by Jeremy Bates
“When you were seven,” I said, recalling what she’d told me during one of our lessons.
“Yes…”
“You mom never told you where he went?”
“She never talked about him. She erased him from her life. A couple years later, when I had the flu and was allowed to stay home from school, I went searching for the family photo albums. I found them in a box under her bed. There were no photos of my father.”
“She threw them all out?”
“She cut him out of all of them. Actually, she did not cut him out. That would have left obvious gaps in the photos. Instead she cut everyone else out and pasted them back together again.”
“So you don’t know what your dad even looks like?”
“I have a vague memory, but that is all.”
I contemplated what it would be like to grow up without a father. It seemed a pretty brutal thing for a kid to go through. “How’s your mom now?” I asked.
“She is well. She has several boyfriends.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Several?”
Danièle nodded. “She meets them on some online dating website. She is only forty-eight. And she is still pretty.”
“Like you.” The words were out of my mouth before I realized what I’d said.
Danièle’s eyes sparkled. “You know, Will, that is the first time you have told me something like that.”
“Really?”
“Yes. And you can tell me that I am pretty more often. I will not be offended.”
I didn’t say anything.
She sighed. “Why are you so mysterious?”
“Mysterious?” I shrugged lamely.
She tiptoed and kissed me on the lips, pressing her body against mine.
“Want to come over tonight?” she asked playfully.
“I think I’m going to need to catch up on my sleep.”
“You can sleep all day. Even better—you can sleep at my place in the afternoon, then cook me dinner in the evening.”
“Oh shit,” I said.
Danièle frowned. “You have another excuse?”
“What do you mean ‘another?’”
“Are you going to be hung over again?”
“No…but I already have dinner plans.”
“With who?”
“My neighbor.”
Danièle glared at me dangerously. “Are you dating her?”
“No!” I said. “She’s like ninety. Her husband died a long time ago. She’s lonely. She’s always catching me in my hallway and giving me desserts and stuff. So earlier today—yesterday—I told her I was studying French cooking and wanted some feedback.”
“You study French cooking? You have never told me this.”
“I don’t. I made it up so she wouldn’t feel like she was intruding.”
“How do I know you are not making up that this woman is ninety? Maybe she is twenty and beautiful?”
I hesitated. “Come then.”
“You really want me to?”
“I’m sure Madame Gabin won’t mind.”
“Madame Gabin, hmm?” Danièle studied me. “Yes, okay. I think I will join you and this Madame Gabin for dinner. And, Will, she better be as old as you say she is, or you are dead meat.”
We caught up to Rob and Pascal at a T-junction. The woman in the video had gone left, so we went left also. A little ways on Pascal stopped and announced, “This is where I found the video camera. It was there, next to that puddle. See, I marked the wall.” He pointed to a chalk asterisk.
Rob peered ahead into the dark. “Did you go any farther, boss?”
Pascal shook his head. I was tempted to make a scared barb, to get even with him for the ones he’d sent my way, but I didn’t because I didn’t blame the guy for turning tail. Watching that video down here, alone, right where whatever happened had happened…I wouldn’t have stuck around either. I asked, “How much time on the video passed from the point she dropped the camera to when she screamed?”
“Forty-one seconds,” Danièle told me. “Which means her body should be right up ahead somewhere.”
Chapter 32
It wasn’t. We searched for more than twenty minutes, checking every crumbling and bone-riddled room we passed, continuing along the hallway for much farther than should have been necessary. When we stopped for a rest, I said, “Looks like Zolan was telling the truth. He found her and showed her back to the surface.”
“I still cannot believe his story about the rats,” Danièle said, shaking her head. “I am sure he was trying to persuade us not to come down here. Why would he do that if he had nothing to hide?”
Pascal took off, mumbling something in French.
“He needs to drop a deuce,” Rob translated for me, flopping down on the ground. “You have to go?”
I didn’t, and neither did Danièle. We sat as well.
“He seems upset,” I said. I fumbled in my pocket for my pack of Marlboro Lights and lit one up.
Danièle nodded. “He really wanted to find the body.”
“It was his MacGuffin,” Rob said.
“His what?” Danièle said.
“Movie talk,” I said. “The object of a quest.”
“Ah, yes.” She nodded again. “The body would have been his McMuffin.”
“MacGuffin,” I said.
“Right. McMuffin,” she repeated, smiling, and I realized she was having me on.
Rob noticed the flirting too. “You guys want a room or something? There are plenty down here.”
I exhaled a stream of smoke and decided I was in a good mood. Part of the reason for this was the fact the expedition was coming to a close. As much as the catacombs had grown on me, I was filthy and wet and tired and more than ready to leave. Also, I was looking forward to the dinner with Madame Gabin and Danièle later this evening. I had no idea what I was going to cook, but I figured I could find some French recipe on the internet. And afterward…well, Danièle would stay over, wouldn’t she? That seemed like a big step for me: having a woman sleep in my bed. True, I’d already slept in her bed, but her sleeping in my bed, that felt significant, intimate, like a relationship. “Hey, Rob,” I said. “You got any of those beers left?”
