The plastic fork stopped halfway between my bowl of instant noodles and my mouth. A drop of beef-flavored broth fell onto my desk, but I didn't even notice.
I was hypnotized by the cracked screen of my laptop.
The red banner on the 24/7 news channel was flashing aggressively:
"SPECIAL EDITION: Tragic death of pop star Stella. Overdose theory favored."
The anchor, wearing her grave face, explained how the singer had "mysteriously" tripped over a defective CO₂ tank in her own storage room, triggering a chemical explosion that had blasted kilos of hard drugs straight into her face. A death as instantaneous as it was absurd.
I let the fork drop. The noodles were cold anyway.
I raised my left hand and slowly unfolded my fingers, one by one, staring at the peeling wall of my apartment.
My brain usually so slow when it comes to processing stressful information had just run a fatal update. I lowered my hand.
The conclusion was terrifying, ruthless, and mathematically undeniable.
I was a serial killer.
And not just any serial killer. I was probably the most prolific, most efficient serial killer in the entire Île-de-France region.
A kind of Dexter Morgan… but without the boat, without the muscles, and with a €300 overdraft.
I closed my eyes, flattened both hands on the desk, and took a long breath. I waited for the PTSD to hit. I waited for the nausea, the tears, for my mind to collapse under the weight of guilt.
I mentally examined myself scanning my soul for a trace of humanity.
Nothing.
Worse than that: I felt an unsettling inner peace.
Zero remorse. Zero discomfort.
I opened my eyes and shrugged in the silence of my room. I mean, should I really feel guilty? I hadn't killed anyone with my own hands (I think). I'd only tied my shoelaces at the wrong moment, or tripped with a tray, or dropped a tank because someone was pointing a gun at me.
The universe pulled the trigger. Me, I was just the banana peel fate slipped on.
And honestly? My "trophy list" was nothing but absolute monsters. If the universe had decided to use me like a broom to sweep society's trash into a nice little pile… who was I to argue with the laws of quantum physics?
"I'm not a murderer," I declared out loud, to reassure myself. "I'm just a walking workplace accident."
I grabbed my bowl and inhaled the rest of my noodles with renewed appetite. Life went on.
And, actually, I needed a vacation. Paris was becoming way too lethal for my mental health.
BEEEEEEP BEEP!
The asthmatic horn of Thomas's lime-green Twingo echoed from the street, three floors below.
It was time.
Final exams were finally over (I'd probably passed criminal procedure by miracle), and Thomas had decided we needed to "clear our heads." He'd rented a guest room in a countryside inn lost in the absolute middle of nowhere in France. The main selection criterion was simple: it was the cheapest place on the entire internet.
I grabbed my half-torn gym bag, locked my door, and thundered down the stairs.
When I opened the Twingo's back door, a wave of hot air and synthetic vanilla hit me in the face.
"You took long enough!" Thomas shouted from the driver's seat, overexcited, his sunglasses crooked on his nose. "Get in! Nature, birds, fresh air, and total absence of 4G are waiting for us!"
I threw my bag onto the back seat and climbed in.
"Hi, Eliot," a soft voice said from the front.
Sarah turned around from the passenger seat.
She was wearing a simple oversized wool sweater, her hair messily tied up, and she smiled at me. A real smile—the kind that makes you forget you may have assassinated a pop icon forty-eight hours ago.
My stomach did a little somersault that had nothing to do with anxiety.
"Hey, Sarah," I replied, doing my best to look relaxed (which probably looked like a constipation grimace).
"Seatbelts on!" Thomas howled as he shoved the gearstick into first with the agonized groan of a dying gearbox. "Next stop: absolute rest!"
The Twingo ripped out of its parking spot and launched toward the highway. I leaned my head against the vibrating window, watching Paris slide past.
Far from the city. Far from corrupt politicians and psychopathic stars. What could possibly go wrong in a small countryside inn run by harmless retirees?
Nothing, obviously.
For the first time in months, I relaxed. I was going to have a normal weekend with my friends, surrounded by cows.
Three hours and twenty minutes later, the Twingo coughed out one last cloud of black smoke and died with a gravelly screech.
I opened my door, legs numb, and looked up.
The Old Oak Inn.
