“This is going to be fun,” Jorden sneered.
Matt exhaled a second breath and shrugged. “Yeah, well standing here and complaining isn’t going to get our equipment up to the truck any faster. We should get started.”
While Jorden, Ana, Saph and Isis carried the suitcases and duffels to the awaiting truck, where the old man sat behind the wheel waiting, Matt and the others hauled the crates of delicate equipment up the hill. It took a short while, but they managed to get the truck loaded and they were off before the sun started to set.
While Jorden took care of the luggage and the equipment back at the cottage, Matt and Syd went along with the old man as he gave them a hasty tour, pointing out areas of reported activity, though not once did they set foot into any of the buildings. For the most part, Matt couldn’t understand a word of it, but he did catch onto the fact that the old man didn’t want to be giving the tour. That in itself wasn’t too odd – most allegedly haunted dwellings inspired feelings of dread, yet it wasn’t fear or dread that seemed to deter the man, but rather something else. As a cop and investigator, Matt was accustomed to being deceived, and that’s how he felt now, though he had to admit that he couldn’t be certain without knowing the words he was hearing. Then again, the man looked as though he’d lived his life in hell…perhaps it was just the way he was. In any case, it was going to take quite a bit of investigating to work out the feeling that the man wasn’t telling them everything.
Matt followed the man through the Chiesa del Popolo, the People’s Church, and out to the courtyard that led to the refectory. Quickly, Syd translated as the old man told them about the bell tower and of the mysterious ringing of the bell late at night, yet none from his family ever went inside. The bell now rung on its own. About a quarter mile to the west of the church sat the hospital grounds. By all accounts, the hospital and surrounding buildings were considerably younger, by a few hundred years, but were still quite old themselves. While the buildings around the church were in decent condition, the hospital and surrounding buildings were near ruins. Only the hospital itself and crematorium remained fully intact, though the interior of both might be precarious. The mortuary and the outbuildings that surrounded the hospital were plagued with fallen walls, missing roofs and wild flora growing over and through them.
Beyond the hospital, the old man explained was a village, populated only when the monastery was occupied. When the monks mysteriously abandoned the monastery the village was abandoned as well, though no one truly knew the fates of those who fled. No stories reached the mainland and because of the leper-like status of the villagers, none from the mainland thought to ask. The old man wouldn’t go through the village, talking so incoherently even Syd had a hard time following, but from what they could understand, the village was forbidden to those who live on or visit the island for fear of disturbing the dead who still restlessly roam the dirt and stone streets.
When he was talking about the village, Matt saw sincere fear from the old man for the first time, and it was then that he was determined to spend at least a day down there in hopes of finding something.
The tour took about an hour or so and it was quite a hike that had Matt’s knee aching, though he was determined not to let the pain show as he entered the cottage and approached the rest of his team. The caretaker’s family was already packed up and upon their return Syd drove them down to the boat that had brought the ghost hunters to the island. While Syd helped the family to the boat, Matt gathered the team in the parlor and sat all of them down. “I know that all of you have heard stories here and there about this place, but I wanted to tell you what we heard on the tour. We’ll start with the refectory. There, we have sounds of muffled voices and some banging along with reports of dark shadows that seem to belong to no one.”
A collective groan filled the room.
“I know, I know. We always hear about the shadow people and never confirm their presence. While I have my doubts too, this is something we need to investigate just like any other activity,” Matt said sympathetically. “The refectory is also where our picture of the shadow came from so hopefully we’ll actually find something there. However, I’m not prepared to take this picture at face value so I want whoever investigates to look for ways that the picture could be manufactured or find a logical explanation for the shadow. Next we have the bell tower. There we have reports of the bell ringing late at night, as well as an apparition thought to belong to one of the doctors, who after seeing the horrors of the hospital when they were housing the insane, couldn’t take it and did a swan dive from the arches at the top of the tower. There are also reports of disembodied whispers. Next is the People’s Church. Not too much activity reported, though there was one instance where one of the caretaker’s daughters said she heard the sound of singing coming from the church. She hasn’t been in or near the church since.” Matt took a deep breath as he flipped the page of his small notebook. “Next is the cloister…”
“The what?” Tony questioned in his deep voice.
“It has different meanings, but in this case it’s a covered walkway that surrounds the courtyard,” Jesse briefly explained, which earned a scowl from Tony.
Matt suppressed a groan. This investigation was not the time or the place for the old pissing match between the two to pick up where it left off back in the states. Tony felt that Jesse looked down on him for his lack of formal education and training in electronics while Jesse constantly complained about how stubborn Tony was and would never take any of his suggestions to heart.
Matt didn’t know how much was true and how much was blown out of proportion and at the moment he didn’t care. He would talk to them later, but for now he wanted to finish his report, so before the argument could get started he spoke up, “That’s right,” he said firmly enough to quash any argument. “Not much there either, though several times the caretaker said that he’d seen the apparition of a woman wearing black, as if in mourning. She’ll walk into the courtyard, towards the rice fields, where she disappears.”
