Of Those Below

Renault presses two googly-eyes to the lid of the trash can. The black pupils jiggle inside their plastic cases.

“Is Oscar the Grouch, no?” he laughs to me.

“Oscar lives inside the can, Rennie.”

“He is looking at you.” Renault twists his fingers creepily. “Come with me Chloé to inside of my trash.”

“Always a clown, even when old,” I respond.

“I am too old to be serious! I am too young to be dead!”

Like all of our group, Renault has always been the trickster. His proudest moment came years ago, when the news broadcast video of an ambulance mysteriously parked on the first deck of the Eiffel Tower. Secretly, he was ecstatic, but outwardly, dismissive.

“They never report the message,” complained Renault, referring to what he had spray-painted across the windshield. “It was come to heal the ugly Eiffel Tower of ‘Art Attack’!”

How he had lifted the vehicle into the tower was never explained. Ask Renault and he would spin a tale so grandiose it would evolve into his next prank. To him, the appeal was the mystery, the trick of how it all happened.

Over the years his output had slowed. It used to be that he would spend all afternoon with four or five of our friends, just crossing a street. Once he crossed he would skitter through the Metro underground, and emerge on the side he had first crossed from, only to cross again. Space the friends apart, time it correctly, and cars are held indefinitely. The increasingly frustrated drivers see Renault cross in a false mustache, cross twirling an umbrella, cross in a wheelchair, cross while juggling. At some point the exasperated drivers admit defeat and U-turn back the way they had come. Then we cheer and congratulate our victory in the war against flowing traffic.

But now Renault’s ponytail was grey and his shoulders stooped. Decades of smoking have clotted his voice. He can still walk quickly, important for vacating scenes should his prank fail, but there are few new pranks, preferring, instead, to commemorate the old. This is not shameful, for what is the point if not to create memories? Nostalgia conquers all, in the end.

I had not seen Renault in years––had not seen any of them, really, and it seems as though they have not seen much of each other, either. Our merry group reconvened this weekend to mourn the loss of our defacto leader, our spiritual centre: Achille, who had befriended us one-by-one and bid us join him underground, deep within the uncharted regions of the Paris catacombs.

No one loved the catacombs as much as Achille, and he had kilometre upon kilometre of the sweaty passages mapped out, not on paper, but in his mind. He could navigate them better than a shopping market aisle, or a cubicle farm, or a conversation with the typical French bourgeois.

It was Achille who had discovered, while scouring the natural collapse of one outlying tunnel, our grotto. It had been carved out by water that still flowed along the far edge, fresh water that could be drunk after boiled. He appointed it our clubhouse, our house-less home, and from then forth weekends were spent in the cavern, getting high while stooping low.

At some point into our residency someone found a way to wire into the city grid, and through a snakepit of extension cords our cave had lights and music. We had the best raves. One time over forty people came, all on PCP, engrossed in the natural beauty of the caves and the anonymous rhythms of dance music.

We slept underground, too. Some would call it surreal, but the only surreality I felt was upon returning to the surface world, with its infants and telephones and sushi restaurants. I was never more alive than when I was underground.

But all good things must end, and life unraveled our tight-knit collective. Me? I married and moved to Munich, then divorced, but remained there. I lost touch with the other catacombers. Anyway, my true love affair was not with humans, but with the caves themselves.

Achille continued to update his “joyeux farceurs” via email with the details of his ongoing underground expeditions. Sometimes he ogled a particular limestone formation with his left eye––his right was glass from when he had tumbled and landed poorly on his face. Other times he wasted three hours attempting to access a barred passage. One time he disturbed what looked like the aftermath of a Satanic ritual. A cat had been killed and burned, and its blood was spread about the dirt. I hesitated to open his emails for some time after.

Increasingly, though, his emails warned of “dwellers”. Over the years the catacombs had become overrun with thrill-seekers, people probably not too different from ourselves who were looking to escape the mundane grind. Achille resented them, considered them insincere. His emails painted them as subhuman, artless rabble-rousers––cultural predators. I thought it a bit much. I disliked the hollow elitism that the lawless are tempted to adopt. Everyone likes the catacombs, so why shouldn’t others enjoy them as we do? We are not so special.

At the head of the procession Danielle unlocks what resembles a storage shed. The open door reveals, inside, a spiral staircase descending into the earth. This is not the catacombs entrance nearest to our cavern, but to honour Achille we are taking the scenic route.

