Whispering Bones

by Rita Vetere

He rose and moved to the window nearest him, peeking out from behind the closed curtain. They were out there, of course. The dead. Like sentinels from hell. Waiting.

  Was it his imagination or were there more of them than usual out there? Hard to tell in the pitch black outside his window, but... Yes, he realized with a start, their numbers had grown. A drop of perspiration trickled down his back as he observed them milling around the edge of the field.

  The sound of raised voices reached him—shouts and running footsteps, coming from the direction of the hospital. His stomach roiled from the liquor. Bitter bile rose to his throat. He remained rooted to the spot, looking out at the creatures as they inched their way forward. They had never ventured this close before.

  The shouting grew louder. He knew he should go investigate the source of the commotion, but something told him he must not venture out on this night. The apparitions outside his window grew bolder, moving closer and closer, until they stood mere feet from his window. He let the drape fall back so he wouldn’t have to see their rotting forms, but just knowing they were out there sent his heart tripping.

  The shouts and accompanying sound of running footsteps receded. A moment later, he heard a wooden thud, like the sound of a boat banging up against the landing, and the splashing noise of oars hitting the water. The night staff—they were leaving the island! Only they had access to the emergency boats. He had to stop them. They couldn’t just leave him here on the island, alone with the insane... And the dead.

  Something must have happened, but what?

  The answer to his question presented itself the next moment, when the door to his office burst open. The walking dead entered. Behind them he saw something that caused him to break into a cold sweat. His patients—the ones he had disposed of himself in the crematorium. He stared incredulously at them, too shocked and paralyzed by fear to move.

  His extreme terror morphed into something else entirely, however, when the last entered the room, one he had never laid eyes on before.

  The decomposing corpse of the young girl walked into his office on bare feet. When she turned her gaze on him and he watched her glassy eyes darken to obsidian, his heart exploded in terror. The maliciousness radiating from those eyes seemed to make an audible sound, like a thrumming vibration in the air surrounding her. One look at her and the other creatures in the room appeared meek in comparison.

  Rossi opened his mouth to cry out, closed it again. They’re not real. They can’t possibly be real. My mind, it’s—

  The dead put their hands on him. He screamed, a long, drawn-out sound that echoed loudly in the room before he passed out from sheer terror.

  When he regained consciousness, he was outside, being dragged by his arms across the rough ground. The atrocities towering above him, tinted crimson from the blood which flowed into his eyes, shrieked and howled as they pulled him along the path. His face felt torn to shreds and the severe pain from the many wounds covering his body made it impossible to do anything but whimper as they continued to drag his injured body along.

  Their ferocious voices surrounded him and the stench of putrid flesh filled his nostrils. He spied the hospital up ahead. A moment later he was dumped on the front steps. Panicked, he tried to get to his feet, to no avail, wondering what had happened to his legs. Then he looked down to see the exposed bones where the flesh had been torn away, and the rapidly-expanding pool of blood on the ground beneath him. The sight of his mangled legs and the pain roaring through them caused vomit to rise in his throat. He came close to passing out, but a rush of adrenaline pumped through him, forcing him to remain conscious.

  The sinister voice of the evil child traveled through the night. “He will meet his end here. Only the manner of his death remains to be decided.”

  Rossi heard a small creaking sound as the demon child’s head turned slowly on its neck.

  “Rosaria,” Isabella called out in a rasping voice, “what say you? How shall he die?”

  From out of the darkness came the dead woman’s response. “Push him off the bell tower!”

  The dead chanted their agreement. “Bell tower—push him off!”

  “No, stay away from me!” he shouted.

  Cadaverous hands seized him, raising his maimed body high in the air as they entered the hospital, his screams trailing behind.

  Up the circular stairway they carried him. Terrifying images of what would happen to him when they reached the top flashed through his crazed mind. His bearers dropped him on the steps, causing torturous pain to rip through him. They hoisted him back up and continued up the narrow spiral stairway. When they reached the open top of the tower, night air struck his wounded face, burning like fire. They propped his agonized body in the archway facing forward. Looking down through bloody eyes from his precarious perch, he could see the steps leading to the main doors below and the front grounds.

