Nowhere is Safe (pt 2)

I don’t know who got the idea first—might have been me. Might’ve been Baz or Baz’s cousin, John. Could even have been my BFF, Isabel. Just three guys and a girl withbackpacks, Eurorail passes, and two full months before we had to report to college.

Somehow we’d managed to blow through most of our money in a month. That’s when one of us—again, I can’t remember who—suggested we stretch our cash by packing it through Eastern Europe.“It’s that or we go home early and spend the summer at the Taco Temple handing bags of grease bombsthrough the drive-thru window,” Baz said. He was on his fourth German beer and looked like a six-foot-four, sleep-deprived goat the way he staggered around. There was foam in his new chin scruff.

“Can’t we go to Amsterdam instead? I hear you can smoke pot right out in the open,” John pleaded. Isabel shook her head. “Too expensive.”
“For you guys,” John mumbled.

“Don’t be that way,” Isabel gave him a kiss, and John softened. They’d been a thing since the second week in Europe, and I was trying to be cool with it. Izzie was worth ten of John, to be honest. “So where should we go? Not someplace everybody and their freaking aunt Fanny
go. Let’s have a real adventure, you know?”

“Such as, my fine, travel-audacious princess?” said Baz, being all Bazlike, which is to say just one toe over the friend side of the Cheeky-Friend-or-Obnoxious-Jerk divide. He tried to pat Isabel’s faux hawk. She shook him off with a good-natured glare and a threatened punch that had Baz on his knees in mock terror. “Mercy,” he cried in a high voice. Then he winked. “Or not. I like it
either way.”

With a roll of her eyes Isabel opened our Europe on the Cheap travel guidebook and pointed to a section entitled “Haunted Europe” that gave bulleted info about off-thebeaten-path places that were supposedly cursed in some way: castles built out of human bones, villages that once
hunted and burned witches, ancient burial grounds, and caves where vampires lurked. Werewolf or succubus hot spots—that sort of thing.

John tickled Isabel and grabbed the book away. “How about this one?” He read aloud, “‘Necuratul. Town of the Damned. In the Middle Ages Necuratul suffered from a series of misfortunes: a terrible drought, persecution from brutal enemies, and the Black Death. And
then suddenly, in the fifteenth century, their troubles stopped. Necuratul prospered. It escaped all disease and repelled enemy attacks with ease. It was rumored that the people of Necuratul had made a pact with the devil in exchange for their good fortune and survival.

“‘Over the past century Necuratul’s fortunes have dwindled. Isolated by dense forest and forgotten by industrialization, most of its young people leave for the excitement of the cities and universities as soon as they can. But they return for the village’s festival day, August 13, in which Necuratul honors its past through various rituals, culminating in a Mardi Gras–like party complete with delicious food and strong drink. (Necuratul is famed for its excellent wines as well as its supposed disreputable history.)
“‘Sadly, this may be the last year for the festival—and Necuratul itself—as there are plans to relocate the town and build a power plant in its location.’”

“Wow. There’s a happy travelogue,” Baz cracked. “Come to our town! Drink our wine! Ogle our women! Feast on our feast days! And all it will cost you is . . . your soul!”

“They’ve got great wine and a hellacious party? I’m there,” John said. He still had his expensive sunglasses perched on his head. His nose was sunburned. Baz drained his stein and wiped his mouth on his arm. “I’m in.”

“Me too. Poe?” Isabel held out her hand to me andgrinned. It was always hard to resist Izzie when she was being adventurous. We’d been best friends since seventh grade when she’d immigrated from Haiti and I’d arrived from the big city, and we’d held on to each other like
buoys lost on a dark, uncertain sea. I laced my fingers through hers.
“Town of the Damned it is,” I said, and we all shook
on it.