Bruno rushed towards the scene hoping to get a hand on the shotgun before Damiano turned and dealt Bruno the same fate. Damiano whirled, his ponytail whipping around his face, but Bruno wrapped his hands on the barrel of the shotgun just in time.
The shotgun blasted into the earth, spraying up soil and pebbles. Bruno clung to the barrel and butted his forehead against Damiano’s face. Bruno pressed the advantage, pushing the shotgun toward Damiano, but Damiano tripped and fell, jerking the shotgun out of Bruno’s grip. It fell, clattering over the rail and down the cliffs.
The split-second Bruno watched the falling gun gave Damiano a chance to grab Bruno’s ankle and yank. Bruno fell to his back. Damiano pulled a pistol from the small of his back and Bruno kicked at his hand, knocking the pistol into the grass. Damiano turned to find the pistol, but Bruno scrambled on top of him. They struggled, rolling in the grass, looking for the pistol, but Damiano ended up on Bruno’s chest. Bruno clutched at Damiano’s hands as they squeezed his neck. He bore down, throttling Bruno’s windpipe. Against all instinct, Bruno let his right hand off Damiano’s and slid it underneath his back.
Frenzy shone in Damiano’s eyes just before they flickered to his left and he saw a black blade. Bruno felt his blade nick past Damiano’s ribs as he buried the knife up to its hilt. Damiano fell forward, gurgling, and Bruno’s breath came in gasps as he rolled Damiano off of him. Bruno yanked the blade from Damiano’s chest.
He stood and looked at his hands, the black leather of his gloves now covered in the dead man’s blood.
Bruno dropped his knife and yanked off his gloves. As he fought to keep from vomiting into his respirator, he felt more than saw some shadow behind him. He ducked, but something grazed across the back of his head and knocked him forward over Damiano’s body.
“Pig, you’re dead!” someone shouted.
Bruno rolled to his back, next to Damiano.
Alessio held a flat red brick in one hand, its color standing out like a stain against the black leather of the chiodo jacket he wore. Alessio’s shadow fell over Bruno as he tried to slither backwards, all the while feeling around for the pistol, or even his knife. Alessio simply kept stepping forward, and when he smiled, Bruno saw a mouth full of yellowed teeth. “You came back for the girl, eh? You’re that cop, aren’t you?” he spat. “You know, when we took turns, she screamed like a real dirty fu—”
A gunshot reverberated around the Leap. Alessio staggered forward a step, then turned. Another shot. Alessio clutched at his gut and fell forward to his knees. Chest heaving, he collapsed on his face in the stones and grass.
Bruno pushed himself up on his elbows.
“Carla!”
She stood there holding a pistol with her arms stretched forward. Her hands, still bound, shook, and she dropped the pistol to the ground.
Bruno rose to his feet with caution, staggering. He touched the back of his head; his fingers came back sticky with blood.
He wiped his hand on his pants before he spoke, then looked at Carla and smiled.
Carla smiled too, but when he approached her, she backed away, shaking her head.
“Carla?” He gathered his pistol off the ground. “What are you doing—”
By now, Carla stood dangerously close to the rail. Bruno stepped toward her. “Carla,” he said, “you’ll fall! Come ba—” But he heard the sound of a stone clattering on the stairs to his right. He yanked out his pistol and fired toward the sound. The crack of responding gunfire echoed in Bruno’s ears.
He threw himself behind the crumbling remains of a partial wall at the top of the stairs and continued firing four or five shots without looking. Then he heard a thud. When he peeked down the stairs from behind his cover, Bruno caught a glimpse of the back of Enzo’s head before he rounded a bend and disappeared into the ruins.
Bruno felt the urge to press his unlikely advantage now that Il Serbo’s gang lay dead, to find Enzo and kill him. If Enzo escaped, Il Serbo would almost certainly guess that Bruno was on Capri and still lived, for who else would have tried to rescue Carla? But the pain in Bruno’s head and wobbling knees forced him to rethink. That, and Carla. He couldn’t leave her again. He would never leave her again, not while there was breath in his body. Bruno holstered his pistol and turned, walking toward her.
