Jordane and Raphaël managed to find a presentable tavern in the city center. Upon entering, they sat at a table and ordered the chef's specialty.
“Do you think you have enough material for your article?” Raphaël asked.
“Mmmh blurf mmmh blurg,” Jordane replied, her mouth full of her hamburger.
“Sorry?”
She swallowed her steak-bacon and repeated her answer while focusing on folding her napkin, a sign to Raphaël that she wanted to hide her troubles:
“Don't worry, even if this letter is bogus, we still have some great photos, and I'll embellish a bit about the mine. It'll work out.”
They spent the next hour discussing various topics, as was their habit. As the tavern gradually emptied, they decided to move to the bar for one last drink. It was nearly closing time, so the bartender waved away Jordane's wallet and offered the last round on the house. He opened a cupboard under the counter and took out a label-less bottle with a colorless liquid, explaining it was a homemade plum liqueur he reserved for the last stragglers before closing. He poured four glasses: one for himself, two for the ghost hunters, and one for the last remaining customer, slumped at the other end of the counter alone.
They all raised their glasses in the tradition of late-night drinkers and downed the shot, groaning in pain in perfect unison. The phone in the back room rang, and the bartender excused himself to answer it.
“You're not from around here, are you?”
The last customer, a man in his fifties who seemed to have lost a long and hard battle against alcoholism, stared at them as if they were a new species of humans. He wore a three-piece suit that might have been purple or blue decades ago but was now frayed in several places. His hair was slightly slicked but hung loosely to one side of his face. As he seemed relatively sober, Raphaël took the trouble to answer him.
“How did you guess?”
“We're not used to seeing new faces, especially your age. Just passing through? Work or pleasure?” he chuckled bitterly, before adding, “No, it's not possible, no one comes to this godforsaken place for pleasure.”
“I work in journalism,” Jordane replied nonchalantly.
Indeed, her gossip radar activated: if this man was an old-timer, which he seemed to be, he might have some juicy information.
“Ah, then you must be here for the Palace of the Strange,” he replied with a feigned innocence.
“The Palace of the Strange?” Jordane immediately inquired, intrigued.
A carnivorous smile crossed the man's face, but the two youngsters were too far to have seen it.
“Yes,” he continued, “the Palace of the Strange was a kind of amusement park, built years ago, back when Duli was still a city full of opportunities...”
He kissed his fingertips and raised them to the sky in a grotesque manner, miming a “rest in peace.”
“Unfortunately, it closed the very day it opened, due to a terrible accident... Yes, it was something... We waited for a reopening authorization for years while the park slowly died and fell into oblivion, but recent rumors suggested that the mayor had decided to dismantle it... Such sad news... Such a historic monument...”
Jordane's radar now screamed at her to inquire more about this subject. How had she never heard of this? Perhaps the locals were ashamed of this secret... Yet, an accident at an amusement park's opening should have made headlines. Her instincts told her she needed to question this man. Maybe he had information that could help.
“Do you know the story of Inès?” she blurted out.
The man's eyes seemed to twinkle. He stood up and approached the duo with a heavy, slightly limping gait, like a sinister undertaker. He took the stool next to Jordane and passed his hand through his hair, moving it to the other side of his head. Jordane noticed his eyes were gray and piercing, those of a predator. A deep unease engulfed her, and something inside her suddenly growled to get away from this man. To run and never come back.
“Crazy Inès? Of course, she worked for me. A charming girl. That was what... Eight years ago... Nine years.”
Jordane's heart clenched in her chest: was this man saying that Inès had existed?
“You knew her? Are we talking about the same person? Her mother...”
“Olivia's daughter, also mad,” he interrupted. “Yes, the very same. Everyone knows the story.”
Jordane swallowed and her eyes lit up: her survival instinct began to lose its strength, slowly suffocated by her curiosity.
“Is she still living here today? Where did this legend come from?” she asked, excited.
“I couldn't tell you where she is today, whether she's still alive or not. What I do know is that I hired this young girl for a while to help with the park. It was a long time ago. Charming, as I said, and she put her heart into her work. Yes, yes, an exemplary employee... As for the rumors about her, I'm sure they were baseless. Her mother was really sick, but we now know it's not the kind of illness that's contagious. But I never questioned her about it. It's personal, you see. And she was an employee. But I can assure you it wasn't as sordid as the legend says... Just grotesque fabrications of weary villagers craving distractions. Why are you interested in her, if I may ask?”