“Yeah, that’s not much at all,” Nigel mocked.
Matt gave him a quick glance then continued, “Now we move onto the hospital grounds. There isn’t a lot we know about its history, so I want you and Nigel to hit the folders tomorrow and finish with the history. Go to the mainland if you need to, but I want to know as much as we can before we set foot in those buildings,” he said directly to Jorden.
Jorden had a distant look in her eyes, the same distant look she’d worn since they took off from LAX, but she nodded anyway.
Matt looked at her a moment longer before he reluctantly looked back at the others. “Not too far behind the cottage here is the crematorium. There are reports of banging as well as sweltering heat one moment and frigid temperatures the next. It’s rumored that over fifty thousand souls passed through the crematorium dying from everything from the plague to old age. I want to make sure that we have one of the thermal cameras set up there full time to document any odd temperature changes.”
Both Tony and Jesse nodded.
“Next is the hospital itself. There are reports of more shadow people as well as disembodied voices, screams, furniture that moves on its own, cold spots, hot spots, mysterious drafts…” go figure, he thought but didn’t say out loud, “…etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,” he went on. “It seems to be the hub of most of the activity and we go in with teams of two or three only and never separate. It isn’t the possibility of activity that worries me as much as the integrity of the structure. Be careful and watch your step.” He flipped another page. “Next are the smaller hospital ruins that surround the main building. Most are maintenance or custodial offices and miscellaneous outbuildings. There are reports of apparitions that move in between the buildings as well as screams that don’t really seem to have an origin. Last we have the cemetery where more shadows and voices have been reported.” Matt finally closed his notebook. “Those are the official points of inspection, however there is one other place I want
to check out. There is a village on the other side of the island. It’s forbidden for residents to go there, but since we’re not residents and we were asked by the owners of the island to check it out, I want to make sure that we thoroughly document any activity that might be down there.”
The door opened and Syd entered.
“Obviously we don’t have enough stationary cameras to set up in all areas at once, so this is what we’re going to do. Tonight through Thursday we’ll investigate the monastery grounds. Friday morning well take down the cameras and set up in the hospital and surrounding areas. We’ll investigate the hospital until Tuesday night then go over the footage that hasn’t yet been looked at. We’ll spend our remaining days confirming anything we’ve found or double checking areas where there was reported activity but nothing was found.”
“And the village?” Nigel questioned. “When do we take a look at that?”
Syd flashed Matt a curious look, but Matt didn’t respond to him. “I’ll take care of that later. For now, let’s get set up around the monastery,” he said then detailed which cameras would go where. “After dinner, we’ll set out,” he said finally.
Once the others left the room and started to head out with the equipment, Syd walked up to Matt. “The caretaker was very specific about staying out of the village. I thought that you understood that.”
“He said the reason they weren’t allowed in the village was to keep from disturbing the dead. That’s what we’re here to do, and the owners want a definitive answer. I’m not going to miss one inch of this island, least of all because of an old man’s superstitions.”
Matt walked away from Syd, knowing that he was right. He also knew that the caretaker was omitting something and Matt would be damned if he left any stone on this island go unturned…including the forbidden village.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dormitories – 11:30pm local time…
By the time the cameras were set up and the investigation began, it was quite late, though that worked in the hunters’ favor. With no light, their IR, infrared, cameras were more likely to find something that their digital camcorders and cameras weren’t likely to catch. It also helped with the thermal cameras that were set up in each of the monastery’s buildings. The darkness did, however, make the going a bit more treacherous. Even though the seemingly miles of cables used were taped down with duct tape, other obstacles that might have been missed during the setup, including a small support that had come loose from the banister that arched along the edge of the landing of the second floor. When Matt ran into it, he tried not to curse, especially given where they were currently investigating, but he couldn’t stop the small grunt of pain that escaped his lips.
“Are you all right?” Jorden asked as she turned in his direction and flashed her light towards his chest, being careful to keep it from hitting his eyes.
“Yeah, fine,” he grumbled. “We missed something.”
“In this place? Surely you jest,” she lightly joked, though he could still hear the tension in her voice. After years of ghost hunting in the dark, he’d come to know her moods by the tone of her voice and while she was attempting to lighten the air around them, she was deeply worried about something.
“Is something on your mind?” he asked as nonchalantly as possible.
“Not really,” she said, though the tension remained. “I was just thinking about this place. I mean, I know that the caretaker and his family are only a small few, but you’d think that they’d be able to keep it up a bit better. There’s so much crap laying around it’s going to be difficult to determine whether any sounds of footsteps we may hear are ours, paranormal, or a couple of mice or wild dogs running around,” she said. “Not to mention that I feel like I’m going to plunge straight through the floor with every step I take.”
“It’s not that bad. When I took the tour earlier it was clear that the structures in the monastery are sound. I’m more concerned about the hospital grounds,” Matt admitted. “That’s why I’m limiting crews to the main buildings and using only cameras in the outbuildings.”
