*
Monte Sisto
MO WAS UNABLE to sleep. The effort of the day had been too much, and his contorted body was now full of pain. He lay on the sacking at the edge of the cellar floor beneath the monastery and groaned. The noise echoed back off the cool stone walls.
Bad people had been in here today. "Cattivo!" The word, gasped and groaned aloud, filled the room.
"Cattivo!" They were all bad.
He had been glad of the farm food today. The weather was too hot to go down there every day. His legs were weak. They hurt now. Hurt badly. His legs were cattivo. His whole body was cattivo. He tried to say the word aloud, listening to the sound coming back from his surroundings.
The man in the red station wagon was bad. The bad man was not here now. All bad men must go away.
"Man bad. Bad man dead now." The words were in his mind but could never be formed on his lips. Just one word came out, the sound welling up from his chest, before passing through the twisted teeth of his open mouth.
"Morto!"
The bad man in the red station wagon was dead.
The bad man had burned in hell.
Shout in the Dark Page 34