World's Scariest Places: Volume One (Suspense Horror Thriller & Mystery Novel): Occult & Supernatural Crime Series: Suicide Forest & The Catacombs

by Jeremy Bates

  He glanced Zolan’s way but didn’t obey him. Instead he shook his femur in the air, either in triumph or rebellion, then he was gone, around a corner, howling and smashing display cases.

  Zolan fought his panic and thought: There’s still time. He would have to skip his tryst with Danièle, and he would not be able to give Katja a proper goodbye and a painless death, but there was still time to burn the homestead and be gone by the time it was discovered.

  He leveled the pistol at Will, who was folded into a crumpled heap at his feet.

  “No!” Katja screamed, coming toward him.

  Clenching his jaw tight, saying a silent prayer for her soul and his own, Zolan swung the gun at his adopted daughter and squeezed the trigger. The round struck her in the stomach, stopping her as surely as if she had hit an invisible wall. She fell to her side.

  “I’m sorry, my mouse,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry—”

  His knees disappeared beneath him.

  Chapter 85

  The gunshot cleared the darkness from my vision, and for a split second I waited for the pain that would surely follow. When it didn’t come, I realized I hadn’t been shot. Then I noticed Katja, a few yards away, motionless on her side, like a wilted rose.

  I brought my knees to my chest and kicked my legs out. My feet smashed into Zolan’s kneecaps. He cried out and fell on top of me. The pistol struck the tiles and clattered away from us.

  Zolan tried to reach for it. I locked my legs around his torso, but I could do little else with my hands secured behind my back. He swiveled toward me and kicked me in the groin. I groaned and released him.

  He lumbered to his feet, took two lurching steps, swiped up the pistol.

  Scowling, he aimed the barrel at my chest.

  Chapter 86

  DANIÈLE

  Danièle burst from the stairwell and saw Zolan twenty feet away, about to shoot Will. She raised the gun and squeezed the trigger three times. One of the rounds clipped Zolan in the shoulder, spinning him around so he faced her. She squeezed the trigger three more times. A bullet smashed through his teeth, blowing away half his face in the process, and he collapsed lifelessly to the floor. She ran to Will. Katja was next to him, on her side.

  Had Zolan killed her? The monster!

  “Will!” Danièle said, rolling him over so she could access the handcuffs. Her hands were shaking so badly it took her several goes before she could get the cuffs unlocked.

  “Katja…” Will said, crawling toward Katja. He held the girl’s head in his hands. “Katja?” he repeated. “Katja!”

  Her eyes fluttered open.

  Chapter 87

  I don’t know how I managed it, I’d never felt so weak in my life, but I scooped Katja up in my arms and sprinted through the museum, searching frantically for an exit. After several wrong turns and dead ends I discovered a door that led outside.

  Dawn was breaking, the sky an otherworldly red streaked with orange and lighting to pink in places. Across a sprawling, landscaped garden rose a large concrete building that had to be the hospital.

  “Sky…” Katja mumbled.

  I looked at her. “What?”

  Her brilliant eyes were lidded but intense, staring past me. “Sky…”

  “Hold on, Katja,” I said. “We’re going to get you help.”

  “Sky…” she said a final time.

  Her eyes glassed over.

  “No!” I said, and ran toward the hospital.

  Chapter 88

  EXTRACT FROM THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, May 5, 2014

  Five Dead in France in Val-de-Grâce Murder Mystery (LIVE UPDATES)

  Officials in France are scratching their heads after five people were killed at the Val-de-Grâce complex in central Paris, which includes a modern military hospital, a baroque church, and a former Benedictine convent that has since been converted into a museum dedicated to the history of military medicine.

  The killings occurred in the museum.

  Nine suspects have been arrested, but no charges have been made at this point. Speaking to reporters, a military spokeswoman said that all suspects are being held at the hospital to receive medical treatment for unspecified injuries.

  According to one witness at the hospital, the suspects were “horribly disfigured” and “acted like mindless animals,” stoking wild speculation on social media sites that the French military may have been conducting covert human genetic engineering experiments at the hospital.

  This was immediately dismissed by a leading military official, who told French media outlets that it was “absolutely not true” and “ridiculous.” He also dismissed claims that the killings were an act of terrorism. However, he refused to comment on a possible motive.

  At the moment museum officials do not believe anything was stolen from the collection. The museum and church, which are popular tourist attractions, will be closed to the public until further notice.

  1:54 PM – 05/05/2014

  At an afternoon press conference, Interior Minister Alain Villechaize confirmed that the three soldiers killed were members of the National Gendarmerie, a branch of the French armed forces in charge of public safety with police duties among the civilian population.

  Law enforcement officials say they are focusing their attention on a French national named Zolan Roux, one of two civilians who were killed at the museum. Mr. Roux, a welfare recipient, was unemployed at the time of his death. He had previously been convicted twice on first-degree murder charges and had served more than twenty years in state prison.

