I look around searching for other clues. On the rocky wall that delimits the path, almost in correspondence to the carcass, there are red spots that remind me the writing under the tombstone. They are partially covered by the vegetation and I can’t well understand what it is. It could be one of those white and red marking along the hiking trail.
‹‹Ehi! Have you seen this?›› I say indicating the red writing. We approach the paret trying to better understand, eradicate some weeds grown in the rock’s splits and tear some long branches of a climbing plant that goes down from above: this way we free the view. There are mosses attached to the rock, but I can easily eliminate them helping myself with a branch found on the ground.
Actually there’s a script, but it’s too faded to understand it.
This is what we see:
M* *UUT *
The asteriscs (*) indicate the position of some red spots that probably were letters, but unfortunately they are inevitably incomprehensible.
It seems so strange to find an old carcass tied to crossing wood boards. This writing, then...I’ve got a bad presentiment. Antonio interrupts my obscure fantasies: ‹‹Fascinating eh? Have you ever seen a carcass so big e so... intact?››
‹‹Who knows what kind of animal it is...!?››
‹‹What do you think about this?›› I ask indicating the red letters.
‹‹I’m not going to say anything, ‘cause you never listen to me›› says Anna.
‹‹There’s nothing to think about. It’s the usual uncivilized people who dislike nature, they don’t respect it... Come on, let’s go away from here, we risk to take some disease ››
‹‹Waite a minute, I want to write down those letters›› and so I do.
If that was one of my solitary excursion, that would surely be the right moment to go back. One of those moment in which you think: -is it really worth pursuing when you find such things?-
During my solitary tours I learned to listen to nature and to what surrounds me, but also to myself and my intuitions. I always supported my times, my body, my tiredness or my desire to move on. I learned that when I begin to feel that there’s something wrong, for any reason (it could be the change of the weather, the air or the atmosphere, or whatever), that’s the moment to say: “Now it’s enough”. Every time I didn’t listen to my inner voice, always something went wrong: in the worst case I got lost, other times paths became less interesting or began to become dangerous. I don’t know if this is a common capacity for everyone. Actually, I know that it isn’t so. My friend Anna says that I emane a strong energy and it is very likely that I have hidden capabilities that I cannot control.
To be honest, I’m not interested to the topic, but in certain circumstances I like to think it is so. Circumstances like this one.
In the end I think that the difference between Anna’s crappy ideas and my way of thinking about this topic, is that what to her are certainties, to me are fascinating possibilities. And thinking better it’s a big difference, because what is just curiosity for me, is a way of life for her. If she’s certain of my sixth sense, I want to believe that there’s something true. When she believes that the entire universe is dominated by energies that intersect, merge, interact and blend, and that it’s possible to “read” this energies through rows, tarots, etc., I believe more concretely (but even not too much), that if the moon succeed in influencing the sea, can also affect us, because we are infinitely smaller than an ocean. I think maybe there is a way to read this influences: as the science explains the rational, there might be an extra science that explains the intangible. The complicated thing is to understand, but above all, to find who is really capable to do it. Even more difficult is to really believe in all this, beyond the simple disquisition with puerile curiosity.
Apart from this parafilosophic-energetic-spiritual parenthesis, it’s very complicated to listen to your instinct when you’re not alone (it could be a matter of concentration), and it is even more difficult to convince someone about your feeling... even though, in this case, I’m sure I’d have Anna’s support: but she didn’t expect anything than having the excuse to go back. To say the truth I wanted to go on: I like the adventures.
It’s me again to be the first of the small group. Only few minutes have passed since we left the carcass.
I’m about to fall on one of the many rocks and, at the same time I try to dodge the plants that almost invades the passage, when Anna expresses everyone’s opinion
‹‹Guys, it seems to me that there’s no point in continuing, we risk getting hurt and, moreover, it’s becoming dark››.
When she spoke I was carefully searching for the right support where to put my feet on that dangerous path. Hearing her voice I look up and... I see it.
If she didn’t talk I would definitely bump my head, and that wouldn’t have been nice.
A rusty wrought iron gate. Halfway between one of those is seen in horror movies, and a cover of Iron Maiden. It’s height could be two and a half meters. In the middle of it there was an iron skull that left perplexed. It forced those in front of it, to watch it carefully. Let me say that its expression was not one of an “everyday’s skull”, I couldn’t explain why. Teeth and gums, well carved in the metal, made the image even too realistic. It seemed to grin but at the same time, screaming. A little difference that left definitely enchanted but also disturbing. It seemed too old to be false and too perfect to be true.
‹‹Anna...Antonio... Come to have a look!››.
We get stuck in front of that gate, that meaningless skull, without knowing what to think. It looks like another bad omen. We look at each other smiling without knowing why. -This can’t be true- I think.
Maybe they done it to give a touch of mystery to a castle that has to be restored. I never saw something like this, if not in some stupid horror film. Nevertheless is there, in front of us. Over the gate the ground appears white as if it was covered with cotton. There is little light here: we have to approach to see better.