“Please,” she said. “Please don’t come any closer.”
“Look, we’ve got to get out of here, to get to my place. Come on, there’s no time for—”
“Bruno, look at my hands!” she screamed. “Look at my hands!” They were trembling.
“Carla, I know you’re scared, but you have to come back with me to—”
Carla looked at him. “I’m infected.”
He shook his head. “No, no, that isn’t true, you’re just nervous, you—”
“There’s nothing you can do. I don’t want to get you sick.”
She stepped back, almost to the rocky edge. “This is the only way . . .”
“Not like this.” Bruno’s voice was barely above a whisper.
She smiled. “Thank you for coming back for me, Bruno. I wish . . .”
Then her lips mouthed the words, “I’m sorry,” and she took her final step, tumbling backwards over the edge in complete silence.
Bruno’s shouts broke over the Leap, masking the dull thud of her body as it tumbled over the rocks on the way down to the sea below. He wept like he’d never done before, not even that night when his mother and younger brother had died. When his sobs finally faded, Bruno gazed around, still in bewilderment and shock. He did not know what to do. But then his hand strayed to the ground and he felt something cold, something metal. His eyes, blurry from tears, looked down and made out the sharp lines of his knife in the grass. Its dark blade was a black shadow amid the scrub and grey stones. He grasped it, an anchor, pulling him out of his stupor and back to reality.
Bruno stood up, the handle of his knife biting into his palm. He stared at the knife before wiping it on the grass. Once he had removed most of the blood, Bruno placed the knife with care in its sheath at the small of his back. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He looked around the hilltop, surveying the carnage around him, his senses slowly returning.
His gaze fell on the man Carla had shot. To Bruno’s amazement, Alessio still lived. He crawled on his belly, dragging himself toward the stairs and leaving a trail of blood, like a slug leaves mucus. For a while, Bruno stared at Alessio as he inched his way over weeds and rocks towards the stairs. Then he walked over and stood beside the prostrate man. Bruno heard him suppressing gasps of pain, his whimpering growing louder. With one foot, Bruno rolled Alessio onto his back. Blood and foam oozed from the corner of the Alessio’s mouth, and his dark eyes filled with fear.
Bruno retrieved his gloves. He returned to the dying man and knelt beside him on one knee. As he tried to speak, Alessio’s lips trembled. Bruno took his knife from its sheath. Alessio began to sob. Holding the knife in a reverse grip, Bruno plunged his knife down into Alessio’s throat. He left the knife in for a long moment, then pulled it out.
“Brutto pezzo di merda,” said Bruno as he wiped his knife on the grass.
Bruno stood up and cast off his bloody gloves, their purpose fulfilled. He looked down at his naked hands. Not a trace of blood stained them. Bruno searched the area, scavenging whatever he thought he could use from the dead bodies. He found that Battisti still had Bruno’s pistol stashed at the small of his back. Battisti’s pistol was the one Bruno had kicked away, the one that Carla had used. A standard 9mm and the same model as Bruno’s, he put it in his waistband, then dumped the bodies over the side of the cliffs down to the sea. He walked the short distance back from outside the railing to the top of the stairs. Bruno stood at the top of the stairs and started down. After a few steps he turned to his right, peering out over the ruined wall at the top of the stairs before he descended too far to see over it. He stopped just before he reached eye level to the ground.
Tiberius’ Leap remained
the same grassy, stony patch, just as it always had, barely scarred by the centuries or by the death on it today. The morning light bathed it in a beautiful glow, belying the horrors that had gone on there. Bruno supposed he should not have been surprised. This place had seen much death all those centuries ago. Why should these four deaths today be special? In the end, what did they really matter?
Bruno walked down the stairs, pistol in hand and senses acute, but utterly alone.
Chapter 11
December 15
The reds and oranges of the evening sky lightened Bruno’s mood. He started through the balcony doors and over the water. But the perfect tones of the synthvoice brought him back. He laughed at the bullshit she spouted while he sat at his kitchen table, tearing sheets into wide strips.