--

Four hours later we meet our final obstacle: a two-metre sheer rock face. By now we have left the artificiality of the catacombs and are spelunking natural formations. This is uncharted territory. Off the map. Away from contact. Exactly how we like it.

“Has it grown?” complains Thérèse. “I do not remember it so big.”

“Help me, please,” Renault wants a foothold up. Alain laces his fingers together and heaves Renault’s boot upwards. Once atop, he helps the rest of us clamber beside him, first taking backpacks, then people. Last to mount is Lucien, who is not shorter than Renault yet weighs far more. It takes two of us hauling each arm to help him up.

How had Lucien gained so much weight? Of our group, he was the only to remain with Achille through the years, plunging dutifully into the depths after his fearless companion. I was never close with him, despite the many hours spent together.

Atop, Lucien smiles and points to a ladder, hidden in a dark corner at the bottom of the cliff. Of course. How else could he and Achille have mounted the cliff alone?

“Connard! Why you not say?” demands Danielle.

“I believe you want the real experience, no?” responds Lucien smugly.

“I am fifty-three years old! I want a car to carry me at this age.”

“But you climb so fast I think the ladder will insult you.”

Danielle smiles glibly, “Aha! Flattery! It will work every time, mon chèr.”

Up ahead Renault and Alain slam their shoulders into the oak door that blocks the entrance to our cavern, our hideout.

“Is new, yes?” Renault breathes heavily.

“Yes––installed to protect from dwellers.” Lucien twists a key in the door’s black iron lock. It clanks satisfyingly.

“Oh, please, Lucien. You cannot believe such ravings!” complains Alain.

Frustration creases Lucien’s brow. His eyes glare.

“But, Lucien, you cannot be serious!”

Lucien’s response drips with acid. “Have you forgotten Achille’s desire? To seal the catacombs?”

This was how Achille’s final email ended, with a request to forever blockade the entrances to the unmapped catacombs. At the time I considered it another prank, considering how Achille had spent his life.

“Will you deny our friend’s dying wish?” spat Lucien.

“But to seal the catacombs? All of the catacombs?”

“How many entrances? How many tunnels?” inquires Danielle. “It is not possible.”

Lucien turns away to shove the door open. “Every door must be closed––forever,” he mutters resentfully.

Danielle throws a look to Alain.

And we are inside. It is not as I remembered––I had prepared myself for the inevitable disappointment––but still it is beautiful. The ceiling is high, the air is fresh and more water than ever flows against the back wall.

“Honey! We are home!” Thérèse calls.

“My love! My faithful! After all this time you have waited for me!” Renault’s voice echoes from the domed walls.

Lucien flicks a power bar and the cavern is bathed in light, not the tungsten yellow of household bulbs, but the hued lighting used in art installations. Some of the lights rotate slowly about the space. Lucien flicks another switch and the room is saturated with David Bowie’s “Underground”.

“And the party begins!” Danielle retrieves a stack of red Solo cups and a bottle of absinthe from her pack. “Will we mix it with the stream water?”

“For you, it will be my pleasure,” Renault bends over the underground stream and fills an electric kettle. The others mill about, unpacking their bags.

“Did he come?” Alain asks Thérèse as they unravel sleeping bags and air mattresses.

“But of course!” she retrieves a stuffed carrot from her bag.

“Monsieur Carrote! It has been too long. Perhaps he remembers me?”

“He brags every day of his homoerotic past. It makes me feel unwanted.”

“Selfish plant! He is too popular. He does not understand loneliness.”

“I have invited this friend too,” Thérèse flashes a plastic bag of acid tablets. “Is for old times, yes?”

And so the night continues. My psychosis requires me to refuse the hallucinogens. Instead I sip lightly from wine that I brought. It is to everyone’s benefit that I remain sober, anyways, because one must watch over the others while they trip. Together we dance and slack to a corny mix of “underground” music: Tom Waits’ “Underground”, The Jam’s “Going Underground”, Ben Folds Five’s “Underground”, The Sneaker Pimps’ “6 Underground”, and, of course, anything by The Pixies, who have no songs titled “underground”, but are beloved by us all.

At some point Lucien locks the door.

“Why, Lucien?” complains Alain.

“To protect from dwellers,” he insists. “They are all about at this time.”

“Let them in! We will make them our friends,” suggests Renault.