  When the demon child arrived at his side, he struggled to jump off on his own, so great was his fear of her, but the boney hands of the dead held him firm. The creature seized his wrist with tiny, cold fingers of steel. She spoke to him without making a sound.

  He heard her only in his mind as she showed him the events which had brought him to the moment of his death. With the knowledge of who he was and why this was happening came insanity.

  The entity released her grip on him.

  “Now!” came the command.

  Hands thrust him forward, then he was falling, dropping like a stone, the ground racing toward him with dizzying speed.

  When he hit, stars exploded in front of his eyes for a split second, then darkness swallowed him. Seconds later, however, the slits of his eyes opened a fraction and he glimpsed the starry night sky through blinding pain. How he had survived the fall he did not know, but somehow he was still alive, lying on his back on the grassy area next to the entrance.

  He barely had time to absorb this fact when a dark form flew down from the bell tower and the demon child landed on his chest with a thud. Smacking, slurping sounds filled his ears as she crawled over his inert form, sucking and licking the blood from his many wounds. The others arrived, forming a circle around him, their blank eyes trained on his suffering, as the dead child moved to his neck and continued to drink. As if from far away, he heard the bell tolling in the tower above.

  Scuffling sounds. White, powdery earth swirled around his head as the corpses kicked up dirt all around him, earth he now knew was nothing more than the dusty bones of those who were buried here. The white powder eddied and churned in front of his face, entering his mouth, his nostrils. He choked on it. It was the last thing he saw before he died.

  * * * *

  Isabella reluctantly dismounted Rossi’s body, licking the last of his blood from her mouth with her black rotted tongue. Not since the taking of Tomaso, centuries ago, had she derived such pleasure from a kill. Her thirst for blood still raged through her like a ravenous animal, but work remained to be done.

  What was left of Rossi would have to be disposed of, and quickly, before the intruders returned to the island. He could not be buried, as Tomaso had been. The grave might be discovered and more intruders would come. Nor could they burn him. Isabella did not like fire.

  She considered for a moment, then her blood-soaked lips widened into a dreadful grin.

  The bell tower. She knew where the intruders kept their supply of mortar and bricks for repairs, and she had noticed the large crevasse in the wall near the open top of the tower. But they would need to make haste.

  She turned to her subjects and gave the order. “Gather up his remains. He will be entombed here, within the walls of the place where he wreaked his destruction, to dwell on his evil acts for all time.”

  Isabella laughed insanely at the idea, her laughter turning into hysterical shrieking. On hearing it, the dead scurried off to do her bidding, lest they incur her displeasure, or worse, her wrath.

  Chapter 22

  Poveglia Island

  Present Day

&nbs
p; Anna turned away from the disgusting sight of the brain spattered all over the floor, gagging from the horrible stench the broken jar had unleashed. She ran for the back door, but slipped on the repulsive mess and fell. Trying not to think about what now covered her hands and arms, she scrambled on all fours to get there.

  The door slammed shut in front of her just as she reached it. Gibbering sounds escaped her as she frantically tried to get the door open, but her slime-covered hands kept slipping. Anna wiped them on her jeans and tried again, but the door remained solidly stuck.

  She turned, intending to run back out the way she’d come in, when something happened.

  The ground beneath her feet began to tremble violently. The walls shook. What’s happening? was all she had time to think before debris from the floor went flying into the air around her. Shielding her face with her arms, she ducked just as a floor tile hurtled by, missing her by a fraction. Unable to gain her equilibrium, Anna retreated, crouching in a corner next to the back door, as the ground continued to rumble and the walls shuddered all around her.