—The following hospitals in the Province of Caserta are accepting patients: Saint Anne and Sebastian Hospital, Saint Michael’s Hospital. Entrance is limited to those currently manifesting symptoms of HAV. All patients will be treated with care and dignity during in-processing—
“Care and dignity?”
—Please bring your national ID card or other form of identification—
“Why? So that you can notify next of kin when you murder them?” Bruno shook his head. “Can’t they program you to sing? Something from Aida, maybe?”
—All individuals admitted must abide by emergency regulations or face expulsion—
“What’s the matter, Teresa? You don’t like opera?”
Bruno continued to tear strips down the length of the sheet. “Or just not Aida?” Sometimes he used his knife to get a tear started.
—Asymptomatic individuals will not be admitted under any circumstances—
“Of course; no reason to kill them, eh?”
—Asymptomatic individuals will be directed to the nearest emergency shelter for further assistance—
“Oh, I mean—no reason to kill them yet, right?”
—Treatment will begin as soon as possible on all those admitted—
Bruno surveyed the wide strips in a pile on his table. “There, I think that might be enough to reach from here to the ground.” He sighed. “Hopefully, I’ll never need to go out over my balcony, right? But, before I finish the rope, first: the door.”
Teresa continued to speak as Bruno gathered up some tools and brackets scavenged from a hardware store. Bruno was tired of her lies. He knew there was one other station still operating. But he scanned the FM and AM bands hoping for something other than that station, his last alternative, his only alternative: Radio Vaticano. Finding no other, he left the radio tuned there. Its signal was crisp. Bruno sighed when the man’s voice filled the room. Whatever group had taken over the Vatican after the pope died was incessant in its broadcasts. The voice hissed at Bruno as he moved to the door with his equipment.
—I am your way, your truth and your life now. Not Him—
Bruno began to screw a bracket into the wood frame on the left side of the door. Without power tools, he wasn’t sure how long this would take. What did that matter? He had nothing but time. He turned the screwdriver, firmly pressing the screw. It bit into the wood. Slowly. He turned the screw again. And again.
—I am the Lord, your God. Not that carpenter from Nazareth—
As the man’s voice droned on, Bruno envisioned the brackets mounted, holding a wooden beam across the door, making his apartment that much safer.
—Caesar and Pontiff, we are one—
Turn. Turn.
—Those who can hear my voice, you must know that your end approaches! Your end is—
Bruno threw down his screwdriver, stomped over to the radio, and tuned the dial in to the pirate radio frequency. The only sound that came from the speaker was a soft hiss.
He lingered for a moment over the radio. Then he picked up the screwdriver and returned to the door.
The white noise soothed him. But sometimes Bruno thought he could hear voices in the static.
Chapter 12
January 23
The cool winter sun shone down, making the afternoon shadows sharp and movement easy to spot. Bruno darted into the alley behind his apartment building, hoping he hadn’t been seen. He heard them smashing windows, laughing. This wasn’t the first group Bruno had seen, here and there. Some looked like families and friends. Others looked like people together because they had no one else. Bruno didn’t go out of his way to hide, reasoning that if they spotted him hiding, they might think he was a threat. He kept weapons concealed, relying on the respirator and dark sunglasses to make him look alien, ominous. And he always moved with a purpose, never looking like he was just wandering. Even though he really was wandering, looking for some untouched shop or home, searching for food or equipment. He kept an eye out for antennas or something that would give away the location of the pirate radio broadcaster, who must have had quite a radio setup, and given his conspiracy-minded rantings, maybe other even more useful items as well, like firearms. But old antennas from another era littered the roofs of Anacapri, making the search difficult.
So far, when others saw Bruno, they avoided him. But this was the first group in Anacapri he’d seen vandalize for fun. Bruno needed to avoid them.
