by Rita Vetere
A child had been buried alive, right here on this island. And from what had been shown to her, she knew that beneath the ground over which she crawled, a mass grave rested. The bodies upon which she had been lying in the vision had appeared disease-ridden, and Anna deduced the island must have been used as a disposal site during one of the plague outbreaks that had ravaged Europe centuries ago. The thought caused her to shudder. No wonder the damned place was haunted. Something akin to pity for the doomed child rose in her. But then she remembered its sinister eyes, and the malevolence radiating from them, and Anna knew that, even if the apparition had once been human, it was something else entirely now—something unspeakably evil.
Chapter 23
Venice
1927
At sunup, Luogotenente Carelli, the lieutenant in charge of the police station, surveyed the six asylum employees gathered in his office. He listened without interruption as each of them repeated the same story. Something had happened on the island the previous night, they told him. There were creatures on the island, walking corpses that had tried to kill them. They’d had no choice but to flee, using the emergency boats. They’d made it safely back to the mainland in the middle of the night, but had agreed among themselves to wait until daylight to approach the police. None of them were willing to return to the island at night, not after what they’d seen.
Luogotenente Carelli did not believe a word of the ridiculous tale. When the last of the six men finished talking, he shot them a withering look.
“Surely you do not expect me to believe this nonsense. Do I need to remind you of the penalty for making a false report?”
One of the men jumped up. “I swear, Luogotenente, we are telling you the truth. I know how this must sound, but we all saw the creatures with our own eyes. We are not lying.”
The rest of the group murmured its assent.
Carelli studied the men’s faces for any sign this might be a prank. All of them appeared genuinely frightened.
“And where is the head surgeon? I would be interested to hear what he has to say.”
The men avoided his gaze, until one of them said, “Dottore Rossi was not with us when we boarded the boats. He must still be on the island.”
The words caused Carelli’s anger to rise. “Do you mean to tell me you did not seek him out when you felt yourselves to be in danger? That you left him on the island with no means of return?”
“There was no time, Luogotenente. None of us would be alive now if we had stayed to locate him.”
Only then did Carelli jump into action. Whatever had happened to frighten these men, they had fled like cowards, leaving the head surgeon alone on the island with a hospital full of insane patients. If something happened to Rossi, and Carelli did nothing, the blame would surely fall on his shoulders.
He certainly did not believe the wild tale recounted by the men, but he supposed there was a possibility some of the patients may have gone on a rampage. Wasting no time, he commandeered his men. A half-hour later, with the hospital staff in tow, Carelli and a group of his men boarded a small fleet of police boats and set off for the island to investigate.
The boats pulled up to the landing and the men disembarked. The hospital employees led the way to the main building, Carelli and his men right behind.
Before they arrived at the asylum, Carelli spotted a group of men and women on the path ahead of them. The disheveled-looking patients were clad only in hospital gowns, roaming barefoot on the grounds, clutching at each other and muttering incoherently. Several had their hands in their hair, as if some calamity had befallen them. Others just stood staring at the sky. These were no doubt the “corpses” the men had seen the night before.
“Round up those patients,” Carelli barked. “Get them back in the hospital. You,” he said, pointing to one of the staff. “Where is the head surgeon’s office?”
The man directed him and Carelli set off at a trot after ordering his men to locate and account for every patient in the facility.
Blood stains covered the path leading to the office. Not a good sign. When Carelli arrived at Rossi’s sanctuary, the door stood wide open and he stepped inside. His jaw dropped in surprise when he surveyed the large room. Blood was everywhere. It covered the floors, the walls, even the ceiling. Judging from the amount of blood, the man could not possibly have survived.
Shards of glass crunched under his boots as he made his way across the room, and he noticed several empty liquor bottles lying on the floor. The only other doorway led to the lavatory, and he found no sign of Rossi and no blood there. He left to round up his men in order to conduct a search. On his way to the door, he spied something on the desk in the center of the room and moved toward it. His heart sped up when he got close enough to see that the grey, gelatinous matter sitting on the tray appeared to be a brain. What in damnation had been going on here? He hurried outside to locate his men.
From the blood trail, it appeared Rossi had been attacked in his office and carried or dragged along the path leading back to the hospital. When he returned to the asylum, some of his men were waiting outside for him. They pointed out the two large blood stains, one in front of the hospital doors and another on the front grounds below the bell tower. Carelli informed them of what he’d found in the office. As a result, he issued immediate orders that every building in the complex be searched from top to bottom.
Two hours later, having searched the entire complex, the only evidence Carelli had uncovered was more blood on the stairs leading up to the bell tower and in the open top of the structure—and the jars. His men had turned up no less than four jars in the operating room cupboard containing more human brains. One look at them was all it took to convince Lieutenant Carelli that Rossi had been up to no good in the asylum. He intended to get to the bottom of what, exactly, had happened, but first he had to locate Rossi, or, more likely from the looks of things, Rossi’s body.
