by Jeremy Bates
Then Danièle was beside me.
“Where is it?” she said. Her tone was oddly nonchalant, as if she was trying to be conversational, only she was screaming too. “It must have come back out this way. It had Rob, it…” She buried her face in her hands.
I examined the room we were in. It was made of stone and resembled all the others we had come across, though there were no bones here. An open doorway led to another room, and a doorway there to yet another room still.
“Who took Rob?” I asked her quietly. “Did you see him?”
“He…it…” She bit her lip to stop it from quivering. “It…”
“What do you mean ‘it?’ Jesus, Danièle, who did you see? The Painted Devil?”
“Its face…it was all… It was a monster.”
A ball of dread punched me in the chest. Then I got ahold of my imagination. “It wasn’t a fucking monster, Danièle! Who was it? The Painted Devil? Was it the Painted Devil?”
She shook he head and began to sob.
“Shhh, shhh, shhh,” I told her, pulling her hands away from her face so I could look her in the eyes. “You have to be quiet. Danièle? You have to be quiet.”
She nodded but continued to sob.
“Danièle!” I said, shaking her. “They could be coming back.”
Her breath hitched. Her body went rigid.
She looked at me, pleading. “It took Rob. Where is he?”
“I don’t know—”
An unholy caterwauling exploded from the shaft, and for a moment I was numbed with superstitious terror.
“It is coming,” Danièle said monotonously. She no longer sounded afraid; she sounded accepting, which was somehow worse.
Run or fight? I thought. What had Danièle seen? A flesh-and-blood monster? There were no such things. She had to be confused. She was in shock. She was short-circuiting.
Run or fight?
I flicked off my helmet’s headlamp. Danièle stared at me blankly.
“Turn yours off too,” I told her quietly. “We’re easy targets with them on.”
She shook her head, looked like she was going to flee.
“There’s nowhere to go,” I said. “We have to take these guys out one by one. You stand on that side of the hole. I’m going to be right here, on this side. When whoever comes out of it, we attack him.” She started to shake her head again. I added steel and urgency to my voice: “Turn off your fucking headlamp, Danièle. Now.”
For a moment I was sure she would refuse. But she reached up, fumbled with the battery box at the back of her helmet, and flipped the toggle.
We were plunged into blackness.
My breathing seemed extra loud in the nothingness, and I tried to quiet it. There was no other noise. The seconds dragged. The air seemed thick and greasy.
Then I heard faint, careful movement inside the hole. Someone coming. Yet there was still no light. Had the person turned off his headlamp, expecting an ambush? Had I broken it when I kicked him?
The sound became louder, stopping, starting, stopping, starting.
Sniffing us out, I thought, and hated myself for thinking that.
My heart was pounding, adrenaline was burning through my veins like gasoline, but I was ready. I was going to take this motherfucker out, I was going to knock him up for answers, find out what was going on, where Pascal and Rob had gone—
I swallowed, gaging. That cloying stench was back, come from nowhere. It was almost a physical presence.
From the darkness nearby Danièle made a retching sound.
No, quiet, don’t—
She retched again.
A howl erupted from the hole, savage and close.
Danièle snapped on her headlamp. For a moment I was blinded by the light. Then I saw her staring at me, her eyes wide as saucers, as if she were seeing a ghost.
“Will!” she said with the woodsaw rasp of a crow, pointing a shaking finger at me.
No—behind me, I realized.
I started to turn, but something heavy cracked into the back of my helmet, knocking it off and sending me to the ground.
Head throbbing, I rolled over and caught a glimpse of a mutant face and a swinging bone a moment before everything exploded in excruciating pain and searing whiteness.
Chapter 37
DANIÈLE
Danièle couldn’t breathe, couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t think. The thing came for her, grinning hideously.
She ran.
Chapter 38
I saw her from across the room. Her blonde hair was pinned up in a ballerina-like bun on her head, accentuating her slender neck. I couldn’t tell the color of her eyes, the room was too dark, but they were large and expressive, her lashes long. Her nose was small, not much more than a comma. Her lips were painted bright red, and she was smiling—a quirky smile. It gave her face depth and personality.
She wore an effervescent green dress, strapless, revealing delicate shoulders and toned biceps. It tapered down her sides and clung to her curvy hips and ended above her knees.
I must have been watching her for only a few seconds when she glanced over at me. Maybe she felt my eyes on her, maybe it was coincidental. I looked away and went to get another drink. I mingled with some friends on the way, but the entire time I was thinking about the girl in the green dress. She had to be with Delta Kappa Delta; it was the only sorority we’d invited to the party tonight. But if she was, why hadn’t I seen her before? Rush had been in September, and we’d had several events with DKD since then.
I moved on to the kitchen. A few girls were crowded around the two-gallon Rubbermaid cooler filled with Kool-Aid and vodka. Some more of my friends were hanging out by the keg. I joined them, filled my red plastic cup with beer, and bantered a bit. Duane Davis, the chapter’s treasurer, was complaining about how DKD were becoming the ugly sorority, and I wasn’t sure the DKD girls at the Rubbermaid cooler couldn’t hear him.
