Whispering Bones (16 page)

The first inkling of real fear entered her as she hurried back to the path to check the landing again. As she ran past the crematorium, she thought she spied movement through the open doors and stopped. “
Alejandro.
Are you…”

Her words dwindled as she stood in the open doorway, her heavy breathing the only sound breaking the silence. She could have sworn she’d seen something moving among the shadows inside the windowless building. The round doors of the incinerators stood open, the cavities staring at her like bottomless eyes. “Alejandro?”

She stepped inside.
There
. Something moved again in the dark corner of the room. Anna took another step, her pulse pounding in her throat, not knowing what to expect. When her eyes adjusted to the dim light inside, she scanned the dark corner again, but saw nothing.

The daylight coming from the open doors behind her suddenly dimmed and Anna whirled around, just in time to hear the snick of the latch falling into place across the doors as they closed, leaving her in total darkness. Crying out in surprise, she fumbled around the pitch-black room in the direction of the doorway, and banged her hip on something hard and metallic—the open door of the incinerator. She jammed her hand in her pocket to retrieve her lighter. Staying within the tiny arc of light made by the open flame, she walked over to the doors. The wooden latch had somehow slipped from its mount and fallen, pulling the doors shut. With her free hand, she tried to lift the latch back up. The flame flickered as she struggled with the heavy bar. The lighter slipped from her hand and clattered to the stone floor, leaving her in darkness again.
Shit!
She got on her hands and knees, feeling around on the floor for the lighter, and located it a few seconds later. As she flicked it, a scraping noise sounded behind her and she turned.

From the open cylinder of the incinerator, a hand shot out. By the light of the trembling flame, she could see the raised purple veins covering it. Ragged black fingernails scraped against the metal as whatever was on the other end tried to claw its way out. Anna screamed and dropped the lighter again.
Oh God...
O
h God, please
.
Panic bit into her as she frantically felt around the floor for the lighter. The scraping of nails across metal sounded behind her again, followed by a slithering, dragging sound. Her frenzied hands couldn’t locate the damned lighter. Whatever was in the room with her would reach her in a minute and—

Her fingers brushed against the lighter and she grabbed it, flicking it on, terrified that the thing had clawed its way out and would be at her side. But the incinerator door hung open, the cylinder empty. She could see nothing in her immediate vicinity. Without wasting a second, Anna whirled and lifted the heavy bar securing the doors. She tumbled outside and slammed the doors shut behind her; heard the latch click back into place. Shaking all over, her heart pounding painfully, she backed away from the doors. What had just happened in there? Something had tried to crawl out of the incinerator. Something not
alive
, her mind insisted.

Anna turned and ran. She
had
to locate Alejandro and find a way to get off this damned island. Overhead, the bank of low black clouds, harbingers of the coming storm, raced behind her in pursuit.

Poveglia Island

1927

Rossi studied his reflection in the mirror above the commode in his office lavatory, barely recognizing the haggard face peering back at him. His appearance had changed drastically since moving onto the island a month ago. No longer meticulous about the way he looked, he had allowed his hair to grow into a scraggly mess and puffy dark smudges sat beneath his bloodshot eyes. He hadn’t slept in weeks, except when passed out from drink. He’d lost weight as well. His clothes hung from his thin frame like a scarecrow’s.

As had been the case each morning for the past month, he’d awoken to a pounding headache, hung over from the large amounts of alcohol he now consumed daily. Drinking seemed to be the only way he could tolerate the sight of the walking dead who now stalked him openly, giving him no peace. Only here, in his office, with the drapes closed and the door locked, did he feel any measure of safety. So far, they had not entered his sanctuary.

In the time since he’d left home to take up residence on the island, he’d not spared a thought for his troublemaking wife and children. They could rot for all he cared. All the years he had provided for them, taking care of their every need, and what had they given him in return? Only aggravation and grief. He refused to allow them to distract him from his work.

He rubbed at the stubbly beard covering his face and reminded himself to shave. Although he’d gotten rid of Fenelli weeks ago, some of the staff had begun to look at him strangely of late, casting sideways glances when they thought he wasn’t looking. He’d heard them whispering behind his back as well, especially after all three of the quarantined patients had unexpectedly died following his “examinations”. Rossi had disposed of the bodies, after removing the brains, in the same manner he had disposed of Carbone—in the dead of night in the crematorium. Although he knew the hospital employees were becoming suspicious, none had dared question him.

Let them think what they wanted. No one could prove the patients had died by his hand, and the families of all three men had taken his word for it that their relatives had died of natural causes.

He would have to cut back on the drinking, though. He’d been hitting the bottle too hard, especially after his examination of the brains of his last three victims revealed no abnormalities. Just like Carbone. Desperate, afraid he would not be able to find the cause and subsequent cure for the disease before he succumbed to madness, he’d spent most of the past few weeks drinking himself into a stupor.

Then, during the night, good news had arrived. One of the patients—the woman, Rosaria, his wife’s acquaintance—had become hysterical, striking out at the attendant who tried to stop her from escaping from the hospital. She had been ranting, the attendant said, shouting at him to let her go, that she needed to get off the island. The spirits, she told him, wanted to kill her.

Rossi lathered his face and picked up the straight-razor sitting next to the basin of water. He slid the blade along his cheek in a neat, upward motion, leaving a smooth swath of skin in its wake. His hand did not shake.

The brain of the woman, Rosaria, would surely provide the answer he so desperately required. It had to.

* * * *

In the quarantine building, Rosaria strained against the leather bindings at her wrists and ankles as she glanced wildly around at the other beds. All were unoccupied except for the one upon which she was lying.

“Let me out of here!” she yelled, even though she knew her call for help would go unanswered. She’d screamed all night after they had moved her from the ward into segregation. The last three patients transferred to quarantine had not returned to the wards and they were certainly not here. Frightened, she wondered what had become of them, but in her heart, she already knew. Her instinct told her they were dead.