  French news agencies, quoting sources close to the investigation, reported that Mr. Roux and his accomplices gained access to the facility via the catacombs. The network of ancient quarries beneath Paris have been closed off to the public for decades, but police have been locked in a game of cat-and mouse with underground urban explorers, who enter the tunnels illegally. Although once commonplace, most access points connecting the tunnels and public buildings have been sealed off, and it is unusual that one would go unnoticed in the basement of what is classified as a military facility. A French intelligence service has called for a complete security review of all of their military facilities.

  According to the French newspaper Le Monde, the intruders were armed with human femurs, presumably obtained in the catacombs, which is home to more than six million dead, and not firearms like some media channels have reported. “There is no evidence that they had their own pistols in their possessions,” a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defense said. “Instead, it is believed that Mr. Roux gained access to a guard’s handgun…and after that he began shooting.”

  Despite the identification of alleged gunman Zolan Roux, many questions still remain, namely what prompted him and his accomplices to break into the museum in the first place.

  11:45 AM – 06/05/2014

  More details have emerged in the investigation into the killings at Val-de-Grâce early Wednesday morning.

  Authorities have now confirmed that Zolan Roux and the other intruders accessed the former-abbey-turned-medical-museum through an underground tunnel that connected to the catacombs.

  After a preliminary exploration into the tunnel, investigators believe that Mr. Roux and his accomplices lived permanently in the catacombs for what Paris public prosecutor François Duris says might have be a “substantial amount of time.” He added that investigators are working around the clock to learn more about the suspects’ motivations, backgrounds, and family environments. He also hinted that the death toll in this ongoing mystery could be higher than the five initially reported.

  These revelations have led some news pundits to make comparisons to the “mole people” said to inhabit the abandoned subway tunnels and sewer systems below New York City. French police are downplaying this comparison amidst fear the sensationalism of the evolving story could encourage more people to illegally visit the catacombs.

  On the French television channel i-Télé, police captain Vincent Reno warned potential adventurer
s to “think twice about entering the underground” and that “they did so at their own risk.”

  Epilogue

  I was seated at a table in Manhattan’s Chinatown McDonald’s, sipping the dregs of my large cappuccino and thinking about Paris.

  My mind drifted to those days often. I could be doing anything—standing in line at the bank, sitting in front of my computer at work, taking a shower—and then I would find myself in an imaginary conversation with Danièle, or running through the dark from Zolan, or listening to Katja tell me about the characters in her books.

  It was crazy that those two days I spent in the catacombs could consume my thoughts so completely as to reduce the previous twenty-five years of my life to a footnote.

  Time wasn’t helping much. It’d been six months since I left Paris, and I wasn’t sure I was any better now than I was then. I still had nightmares. I couldn’t sleep without nightlights. And I was talking to myself more and more. I wasn’t one of those guys you saw shuffling down the street cackling to themselves one moment and screaming obscenities the next. But when I was alone I’d occasionally find myself mumbling something that sometimes made sense and sometimes didn’t. It would usually only be a word or three, such as “stupid” or “why the fuck,” but it was occurring with enough regularity to start concerning me.

  Although I had killed Hanns and two of the women I had attacked, and Danièle had killed Zolan, French authorities never charged us with any crimes. We cooperated with them fully, and they concluded the killings were justifiable homicides. We were released from custody after the statutory limit of seventy-two hours. I returned to my flat, but when the media began camping out front of it, I packed up most of my stuff, slipped out the back, and checked into a low-key motel, where I remained largely under the radar.

  Rob and Pascal’s funerals were held within two days of one another. Both were closed casket services for obvious reasons. I exchanged a few words with Danièle at the chapel where Rob’s memorial was held, but that was all, as she spent the rest of her time with her sister, Dev, and Rob’s brother and parents, who had flown to Paris from Quebec City. His two girls were gorgeous, both with blonde hair and blue eyes and dressed in frilly black dresses. They didn’t leave their mother’s side the entire time.

  At Pascal’s memorial, his brother broke down during his eulogy, and his sister and mother were a total mess, especially during the burial as the casket, covered in a spray of flowers, was lowered into the ground. I felt like an imposter being there to witness these intimate emotions, given that Pascal had never liked me, but Danièle had asked me to go with her, and so I went.

  The city cremated Katja. I didn’t want her remains to end up in storage somewhere, or a potter’s field, so I purchased them from the coroner’s office, and Danièle and I scattered her ashes in Pere Lachaise’s Garden of Remembrance.

  I returned to the United States the following week. It was hard to say goodbye to Danièle, but I couldn’t remain in France any longer; I needed to get home. Danièle and I promised we would see each other again, but I don’t think either of us really believed that. I flew to Seattle and stayed with my parents. I was immediately bombarded with media requests. Every national news network and major book publisher wanted the exclusive rights to my story. I don’t know how people who’ve been involved in sensational murder sagas give tell-all interviews or write tell-all books. How could you cheapen what you had been through like that? How could you allow it to be turned into entertainment? Rob was dead. Pascal was dead. Katja was dead. I would never exploit their deaths for profit, not now, and not ten years from now.