I returned to the room where I had seen the girl in the green dress. She was no longer there. I went to basement and wandered the busy rooms. She wasn’t there either. On the porch outside, I described her to my friends smoking cigarettes and asked if they had seen her. No one had.
I was pissed off. I should have gone straight over and talked to her. Why had I decided to get a drink?
As a last resort I stepped over the police tape strung from newel post to newel post across the bottom of the staircase and climbed the steps. I didn’t believe she would be on the second floor. It was off limits to anyone who didn’t live in the townhouse.
I heard voices down the hall, coming from the last room on the left. I knocked and opened the door. Five of my friends sat on chairs arranged in a circle around a low glass table, which was littered with baggies of blow and rolled bills and credit cards. I asked them if they had seen the girl in the green dress. They hadn’t.
Halfway back down the hall, the bathroom door opened and there she was. I was so surprised all I could manage was, “Oh.”
“Hi,” she said, smiling. “Sorry. I know. I’m not supposed to be up here. But the bathroom downstairs was occupied.”
“Yeah, no problem,” I said. “I was actually looking for you.”
“For me?”
“I saw you in the living room. I wanted to talk.”
“Am I in trouble?”
“No, I mean, just talk, talk.”
“Well, I like to talk talk.”
I cleared my throat. “I haven’t seen you around before.”
“I’m not with the sorority. My friend Suzy—Suzy Taylor?—she invited me. I’m not into the whole Greek thing. I don’t mean that there’s anything wrong with it. You’re a Pike?”
I nodded.
“How is it? Frat life?”
“Nothing special really.”
“I’ve never been in a frat house before.”
“This isn’t a frat house, not officially. We rent it.”
“But you guys live here?”
“Some of us do. M
y room’s right down there.”
“Can I see it?”
“Yeah, sure.”
I unlocked the door to my room with my key and followed her inside. The room was pretty bland. Some oak furniture that came with it. A life-size cardboard cutout of Mr. Bean I’d stolen from a fast-food chain during my initiation. Curling posters of AC/DC and Led Zepplin and other old school rock bands that I’d picked up at the poster sale on campus. A purple lava lamp I’d been meaning to toss out.
My laptop sat on my messy desk, the screensaver displaying a slideshow of scantily-clad women. I went to it and closed the lid.
“By the way,” I said, offering my hand, “I’m Will.”
“I’m Bridgette,” she said, squeezing.
“I like that name.”
“My parents were big bridge fans.”
“Huh?”
“Bridgette,” she said. “It’s a two-player bridge game. It also means ‘exalted one.’ Yes, I checked. I was bummed out when I learned I was named after a card game. What’s in there?” She indicated the door to the closet.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Can I see?”
“There’s nothing in there.”
“Why won’t you let me see?” Her voice had turned petulant, and it wasn’t Bridgette anymore. It was Danièle. She was naked.
“There’s nothing in there.”
“Why are you never honest with me, Will?”
“I am.”
“I want to see.”
I had no idea what was in the closet, only that it was something that made me uneasy.
“No,” I told her.
“Will, stop it.” She pushed past me.
I seized her by the upper arms. “Danièle, don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Just don’t.”
She shook free and yanked the closet door open. Relief flooded me. There was nothing inside but my clothes neatly arranged on their hangers.
“See?” I said.
But she wasn’t listening. She stepped into the closet, slipped between the clothes, and disappeared.
“Danièle!” I shoved the clothes aside. She was gone. “Danièle! Come back!”
Her voice was different, scared. It came from beyond the wall.
“Will, where am I?”
I banged the plaster. “Danièle!”
“Will, help!”
“Danièle, come back!”
“I cannot!”
“Come back!”
“Will, look behind you—”
I was strapped to a gurney of some sort. My eyes were open, but I couldn’t see. It wasn’t too dark; it was too bright. Then, gradually, the ceiling resolved into detail: chiseled stone affixed with a series of fluorescent lights. I turned my head to the right. Chipped wooden counters and cupboards, painted white. The cupboard doors featured glass windows through which I could see a variety of bottles and beakers like those found in a science classroom.
I tried to move. My arms were secured in leather cuffs.
From behind me a metal table on wheels rattled into my field of view. The surface was neatly lined with a dozen crude tools that would look equally at home in a dentist’s office or a fifteen-century torture chamber.
I jerked at the restraints. They held firm.
The person pushing the table appeared. It was Maxine. Her hair was wet and plastered to her skull, her cream dress soaked through.
After a brief glance at me, she turned her attention to the tools before her. “They did this to me too, Will,” she said.
“Did what?”
“An autopsy. You’d think they’d know what killed me. I’d been at the bottom of the lake all night. But they still had to open me up and look inside. The good thing about being dead is that nothing hurts.”
“I’m not dead!”
Max picked up a pair of scissors and cut open my shirt. She exchanged the scissors for a scalpel.
“Max! Stop it!”
She made a Y-shaped incision into my flesh, extending from my armpits to the bottom of my sternum, then down to my lower abdomen.
Blood pooled out from it, black and thick as syrup.
“Look, Max! I’m bleeding. I’m not dead.”