The gate is not really closed: ‹‹Are we going?›› I say.
‹‹NO!›› cry out Anna, as if I said “Let’s bounce down”. Clearly she can’t go on anymore, I think she’s at the end.
‹‹ARE YOU JOKING?›› she says ‹‹IT’S A RUINED CASTLE, THERE ARE ONLY RUBBLES! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’LL FIND? ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! IT’S BECOMING DARK! I WANT TO GO AWAY. NOW!!!››
...she cannot finish the sentence that something interrupts her...someone, something. It was so sudden that it is difficult to define. All the rest happened in a fraction of a second.
III – Nuixib Yuum K’iin
A good sommelier could comment a wine saying: ‹‹Consistent, cherish, fruity, spicy, a touch of mineral salt, an aftertaste slightly salty. Soft and elegant››, for you it would be simply “red wine”. The same way I’ll try to describe what we heard , but it would be easier to say: “Terror”.
An horrible screaming mixed with a grunt, that seemed a sentence in a incomprehensive language, it could be the barking of a dog or some kind of a mountain’s beasts, a rattle, a boom. Something that is impossible to define, all at once. And it became from the path that we just passed. It seemed so near...
I don’t know how long it lasted, certainly less than the time to describe it. The fact is that in a moment we crossed the gate, to feel safe from whatever produced that abominable verse. We walked about twenty feet backwards, looking terrified in the direction of the trail, almost without realizing.
We wouldn’t dare to speak, to ask “what it was” would be stupid, because no one could answer. Was it possible that our hearing had again deceived us?...no, we all heard it clearly. To ask would be as to admit the reality of that horrible and scary situation; it would means to say: “I don’t know what it was, but it’s something to be afraid of!”
While we’re looking at each other, something falls from above making me startled: it’s a summer thunderstorm; the rain’s drops as large as golf balls. It is s
o violent that the first thing we do is to cover our heads and look for a shelter...poor ones...inside the crumbling and absolutely no-friendly medieval castle.
Grey! This is the predominant color...and total abandonment. Completely invaded by plants lurking on the walls, but unfortunately they are not green plants: a bit of color would have made the situation more bearable. They’re dark, almost black, and they seem sick. The mist laying on the ground, here, is denser, as if a white coat is covering it. A painful vision that put even more anguish and that surely doesn’t help our already exhausted mood.
We quickly find a shelter in a crumbling building, but at least it has a roof. It’s difficult to understand what kind of building it was, it’s too ruined. And there, finally, we speak: ‹‹Guys, what was that???›› I ask
‹‹It’s been horrible›› is Anna’s answer
‹‹Maybe it was the thunderstorm, what else could it be?›› intervenes Antonio.
Grey! This is the predominant color...and total abandonment.
Yes, what else? Suggestions again. Stop! We had to go away from there, but it was raining too much and we would go home with flu and feeling as if our bones were broken.
We have to wait for a better moment, as much as to go back in safety. But time was passing and seemed that the rain forgot that everything has a begin and an end. In that moment the end seemed more and more distant.
We were sheltering for about an hour, kept in hostage by that bloody storm. Unfortunately water begins to enter. We are in bad condition! Those thunders! Never heard booms like that. It seemed that the sky split in two...crackles that made us shivering. What if that terrible noise was really a lightning that fell too near? I could not think to other than to that horrible... thunder?
It was cold. Luckily we bought sweatshirts that morning when we were in Mormanno, otherwise I don’t know how we could do. Meanwhile we take the bottle of wine gave us by the group at the Refuge. To me it seems so far away that place, it looks like in a past life. We all were serene and enthusiastic, it was raining there too, but the situation was completely different from the present one. Friends from faraway places that exchange anecdotes, pieces of life, food and glasses of wine. Now, instead, in the middle of nowhere, in this nightmare and cold we find benefit in that bottle of wine. Thank you, my friend.
The wine begins almost immediately to take effect, it’s quite strong and our stomachs are empty. Maybe it’s better this way, better not to think, better to forget. Soon we’ll leave.
I don’t remember if I had drowned, maybe I was in some kind of sleep. Oddly I managed to relax and give free space to memories. Do you ever happen, half asleep, to start thinking about some events happened during the day and “look” at them in a different perspective? In those moments, sometime, you enrich the memories with salient details, unconsciously memorized. The same thing happens when you are just awake, when mind is free from the thoughts of the day and it can manage to find images picked up distractedly. It’s like when you forget to put the keys in the back pocket of your jeans and then you start to look for them everywhere, and when you sit, tired of looking for them, you find them effortlessly. While I was in that drowsiness, happened the same thing: there were in my mind memories of things that I didn’t think I saw or heard. I remembered when Ernesto (that gave us that bottle of wine) started talking about Laino and I remembered that he was going to tell us something important, but none of us have perceived it: ‹‹...people went away after the earthquake of 1980, now it’s a ghost town››he said, then he added: ‹‹But if you go be careful. I don’t know if it’s true, but they say that.....uuuuh, wait a minute! I know this song››. ‹‹What do they say?›› asked someone. It was too late. We started singing in two voices for five or six minutes. An improvised show that attracted the attention of the public...the other four.
