The Haunting of Isola Forte di Lorenzo

by Sherlyn Colgrove

  When they finally reached the door of the mausoleum Isis stopped dead in her tracks. In spite of the fact that she was closed up pretty tight on a psychic level she could still feel the negative energy from the other side of the mausoleum’s closed door.

  Immediately she reached out for Jorden’s arm and caught her before she could open the door. “Wait! Don’t go in there,” she urgently warned.

  Jorden looked back at Isis with eyes that were not her own. Instead they were as black as empty space and her expression was about the same.

  Before Isis had a chance to register what was going on Jorden’s icy hand grasped onto her arm with a grip so tight she couldn’t have slipped out of it if she had greased her hands and arms in vegetable oil. “Damn it Jorden, let me go!”

  “Venire a me,” Jorden growled in an unmistakable inhuman snarl.

  “Oh shit!” Isis blurted and struggled to get free. “Jorden! Help me! Snap out of it!”

  Jorden began to laugh in a voice not her own and Isis screamed as if her soul depended on it, because she knew it did…

  “…Isis!” Nigel screamed as he grasped her shoulder firmly and shook her until she opened her eyes.

  Isis’s head shot up from the kitchen table as the screaming from the tea kettle finally started to subside now that Nigel removed it from the fire of the stove. “Let me go!” she yelled, still not entirely aware of where she was.

  Immediately Nigel was at her side and holding her biceps firmly as he gave her a few gentle shakes. “Isis, love. You’re here with me. Snap out of it darling.”

  Nigel’s voice was smooth and soothing and Isis finally started to come around, losing the blackness of Jorden’s eyes for the comfortable surroundings of the kitchen, though she still jumped back as she took a look around. “What the hell?”

  “That must have been a hell of a dream,” Nigel said as he brought Isis a cup of tea. “You damn near burned the house down with the tea kettle hissing like that for the last five minutes. You’re lucky no one else heard it.”

  Isis looked at him and while she heard his words, she was not hearing him; her mind was consumed with the apparent nightmare that he had pulled her from and she was suddenly struck with the urgent need to check on Jorden.

  As quick as a lightening flash Isis was out of the chair and up the stairs with Nigel hot on her heels.

  In spite of her urgency, Isis opened the door to the bedroom with care. On one side of the room was the empty bed that until that very night she had occupied, while on the other side was Jorden. Isis couldn’t tell if she was sleeping peacefully or not, but she was sleeping in her bed, which confirmed that what Isis had just been through was a dream.

  Quietly Isis shut the door and slumped against the wall of the hallway while she held tears of relief at bay.

  “Everything all right love?” Nigel asked, still holding her tea.

  Isis took in a deep, cleansing breath. “I don’t know,” she said finally and honestly. “It seemed like so much more than a dream…” she hesitated a moment and looked up into Nigel’s stunning blue eyes, “…it was a vision, I know it.”

  Nigel didn’t always buy into Isis’s abilities and she knew it, so when she saw his somewhat incredulous look she was far from surprised, but when she also saw worry in his gaze she knew that she must have scared him a great deal. “What happened?” he asked gently.

  Isis didn’t want to talk to him about the dream in the hall so she led him back to the room he had ended up in alone after Matt decided that Jonas needed to bunk with him so he could keep an eye on their guest. Nigel got his own room out of the entire deal and didn’t argue. After he moved his things into the last empty room in the house, he worked up the courage to ask Isis to stay with him and over dinner the night before she had agreed.

  Being with Nigel was better than she had expected but now all she could think of was the nightmare that had plagued her just moments ago and the only thing she could feel at the moment was worry for Jorden and her well-being.

  If Isis learned anything from the nightmare, she learned that she needed to talk to Jorden about her latent abilities and the sooner she did it the better. If Jorden made the mistake of opening her mind, and the demon that might possibly be haunting the island got in, it could mean a horrific death for her best friend and that was something that Isis was determined to keep from happening…at all costs.

  People’s Church – 5:10am…

  It didn’t matter how much caffeine he ingested, Jonas was not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination, but he chose not to complain. He figured that he was damn lucky that Matt and Jorden had chosen to continue the investigation, and that saved him a whole lot of explaining to do, not just to Seth and Stanley, but to his family as well. Initially it was his sister, Charlotte, who pressed him into finding out exactly what happened to their mother, but his Aunt Naomi and Uncle Robert were also greatly interested and wouldn’t stop pressing him until they got some answers.

  He didn’t mind the task of finding out what happened to his mother, in fact he insisted upon it. But from the moment he had put his plan in motion he’d screwed it up and he found himself second guessing his involvement with his partners – his father’s partners – to get it done. It bothered him that he seemed to be as adept at lying as his father and grandfather, and while at one time it would have made him proud to follow in their footsteps right now all he wanted to do was file himself away from civilization for the next year or so.

  “Anything?” Jorden asked from the altar.

  “Nothing up here!” Matt called down from the mezzanine. “I think that the church is clear...what about you?”

  Jonas looked up to see Matt’s irritated gaze fixed on him. “The pews are empty!”