“Well,” Jordane replied, almost hypnotized by his story, “I'm studying Inès's legend, and I was starting to believe she was entirely fictional.”
“Well, I can assure you she existed, I must have several documents with her name on them: work contract, physical assessment, letter of motivation, and so forth. As for her 'misadventure,' no one but her can enlighten you. But if there's one thing I've learned, miss, it's that reality is often stranger than fiction.”
“Incredible. And what was your profession?”
Jordane felt a glimmer of hope rise in her chest. Her fear had completely vanished, replaced by fascination. Her interlocutor casually flipped his hair to the other side and leaned in, as if to confide in her:
“I was the owner of the Palace of the Strange.”
***
“This story stinks,” Raphaël commented as they drove in silence for about ten minutes.
Jordane didn't hear him, lost in her thoughts, her gaze following the ghostly white line dividing the road in two. Their strange interlocutor had claimed to know Inès. More than that, he said he had official documents in his possession. With these documents, they might even be able to find him, and she could ask him what the letter he had sent meant... And the icing on the cake... The Palace of the Strange. An abandoned amusement park that had closed on its opening day due to a mysterious accident. It was too good to be true, sure. But even if he was mocking them, this new intrigue would feed her article and might save her career.
“Are you sure we can trust this guy?” Raphaël repeated.
This time, Jordane snapped out of her reverie. Indeed, that guy was shady. They had been struggling for days with this story, and he just showed up out of the blue, potentially the only man in town who had the answers to their questions?
“The documents are still there,” he had told them. “They are in my old office. I have a meeting with the mayor's assistant in two days to go over the accounts and safety certificates. You're welcome to study any documents you find useful.” He then scribbled an address and directions on the back of a blank lottery ticket for them to follow.
They had no reason to trust this stranger, but Jordane was consumed by curiosity. And she was also desperate to save her article.
“I don't trust him,” she finally replied. “Tomorrow morning, we'll thoroughly check out this guy and the Palace of the Strange to see if his story holds water. If it does, we'll go check it out.”
“Fine, but even if this story is true, there's no way we're accompanying a shady guy we barely know to an abandoned amusement park…”
Raphaël was right. They had taken many risks during their adventures, but this was asking to end up chopped into pieces and buried under a ghost train. Or worse, mummified and turned into a horror attraction.
“Come visit me the day after tomorrow,” he had said. “I'll tell the mayor's assistant you work for me, and you can explore at your leisure. But come early,” he added as he left, “especially don't find yourself in the Palace of the Strange at night, you might never find the way out.”
Jordane shivered at the thought of their last exchange.
“I know,” she replied. “If we have enough evidence tomorrow morning, and it feels right, then we'll go there tomorrow afternoon, by ourselves.”
“You and me, in an abandoned Palace of the Strange that's been closed for almost ten years?” Raphaël asked, smiling.
“Unless you're too scared,” Jordane teased.
Raphaël laughed: “What could possibly go wrong?”
***
They arrived at the hotel just after midnight and decided it was best to rest: a long day awaited them tomorrow. They wished each other good night and went to their respective rooms. While Raphaël collapsed into his bed without ceremony, Jordane sat at the small work desk in the corner of her room, took out her computer, and typed for several hours, meticulously crafting her impeccable prose.
If her day seemed wasted because they hadn't found the lead she hoped for, she was determined to make up for it by working harder before allowing herself to rest.
When yawns began to pry her jaw apart, she called it a day: she removed her makeup, brushed her teeth, her mind blank. Then she put on her pajamas and dove into bed. She checked her messages on her phone - nothing at all - then lay still, seemingly hesitating. “It's not right to do this,” she thought to herself, then almost gave up, about to turn off her phone. Her finger hovered over the messaging app icon.
“Damn it,” she hissed.
She guiltily opened the messaging app, but it wasn't her name in the address; it was her colleague Mélodie's. She had gotten her password from Raphaël - password2002 - and had sworn not to use it excessively, only in an emergency, but fear was eating her up: she was convinced that if her upcoming article wasn't exceptional, she would be thrown out and replaced in the blink of an eye. So, she needed reassurance, just a little, hoping she wouldn't see an email from her boss offering Mélodie her column. She saw nothing of the sort, just unimportant emails, and was about to stop when she stumbled upon an email exchange between Mélodie and Bastien, another colleague:
“Are you coming to the drink after work tonight?” Bastien had asked.
