by Jeremy Bates
This last possibility gave me pause. I didn’t think the Devil was a cold-blooded murderer. He was carrying around a flare gun fashioned to look like a pistol after all. He was nothing but a joker, a cowardly bully. Yet at some point did he take his harrying too far and cause someone to have a heart attack and need to get rid of the evidence?
Danièle said Dreadlocks would report the remains to the police, and the catacops would investigate. But what would they learn? What could they learn? All they had were teeth and bones to work with. These were helpful when investigators had dental records to compare them with, or when there were relatives with comparable DNA. But the woman was a total unknown. I guess they could determine her height, age, and ethnicity, and run theses details against recent missing person reports. If they found a likely match, then they could check dental records and so forth. On the other hand, maybe the catacops or whoever came to investigate would get lucky and discover a driver’s license in a pocket of the jeans, or some other form of identification…something so they could give the skeleton a name and offer closure to the next of kin who would have been wondering why their daughter or mother or wife had not come home one day.
“Ciel!” Pascal called out.
“Sky!” Danièle said.
Ahead of me Rob ducked. I did too. The ceiling dropped sharply, and we were forced to troll-walk again. I kept close to Rob, taking advantage of the backsplash of his headlamp.
The next while went past in a blur of hallways and junctions angling off into black infinity. Some were finished with neatly mortared stone and well-designed archways, others were low-ceilinged and half-collapsed and riddled with sinkholes. We hiked for miles and miles, twisting and ducking, climbing and crawling, jack-knifing our bodies in ways most people never did. We went through more cat holes as tight as sphincters and chambers as large as ballrooms. The entire time Pascal kept up his brisk pace, stopping only to consult his map or when Danièle wanted to point out interesting features in the tunnels: the millennia-old fossils of sea creatures embedded in the limestone; black streaks on the ceilings from the torches of seventeenth-century stonecutters; relics of the wooden braces the quarry inspectors had used to shore up weak spots that could lead to cave-ins.
At one point we came across a rocky cavity filled with the skins of dozens and dozens of dead cats. Pascal said it was the lair of a minotaur-like beast that fed upon felines. When Rob told him to go fuck himself, Danièle shined her light above us, illuminating a vertical shaft that vanished into darkness. She explained we were standing at the bottom of a well that connected with the surface. Rumor was, a nearby Chinese restaurant was responsible for the discarded skins.
Despite my back hurting from all the bending over and my feet squishing inside my wet shoes and the run-in with the Painted Devil and the close call in the first cat hole and the discovery of human remains, I found the catacombs were growing on me. There was something quietly comforting about them. Prehistoric man’s evolution, after all, had occurred within the confined spaces of caves and underground tunnels and alcoves such as these. They were where our ancient ancestors built their fires and cooked their meals, sheltered from ice- and thunderstorms, created their first works of art, raised their families. They were, in a sense, home.
I became so absorbed in my Paleolithic recreation I wasn’t aware we had stopped until I ran smack into Rob’s back.
“Sorry,” I said, straightening my helmet. I looked around. “What’s going on?”
“We have reached the Bunker,” Danièle said. “The one the Nazis used.”
I spotted another cat hole in the wall. “And I guess that’s the entrance?”
She nodded. “Yes. But you are getting good at them, no?”
Pascal crawled inside first. I went second. Wiggling forward army-style, I’d found, was much easier than humping along on your back. I tumbled out the exit ass-over-tits and pushed myself to my feet. Pascal and I stood in awkward silence for a moment. I didn’t want to wait there with him until the others arrived, so I wandered off to explore.
The walls here were constructed from red brick. Black wires snaked along some of them, beginning and ending at rusted electrical boxes. Decrepit oil drums sat here or there, remnants of a long-ago time. Spray painted fluorescent arrows pointed in conflicting directions. Hand-painted signs read: “Rauchen Veroten” and “Ruhe.” I was familiar with these words, I had seen them around Paris, and they meant “No Smoking” and “Quiet” respectively.