The half-rotten wooden sign tried to make the place sound quaint. It failed completely.
The building, a huge bourgeois house with peeling shutters and a sagging roof, loomed in the middle of a forest of conifers so dense they blocked sunlight. The walls were smothered in dark ivy that looked like black veins.
All it needed was a crow on the roof and a lightning bolt to complete the full 80s horror-movie cliché.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. In the top left corner of my cracked screen, a small message blinked with the cruelty of a death sentence:
No Service.
"It's… rustic," Sarah commented, adjusting her sweater, a little less enthusiastic than before.
"It's authentic!" Thomas corrected her as he hauled our bags from the trunk with the energy of a steroid-fueled summer camp counselor. "You'll see, we're gonna sleep like babies! Zero noise pollution, zero stress!"
I swallowed hard. I grabbed my bag and followed my friends toward the porch.
It happened at the exact second the sole of my worn sneaker touched the threshold.
BAM.
A cold, brutal electric jolt shot up my spine and lodged itself at the base of my skull.
This wasn't the little nightclub shiver. This was a full-blown alarm siren. A nuclear red alert screaming through my nervous system.
My vision blurred for a quarter of a second.
A violent nausea twisted my stomach.
My knees threatened to buckle. Deep inside my mind, that thing—my absolute survival instinct, that silent beast that sometimes took the wheel—had just woken up with its fangs out.
Mortal danger.
I clung to the doorframe, breath short, forehead sweating cold. The entire building reeked of death. There was a predator in this house. A real one.
"Eliot? You okay? You're really pale," Sarah asked, turning back, worried.
"I-I think… carsickness," I lied, voice shaking.
"A good glass of 'water' and you'll be fine!" Thomas called, shoving open the heavy oak door.
The entry hall was grim. The solid wooden floor groaned under our steps with a sound that reminded me—painfully—of a dying rattle. The floral wallpaper was peeling in places, revealing damp stains that looked disturbingly like screaming faces.
At the back of the room, behind a dark wooden reception counter, there was no receptionist. But a chilling sound came from the back room.
Schtick… schtick… schtick.
The metallic, grinding sound of a blade being sharpened.
Thomas, still blinded by suicidal optimism, tapped the little bell on the counter.
Ding.
The blade sound stopped dead. Heavy, dragging footsteps approached.
An old man emerged from the shadows.
My heart missed two beats.
He wore a white apron smeared with large reddish-brown stains that left no room for interpretation. He was bald, his skin like parchment, but the worst part was his eyes—two watery, bulging marbles that seemed to stare into nothing before locking onto us with terrifying intensity.
And in his right hand, he held a butcher's cleaver at least thirty centimeters long.
My anxious student brain screamed:
HANNIBAL LECTER! THOMAS BOOKED AN AIRBNB AT HANNIBAL LECTER'S HOUSE!
The old man stepped up to the counter, cleaver still in hand. He didn't say hello. He didn't ask our names. His bulging gaze slid slowly over Sarah's face, then over mine (he paused for a fraction of a second, as if picking up my neurotic aura), then latched with fascination onto Thomas's legs—because Thomas was wearing shorts.
"Fine specimen…" the old man muttered in a gravelly voice, almost a rasp. "Calves nice and tight. Well fed."
I pressed myself against the wall, desperately searching for a weapon. An umbrella. An ashtray. Anything.
"Would make a beautiful roast…" the old man added, licking his lips slowly, his thumb brushing the edge of the blade. "Tender meat."
Thomas, the happiest idiot in creation, burst into loud laughter.
"Ah, thank you, sir! I bike a lot on Sundays. Keeps me in shape! Are you the owner? We've got a reservation under Martin!"
I stared at him with huge eyes, praying the floor would open and swallow me whole.
My best friend had just thanked a potential cannibal for complimenting his calves.
The old man blinked, snapping out of his trance.
"The reservation? Ah. Yes. Rooms are upstairs," he spat, slapping a rusty key onto the counter, before retreating back into his lair, mumbling something about "offal" and "fresh blood."
"You see?" Thomas said excitedly, grabbing the key. "Great welcome! Country people have this direct, authentic vibe—love it."
I didn't answer. My eyes were still fixed on the back-room door. My spider-sense was vibrating like it was about to snap in half.