“Who's going to be there?”
“Pretty much everyone, my mom's watching the kids.”
“Even Jordane? That'll be fun lol.”
“Uh... I might have forgotten to ask her... Let's just say she wouldn't have come anyway.”
“Well then, I'm in! I don't really like her, you never know what she's thinking, and when you point out she's wrong, boy, what a nightmare! Always justifying herself!”
“Hey, don't drag me into your stories! Just come tonight, I'll pay the first round as long as it's not too crowded!”
If Jordane was hurt by this exchange, she almost showed nothing.
“What happens to the cat that's too curious?” she thought to herself, then forced herself to sleep.
Her night had just begun and was already turbulent: she was caught in a nightmare like she hadn't had in a long time.
She found herself in a bed, but it wasn't her hotel room. She had been awakened by something, but she didn't know what: silence reigned in the dark room. She looked all around: wardrobes filled with toys, children's clothes scattered on the floor, she was in her old bedroom. Her eyes fell on the open window above her headboard: was that what had woken her? She got up and timidly inspected the street. Deserted. She got out of bed and put her bare feet on the carpet. Everything seemed normal, absolutely ordinary, yet her heart raced. She was scared, but she didn't know why. It seemed she had forgotten something important, maybe the reason she had woken up so suddenly. A reflection of the moonlight caught her eye, somewhere on her desk: she approached it slowly, while behind her two white orbs shone under her bed.
She stood in front of the desk littered with doll accessories and grabbed the shining object: it was an open powder compact. Beside it lay a folded letter with “For Jordane” written on it. It was the letter Inès had written to her. She held the little makeup box in front of her face, admiring the reflection of her young self. To her left, the two white orbs that had been staring at her emerged from the shadow, revealing a large lizard. The creature crawled out from under the bed and leaped out the window, making the glass clatter in its haste. Jordane jumped and barely had time to see the window slowly return to its initial position. When her gaze returned to the small mirror, she saw a woman watching her from the back of the room. She turned around sharply, but she was alone.
“What woke me up?” she thought. “It was something important, but I can't remember...”
Was it the woman from the tunnel she had just seen in the mirror's reflection? Was it Inès? Her eyes returned to the letter: it was now open, and she could read its contents:
“Go away, leave here while you still can!”
She dropped the paper when she heard a voice echo somewhere in the house. She approached the door, stealthily at first, then began to hear whispers.
“Something important,” she thought. “Something important is going to happen, but I can't remember what.”
She placed her head against the smooth wooden door. She heard someone breathing just behind it. Then someone knocked against the door, knocking it down in one blow.
“That was it...” she thought. “That's what woke me up...”
Then the thing began pounding on the door like a madman. She crawled trying to get away, but the door almost came off its hinges under the thunderous blows. She managed to get up and ran to hide under her sheets, but instead, she caught a glimpse of someone watching the entire scene from outside the window, and she saw the sinister face burst into laughter, like a spectator from another world.
On the other side, the blows got stronger, shaking the whole room. The doorknob jumped in all directions, and when it finally opened, she woke up.
She was now in her hotel room, sitting at the small desk. Except she was still in her dream: otherwise, how to explain that her immobile body was engulfed in spider webs?
Jordane freed herself from her silken prison and saw the entrance door to her hotel room, barred with a heavy chain. Her gaze returned to her hands, and she realized she was holding a dictaphone. Her heart began to beat in her chest: her fingers clenched around the object, and she was seized by a terrible premonition. With trembling hands, she turned it on despite herself.
A static noise came from the device, then her voice was heard:
“It's now... 8:15 pm. I'm standing in front of the tunnel. The atmosphere is really impressive. It's dark, and we're alone. A deathly silence, no one for miles. The perfect place for a nighttime meeting.”
A knot formed in her stomach. Why was she listening to this?
“You can feel the energy here. No wonder legends are born here, and no one dares to step foot here after nightfall.”
No no no no no… She didn't want to listen to this…
“Monsters don't exist,” she heard herself say in the device.
She tried to turn it off, but it wouldn't respond.
“Monsters don't exist.”
She threw the dictaphone across the room, but her voice still echoed, much louder now.
“Monsters don't exist.”
She threw herself into bed and hid under the covers.