  Matt continued to glare at him and Jonas knew that the man still didn’t trust him, and why should he? Since the moment they had met, Jonas had lied to them and with the betrayal of his partners he was surprised that Matt let him come on the search and recovery mission at all, though he also supposed that it was Matt’s way of continuing to keep an eye on him.

  Of course Jorden was hardly less suspicious but at the same time she seemed more reasonable and she gave him an encouraging nod.

  “All right then, let’s move onto the bell tower,” Matt said as he descended the stairs from the mezzanine. “Jorden, I want you to stay outside while Jonas and I go inside and take a look around.”

  Jonas braced himself for the explosive argument that he knew was sure to follow. In the short time Jonas had known the team he had come to learn their personalities and more than the others, Jorden did not like being told what to do. So when she gave Matt a cautious nod, Jonas nearly fell over in shock.

  “You don’t want to go into the tower?” Jonas asked as they stepped out of the church.

  “I think that I’ve experienced enough in that damned, godforsaken place to know that there’s more going on than a proxy by recorder. There’s something in there,” she said and flashed him a warning glower, “and it isn’t an audio recorder or human ghost of any kind.”

  In spite of what the investigators had found and what his mother may have experienced, Jonas still had a difficult time believing in demonic presences. He had heard the others on the island speak of it and speculate, and while he did believe in ghosts and restless spirits himself, he did not believe in angels and demons. That was fiction and anyone who wanted to tell him otherwise was nuts.

  “You can’t honestly believe that there’s a demon running around on this island,” Jonas scoffed.

  It was clear by the look in her eyes that Jorden could feel his skepticism beyond his words and she raised a brow. “It’s important to remember that there’s far too much about the universe we don’t know to believe that we know everything and not believe that anything is possible.”

  “In other words keep my mouth shut and my mind open?” Jonas said with a smile.

  She actually cracked a smile of her own. “Might be a good idea.�
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  When they approached the bell tower it stood over them like a looming spire of dread. Even before they went inside they could feel a thickness surrounding it that kept even Jonas from wanting to go inside.

  “All of the activity has been on the stairs and the landing where the bell once hung. If there’s anything in there trying to deceive us that’s where it will be,” Matt said.

  Jonas looked up the fifty feet to the arches of the tower and thought that he saw a shadow, but with all the stray clouds from the storm the night before racing in front of the sun then blowing away it was hard not to see shadows. Still…

  “Come on,” Matt said and took a step towards the tower before Jorden caught his hand.

  A moment passed between the two and while neither of them said anything, there were volumes of words and emotions in their expressions and Jonas suddenly felt like the proverbial unwanted third wheel.

  Matt gave her a nod before heading into the tower followed by Jonas.

  “So what was that all about?” Jonas asked as they slowly started to search around the base of the staircase; looking in every corner, crack and crevice for anything that might have been hidden in order to influence the outcome of their investigation.

  “What?” Matt questioned shortly.

  Jonas knew that he shouldn’t ask just as he knew that his only answer was going to be “none of your business” but he couldn’t stop himself. “You and Jorden,” he said. “That was a pretty intense moment between the two of you.”

  Matt glared at him briefly but said nothing.

  “She’s a beautiful woman,” Jonas said, though not knowing exactly why. It wasn’t as if the statement was untrue, but Matt was somewhat larger than him and he looked as though he could probably lift him over his head and heave him into the ocean without so much as skipping a breath, but he couldn’t stop himself.

  Matt stopped and continued to glare. “We’re here to find out if your comrades left any other devices meant to fuck up this investigation and that’s all. If I felt so inclined to discuss my personal life during this investigation I can assure you that it wouldn’t be with you, so I suggest that you let the subject drop.”

  That was actually more than Jonas had expected as far as a response went and he shrugged.

  After thoroughly sweeping the entrance hall the two men started up the stairs, continuing their search.

  “Does it always feel this…” Jonas searched his mind to find the right word to describe the air around them, “…oppressive up here?”

  Matt stopped and for a moment Jonas thought that he was going to snipe at him again, but instead he simply looked around and seemed to feel the air around him for himself before he allowed a nod. “Since the first night of the investigation,” he confirmed.

  Jonas didn’t like the feeling, he could even say that he hated it, and he couldn’t stop the chill that ran up his spine. “Well, you may not trust me or trust that I’ve already found all of the playback devices, but it would take more than a digital recorder to make a place feel like this.”

  “You’re right,” Matt said flatly, “anything that gives off a high EMF field could though. You pulled such a device from the refectory.”

  “Doesn’t mean that I know exactly what it does,” Jonas admitted.

  “EMF, electromagnetic field,” Matt said plainly. “If it’s high enough it can cause paranoia and nausea, among other things, that is if you’re around it long enough.”

  “But the field formed in the refectory was nowhere near this scale,” Jonas pointed out. “Do you actually think that such a device could actually cause a field this strong?”

  Matt shrugged and held his EMF detector out ahead of him. “An unshielded breaker box or bundles of unshielded wires could,” he said, still keeping his tone flat. “Or it could be a byproduct of the tower’s construction. When they remodeled the hospital they did the monastery grounds as well,” he said then shook his head, “they could have easily wired the place incorrectly, giving the appearance of something paranormal.” There was a moment of hesitation before he continued, “Or your friends could have had the caretaker tamper with the box to give off high readings.”