“These are not friends like us.”

“Lucien! Impolite! We are not so special!”

“You misunderstand, Rennie. These are dangerous. These are the ones who do not go to the surface.”

“How can this be? Don’t be silly.”

“They are here! They are in with me…in my miiiiiiiiii…”

“Please, care for Thérèse. She is in no state for this talk.”

I move to Thérèse, who is dancing even though the music has stopped. “Thérèse, dear, if you point to the bad people they will explode and never come back.”

Her finger jets forward. She laughs. “He is so gooey!”

“Good girl! Keep pointing. You will kill every monster.”

Like a commando John Travolta, her pointing fingers slice the air above her. Her hips sway with every thrusted arm. Her tongue makes clicking, splashing sounds as invisible “dwellers” burst into goo.

I see Lucien hang the key on a nail driven into the door itself. It is good that the key is accessible to all, because so long as the door is locked there is no way to exit without it.

--

The key is gone.

I have left the sleeping nook to not wake the others while I smoke, and the key is gone.

Where is Lucien?

I brush my hand against the door. It looks shut, but is actually ajar.

I struggle the heavy door open and stare down the cold tunnel. Distantly, at the bottom of the two-metre cliff, a light flickers. I am drawn to it.

The door clanks shut behind me.

I whirl in a panic, and there is Lucien, locking the door. He has his pack with him. He is not happy to see me.

“Chloé! So good to see you. We must leave, now.”

“Open the door Lucien.”

“I am not able. The dwellers are active, more active than I predicted. Chloé, they are here, and we must seal the tunnels before they reach the surface.”

“Stop this, Lucien.” Since when did he become so manic? He used to be passive, quiet, forever sporting a dopey smile. A gentle, dumb giant. Now he is…frenzied. He acts like he is being hunted.

“There is so much you do not know about these catacombs, Chloé.”

“Lucien, the door, open it. Why do you have your things?”

“I must leave. Come with me and you will be safe. I promise. The others…” he looks to the chamber forlornly. “They do not believe the danger. It is how Achille died, you know.”

“Achille? Do not disrespect his death! Let me in. I didn’t even bring my shoes.”

Lucien sees that I am barefoot. Really, I was only stepping outside to smoke. He sighs.

“I will wait. Gather your things. Then we must leave.”

Bullshit. If I go back in he will lock me in with the others.

“Give me the key and I will lock the door from inside.”

“I cannot do that, Chloé. You will open the door too early and let in the dwellers.” He speaks quickly. His voice raises in pitch. “We can return for our friends next evening, when it is safe. They will be angry, I know they will, but it is not so long to wait, really.” By the time he says “really” he is speaking at the height of his voice. He sounds like a young child.

“Then let’s get them now and we–”

“Now Chloé. There is no time. Now.”

Lucien leaves down the passage, striding far too briskly for me to follow, should I choose to. I see his flashlight beaming the path before him. And my light, my only light? A Bic for my cigarettes. Everything else––my wallet, my flashlight, my shoes––is locked inside the grotto.

Soon it is dark. I flick my lighter awake, but it is too weak to lift the heavy darkness. How long will the fluid last? Another twenty minutes?

“Wait!”

I see the beam of his flashlight––and then it is gone. Where did he go? Into the flickering light below the cliff. He has already descended, so quickly!

I rush forth. Without him I may never see light again, at least not until he returns this evening, however long away that is. But he is moving so fast, and––ouch!––there are so many stones!

At the cliff’s edge I see the whole catacombs bathed in light. The light is so strong, stronger than the simple lightbulbs installed intermittently in the passages. It makes me feel warm.

“Hello?”

“Sshhhhht!”

Lucien is behind me. I had not noticed him because he has turned his flashlight off.

“Lucien, what is this?” I say loudly to annoy him. He has exasperated me.

The glow from the passage is supernatural. A being steps out from it.

“Hello up there!”

She looks directly at me. It is a woman. A normal woman, like me, though younger, possibly in her early-forties. Beneath flowing black hair she wears a grey halter top and cargo shorts. She is thin, but strong. She must hike the catacombs often.

“Did you stay the night? We did too. It was nice this time, not too cool.” She speaks guardedly, as though she is unsure how friendly to be.

“Yes, we did! We do so often, though not lately.”

“Silence Chloé! More will come!”

It’s a woman. One woman. Why is he so scared of one woman? Even if she is a bandit, we are separated by the cliff.

