The Haunting of Isola Forte di Lorenzo Read online

  “That was quick,” Matt said grimly.

  “What?”

  “Jorden told you?”

  “Told me what?”

  Matt looked at her curiously then remembered that rare were the times when he, or anyone else, needed to tell her anything, especially when strong emotions were involved. “Never mind,” he said.

  At that moment, Jorden entered with Jesse following closely.

  Isis stood and looked down at him. “If you don’t mind a suggestion,” she said.

  Matt allowed a nod.

  “If you really want to keep an eye on Jonas while he’s here, put him to work.”

  Matt started his protest but she stopped it with a raised hand.

  “Have him research the history with Nigel – he could use the help. And if he’s stuck in the dining room with a stack of folders in front of him, at least you’ll know where he is and what he’s doing,” she said then walked off before he could agree or argue.

  “She has a point,” Jorden said as she sat down on the other end of the sofa and started working on the EVPs they’d recorded over the last few days. Almost immediately she pulled her headphones over her ears to keep him from arguing with her as well.

  Matt hated being ganged up on whether the two women were probably his best friends in the world or not, and he hated even more that they were right. Perhaps he could use Jonas while making sure he stayed as far from the active investigation as possible.

  Bell Tower – 12:30am…

  With an EMF reader in one hand and a recorder in the other, Isis ascended the stairs of the bell tower with Syd following close behind. Isis had to admit that she didn’t understand why they had to go back into the bell tower; Matt had said that they didn’t find anything but then she wasn’t one to argue the points of the investigation with him. If nothing else, she had to admit that when it came to investigating both the living and the dead, Matt knew what he was doing.

  When they reached the top of the tower, both Isis and Syd took a seat in the arches and waited. The wind that blew into the thoroughly exposed tower was beyond cold and the scent of rain was thick in the air. While it wasn’t raining at the moment, Isis figured that it would be before the night was over.

  “Do you think that Matt is lying to us and that he and Jorden really did find something up here?” she asked finally.

  In the darkness, she could only see his flashlight along with the dim glow from the screen of his handheld, but she could feel him shrug, even though he was in the arch next to her and his form was completely obscured by the arch’s frame. “I don’t really know, but if they did it’s wise that they didn’t tell us. It’s the only way to confirm what they found…if anything.”

  “Yeah, but usually they tell us when they pick something up, then have us see if we can do the same. This time, Matt just said that they found nothing and Jorden wouldn’t talk to me about it, if fact, I’m pretty sure that she was avoiding me anyway.”

  “Why would she do that?” Syd asked calmly.

  The subtlety of his slight French accent was very soothing and Isis rested back, relaxed for the first time that night. “She thinks that I can read her mind, or at the very least her emotions.”

  There was just the slightest pause. “And can’t you?” he asked then quickly added, “Read her emotions that is.”

  Isis felt herself smile and she shook her head in spite of the fact that he couldn’t see her. “She won’t admit it, but she’s almost as sensitive as I am…at least where empathy is concerned. I know that she’s not clairvoyant or able to talk to spirits outside of her dreams, but she’s sensitive and every time she’s around me she shuts me out, whether she knows it or not.”

  Another pause followed; this one just slightly longer than the last. “Are you sure that she’s blocking you? Maybe she’s just difficult to read.”

  Isis shook her head. “No, when she’s nearby and doesn’t know that I’m there, I can read her almost as easily as anyone else, but it doesn’t last. It’s almost as if she knows that I’m there and doesn’t want me feeling what she’s feeling.”

  Syd was quiet for some time before she heard him take a deep breath and sigh. “Well I’m sure that it’s nothing personal,” he said finally. “It’s probably a subconscious defense mechanism…something that she isn’t really aware she’s doing.”

  “I know, I just wish that she would listen to me when I tell her that she’s empathically sensitive,” Isis said.

  Another long pause followed.

  “Oh well,” Isis sighed when Syd said nothing, “I guess that she’ll come around when she comes around. In the meantime I suppose that we should start our EVP session. With any luck, we’ll pick something up.”

  Monastery Cemetery – 12:45am…

  The light mist that hovered over the entire island stuck to Matt’s face as he led Ana through the cemetery to the mausoleum. Twelve hours after his confrontation with Jonas and he was still flaming mad, though he’d managed to focus his energy into the investigation. He’d even managed to get some sleep before he and Ana headed out. The more he thought about it, the more he knew that the others were right. Having Jonas on the case with him did nothing for his nerves, however they were presented with an abundance of history and not all of it was accurate. Some of it amounted to little more than rumor or myth and Nigel really did need someone there to help him wade through the minutia. Still…

  A hand suddenly clamped onto his shoulder, which forced a small jerk of surprise from him. “You with me Matt?” Ana asked.

