by Jeremy Bates
“To the basement level. We were looking for a way out.”
Silence.
“Please,” she said. “We need help—”
“Have you been drinking alcohol tonight?”
“No!”
“Have you taken any drugs?”
Danièle shook her head in frustration. God! He likely thought they were a bunch of meth heads. She couldn’t blame him. They were covered with dirt and sweat, her hand was a mushy pulp, Will’s neck and face were smeared with blood…and Katja… Did he think they did that to her?
“Let me show you,” she said.
“Show me what?”
“The ladder that led us here.”
“The ladder in the basement.”
“Yes.”
He was silent.
“Well?”
“Quiet.”
A minute later the door they had rushed through opened and two more military guards appeared. One of them had the cleft jaw of a drill sergeant, while the other was younger and sported dark stubble. They were both dressed in black uniforms with black folded side caps, black boots, and back ballistic nylon duty belts loaded with equipment.
Their pistols were trained on Will. When they saw Katja, they made no effort to hide their expressions of disgust.
“What happened to her?” Drill Sergeant said.
“I’m okay actually,” Katja told him.
He ignored her. “They were just walking around in here?” he said to the guard behind them, outside of Danièle’s field of view.
“They say someone attacked them in the catacombs. They climbed a ladder that led here.”
“Here?”
“That is what they say.”
Drill Sergeant crouched before Katja and said, “What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
He touched his nose.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“You don’t know?”
She shook her head.
He glanced at Will, the bleeding wound on his neck. “Did you do this to her?”
“I don’t understand,” he replied in English.
Drill Sergeant blinked. “American?”
Will nodded.
Drill Sergeant stood, looked at Danièle. “And you?”
“I am French.”
“Do you have identification?”
“Not with me.”
“You,” he said to Will in English now. “Passport? Residence permit?”
Will shook his head.
The three guards conversed with each other for a few moments, then they handcuffed Danièle’s and Will’s and Katja’s wrists behind their backs. One of them got on the radio again.
“What are you doing?” Danièle protested. “We have done nothing!”
“This is a military facility,” Drill Sergeant said. “You’re trespassing.”
“We need to see a doctor—”
“Relax, we’re taking you to the hospital.” He gripped her arm and pulled her to her feet. “But first you’re going to show me how you got in here.”
Will and Katcha remained behind with the other two guards while Danièle led Drill Sergeant back to the basement level.
She pointed down the hallway. “It is that way.”
“Show me.”
She went slowly, feeling uneasy, suddenly convinced Zolan was going to be in the room, waiting for them. But almost immediately she dismissed this worry. It was no longer the two of them alone in his quarters. Drill Sergeant was here. He was huge and had a pistol and Zolan wouldn’t stand a chance against him.
Danièle stopped outside the door to the janitorial closet and said, “The ladder is in there. There is a hole in the floor.”
“Step aside.”
She did as he asked. He pushed the door open, reached inside, and turned on the light. The small room was empty. Danièle relaxed—until she saw that the grate was back in place over the shaft. She frowned, trying to recall whether they had replaced it. She knew she didn’t. Katja wouldn’t have. So had Will? She couldn’t remember—she couldn’t remember anything of those first few moments after exiting the shaft except for euphoria at escaping the catacombs.
“There,” she said, pointing to the grate.
Drill Sergeant looked at her skeptically, then entered the room. He stood above the grate and peered down. She joined him.
Blackness.
He took a flashlight from his belt, flicked it on, and shone the beam between the bars.
Electric fear soldered Danièle to the spot.
Ten feet down, a horrible mutant face stared up at them.
“What the fuck?” Drill Sergeant said, aligning the pistol with the flashlight, so they both pointed into the hole. “Don’t fucking move!”
Danièle sensed movement and spun to see Zolan burst from behind the door and swing his bone-weapon like a baseball bat at Drill Sergeant’s head. Drill Sergeant turned just as the end of the femur cracked against his temple. He collapsed like a sack of flour. Danièle made to run, but Zolan pulled her against him and clamped his hand over her mouth.
“Don’t make a sound,” he whispered into her ear.
Chapter 83
I stared at the ground in front of me, fighting to remain conscious. My vision was blurring and my ears were ringing and every part of my body ached for rest, from the soles of my feet to the pads of my fingertips. But I wouldn’t let myself pass out. Not here, not on the floor. I wanted to get to the hospital first, get looked over by a doctor, be told I didn’t have any kind of traumatic brain injury. The latter worried me more than I cared to admit. I’d been knocked out cold by blunt force trauma twice. I could be suffering intracranial pressure, or cerebral bleeding—or something serious enough to turn me into a vegetable or prevent me from ever waking again.
Also, I needed to be around for Katja. The next few hours were going to be terrifying for her. She was going to come into contact with more people than she had seen in her entire life, while being inundated by sights and sounds and smell she wouldn’t recognize or understand. She would likely be interrogated and locked up, perhaps even verbally abused and threatened.