And all the talks ended there...till the extinction of the last note.
No one paid more attention to that sentence, nor did remember to ask Ernesto what he was about to say before interrupting. It comes in my mind just now, why? My memories are confused. Mocking joke of fate! Now it doesn’t matter anymore: we are about to go home.
Finally it’s raining slowly, I don’t know how much time has passed but, in that moment, I believe a lot. The sun has already gone down and we can’t warn home because the cell phones, here, have not field. Completely isolated from the rest of the world. We keep courage and go out, it’s still raining but we can walk. Now or never again.
Once again we notice something that wasn’t expected: an intermittent vibrant light, coming from the heart of the medieval village. Lights are always fascinating, especially if they remember the fire, and that light seems just a fire: -A fire? Up there!? Maybe someone is in our same situation! There was a car near the gate at the beginning! It could be the big man that we met there-
We just have to go and see!
We are approaching slowly...one never knows. Anyway that light comforts me. Maybe it’s because of the wine, but it reminds me of the bonfires on the beach: free, without rules...you, the fire and what you have around; nothing else. My thoughts are wandering serene and undisturbed, with that pleasant and inebriating lightness when you’re almost drunk. Who knows if it’s good or bad having found this inner moment of serenity:
-Maybe it would have been better not to drink-.
We pass over a series of crumbling structures. You can easily recognize a Church, well preserved outside, but the roof was completely missing: -Let’s hope they can soon return it to the curiosity of errant travelers like us-.
Meanwhile we approach the place that emits light and begin to perceive voices. We don’t understand the language, we can hear a sort of cantilene:
‹‹ooo...xiu...kii...uuii...ooo...xiu...kii›› we have to approach a little bit more and try to understand.
-Who knows what they are saying...-.
In front of us there’s a low wall, about one meter and seventy, it blocks the passage and you have to lean to see the other side. We try to do so, forcing
One can easily recognize a Church, well preserved outside but completely scattered...
on our arms on what remains of a probable masonry perimeter.
We expected to find relief from whatever produced that light, but that was not the case. We bitterly repented of having sneered, and those images will always persecute us. If you won’t believe in what I’m going to tell you, the better for you...
Fires...a lot of fires! They reminds us those extinguished ones we found before coming up, there are really a lot. One behind the other, identical to each other, almost as if they were made with a kind of precision tool.
Of course they were all lit, not as those we saw...but something told me that even those were lit, by now they were all lit; and there were also them... those beings...
Elongate anthropomorphic figures, half naked, the heads have strange shake: they look as those of animals, they are lightened by the fire...completely smeared with blood...
My senses deceive me...I feel as if my head is turning around, I have a vomiting ...I’m drunk...it isn’t possible! Yet I’ve been drinking more... It can’t be a hallucination! It was wine, no ecstasy!?
I turn incredulously to my companions and by their expression I understand that they see what I’m seeing too. What the hell is happening!?
The contrast between the dark zone we just crossed and the light of the fires, confuses my sight. I can’t understand anything about those beings that appears so unnatural. Could it be the effect of the wine if they seem so real? I would like to think rationally, convince myself that is all fake, but I can’t; completely immersed in this aguishly dreaming. One of theme is speaking standing; I associate his orripilant figure backlit to the usual iconography of a wolf-man, just like that. You would say a man but the upper part of his body is considerably bigger and has the semblance of an animal. Just like all the other beings that I see confusingly squeezing my eyelids. About them, in few instants, I ju
st memorize the repugnant deformity smeared with blood.
I’m getting used to the light. I clearly distinguish the head of beast of the nearest being: it swings slowly at every movement, the mouth wide open with the teeth well in sight, the dangling tongue; it’s quite a wolf. The jaw is covered by a sort of foam that sometime is black and comes out in long and thick filaments that rock and glow at the light of the fire. The hair is wet and curled with darker spots here and there.
They all stay around the fire, most are sitting; near each fire there is only one of them standing. He capture their attention, speaks an incomprehensible language that disturbs the ears. It would be difficult to reproduce it and, frankly, I wouldn’t try; it was stuffy. Repressive and obsessive. All those seated repeat monotonously the same incomprehensible cantilene:
‹‹ooo...nuixib yuum k’iin...oooo...nuixib yuum k’iin...››
They repeat it indefinitely, the black of the night even more ghastly. Their voices are unbearable, I would cry to make them stop. The husky words of the standing being are overheard above all the other’s: an infernal burst of abominable verses.
They shake convulsively, rocking their deformed head. Every now and then someone stands up screaming who knows what, then sits back to perpetuate that hateful cantilene. They are covered only by a dirty cloth at the height of hips.
Story of a Ghost Town Page 3