The Catacombs (A Psychological Suspense Horror Thriller Novel) Read online

  Pascal reversed the direction of the torches, now cycling the lead one over as opposed to under the others. He carried on juggling for another full minute, accelerating his speed, performing different tricks, at one point balancing one torch on his chin while flourishing the other two with his fingers.

  For his finale he tossed the three torches so high they almost touched the twelve-foot ceiling, pirouetted one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, caught them in descending order, and bowed—all in one fluid motion.

  “Trѐs bien!” Danièle cheered. “C’est épatant!” She cupped my knee with her hand. “Unbelievable, Will, right?”

  “Maybe he should join the cir—”

  A distant shout cut me off.

  Chapter 15

  We listened. The only sound was the flickering of Pascal’s torches.

  “Put those out,” I told him quietly.

  He did so. I thought I could hear some sort of chanting.

  “Who the fuck’s that?” Rob said.

  “It must be other cataphiles,” Danièle said. “They are goofing around.”

  “They’re coming closer.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. The chant was getting louder.

  “Guys, it is no big deal,” Danièle said. “We always see other cataphiles. There is no need to worry—” She frowned.

  “What?” I said.

  “It sounds like German.”

  She was right, I realized. “Are they sieg heiling?”

  Danièle and Pascal began conversing with what seemed liked great seriousness.

  “Nazis?” Rob said. “Really? You’re shitting me.”

  “Whoever they are, they’re going to be here soon.” I interrupted Danièle. “Is this going to be a problem?”

  “It depends on who they are,” she said with a shrug, but her expression revealed a quiet trepidation. “Pascal thinks it might be Le Diable Peint.”

  “Who?”

  “The Painted Devil,” she said. “There are many stories about him… I thought they were only stories.”

  “You’ve never met him before?”

  “No, never. Not once. You are very bad luck, Will.”

  Pascal was shoving the torches into his backpack.

  “Yes, hurry,” Danièle said. “We should leave.”

  “And go where?” I said. “They’re going to be here any second.”

  Pascal stuffed his folded map down the front of his pants. He passed Danièle his lighter. She tucked it down south too. There was no time to ask them what the hell they were doing, for a moment later three men marched into the room, chanting and saluting in rhythm.

  Chapter 16

  DANIÈLE

  The men halted at parade rest: chins up, chests out, legs apart, arms behind their backs. They were in their mid-forties and dressed identically in high leather boots, military-style peaked caps, trousers, and tunics. Everything was black except the red arm bands emblazoned with the swastika and the white runic insignias patched onto their collars. They each carried 6D flashlights.

  Pascal was right! Danièle thought. It’s them—the Painted Devil and his henchmen. It has to be. Who else dresses up in SS uniforms?

  Fear shot down her spine like a bullet as she wondered what they had planned, and they surely had something planned, because this meeting was no coincidence. They had not been surprised to see her and Will and the others when they entered the room, which meant they had heard them and had come specifically for them.

  Pascal, she was sure, would not say or do anything stupid. He knew how dangerous these men were. Not Rob and Will though. Rob was a brawler by nature. Back when he and Dev were still courting, he used to get into bar fights on a regular basis. He was like a ferret, fearless. He would antagonize men twice his size for no other reason than to pick a fight. But becoming a husband and father seemed to have put some sense into him. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d lost his temper. She prayed he could keep it in check now too.

  And Will?

  Danièle didn’t know. He had always been so laid-back, soft-spoken. That’s why she was so surprised when he got into that full-out fistfight with that over-muscled rhinoceros on the train tracks. He had been swearing and swinging and so intense—yes, that was the word, intense—that he had scared her a little.

  She glanced at him now, trying to catch his eye, but he was focused fully on the Painted Devil.

  And he was smiling.

  As I studied the three men in the Nazi uniforms before us I couldn’t help but think of my Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity initiation at NYU. All the pledges, which had included myself, had been blindfolded and taken to a hotel ballroom. When the blindfolds came off, we found ourselves surrounded by candles, robed, chanting frat members, and various alumni. I kept things together well enough until I had to kneel in front of the frat president while he read the secret oath from a large embossed book. That’s when I broke out in giggles; I couldn’t help it. The guy was a good friend of mine. I hung out with him all the time under more ordinary circumstances. Seeing him in his getup, reciting Latin, which I knew he didn’t understand, was a gag.

  It was one of those times when something that was supposed to be serious came across as ridiculous.

  Like now.

  I mean, these three geezers from equally mediocre gene pools went around the catacombs trying to scare harmless cataphiles?

  Fuck them.

  The one in the middle had birdish features and resembled the actor Ed Harris. His blue eyes locked on me and narrowed. He barked something that had the inflection of an order.

  “I don’t speak German,” I told him.

  “Ah!” He raised his plucked eyebrows in surprise. “American, am I right?”

  He might be outfitted as a Nazi, but his French accent was clear as day.

  “You guys like playing dress up?”

  “Will,” Danièle cautioned me.

  I looked at her, wondering what she was worried about. There were four of us. Douchebags like these three were all bark and no bite. I doubted they would start anything unless the odds were squarely in their favor, which they were not.

