If It’s Black, Fight Back

It’s easy to love horror movies when you haven’t experienced one yourself.

That’s it. That’s my opinion.

These days, I find nothing more relaxing than dumb reality shows where the only danger facing contestants is being sent to an “exile island”. As a teenager who had to grapple with the struggles of a dead mother, an absent father and an abusive sibling, I used to be a horror fan, though, especially as a teenager… but this fascination didn’t fully prepare me for the raw terror of being pursued by someone, not because my friends and I had broken some obscure rule, but simply because they felt the need to do it.

My own horror story happened last summer, when I received an email from Sandro, one of my two childhood best friends, who had moved to Paris to teach film studies while I had sought refuge in Canada, away from a toxic family that had gotten worse after my mother’s death. Sandro and Dorian, my other best friend (whose slight narcissistic tendencies had turned him into a second-rate actor in the US), were planning to meet up in our hometown. Their plan was to revive the horror marathons of our high school days as an attempt to recapture a fragment of our teenage years. This made me feel a bit guilty as I hadn’t been in touch with them for a while… and had yet to reply to their previous “Happy New Year” messages. But since I had been considering coming back home to help care for my injured father after a bad fall (if I’m being honest it was mostly because I had gone through a bad breakup), I ended up booking a ticket to the South of France. While the thought of returning home after a five-year absence was daunting, especially as I braced for my dad and brother’s disapproval over my dating of other women, the prospect of spending time with the childhood friends was something I was truly looking forward to, for my Tunisian heritage and, later, my sexual orientation had never been an issue for Sandro and Dorian. Our bond was forged over all-nighters playing Dungeons & Dragons on a messy table and playing video games on Sandro’s Sega Genesis. But nothing quite equated our horror movie marathons, where we’d huddle together, screaming into the night.

The high of nostalgia and expectation I was feeling as I was waiting for my friends at my dad’s small cabin in the mountain came crashing down by Dorian’s less-than-graceful arrival in his old 2CV, slightly inebriated and greeting me with a backhanded “What’s up? Still gay?” Sandro, all scrunched up in the tiny passenger seat, was grappling with his own issues and so began drinking almost immediately, his frustration culminating in him throwing an empty bottle into a neighbor’s yard. As I watched them unpack, our conversations, while covering the usual topics of work, movies, and games, steered clear of the deeper, messier truths that used to define our interactions. The once-familiar ease between us had faded, leaving us with a sense of strangeness and awkwardness.

My discomfort grew as Dorian made a racist joke about a character as we were watching Rumpelstiltskin. Turning to Sandro for support, I found him writing something in a notebook, until a sudden jump scare pulled a shriek out of Dorian. Sandro and I exchanged a glance but this time there was no laughter. As the junk food sat heavy on my stomach and as the next movie churned on, I came to realize that we had outgrown the old script, and that time and life have written us new parts, created new plots, in which we were no longer the main characters in each other’s stories. To me, that was another kind of horror story.

In a lot of horror movie the survivors can often make sense of what happens to them but I find that it’s not the same in real life: you survive something horrific and then life, ordinary, boring life, goes on and you just have to deal with it, feeling that you will forever be on the outside of normality.

We shouldn’t have gone on that walk...

It’s the thing that I kept telling myself after everything that happened.

We shouldn’t have gone on that walk...

Again and again. Like a mantra.