The Bunker was a mini-maze in itself, consisting of numerous small rooms often separated by rusty iron gates and iron doors with round handles that resembled steering wheels, the sort you might find on big walk-in bank vaults.
I stepped past one door and peered into the dark beyond. I couldn’t see much besides rubble and some rubbish.
I was about to head back when I heard the others approaching.
“Over here!” I called.
Danièle, Rob, and Pascal arrived a few moments later.
I hooked my thumb at the door. “What the hell were these used for?”
“Guess the Germans wanted to keep the frogs out of their hideout,” Rob said.
I shook my head. “There’s only the one entrance. They were meant to keep people in.”
“In?” Rob squeezed past me for a look. “Shit, you’re right. But why would they need doors like this to hold some poor shmuck? A bit overboard, don’t you think?”
I did, and another possibility came to mind, though I decided it was too outlandish to mention.
Pascal led us to a small grotto complete with an iron door for a table and stone slabs for seats. Several empty beer cans had been left on the table. Danièle slit the belly of one with a Swiss Army knife. She peeled the tin back and placed a red candle inside the hollow, transforming the contraption into a lantern. If she had string, she could have strung it up by the pop tab.
“Voilà!” she said, clearly pleased with herself.
“Nice work, MacGyver,” Rob said.
She cast him a sharp look. “I do not care what you call me, Rosbif. It does not bother me anymore.”
“MacGyver!” he barked amusedly. “It’s not an insult, Danny. It’s a compliment. He’s like James Bond.”
She eyed him suspiciously.
“It’s true,” I said. “A compliment.”
“Thank you then.”
We unloaded the food we’d brought onto the table to share. Danièle had a package of French biscuits with chocolate centers. Rob had beef jerky and Twizzlers and other junk food. I contributed a bag of trail mix, three apples, and a couple hard-boiled eggs.
“Eggs, boss?” Rob said.
I shrugged. “I didn’t have much in the kitchen.”
“Here.” He tossed me a demon beer.
“No, Will,” Danièle said, slapping my hand away from the can. “Do not touch that hobo drink.” She withdrew the cardboard cask of wine from her backpack. “This is a nice Merlot.”
“And I’m the hobo?” Rob said. “You’re drinking out of a box, Danny.”
“I do not litter, and bottles are almost as heavy to carry empty as they are full.”
She poured two plastic cups and passed me one.
“A votre santé,” she said.
“Santé!” Rob said.
“Cheers,” I said.
We tapped drinks. A dollop of wine sloshed over the rim of mine.
I turned, looking for Pascal. He was at the far end of the room. He began hammering some sort of spike into the wall.
“China’s down, Rascal!” Rob said.
“That is for his hammock,” Danièle explained. “You might be warm now, because you have been moving. But the floor is so cold to sleep on. You will freeze if you lay on it.”
Rob harrumphed. “Fuck you very much for the heads up, Danny. What are Will and me going to do?”
“Will can sleep in my hammock with me. Only you will freeze on the floor.”
I nearly choked on the wine in my mouth. I g
lanced at Pascal again. Had he heard? He was hammering away, and it didn’t appear so. Still—what was Danièle thinking? She was well aware that Pascal liked her. His disdain for me was written in flashing neon. Did she really believe we were going to be lying up together in a hammock?
Rob was shaking his head. I could tell that he was debating with himself whether to say something or not.
“So how long are we resting here for again?” I said quickly.
“One hour,” Danièle said.
“I’m not really tired.”
“Then drink your wine. It will make you sleepy. You need to rest.”
Pascal finished setting up his hammock and joined the table, choosing a spot between Danièle and Rob. He produced a self-heating meal of meatballs and tomato sauce from his backpack and poured himself a glass of wine from the cask. He wouldn’t look at anybody, and now I wasn’t sure he hadn’t overheard Danièle’s proposed sleeping arrangement after all.