  She watched in astonishment and disbelief as the room began to repair itself. Broken tiles flew up from the ground, coming together in mid-air and shooting back down to fill in the gaps on the floor in rapid bursts. The cracks and crevasses in the old walls sealed themselves from the bottom up. The slimy grey matter on the floor amassed, while the broken glass pulled together to recreate the jar, once again intact. The brain and liquid slid back inside the container, which sealed itself shut and jumped back up to take its place on the shelf. The cupboard doors reattached themselves to the shelves; screws turned on their own to secure the hinges. Loose paint chips pulled together and slapped onto the newly restored walls. The old gurney in the corner slid into the center of the room, the ripped upholstery repairing itself until the brown leather appeared once again supple and new. The cobwebs covering the steel table dissolved. Dents on the tabletop reversed until the top became smooth and even. The surgical instruments hopped into a neat line on the table, gleaming with shiny newness.

  Moments after it had begun to rumble, the ground beneath her stilled. The walls ceased trembling.

  In the ensuing silence, she heard the sound of a bell tolling. The bell tower. Except, she remembered, there was no bell.

  Anna looked up, and realized she was no longer in the present.

  Somehow, the place had transported back in time. She was seeing the asylum as it had looked shortly after its construction, back in the nineteen twenties. She knew this because she was staring directly at the bespectacled man whose picture she had seen in the office. He wore a white lab coat and was... Oh, dear Lord!

  On the gurney in front of the surgeon a woman struggled against her restraints. Someone had stuffed a towel into her mouth. Anna watched in stunned horror as the man secured a leather strap across her face and reached for an instrument, a saw of some kind, which he wiped with a rag. He held the saw over the head of the still-conscious woman with intent.

  “No!” Anna’s inertia broke and she propelled herself forward to stop what was about to happen. The man did not look up at her as she barreled toward him. It was only when she stumbled onto her hands and knees behind him that Anna understood they had not collided. She had passed straight through him.

  With her heart in her mouth, she looked over her shoulder and saw the apparition of the doctor turn, as if sensing her presence. She could tell he did not see her. The ghost turned back to his grisly task, and Anna raced from the room into the adjoining ward. She did not break stride, not even when she saw that neat beds, occupied by patients, now lined the walls. She had been right about the place being an asylum. Some of the patients were strapped into their beds. Others lifted their heads, giving her a knowing look, as she tore past them. They can see me. It was all she could do to keep running, to keep her sanity from slipping away.

  She streaked through the archway into the middle ward, where she ran straight into and through another phantom, a male attendant dressed in white. She felt him pass through her, a sensation that took her breath away. From the periphery of her vision, she glimpsed one of the patients sitting up in bed, pointing straight at her as she raced by.

  One more ward and she’d be at the vestibule.

  All thoughts of finding Alejandro had flown. She’d been tricked, lured into this horrible place by the ghosts haunting it, and she ran for her life.

  She made it through the last ward, chilled by the sight of more insane faces staring calmly at her, and burst into the vestibule. A cry of relief escaped her when she saw the front doors standing wide open, and she scrambled through them, straight into the storm raging outside.

  The wind had picked up, bending trees, and lightning leapt out of the sky. Sheets of rain poured down on her, but she kept running. Back on the path, soaking wet but spurred on by fear, she fled for the sanctuary of the construction trailer, the only place she might be safe on this accursed island. She passed the quarantine building and crematorium without sparing them a glance. After rounding the corner, she spotted the trailer through a veil of heavy rain. Almost there.

  A second later, she skidded to a stop. Figures moving around in front of the trailer—people! Blessed relief flowed through her, as she told herself that help must have arrived. She opened her mouth to call out as she hurried toward them, but shut it again immediately and stopped running. Through the downpour, she stared in disbelief at the hideous and rotting corpses lumbering back and forth near the trailer.

  A frightened sound escaped her before she could prevent it. Even through the heavy rain, she could see the decomposed state of their flesh and their stilted movements as they shuffled around in front of the trailer. Anna watched in dismay as one of the walking dead turned its decayed head and trained its waxy eyes on her.

