SERPENTINE
by Thomas F. Monteleone

 

Prologue

Scarpino , Sicily

Enrico Corbi shambled through the narrow streets of the village with an indifferent intimacy. The old man walked slowly, navigating the cuts and turns through the silent streets without thinking. He had walked these streets, this same route, for more than seventy summers, and the pathways were forever etched into his memory.

His village—a place believed to hold a terrible secret.

The sky above the low rooftops was smeared with pinks and orange, but the white stucco buildings still lay in the long shadows of dawn. He passed the old village church and started to tip his cap in a time-honored show of reverence and respect for the Lord, then caught himself. The tiny stone building was now empty; its contents—including the altar, which had been transferred yesterday to the new church Eucharist—at the other end of Scarpino. The old place, its stained glass windows taken by laborers and grafted into the new church, seemed so tiny, so dead now. The population of Scarpino had finally grown too large for its twenty pews and, by order of the Palermo archdiocese, a new church had been built. Corbi had attended the first Mass yesterday morning, but he still thought of the small stone structure as his church.

His slow gait took him to the edge of the village, where the hilly contours of the land were harsher. He turned down a stone path worn smooth by centuries of human traffic-a path to the cemetery where Corbi worked as its caretaker.

It was in this small village, west of Palermo, where something had happened.

Corbi had no idea what it had been, but when he was a young man he had heard stories about the village priest of long ago, Father Mazzetti, who faced and defeated a terrible evil. It was something he tried not to think about, something he did not wish to know. He was a simple man, and he only wished to do what was expected of him: to live out his remaining years in peace before meeting his God.

And yet, as he passed beyond the crumbling wall which marked the borders of the villa e-built in a past century when bandits still roamed the surrounding hills-he felt a tightening in his chest, a dryness in his throat. He licked his lips, feeling a sudden desire for a swallow of red wine. He did not want to go into the cemetery on this bright, clear morning, but he knew he must.

The previous night, as he sat by the banked coals of his fire, lost in the memories that old men keep, there had been a knock at his door. The rapping had been so light, as though by the wind, or perhaps the Angel of Death, that he had been reluctant to unlatch the door. But the sound repeated itself persistently, and Corbi had no choice.

Opening the door, he felt the chill of the night air smack his cheeks as he stared into the face of an old woman. It was a face many years older than his own, a face known to everyone in the village of Scarpino—that of Teresa DiCaponitti. It seemed that she had always been old, as timeless as the legends, which still thrived in the mountain villages. The children in the village called Teresa La Strega, and Corbi was not so certain that they were mistaken.

“Let me in,” she said, pushing him back from the threshold.

“I'm sorry. I was expecting no one.”

Teresa laughed and brushed her brittle gray hair away from her face, letting it fall upon her thick black shawl. Her eyes of green silver seemed to penetrate him like a sword. He did not like to hear Teresa laugh.

“No one ever expects Teresa,” she said. “But don't worry, I won't be staying long. It is a message that I have brought you.

“A message? From who?” Corbi moved back toward the hearth and sat uneasily in his chair.

“The dogs. They are howling tonight, yet there is no moon. Have you not heard them?”

Corbi shook his head, uncomfortable hearing this kind of talk.

“No, you heard nothing,” said Teresa. “Old age gives us that privilege, does it not? We hear only what we desire to hear. “ She chuckled softly. It was a disconcerting sound to Corbi. “But you know why they howl, Enrico. You know that the dogs bear sounds that we cannot . . . and tonight they hear the sound of stone grinding upon stone.”

“No!” he cried, holding his hands over his ears like a child being taunted in a schoolyard.

Teresa smiled and nodded her head. “In the morning, I think it would be wise to look in upon your charges. Better that you take care of things quickly and quietly . . . unless you want more outsiders nosing into our affairs. Surely you have not forgotten the last time? That writer from Rome, remember him and the silly book he was writing?”

Corbi nodded once, then looked away from her to stare into the fire. “All right, old woman . . . I have listened to your message. I . . . I will check on things . . . in the morning. Now please leave me.”

But even as he spoke, Teresa had turned toward the door, her dark clothes billowing away from her scarecrow's body. She paused at the threshold and stared into his eyes. “Do not fear, Enrico. As always, you will take care of things.”

She disappeared into the night, leaving him to stare into the darkness that had devoured her.

The previous night already seemed years in the past, so long a restless night had Corbi spent. As he walked up the stone path to the cemetery, he felt his breathing become labored and his pulse rate increase-not from the effort of the climb as much as the anticipation of what lay in wait for him. How long since the last time? Not in his lifetime, of that he was certain. There had been stories that his grandfather had told, but they spoke of a time long ago . . . .

But here it was . . . one more time, at least.

That is, if he were to believe the words of La Strega. And on such matters, the old woman was usually correct. Corbi began to wonder what secrets she carried, but stopped himself. Such thoughts were better left alone.

He had reached the entrance to the cemetery. It lay embraced by a wall of cut stone, and could be entered only by a single wrought-iron gate. A classic arch curved over the gate, and a long-dead mason had carved a poetic couplet there:

Un tempo fummo come voi,

Presto sarete come noi.

