Lizzi Bizzi and the Red Witch

by Stefano Pastor

  Then my aunts and uncles arrived and they hugged me, too. They even let me see him, but only from far away, not to upset me. It was a long time before my mother asked me. «And Giulia?».

  How could I have talked about zombies and cannibals in such a moment? «I persuaded her to go back home», I murmured.

  My mother kissed me again. «Thank you, you did really well, I knew I could count on you. I really couldn’t have managed to stand her, in this moment».

  At that point, the events sped up and there was no more way to think about Giulia.

  At the funeral, grandpa tried to throw himself on the coffin, moaning that it wasn’t right for a son to die before his father.

  The garage was put on sale and my aunts and uncles went back to their homes. I had to study a lot because I had missed several school days. I passed the year, despite of my fears, maybe more because of the tragedy that had fallen upon me than because of my skills.

  Mum had remained alone to take care of grandpa and it wasn’t easy for her. Nevertheless, she always refused my help, encouraging me to go out as much as I could. She talked about how I could find a summer job, at least not to burden on the house expenses, but I kept beating about the bush.

  Over a month after Giulia’s disappearance, nobody had been looking for her. Nobody had noticed or, more likely, if they had, they would have thanked heaven for it. There were already rumours that she had escaped with someone she’d met all of a sudden. Her house always remained closed.

  The mystery would have remained such for eternity if fate hadn’t decided to make us meet again. It happened one night at the amusement park, where I had gone with my friends.

  While I was bingeing on cotton candy, I saw him walk right in front of me. It was him, with no doubt, the same young man who had sat next to cousin Giulia, the one who had –

  I was so shocked that even my friends noticed. «What’s up? What’s the matter with you?».

  He wasn’t alone, there was a girl with her. She was the only one talking, non-stop, without pausing even to take a breath.

  I found an excuse to set me free and I started following them. I knew it was risky, in any case I wouldn’t have been able to do anything, but I felt it was my duty to do it.

  I kept looking behind my back, to be sure that his accomplices weren’t there, too.

  Soon enough, I noticed that his companion wasn’t a girl at all. Well, just like cousin Giulia, she also faked to be one, she dressed and wore makeup like a girl, but I figured she was at least thirty, and in all likelihood, she was even older than that. She was actually rather plain, a dull person that no one would have deigned to look at twice.

  I shook my head in front of that woman’s heedlessness. She was the one who tried to take initiative. The young man never spoke, he smiled at most, but he had one arm placed across her shoulder, with a possessive gesture.

  They slowly walked away from the amusement park and I realized they were directed towards the viewpoint, a usual meeting place for couples. In a normal situation, I would have never dreamed going to such places, but that wasn’t a normal situation at all.

  I thus kept following them, keeping myself hidden, and I allowed them to get further away from me.

  When they reached the viewpoint, they sat on the bench. Below their feet, beyond the rail, the whole city spread out, and the view was beautiful, lit by the moonlight.

  They were hugging and the scene was really romantic, at least ostensibly. But I didn’t intend to be swindled, I knew very well what would have happened, so I didn’t lose sight of them.

  Something was looming over that place, something terrible that put me in a state of agitation. I looked around me and I saw one of them, just ten meters away from me. It was one of the men I had already met in the cinema screen, precisely the bald giant. We were really close, but he hadn’t noticed my presence, he kept his gaze fixed on the couple. Paralysed by terror, I realised he wasn’t alone: about ten more men appeared out of the darkness and started slowly converging towards the bench.

  What should I do? Should I have started screaming? Would have that been of any use? It was just us, we were too far away for anybody to hear us. In the cinema screen, screaming had been of no use. That woman was done for, whatever I decided to do.

  And so, I remained there and looked, trying to hide myself as much as I could.

  It was something indescribable, so weird that it seemed unreal. Because the men got closer and closer, as far as to hide the sight of the bench and its occupiers from my sight. Then they all bowed, surrounding her, a compact mass of bodies. I didn’t hear a scream, not even a moan, I heard no noise at all. Those men remained there, apparently motionless, for a few minutes, then they stood up and started slowly going away. There was no trace of the woman sat on the bench. She had literally disappeared.

  I remained there, mouth wide-opened, too surprised to even think. I saw them separate, everyone going their own way. Only when I was certain they were enough far away, I risked exiting my hiding place and reaching the bench.

  The woman wasn’t there anymore. Her dress wasn’t there, not even her purse. There was instead a big stain that looked black, under the moonlight, right where she had been sitting, and even on the ground, at her feet. What had they done with her? Where was she? Had they… completely eaten her?

  It seemed absurd, impossible.

  I stared long at that bench, but at the end I recovered and I wondered what I should do. Going to the police? And to tell what? That a group of cannibals was eating people. It literally ate them, bones and clothing included! They would have laughed, I was sure of that.

  Acting as if nothing had happened, forgetting it? How could I have done that? I would have never managed to!