I'd found the killer. I was sure of it. This guy was going to slice us into pieces during the night and serve us as pâté for breakfast.
The wooden staircase to the first floor creaked so loudly it sounded like it was screaming in pain with every step. Thomas walked ahead, whistling, rusty key to Room 7 in hand.
Me? I glanced over my shoulder every two seconds, convinced the old butcher would lunge out of the shadows to cut my Achilles tendons.
Thomas turned the key. The door opened with a sinister groan.
A heavy smell of mothballs, furniture wax, and century-old dust punched us in the face.
I froze on the threshold.
The room was… how do I put this?
The nightmare of a bad interior decorator. Brown-and-mustard floral wallpaper peeling at the seams. In the center, a double bed with a mattress so sunken it looked like a body had rotted there for ten years.
But the worst part was the wall décor.
Right above the headboard hung a huge dark painting: a still life of a gutted wild boar surrounded by dead pheasants, painted with such disgusting realism it made my stomach crawl.
"Wow, this is super vintage!" Thomas exclaimed, tossing his bag onto the bed. "Listen to these springs!"
He flopped onto the mattress, which let out a high-pitched squeal of rusty metal.
"Thomas," I whispered, breath short. "There's a painting of dead animals above our heads. The guy downstairs literally drooled over your calves. This room smells like anxiety and the worst years France has ever known. We're going to die here."
"No, you're too paranoid," he laughed, pulling a bottle of pastis and two glasses from his bag. "It's terroir charm, man. Relax."
While he marveled at the "authenticity," my survival instinct took full control of my body. I grabbed the heavy solid-oak chair near the desk and jammed it firmly under the brass doorknob. I yanked it hard. It held.
To be safe, I checked the window latch, closed the shaky shutters with a sharp clack, pulled the thick dusty velvet curtains, and seriously considered asking Thomas to help me shove the massive Norman wardrobe against the door.
"Dude, what are you doing?" Thomas sighed, watching me. "We're not in The Walking Dead. Be useful. The old guy said there's an ice machine at the end of the hall. Go get us something to chill this."
I swallowed. Leaving my improvised bunker felt suicidal. But on the other hand… Sarah was across the hall in Room 8. I needed to make sure she was okay.
"I'm going," I grumbled, removing the chair reluctantly. "But if I'm not back in five minutes, barricade yourself and call the GIGN. If there's service. (Which there isn't.)"
The first-floor hallway was even worse than our room. Long, narrow, lit intermittently by a yellowish bulb buzzing overhead.
I moved like a thief, clutching the room's flimsy plastic ice bucket like a ridiculous shield.
That's when I saw him.
At the end of the corridor, right in front of Sarah's door.
A man. Mid-forties, but he looked ten years older. He wore an ancient greenish wool vest, and his complexion was corpse-pale, sickly. Deep dark circles hollowed his face.
He wasn't moving. Completely frozen. He stared at Sarah's door with an intensity that iced my blood, neck slightly craned forward as if listening through the wood. In his trembling hands, he compulsively clutched a worn little black notebook.
My radar, already screaming, nearly detonated.
It's the accomplice, my brain howled. Hannibal's scout! The old guy sharpens knives downstairs and this psycho marks the prey upstairs! He's writing down room numbers and observations in that notebook!
My protective instinct briefly overpowered my natural cowardice. I couldn't let him stalk Sarah.
I cleared my throat loudly.
The guy jumped like he'd been tased. He spun toward me. His dull gray eyes widened in panic.
He looked like a rat caught in the pantry at midnight.
He stammered something incomprehensible, slammed the notebook to his chest like I'd caught him hiding a corpse, and backed away frantically.
Before I could even open my mouth to ask what he was doing, he turned and fled down the hallway with a jerky gait.
He dove into his own room—Number 5—and I heard the door slam and the lock click twice.
I stood there with my empty ice bucket.
There was no doubt left: this inn wasn't a vacation spot. It was a slaughterhouse run by an organized team.
I was dealing with a serial-killer duo, and we were alone—cut off from the world.
I filled my bucket with ice, trembling, constantly checking over my shoulder. I needed an escape route. I needed to find someone normal in this madhouse.
