GENESIS (GODS CHAIN) (52 page)

Ciriaco could only imagine such devotion and passion
with
...
there
she
was again, Francesca
.
H
er face, the girl seemed to be haunting to his mind...
.

Reinforcing thoughts of self preservation, something warned him not to get involved
with her. But
unknown to him, he was not in control any longer
.
W
here is she
?
His thoughts were undecided
:
his heart or his passion
?
T
here was the
b
arista, what about her infatuation?
In the small café,
Ciriaco was changing from boy to man.
He stood with a sigh.

‘Are you leaving
,
sir?’ she
said,
sound
ing
disappointed
.
‘
C
an I offer you anything else?’

‘Sadly, I must go
,’ he gently declined.
‘
Thanks for the company and the coffee.’ The man had made his choice.

**********

A soft voice spoke quietly in the darkness
.
“Francesca
,
my dearest daughter
,
it is time to rise and get up
!
C
ome on
,
dear, come and see the new
-
born
f
oals running in the field. Please waken
,
my dear, my daughter. Please wake up
...
please wake up
...
please wake up
...
.
”
It was her mother’s voice
,
speaking to her in a dream
...
.

Francesca finally sat up, groaning as she held her head
.
Did I fall asleep?
She q
uizz
ed
her own sanity
,
trying to clear her mind.
Had she imagined hearing her mother’s dissipating voice, convinced of still hearing it echo further away and drifting further into the still darkness
?
The void surrounded her.

The
woman’s
mind became clear and sharp again
.
B
odily she was exhausted
, however
.
Francesca
thought that
the possibility of the killer following her
was
very slim.
It was too easy to get lost in this God forsaken place
.
For the first time, she wondered if m
aybe she had a chance
.

If the killer
was
here, right now, I would be dead already
. I was a sitting duck
!

Her mind warped into a familiar spiral.

Why the hell am I being hunted
,
and why is Massimo dead? Is it because of the secret computer back there?
Have we
stumbled onto something else? Something to do with
Michaelangelo
...?
He warned me! Bloody hell
,
the others must also be in danger!
Shit
,
I need some light if I’m going to survive this fucking place and
live to
warn them!

Francesca opened her technician’s side bag
,
which
was
strapped to her
shoulders.
Let’s get this thing on
, Francesca
thought as she
positioned the strap
of her headlamp
onto her
fore
head and switched on the
light
.

The lamp
lit up like a beacon
;
the piercing brightness hurt her eyes!
Panning her headlamp left to right and then up and down
, Francesca’s hopes for water were dashed
.
T
he systems administrator
could not help but note
the enormity of this place
—
it was a vast dumping ground
...
for the dead!

**********

The catacomb walls were of a dirty yellow colour with algae encrusting the internal grey cut stone loculi.
Many rectangular holes were cut into a system of galleries, sliced out into rows of rectangular niches at even and regular points along
side
and above
her
.
Macabre was the site
,
and organised like a stack of death crates
—
one stone row upon the other.

These stone containments were known as a “loculi”
,
and each held the bones of the dead.
All
of these
dead holes
had
skeletons hidden inside
,
away from direct view
—the bones
lay in their last resting place
.
Francesca’s
face
was
one of sheer horror and complete revulsion at this underground cemetery
.
Inside
the
loculi were other
,
unnamed things that the girl could not see
—
there was much, much more
hiding
inside these dark resting places
...
.

Oil lamps and small vases containing perfumes would often be placed beside these open tombs,
to
hide the
evil and rotting
odour
within
.
It smell
ed
...
as if this place
was
still being used
.
That
would account for the reek earlier in the catacombs
—
it was strongest here.
She had found
the source!

Unknown to Francesca
,
she had entered
The Dormitory of the Dead!

‘What time is it? Where the hell
am I?
’
she asked, a
lmost as if expecting someone to answer her
.
A
nd why not
—
after all, she had plenty of company!

Looking at her gold wristwatch
, she saw that it was
7:30
p.m.
I’ve been down here for hours!
T
hen she realised
...
.
My God
,
the second hand isn
’
t moving!

Francesca was sore all over
, but
a
t least her
cheek
had stopped bleeding.
‘Steady girl
,
try to keep cool
,
’
she reassured
herself while looking back
up
the way she had come
.
S
he tried to bottle her growing fears
as she
observ
ed
the stairs she
had nearly
toppled down.
The stairs rose up high and
high
into the darkness.

Taking a screwdriver out of her tool case, Francesca scraped and grooved a letter “F” into the right side of the frosted loculi wall,
in order to
prevent her from going round in circles.
The tiny scraping noises
resonated
eeri
ly
up to the high arched ceiling.
She was being listened to
...
.

‘My God
,
there must be hundreds if not thousands of dead people down here! I cannot go back.
This is my only way out!
’

The girl looked upwards and around submissively
,
then
,
turning to the way ahead and trying not to look too closely at the loculi
that
enclos
ed her
on either side
,
Francesca slowly walked through the long dormitory
.
S
he progressed further and further into the cruel dwelling place
without an end in sight.
Eyeless sockets watched the girl
with all the patience of eternity
...
.