  When I was about to leave, driven by an impulse that I couldn’t understand immediately, I chose the path taken by the young assassin. His face was fixed in my mind, I would have recognised him anywhere. It wasn’t the face of a monster, far from it: he was rather good looking, one of those that easily attract girls. He really looked like a good guy, completely different from his bald accomplice, who only struck fear.

  I quickened my pace, without a real reason. When I saw him in front of me, I realised that my search was over. I wanted to follow him, discover who he was, what he did, even if I realised perfectly what they were capable of doing.

  He was alone, they had divided, but I still shouldn’t let my guard down. Silent as they were, his accomplices could have suddenly reappeared.

  Following that young man was very useful, but it left me with a heap of unresolved questions. That evening, I discovered the real reason of the verb ‘to idle’. He, in fact, didn’t do anything at all, he just sauntered about.

  He would walk around the street, he would stop, he would look at a shop window or at a street lamp, even at a letter box, for minutes and minutes in a row, perfectly still, then he would rouse himself and he would start walking again. But really slowly, with no rush. Was it this the way crazy killers behaved after a murder? It was stressful to follow him, terribly stressful. He was just wasting time, maybe he was waiting for someone, or for something to happen. In half an hour, we had barely walked three hundred meters. At the end, I even stopped hiding myself, as I was sure he wouldn’t take notice of me. He hadn’t turned around once.

  After another half hour, they started converging.

  Gasping, I saw one of the other man arrive and come up beside him. After a while there were three of them, then four. They didn’t wander around anymore, they walked directly towards a destination, even if always slowly. Shortly, other arrived, too: I counted as many as eleven of them. The one I hadn’t seen yet was the bald giant.

  He was waiting in front of a big building. He was there, still, and they reached him. It was in that moment that everyone turned around to check. I rushed behind a parked car, fearing it was too late and they had already taken notice of my presence. I waited gasping, dreading to see them appear around me, ready to make me
completely disappear. But nothing happened, so I risked leaning my head out.

  They were all going inside the building, one after the other. The bald man was keeping the door open and it seemed to me that he was the one in charge. He went in last and he closed the door behind him.

  I remained there waiting for over an hour, heart in my throat. I was certain that sooner or later they would have come out, but it didn’t happen. I then got together a bit of courage and I walked forward. The building was ugly and the plaster was falling to pieces. There were a few windows covered by iron bars and the whole area was permeated by an unpleasant smell. I stopped in front of the little door I had seen them getting in from, but it was anonymous, made of iron, without handles, it could have only been opened with a key. I sure had no intention of getting in there.

  It was already night time, mum would have been worried for me. I wondered if they had a family, too, and how they could justify those night outings.

  I walked forward, trying to understand where I was. On the other side of the building there was a big writing, right on top of a bolted shutter: MUNICIPAL SLAUGHTERHOUSE, it said.

  And so, I acted as a detective.

  The following day, I left with a good pace, right after waking up, and I lay in wait close to the building, to watch over it. If I had hoped to have been a morning person, I had to think again, the slaughterhouse had been opened for hours and there wasn’t much to see. Things got better with time, when lorries started arriving to pick up the goods. I saw them taking out beef quarters and any kind of offal packed in containers, as well as other types of meat that I wasn’t able to recognise. The workers in charge of this job were always the same, and one of them was precisely my young assassin. I guessed that the others, too, could have been his accomplices, but I couldn’t be sure of that from that distance.

  I was sure of only one thing: I had found them, they were all there!

  Crazy butchers? Mass insanity? Some kind of… sect? The sect of the crazy butchers? No, no, I was the one who was becoming crazy.

  I checked the newspapers, that morning, and the following morning, too. I did it for the whole week, while I kept spying my assassins. But there was no trace of the disappeared woman, they never wrote about her.

  I wondered how was that possible. How there could exist people so devoid of ties, that nobody would notice their disappearance, or they would lose interest in it. People like cousin Giulia, always avoided by everyone, and that other woman too, in all likelihood. But it was like that, unfortunately, there did exist people that no one would have looked for, never. People that, by disappearing, would have only made the world a better place. Useless, ignored people. Was it by chance that they had been the ones to be chosen? That for both times the victims had been so similar?

  In that movie theatre they had ignored him, they’d let me run away. Why? Because the disappearance of a boy would have been noticed immediately and that wasn’t what they wanted. They knew that if I had denounced them, no one would have believed my words.

  I prepared myself and I borrowed from a friend a small pair of binoculars. In this way, I could position myself in a safer place and I could have a better view.

  But what I saw was strange, very strange. That young man was a hard worker, always laughing, he was friends with everyone and everyone knew him. Even I would have found him nice, if I hadn’t known he was a murderer. One evening, I followed him home and I discovered he lived with his mother and two younger brothers. He had lost his father, too, just like me. in that occasion, I also discovered his name: Aldo Righi.

  There were moments when I wondered if I wasn’t the one who had gotten completely crazy, because it seemed impossible that those men were monsters.

  Then, one day, I noticed a sign on the window. I had to get closer to be able to read it and I froze pensive in front of that writing: APPRENTICE WANTED.

  «It’s not for you», someone said to my right. «You’re too skinny».