And when our story was eventually verified, something that could take days, what then? Where would she be taken? Would she be dropped off at some almshouse and left to fend for herself? No, I decided. This wasn’t the middle ages. She’d likely end up at an intermediate care facility or care house or whatever they were called nowadays—those places where people with physical or mental disabilities went. And…well, maybe that wouldn’t be as bad as it sounded. After all, it couldn’t be any worse than what she’d endured living with Hanns and the rest of her extended family. Also, there’d be care workers to help get her up to date with the world, help integrate her into society.
In fact, could it be that my earlier doom and gloom outlook for her future was misguided? Could she indeed live a full life? I recalled the look on her face when she saw the wax casts of the injured soldiers’ faces: wonder and hope. I had not considered reconstructive surgery for her before, but could that be a feasible option? Medical technology has come a long way in a short time. Doctors have performed complete face transplants. Wasn’t it possible then they could provide her some sort of artificial nose and lips? And the financial cost? Well, maybe there could be a silver lining to the inevitable media whirlwind. Surely when people learned what she had been through, donations would pour in. Plastic surgeons might even offer to work on her pro bono; the publicity and prestige if successful would be priceless.
This was all speculation, of course, but there was one thing I knew for certain: I was not going to abandon Katja. I would be a brother to her. I would be there for her every step of the way—
Someone on the other side of the door began whistling, a sad, windy melody.
One of the guards called, “Qui est là?”
“Je m’appelle Monsier Lenoir,” a voice floated back. “Je suis le portier.”
“Le portier?” The
guards exchanged glances.
Moments later the door opened and an old man in drab work clothes appeared pushing a mop protruding from a yellow bucket on wheels.
Zolan!
“That’s him!” I said. “He’s the one who attacked us!”
The guard closest to me yelled at me to shut up, but both he and his pal placed their hands on the butts of their holstered pistols.
“That’s him!” I repeated, staring up at them. Then: “Katja, tell them! Tell them who that is.”
“Cest mon pѐre,” she said in a small voice.
The guards seemed baffled. “Votre pѐre?” one said.
She nodded.
They approached Zolan, speaking to him, giving orders. Zolan spoke back and held up his hands.
“Don’t listen to him!” I shouted. “Whatever he’s saying, he’s lying!”
One of the guards yelled at me to shut up again, while the other resumed conversing with Zolan. I didn’t know what Zolan was up to, but my carrying on like a raving lunatic wasn’t helping any.
“Katja,” I said quietly, looking at her. “We’re going to have to run.”
“Run? Where?”
I jerked my head in the opposite direction of Zolan and the guards. “Through that door.”
“What’s happening?”
“Just run. Don’t look back. Okay?”
She nodded.
I moved from my knees into a crouch. Katja did the same.
“Hé!” one of the guards shouted. “Arrêtez!”
He started toward us. The other hesitated, then followed.
Zolan withdrew a pistol from beneath his shirt.
“Watch out!”
My warning was drowned out by the ensuing gunshot. The report rang through the hallway.
“Go!” I shouted to Katja, and we turned and ran.
A second shot sounded. A guard screamed. A third shot, and the screaming stopped.
Katja and I crashed through the wooden door and kept running.
Danièle sat in the corner of the small room, a foul-tasting rag stuffed into her mouth, her hands still cuffed behind her back. Four zombie-men huddled together by the door while others continued to climb from the hole.
She almost wished Zolan had killed her along with Drill Sergeant. The fact he didn’t meant he had other plans for her. These were not hard to fathom. He would take her back to his lair in the catacombs, only there would be no pretenses this time. He would imprison her, and he would rape her. She would become his go-to fuck. This knowledge filled her with a bottomless despair, a state of doom. She couldn’t go back. She couldn’t go through that.
Her only chance, she knew, was for the two remaining guards, or for Will, to stop him. This was possible, but Zolan now had Drill Sergeant’s pistol—and the element of surprise. Danièle didn’t know what his plan was, but he had changed into a janitor’s uniform hanging on the back of the door and left with a mop and yellow bucket.
Did he really think this disguise would fool Will and Katja? Or did they not matter to him? Did he merely want only to get close enough to the guards to shoot them?
The last of the zombie-men emerged from the hole, seven in total. They stood shoulder to shoulder in the cramped space, ill at ease, restive, no doubt uncomfortable in the unfamiliar environment. Their collective stench was overpowering, making Danièle’s eyes water.
Then one of them—the first one out of the hole, the one Zolan had called Jörg—tapped his bone-weapon against the door. He listened, then rattled the handle. He continued rattling it more and more aggressively until the push-button lock popped. He jumped backward, startling the others. Some moaned, some looked about wildly, but for the most part they remained quiet.
Jörg rattled the handle a final time, and the door clicked open. He grunted with satisfaction, stuck his nose to the crack, and made sniffing noises. He paused, sniffed, paused. Then he pushed the door farther open, wincing at the light. He glanced over at Danièle, his eyes calculating.