“Monsters, don’t…”
She began to curl up into a fetal position, putting her head under the pillow, whimpering miserably.
It was about to happen. If she was hearing this, she knew she was about to go mad. But for now, she only heard the static. The static that was getting louder, as if a malevolent hand emerging from the darkness was turning up the volume of the dictaphone. But for now, nothing was happening, nothing would happen, no.
“Do not approach the hole, there is a monster inside.”
And Jordane wanted to scream. She tried with all her might, but her throat refused to produce any sound. Tears flowed down her cheeks.
“I know,” she heard herself say again in the dictaphone, “there's one under my bed right now.”
This time the scream came out, and she woke up with a start, sweating and in tears.
***
Jordane spent the following hour trying to distract herself to fall back asleep. She used all her strength to slide the bed against the door, blocking it, as she used to do as a teenager to be able to sleep. But tonight, it didn't seem to be enough. She watched several videos on her phone, compulsively checked her emails and messages - nothing, nada, zilch - and wrote a few lines for her article. However, with every noise she heard, whether it was the floor creaking, footsteps in the corridor, or the mini-fridge in her room humming, a surge of adrenaline overwhelmed her: her dream still haunted her, and she was too scared to sleep.
But the worst part, what truly frightened her, was a thought lurking in a tiny corner of her head. She made every effort not to formulate it because if she did, she wouldn't be able to think of anything else. Every time she felt she was about to think about it despite herself, she buried her head in her pillow and forced herself to recall the ages at which her favorite musicians had died.
She was now drafting the chapter of her article describing her experience in the tunnel. Maybe if she wrote it while fear kept her awake alone in her hotel room, it would be better. Anyway, it was...
... And if...
“Kurt Cobain... 27 years old!” she yelled at her mind to silence it.
... the first time she was writing in an unfamiliar place: usually, she wrote on her couch, laptop in hand, with a steaming cup of coffee within reach. But occasionally, when she had the courage to go out, she took a table at the Collectivo Café and spent several hours writing, editing, erasing...
... I must replay...
“Amy Winehouse... 27 years old.”
... since every word counted. Sometimes, Raphaël joined her - they lived in the same neighborhood - and worked across from her, writing strange symbols and convoluted formulas. She once thought that he too was writing little stories where every word counted. Him to crack the safe of a company's server, her to crack that of her readers. They had found a game to celebrate their reunions at the café: the first to arrive gave a bogus name to the waiter for their drink, and the other, upon entering and seeing their comrade at a table, had to find the name of the character that completed their duo. For example, if Raphaël was at a table with a cup labeled “Mario,” Jordane joined him with her cup labeled “Luigi” - the waiters didn't even bother rolling their eyes when they gave them their names anymore.
Batman? Robin.
Calvin? Hobbes.
Turner? Hooch - Jordane had laughed seeing Raphaël arrive with “Hooch” on his cup.
However, she rarely spent time at the magazine's office: firstly, the premises were small and noisy - there was always someone on the phone in a single open space, it was impossible to concentrate - and she didn't click with her colleagues; she had attended one or two parties, but she spent her time listening in silence, unable to join in the conversations.
Only one of the girls was kind of nice, showing interest in...
... I must...
“Jimi Hendrix... Uh... Damn...”
... I must listen to the recording.
She glanced at her jacket on the chair: the strap of her dictaphone dangled in the air. She hesitated, but she knew she would never be able to sleep if she didn't check: so, she cautiously picked up the device and held it in her hands, thoughtful.
“Anyway, I just scared myself,” she tried to convince herself, “my imagination played a trick on me, and nothing happened.”
So why couldn't she press the button?
The queen of horror scared? No, she wouldn't chicken out! She pressed the button and listened.
“It's now... 8:15 pm. I'm standing in front of the tunnel...”
As the recording played slowly, a sense of unease began to envelop Jordane. What had been just a dream now seemed to take on more and more life. Her pulse began to race, and as she had done several times when she was little, she hid under her blanket. She made sure to wrap her feet well, ensuring they didn't stick out of the bed, so nothing could grab them. Her head in the darkness, suffocating in her own hot and ragged breath, she continued to listen attentively.
“Monsters don't exist.”
She heard it once, then twice, then three times.
“27 years old,” she thought to herself. “Jimi Hendrix, died at 27 years old. What's with them dying at that age? At 26 years old, I better not get into rock...”