Jorden didn’t answer with words but rather with just a quick hum.
“Are you certain that there isn’t something more on your mind?” Matt questioned. “You’ve been acting oddly since we started planning this trip. I probably wouldn’t be so concerned if I didn’t know that this trip was something you’ve wanted to do for some time now. Now it seems that you’d rather be anywhere but here. What’s going on?”
Jorden was still quiet and continued to remain so as they went in and out of a number of rooms, talking only when they were attempting to address a spirit that might be lingering around.
“I understand if you don’t want to talk to me about…whatever might be bothering you, but-”
His words abruptly cut off when they heard the sound of shuffling feet from somewhere down the hall just outside the room they were in.
“Did you hear that?” Matt questioned in a whisper just loud enough for her to hear.
“Yes,” Jorden said, also whispering. “I thought that it might be you.”
“I wasn’t moving,” he assured.
“Neither was I.”
“Is there someone here with us?” Matt asked as he held his digital recorder out, hoping for some kind of EVP, electronic voice phenomenon. “Are you one of the monks who lived here?”
They couldn’t hear any response with their own ears, though they did hear the shuffling again.
“It’s coming from the hall outside,” Matt whispered. “Follow me.”
Matt led the way into the musty hall that stretched about thirty feet both left and right, and he stood and waited with Jorden at his side. There, they waited until they heard the sound again.
“This way,” Matt whispered as they headed to their left; where they had yet to explore.
Jorden followed as Matt led them down the hall and to the last room on the right. That’s where the shuffling seemed to stop. Once there they entered the room. Like the others, it was filled with dust and the air was musty and poorly circulated. All that remained was a bed frame and a small night table to the side that was falling apart and listed away from the bed. The closet door was open though the closet itself was empty of everything but dust and likely a spider or two.
Are you sure that this is where the sound came from?” Jorden questioned.
“Positive,” Matt confirmed.
Both of them were silent for a moment, but there were no further sounds.
“Well, whatever it was, it’s gone now,” Jorden pointed out.
“We’ll have to analyze the recorders later and check the footage of the camera at the end of the hall,” Matt said.
“Too bad it’s set up at the other end. It’s a good sixty feet from here,” Jorden said glumly.
Matt understood and nodded, though he knew that she couldn’t see him. “I’ll make sure we set up a second camera at this end tomorrow. Hopefully, if there is something here, we’ll have a chance to catch it,” he suggested. “In the meantime, we need to finish our walkthrough.”
He heard Jorden head out of the room and he shined his light down at her feet and followed.
Silently they walked back down to the room where they first heard the shuffling and worked their way through the next three, talking only to the spirits that might be lingering around. It wasn’t until they left the third and entered the fourth when Jorden surprised Matt by speaking up voluntarily. “I’ve been having dreams of Eric lately.”
For a moment Matt was confused and even a little jealous before he realized who she was talking about. “The kid?” he questioned.
“Yeah, the kid,” she sniped.
“Hey,” he said holding his hands up in surrender, “I didn’t mean anything by that. It’s just that it’s been what…” he thought a moment, “…six years?”
She nodded. “Yeah, six years, and the bastard is already out for murdering his own son,” she spat. “And the murdering son of a bitch
has two more kids he can do this to and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it or that anyone else is going to do about it because he did his time and got his ‘counseling’. There’s no fucking justice in this world.”
Matt knew that there was nothing that he could say to make things better because she was right. With the reduced charges the boy’s father pled out on, he did an insignificant four years for beating his son to death and with as busy as social services was, he knew that the son of a bitch wouldn’t be watched as closely as he should.
“Why now?” Matt asked finally. “I mean I know that Eric rarely strays far from your thoughts, but why dream about him now?”
She sat down in a rickety chair in the corner of the room that might have crumbled under the weight of someone such as himself, but over the last month, he’d seen Jorden lose quite a bit of weight that she couldn’t afford to lose and she didn’t even make the chair groan in protest. “They start out the way they always have in the past, running on the track at the school, but instead of running away from me, he stops and I look at him. His eyes are hollowed out, horror frozen on his face, and he’s telling me not to go.”
“Go where?”
He flashed his light over towards her just in time to see her shrug. “Each dream, each…nightmare…gets more vivid and more frightening. The last one I had was on the plane, after that, I couldn’t sleep, in fact, I’m starting to feel as though I may never truly sleep again.”
Matt walked over to her and grabbed her frozen hands. He was going to try to comfort her but the temperature of her hands worried him, especially since it was about seventy degrees outside. “Are you feeling all right?” he asked, unable to hide his concern.
She was silent for a moment. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little tired. I guess that the flight took a little out of me.”
Matt helped her to her feet. “Come on. Let’s go back to the cottage. I think that we’ve done enough tonight,” he said. “We’ll start again tomorrow.”
The Haunting of Isola Forte di Lorenzo Page 5