  Move! She could not go back the way she had come—she’d either be cornered at the landing or be driven back inside the hospital. The creatures appeared to be slow-moving. Anna quickly calculated her options and shifted right, hoping to circumvent them and make for the forest, where she might be able to hide.

  Taking off into the field, she forced her way through the brambles and thick bushes in the driving rain. The vines tugged at her trousers, trying to slow her down. Glancing to her left, she saw that some of the creatures had stayed behind at the trailer, but others were giving chase. She forced herself to move faster through the field, not daring to look back, the brambles clutching and ripping at her jeans. Twenty feet to the forest. Ten.

  She realized her mistake, too late, when something came tearing out from behind the trees like damnation to materialize in front of her. Shock ran through her as, numb with fear, Anna suddenly found herself face-to-face with her nightmare.

  Up close, she could see the maggots slithering in and out of its filthy mouth. Eyes like volcanic glass shone with deadly intent, its gaze infecting her like a malignant cancer. The stench of putrid and decaying flesh surrounded her—the odor of death and the grave.

  She took a step back from the abomination. “No! Stay away from me!” Behind her, she heard the shuffling feet of the dead, heralding their approach.

  Run! her mind screamed. She turned to flee from the entity, but its boney hand shot out with supernatural speed, clamping onto her forearm like a vice, pulling her back. Anna rocked on her feet as something powerful slammed into her. Suddenly, she was...

  * * * *

  ...lying on her back in a deep hole in the ground, her body wracked with agonizing pain. She looks at her hands, impossibly small, and the festering sores covering them. Towering above her, standing at the edge of the excavation, the cloaked figure of a man. She sees the long black coat he wears, but his face is hidden by a strange white mask. The smell of death and decomposition surrounds her. She turns her head and looks with horror at the decaying and disease-ridden bodies upon which she is lying. Unable to move or speak in the nightmarish dimension she has entered, she watches as the man standing at the edge of the pit leans
on his shovel and speaks.

  “There is no place at the Lazaretto, it already overflows with the dead and dying... Y ou have been brought to Poveglia .” He fills his shovel with dirt. Some part of her mind tries to tell her this is not really happening, but then a shower of earth strikes her face, stinging her open eyes and the sores covering her. More dirt rains down on her, entering her mouth and nostrils when she tries to breathe. Within seconds, she is suffocating, choking on the vile dirt...

  * * * *

  Anna came to with a start, lying on her back in the tangled vines of the field, rain pouring down on her. She looked all around, but the creature was gone. On her forearm, she could clearly see the bruised imprint where the demon child had touched her.

  Relentless rain shocked her all the way awake, and the vision of having been buried alive rushed through her again with the force of a freight train. She rolled to her side and managed to get to her hands and knees, too weak to stand. Half insane with fear, she poked her head above the bushes and glanced around the field. Through a sheet of rain, she spied the dead men and women still milling about in the vicinity of the trailer. Some of them, she now saw, were garbed in white hospital gowns, and the tops of their heads were...gone. She recognized one of them as being the woman strapped to the gurney she’d seen in the hospital and felt her stomach lurch. Dear God, please...please help me to find Alejandro and get off this awful island.

  She looked over her shoulder at the trees behind her, knowing she could not take refuge there. The creature had come from the forest and might still be lurking nearby.

  Her mind worked furiously. She trained her eyes on the building nearest to her, the office. The door to that building was approximately ten feet from the edge of the field. If she could make it inside without the atrocities moving around nearby spotting her, she might be safe—for a while, at least.

  Staying low to the ground, she began to crawl in the direction of the office. As she dragged herself along, pelted by rain, the terrifying sensations she’d been subjected to in the vision haunted her. It dawned on Anna that what she had experienced, what she had been shown, must have happened to that...that creature. The images had come from her. Except, she told herself, it hadn’t been a monster then. It had been a child. She had sensed as much while immersed in the dreadful vision. It was why her hands had looked so tiny.