“Hell yeah.” He unzipped his backpack, took two out, and lobbed me one.
We cracked the tabs and foam spurted festively.
“You know,” Rob said, “this has been surprisingly fun. Thanks for the invite, Danny.”
“I did not invite you,” she told him sternly. “Pascal did.”
“But you okayed it.”
She shrugged. “Yes, well…I like sharing the catacombs with people. I guess I am happy you had a good time.”
“Wow,” I said. “Are you two having a moment? Is this a breakthrough?”
“She says shit about me all the time,” Rob said, “but it’s just for show. She loves me.”
“I do not!” Danièle said.
“A little bit.”
“Not even a little bit.”
“Bullshit, Danny. If I wanted a sister sandwich, you’d be all over it like a fat kid on a McMuffin.”
“MacGuffin,” she said, and produced one of the joints she had rolled back at the Bunker. She sparked it, then passed it to me.
I was about to decline, but decided what the hell. We deserved a small celebration. “So where’s the other exit Pascal knows about?” I asked, inhaling. The smoke burned the lining of my throat, tickled my lungs. I held it there, then exhaled.
Danièle said, “It is back past that crack in the floor.”
“Past it? You mean we don’t have to crawl over the bones again?”
“No.”
“Thank God. You know how many bones we broke? Rob, you were like a bull in a china shop. You must have smashed five or six skulls.”
“And you didn’t?”
“Skulls? No, none. I avoided touching them.”
“Hey,” Danièle said, a bit spacey. “Beef comes from a cow, right? And a bull is a male cow, right? S
o is it not funny that I call Rob ‘Rosbif,’ and you call him a bull?”
Rob shook his head. “I hate to be the one to break this to you, Danny, but you’re just not funny. You try too hard.”
“I am too,” she protested, waving at the smoke in front of her face.
“Nope, you’re not. When God was giving out shit, you got the looks, and you got a pretty good brain, but I think you forgot to pick up your sense of humor on the way down to Earth.”
“Maybe you do not think so, but other people do. Will, am I funny?”
“Of course he’s going to say you are. You two are shagging.”
I glanced down the passageway, to check that Pascal wasn’t within earshot. The corridor was empty.
“Anyway, Danny,” Rob went on, “regarding your sense of humor problem—”
“I do not have a problem.”
“How about this: whenever you tell a joke, just say ‘joke’ afterward, so we know it’s a joke.”
“You are a smart guy—joke.”
Pin-dropping silence.
Then Rob exploded in laughter, cackling so hard I thought he might choke. It was contagious and I got going too until my eyes started to water.
“See,” Danièle said proudly. “I am funny.”
Chapter 33
PASCAL
Pascal could hear them laughing. Having one big party. Without him.
Mumbling a curse, he took the roll of toilet paper from his backpack and wiped his ass. He stood, pulled his boxer briefs and pants up, then his waders. He turned and kicked dirt over the small latrine he had dug with the forked end of his hammer. Some cataphiles were not so considerate. They came to the catacombs only to drink and smoke and party, and they left the place a mess. They were slobs—the Painted Devil had been right about that much at least—and they were getting worse year by year. Some of the old-timers Pascal had met, veterans who’d been visiting the catacombs for decades, told him it was a different world pre-nineties. Back then, they said, it was a closer-knit community. They would still have parties, but they weren’t the trashy type that Danièle liked. Mostly they would cook, they would bring cooking pots and food, and they would have cooking contests.
Then the internet came along and changed everything, made it so much easier to find a guide, someone with a map. Now you had the idiots who took pictures and posted them all over social media and left their garbage behind and shit everywhere—all of which cheapened the experience, killed the feeling that you were exploring a forbidden place.
Really, in the main network beneath the 14th arrondissement, there was nothing sacred anymore. If you wanted a real adventure, you had to press farther, deeper, go where no one had been before.
Pascal stomped the ground flat and was about to return to the others when he heard a noise. Some sort of cluck. It wasn’t very loud, but when you were used to hearing nothing, you heard everything.
It came from the far end of the room.
“Rob?” he said. His headlamp revealed nothing but support pillars and, beyond them, shadowed walls.
Rob didn’t answer.
Pascal thought of the video footage, heard in his head the woman’s manic screams.
“Rob?” he repeated.
Nothing.
He was still holding the hammer, which gave him some confidence. He unclipped the MagLite from his belt with his free hand and swept the powerful beam across the room.
Nobody.
He started forward, slowly, peaking around each pillar he passed.
At the far end of the room a door led to a connecting chamber.
He hesitated, considered turning back.
Another cluck. Almost like the sound you make when you click your tongue against the roof of your mouth.
Pascal froze. Everything inside him froze.
Who was making that sound?
What was?
Get out of there! Go! Now!
He whirled to leave.
And screamed.
Chapter 34
Once I got my giggling fit under control, Danièle offered me the spliff. I shook my head. I was already higher than I wanted to be. Rob finished it off while I lit another smoke. I was chain smoking and didn’t care.