Then, she heard: “Monsters don’t...”
Here we go. Now, another voice would be heard. That of a ghost.
But all she heard was static: there was nothing.
“Jo, girl, you're really just an idiot...”
And after scaring herself, she slept like a baby.
Interlude: The hungry dreams of the bread market
Richard sat alone in his pickup truck, looking at his reflection in the rearview mirror on a crisp winter day. In twenty minutes, he would enter the town hall to receive his trophy: he had been elected Citizen of the Year for his meteoric rise in society, services rendered to the community, and the example he set for all the young men of the town. It was the highest honor and greatest distinction one could achieve in the area. He had worked tirelessly all year to earn his title, prepared a simple, humble, but brilliant speech. He wore his finest suit, and his family awaited him at the table of honor in the reception hall. All eyes would be on him. But when Richard saw his own image in the small rectangular mirror that warned him, “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear,” he saw only a shadow wearing a mask: as long as he could remember, he had always been an empty being.
He had never felt any emotion, nor could he connect with another human being. As a child, he didn't know when to laugh and often found himself the only one with an impassive face in front of a good joke. In the playground, he didn't know what to do when a child cried in front of him. He didn't understand why people cried, what it meant, or what it was like to be sad. Most of the time, he just walked away; one day, Eunice, a girl in his class, scraped her knee playing on the swing. While a student ran to get the teacher, Richard approached the crying girl, more upset about tearing her tights than the injury itself, and had an epiphany: people cry when they experience something unpleasant. He couldn't empathize with her, felt nothing for her; he had never experienced anything unpleasant, but he had read the word in a dictionary and grasped its meaning.
He also knew that people liked to laugh and that a smile expressed joy; he had never laughed in his life, nor had he ever felt joy. But he knew that, for some reason he couldn't fathom, laughter was contagious. So, believing he was doing the right thing, he started to laugh out loud to bring joy to the little girl. He tried to laugh with all his might, but instead of seeing faces lit up with happiness, he only saw horrified expressions. Eunice cried even more, and Richard was punished for the week.
After that experience, he became more discreet: he learned to mimic others. He learned to survey a room, recognize facial tics and grimaces. He listened, watched. Then he gradually dared to respond, to speak. The more he practiced, the more his responses hit the mark: by the time he was eleven, he even made his first friend.
The child in question was named Véro, and Richard didn't particularly like him. He didn't dislike him either, but he simply thought nothing of him: Véro's father owned his own masonry business and lived in the nicest house in the neighborhood. Richard gravitated towards Véro because he realized that his attitude and confidence made social interactions much easier. He spent time with him, listened, and watched him speak, practicing mimicking his replies in front of the mirror at night while brushing his teeth.
Richard was invited to his parents' house several times and was impressed by its size and the number of beautiful objects he had never seen before. Véro's father was rarely home, but when he was, he made his presence felt, and everyone obeyed him, even other adults: Richard's father, a jobless drunk, lowered his head when talking to other adults.
But it was through him that he discovered an incredibly effective tool for survival in the outside world: lying.
“What does your dad do for a living?” Véro had asked him one day.
Richard was about to answer, but an alarm rang in his head: he had realized that his own father was what the kids in his class called a “loser.” He clearly wasn't part of the same world as Véro's father, who had thirty-five employees, a holiday home in a ski resort, and two vintage cars - their car could have been a vintage too, if it wasn't so rusty, had rims, and the exhaust pipe didn't fall off the grille every other day. He had the terrible premonition that if he answered honestly, Véro would realize they didn't belong to the same world, and he would be excluded forever.
“My father is dead,” Richard replied. “He died in a fire saving two children from the flames.”
Véro said he was sorry, put a friendly and comforting hand on his shoulder, and Richard pinched his thigh as hard as he could to bring a tear to his eye: it was almost too easy.
However, his friendship with Véro would soon end: Richard continued to spend time with him, studying and imitating him. He also took advantage of him by going skiing in their second home or playing the latest game consoles: if he had to describe his best friend with an adjective, it would be “practical.” But one day, after Véro turned twelve, he talked to him about a new concept: he confessed he was in love with Rebecca, a girl in their class. Richard had done his research, learned what “love” was, and concluded two things: he didn't need it at all, but it was a vital subject for other boys. So he did what he did best: he observed and imitated Véro. His friend tested his charms on other girls to gain confidence; Richard tested his charms on other girls. Véro courted Rebecca at recess; Richard courted Rebecca. He learned so quickly - much faster than Véro - that it was he who ended up dating her. His best friend, upon learning this, punched him in the face in front of the whole class. He was expelled from school, and Richard never saw him again: but it didn't matter, as he had learned everything there was to learn from him.
