“I'm going to blow my brains out,” Jordane thought, staring at the white screen of her laptop. She felt frozen, sitting in the cold, dull ambiance of the café. Around her, a few customers absentmindedly sipped their drinks. At the counter, the staff repeated their gestures like zombies. She had a document open, not getting past the title of her article: the black vertical bar blinked obstinately, urging her to continue writing. The computer switched to sleep mode, and the screen went off, reflecting the image of a young woman with an impassive gaze despite her worry. She avoided the intensity of her green eyes and placed her hand on her thigh to stop her leg from nervously shaking, her foot tapping in rhythm with the taunting cursor. She grabbed the paper cup on the table, sniffed the now cold black coffee, and set it down with disappointment.
A shadow passed in front of the café door, and the chime rang as a man entered: Jordane recognized the newcomer and closed her laptop with a hurried movement. She ran her hand through her chestnut hair as if to distract herself, and the young man's face lit up when he saw her.
“There was a time when we'd meet at the bar, with my beer already served and the next round ordered in advance!” exclaimed Raphaël.
“That was when we were students and could sleep it off in the lecture hall the next day,” she retorted to her best friend. He sat down opposite her, absentmindedly picked up the almost empty coffee cup, sniffed it suspiciously, and set it down with a look of disappointment.
“Are you okay? You seem almost worried,” he asked, removing his jacket.
“Great,” she lied, “but why don't you tell me what you found today?”
He paused, and his smile faded:
“Uh... it's not looking good.”
He pulled a crumpled notebook from the inner pocket of his jacket. Jordane grabbed it and flipped through the first pages, where a list of names was inscribed: all crossed out. Raphaël noticed her discreetly touching her necklace, and he added:
“I found nothing in the hospital or town hall files, but that doesn't mean she doesn't exist: maybe we're just not looking in the right place...”
“No worries,” she cut in with a smile, “I haven't had my last word!”
“You have a plan? I'm intrigued...”
“Turns out, while you were having a good time with the librarian, I managed to find a guide to take us near the mine. And tonight, we still have to go through the tunnel, so there's that.”
She shivered unconsciously at the mention of the tunnel.
“First of all,” Raphaël retorted with a mock offended tone, “I did not have a good time” - he marked the last words with imaginary quotes – “but risked, perhaps literally, my behind to get the information. I pulled the 'my laptop's out of battery' trick to plug my USB into the old lady's computer, and she agreed. But I'm so popular with the older ladies that even though I only needed to charm her for the brief five minutes it took for my Trojan horse to download on her machine, she kept me talking for half an hour!”
It's no wonder he's successful, Jordane thought: with his six-foot height, athletic build, ebony skin, just the right amount of scruffy clothes, and semi-long dreads on the top of his head that made you want to playfully fix them.
“All that for not much, apparently,” she teased.
“Yes,” he hissed, scratching his head. “From her PC, I accessed the building's network, then the town hall with the birth certificates, but no trace of an Inès that fits. I checked the hospital records, but I found nothing even about the accident.”
Jordane nodded knowingly: she had known Raphaël for quite some time and knew he was an excellent hacker. Even though she didn't understand much of what he tried to explain about computers, she was well aware that he took his position in a cybersecurity consulting firm very seriously and was passionate about it. By day, he advised companies on managing their firewalls or VPNs, and by night, he committed serious offenses - she was pretty sure one could go to prison for such things - to assist her in her investigations. She wasn't sure if he did it because he enjoyed the risk, liked playing amateur detective with her, or simply because he liked spending time with her; in fact, she had never asked him why he agreed to accompany her. Maybe she should ask him sometime.
“What?” Jordane asked, snapping out of her reverie.
“Are you going to be okay with your article?” he repeated.
“Yes, of course, I always land on my feet,” she reassured him. “We still have tonight and tomorrow.”
Jordane worked for a magazine titled “Tales from the Crypt.” As the name suggests, this quickly popular magazine contained articles on everything related to horror: sections like “Unsolved Mysteries” dealing with murders or disappearances that still baffled investigators, “Someone Under Your Bed” where a talented narrator told terrifying ghost stories, “Love, Murder, and Beauty” being the gossip part of the true crime world, with photos, stolen letters, or interviews with celebrities of the dark world - whether a serial killer or a self-proclaimed vampire - and Jordane's section: “Urban Legends Near You.” It involved investigations into urban legends across the country: Jordane did her work so meticulously that at the conclusion of her articles, she often managed to find the origin of the myth. The campus werewolf? She managed to photograph the large dog roaming the park. A ghost in an abandoned house? Just kids meeting up for urban exploration - Raphaël had been decisive in tracking down the pranksters via a Wi-Fi signal. But this time, she had unearthed a gem. She was preparing an article that would be a sensation.