She frowned. “They told me you were.”
“Who?”
“Them.”
“I need to get out of here.”
“You can’t.”
The restraints, however, had vanished, and I was able to sit up. My head and bladder throbbed dully. I pressed a hand to my stomach to prevent my guts from spilling out.
“Where am I, Max? Where are my friends?”
“You shouldn’t have come down here.”
“Where, Max?”
“You shouldn’t have come down here.”
“Stop saying that.”
“You shouldn’t have come down here.”
“Stop it, Max!” I was suddenly incensed at her. Not for her I-told-you-so advice. But for dying on me. For leaving me. For blaming me for her death.
“You shouldn’t—”
I leapt at her, squeezing her throat. She plunged the scalpel into my left ear. I screamed and fell to the floor, where I rocked back and forth, back and forth, rocking, rocking, rocking…
I jerked awake. I was curled in a fetal position, perspiring, short of breath. Relief flooded me as I realized I had been dreaming. Then everything else came crashing back in a whirlwind of images—the tunnel, Rob yelling, the mutant swinging the bone—and for a bewildered moment I thought this all must be a dream too. But when the all-encompassing blackness didn’t relent—in fact, it only became more oppressive—I understood it was real.
I tried to sit up. My hands, I discovered, were cuffed behind my back, and I toppled to my side. The abrupt movement shot a lightning bolt of pain through the left side of my skull where I had been struck by the bone. The throbbing escalated, an alternating current of fire and ice. I squeezed my eyes shut. My mouth gaped open against the cold dirt floor. Moaning, waiting for the excruciating pain to subside, I became aware of my protesting bladder. It felt as if it might burst.
I shoved myself to my knees, wobbling but keeping my balance, then to my feet. I swayed but didn’t fall.
My bladder.
Fuck. Oh fuck.
I couldn’t hold out any longer. Hot urine splashed down my inner thighs and calves. The first second was orgasmic, the relief so great. I pissed myself for what must have been a full minute.
“Ugh,” I grunted when I’d finished, partly in disgust, but mostly because of the pain still stampeding inside my head like a herd of elephants.
I stumbled forward, not knowing where I was going in the dark, only wanting to get clear of the acrid puddle pooled around me.
I took one step, then another—then metal clacked and the cuffs dug into the skin around my wrists.
I was not only bound; I was anchored to something, like a dog leashed to a pole.
The primal alarm of imprisonment thudded in my chest, and I jerked my arms in frustration. The cuffs bit deeper.
“Fuck,” I said.
I glanced about me.
Blackness.
I blinked.
Blackness.
“Fuck,” I said.
Where was Danièle? Where was Rob? Pascal? Was I alone? Or were they right next to me?
“Danièle?”
No answer.
“Rob?”
No reply.
“Fuck,” I said.
I squashed the fear running wild inside me and tried to figure out what the hell was going on. I closed my eyes to concentrate, though this changed nothing, the blackness was the same, it was simple habit, and visualized my attacker. A flash of white skin. Two piggish air holes for a nose. A permanently grinning set of gums and teeth for a mouth.
Had this…abomination...been real? Or had it been a person wearing a mask? The Painted Devil? I kept coming back to him, but for good reason. He was a showman—a sick, reckless showman
who had a proclivity for theater and got a thrill out of terrorizing cataphiles. So was it a stretch to conclude he swapped the SS uniform for a Halloween mask, knocked us all unconscious, and tied us up as prisoners?
No, maybe not. Except what I saw wasn’t a mask.
I was reasonably sure of that. I might have only seen the face for a moment, but it had been a heated moment, and my mind had been exceptionally clear, my perception sharp.
And then there was that nauseating stench. The only time I had ever smelled something so foul had been when, as a kid, I’d discovered our family cat in the back of the our little-used garage, where it had gone to die, and where it had been half consumed by a blanket of squiggling white maggots. And although it was conceivable the Painted Devil might swap costumes, it was absurd to suggest he would go so far as to alter his scent.
Which meant whoever had attacked me was indeed gruesomely deformed. But who had disfigured him, and why? And what did he want with us? And how had he snuck up on me? There was no way he could have seen Danièle and me in the blackness. Not even with a pair of night vision goggles; there wasn’t a sliver of ambient light in the catacombs.
Moreover, it wasn’t him; it was them. Because there had been at least two of them, one behind us, in the cat hole, and one in front of us—
From the darkness, nearby, came a sob.
Chapter 39
DANIÈLE
Danièle realized someone—or something—shared the dark with her. She heard movement, scuffling, maybe ten feet away, maybe twenty, it was impossible to ascertain for certain. Then a moan followed.
It was Will.
Nevertheless, she didn’t call out to him. Her body was in too much pain, her throat too sore. Besides, what would talking to him accomplish? He was a prisoner, like her. Like Rob and Pascal, if they shared this room also. He couldn’t free any of them. He couldn’t do anything.
None of them could.
She heard a harsh patter, and it took her a moment to realize he was peeing. She didn’t need to urinate or defecate, but when the urge came, she knew she would have no choice but to soil herself. Then she would have to sit there and sleep there in her own filth, with no light and no food and no water.