After that, he continued his daily life, becoming more and more sociable and slowly building a false image of himself based on his lies and pretenses. He broke up with Rebecca after two weeks because he found her annoying and boring, but he realized that even though he didn't understand and share her emotions, he liked to play with them. He enjoyed making up lies, and he felt a small warmth in his stomach when he saw her cry because of him - he deliberately flirted with her best friend in front of her or passed sweet notes in class, making sure she found them and read the message before passing it to her neighbor. But no matter the rare opportunities he had to do what he loved - lie and manipulate - reality caught up with him every night as soon as he lay in his bed with the lights off: he was empty.
Richard had crafted a stage persona, a highly popular actor in his class, but beneath the mask, beneath the makeup, there was nothing. An infinite void tormented his stomach: it was as if his insides were a desolate cemetery filled with old, erased headstones in front of open and deserted graves, and acid slowly and painfully eroding him. He didn't know what love was, nor friendship, but he knew suffering: powerless against his torment, he found it unjust that he alone had to endure this ordeal. At night in his bed, after spending hours listening to his entrails liquefy, his own grave digging deeper due to his suffering and loneliness, he would fall asleep concluding his thoughts always in the same way: “I want everyone to suffer as I have suffered.”
Richard's watch beeped: it was time to make his appearance in the town hall - one o'clock - and be applauded by a hundred people. He noted he had been lost in his world for over twenty minutes: for a few weeks now, he had been spending a lot of time in his thoughts, and if he wanted it to stop, he was going to have to embark on a new project.
He got out of his car, donned his best and most fake smile, and strode towards the metal double doors covered with “Annual Gala” posters featuring his name at the bottom. As he entered, he crossed paths with the mayor's assistant stationed at a table, evidently tasked with greeting the guests. When she caught Richard's eyes, her expression brightened:
“Richard!” she exclaimed excitedly. “The man of the evening in the flesh!”
She stood up, circled the table with small steps in her high heels, and kissed him on the cheeks in a way that would surely make his wife blush.
“How is the most successful entrepreneur of the moment and the biggest donor to the cause of sick children doing?”
“Much better now that I see you in such a lovely dress,” he replied with a wink that made her giggle.
“Next time you refuse one of my construction permits, I'll rip off your bra and strangle you with it, you stupid bitch,” he thought, smiling.
He advanced further into the packed ballroom of town dignitaries. He was greeted with general acclaim, and some people rose from their chairs, their plates still filled with salad or lobster, and glasses full of champagne. By the time he reached his family's table in front of the stage, he had spotted every face and could put a name and profession to each.
He planted a theatrical kiss on his wife's cheek – “she looks particularly tired and wrinkled tonight,” he thought - then climbed the steps to shake hands with the mayor.
“If I had to describe him with an adjective, it would be 'useful,'“ he thought.
The mayor began his speech with the help of the microphone, focusing on the small paper written the night before by his assistant:
“Tonight, we are all gathered partly to enjoy an excellent local champagne to our community...”
Someone mimicked a rooster's crow in the hall, followed by a few laughs.
“... But also, as every year, to recognize the work and influence of one of our fellow citizens, contributing to the growth and upholding the values of our dear town. The man I am about to introduce to you tonight has risen among the best from nothing: Richard, whom we have all had to deal with at one time or another, grew up in a very modest family, graduated from our dear high school with honors - this time, someone shouted, “Go Cougars!” and the whole room erupted in a war cry - and started his own construction company at twenty-three. Since then, he has led a dozen people and built half the city, including the house of your servant! In addition to his professional success, his inspiring gift of perseverance reminds us all that we are more than our parents. Richard actively participates in the city committee, in charity work, and in the cultural development of our town. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a round of applause for Richard Dagard!”