I continue rebelliously, “Is that your light? It is so bright!”

The woman looks confused. “The light? We do not live in darkness! Of course we have light, normal light from the power.”

A man joins her. He wears blue jeans.

“Celeste, who is there?”

“Chloé! Back! Now!” He means to whisper, but it is a vicious hiss.

The man’s eyes focus. He sees Lucien.

“Oh, it is you, the crazy man. But you have a friend. Hello, friend. I hope you are more kind than your crazy man. He is dangerous, I hope to tell you. He hit my brother with a pipe and cracked his rib. Go away crazy man. Friend, what is your name?”

To hell with Lucien. “Chlo–”

The woman shrieks. The man’s eyes grow wide as eggs as he lunges forward.

“Watch–!”

But it is too late. My head hits the side of the cavern and I fall as though dead.

--

“Little butterfly, wake up. Wake up please.”

No. No thank you.

It hurts too much.

“Come now. I see your eyelids flutter like little butterfly wings. I know you hear me.”

Who is that? I open my eyes and see the woman, the monster that Lucien was so afraid of. She stayed with me after my own friend knocked my head against the cave wall and left me for dead, left me alone, barefoot, no equipment, in the uncharted catacombs. The bastard.

“Ah! There you are. Move slowly––you took a mighty hit. We tried to warn you, that man is dangerous. We know him. He is here so many times and he is never good to us.”

I am… …still atop the cliff. I can see that. The passage still glows below me. The woman––the dweller––she is beside me.

“You want water? I can get you some.”

“Please… my friends… are locked–”

“Ah, yes, but we know. They are locked behind the door and need a key. My family chases your man right now to get your key. He will open the door, yes? He is bad. How do you know him? It is no matter. Rest now, speak later.”

It takes some time, but eventually I am able to sit upright. Later, when I can stand, I go to the door and shout for Renault, for Danielle––for anyone––but receive no answer. I have nothing with me––no clock, no light, no phone, no shoes. It might even be morning, now, and in that land above, so far, so remote, the sun might be warming Paris.

I want to go home.

Get me home. I will give you anything. Anything.

Did I ever even like the catacombs? Was I ever truly enchanted? Or did I only come out of disgust with civility? Was I like every other petulant twenty year-old, so intent on changing the world that I rehearsed abandoning it forever?

I hate this place. Fuck the catacombs.

The fastest route to the surface, twenty-five minutes, runs through a derelict ossuary where bones are scattered in a way that will trip one who is not careful. In other sections, the sections meant for tourists, the bones are arranged aesthetically, but elsewhere they are heaped.

That is fine. I will go through the ossuary. I will be careful.

To my companion’s astonishment I step down the ladder leaning against the cliff.

She cries out, “Madame, no! Please wait! You are still injured!” but I ignore her. I want to go home.

The wooden rungs spear my naked feet.

“Is not safe! Madame, you have nothing!”

From the cliff her hand shoots out to seize me by the shoulder. Her grip hurts. It pinches far more sharply than fingers should be able to. Her skin… it… does it flake? Pieces fall from her. Her hand cracks loudly as it clenches.

Such things have been said about those who live without sunlight, that the skin dies though the body lives. She must have been in the catacombs for quite some time.

She sees me marvel and turns away, ashamed.

“I’m sorry…” I apologize. How rude of me! “Are you hurt? I didn’t mean to…”

“It is no matter. It is how it is.”

“Do you live…here? In the catacombs?”

Her hair swishes against her neck as she twists to see me. Her slight smile reveals that she is trying to be brave.

“You are not so special. You come and go as you please, but we––we are here. We always will be.”

I am not so…special? Where had I heard that before?

The dweller speaks again to excuse my silence, “Me, my friends, we want to leave the caverns and go above––how badly we want to! But it is not to be.”

“Why?”

She hesitates to answer, so I rephrase, “Even I can only stay for a day or two at a time. I cannot imagine living here forever.”

She is searching for the words to respond. This is difficult for her.

“There are many reasons, a different one for every person. One murdered with cause, but will be apprehended should he return. Another is pursued by his family and wants to be free of them. Still, there are some who surface for brief moments, then remember that their true home is below the earth. After all this time, our community is all we have, and we care for each other. No one needs a thing––everything is given. We are all we have.”

“How long have you been here?”