Rob played some music from his iPhone to kill the background silence. Then he and Danièle began speaking to Pascal in French, apparently trying to pry him out of his shell. I took the opportunity to dry my feet. I slipped off my Converse and was surprised to find steam rising from my socks. I peeled them off, wrung the water from the fabric, and lay them flat on a stone. It felt both odd and pleasant to be barefoot in the catacombs, to feel the chalky dirt between your toes.
When I returned my attention to the others, a Ziploc bag full of greenish-brown marijuana sat in the middle of the table. Danièle was rolling a heap of it into a large joint.
I frowned apprehensively. I’d only smoked pot twice since the boating accident on Lake Placid, and both times it made me paranoid and anxious.
Danièle perfected a tight cone, licked the glue, and sparked the thing up. She took two tokes, then handed it to Pascal. It went to Rob next, then me. I took a single drag and passed it on. I held the smoke in my mouth, then blew it out without inhaling.
The joint went around the circle three times more before Danièle stubbed it out on the ground. Everybody except me had become mellow and heavy lidded.
Pascal lit a cigarette. I lit one too.
“I love it,” Rob said, a small, wistful smile on his face. “Smoking a J in the catas. Hell yeah.”
“I have a funny story,” Danièle announced, sitting ramrod straight as she always seemed to do when she told a story, her eyes cloudy but bright. “Pascal and I, we were in this same room years ago, when we first started exploring the catacombs. We were smoking weed, hanging out, when five other cataphiles arrived. They were all drunk. One was so drunk he could not continue with the others. He passed out on the ground here, and his friends left without him. He snored so loudly. Pascal and I decided we could not leave him, so we waited until he woke up. But it turned out he knew the catacombs well, and he could find his own way out.”
An expectant silence hung in the air.
“That’s the story?” Rob said finally. “Why the fuck’s that funny?”
“Because…” Danièle twisted her lips, as if she were reevaluating the story in her head. She shrugged. “Maybe it is not supposed to be funny.”
“Nuh-uh, you said it was a funny story.”
“Shut your mouth, Rosbif.”
He held up his hands. “I’m just saying it wasn’t funny.”
“Mon dieu!” she exclaimed. “You are infuriating!”
“Rascal,” Rob said, draining his beer. “You gotta have a funnier story than that?”
Pascal scratched an eyebrow, nodded, and began speaking in French.
“English, bro,” Rob said. “How’s Will going to understand?”
Pascal scowled. “We are four people. Three speak French. Why must we speak English?”
“Because four speak English.”
Pascal mumbled something that sounded like a curse.
“It’s fine,” I said. “Talk French. I’m good.”
Pascal flicked his plastic cup away and stood. Ignoring Rob and Danièle’s protests, he snatched his flashlight and stalked out of the room.
“He can be emotional sometimes,” Danièle told me quietly.
I said, “Should someone go get him.”
“Yes, Rosbif, you should go find him.”
“Me?” Rob chuffed. “Why me?”
“Because you made him angry.”
“Bullshit. I just told him to speak English.”
“It is dangerous for him to be by himself—especially high like he is.”
“I’ll go,” I said, grinding my cigarette out in the dirt.
“Fuck that,” Rob said. “He’ll never let you find him.”
He stood and left.
“About time,” Danièle said, exhaling heavily. “Some quiet.”
I said, “You understand why he doesn’t like me, right?”
“Who? Pascal? Yes, I told you. Because he has a crush on me.”
“Right. So do you think it was a good idea announcing that we’re going to sleep together? I think that’s what he’s pissed about.”
“But we are going to sleep together.”
“No, we’re not.”
“The floor—”
“No, Danièle, no way.”
She sighed dramatically. “I cannot help it if Pascal has a crush on me, Will. What am I supposed to do, never be with someone to make him happy?”
“You could be more discreet.”
“You know, you are cute when you are embarrassed.” She plucked some more weed from the Ziploc bag and began to grind it between her fingers.
“I’ve had enough,” I said.
“Do not be a party pooer.”
“Pooper.”
“Do not be that.”
I didn’t argue. I simply wouldn’t inhale again.