The crowd complied with thunderous applause, women congratulating and kissing Christine. Richard stepped forward, first warmly thanking the mayor and then the audience. He pulled out a paper from his pocket and placed it on the lectern: he had prepared a speech that was meant to be personal and intimate but was actually a fabric of lies and hypocrisy. If he had to tell the truth tonight, if he had to bare his soul, he would take the microphone and say:
“Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I absolutely do not want to thank my wife for her support. To tell the truth, I don't love her and never have. I don't hate her, I just have no interest in her. I married her to blend in, so you all would look at me with a confident and reassured air. Of course, I take pleasure in manipulating and torturing her. It's a little game I like to play: how many years can I live, share everything with a person without ever being unmasked? How long can I lead my secret life right under her eyes? I have control over this human being, and it reassures me.
To be honest, she never supported me: the more I am surrounded, the lonelier and more distant I feel. The demon consuming and devouring my flesh demands a connection, the encounter with the being who will merge with me, but in truth, I love no one. I despise you all, you who are so weak and insignificant. I am so much smarter than you all. You deserve to be my slaves, to suffer in my place. Especially women, I hate women.
You want a speech? You want me to talk about myself? I don't exist. I am invisible. I am nothing. I only have my thoughts. I take refuge in my thoughts all day. I created my own kingdom, and there, I am the king: I do not suffer.
I created my first kingdom when I was seven years old. Even then, I hated women without knowing it. I had a house, a barn, and a well. At first, I imagined trapping a being in this well: it was more an undefined and almost ghostly white shape, sitting at the bottom of the darkness. At first, I just watched it. Then, around eight years old, I spent more and more time there: my life was increasingly dull, and I suffered more and more. So I returned to the well: already, I was no longer following in class, and I spent all recess hidden alone behind a wall. I drew circles on the ground with a stick, or in my notebooks with a pen. But my mind was elsewhere: I didn't know why, but I hated the white shadow at the bottom of the well and wanted it to suffer like me, so I threw stones at it. I poured water. Around nine years old, my academic results seriously began to drop, and I left all my drawings lying around: already, the shapes were vaguely feminine, and red scribbles came out of their mouths. My parents were informed, but since they couldn't afford to send me to a psychologist, my father just beat me up.
But I was smart, smarter than everyone else, and I quickly understood that I would be left alone if I completely hid this part of me. So, I attended classes, became the top of my class, and blended in with the others, pretending to have friends. Then, they left me alone; but I spent more and more time in my kingdom: at fourteen, the shadows had faces - faces I knew, girls from my class, teachers, the weather girl - and the well had been replaced by a secret room in a garage: at fourteen, I already knew what I wanted.
But by constantly living in my kingdom, hiding it from the world, it eventually consumed me: thought turned into fantasy, then into desire, then into need, until it became an insatiable urge. The more my power grew in my universe, the more I seemed to lose control in my real life.
At seventeen, I always had the same fantasy in mind: I relived the same scenario over and over, a hundred times, a thousand times, ten thousand times. I revisited the scene, studying every variation, every unforeseen event, to control everything from A to Z. During family movie nights, my parents didn't even see me practicing tying and untying the same knots on a string; or maybe, they pretended not to see.
Today, my fantasies completely control me, and I can only restrain them temporarily. I feel the time approaching, I am like a wolf sensing the full moon's arrival, and you will see: everyone will hear me howl.”
Richard cleared his throat: he observed the room in front of him and recited the speech he had prepared.
“Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I absolutely must thank my wife for her support, and especially her courage in putting up with all my quirks...”
Everyone adored it.
***
“Honey, I think tonight you're going to get the full Christine experience...” She whispered in her husband's ear on the way home in the late afternoon, visibly drunk.
Richard responded with a light caress between her legs, which she seemed to enjoy. She was wearing a very classy and very short black dress, and her cheeks were slightly flushed from the champagne, or perhaps excitement.
“What a nuisance,” he thought.
They got home around six: Richard had barely closed the door when Christine's dress slipped to the ground. She let out a complicit 'oops' and headed to the master bedroom - the kids were at their grandparents'. Richard sighed but deemed it wise to indulge her whim this time: he felt that the rope was about to snap, and a cranky Christine would seriously hinder his plans if he wanted to embark on a new project now. He began to undress, made a detour to the kitchen to pick up an item, and entered the bedroom.
Christine was not very imaginative: she was rather down-to-earth, and her sexual preferences reflected that: if Richard explained his fantasies to her, she would scream at the top of her lungs and run down the street. But he wanted to give her the full experience to be left alone for a while, and he started with a massage. He took care of her, with hands, mouth, then made love to her tenderly. The performance lasted a good half-hour, during which one of Richard's hands was under the pillow.
