Underneath Paris

Recently, I traveled to an undisclosed location in Quebec, Canada to speak with Andre Renard. Andre Renard is the brother of the legend Emil Renard and fought the Zombie War in the tunnels below Paris, France. We start talking about why Paris has no skyscrapers or monasteries directly in the city. He says it is because the complex system of tunnels below Paris. Because of these tunnels, the ground would never be able to hold something as big as a skyscraper or a monastery. We then star talking about the tunnels. He says that they discovered 250,000 people below the city. He says more and more people began to go underground and didn't even keep out the bitten and did not block the entrances in which they came from. Then the bitten started to reanimate and spread the virus throughout the people underground. He talks about how people never experienced what he had. He described the tunnels as pure darkness and stink. They had little to no sight while under there because it was so dark. He talks of how their equipment was not very useful and old. He says that they had to use hardwire sets for radio because the airwaves were too unreliable underground. They used copper wire, which was helpful because it could help them if they got lost. A squad would get lost at least one time a day while traveling through the tunnels he says. He says you could hear other squads being attacked from every direction, not knowing where it was originally happening. They couldn't fire a firearm underground because of the gas in the air, if they did, the whole tunnel would go into flames and could potentially collapse. Instead of firearms, they used an Italian air carbine, the Beretta-Grechio, and other handheld weapons. He describes they type of heavy armor they used that could "protect" them. It would sometimes cause them to drown if they fell in a hole full of water. When they fell they could be bitten and then the squad would have to retreat. They would call in scuba divers to clear the water out. He says that the survival rate for the divers was 1 in 20, supposedly the lowest of any army branch. He says that these divers automatically received a Legion of Honor. He says that they lost 15,000 people under Paris. Unlike the other countries who took things slow and steady, the people of France fought very fast and their number of casualties showed it. He says that the French did this because they wanted new heroes to restore their pride. He ten talks about a mental hospital built by the Nazis to house mental patients, but during the Zombie War was turned into a place for the recently bitten to live until they reanimated. A squad busted through the hospital, not knowing what was on the other side, and fought the zombies. It was one squad against 300 zombies. The squad was led by Andre Renard's baby brother. He says the last thing he heard from their radio before it went silent was his brother's voice saying "On ne passe pas!", which means "they shall not pass!" The stories of the underground fighting stand out to me and I wish I could have talked more about these underground battles with Andre Renard.