The Catacombs Quotes

“very far in, very deep.” “How do you know it’s a woman?”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“death didn’t care if you were young or if you had kids, it didn’t care if you were wealthy or poor, it didn’t care if you were pretty or disfigured, a king or a queen—it would strike you down when it wanted to strike you down and there was nothing you could do about it.”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“Rob Stratton cast another passing glance across the table at Danièle’s friend Will, trying to get a read on him. He wasn’t your typical American expat, not loud, not wanting to be the center of attention. Not all American expats were like that, of course; they ran the spectrum like expats from any nationality did. But Yanks could be loud. Yanks, then Aussies, then Spaniards—especially the senoritas. That’s how he’d rank them all on the loud meter. The worst of the lot weren’t only loud but didn’t adapt. They brought their native country with them wherever they went.”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“The ego liked to trick you into thinking you were the center of the universe, but in truth you were nothing but a dust mote in a never-ending shaft of dimming light. Really,”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“#1 with the wall fetish didn’t move to let her pass, and she was forced to stop directly before him. He stank. She couldn’t remember ever smelling something so vile. There was the feces and urine and body odor, but there was something else mixed with all this, a peaty rottenness she associated with bogs. She guessed he was anywhere between forty and sixty. He was mostly bald, with greasy tufts of white hair sprouting above his ears. He had the normal disfigurements (God, was she already beginning to think no nose or lips as “normal?”), and his albino-white skin was etched with burst capillaries and scabs and smeared with mud. He wore a torn Rolling Stones T-shirt and frayed track pants soiled in the groin and knees. The body beneath the clothes seemed lean and hard.”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“there is no acid rain or”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“A ball of searing light was trapped inside my skull and wanted out. That’s what it felt like when I opened my eyes. I remained still and prayed for the pain to subside. It didn’t, but the white stars cleared from my vision, and I was relieved to find I wasn’t in total darkness.”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“warning he swung his bone. It struck the side of my left knee. I dropped, landing hard on my side. I pulled my knees to my chest in expectation of another blow, but he turned away from me and shook his weapon in the air and howled. The mob responded in a cacophony of celebration. Then he leveled the bone at Pascal and barked what might have been an order. Two males went to Pascal and heaved him to his feet. His limbs dangled lifelessly. His head was lolling from left to right. The torchbearer crossed the room and slapped Pascal hard across the face. He peeled Pascal’s eyelids open with his thumb. Then he stepped back, lifted Pascal’s shirt, and thrust the flaming end of the torch into his stomach. Pascal’s head snapped back”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“man who had attacked me must be the girl’s father, I thought. He had been maimed in a horrible accident—a fire, an explosion, perhaps exposure to acid—or he had leprosy or another flesh-eating disease. Either way, his life was ruined. He couldn’t go out in public without people pointing and staring and viewing”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“what was that? To use us as slave labor? To play out sick torture fantasies on us? Or, as Danièle suggested, to fucking eat us? I shoved”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“We’re going to get out of here.” I wondered”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“why wasn’t he screaming like she had when she came around, screaming in despair and terror at the unjustness of this incarceration, screaming until his throat went raw and he couldn’t scream anymore? He called”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“Don’t what?” “Just don’t.”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“Why won’t you let me see?” Her voice had turned petulant, and it wasn’t Bridgette anymore. It was Danièle. She was naked. “There’s nothing in there.” “Why”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“Right. McMuffin,” she repeated, smiling, and I realized she was having me on. Rob”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“we going to pass it tonight?” “Unfortunately, we are not going in that direction.”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“mature, Robert.” “Fuck you, Dev.” He made to leave the kitchen. “I don’t know anymore,” Dev said. He stopped, turned. “You don’t know?” “Nothing,” she said quietly. “You don’t know?” he repeated. “Go, Robert.” “Go fuck yourself, Dev.” “Yes, maybe I will. Why not? I do everything else myself.” He grabbed his jacket”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“and Pascal jumped to their feet. Rob grabbed Pascal’s bicep, preventing him from leaving, but Pascal tugged free. “Something happened!” he exclaimed. Rob shook his head, watching Pascal. Understanding registered in his eyes, and they thundered over. He flinched backward, almost as if slapped. Rob wanted to say something to him, but there was nothing to say. Pascal”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“About time,” Danièle said, exhaling heavily. “Some quiet.” I said, “You understand why he doesn’t like me, right?” “Who? Pascal? Yes, I told you. Because he has a crush on me.” “Right. So do you think it was a good idea announcing that we’re going to sleep together? I think that’s what he’s pissed about.” “But we are going to sleep together.” “No, we’re not.”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“mummified body of a London man who”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“Come on, Danièle, you don’t know that. The guy’s a lunatic.” I paused, remembering something. “What did he mean by ‘Raviolis?’ When he was speaking to Pascal, he said he hated Raviolis like us.” “I do not know for”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“and she lost her footing and dropped her Kewpie doll. It fell between a crosshatch of sticks and logs too small to climb through. She began bawling. She’d gotten the doll less than two weeks ago for her sixth birthday, and it was her prized possession. I told her it was okay, I’d get it, and so I climbed off the dam and made”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“long-ago memory. It was spring. I was eight years old. Bulldozers had recently cleared a patch of forest behind our house in the suburbs of Olympia to make room for a new subdivision. Maxine and I were forbidden to play in the tangle of felled trees, but of course we did. What kids wouldn’t? It was a gigantic fort full of nooks and crannies and passageways. We nicknamed it the Beaver Dam. One afternoon Max and I had been”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“men halted at parade rest: chins up, chests out, legs apart, arms behind their backs. They were in their mid-forties and dressed identically in high leather boots, military-style peaked caps, trousers, and tunics. Everything was black except the red arm bands emblazoned with the swastika and the white runic insignias patched onto their collars. They each carried 6D flashlights. Pascal was right! Danièle thought. It’s them—the Painted Devil and his henchmen. It has to be. Who else dresses up in SS uniforms?”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“hearing it here in the catacombs where it happened, in the unprecedented blackness, was borderline terrifying.”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“The walls were smooth and whitewashed a pig-blood pink. Pascal folded the map he’d been studying”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“wrinkled my nose; the stench of urine was strong. “This is the entrance?” I said.”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“nodded. “If you assume she was lost down there for days without food or water, she would have been weak and dehydrated. She would have been exhausted, mentally and physically. So she snapped.” “Why’d she start running?”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“the table Danièle was sitting ramrod straight, her hand out before her, fingers splayed, as she told of the time she had met the Russian ambassador to France at Place de la Bastille. She was up to the point when she had pretended to be Russian to gain access to the VIP room, where all the diplomats were knocking back free champagne during the ballet’s intermission. Obviously she was trying to impress Will, who was listening stoically beside her, staring into the beer he’d ordered. Pascal slurped a second oyster from the shell and entertained himself for a bit with all the different ways the American could meet a grisly demise in the catacombs tonight.”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs

“No cheap prescription Lenscrafters,”
― Jeremy Bates, The Catacombs