  “I asked you a question,” Ed Harris said to me.

  “Yeah, I’m American. He’s Canadian. These two are French.”

  “I love America,” the man said, flashing a bright white smile. “Especially your movies. Batman, what a guy.”

  His buddies had yet to do anything more than stare myopically ahead. One had a wormy red scar that followed his left smile line. The other had a drooping mouth corner.

  Danièle said, “Nous partons—”

  “Shut your mouth, whore,” Ed Harris snapped. “I wasn’t speaking to you.”

  I blinked, shocked into silence.

  “Yo, whale shit,” Rob snarled. “That’s my sister-in-law. Watch your mouth.”

  “Are you threatening me?” Harris said calmly.

  “You better believe it.”

  “You do not know who I am, do you?”

  “You’re a joke,” I said.

  Danièle touched my arm. “Will, stop.”

  “Yes, you know who I am, don’t you, chérie?” Harris said to her.

  She nodded. “Le Diable Peint.”

  “Merci, mon amour.” He glared at Rob, then me. “Maybe if you and you knew what your friend knows, you would show more respect. For I should warn you, messieurs, that I am not partial to the aegis of ignorance.”

  I turned my back to the guy. Danièle and Pascal appeared pale, even in the weak candlelight. Rob had his manic grin on again, which I was glad to see.

  I said, “We’re wasting our time here—”

  Abruptly Danièle and Pascal’s eyes sprang open in alarm. Rob’s grin vanished.

  Frowning, I turned back to the Painted Devil, and discovered he now held a matte-black pistol in his hand, pointed at me.

  Chapter 17

  PASCAL

  Pascal could hear his heartbeat in his head, the way you could when nursing a really bad hangover,
and he felt strangely light, as if he were floating. He would have run already, his legs wanted to, but the Painted Devil and the other two stood between him and the exit. His eyes darted around the room. There was nowhere else to flee to. They were trapped.

  At least the pistol wasn’t aimed at him. He had never seen one up close before, and it filled him with a sickening dread. One wrong move on his part, a jumpy finger on the Painted Devil’s part, that’s all it would take, and he would be lying on the ground, bleeding into the sand.

  Pascal realized he was frozen with fear, and he had to work his throat to swallow. He licked his suddenly dry lips.

  Maybe Will would attack the Painted Devil, he thought hopefully. He was the biggest one here. He should be the one to try that.

  He would probably get shot first, but it might give the rest of them a chance to get away.

  Chapter 18

  “Whoa, man,” I said, raising my hands. “What are you doing?” Although I was facing down a lunatic with a gun, I was surprised to find myself not so much afraid as calmly alert.

  “Getting your attention,” Ed Harris said.

  “You have our attention. No need for guns.”

  “Who am I?” he demanded with bright malice. His blue eyes were chips of ice. His jaw was clenched tight, causing his right cheek to twitch. In fact, he was one tightly wound coil, everything about him screaming, “Deranged.”

  How had I not noticed this before? I wondered. But the answer was simple. I had been distracted by the silly uniforms, and cocky because I believed we had the strength advantage.

  “The Painted Devil,” I said.

  “Then address me as such!”

  I cleared my throat. “There’s no need for guns…Painted Devil.”

  “Tell me what you are doing here.”

  “In the catacombs?” I kept my voice even. I didn’t want him to interpret anything I said as insolence or sarcasm. Who knew what would set his trigger finger off? Prowling the catacombs dressed as a Nazi and carrying a pistol—the guy should be locked away in a mental asylum. I said, “I’ve never been here before. My friends wanted to show it to me. We’re exploring.”

  “Address me properly!”

  “Painted Devil,” I said promptly, raising my hands higher. “We’re exploring, Painted Devil.”

  He took a snarly breath, wiped the hand holding the flashlight across his mouth, looked at Danièle. “Is this true, mon amour?”

  “Oui, Diablo Peint.”

  “You,” he said to Pascal. “How often do you come here?”

  “Des fois, Diablo Peint.”

  “You have heard of me too?”

  “Oui, Diablo Peint.”

  “Then you should know how I detest Ravioli like you. You are pigs. You desecrate this area. My home.” He was scowling, his blue eyes dancing madly. “How would you like it if stupid ugly pigs came into your home and shit on your floors and painted on your walls?” He leveled the pistol at Pascal’s head. “Answer me!”

  Pascal’s face melted into a plea. His mouth hung open, but he didn’t say anything. Either he couldn’t find his voice or didn’t understand what the Devil was spewing.

  I said, “We wouldn’t like it, Painted Devil.”

  He swung the pistol back at me. “Of course you wouldn’t. You would call the police. They would arrest the pigs.” He wiped his hand across his mouth again. “Do you know what the police do to the pigs they find here?”

  “They fine them,” Danièle said softly.

  “Yes, mon amour, they fine them. But these quarries are very large, they cannot find every pig, this is why I help them, why I help them help me. I fine each Ravioli I come across for their transgression.”

  “You want money, Painted Devil?” Rob said. “We got cash.”

  He scowled. “I don’t want money. I don’t need money. But I will take something else. Your batteries. All of them—right now.” He waved the pistol between us. “Do not keep me waiting!”

