And those tapping boots! Like a rosewood drum.
Stefan had had lovers, of course. But in the old days. Before what the doctors would call—though never to his face—the Break, at around age twenty-two. It was then that he had simply given up fighting to be normal and stepped, comforted, into the world of sounds. Around the time Mommy went all quiet in the cellar, quiet and cold, in the quiet and hot cellar, the washing machine spinning the last load of towels ever washed in the house.
Around the time Father decided he wasn’t going to be aproned to a troubled son anymore.
Before then, though, before the Break, sure, there’d been the occasional pretty girl, those who didn’t mind the strange.
He rather enjoyed them—the occasional nights—though the sensation grew less interesting than the sounds of joining. Flesh made subtle noises, hair might, tongues did, moisture did.
Nails did.
Throats and lungs and hearts, of course.
Then, though, the strange got stranger and the girls started to look away more and more. They started to mind. Which was fine with him because he was losing interest himself. Sherry or Linda would whisper about taking her bra off and he’d be wondering about the sound of Thomas Jefferson’s voice, or what the groans of the Titanic had been like as she went down.
Now the young woman in the cowboy boots said, “So, I’m here for a few days is all. My girlfriend, the one I was traveling with? She broke up with her boyfriend before she left, but then he called and they got back together so she just went home, pout, pout. And abandoned me! How about that? But here I am in Italy! I mean, like, I’m going back to Cleveland early? Don’t think so. So here I am. Talking and talking and talking. Sorry. People say I do that. Talk too much.”
Yes, she did.
But Stefan was smiling. He could affect a good smile. “No, it’s all good.”
She wasn’t put off by his silence. She asked, “What’re you doing here? You in school?”
“No, I’m working.”
“Oh, what do you do?”
Presently slipping nooses around people’s necks.
“Sound engineer.”
“No way! Concerts, you mean?”
With the Black Screams now at bay he was able to act normal, as he knew he had to. He ran through his arsenal of blandly normal tones and words and launched a few. “I wish. Testing for noise pollution.”
“Hm. Interesting. Noise pollution. Like traffic?”
He didn’t know. He’d just made the career up. “Yep, exactly.”
“I’m Lilly.”
“Jonathan,” he said. Because he’d always liked the name.
Triplet. Jon-a-than.
A name in waltz time.
“You must get lots of data, or whatever it is you do, here in Naples.”
“It’s noisy. Yes.”
A pause. “So, no idea where to get a cab?”
He looked around because that was what a blandly normal person would do. He shrugged. “Where do you need to go?”
“Oh, a touristy thing. A guy at the hostel I’m staying at recommended this place. He said it’s awesome.”
Stefan was considering.
Not a good idea…He should be following up on his plan regarding Artemis (it was quite a good one). But, then, she wasn’t here, and Lilly was.
“Well, I’ve got a car.”
“No way! You drive? Here?”
“Yeah, it’s crazy. The trick is you just forget there’re traffic laws, and you do okay. And don’t be polite and let people go ahead of you. You just go. Everybody does.”
Blandly normal. Stefan was in good form.
Lilly said, “So you want to come with? I mean, if you’re not doing anything.”
A Black Scream began. He forced it to silence.
“What is this place?”
“The guy said it’s totally spooky.”
“Spooky?”
“Totally deserted.”
So it would be quiet.
Quiet was never wise. Even the best intentions went away when there was quiet.
Still, Stefan looked Lilly over, head to toe, and said, “Sure. Let’s go.”
Chapter 37
Skulls.
Ten thousand.
Twenty thousand.
A hundred thousand skulls.
No. Even more than that.
Skulls arranged in orderly rows, eye sockets staring outward, triangles of darkness where noses had once been, rows of yellow teeth, many missing.
This was the place to which Lilly had directed Stefan. The Fontanelle Cemetery in Naples.
Spooky…
Oh, you bet.
It wasn’t a burial ground in the traditional sense; it was a huge, forbidding cavern that, Lilly’s guidebook explained, had been used as a mass grave site when half the population of Naples had died from plague in the 1600s.
“And there are rumors that underneath here’re more, going back to Roman days. There could be a million skulls under our feet.”
They stood at the entrance, a massive nature-made archway that led into the darkened expanse. This was no longer prime tourist season and the place had few visitors.
And those who were here seemed to be on missions of devotion, rather than sightseeing. They lit votives, they prayed.
Spooky…and quiet. Almost silent.
Well, he’d have to deal with it. Stefan wiped sweat, put the tissue away.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
They walked farther inside, her boots tapping and echoing. Lovely! Reading from her guidebook, she whispered—here was a place to inspire whispers—that Naples was savagely bombed during the Second World War, and this was one of the few places were the citizens could be safe from the Allied planes.
The lighting was subdued and flames from the candles cast eerie, unsteady shadows of bones and skulls—reanimations of victims dead hundreds, or thousands, of years.
“Creepy, hm?”
“Sure is.” Though not because it looked creepy. Because of the quiet. The cavern was like a petri dish for Black Screams. A couple of them started to moan. Started to rise. Started to swell within.
Until he had a thought. A new mission. Good, good.
The Black Screams faded.
A new mission.
Which involved Lilly. And suddenly he was wildly grateful they had met. It was as if his muse had sensed his distress and sent her to him.
Thank you, Euterpe…
Of course, he realized, as he’d thought downtown, this was definitely not a good idea. But he also thought: As if I have any choice.
The failure last night…The swish, swish of the knife at the refugee camp. The spreading blood in the shape of a bell. The nightmares, the sound waves of approaching Black Screams.
Oh, he needed this.
He was looking Lilly over carefully. Probably hungrily. Before she caught him, he gazed off.
Lilly was acting girlish now. Smiling, despite the wall of skulls, the dark eye sockets turned their way. “Hello!” she called.
The echo danced back and forth.
Stefan heard it long after she’d turned her attention elsewhere.
They walked farther into the dim, cool space.
“Your face,” she said.
Stefan turned, cocking his head.
“Your eyes were closed. What’re you thinking about? Who all these people were?” She nodded to the skulls.
“No, just listening to things.”