Back then, though, it had seemed like the best idea. After hours of watching movies and eating garbage, we all needed to stretch our legs and mainds, otherwise we knew we would all fall asleep, ruining the basic principle of our nuit blanche. So, still a bit drunk, we jumped the fence at the end of the gravel path leading to the house and ascended the deserted winding route du Mont-Agel that went up its namesake limestone mountain with its bone white rocks, bushes of thorny bramble and thick leaved holm oaks. Embracing the mountain’s warm stillness, we walked, silently at first, the regular rhythm of our footsteps as our soundtrack while Monaco’s glittering mosaic of light below us slowly shrunk out of sight. This soundtrack was soon replaced by the stridulation of crickets along with the regular rush of the hidden highway below. Despite the heavy discomfort I felt, I started to grin because this was, to me, the soundtrack of our youth. Sandro and Dorian felt it too as we started to talk again, craking jokes about the road seeming steeper than it used to be, before our conversation led to the horror stories we used to scare ourselves with as we walked the same road as we did as teenagers. We recalled the time we had discussed that a man walking out of the woods wielding an axe could only be “un bûcheron à la bourre”, or the time we had decided to walk through the forest without our flashlights, and how, eyes wide with terror, Dorian had clutched a pocketknife to point it at every shadow. Then, just like that, the years momentarily seemed to melt away as we returned to that past I had missed so much, back when I had felt normal. Then and there, for a moment under the stars, with the scent of laurel and thyme and the soft breeze coming from the sea, we were the same three friends we had been. This is what I want to remember from that night. Not what came after.

We arrived at a lookout which extended from the Italian city of San Remo to the French city of Nice, with its ballet of landing and departing planes. Taking in a sight I had not seen in more than five years, I sighed deeply, realizing how much I had missed the Italian coastline twinkling softly in the distance like a strand of bioluminescent plankton. I had also missed gazing at the cruise ships drifting silently on the horizon, their light-drenched decks and portholes like floating islands. I was staring at the inky expanse of the sea when Dorian suddenly stood up, swaying slightly.

“Watch this,” he said, peeling off his shirt.

Sandro and I exchanged a glance in amused disbelief. Even though I could still feel the effects of the alcohol in my system, I couldn’t help feeling slight embarrassment at Dorian’s behavior, which hadn’t seemed to have changed since the last time I had seen him. Discarding his clothes in a messy pile, his naked figure outlined by the faint city lights below, he trotted over to the stone wall separating the road from the slope, sitting down with his legs spread wide, head thrown back in abandon.

“What the hell, Dorian?” Sandro said.

“There’s a car coming!” Dorian replied, barely containing a laugh.

Looking at the road behind us, I saw the bright glare of headlights coming down the Mont-Agel.

“Oh, shit, okay!” I scoffed as the lights grew brighter.

Although I would have wanted to see what was about to happen, Sandro and I only had the time to quickly hide behind the parapet wall.

As I lay on my belly in the dirt, my nose almost touching the sole of Sandro’s left shoe, I tried to picture the people in the car as a couple on a romantic drive. I imagined their conversations halting as they turned the corner, their eyes widening at the sight of a naked man sitting alone in the dark, his legs spread apart. The thought made me choke back a laugh.

The sound of the car grew louder and the lights above us on the few trees and bushes, stronger. Then, unexpectedly, I heard the crunch of tires on the gravel road as the car slowed down. In the shadow of the parapet, looking at the soles of Sandro’s shoes, I waited, unsure whether to intervene or let the scene unfold somewhere above us.

The laughter that had bubbled within me froze as I heard the car door open, followed by the mumble of voices which, although unintelligible, carried a strain of confusion, maybe even surprise. Then, came a sound that sent chills running down my spine: the crunch of gravel shifting, followed by something that sounded like a struggle. There was an audible grunt and a sickening thump, followed by a clumping sound. Then I heard Dorian make a sound I will never forget, a sound that should not have come from an adult, certainly not from a friend. I felt a tightening in my stomach and my body went cold as I realized that something had gone very wrong. Then the sounds stopped, leaving a hollow silence in their wake, broken only by an occasional sound of feet shifting on gravel. In that moment I stopped thinking about Dorian and started praying that whoever had attacked our friend wouldn’t start looking over the parapet.

I don’t know how long I waited behind the wall… but after what felt like hours, the car door clanged shut, the sound echoing in this summer night. As the vehicle slipped away with a lazy crawl, I finally tapped Sandro’s shoe and rose from my hiding place, an icy shiver racing down my spine. As if from a great distance, I saw Sandro get up and up and brush the dust from his pants, his eyes wide, his complexion eerily pale in the dark.