“It should have been a sensational article,” she corrected herself, because at the moment, things didn't look promising. A few days ago, while tearing her hair out to find the subject for her next article, fortune graced her with an unexpected - or rather poisoned - gift, as she was beginning to realize. It was Mélodie who handed her the letter, impassive with her earphones plugged in, while they were the last two in the office. Raising her eyebrows and miming a “thank you,” Jordane opened the envelope and unfolded the letter on her impeccably tidy desk, except for the four coffee cups stacked inside each other. The content was brief, handwritten: a certain Inès had read her articles and asked her to help prove that a monster inhabited her town, Duli, and was preying on its residents. No one wanted to open their eyes, no one wanted to listen. Classic. A godsend for her.
Excited, she reserved Raphaël's week with a text message and started digging into this mysterious Duli. She discovered that the town they were in tonight had a charged history. A history begging to be told; but every good story had a thread, an Ariadne's thread tying all the pieces together. And she thought she had found it, with this stranger who had introduced her to this town: digging deeper, she even discovered that Inès had her own story, the kind only whispered about in the dark, under a blanket or with a mirror behind.
She had discovered the story of “Crazy Inès,” but of course, her Cinderella had failed to send an address or a number: so she took Raphaël with her, determined to track her down and talk to her, willingly or by force; but the more she searched, the more she wondered if Inès even existed. She was a ghost - maybe she was the monster of Duli? Jordane wondered if the letter was just a hoax.
If that was the case, she couldn't settle for what she had so far; her story lacked substance. That “something” that would make it a sensational article and propel her into her editor's spotlight. For now, it didn't even deserve a skull out of five on her horror-o-meter. But perhaps this Inès, who had called for help, was indeed somewhere and was scared. Maybe she was indeed the one from the nursery rhyme, and in that case, she knew she would succeed in helping her, monster or no monster in Duli.
She noticed Raphaël trying to yawn discreetly, so she decided to get a grip and move forward: “Come on, let's explore this famous tunnel.”
They got up in unison, and Raphaël began heading towards the exit. Jordane packed her laptop in her bag - a sharp pain in her stomach as she visualized the blank page that would confront her the next time she turned it on - and dashed forward without looking: she was abruptly stopped, crashing into a wall that wasn't there a few seconds ago. She heard a grunt of surprise and had to look almost to the ceiling to see a face both confused and amused.
The first thing she noticed about the man she had bumped into was that he was a good head taller than her. Then, that he had really impeccable nostrils.
“Sorry,” she mumbled to the giant.
She took a longer look at him: he must have been in his forties, but had a serene, wise face, contrasting with his sharp gaze. He wore a combination of a wool sweater with a pattern and chino pants that he seemed to have stolen directly from a mall mannequin. Designer collection. Only his tousled blond hair and old-fashioned mustache brought his look to life.
For a moment, he seemed to be looking at something between his collarbones.
“No worries, miss,” he assured her with a bard's voice, “it's my fault: I'm too busy spotting door frames and chandeliers to watch where I'm putting my feet...”
He tapped his head to illustrate his joke, flashing a smile, and she had to avert her eyes to her toes to escape his intense gaze.
“Have a good evening,” she excused herself, fleeing through the café's exit door.
She joined Raphaël, who had started crossing the road towards his old, half-wrecked Mercedes. She risked one last look over her shoulder: Mr. Giant was already ordering at the counter, indifferent, as if he had completely moved on.
Jordane hated that death trap of a car, older than her and with more kilometers on it: too many times she had seen her life flash before her eyes on a tight curve, or when Raphaël wanted to overtake a truck on an uphill. Once, the car lost a hubcap on a mountain curve, and she was convinced they had lost a wheel. At that moment, she wondered what it felt like to go through a windshield, or to feel the burning engine crash into her legs, cutting her in two. Later, she wondered if she would haunt the curve as a hitchhiker, and if she would make a good ghost. Since that day, she had decreed that she would be the only one to drive that hearse if they were to live past thirty.
She ran to catch up with Raphaël and snatched the keys from his hands: “Not even in your dreams, young man!”
She started the car - it obeyed without even stalling, victory! A plume of black smoke rose from the rusty exhaust, and as the sun was already setting on the horizon, they delved into the winding streets of the town of Duli.
