by Jeremy Bates
“A few.”
I led her to my bedroom and pointed to several canvases stacked against each other in the corner.
She flicked through them. “Oh, I like these too…” She studied one for longer than the others. “Is that…? It is.”
She pulled it out and showed it to me, though of course I knew which one she was referring to. Katja’s portrait stared back at me. Initially I had planned to paint only her eyes. I had wanted to capture them, their intensity and innocence, so I would never forget them. But then I found myself unable to stop there. I wanted to know what she might have looked like had she not been disfigured, and I ended up painting her entire face, unblemished, perfect.
I said, “I was thinking about her one day…”
“She is beautiful.”
I nodded, but I didn’t want to talk about Katja. “So where about are you staying?” I asked.
Danièle set the canvas back on the floor, stared at it for another couple seconds, then turned to me. “The Belvedere.”
“In Hell’s Kitchen.”
“What a stupid name for a neighborhood, yes? Why would tourists ever stay in a neighborhood called that?”
“You did.”
“Because it reminded me of you.”
“Me?”
“Remember in the catacombs, when I showed you that inscription of the street name in the wall, and explained how an entire neighborhood had collapsed into a tunnel…?”
“Hell Street,” I said.
“Yes. So when I saw a hotel located in Hell’s Kitchen, I thought of you, and I decided it would be a good story to tell you when I arrived here.”
I nodded. It made sense in a wacky Danièle-logic sort of way. “So what are you doing here?” I asked her.
“I am studying.”
“Studying?”
“I was accepted to MIT’s School of Engineering.”
“Shit! Congratulations, Danièle!”
She beamed. “I told you I was not going to be a florist forever.”
I shook my head. “So you’re living, where, in Cambridge?”
“Yes, I have been there for about a month now. I wanted to come sooner to New York to visit you, but there was so much I had to do.”
“Yeah, no problem, whatever, I—I just can’t believe you’re so close now. It’s like, what, a three-hour drive?”
“The bus took me four hours.”
“How did you know where I lived?”
“I called your work. Someone named Scott Swiercz-something gave me your address.”
“He’s my boss. Bastard never told me anything.”
“I told him not to. I told him it was a surprise.”
“Well…fuck, Danièle! I’m blown away. Do you want a drink? We should celebrate.”
“How about dinner? I worked up an appetite sitting outside your door.”
“Did Jimmy just let you up?”
“The doorman? Yes—I told him not to say anything either.”
“Great security, huh? Let me get my jacket. There’s a good—”
“I thought we could eat in,” she said. “You promised to make me a French dinner. Remember—you, me, and your hot twenty-year-old neighbor.”
“Madame Gabin, right.” I shrugged. “Okay, French home cooking it is. Um—do you know any recipes?”
We inventoried my refrigerator and cupboards, Danièle decided I had the ingredients to attempt a beef bourguignon, and we spent the next two hours preparing and cooking it, polishing off two bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon in the process.
I didn’t have a dining table—I usually ate at my computer—so we spread out a picnic on the thick-pile rug in the middle of the living room. It was the most fun I’d had since…since I could remember.
At some point we ended up leaning against the sofa, folk music playing from the stereo system, Danièle’s head resting on my shoulder. Outside the windows dusk turned to night, and the room filled with shadows. When those shadows threatened to blend into a unified blackness, the nightlights switched themselves on.
“You have nightlights?” Danièle said, her voice startling me. I had been half asleep and had thought she’d been too.
“Yeah…a few…” I said.
“Me too.”
“Really?”
“I’m afraid of the dark.”
“Get a place with big windows.”
A chuckle. “Will?”
“Yeah?”
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
“Did you really?”
“Yeah.”
“You do not have to fake it—”
“I’m not faking anything.”
“Will you visit me in Cambridge?”
“Of course.”
“Good…” She snuggled closer.
Just as I was drifting off once more, she said, “Will?”
“Yeah?”
“Hold me.”
I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and held her.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you for taking the time to read The World’s Scariest Places: Volume One. If you enjoyed either Suicide Forest or The Catacombs, it would be wonderful if you could leave a review on Amazon. Reviews might not matter much to the big-name authors, but they can really help the small guys to grow their readership.
Also, check out www.jeremybatesbooks.com for info on the next book in the series, Helltown, which will be released in June, 2015.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeremy Bates is the author of the number #1 Amazon bestseller White Lies, which was shortlisted for the 2012 Foreword Book of the Year Award. He is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario with a degree in English literature and philosophy.
For a limited time, visit www.jeremybatesbooks.com to receive a free copy of The Taste of Fear.