Corbi knew the lines by heart, but he always read them before entering the graveyard: “Once we were as you Soon you will be as we.”

How true, thought Corbi. But not yet. There is still work to be done.

The cemetery of Scarpino lay on upward-sloping ground that led into the foothills above the village. Grass grew grudgingly here, and appeared only in tough little patches above the older, graves. Stone slabs and crosses littered the place at odd angles, their simple lines broken only by the monolithic shapes of family mausoleums. In a village as poor as Scarpino, however, there were very few of these structures. Mausoleums were reserved for the remains of the wealthy or powerful, such as landowners, politicians, or clergymen.

Passing under the prophetic arch, Enrico Corbi paused to make the Sign of the Cross, then walked carefully up the gentle slope. He ignored the grassy mounds and weathered stones; his gaze was held by the black marble building farther up the hill—the mausoleum of the Mazzetti family.

It was a darkly foreboding structure. There were no fluted columns, no carved angels along the frieze, no frills of any kind. Twin wrought-iron gates guarded a foot-deep threshold, held fast by a heavy lock at eye level. When he reached the tomb, Corbi stopped to stare at the lock, drew a deep breath, and reached into his pocket for his rosary beads. He kissed the crucifix, and placed the string of beads around his neck. After unhitching a ring of keys from his belt, he selected the proper key and slipped it cleanly into the lock. But it had been many years since anyone had entered this place, and the key would not turn. It was possible that the internal tumblers had finally frozen in a final grip of rust.

Straining against the resistant metal, Corbi forced the key to turn, and with a gritty sound, the lock disengaged. He swung open one of the gates and stepped into the threshold to face a single marble door. Selecting another key, he forced it into the door's keyhole, and the lock yielded.

Gripping the carved handle, he pulled the massive stone slab outward, surprised that it moved so easily on its hinges. There was a delicate balance in the door, an ageless display of superior craftsmanship that was lost on the simple peasant caretaker. His heart was beating very fast now; he was not interested in the lost art of stone-cutting. He peered into the black shadows of the crypt.

The Mazzetti mausoleum was sunk halfway into the earth, and a small case of stairs led into the main chamber—a flat stone floor lined by walls of shelved alcoves. Ordinarily, in a mausoleum such as this, coffins would line each shelf of each alcove. But on this particular morning in this particular tomb, things were different.

Corbi gasped a single breath as he stared at the desecration before him. Not one of the coffins rested on a shelf. They lay instead in a confused heap across the floor of the mausoleum, as though someone of incredible strength had thrown them about like matchsticks.

Several of the coffins had split open like ruptured pieces of fruit, spilling their dusty contents upon the cold stone. Corbi made the Sign of the Cross again as he descended into the chamber. There was a closeness in the air of the tomb, a stale dry smell of things long dead. He did not want to breathe for fear of taking death into his lungs-an irrational thought, but it was very real to him.

He walked to the nearest coffin, which was little more than a trough cut from a block of sandstone with a lid that slid across the top. This one had tilted at an odd angle when it had tumbled from its niche in the alcove, and the lid had fallen away to reveal the skeletal contents. The plaque on the end of the coffin identified the resident as Arnascento Mazzetti, who had been the Mayor of Scarpino more than a century past.

Corbi stood over the open casket, peering down at the desiccated bones. The skull stared up at him, its hollow sockets as deep and dark as night itself. He noticed that the jaw was open wide as though the skull was locked in an eternal scream, as though it was still enduring its final agony of death and passage into the next world. Corbi wondered what horrors those dead eyes now saw. And surely they must be horrors, because there was an aura of evil about this place—it permeated the atmosphere like the stench of a rotting corpse.

In the back comer of the small open space, there was another casket ripped out of its shelved alcove, lying open at an odd angle. The plaque at the end of the long stone box was tarnished, but the raised letters could still be read: Reverend Father Francesco Mazzetti, 1821-1899. The lid was also off this coffin, and Corbi peered inside with a great reluctance. What he saw made his flesh ripple, his testicles draw up against his body. The remains of the Reverend Father had been savaged; there was no other word for what he saw. 'Me burial robes had been ripped away; the fragile husk of desiccated skin and brittle bones were smashed into white fragments.

A shiny object lay at the bottom of the casket, in the broken hollow of a battered rib cage. Trembling, Corbi eyed it carefully, not recognizing it. He forced his hand to move into the coffin, careful not to brush against the shattered bones. His fingers touched the cool metallic surface and he gingerly picked it up, drawing it up from the place of death. Upon inspection, holding it close to his old eyes, he saw it was a gold crucifix that had been warped and twisted into an almost unrecognizable shape.

He could not help thinking of what kind of evil force had invaded the crypt, had disrupted the dead in their final rest, committed such sacrilege. And for what purpose? What did it all mean?

Corbi did not know; was not sure he even wanted to know.

But it was obvious that an evil presence had passed through this place, like a cruel wind through dead leaves, disturbing the dead as though in revenge.

The old man shook his head. He made the Sign of the Cross and prayed to his God. Whatever had been here was now surely gone, he thought as he went to work.

He did not want to think of where it might go next . . . .

Borderlands Press