  The voice was playful and I turned around to answer back. I remained paralysed when I saw the young man right in front of him.

  It was impossible that he wouldn’t recognise me, I had given myself away! I should have never gotten that close!

  But it didn’t happen, or anyway, he managed to hide it well. «Sturdier persons are needed for such a job», he continued. «I say this for your sake, it could be very tiring».

  I forced myself to speak. «Do you have… do you have to kill animals?».

  He burst out laughing. «No, you don’t have to kill anyone. Even I wouldn’t able to do that. There are other people for those duties».

  He had done much worse and I knew that. «Is it difficult?».

  He shrugged his shoulder. «To be sure, you don’t need a degree. Are you at least motorized?».

  «Pardon?».

  «Do you have a scooter?».

  «No, but –».

  «Can you drive one, at least?».

  I nodded.

  «You’d have to do a lot of deliveries, you know? To the butchers’ in the area. Small things, but a few could be heavy».

  I was almost disappointed. «Is that all?».

  He laughed again. «So, you really want to do this?».

  I was almost tempted to nod again. «I need to talk about it with mum».

  He shook his head. «Then she will never let you».

  «Why?».

  I discovered the reason all too early. When I talked to mum about that job, she looked at me horrified, as if I had said something obscene. «A slaughterhouse?».

  She started shaking her head, without being able to stop. «Do you realise that that’s where they kill animals? Is that what you want to do?».

  I tried to explain her that I would only have to handle deliveries.

  «Going around the streets with a scooter all day long, with all the traffic there is? You’re crazy! And besides, you don’t even own a scooter!».

  I explained to her that dad had taught me to ride a scooter and that they would have given me the transport.

  «No, no, no!», she persisted. And then: «Try at the pizzeria at the corner, they need an assistant, too».

  But I had a way different aim: that was my investigation and I had decided to go on with it. I was absolutely certain that that young man hadn’t recognised me, so why should I miss the occasion to infiltrate right in the middle of the enemy?

  3

  It wasn’t a short fight, the skirmishes between me and mum went on for two more days. At the end, we reached an agreement. I promised I would give her all my earnings, showing that I would be sensible. I didn’t really care about the money, and not even about the job itself. She agreed, but she still said again: «How can you want to do a job like that? What have I done wrong?».

  I had her permission, now, but this didn’t mean they would hire me. For example, maybe the place wasn’t available anymore. And so, the next morning I showed up at the Slaughterhouse, all clean and tidy. The writing still towered over the window.

  I knocked, I opened the door and I leaned over. The place wasn’t open to the public, the window was darkened not to let people see what there was inside. I saw butchers’ counters and men working there. A man wearing a white coat came towards him. I spoke fast, before he even asked me anything. «For that job –».

  He understood immediately. «You need to enter from the back, you can’t get it wrong, there’s just one door».

  I turned pale, because that was precisely the door from which I had seen the murderers go in.

  I went there anyway, but I froze in front of the closed door. What was there wrong, after all, I knew already that they were in there! That young man hadn’t recognised me, but would it have been the same for the others, too? Was I not risking my life?

  I knocked, before I changed my mind.

  The man who threw the door open could have been one of the murderers, too, but I wasn’t sure of that. I explained again why I was there. He assessed me with a glance, without making a
ny comments. «Come in».

  As soon as I stepped in, I froze suddenly. In front of me, mighty and huge, was the bald man, the boss of the entire gang. Our eyes met and his seemed icy and alien.

  «Come on, move it, you idiot! What are you looking at? Stop wasting time!».

  I jumped, heart in my throat, before realising that they weren’t talking to me. The bald man turned his gaze around, then he started cleaning the floor again, with indifference.

  The man who had opened the door mumbled: «He’s of no use, by now we’re keeping him just out of pity. He’s completely bewildered, that one».

  I observed the extremely slow and poorly coordinated movements with which the bald man did his job, and I felt even more confused. «Is he… disabled?», I dared ask with a low voice.

  «Yeah, you could call him that. For me he’s just an idiot! Why, Rico, what are you? Tell the boy what you are!».

  The bald man started looking again towards me, without replying. He must have been Rico. I realised that his eyes weren’t icy and terrifying, but just stupid. They showed a total lack of intelligence. And this caught me off guard a little.

  «Keep going straight», the man told me, pointing at a corridor. «Up to that door down there. Ask about Mr Villa».

  The entrance was bleak, it was just a porter’s lodge, so I guessed the man to be a sort of porter. Besides him there was just Rico, cleaning the floor. I turned around and I entered the corridor.

  I looked across the opened doors: a changing room with the employees’ lockers, showers, a sort of dining hall. At the end of the corridor I found the office that had been pointed out to me. There wasn’t a secretary or anything of the sort, I had to announce myself on my own.

  Villa was the director, he was the one taking care of everything. During the few minutes I spent there, we were continuously interrupted, by phone calls or by workers.

  He wasn’t really subtle, he asked me very little, he just told me that in that period they had a lot of work and they needed help. I guessed I had been the only one to reply to the job announcement. He asked me if I was a sensitive type.