Mike Barthel is a writer and researcher, with bylines in The Atlantic, GQ, Memoir Mixtapes, and The Awl. His non-fiction work has been covered in The New York Times, NPR, ABC News, the CBC, and Boston Globe. He studied fiction at Oberlin College, got his MA from Syracuse University, and his PhD from the University of Washington. He is currently working as a survey researcher in Washington, D.C., where he lives with his three children.

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FICTION

Museum Piece

By MIKE BARTHEL

But the new tunnels’ patina is wrong: dry and crisp, lacking the centuries-old drip and goo that lends the catacombs their secretive, haunted air.