***
She had been driving for only a few minutes when she already left the “living” part of the town behind: she could see the first empty houses with windows barred by large planks, overgrown gardens, and trees dead for years. An apartment building had its entrance blocked by a large plywood board, spray-painted with a skull using construction marking paint. Old cars were parked on the side of the road, some with deflated tires or broken windows.
Indeed, Duli was perplexing: with the construction of the coal mine about twelve kilometers away, forty years ago, the town had sprung up as if by magic. With the number of jobs the mine created, the influx of workers eager for employment increased Duli's population from one hundred and sixty to over five thousand in just ten years. Greedy for speculation and salivating at the promise of profit, entrepreneurs had bet big on this opportunity, developing new neighborhoods and building endless housing. The town, which once had only a gas station and a betting shop, now had a small hospital, several supermarkets, an orphanage, a sports field, and the construction of a shopping center was underway.
However, while the town spread on the surface, its rotten and poisoned roots were going to kill it in a single day: the first accident occurred on March 21st, thirty years ago. An accidental methane explosion caused a large part of the gallery to collapse. Nearly fifty miners were trapped in the dark, dusty bowels of the beast, both entrances blocked by rubble. Thirty days of fruitless clearing and two floods later, the mayor was going to make the painful decision to abandon the search: the general consensus being that the miners had died from lack of oxygen, crushed or drowned. But the most traumatic event of that day would befall the population that very evening. The explosion had occurred next to the storage of hazardous product filters from the mining: the shock wave destroyed the structure, and the products poured into the groundwater. Slowly but surely, a terrible malady insidiously infiltrated the town's drinking water supply, like a curse, a soft whisper of death: arsenic.
That evening, Audrey Varcia, with fifteen years of service as an emergency telephone operator at the fire station, locked herself in the locker room crying after the nineteenth call from terrified parents screaming that their children were dying before their eyes, struck with horrendous convulsions.
In the end, in addition to the miners, thirty infants, fifty children, and seventy elderly people perished from acute arsenic poisoning. Four hundred people were hospitalized in serious condition. Five years later, tragedy struck again: a riot broke out in the prison just outside the town, leaving all the inmates and staff dead. Only one inmate had survived, but apparently, he had committed suicide years ago. From then on, many people moved away to escape the specter of tragedy, and the town transformed into an empty shell.
Lost in her thoughts, she followed a long curve that gradually plunged into the forest, definitively banishing them from what remained of civilization.
As soon as the car came out of the curve, Jordane shivered when she looked ahead and saw what she had come for, what she had been working on for days...
The tunnel.
Interlude: Judge a book by its cover
Richard was meticulously working on his craft in the garage of his house, enjoying the tranquility of the place: his wife had left for work an hour earlier, taking their two kids with her, their school being on the way to the hair salon where she worked. As he had the day off, he had decided to use his time wisely by addressing the rodent problem that had started to alarm him: the garage was his sanctuary, a retreat that allowed him to recharge away from the everyday problems by quietly working on his various projects. Unfortunately, sacrilegiously, he had spotted small dry droppings under his workbench for several days, and yesterday he even saw a mouse dart across his personal space, taunting him with its zigzagging gait and shrill squeaks. Since this was his domain and no one else's - his wife Christine didn't even enter it, preferring to park her car in their driveway - he had gone to the hardware store that morning and bought a glue trap to get rid of the pests. Applied and meticulous, he finished securing his sticky mat with lead weights, lost in thought, a sweet strawberry scent emanating from the rodent bait.
He spent a lot of time lost in his secret thoughts, daydreaming night and day, Christine knowing very well after fourteen years of marriage that when he had his thoughtful look, it wasn't even worth trying to talk to him. After fourteen years of marriage, they seemed to know each other perfectly, falling into the routine that the birth of their two children had brought, not having slept together for over a year. Occasionally, Christine had tried to encourage him, sliding a hand into his pants when they were alone in the bedroom, joining him in the bathroom while he showered, but Richard, or rather his lower half, struggled to respond. She had even bought a provocative outfit that she tried to get him to take off, but her vain attempt made her realize something: at forty-two and after two childbirths, he simply no longer desired her. After this blow, she cried for several weeks, alone in the toilet or in her car like a fool, then slowly came to terms with it, and lived to maintain her family life and raise her children.
Richard finished setting up the glue trap under his workbench and observed his work: the next rodent that dared disturb his pilgrimage would pay with its life. He then left his garage, ensuring all his tools were cleaned and perfectly arranged in their proper place, and closed the heavy iron door with the large padlock for which he alone had the key. He was about to return to the house, whistling cheerfully and still lost in his dreams, when his phone rang: not his personal phone, but the work one. He picked up his button phone from his belt and answered:
“Dagard Constructions, listening.”