  Bridgette emailed me a number of times. I think she was worried about me, my mental health, though she didn’t come out and say this. I always replied, though briefly. She wanted my phone number, wanted to talk. I told her I didn’t have a US number yet, which was true. I was in no rush to get one either.

  Danièle emailed too, almost every day at first, then a few times a week, then, over the last two months, hardly at all. I missed speaking with her, but I also believed it was for the best. She was an ocean away. We both had to move on.

  One person I had been happy to hear from was my old boss. He emailed me one day to inquire when I would be returning to work. I thought he was kidding. I had assumed the travel guide company would have wanted to distance itself from someone who’d made the type of headlines I’d made. But my boss was serious. He said I could return whenever I felt up to it. I guess I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I had been; he’d always been a friend as much as a boss. Moreover, since I’ve been back at the New York office, I’ve gotten the feeling he held himself partly responsible for what happened in Paris, given it was his idea to send me to France in the first place. That was nonsense, of course, but that was the type of guy he was.

  I finished my coffee, dumped the paper cup and my half-eaten fries in a bin, and left the restaurant. It was late November and freezing cold outside. Snow fell in a kaleidoscope of flakes, leaving a white and bright layer over everything except for slushy brown tracks on the streets and sidewalks. Everybody had their heads down, their hoods up, against the chill. Several people carried umbrellas.

  Manhattan’s Chinatown was great for being anonymous. I was a six-foot-four Caucasian, but none of the Asians here recognized me, or if they did, they didn’t say anything. This was not the case in other parts of the city, where I got “Hey, Moleman!” and “Yo, Walking Dead!” and other stuff of a similar nature on a regular basis.

  I made my way to my apartment building. It was on a warehouse street that even in the pit of winter smelled of dead fish. I greeted Jimmy, who acted as both doorman and concierge, then took the stairs to the fifth floor of the walkup. I stopped as soon as I entered the hallway. Someone was sitting with their back against my door, their knees pulled to their chest.

  Another “fan?” Aside from the idiots who called me Moleman, there were others, both men and women, who would come up to me and start a conversation. It didn’t matter where I was—a park, a bar, a restaurant—they simply strolled over and started yacking it up. Most of them, I suspect, thought it was neat to be talking to someone of infamy. A few, however, were urban explorers who invited me to join them in the abandoned subway tunnels beneath New York City. I was blunt with the lot, telling them I wanted to be left alone. Their responses varied from polite and apologetic to indignant and offended, as if I was the one being rude for wanting to mind my own business. Nevertheless, they all eventually let me be—and no one had yet shown up on my doorstep.

  I considered turning around, coming back later, but that was stupid. This was my apartment. I wasn’t getting run away from my own home.

  I walked down the hallway. The person stirred in response to my footsteps and lifted their face in my direction. It was a woman. For a moment—not longer than a heartbeat—I didn’t recognize her. Then I said, “Danièle?”

  She shot to her feet. “Will!”

  We embraced, and I breathed in an unfamiliar jasmine-scented perfume. I stepped apart and grinned and said, “Wow.”

  She grinned back. Her hair was longer, but other than that she looked just as good as I remembered. “Are you surprised to see me?”

  “Obviously. What are you doing here?”

  “I was in New York…and I decided to drop by.”

  “You were in New York?” I said skeptically.

  “Do not worry, Will, I did not come all the way from Paris just to see you. I am not a psycho stalker. I am here for other reasons that I will tell you about if you decide to invite me inside.”

  “Yeah, sure, right.” I unlocked and opened the door.

  She stepped inside, and I followed behind her. The unit had high ceilings, an exposed brick wall, a renovated kitchen, and newly refinished cherry wood floors. The rent was a bit more than I wanted to pay, but it was a block from the F train, which was what I took to work, and it had large corner windows that let in a lot of sunlight, which sealed the deal.

>   “I like it,” Danièle said, moving to the brick wall, on which hung several oil-on-canvas paintings. “Hey!” she exclaimed. “That is my bicycle!”

  I went to stand beside her. The painting depicted a woman riding a pink bicycle with white fenders and a wicker basket along a cobbled street. “Looks like it, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, and even she looks like me.”

  The woman’s face was turned away from the viewer, but she was thin and had short-cropped black hair.

  “Where did you get this—?” She glanced at me, her eyes widening in understanding. “You painted it?”

  I nodded.

  “I did not know you painted.”

  “I took it up.”

  Danièle walked down the wall, studying the other paintings: a section of the Jardin des Plants I had particularly enjoyed, the tire swing hanging from the old maple at my parents’ house, the view of neon and slummy anarchy outside my window.

  “They are very good,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  “And you painted me.” She smiled. “That means you missed me.”

  “A little bit.”

  “Good. Because I do not know about you, Will. You stopped emailing…”

  “You stopped.”

  “Because I always wrote first. You simply replied. So I stopped to see if you would write first. You never did.”

  “I’m sure I did.”

  “I am sure you did not.”

  “You were so far away…”

  “Yes, I know, I know. You do not need to tell me one of your famous excuses.” She looked around the flat. “Do you have any other paintings?”