Three times over the past month she had awoken to a foul stench which could only mean the crematorium was in use. The fact that bodies were being disposed of in the middle of the night had made her suspicious. Now that she knew the three patients were not here where they were supposed to be, she assumed them to be dead. There were no other patient facilities aside from the wards and the quarantine building. Whatever their fate, she knew Rossi was responsible. Oh, how she hated the man for imprisoning her here on this evil island.

She cursed Massimo too, blaming him for insisting she come to this miserable place, but she wasted little time thinking about her husband. She had to find a way to escape from the island and the abominations inhabiting it.

Rosaria tried not to think about the atrocity she had seen last night, the evil entity disguised as a child—a disease-ridden corpse of a girl with filthy, dirt-encrusted hair and a half-eaten face. The dreadful remembrance prompted her to struggle harder against the leather straps binding her. When she had seen the malice radiating from those black filmy eyes—when it had
touched
her, grabbing her arm with a grip of steel—Rosaria had screamed and screamed, unable to stop herself. She’d almost managed to escape from the building before the attendant arrived to stop her. Shortly afterward, she’d been brought here.

“Help me,” she cried at the empty room.

Her frantic thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the heavy wooden door creaking open. Rossi stepped inside, followed by two attendants. Although he did not appear as disheveled as the last time she’d seen him, Rosaria thought he looked like the devil himself.

She listened in frightened silence as Rossi directed the two attendants to secure her and bring her to the surgical area of the hospital. When the attendants wheeled a gurney next to her bed and unfastened the leather straps at her wrists, she lashed out at them like a wild animal, scratching and clawing, while directing a stream of curses at Rossi.

The large men easily overpowered her and wrestled her onto the gurney. One of the attendants held her down while the other fastened a leather belt tightly across her midsection, pinning her arms. Another restraint was applied to her legs with practiced speed. A moment later, they wheeled her outside. Rosaria could only whip her head around as she continued hurling obscenities at Rossi. He led them along the path and through the back door of the operating room.

After depositing the gurney inside and receiving Rossi’s polite dismissal, the attendants left, ignoring her screams for help. Rossi shut the door behind them. He turned to her, his face an expressionless mask.

“What are you going to do?” she cried. Her hysteria increased by leaps and bounds as the image of the empty beds in the quarantine building flashed through her mind again.

“Shut up,” he responded in a deadly voice.

She watched in dismay as he grabbed a nearby towel and stepped toward her.

“No! Help! Get away from—”

He stuffed the thick towel into her mouth, effectively silencing her.

* * * *

Rossi looked down at the struggling woman. What he saw was a test subject, a lab rat or a guinea pig, nothing more. This might be his last chance to discover what he needed to know. If he continued disposing of patients as he’d been doing, it would only be a matter of time before someone raised an alarm.

As he readied his instruments, it occurred to him his chances of success might be greater if he dissected the brain before removing it, while the subject was still alive and the brain functioning. He glanced at the woman on the gurney and decided, yes, that would be the way to proceed.

Moving to the other side of the room, he opened the door to the cabinet containing his supplies and picked up the large bottle of chloroform. Annoyed to find it empty, he replaced it and shut the door. He had forgotten to order a fresh supply following his last surgery. Not a problem, he decided. He would simply do without it. She wouldn’t be alive to suffer for very long anyway, he told himself.

After filling a large glass jar with formaldehyde, he readied it on the table next to the surgical instruments. Following his examination of the functioning brain, he would remove it for later study. He grabbed hold of the leather strap dangling from the head of the gurney and fastened it securely across Rosaria’s face, to keep her head immobilized.

A mixture of euphoria and anticipation surged through him as he picked up the small saw from the table nearby. He noticed the instrument was still covered in dried blood from the last patient he’d worked on. Not that it mattered, but still, he was a professional. Standards needed to be adhered to. He used a wet rag to wipe the saw clean.

Satisfied, he returned to stand behind the head of the gurney. Rossi readied the saw above the woman’s forehead.

* * * *

Heart-stopping fear rammed through her when Rosaria realized what the madman hovering over her intended to do. Anticipation of what would happen when the deadly blade connected with her head caused her entire body to go numb. As she gazed up at the instrument of her death, she imagined what kind of pain she would be subjected to, and struggled frantically against her restraints. She screamed again, but the towel jammed in her mouth rendered the sound barely audible. No one outside the room could possibly hear her. The thick leather straps across her chest, legs and face might as well have been made of steel. She could not move.

Rosaria knew her struggles were futile, but she continued to resist. When Rossi lowered the saw, she told herself it would be better not to look, and forced her gaze down, away from the approaching blade.
Let it be quick
, she prayed.

It was then she saw it. The terrible apparition of the dead child, whose appearance the night before had led her to this fate. It was standing next to her, peeking up over the gurney at her with dead, glassy eyes.

Rosaria did not have a chance to react to the sight of the demon child before the jagged blade ground mercilessly across her forehead. The nightmarish vision standing beside her turned into a crimson blur as the cutting began and blood flowed into her eyes. Blinding pain followed, so intense it wiped all trace of thought from her mind.

The pain stopped abruptly. Rosaria found herself floating in the air near the ceiling of the room, looking down on her tormentor. The front of Rossi’s lab coat was drenched in blood. Her blood. He appeared to be in the process of cutting into her exposed brain with a scalpel. Her gaze traveled the length of her mortal remains on the operating table, coming to rest on the dead child still standing beside the gurney.

The creature lifted its ruined face in her direction, then extended its hand as if in invitation. Rosaria heard the thing clearly when it spoke, even though Rossi appeared completely unaware of its presence in the room.