“We? For longer than I know. You may think me a new arrival,” again, her mischievous grin. What a strange person.

Scuffling is heard distantly down the passage, then nearer. Out of the light below the cliff Lucien is shoved forward. Two men follow him, watching carefully, as though they expect trouble. Although Lucien is larger than each of them, he could never overtake both at once.

“Lucien!”

“There she is. Now give her the key.”

There is something wrong with Lucien’s face. Was he beaten? The flesh around his jaw has swollen. Good. He left me alone in the dark, the psychopath. He should die.

“You bastard! What have you done? What did you do, Lucien, you crazy fool?” If hearing his response means hearing his voice then I want him to stay silent. “Answer me!”

“He cannot speak,” this is the same man, the same dweller, that I saw earlier. He flashes a grin to the other male. “Perhaps we went too far?”

“He earned it,” the new dweller responds serenely.

Lucien spits into the dirt. His saliva is red with blood.

“The key, friend,” prods the first dweller, the male who wears jeans.

Lucien looks at him resentfully. He opens his mouth, but only a couple empty vowels escape before he chokes on his spit.

The first dweller laughs triumphantly, “No more conspiracies from this one! No more insults, too!”

Lucien straightens and glares hot spite.

“What? What?” the man taunts.

Lucien spits a full throat of blood into his face. The man lurches backward, coated in Lucien’s life fluids. He looks horrified, enraged. Lucien smiles, painfully.

“That’s it! You are not the first to die at my hand, love!”

“Hold! His friend is here. Whatever you do can be done away from her.”

“Please,” I speak. “I don’t care. Do what you will, but get me the key. I am sure he has the key with him. If we don’t get it the rest of my friends will be trapped in that cave forever.”

“Careful! He is tricky.”

“I will take it from him,” I slide down the cliff before the she-dweller can stop me, not even bothering with the ladder this time. The precipice scrapes my bare feet.

Something goes wrong. My foot is snagged. I lose balance and land on my side.

“Are you hurt?!” my female companion is shocked. “Help her! Don’t just wait!”

But as the males rush to help, Lucien bodychecks one against the rock wall, then delivers a meaty fist into the other’s face. The man shrieks piercingly, like an infant would.

The woman leaps off the precipice and lands strangely, on all fours. How is she so used to landing on her palms? Her back arches as Lucien boots her aside.

“Waaahh Wooooaaaaaaaoooooooooohhhhhh aaaaaah OOOOOOOOwwwwaaaaeeee.” What is so wrong with his speech? Suddenly I see––he has no tongue.

That is beyond what my mind will process. It tightens. Will it snap? This is no time for such thoughts. Shoes or no shoes, I am running. Running. I will not stay––not for a key––not for those who cut out others’ tongues.

--

Bones and bones and bones. Bones in fallen heaps. Bones lacerating the floor. I am in the ossuary when Lucien catches me. A path meanders through the detritus where others have trekked.

But Lucien does not touch me––instead he beckons me follow him deeper. He has something he wants to show me. Why do I feel compelled to see it?

The light is so bright. And where is it coming from? I would trace its source from the shadows, but there are none. But if I cover my eyes… yes. That is where the shadows hide.

My head still throbs where it hit the wall. Lucien had not restrained himself even slightly. There was no care in his attack, no thought for what he might have done to me. The psycho-psycho-psychopath––haha––ha! Still, whatever his mad pursuit, he gave his tongue to it, and that is far worse than a headache. A throbbing headache, louder than the skulls on the ground that sing to me.

Like a bloodhound, Lucien digs through a pile of bones. What has he hidden there?

“Ah… the crazy man,” the male dweller who wears blue jeans approaches from the far tunnel. “But you have a friend. Hello, friend. I hope you are not like your crazy friend.”

“Stay back!” I call. “We will hurt you again! I mean… I do not want to, but–”

“Ah, so you are no butterfly, but a stinging wasp. Have we met, stinging wasp?”

It is the same man, I am sure of it. Blue jeans, vicious tone––but why is his face unmarked? The way Lucien hit him, I would have thought his nose broken. Yet his face is fresh, unharmed, except… what is that? His skin. It flakes. It is pale and it flakes.

Panting and footsteps from behind me. It is the other man and the woman, but with them… the dweller wearing blue jeans. He is an exact duplicate––a doppelganger. The dweller who stands in front of me is indistinguishable from the dweller behind me. Even his speech is identical. Even the words he uses. I am a mirror through which each sees himself.