I went back down the main stairs like a fugitive, the ice clinking hysterically in the plastic bucket at every step. My heart was sprinting. Between the psycho butcher downstairs and the hallway fetishist upstairs, my survival odds were dropping fast.
I needed to sit. To breathe. To find a place where my probability of ending up in pieces was close to zero.
I pushed open the double glass doors to the common lounge.
And then—the miracle.
The room was bathed in the soft light of a crackling fireplace. But more importantly, it was occupied by the most normal, clean, reassuring human being I'd seen since leaving Paris.
A man in his sixties sat comfortably in a worn leather club chair. He wore an immaculate beige cashmere turtleneck, perfectly fitted corduroy pants, and half-moon glasses perched on a straight nose. He was reading a thick novel, a steaming cup of tea on a small coffee table beside him.
He lifted his eyes to me. His face was relaxed, kind, framed by neatly combed salt-and-pepper hair. No blood stains. No nervous tics. No dead-eyed psycho stare.
"Well then, young man," he said in a deep, velvety, perfectly controlled voice. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Or you've just crossed paths with our dear innkeeper."
I let out a massive sigh of relief that emptied my lungs completely. I collapsed onto the couch opposite him, setting my ice bucket on the table.
"It's… that bad?" I stammered, still shaking.
The sixty-something man smiled warmly and closed his book, marking the page.
"Old Gustave has an… shall we say, rustic appearance. And a devouring passion for local charcuterie that can frighten city folk. But rest assured—he's an exquisite man. A bit rough around the edges, yes. Here—have a cup. You need it."
With a precise, elegant gesture, he picked up a porcelain teapot and poured me bergamot tea, its fragrance filling the room. I noticed his hands. They were fascinating—fine, long, surgically clean. Nails perfectly trimmed and polished.
"Thank you," I breathed, holding the cup with both hands for warmth. "My name's Eliot. I'm here with two friends."
"Pleasure, Eliot. Doctor Armand Montfort. Retired surgeon," he introduced himself with a slight nod. "I come here a few days every year to flee the noise of the capital. The silence of these woods is… therapeutic."
The word Doctor hit me like a sedative dart. My anxiety evaporated instantly. A physician! A man of science—someone who'd spent his life saving people. My radar, which had been screaming death since I arrived, went silent (or rather, my rational brain decided to unplug it in the face of such bourgeois normalcy).
I'd found my safe space in this asylum.
"You're telling me," I sighed, taking a sip. "I was starting to wonder if we'd survive this weekend. The atmosphere upstairs is… particular."
Montfort let out a small, elegant laugh, revealing teeth that were dazzlingly white.
"That's the charm of old buildings. Actually—since you're here with friends—I have a proposal. Poor Gustave only serves breakfast. For dinner, guests fend for themselves."
He leaned forward slightly, bringing his manicured fingertips together, a gleam of passion in his eyes.
"Cooking is my great hobby since retirement. Anatomy and gastronomy share the same demand for precision, you see. Tonight, I'm preparing a large stew in the common kitchen. I brought my own game meat. Flesh of incomparable tenderness… long matured. It would be a true honor to share this modest feast with hungry young people."
My eyes lit up. Not only was this man sane, he was about to save us from the cold canned ravioli Thomas had planned for dinner.
"That's… that's incredibly kind of you, Doctor Montfort!" I said, genuinely excited. "I accept with great pleasure! Thomas and Sarah will be thrilled. Real slow-cooked game stew—honestly, that's beyond hope!"
"Wonderful," the surgeon purred, his smile stretching his lips just a little too far. "Eight o'clock, in the dining room?"
"Perfect. I can't wait."
I stood, ice bucket in hand. I'd found an ally. The weekend was saved.
I headed back toward the stairs, heart light—totally ignoring the fact that Doctor Montfort kept staring at me from the lounge shadows, his eyes shining with a strange hunger as he mentally assessed my calorie intake.
The trap had just snapped shut.
The greatest involuntary serial killer in France had happily accepted an invitation to dinner.
At seven p.m., the sky decided to implode over the inn. A storm of unbelievable violence slammed into the forest. Wind howled through the conifers, and sheets of rain whipped the lounge windows like a fire hose.
Classic. We're screwed.
