough of a place to call home. As the rickety old Ford wobbled up the gravel driveway, the old man winced at the weeds growing through the pebbles, tipping his bottle back, he forced the truck to a stop. A cloudy sky, the sun nowhere to be seen. Chills ran through the air, the man took another swig from the now nearly empty bottle. He scrambled up the self built stairs on the front of his shack, reaching into his pocket for a key that hasn't been there in nearly two decades. He picked up the flathead screwdriver that was wedged into the dirt of the weedy flowerbed, then wiggled it into the worn lock of the door, just as he always did. The old man sighed, seeing the same dump of a living room then sunk into his worn recliner, peeking out of the corner of his eye to the soft pink chair to his right. "She can't come back," he murmured, tossing his drained bottle. He flipped on the same channel of the tele as he did every day, to see the same static he did, every day. "Nothing's changed." He turned to the shabby wooden door behind him, to see a cloaked figure standing in a shallow light. The frail person lifted one arm, revealing five bloody stubs of fingers. Calling the man's name, he blinked and it was gone. "Time to build again." Howard crept to the door and peeked out the peep hole again, before deciding it was alright to leave. He stirred mud into a pan, and grabbed several bricks from the back of his truck in a crate, then carried them to the basement. "What a labyrinth." Many halls and passages had built themselves, leaving an eerie, hollow place in the bottom of the house. The air was always chilled, nearly freezing. Howard stirred for the shovel, and started to dig deeper into the earth, each foot he laid new bricks and stepped deeper in, repeating the same method and going up to gather more bricks. "Almost there," he said, breaking a sweat. It was almost finished, without a doubt. Nightfall came, Howard lugged himself upstairs and fell into his recliner yet again. No light shone through the windows, not a single candle was lit inside. A single 'thump' sounded at the door. "If only that was my dear Catherine, coming home, her angelic appearance would be a blessing, through all this Hell." The thumps continued, but Howard drifted off to sleep. His dreams were still filled with the same mortar, and bricks. "It's almost finished."