From the blood on the stairs and in the bell tower, it appeared to Carelli that Rossi had either fallen or jumped from the tower. The large amount of blood on the ground directly below corroborated this. Perhaps Rossi had committed suicide. That would not surprise him, especially after his discovery of the jars. But if so, where was the body?
Carelli and the twenty men who had accompanied him spent the next several hours searching every inch of the island for Rossi, leaving no stone unturned. They formed a line and beat the bushes in the field and searched the forest in the same manner.
At six that evening, Carelli ordered a halt to the search. The body had not been found, nor did they uncover any evidence of its disposal. There was no place left to search on the tiny island. The employees had used the only two boats to flee the night before. Rossi appeared to have vanished into thin air, and he was not the only one. A patient, a woman by the name of Rosaria Marino, remained unaccounted for as well.
The lieutenant ordered several of his men to return to the mainland with the hospital employees. The staff would have to remain in police custody until the matter of the missing doctor was resolved. He had not ruled them out as murder suspects. The patients, too, would need to be removed from the island and transferred to a mainland facility, where they would remain under police guard. They would have to be questioned as well. He shuddered at the idea of having to interrogate the insane patients, but one thing was clear. The head surgeon of the asylum had either been killed or had taken his own life, the body missing, as was one of the patients. There was also the matter of the contents of the jars they’d discovered. Only Rossi could have been responsible for that. His activities during the time leading up to his death would have to be investigated as well.
* * * *
At eight-thirty that evening, Serafina sat in the drawing room, having just put the children to bed. She picked up the letter that had arrived earlier today from her sister in Genoa and reread it. The tone of the letter struck her as curt, and Serafina knew her sister was not pleased at the prospect of having her and the childr
en come to live in Genoa with her family. But, having already investigated her options, she knew there was nowhere else to go. Julia and Vittorio were her only concern. If ensuring their safety meant burdening her sister, she would do it.
The children had stopped asking about their papa weeks ago, and she suspected Alberto’s treatment of them, and seeing what he had done to her, had marked them in more ways than one.
With a sigh, she moved to the desk and sat to pen a response to her sister’s note. A loud knock sounded at the front door, making Serafina jump in surprise. Too late for visitors, her first thought was that Alberto had returned. Silently, she walked to the front entrance, her heart beating double-time.
“Who is it?” she called out from behind the locked door.
“Luogotenente Carelli, Carabinieri. Please open the door.”
The Carabinieri? Why were the police at her door? “Yes, just a moment, please.”
She slid the deadbolt back and unlatched the door to see a tall man dressed in the distinctive navy blue uniform and red-plumed hat.
“Signora Rossi. May I come in?”
Serafina stepped aside to allow Carelli in and closed the door behind him.
“How can I help you, Luogotenente?”
“I’m sorry to say I have come to deliver unfortunate news, Signora, regarding your husband.”
Serafina remained silent, wondering what happened to warrant the high-ranking official’s attendance at her home. She led him into the drawing room and indicated he should take a seat.
“Please tell me what has happened,” she said when they were both seated.
“Dottore Rossi—your husband—appears to have gone missing.”
“Missing? What do you mean, ‘missing’?”
The man skipped a beat before saying, “I’m afraid, Signora, that your husband may in fact be dead.”
Serafina blinked in surprise.
The man must have interpreted her silence as shock, for he said, “I am truly sorry to be the bearer of this news, but I am also obligated to tell you that, although he is presumed dead, your husband’s body has yet to be located.”
Serafina’s pulse sped up. “How can you be certain my husband is dead if no body was discovered?”
“There were large amounts of blood found, both in his office and on the ground below the bell tower. It appears that your husband was attacked in his office and then either fell or was pushed from the bell tower. As I say, the quantity of blood would seem to indicate he could not possibly have survived.”
Dear God, what had Alberto been up to that could have led to all this? Serafina bowed her head, a knot of dread forming in her stomach. When she looked up again, she masked her expression with one she hoped conveyed an appropriate amount of grief. “Thank you, Luogotenente. If you have no further information, I think I would like to be alone now.”
Carelli got up. “Of course.”
She accompanied him to the door. Before he left, he turned to her. “Rest assured, Signora Rossi, we will utilize all of our resources to continue the investigation into your husband’s death and to locate the body.”
“Yes. Thank you, Luogotenente.”
After closing the door behind him, Serafina slumped against the heavy wood. Guilt accosted her at the sense of relief which had traveled through her on learning of Alberto’s death. But the fact remained that, with Alberto gone, she and the children would be safe. They could stay in their home. Alberto would never again be able to harm them.
* * * *
Upstairs in the bedroom she shared with her little brother Vittorio, six-year-old Julia heard the front door being shut downstairs and drifted up from sleep, a worried thought forming in her mind. Had Papa returned? She hoped with all her heart never to see him again after what he had done to Mamma. After listening and hearing nothing further, Julia shifted in bed and tried to go back to sleep.
The room felt so cold... She pulled the covers up around her, turning on her side, and that was when she saw it—the monster crouching at the foot of Vittorio’s bed.