His pack was heavy with cans of soup and sauce and a book. A good haul. Carla would have liked that chickpea soup he found and—Bruno squeezed his eyes shut. Thoughts of her were a distraction; they would have to wait until he was safe.
When Bruno opened his eyes, the sounds of people were gone.
He crept out of the alley and around to the front of his building. The empty street stretched in both directions. That prick Battisti had broken the lock on the front door of his apartment building, so there was nothing to stop anyone from coming in. Bruno needed to find materials to fix that on his next run. He pushed the door open with one hand while he held his pistol in the other. Empty and quiet.
He took off his sunglasses and climbed the wide, flat stairs, making sure his footfalls were soft. He arrived on the third floor and walked off the landing. The light from the few windows in the stairway did little to illuminate the gloom of the hall.
He turned right and walked past poor Signora Locurto’s apartment. He thought about her corpse, probably still lying where he last saw it those long months ago. Her biscotti were the best he’d ever tasted, and he never had the heart to go back there after seeing her body, twisted and naked on her kitchen floor. But as he approached the door of his own flat, he noticed a bit of light coming from Father Tommaso’s door. After what happened on Tiberius’ Leap, Bruno had sought the old priest’s company. No one ever answered the door, no matter what time of day or night Bruno knocked, and he had given up weeks ago, assuming Father Tommaso must either be dead or gone. Now he saw that the door to the priest’s flat was partially open. Was he there? Bruno crept up to the door. He could hear someone moving, rustling inside. With his free hand Bruno pushed open the door.
Father Tommaso’s flat was one room, with glass doors to the balcony at the far end. The rest of the mess and disarray barely registered because Bruno saw a man rummaging around the cabinets in the small kitchen area on the right wall.
Bruno pointed his pistol at the man and shouted, “Hands up!”
He turned, stepped back from the cabinets, and retreated away from Bruno towards a small upturned table just to the left of the balcony doors.
“Don’t shoot! I’m just looking for food!”
Bruno entered the hallway of the small apartment, keeping his pistol trained on the man. Bruno realized he was not a man, but a pimply faced teenage boy.
“Where is Father Tommaso?”
“Who?”
“The priest who lived here! Did you see him?”
The teenager shook his head, and his voice trembled. “I don’t know him! We’re just looking for food!”
Bruno paused, wondering what he was going to do, when he realized what the boy had said. We.
“Put your gun on the ground!” said a voice from behind B
runo. “And turn around slowly!” Bruno glanced over his shoulder, just enough to see the glint of a weapon. Bruno complied, gently placing his pistol on the floor. Then he turned. Another teenage kid in blue jeans with shaggy hair pointed a revolver at Bruno.
“Now kick it to me, then sit down.”
Bruno did as he was told. As Bruno sat down, the boy with the revolver picked up Bruno’s pistol.
“Now that’s why we always move with two people!” He tossed the revolver to his partner in the kitchen and laughed. “You take mine. Now I’ve got the sweet gun, not some old piece of shit!”
“Hey, I wanted his gun,” the first one said.
Bruno said nothing as he looked both of them over. The one who had got the drop on Bruno shut the door. This second boy stood in front of the open closet near the entrance, keeping his attention and the pistol firmly trained on Bruno.
“Take off your pack, slowly! And don’t stand up.”
Bruno shrugged the pack off. “What are you going to do?”
The shaggy-haired boy laughed. “If you’re lucky, we’ll let you live.”
Bruno opened his mouth to speak, but a hand reached out of the closet behind the boy. Bruno saw a flash of steel and blood splattered everywhere. The boy dropped Bruno’s pistol with a gurgling scream.
Bruno rolled, grabbed his pistol, and pumped three bullets into the kid with the revolver. The kid dropped to his knees with a cry, his revolver clattering on the stone floor. Ears ringing from the shots in such a confined space, Bruno rolled back to face the threat from the closet.
“Come out slowly, or I’ll blow your fucking head off!”
Bruno scrambled to his feet as a figure stepped through the dark clothes and out of the closet. The clothes parted to reveal an old man clutching a bloody butcher’s knife.
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