She lit the joint with my lighter and took several quick puffs to get the ember burning. But instead of passing it to me, she flipped it around, stuck the lit end in her mouth, and beckoned me with her finger.
“Aw, no…”
She made a mmm-mmm noise.
I leaned close to her. Our lips touched. Her cheeks puffed out as she blew hard. The reverse-engineered joint shot a jet of smoke straight into my lungs. I jerked backward and commenced a coughing fit. My eyes watered, my throat burned. It took me twenty seconds to get myself under control.
“That is good?” Danièle said, offering the joint to me.
I shook my head: no to it being good, and no to any more.
She took a long drag, then put it out. “Come, Honeybear, I want to show you something.”
“What?”
“Come.”
She stood, pulled me to my feet, gathered the beer can lantern, then led me from room to room. My head was spinning, and I had to concentrate on walking properly. I’d gone from sober to stoner-high in a matter of seconds.
Danièle entered one of those rooms with the iron doors. She went to a wall, raised the lantern to eye-level, and carved something into the brick with her Swiss-Army knife.
I peered over her shoulder. It was a crudely drawn heart encircling W + D.
“Should be H plus SG,” I said. “Our catacombs names.”
She turned, wrapped her arm around my neck, and kissed me. In the back of my mind was a vague thought of Bridgette and the cop fiancé, then another of Pascal appearing unannounced.
Danièle dropped the lantern, though it continued to burn. She fumbled with my belt buckle, tugging free the prong. I shoved her tight jeans down her thighs, then her panties, then entered her. She moaned.
“Shhh,” I whispered into her ear.
I slipped my hands around her waist, down over her buttocks. She’s so thin, almost like a child. I’d thought the same thing when we had sex at her place on the weekend, though I didn’t remember thinking that until now.
I’ve always liked rounded girls, like Bridgette, with curves to them. Someone so thin felt oddly delicate—and light.
I heaved Danièle off the ground with little effort,
pressed her against the wall.
“Oh Will,” she said. “Yes, keep doing that.”
I was moving back and forth, trying to find a rhythm, though it somewhat difficult while standing and supporting most of her weight.
“Yes, Will, yes.” She was kissing my neck, running her hands through my hair. “Oh Will, don’t stop, yes, yes, yes…it feels so good.” She locked her ankles behind my back and gyrated her hips, talking dirtier and dirtier, kissing, biting, even fucking snarling…and, man, I got into it, losing myself. She was so wild, so free, so sensual. Bridgette had never been like this—
Fuck Bridgette, I thought. I’m with Danièle now, and Danièle is nuts, fun nuts, I’m totally enjoying this, and if this is what sex is like with her…well, damn…why had I been brushing her off for so long…we could have been doing this every night…
“Oh fuck Will fuck yes harder Will fuck me fuck me.”
I did what she wanted and drove her harder into the wall, my hands cupping the bottom of her thighs, holding her as if she weighed nothing, moving harder, faster, my face buried in her hair, breathing in the flowery freshness of it, her body so thin, so sexy, like a model’s… “You ready?” I grunted, unable to hold off any longer.
“Yes, Will, yes!” Her fingernails tore my skin like claws.
I swallowed a groan as my body thrust and convulsed and turned to mush.
Danièle shrieked.
“Shhh!” I told her.
She all but screamed.
I shut her up with a long, forceful kiss.
Chapter 23
PASCAL
Pascal had never removed his helmet in the grotto, so he still had the headlamp to see by. No one had called out to him. No one had tried to stop him. He was sure they were all whispering about him in hushed tones. And what were they saying? Nothing good, or they wouldn’t be whispering.
He had half a mind to sneak back when they were sleeping, collect his backpack, and leave the lot of them. But he knew he wouldn’t do that. He didn’t want to return to where he found the video camera by himself. He wasn’t scared. He was sensible. Someone did something to the woman, murdered her most likely. It would be reckless of him to return there by himself. That’s the reason he didn’t stick around to search for her, or her body, in the first place. He’d played the footage, heard her screams…and then he was out of there. Anybody in his position would have done the same.