CONTENTS
Nightmare
Dark Peony Prologue
Chapter 1 Friday
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8 Saturday
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13 Sunday
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20 Monday
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37 Wednesday
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Copyright
NIGHTMARE
I know it. I know I am going to die on the 8th December, I just don’t know in which year yet.
Tara, my favourite fortune teller, never told me this, but I know for sure that I will die that day……
On the 8th December a few years ago, at 8pm, I should have died.
I was in Germany, driving along the A1, at the kreuz which connects the large motorway between Koln and Aachen, with my old friend Doriano and his girlfriend Stefania.
We were in a strange car accident. Nothing, or almost nothing, actually happened to us.
I was driving their automatic Mercedes. It was my first time but I was getting used to it very quickly. I was going through a period when everything seemed to be going my way and we were chatting amicably when, just as I was telling them how happy I was, I accidentally nudged the lever on my right. The car bucked like a crazed horse, dropping from the 150 kilometres per hour I was driving at to a total standstill.
My foot, used to manual drive cars, instinctively stepped on the clutch to keep the engine running, but found the brake and stuck to it like glue.
I could not get my foot back off again; my hand was shaking so much that I could not put the lever back into the correct starting position.
Cars and trucks skimmed by us at high speed, horns at full blast and opening behind us like water rushing round a sudden rock fall.
I was stunned, I didn’t know where I was, all I could do was watch the rear view mirror in horror, paralysed as if I had been bitten by a cobra and I was waiting for the final deadly kiss.
Beside me my friend Doriano screamed at me like a madman to move, to do something and made things even worse. He had taken hold of my scarf, tightening it round my neck, like a drowning person clings to their rescuer, the only person who can save them, pulling them down to the depths…
Stefania was struck dumb, rigid, terrified, her hands clutching the back seat, her eyes staring into the void, petrified, waiting for the end.
At that moment in the rear view mirror I spotted a powerful, bright red, articulated lorry thundering down upon us. All its lights were ablaze, horns and sirens blaring at full volume. It looked like a metallic devil belching fire and bellowing out one last deafening lament before swallowing us in its red jaws.
Cars in the other lanes beside it had not spotted us and were not leaving it any space to avoid us; the impact would be unavoidable.
The path of our lives would end there, in that damned kreuz…..
I could already picture my own body with those of my friends butchered amongst the twisted metal. A few bare titles in the papers, my loved ones in tears, a few tender regrets..
I had already prepared myself to die before then and therefore, in an incredibly calm tone of voice, I said:
“This is the end, let’s say goodbye to the world of the living!”
I was still watching the lorry in the rear view mirror and at the very moment when it was about to thunder into us, I closed my eyes as the car shook as if the heavy vehicle was flying over us….
When I opened my eyes I saw the lorry in front of us, the road ahead of it suddenly clear. Its horns were still screaming and black smoke poured from the exhaust pipes making it look like a retreating dragon.
I’ll never know how it managed to miss us!
The fear abandoned me, leaving a sudden calm in its place, the same calm with which I had pronounced those words.
My foot came off the brake pedal and without realising I was doing it, I slipped the automatic gear lever into position, slowly taking the car out of that vulnerable lane. I took the next turning on my right and we ended up in a deserted country lane.
I stopped as soon as I came across a small lay-by.
We got out of the car, stunned, and hugged each other in an unreal atmosphere, almost as if we were checking our bodies were still tangible, to prove to ourselves that we were not ghosts.
We drove slowly along the road the destiny of that night had set us on and, after a few kilometres, we came across a small hotel with a restaurant, just as thick fog started to cover us.
In a few minutes all three of us were seated at a table, silently drinking three beers to wash down three plates of tasty goulash.
We stayed there the night.
I slept in room number eight.
Stefania died suddenly, four years later, on the 8th December. I remember that the last time I spoke to her we had smiled about that strange event.
I don’t know why or how but since then on the 8th December I am usually in Germany at the same hotel on that dammed evening when we almost had the accident, as if I wanted to celebrate cheating death and remember a friend.
Last 8th December I was delayed in traffic and reached my usual hotel at about 11 pm. The small hotel was full, and I could not find another on the same road.
I had thought it would have been easy to find somewhere to sleep and I was starting to get worried. Without hesitating I joined the motorway and turned towards Cologne, certain that I would find a hotel there.
At the first sign indicating the town centre I left the motorway and slowed down looking for any sort of hotel sign.
I saw one straight away, it was a red neon light.
