by Steve Libbey
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Out into the thick of the night, where bullets flew invisibly without warning, Pirroni and his men sought Il Macabro. More and more he doubted his eyes. Abrognini’s explanation, that he had seen a desperate Sicilian looting a body, seemed so obvious in retrospect that his fantastical interpretation of the incident disturbed him. His body ached and sweat froze on his skin: was this what madness felt like?
“Sergente,” he whispered.
Adriatico crept back from his forward position. “Here, sir. We’ve flanked them, for all the good it will do us. They outnumber us ten to one.”
“Just as well, since we’re not to engage.”
“Il Macabro,” Adriatico muttered.
“Shut up and do as you’re told,” Pirroni said in a surge of frustration. Il Macabro had dragged him into a realm of doubt and uncertainty. He missed the simplicity of fighting the Americans.
Blood roaring in his ears, Pirroni led his squad past the American outpost. The moonlight revealed the tension in his men’s faces. It would have been easy to cast their carbines down and raise their hands in defeat. Unless Abrognini was right, surrender was the only sure way to survive the coming massacre. He noticed Adriatico glancing back as they left the American outpost behind.
Dashing from shadow to shadow, they made their way towards the marketplace, which had been in hot contention earlier that morning. Pirroni hoped that the bodies – Italian and American – and the lack of fighting would be an irresistible treasure trove for scavengers, and there he would find the man he had mistaken for a ghost. Morale restored, the men would rally around Posca – or rather, Abrognini – and Caltanissetta might fall back into their hands. Or they would all die, albeit with honor instead of shame.
He put speculation aside. He was a soldier, and the immediate task was the only one to address.
In the darkness, the market square resembled Roman ruins. Booths shattered by mortar shells or grenades thrust jagged planks into the chill air. Crumbled walls softened the straight lines of the surrounding shops.
If he squinted, Pirroni could almost imagine the corpses splayed out on the cobblestones to be mounds of grass and rocks, soft organic things – into which they would decay thanks to well-aimed bullets.
Keeping low, the men edged into the square and crouched at the bodies. All of them wore Italian uniforms, a sign that the Americans had controlled this area long enough to evacuate the dead and wounded.
“Oh God,” Adriatico said. “Another one.”
Pirroni’s chest tightened. “Another ghost?”
The Sergente gulped. “No, sir... but close. This man’s arm has been removed, just like Talerico. Sheered off clean.” As he spoke, his trembling hands felt the ground around the dead man. “Arm’s gone.”
“Here, too. A leg,” said LaRocca. The youth’s voice quavered. “Why would he do such a thing?”
The image of the ghoul’s round white eyes came to mind. Its hands had worked at the American with purpose and intent. If the creature had been feasting, it would have bent down to bite at flesh, or brought chunks to its mouth. It had done neither.
Pirroni sensed a pattern and a reason behind it.
“How far are we from the church?”
Adriatico surveyed the square. “Five blocks south. Why?”
“That’s where we’ll find our ghost.”
“How do you know?” The Sergente gave him a suspicious look. “The church is the heart of American turf.”
Pirroni didn’t answer. Instead, he began to skirt the open square. He heard the deliberate footfalls of his men behind him, and LaRocca’s muttered prayers. Keeping to the walls and cover of the booths and abandoned carts, they inched towards the church.
Dim light shone through the miraculously intact stained glass of St. Stephens’ Basilica, visible from a distance. A human shape in the bell tower was the first sign of the American entrenchment. The engines of troop transports rumbled at the foot of the church.
Adriatico tapped Pirroni’s arm to point out the sniper in the tower. Pirroni spent several minutes watching troops enter and leave through the church doors. At last he spotted two medics carrying a stretcher to a side entrance.
“The basement,” he told his men quietly. “It’s their infirmary.”
“Good guess, Capitano” Adriatico said.
“Just common sense. The Germans used the church during their occupation. They left too quickly to take much furniture with them.”
Pirroni had been in that infirmary when they first arrived for a case of heat exhaustion. From his cot, he had a clear view of the window to the alley, and the apple tree in the garden beyond. Every day he promised himself that as soon as he was fit, he would climb the tree and pick the highest apple he could. Alas, the Germans had the same idea; the only apples left were riddled with worm holes.
He took a moment to recall the path he had taken to reach that garden, then motioned for his men to follow.
For ten minutes, using back alleys and overgrown spaces between houses, they slipped past American soldiers smoking cigarettes, eating rations and laughing together. The bravado of the invaders was an ill omen for the Fascists. It could be that Posca had already surrendered the town.
At last he found the apple tree, still stripped bare of fruit. He leaned against the trunk and saw lamplight flickering behind the filth-encrusted window. The frame had been tilted open.
Using hand signals, he instructed Adriatico to accompany him and the others to keep watch. LaRocca leaned close. “What if we’re spotted?”