“Hi Richard,” said a voice on the other end, “we have a problem with 12 Tilleuls Street: the electrician had to reshuffle his schedule because of a problem with a big client, and instead of coming next week to lay the cables, he's going to have to come in two days, that's his only window. We won't have finished the heavy work in two days, there's still the slab to break.”
“No problem,” he replied, “I'll postpone the site at 32 for a week, give you Anthony for two days, and I'll be there with the jackhammer in an hour. If you don't mind working overtime tonight, I'll pay you 150 percent of the hour rate, plus 50 percent under the table.”
“Works for me, boss, see you later,” replied the voice before hanging up.
Richard headed towards the driveway and joined his pickup truck, which had the jackhammer from 32 on its bed, waiting patiently to be used. He got into the vehicle and turned the ignition to set off through the empty and quiet streets of his residential neighborhood.
During the fifty-five minutes it took him to get to the emergency site, he spent ten on the phone reorganizing his staff, equipment, and suppliers to land on his feet - he turned out to be very good at that - and allowed himself to let his mind wander for the rest: being so thoughtful happened to him from time to time, and it was a sign that he needed to start a new project in his garage to occupy his hands and mind.
When he arrived at the site of the house, he was greeted by two panicked employees and an upset client who was afraid that the work would be rushed to accommodate the electrician on time. When he got out of the car, he dictated his orders and detailed the planning for the next two days to his employees, who were reassured to have such a methodical and organized boss. Then, he headed towards the client: he explained the situation with such simplicity and fluidity that the client's features visibly relaxed.
He promised a quality intervention with the tools and reinforcements and resources he brought, discussed his plans for the interior of the house, and even cracked a joke that made the client burst out laughing. An hour of discussion and two coffees later, Richard left with a friendly handshake and a complicit pat on the back. He got into his pickup with the now empty bed, waved to his employees who would be toiling for the next two days, and disappeared down the quiet road.
On the way back, he did some shopping to prepare the family dinner for the evening - spaghetti bolognese - bought various tools he needed for projects, a memory card for his digital camera, and finally returned home around noon. He stored the groceries in the fridge, took his new tools, and headed to his garage, deftly unlocking the padlock with his free hand. Upon entering, he felt a draft of cool air and noticed the small window he had inadvertently left open.
“How could I forget to close this window?” he reprimanded himself aloud.
Going to close it, he realized that some paintbrushes, which should normally be perfectly sorted and aligned in a bucket just under the window, had fallen onto the table or even onto the floor. Around them, he saw little muddy footprints. At that moment, he heard a noise behind him: he turned abruptly, but the empty room didn't seem to hide a burglar. The noise resumed, however, a kind of agonizing wail, and Richard realized that the sound was coming from under his workbench. He approached slowly and crouched down to observe the scene: his trap had worked, but not on the intended target. Mewing in terror, a cat had gotten both paws stuck in the glue and was trying to free itself in vain, unable to move the lead-weighted platform. The poor feline was black in color and wore an emerald green collar: Richard recognized the pet cat of one of his neighbors, Myrtille, who often explored the neighborhood, her daughter even leaving some ham leftovers in the garden to attract and cuddle it. But this time, the cat had spotted the garage window left open - a first, Richard had to admit - and had been lured by something, and the man thought he knew what it was: on the other side of the trap, in a corner, was a small pink object. Approaching, Richard realized it was a mouse's paw. The victim had been attracted into the trap by the sweet aromas and got its paw stuck. Shortly after, the cat must have heard little squeaks from outside and decided it was snack time. The foolish creature then approached the mouse and got itself mired, caught in the trap of a larger predator. Richard imagined the mouse panicking so much, stuck a few centimeters from its greatest hunter, that it gnawed off its paw to escape.
Grim.
The cat continued its desperate mewing, flailing about: it wouldn't be able to escape before Richard poured turpentine solution on its paws to dissolve the glue.
“Hold still, kitty,” he said tenderly, trying to stroke its back. “Otherwise, you're going to hurt.”
He tried to pet it more to calm it down, then gradually directed his hand towards its head. He wrapped it around the cat's neck, completely covering it, and squeezed firmly. The cat panicked, tried to struggle, but the man squeezed tighter and tighter, his eyes empty. It spat, hissed, twisted trying to catch some air, but its movements became slower, weaker, turning into spasms until they stopped completely. Richard released his grip, and the dead cat collapsed on the ground. The man stood up, out of breath, and adjusted his pants to remove a discomfort in the fabric: he had an erection.