Thomas, faithful to his legendary carelessness, decided a good game stew deserved a good bottle of wine. So he armed himself with his phone flashlight and went off to explore Gustave-the-butcher's cellar.
I ended up alone with Sarah, the two of us on an old cracked leather couch facing the fireplace. The dancing light reflected in her dark eyes. She'd pulled her knees up to her chest, hidden inside her oversized sweater.
She was beautiful.
For a long time, only the rain spoke.
"You've been tense since we walked through the door," she said softly.
I flinched. I'd hoped I'd hidden my panic with a little more subtlety.
"It's… just exam fatigue," I lied, staring at the embers. "And this place is kind of gloomy, don't you think? The floorboards, the hunting trophies…"
Sarah smiled with understanding and placed her hand gently on my arm. The contact felt electric.
"You don't have to pretend with me," she murmured. "I know you. I can see you jump at every sound. But you don't need to worry. We're together."
Her gaze was disarmingly sincere. In front of her, my armor of sarcasm and paranoia melted like snow. The doctor's tea had calmed me, sure—but Sarah's presence soothed me far deeper.
For the first time in my life, I wanted to be worthy of someone. Not the anxious runt on duty. I wanted to be the one who protected her.
"I know," I said with a smile meant to look confident. "Don't worry. I've got this. I'm just a little—"
I didn't get to finish.
Out of the corner of my eye, a sudden movement caught my attention. On the big Persian rug, less than a meter from our feet, a black shadow had just shot out from under the couch.
A spider.
And not a tiny bathroom spider. A giant, hairy one the size of my open hand, with legs that looked like they'd been engineered by the devil himself.
Sarah let out a small startled gasp and pulled her feet onto the couch.
This was my moment. The universe was offering me a perfect opportunity to shine—to be the virile, protective hero I secretly wanted to become.
"Don't move. I'll handle it," I declared in a deep voice, almost theatrical.
I stood with the dignity of a knight going to war. I grabbed an old Hunting & Fishing magazine from the coffee table, rolled it tight, and approached the beast.
It's just an insect, Eliot. You survived a serial-killer professor. You can crush this.
I raised my arm. But at the exact moment I was about to strike, the spider leapt forward half a meter—straight at my sneakers.
My dignity left my body at the speed of light.
I let out a high-pitched squeak so pathetic it would've embarrassed a crushed guinea pig. I hopped backward like an electrocuted frog, tangled in my own shoelaces (still untied), and sprawled full-length on the rug, the magazine flying across the room.
Silence fell, broken only by the fire crackling.
I closed my eyes, dying of shame, praying for spontaneous combustion. My romantic-hero career had ended before it even began.
Then a crystal laugh rang through the lounge.
I opened one eye. Sarah wasn't laughing with contempt. She was laughing hard—warm, real laughter, eyes creased with joy. She stood, grabbed the magazine I'd launched, walked up to the spider (which had frozen, probably traumatized by my performance), and crushed it with one clean, confident smack.
"And there," she said, tossing the magazine into the fireplace. "The beast is defeated."
I pushed myself up on my elbows, ears burning.
"I… I was about to get it. It faked me out."
Sarah crouched in front of me on the rug. Her laughter softened into an infinitely tender smile. She reached out and gently brushed a rebellious lock of hair away from my eyes.
"You're really hopeless, Eliot," she murmured, voice vibrating with an affection I'd never heard before. "But I think that's why I like you."
My breath caught.
The storm outside, the creepy inn, the butcher downstairs… everything vanished. There was only the fire's warmth, her perfume, and the intensity of her gaze locked on mine.
The distance between our faces shrank by a millimeter. Then two.
The air crackled with a new tension—electric, irresistible.
I was going to kiss her.
It was the perfect moment.
For once, the universe was giving me a break.
The lounge's double doors flew open with a loud groan.
We pulled apart violently, hearts pounding, cheeks on fire.
Doctor Montfort stood in the doorway. He'd swapped his cashmere turtleneck for a huge butcher's apron, immaculate white. A steaming ladle hung in his hand, and a big benevolent smile stretched his elegant face.
"Dinner time, children!" he announced in a sing-song voice, eyes shining with a strange glint in the dim light.
"The game meat stew is served! And I promise you… you've never tasted anything like it…"
End of Chapter 10.