Apparently his curiosity trumped his obedience to Zolan, and he left the room.
The rest of the mob barked and groaned and bumped one another in what was either confusion or fear or both. Then one worked up the courage and left as well. Then another, and another, until Danièle was by herself.
She scrambled quickly to the fallen soldier and found the handcuff key in a belt keeper between the holster and baton. She stuck the key in the handcuff’s keyhole and fiddled with it until the shackle jaw slid open. She brought her hands in front of her and unlocked the second cuff. Then she tore the rag from her mouth and sucked back air—just as a gunshot rang out.
Katja and I dashed back into the museum proper, but there was no place to hide, no place to run. I heard the door bang open behind us and knew Zolan would be right on our heels. We turned one corner after another and ended up in the church Danièle had mentioned. The nave was capped by a sculpted ceiling and a cupola decorated with a fresco. A giant baldachin with distinctive twisted columns rose above the altar and a nativity scene.
“There!” I said, pointing down the left transept to a pair of giant doors.
We ran toward them, our feet slapping on the marble floor.
For a moment Zolan had feared Will and Katja would escape into the gardens to the east of the museum and reach the military hospital, but instead they fled toward the adjoining church, the main doors of which would undoubtedly be locked at this hour.
He slowed to a fast walk with the SIG Pro held out in front of him and told himself this was all going to work out after all. In a few minutes he would be back in the catacombs with Will, Danièle, Katja, and the dead military guard in the custodial closet. Investigators would find the two men he’d shot, but that would be all. Suspicion would shift to the missing guard, yet there would be little to go on, and the case would go cold.
Safely underground once more, Zolan would not make the same mistake twice. He would kill Will immediately and then Danièle after he had his way with her, then he would finish what was long overdue. He would kill the rest of them: Jörg, Karl, Odo…Katja. It would break his heart to do so, but the time had come to end the insanity he had become a party to.
After discovering that the doors of the church were locked, Katja and I had no option but to return to the nave—where Zolan was waiting for us. He aimed the pistol at me.
I froze, adrenaline roaring through my veins as I waited for him to squeeze the trigger.
“Papa!” Katja cried, stepping in front of me protectively. “Don’t kill him! He’s my friend!”
“Your friend?” Zolan chuffed. “He only used you to escape.”
“He told me the truth about Paris! Something you’ve kept hidden from me my entire life.”
“I did that for your protection, my mouse. This world is not for you.”
She touched her face. “Did you do this to me?”
“No, of course not.” He shook his head, and he genuinely looked pained. “Of course not.”
“Then who did?”
“Your grandfather. He was a sick man. He did that to all your uncles and aunts. I was too late to save you, but I did everything I could for you. I raised you like my daughter.”
“Like? I’m not your daughter?”
“This isn’t the place for such a discussion, Katja,” he said curtly. “Now, if you want Will to live, you will do as I say. Do you understand me?”
She looked at me for guidance.
“We should do as he says,” I told her.
“Smart decision, Will.” Zolan waved the pistol. “I want you both ahead of me, get going, that way.”
He directed us back to the museum. My mind was racing to figure out what he had planned. The best I could surmise: he was either taking us to the catacombs again, where he would kill me, or he was taking us to the dead guards, where he would kill me. Neither option, of course, was acceptable, but there was little I could do. I was sure if I tried anything he wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in my back. I
said, “You’re not going to get away with this.”
“With what?” Zolan replied.
“You killed two guards.”
“Three.”
I swallowed. That had been my last hope—that the third security guard and Danièle were still alive. Nevertheless, I hadn’t put much faith in this, for if they were, they would have heard the gunshots and returned by now. “And Danièle?” I asked, needing to know for certain what happened to her.
“Keep walking.”
“Is she dead?”
He didn’t answer me.
Katja glanced over her shoulder. “Are we returning to the homestead, Papa?”
“That’s correct, my love.”
“But I haven’t seen Paris yet!”
“I will still show it to you.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“Do you promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
Katja faced forward again, and I thought she might be smiling. Her innocence, her blind trust, her forgiveness, were nearly incomprehensible to witness.
Suddenly a person darted from the shadows thirty feet ahead of us. I couldn’t make out who it was in the dim lighting.
Zolan shouted and fired the pistol. The round shattered the glass of a display case.
I didn’t think, I acted on instinct, spinning around and charging him, my shoulders lowered, trying to make the smallest target possible.
He fired at me. I felt the bullet whizz past my left arm. A second later I drove a shoulder into his gut. We crashed to the floor together. I lunged at him, trying to bite his face. He rammed the butt of the pistol against my skull.
Everything went hazy as I slid to the floor.
Chapter 84
ZOLAN
Jörg! Zolan thought. It was only Jörg! And who was that who followed him? Karl? And Lorenz and Leo and Odo and Franz and Erich… They were all there now, in the distance, all of them running around like headless chickens, wailing in excitement and fright.
They were ruining everything.
“Go back!” Zolan ordered them in German. “Jörg! Go back right now!”