“Avanti Sicilia,” he said. “Obey your heart. But for now, silence.”
Rifles slung over their shoulders, he and the Sergente slid over the garden wall and stepped softly towards the window. The gravel crunched under their feet despite their careful pace. At the window, they crouched together and peered inside.
Another discouraging site: this particular ward contained only one sleeping soldier and two rows of empty cots. Exchanging a glance, they lowered themselves into the room. Adriatico drew his knife and jerked his head at the patient. Pirroni shook his head.
Voices approached the ward. Hurriedly, they cast about the room for a hiding place. The door to the storeroom at the end of the room was too far, even at an attention-attracting sprint. Adriatico’s eyes widened in panic.
Pirroni threw himself onto the nearest cot and pulled the sheet over himself. He gestured for Adriatico to do the same. The Sergente pushed the barrel of his rifle under the sheet and lay still as two Americans entered the ward.
The Italian soldiers held their breath: one of the men wore a black cloak over his shoulders.
“Nothing useful left behind.” The first man wore a medic’s uniform and armband, though his young, unlined face belied his profession. A medical bag hung over his shoulder. “Not even dirty bandages. It’s as if the Krauts had planned their evacuation.”
“More likely, they never intended to stay.” The man in the cloak spoke with what Pirroni recognized as an East Coast accent, similar to the British in their sonorous vowels. Under his cloak he wore black fatigues and heavy motorcycle boots. Nothing about his bearing was ghoulish or sinister... yet Pirroni was sure this was Il Macabro.
As the black-clad man breached the room further, Pirroni saw what hung around his neck: goggles.
The demonic eyes! A mere reflection of light off the lenses.
“Mayfield located a cell hunkered down near a bakery. The fighting is bad enough that I’d better head over there before I go north.”
The two walked past them towards the medical supply closet. The medic flipped open his bag. “You may be able to reattach limbs and stifle pain responses, but the rest of us rely on morphine.”
Pirroni drew his knife and flashed it at Adriatico. On three, he mouthed, and took a deep breath and sent a prayer to the Virgin Mary... and then he and Adriatico lunged at the American’s backs.
Adriatico wrenched the medic’s head around an
d shoved his knife into his exposed throat. Blood pumping, Pirroni threw himself on Il Macabro’s back. He slammed the knife deep into the man’s heart.
Il Macabro howled in pain like any mortal man would. He seized Pirroni by the arm and threw him aside into a cot, which collapsed under him, giving up a cloud of dust.
Adriatico lowered the medic to the ground. He took a step towards the staggering man in black who clutched his chest. Pirroni saw a look of infinite regret on his face, a silent, melancholic “that’s funny...” prelude to a lethal meditation on silence and death.
Suddenly, Il Macabro thrust out a hand to grab Adriatico’s arm. With a twist of his wrist, he broke Adriatico’s arm like a stick. As Adriatico gaped at him in horror, he reached out and massaged the Sergente’s neck... and then drove his fingers inside as if parting a curtain. No blood seeped out until he removed a long, wet tube from Adriatico’s throat, and then the Italian man fell. His head hit the floor and a fountain of blood erupted from the gaping wound. His legs kicked as he died.
Il Macabro ignored his victim and the Capitano. He knelt at the medic’s side and wiped the blood from the gash. With deft fingers, he parted the flesh and inserted the trachea that was still slick with Adriatico’s blood.
Then he smoothed the skin over as though it were clay. In moments the medic’s neck was unblemished and he bucked as he gasped air.
Il Macabro stood and faced Pirroni. The entire front of his uniform was red and damp. His knees quaked under him and his face had gone white.
Pirroni scrambled to his feet, knife in hand. “Get back,” he said in English.
Il Macabro shook his head. “I can’t die yet. Too much to do. Sorry, son.” He staggered towards Pirroni with his bloody hand outstretched.
“No!” Pirroni backed away.
The American lurched forward. His hands gripped Pirroni’s wrists. Under his palms, Pirroni’s skin flowed like water, a sickening feeling. The knife clattered to the floor.
Determined, Il Macabro released one arm. Pirroni tried to fend off the deadly hand, but even dying the man had more strength in him.
Il Macabro’s fingers entered his body and brushed his ribs aside. A cold shock ran the length of Pirroni’s body as those fingers closed on his rapidly beating heart. With a tug, the organ came free of the arteries attached to it. Pirroni’s vision flashed white.
The cold spread to every inch of his skin. Il Macabro, a look of intense concentration on his face, removed Pirroni’s pulsing heart and held it before him. Capitano Pirroni watched Il Macabro thrust that heart into his chest and removed his own damaged heart.
His final, fading thought was not an attempt to understand the miraculous sight before him, but of Colonnello Posca’s aged, tired voice repeating over and over the battle cry that had brought victory for no one: Avanti Sicilia, Avanti Sicilia, Avanti Sicilia...
~*~*~*~
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