I headed straight for it, but it was almost midnight and the main door was already locked.
A card written in German said that the hotel was open until 10pm, after which the only entrance was through a small side door to the right in a sparsely-lit side road.
I got out of my car and immediately found an electric bell bearing the name of the hotel.
I rang it almost in despair, fearing that even the last night porter had already gone to bed. No answer.
I rang again, thinking I would have to go back and drive further into the town centre, where the only hotels still open would be five star and way too expensive for a few hours sleep.
Suddenly the intercom beside the bell squawked.
A piercing female voice spoke in German and the door clicked open.
I went quickly up the narrow iron staircase – probably the fire escape – beside the lift, following an arrow indicating “reception”.
I arrived at a run, carrying my briefcase.
The room was empty, but someone must have opened the door for me.
I walked up to the counter where my glance fell on the gol
d coloured bell in the middle of the table but just as I was about to hit it with the palm of my right hand a young girl with long, straight, blond hair, grey eyes and skin as pale as a ghost suddenly appeared from behind a column.
I jumped and then recovered quickly putting on a wide, Mediterranean smile which seemed to have no effect on the thin figure in front of me.
I tried to start a conversation in English but without so much as a glance, her eyes even more sleepy than mine, she handed me a registration card and the hotel rates, muttering some more words I did-n’t understand in barely whispered German.
Once I had filled out the card I tried to interrupt her, but she carried on as if she hadn’t heard me.
I put a 50 euro note on the table to cover the cost of the room for one night (the only thing I did understand) and tried to ask her why there was no-one else around.
My comment encountered with a mere twist of the lips from my sweet night porter who made it clear that the garage was somewhere else and to open it I would need a key from the bunch she was holding…
She started to examine the bunch but, suddenly tired of looking for the correct key, just as the clock struck midnight, the girl handed me all the keys she had, including the one for the room she had assigned to me, number eight.
I signed at her to wait for me. I ran down the stairs to my car, parked a little better in the side road, grabbed my case and hurried back to the small door, which had shut again.
The key I thought was the one for the door did not work; either that or in my haste I was unable to find the right one.
I rang again, I was dreaming.
Luckily I heard the usual humming sound and the door clicked opened again.
I went back up the stairs but the girl had gone.
I didn’t think too much of it at the time and went through the corridor leading to the bedrooms, opening a heavy door which clanged shut behind me with a strange metallic click.
The corridor was long, white, dominated by a strong neon light and even the doors were white!
I searched for my room: number 8.
I realised, almost with despair, that there were no numbers on the doors..
Now I was really beginning to panic.
I groaned; the sweat was beginning to trickle down my forehead. I wiped it off with my hand and my eyes fell to the ground. On the mat in front of the door of the first bedroom next to the door I noticed a small character.
I forced my eyes to focus and realised I was looking at a number: 1. I immediately looked at the next mat and spotted a small number 3 and the one at the door opposite a small 2, and so on.
I breathed a sigh of relief and my heartbeat returned to normal.
I damned the architect, probably inspired by the Matrix, who had designed that strange, almost invisible, numbering but I finally found my room and went in.
The icy cold blast of December in continental Europe was blowing in through the open window hitting me in the face.
I ran to close it straight away and could not avoid glancing outside at the small side street where I had parked my car.
The strange girl with the blonde hair from reception was beside it; she was looking at it and running her hands over it. Then, suddenly, as if she could feel me watching her, she raised her eyes and I met her enigmatic look of her strange face.
I stepped back, almost scared, and immediately drew the curtains. Then, I pulled one curtain back with one finger to peer out into the street, leaning against the wall.
The girl had disappeared.
Worried about what sort of presences I was dealing with I locked the bedroom door and even wedged the only chair in the room under the handle.
My exhaustion and a sleeping pill helped me to sleep that night.
The following morning as soon as I woke up, without even shaving or washing my face I got dressed, packed my things and went towards the exit.
There was nobody in reception.
I didn’t even bother ringing the bell which was still in the same place and didn’t pay any attention to the large steaming cup of coffee on one of the tables in the middle of the wide and silent entrance hall.
Only then did I notice the unusual lack of pictures on the wall, no superfluous furniture, only empty tables, chairs with no-one sitting on them, white walls.
I hurried down the stairs and, once outside in a still-deserted street, got into my car.
I realised I did not even know the time.
I looked at my watch: it was exactly eight o’clock.
I started the car nervously, giving one last glance to the window of the hotel where I never wanted to put foot again.
