Read Online The Catacombs (A Psychological Suspense Horror Thriller Novel) by Jeremy Bates - Free Book Online Page B

wasn’t the first time
this had happened. Once Danny got talking, she spilled the beans.
He’d been beating her for almost as long as he’d known her. He
usually hit her on the body, so she could cover up the evidence,
and when he struck her face, he did it in such a way he rarely left
a mark. Danny tried to tell Dev that Marcel only hit her when he
was drinking. Her denial was mind-numbing. The guy smacked her up
on a regular basis, and she was trying to protect him?
    Rob got home from work late that day. The
girls were sleeping in their bunk bed, and Danny was sleeping in
the guest bedroom, surrounded by all her stuff she and Dev had
collected from Marcel’s flat, where Danny had been living for the
last year. Dev told him what happened and wanted to call the cops.
That probably would have been the best thing to do, but in the
moment he was seeing red and wouldn’t listen to reason.
    Rob drove to Marcel’s apartment building in
the 12 th arrondissement and waited across the street in
his car for two hours until the fucker returned sometime past
midnight. Then he pushed his way into the lobby behind Marcel
before the door locked and beat the Frenchman with a steel pipe to
a whimpering, bloody pulp. He wasn’t proud of this, but he didn’t
regret it either.
    Danny stayed at the flat for a month until
she found the studio she was in now. To Rob’s knowledge, she hadn’t
seen anyone else since Marcel. Will was the first. And,
fortunately, Will was proving to be an all right sort. Rob just
hoped he treated Danny well.
    For her sake.
    And his own.
     

Chapter 13
    While Rob and I had been talking, clear,
still puddles had begun to appear on the ground here and there.
Pascal, Danièle, and Rob stomped through any in their way, while I
sidestepped or hopped over them the best I could. Gradually, after
numerous twists and turns, the entire passageway became a mushy
gray paste that sucked at the soles of my shoes.
    Pascal and Danièle stopped again. I came to
halt behind them and peered over their shoulders. The tunnel was
flooded with glassy smooth water that stretched away far beyond the
reach of our probing lights.
    Pascal said something and shrugged. Danièle
translated for me: “He says sometimes the water is here and
sometimes it is not. It depends on the weather conditions
aboveground. He thought it would be dry today. He is sorry.”
    I looked at him. He didn’t appear sorry at
all. He appeared indifferent and smug.
    “When was the last time you were here?” I
asked him.
    He barely looked at me. “Last week.”
    “And it was dry then?”
    “No, it was like it is now.”
    “And you thought it would be dry today?”
    He shrugged. “It is difficult to know for
certain.”
    “We will backtrack,” Danièle stated. “There
are many ways to go—”
    “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s just water.”
I dropped to my butt and took off my shoes, one after the other,
then my socks.
    Danièle frowned. “That is not a good idea,
Will. What if there is glass in there? We do not know.”
    “We’re not backtracking.”
    I stuffed my shoes and socks into my
backpack, rolled the cuffs of my pants up as far as they would go,
Huck Finn style, and stood.
    Pascal smirked at my bare legs and feet.
Then he and Rob strolled breezily into the water, splashing and
chatting. Danièle and I went next.
    The water was ankle-deep and not as cold as
I would have thought, maybe fifty degrees. This surprised me. I
thought it would be colder, given it had never been touched by
sunlight. Unlike the puddles we had passed earlier, it was an
opaque gray. I couldn’t see the bottom.
    At first I felt tentatively with my lead
foot before exerting my full weight. But after a number of steps
and no encounters with razor-sharp glass or daggered rocks, I
gained confidence and proceeded more naturally.
    “It is okay?” Danièle asked.
    “No problem.”
    “Make sure you do not trip.”
    “I won’t.”
    “Motherfucker!” Rob shouted