  Jonas shook his head. “I doubt it. I don’t even think that they truly know anything about EMFs, EVPs or anything else involved with hauntings. They probably left it up to the caretaker…or whoever they had plant the devices. I doubt that messing with the electrical systems here even occurred to them.”

  “That may be, but I can’t afford to think otherwise.”

  Jonas understood the argument and continued to follow Matt, but he still felt that there was more to what he was feeling aside from unshielded wiring or an overloaded circuit box.

  In a matter of minutes the two men reached the top of the tower and the arches where they again searched every corner, crack and crevice. Matt even used the EMF detector but they came up with nothing.

  For a moment Matt stood in the center of the landing and shook his head. “I thought for sure that we’d find something,” he muttered almost too quietly for Jonas to hear.

  “You don’t believe that what Jorden and Isis have been picking up for the last few days is paranormal?” Jonas asked.

  Matt shook his head then shrugged. “I was hoping,” he admitted.

  “Why’s that?”

  Matt’s constant glare faded into worry. “Because if what’s been going on up here is paranormal then it’s some pretty serious shit.”

  “You’re not going to tell me that you think that it’s demonic too,” Jonas scoffed.

  The look on Matt’s face was far more serious than Jonas had seen since the moment he had met the man and his heart sank. “If it is I’d change that attitude. You never know what kind of trouble-”

  Matt’s words abruptly cut off when the EMF detector started to spike.

  “What is it?” Jonas questioned.

  “We need to get the hell out of here now,” Matt insisted and before Jonas could argue he was halfway down the stairs.

  Matt didn’t strike Jonas as the type of person who would run from anything and to be fair it was not as though Matt was skipping stairs in his haste to get the hell out, but when the two of them exited the doors to the tower, Jonas knew that he had never seen anyone as relieved to be out of a building than Matt was at that moment.

  “What happened?” Jorden questioned as she jogged up to the two of them.

  “The EMF reader jumped dramatically,” Matt said in between pants. “Just like it did the night you got sick, just like it did the night Isis got sick, and just like it did last night.”

  Jorden stepped back and took a look at the tower and looked at it as if she expected the thing to crumble down. “I think that it’s time we took the caretaker’s keys and locked that damned building up for the rest of our investigation.”

  “Agreed,” Matt said after another couple of pants and pulled the keys from his pocket, though took his time when he approached the tower.

  “What is it?” Jorden asked when she noticed his hesitation.

  Matt stopped a moment then shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “I just got the eeriest feeling that we were being watched.”

  All three of them looked up to the top of the tower and once again Jonas thought that he glimpsed a shadow, but then just like before it coincided with the passing of some clouds in front of the sun. Still, he questioned if that was indeed the cause or if something was truly up there…it certainly felt as though something was up there with them a moment ago.

  After locking the doors, Matt pulled up the chains that looped around the two handles of the tower’s double doors and secured the padlock.

  “You think that it will keep whatever is in the tower in there?” Jonas questioned skeptically.

  “No,” Matt said plainly, “but it will keep my people out of there and safe.”

  Jonas still thought it was a bit of overactive imaginations on Matt and Jorden’s parts but he went along with it…what choi
ce did he have?

  The next stop was the dormitories, where after another lengthy search they found nothing, but once again Matt expressed the feeling that their group was being watched and Jorden remained uneasily silent.

  After the dormitories they made their way to the cemetery and once again Jorden stayed away while Matt and Jonas headed in to search for any devices.

  “Why doesn’t Jorden come with us in here?” Jonas questioned. “I understand the bell tower to some extent, but why not here?”

  Matt was clearly not interested in answering the question and simply shrugged.

  “Are you ever going to carry on a conversation with me that isn’t hostile?” Jonas asked, finally allowing Matt’s crusty approach to wear on his nerves. “I already apologized for misleading you and your team and I’m working rather diligently to make up for what my partners have done in their attempt to deceive you.”

  “Yes you are,” Matt confirmed though did not sound reassured.

  “So can we call a truce?” Jonas questioned.

  “I’m not at war,” Matt said as he looked around the ornate headstones scattered throughout the cemetery. “You want to keep looking?”

  Jonas had grown tired of looking for devices he knew were not there and shrugged. “There’s nothing here,” he said candidly.

  Matt stood and glared over at him. “Looks that way,” he said then looked back towards the mausoleum with a grim expression.

  “What’s up?” Jonas asked as he walked up beside Matt.

  “We picked up some pretty heavy duty EVPs in there,” Matt volunteered. “I don’t think that they were generated by any kind of device, otherwise we would have heard it.”

  “Unless it was transmitting along a frequency that you couldn’t hear,” Jonas absently suggested.

  Matt glanced over at him. “Nothing of the equipment you showed us indicated anything quite so sophisticated.”

  Jonas shrugged; surprised that he would have even suggested it. “It isn’t and I’ve never come across anything like it, but why not? Anything’s possible…right?”