“Putain...” he said as he looked up at me.

My mouth dry and my throat tight, I struggled to form words.

“We... we need to get help,” I managed to stammer.

“We can’t leave him...” Sandro said, vaguely pointing at Dorian’s pale shadow sprawled at our feet. I was glad for the darkness that enveloped us, for it veiled the harsh reality of our friend’s lifeless body.

“We don’t have a choice, we can’t carry him,” I said.

Sandro then picked up Dorian’s clothes and, without looking directly at the body, checked his pulse before doing his best to cover his nakedness.

“Okay…” he said as he got up.

Then, without a backward glance, we began our silent descent, too stunned to even think that whoever had killed Dorian might still be around. My legs felt weak, shaking with every step as if rebelling against the weight of my body. I wanted to lean on Sandro, to feel connected to him somehow, but as our feet echoed on the still warm asphalt, I found that I didn’t even have the strength to lift my arms. Then, as we rounded a bend, our gazes locked onto a small beige RV parked precariously at the road’s edge, its lights turned off. Sandro made a sound, like a hiccup, and I felt an icy jet of fear run through me as I realized there hadn’t been an RV on our ascent. Before I could say something, I heard hurried footsteps heading toward us from behind.

I didn’t even have the time to think “putain” or to realize someone had been waiting to ambush us when my instinct kicked in, propelling me over the parapet and sending me plummeting into the dry, prickly undergrowth below.

My landing was a brutal meeting of skin and thorns, my right ankle buckling under the impact as I landed on some loose rocks. As I grappled with the brambles that lashed at my clothes and skin, I caught a glimpse of Sandro’s silhouette tumbling past me with a choked-off grunt.

Merde… I thought in terror, barely aware of the pain.

I looked back and saw, above us, a shadow looking down at us from the parapet. Staring at our assailant, I froze, keeping my breaths shallow and my body rigid to blend into the dark landscape, my heart pounding wildly and echoing in every cell of my body. Then came a throaty chuckle from the road above, followed by the sound of a door snapping shut. It was followed by the purr of the RV which started to trundle down the road again, its lights still turned off. I tried to move, but the brambles had weaved a trap around my pants and hoodie. Some distance away, I noticed Sandro, fighting to free himself.

“Sandro!” I hissed, straining to keep my voice hushed. But he seemed deaf to my calls.

Once he wrestled himself free, he scrambled down the slope, his descent a chaotic mix of tumbles and hurried strides. I gritted my teeth, tearing myself from the thorns as they clawed at my skin, drawing blood and I tried to follow Sandro, calling after him, but I kept falling on my knees.

We were almost back at the road when I noticed the RV creeping out of the darkness of the road. Its unhurried pace was deliberate, as if the driver, anticipating our desperate scramble onto the road, was waiting for us to emerge.

Taking a moment to catch my breath, I found shelter in the shadow of an ancient oak tree, the tempo of my breath matching the frantic pace of my thoughts, in which only one sentence somehow kept popping up, again and again, like singsong. A song my ex-girlfriend had taught me the only time we had gone camping together north of Toronto: “if it’s brown lie down! if it’s black fight back!”.

“Think, think...” I urged myself, memories of countless horror movies playing out like some perverse highlight reel. I knew that whoever was after us was just a human – not a bear, and I needed a weapon to fight back, so I looked around in the dark, finding only a branch that felt somewhat sturdy. It was far from ideal, but still had potential to inflict harm. I then surveyed the residences perched on the slopes below us, but all their lights were off. Further away, the grand villa resting just below my dad’s house had its light on like always, but its high fence and sheer distance made it an unattainable, at least for now. In the hectic blur of this moment, my only certainty was that we needed to reach the village of La Turbie and that, because of the rugged terrain, the main road was our only choice.

That bastard probably knows that… I thought.