Barefoot, low to the ground, it almost looked like a young girl but, instinctively, Julia knew it was not. The creature’s tattered dress was encrusted with filth, its legs and arms covered with open sores. Hair like a rat’s nest surrounded its rotting head. The monster jerked in her direction, its glassy black eyes following her as she sat up in bed, making her skin crawl and her hair stand up on end. She could smell the stench emanating from it from across the room.
She clasped her hands to her eyes in terror, hitched in her breath, and screamed.
A moment later, she heard her mother’s footfall on the stairs then Mamma ran into the room. Julia peeked through her fingers. The monster was no longer there.
Her scream had woken Vittorio and he began to cry.
“Julia, what’s wrong?”
Her mother reached her and Julia flung her arms around Mamma’s neck and burst into tears. Vittorio wailed even louder.
“There was a monster,” Julia cried. “Next to Vittorio’s bed.”
“Shhh. Julia, you had a nightmare,” her mother said, stroking her hair and hugging her. “It’s all right, it’s over now.”
“But I saw it... It was standing there.” She pointed to the foot of Vittorio’s bed. Vittorio howled even louder.
Her mother moved to gather Vittorio into her arms and returned to Julia’s side. She lit the lantern on the dresser. “You just had a bad dream. There’s nothing here, see?”
“But I saw it,” Julia insisted, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Her mother brushed her tears away. “There, now. Do you want me to say with you for a while? We can leave the lantern lit so you won’t be frightened, all right?”
Julia nodded. Still snuffling, she lay back down in bed.
Her mother calmed Vittorio down and returned him to his bed, then dragged a chair from the corner of the room over and sat. “I’ll stay right here. Close your eyes now, and try to go back to sleep, both of you.”
* * * *
Just before midnight, her children asleep once more, Serafina silently made her way out of the bedroom and back downstairs. Julia had never been prone to nightmares. That she’d suffered one tonight, coinciding with the news of Alberto’s death, made her uneasy. It felt like a bad omen.
Before she reached the bottom of the stairs, a loud knock sounded at the front door. What now? Who could be at the door at this hour? Perhaps the police had returned with more news about Alberto.
She went to the drawing room window and peeked out, surprised to see Rosaria’s husband, Massimo, standing on her doorstep. And, judging from the expression on the man’s face, more bad news was about to arrive. She let the curtain drop back and walked quickly to the door to open it.
“Massimo. Why are you here at such a late hour?”
His face appeared grim. “We need to speak,” he said. “May I come in?”
She ushered him inside and closed the door behind them. Serafina studied his face. He looked terrible, his eyes red and glassy, as if he’d been crying, drinking, or both.
“Come inside and sit down.”
“No. Thank you. I will not be staying.” He appeared to consider his words before he spoke again. “I hesitated to come here, Serafina, but Rosaria...she valued your friendship. I felt you should know.”
“Know what?”
“Rosaria is dead.”
“Oh, no...” She took a step back.
He paused before continuing, but his eyes remained fixed on hers. “And I am convinced it was your husband who killed her.”
Cold dread washed through her at his words. “What...what do you mean? How—”
“He killed her, Serafina.” Bitter anger flashed across his features. “I know he is your husband, but I swear to you, if that bastard—” He choked on his words. “If I find out he is not dead, if he turns up alive, I will kill him myself.”
Serafina stood in shocked silence. Her childhood friend was dead, and after
witnessing firsthand her husband’s violent behavior, she felt afraid that what Massimo had just told her was the truth. “Tell me what you know,” she said, her voice trembling.
“When I heard what had happened at the asylum, and that your husband had gone missing, I rushed to the police to find out where the patients had been taken. When I arrived at the facility, Rosaria was not among them. Finally, I located one of the hospital employees. He told me...he told me something was going on at the hospital. Some of the patients had died, he said, after being examined by your husband. He said that your husband disposed of the bodies of those patients himself, late at night in the crematorium. On the night before your husband disappeared, he had Rosaria brought to the surgical ward. The man I spoke to refused to tell me anything more, but I returned to the police and was told Rosaria was the only patient not accounted for. I convinced the authorities to return to the island with me, to try to locate her. We discovered some bones in the ashes inside the incinerator. At first, the police thought they might be your husband’s, but then they found this inside the ashes.”
He pulled something out of his pocket and held it up to show her—a small gold wedding band.
“The police questioned the hospital employees again, and they admitted their suspicion that your husband had killed some of the patients, including Rosaria.”
Serafina listened to all of this in stunned silence. What did you do, Alberto?
“I’m...I’m so sorry, Massimo...” She could not bring herself to meet his eyes, nor could she think of anything else to say in light of his shocking revelation.
When he spoke to her next, his voice softened. “I place no blame on you for your husband’s actions, Serafina, and I came because I believe Rosaria would have wanted me to. But I meant what I said earlier. If your husband is found alive, I will kill him, and you should know that, too.”