  “We won’t be able to see,” I said, adding belatedly, “Painted Devil.”

  He grinned that white smile. “Exactly.”

  Reluctantly—there was no other option with a pistol trained on you—we retrieved our helmets from where we had set them on the limestone bench and popped the headlamp batteries free. Wormface collected them from each of us, sticking them in his pockets.

  “Your bags,” the Devil said. “Dump out your bags.”

  Cursing under my breath—I had been hoping these would be overlooked—I unzipped my backpack’s main pocket and upended it in front of me. Wormface confiscated the brand new Energizers I had brought. He moved on to Danièle, Rob, and finally Pascal.

  The Devil continued smiling; he was obviously enjoying this. “Well? Where are they? Give me your lighters too.”

  For a moment I considered telling the asshole that we didn’t have any. But then how were the goddamn tealights burning? I glanced at the others—and remembered Pascal stuffing the map down his pants…and Danièle the lighter down hers. They must have heard of shit like this happening before.

  At least we’ll have one lighter to help us find our way out again.

  I took the yellow Bic from my pocket and tossed it to Wormface.

  “Who else?” the Devil asked.

  “Only me,” I said.

  He nodded to Wormface, who searched us one by one. He gave the Devil a shrug. All clear.

  The Devil nodded and focused on Danièle. She fidgeted, looking anywhere but at him.

  “Look at me,” he told her.

  She did so hesitantly.

  “You are very beautiful, chérie. It is a shame to cover up that beauty. Take off your clothes.”

  “You motherfucker!” Rob said, clenching his hands into fists, his shoulders and neck muscles bunching into ropy knots.

  I tensed more than I already was and calculated my chances of tackling the Devil successfully. But this thought came and went in a flash. It was too risky. He was a good ten feet away. He could put a bullet in me before I got halfway to him.

  “Please try,” the Devil hissed, brandishing the pistol between Rob and me. “Please. Someone. I am waiting.”

  “It is okay,” Danièle said hollowly, to no one in particular. She stepped out of her waders, kicking them aside, then pulled her T-shirt off, revealing a flower-patterned bra. She dropped the tee on the ground and unbuttoned her jeans, shoving them down her thighs.

  I met Rob’s eyes over her head and read in them what he was thinking: He can’t take both of us out. That probably wasn’t true, but I was keyed up on adrenaline. I couldn’t stand there and do nothing. I gritted my teeth and nodded imperceptibly.

  “What is this?” the Devil exclaimed. He was referring to the hidden lighter outlined against the thin fabric of Danièle’s panties. “Let me see—” Abruptly he cocked his head to one side, the way nutty people do when listening to nonexistent voices. But then I heard it too.

  Music.

  Chapter 19

  It was some sort of techno-pop, and it wasn’t very far away. That was the thing with sound down here. It didn’t travel. As we’d discovered with the Painted Devil and his cohorts, you didn’t know anyone was there until they were almost upon you.

  I glanced at Rob, wondering if we should charge, or wait to see what happened next.

  The Devil acted first. He fired the pistol at the ground.

  There was a loud report. I instinctively dove to one side, half expecting another shot to follow, this one accompanied by scorching pain.

  There was none—only a brilliant red light burning a few feet away. Billows of smoke wafted from it, quickly filling the cavern.

  A flare! He was holding a goddamn flare gun.

  I stumbled away from the hissing, fiery flash, my dark-adjusted eyes temporarily blinded.

  “Where’d he go?” Rob shouted from somewhere nearby.

  “Don’t know!” I replied. The heat was intense, the air acrid with a sulfur/tar stench. I covered my nose with my
arm.

  Danièle appeared beside me, carrying her clothes. “Will, this way!”

  Head down, I followed her until we passed into the next room. Rob and Pascal bowled into us from behind, almost knocking me over.

  “Where is he?” Rob demanded, spinning in a wild circle.

  “Gone,” I said. Spangles of light still danced before my eyes.

  “Fuck!”

  The music was loud and tinny now. Flashlight beams arced through the darkness twenty feet away. They zeroed in on us.

  “Qui est-ce?” Pascal called, holding his arm in front of his face, squinting.

  The voice that floated back was not one I wanted to hear.

  Dreadlocks and his two buddies approached us wearily. A cell phone dangled around Dreadlock’s bullish neck by a lanyard. He tapped the screen. The music stopped.

  Apparently the bad blood between us was forgotten, at least temporarily, as they seemed only interested in discovering what all the kafuffle was about. Pascal obliged their curiosity, talking excitedly and making elaborate gestures. I caught “Le Diable Peint” several times. The scuba guys hung onto every word, interrupting with questions or exclamations of disbelief. Then Pascal made a clapping noise and a vanishing gesture, apparently describing how the Devil had made his escape.

  Dreadlocks looked at Danièle. She had pulled her clothes back on and was now stepping into her waders. He said, “Tu va bien?”

  She nodded. “Ça va”

  He turned to me. “You know what? I think, after this, you are touriste no more.” He grinned broadly, proud of this generous proclamation. “You know what else? Because I punch your face, I feel bad, I give you gift.”

  I frowned suspiciously.