I was petrified.
The ethereal girl with grey eyes was standing at the window of the room I had spent the night in, her face set in a strange smile.
I looked away immediately and concentrated on my right hand which was shaking so much I could not push the lever into first gear.
For a moment I thought of those tragic moments of that night with Doriano and Stefania on the motorway, years before.
Then, finally, I found the gear and car lept forward.
I drove at full speed straight to the motorway slip road, disappearing into the country fog.
With my usual superstitious routine I touched first the gear stick, the dashboard and then my hand moved to the key ring hanging from the ignition, but it wasn’t the same.. it wasn’t mine!
My eyes glued to the road where the fog was getting thicker, I touched it again. I ran my fingers over the raised character and got the impression of a number stamped on it.
I was terrified and incredulous, my blood frozen in fear, while the road seemed to disappear from in front of me and behind me…I had started the car with the key to the hotel room in which I had spent the night .. number 8!
I went home and thought for a long time about what had happed. It was a sad and painful time for me then, very different to seven years earlier when my earthly happiness seemed to have reached a peak, just a few moments before the car stalled and that articulated lorry was about to smash into it. Why had I been saved and given another seven years of nightmares? Was it a demon who had taken on the appearance of that mechanical means which intended to hit me and send me into the world of the dead, or was it an angel who had come to my rescue to save my life? But what life? From the very moment when I had been saved my life had taken a downward turn, leading me to the edge of an abyss. Should I damn the devil who tried to kill me or the angel who saved me? And what was the meaning of what happened, eight years later, the same place where my earthly existence had been suspended for several moments? And then.. did it really happen or was it also just a dream? The continuous dream of a life we believe we live in a succession of events we try to determine, day after day, without realising that, after all, it has all already been written in the external struggle between demons and angels that dominate our feelings.
One week after, I met Vincent Mallory in a restaurant in the hills surrounding Verona. I told him what happened to me.
A few months later one evening at the end of a rainy day Mallory called me suggesting a story he had written. We have made a thriller out of it….this one.
Vincenzo Malavolti
DARK PEONY
Prologue
The fingers moved across the remote control, turning on the television and starting the video inside it.
The spectator sat down comfortably on the armchair smoking while images from the video came to life. They showed sequences of a harakiri taken from a Japanese film…
The samurai warrior was kneeling and was taking off a white kimono decorated by two large intertwined flowers, purplish red peonies.
The same decoration was on the kimono of the other samurai standing behind him: the keishaku, his friend and member of the same clan, executor of the last act in a life lived in honour.
The keishaku, in the strict Japanese code of honour (buschido), is the most revered figure in the iconography of the suic
ide (seppuku) and must assist the dying man.
He was holding his long sword, the katana, while a short and curved sword, the wakizasci, was secured tightly in his belt.
He handed the latter to his friend who, while still kneeling, took it, kissed it and after a brief moment of reflection, thrust it into his belly with a sudden movement. Then, while the blade was torturing his innards, still holding it with both hands, he moved it up and to the left.
At the exact moment the samurai was slicing into his innards, the keishaku raised his long sharp sword, ready to deliver the final blow, not to kill but to strike at the moment when the pain his friend was suffering became too atrocious to be born with dignity, without shouting it to the whole world and staining his exemplary life with a mark of dishonour.
When he realised his intervention was becoming necessary, he struck a blow which made the head of his samurai friend roll on to the ground.
Then he very carefully cleaned his sword and replaced it in its sheath.
The sequence ended leaving only the annoying lines marking the end of the tape.
The hand stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray on the table and picked up a wakizasci next to it, drawing it out of its sharkskin sheath. The fingers on the hand caressed the blade, from the grip to the strange double point, staring at it, and then the right hand placed it on the floor, on the carpet, while the body knelt to prepare for the same ceremony…
1
Friday
Diego was drying himself in front of the small mirror in the squalid bathroom where he had just showered.
His eyes seemed to probe his face, unevenly tanned by the African sun.
His short straight hair was still completely black, matching his pupils.
He took off his robe and reflected in the mirror he could see the long scar running from his left eye to the corner of his lips down to the lower edge of his jaw and touched it.
His skin, which was no longer smooth and showed the suffering of a difficult life, was much paler there, where the enemy’s knife had bitten into his flesh.
His long, thin hand, which also bore the scars of a deep burn, brushed against it, as if he could rub it away, and then ran to explore the other lines leading from his neck.
Dark Peony Page 1