Lucien finds his prize at the bottom of the bone heap and establishes it with a thunk atop of the pile. He faces the dwellers, defensive yet satisfied.

I am confused. It is a skull. Lucien found a skull. But there are many skulls, all around. He, in fact, set this skull upon two others, amidst other bones.

“Madame, your big friend will face our justice, but you are free to leave,” the dweller beckons out the tunnel.

Lucien gives me a skeptical look. I am not to trust dwellers.

From inside the tunnel that I am beckoned to leave through, two more figures enter. It is the female, again, and another duplicate of the man who wears blue jeans. There are three now, all around me. I know––I will fly! I will crawl along the roof!

“Cornered!” crows the new-old-comer, the repeated offender.

“Lucien…” Am I crying? For who? For him? “Truly I am sorry, Lucien...”

“Let her pass!” The newest dweller holds his hand to his nose. Lucien really did break it.

“Goodbye…Lucien...”

Lucien points to the skull emphatically. The dwellers close on us. He shakes the skull and finally I see the orb inside it.

Wedged into the right socket, a glass eyeball stares at me, the same glass eye I have seen so many times, that has seen me so many times. It stares fiercely, reproachful, condemning those who had murdered its host, those who disbelieved the host’s warning.

Oh my God, I’m so sorry Achille. You are dead but for two weeks, and already your bones… so dry it might have been centuries.

“Grab her!” This from the dweller who previously advocated for my free passage. His hand has pulled from massaging his wounded face and I see… black. No nose, no blood, only black. His nose should be there, but instead…black. Empty black as dark as the hateful sun.

I trip backwards, into the bone pile. I feel them fall upon me.

Lucien makes the first move. He seizes the arm of the woman nearest and shucks it, like a cob of corn. Off falls the skin. Below: black. More black. Only black. Black as a beetle.

How does she shriek with her mouth closed? It comes not from her mouth, but her hair. It stridulates––or is it below her hair?––and the room vibrates with the sound of crickets. It is the rattle of a snake, the hiss of a cat…but all I see is the black blackness of what lies beneath. Even as she crumples her useless arm to her side, it is all I see. It sucks the light from the room and now it is dark. But I still see, because the black calls to me.

Someone lifts me onto my blood-black feet and kicks me forward. The males leap at Lucien, and he is no match. The other female comes to me, but I run. I can still run. My feet bleed. Pebbles lodge in their skin, so I push from my toes.

And the light. The passage basks in its glow. The light. The light is the best black.

There are sounds. Sounds of people, of animals being tortured. A cat being burned behind me, though I run toward it, to take it and shake its blood over the unlit earth and I am not far from the surface so maybe…

Drips from the ceiling. They are blood? They are red. But a blue-red. I mean they are clear, so I see through them. There are no drops, no drippities stop me from seeing.

But the man is before me. He has no face. He has black. His jeans.

And I see Achille. And I see Lucien. And Lucien says he is sorry for hurting me. Big Lucien, the hurter.

And I am telling Thérèse to point at the bad people, and she points at Lucien, then laughs when he turns to goo. And I laugh because it’s so funny!

And the ladder. I climb the ladder. At the bottom Alain laughs and calls me “special”. I cry down, “Not special! Don’t be angry… I’m so sorry!”

My feet. I cannot climb. I pull with my hands, rung by rung. My feet hang, useless. They are warped, disfigured, black, but not black like them.

From the sewer grate I emerge, a waif, a hag. I am black with dirt and sweat and I crawl through the back-alley. It is dawn. I yell. I need help. I need humans.

He comes.

“Madame? C’est quoi qui c’est passé? You must have help!”

“Help… yes…”

“I will call. Please do not move. We will call for you an ambulance. Your… mon dieu! Do not stand, please! What happened?”

“Close the tunnels. They must not... The dwellers.”

“I will return with–”

I clench his pant-leg with titanic strength. “SEAL THE HOLE.”

“Madame…”

And then I see. It is Renault. I have met Renault, on the surface. I am sure of it, more sure than the black… This is Renault.

I shriek.

“Madame…”

I skitter backward. The fake. The dweller. He follows after me.

“Madame! Please!”

My hand lifts. My finger…

“Madame!”

I point at Renault.

Submitted June 27, 2019 at 11:47PM by _Search_ https://ift.tt/2ZLN97Y