“Looks like kiki is back in action,” breathed Christine, throwing herself into her side of the bed, sweaty. “That was amazing, honey. Was it the reception that gave you strength, or my dress?”
“A bit of both,” Richard replied.
Then, he waited for her to get up and go to the bathroom to shower before removing the item he had hidden under the pillow and which he held throughout their lovemaking to manage an erection.
“I have to finish something in the garage!” he called to his wife before leaving their room.
She replied something in a voice muffled by the sound of the shower, but Richard was already out: he returned to the kitchen and put the kitchen knife back in a drawer.
***
When he entered his garage, he made sure to lock the door behind him, as always, to ensure his privacy: when he got married, it didn't take long for him to realize that he could never abandon his double life, and that he would have to create a personal space to continue working on his projects away from his family's eyes. In recent weeks, he felt powerless against his fantasies that were getting the better of him: the urges were so strong, the need so great, that the memories he had accumulated were no longer sufficient. He felt the emptiness inside him tearing him apart more than ever, the loneliness gnawing at his insides, and was desperately in need of a connection.
He went to a section of red brick wall at the back of the garage and pulled out a cabinet filled with various tools: facing the bare wall, the bricks looked perfectly uniform and aligned; but he carefully removed a group of four, revealing a small secret space in the wall. In the small hideaway, there was a plastic container: he removed it, being careful not to touch the numerous nearly invisible fishing lines forming a makeshift alarm. Each wire was connected to a detonator positioned just above the container, and if a third party were to discover his secret cache - especially the police - they would touch a wire, triggering the device that would ignite a thermite bar salvaged from a welding site, burning the contents of the container with a flame of over two thousand degrees.
Richard nevertheless managed to remove his treasure box skillfully, without triggering his security system: it was filled with various objects such as an ID card, a necklace, a watch, underwear, or sunglasses. Each object he considered unique and sacred was a souvenir belonging to one of his darlings.
A darling was one of the girls with whom he had shared a privileged moment, and whom he had worked on to try and find a connection: even though he had never experienced the fusion he had always hoped for, he had had with these girls, his darlings, almost-connections that allowed him to regain control over his real life and relieve the demon that tortured him. At least, for a certain time: this box contained the memories of his darlings eight to seventeen, not discovering the importance of souvenirs before darling number three, and having had to dispose of the memories he had accumulated before eight, as his mother had stumbled upon them without knowing what they were.
He knew that keeping souvenirs might seem like the most stupid thing to do, being evidence that would send him directly to prison without passing go, but his fantasies were stronger than him, and they demanded sacrifices so often that he bought time and temporarily relieved himself by taking souvenirs and reminiscing his favorite almost-connections.
Except that today, even by feeling and manipulating the bracelet of his darling number thirteen between his hands, he couldn't silence the howls of the demons that invaded him: he would have to start looking for his next darling.
He knew that now would begin a project of several months of intense work: first, he had to find love at first sight. He would now reserve his evenings to patrol by car in the region, go to supermarkets, cinemas, or bars, and observe. He would watch every woman, study her until he found the love at first sight that would allow him to finally experience a connection. It could take weeks, even months: he would nevertheless dedicate several hours each evening to it, an extremely serious and important commitment. Then, once he found his future darling, he would spend several more weeks tracking her to note all her actions and movements, until he was prepared enough to pay her a visit.
Richard stored his memory box and returned to the house, making sure everything was perfectly put back in place and his garage well locked. He found his wife in front of the television:
“Christine,” announced Richard, “Frank just called me, he heard about my award and proposes a poker night: don't wait up for me tonight.”
“Okay, honey,” she replied without looking at him.
Richard was almost disappointed that she didn't make a scene, it would have added a bit of drama to his day: he was lying, of course, Frank didn't even exist. To peacefully take part in his project, he would have to make her believe that he would be doing overtime, or that he would sign up for an activity. Christine swallowed his lies with a disconcerting credulity: she was so stupid that she didn't notice that every time he was absent and particularly distant, a woman disappeared in the region. She didn't even have the presence of mind to accuse him of cheating: she was really naive, but in the end, that was why he had married her, and it made his life much easier.
He then slammed the door behind him: a long evening of work awaited him.