“Cool how Rascal knew what that frommager died from based on his bones,” Rob said. He was lying on his side in that recumbent position he favored. His eyes were heavily lidded, and his usual in-your-face energy had been replaced with lazy meditation. “Weak way to go, no doubt, but better than the fate of some of the other sad fucks in that grave, I guess.”
“Have you ever wondered what the worst way to die is?” Danièle said. She was slumped against the wall so low her knees poked up in front of her face.
“Getting lost in an underground maze,” I kidded.
“No, getting torn in half,” Danièle said. “They used to do that, you know. You bend two young trees close together, tie a hand and a foot to each one, then release the trees.”
Rob said, “Have either of you two ever seen anyone die?”
Danièle shook her head. “But I have seen a body. I was very young. My sister and I—”
“Dev was with you?” Rob said, surprised.
“Yes. Devan is Rob’s wife, Will.”
I opened my mouth, to tell her I’d gathered as much, but articulation seemed too difficult right then. I nodded.
Danièle continued: “We were playing in this construction site in our neighborhood. The developer had dug holes for the basements of two dozen houses. Sometimes there were long pieces of wood descending into the pits, so the workers could climb in and out. Dev and I were looking for puddles to splash in because it had just rained, and we found a boy lying facedown in one of the excavated basements. He lived three blocks away from us. I had seen him at school, but I did not know him personally. He hit his head on a cinder block, but that is not how he died. He died from drowning in two inches of rainwater.”
Rob frowned. “Dev never told me this.”
“We were so young. Maybe she forgot.”
I shifted uncomfortably, thinking of a different topic to move onto, when Rob said, “There was this guy in my high school, he was a year or two older, his name was Claude Linder. He was a rich kid, his parents had their own twin propeller plane, which he was learning to fly. One day I was at the field where I played soccer twice a week. We were in the middle of the match when this plane comes swooping over us, smoking and too low and shit. It turned out Claude had hit some geese and they fucked up the engine. The refs stopped the game, and the coaches and parents called everyone to the sidelines. The plane banked, then came back. Claude touched it down safely, used the field as a fucking runway, but the field wasn’t long enough, and he smashed through the chain-link fence at the far end.”
“But he was okay?” Danièle said.
“No, Danny, the guy died. Why do you think I’m telling this? When he went through the fence, the propeller knocked one of the metal fence posts back through the windshield. It impaled Claude right here.” Rob tapped his chest above the heart. “When the first of the soccer moms and dads got there to help, he was still alive, but pinned to the seat. He died before the cops and firefighters could cut him free.”
“That is awful,” Danièle said, and squirmed. “He was just stuck there?”
“Saw him up close and personal. Wish I hadn’t. I had nightmares for months after that.” Then, to me: “What about you, boss?”
“What about me?”
“You gotta know somebody who’s croaked.”
I shook my head, wondering if he could tell I was lying—
A scream erupted from farther down the tunnel.
We started, then leapt to our feet. My head spun from the pot.
“That was Pascal!” Danièle exclaimed.
“Fucker’s just horsing around,” Rob said.
“I do not think so.” She cupped her mouth with her hands and called Pascal’s name. When he didn’t reply, she called it again, and again.
/> I didn’t like this one bit.
“Rascal!” Rob shouted, angry. “Stop screwing around!”
Silence.
“Come on,” Danièle said to us, then started in the direction the scream had come from.
She and Rob continued to call Pascal’s name, while I tried to clear the fog from my thoughts and figure out what the hell was going on. Had Pascal tripped and cracked his head open, like that kid Danny told us about? Was he lying facedown in a puddle of water, dead? Had he fallen down a well?
No—that scream had not been one of pain; it had been fear, fear and surprise, as if all six million catacomb dead had risen from their graves before his eyes.
So was Rob right then? Was this all a joke? Was Pascal hiding somewhere, readying himself to jump out from the dark and yell, “Gotcha!?”
Twenty meters onward a room opened to the right. We stuck our heads inside, glanced around. It was large and filled with a number of support pillars.
A lot of places to hide.
“Rascal!” Rob shouted. “Seriously, bro! This ain’t cool!”
“He never plays these games,” Danièle said, her concern reflected clearly in her face.
“Are you guys having me on?” I said. “Because I’m pretty fucked right now, and it’s not funny—”
“We’re not fucking with you,” Rob said, stone-faced. “Rascal’s fucking with us. There!” He pointed to the corner. “See the dirt?”
We went closer to examine it. There was a faint odor in the air.
“Knew it!” Rob said, and he half chuckled. “Rascal! Get your ass out here! We know you’re here! We can smell your shit!”
No answer.
“Is that a door?” I said, nodding across the room.
“Yes, you are right,” Danièle said. “He must be through there.”
We approached quietly, apprehensively. I don’t know why we bothered with the stealth, but it felt like the right way to proceed.
This new chamber, it turned out, was smaller than the last one. There were no pillars to hide behind, and we could see it was empty.
“Where the fuck is he?” Rob said, frowning.
“Wait—what is that?” Danièle pointed to a dark shadow in the lower portion of one wall.