  Matt forced himself to take a breath without allowing his surprise show. “Of course,” he said as naturally as possible.

  “Are you sure?” she questioned, almost sounding irritated. “Because I’ve been talking to you for the last five minutes and at best all I’ve gotten from you was a minor grunt when I mentioned that the mausoleum was in the process of being beamed into outer space.”

  Matt flashed his light in her direction, though was careful to keep the bright blue beam of light out of her eyes. “Excuse me?”

  She shook her head and looked away.

  Matt flashed his light around the small mausoleum and looked in each corner. He could see just how easily someone could see something out of the corner of their eye or have the feeling of something pressing down on them. He, himself, wasn’t claustrophobic, though many others were, and this was the perfect place to allow the imagination to run wild. It was also the perfect place to feel a cold draft, though with the door closed, he had to admit that there wasn’t one at the moment, in spite of the fact that the wind outside was starting to whip around wildly.

  “Are you sure that you weren’t just letting this place get to you?” Matt asked.

  She snorted but didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t mean to sound condescending, but this place is enough to get to anyone after a while, especially someone who, while being a good investigator, is still somewhat inexperienced.”

  Matt may have expected her to fly into an angry tirade, Saph sure would have, but Ana just let out an exasperated sigh. “I suppose, but I-”

  Her words abruptly cut off when both of them heard another sigh.

  “Was that you?” Ana questioned in a tone just a hair above a whisper.

  Matt shook his head then realized she couldn’t see him in the near blackness of their surroundings. “No,” he confirmed shortly.

  Both of them grew quiet and the room grew heavy and the air thick.

  “Are you here?” Ana asked.

  Caretaker’s Cottage – 1:00am…

  Back at the cottage, Jorden sat on the floor of the den at the coffee table and leaned back against the sofa behind her. She’d been sitting and listening for hours without much in the way of evidence, and aside from an indiscernible noise here or there, there wasn’t much at all. So far nothing reached out from the dormitories, which only deepened the mystery with the camera the day before, along with the sound of shuffling feet that didn’t seem t
o belong to anyone, and the refectory and People’s Church contained just a few indiscernible sounds that could be anything from a spirit to a mouse going poo. Still, she had to go through the recordings from the church on the second night and if what Saph said was any indication, there was the hope that something might be there.

  First though, she had the recorder from Ana’s team in the mausoleum and though she said that they hadn’t heard anything, they still managed to record more than an hour of noise.

  Jorden didn’t expect to hear anything and for the first forty-five minutes she didn’t. Resting her head back, she closed her eyes and allowed the white noise of the recorder and the occasional sounds of Ana’s questions or their brief conversations lull her. And then she jumped.

  Jorden stiffened and quickly backed the recording up several seconds.

  It took a moment, but just following Ana’s question about the nature of the death of the monk in the tomb, a bizarre rumble growled into the recorder followed by strange murmuring.

  Jorden played the noises several times in an attempt to discern what they were, and it didn’t take long to figure out that she was going to need help. If someone was speaking in Italian, which is what it sounded like to her, she was going to have to find Syd to give her a hand.

  Monk’s Mausoleum – 1:15am…

  Ana sat in one corner of the mausoleum while Matt sat in the corner opposite her. In spite of being there for an hour and nothing to show for it she knew that she wasn’t wrong about this place. Something was there. She couldn’t explain it, but she knew that there was something there with them.

  “How much longer do you want to stay here?” Matt asked from across the chilly, stone room.

  His voice sounded miles away and she felt very much alone. Of course she knew that Matt was really only about fifteen feet away and that it was likely the tomb in between them that was smothering his voice, but that fact didn’t ease her discomfort. She knew that they should probably go and that’s what her mind kept telling her, but her body wouldn’t let her move. In her heart, she knew that something was there. “Can we just give it another half hour or so?” she asked. “If we haven’t found anything by then we can leave and I won’t bring up another trip out here again… unless of course Jorden, Tony or Jesse find something.”

  There was a pause that was long enough to make Ana think that Matt had either left or gone to sleep.

  “All right,” Matt said finally. “A half hour.”

  Caretaker’s Cottage – 1:30am…

  Jorden sat beside Syd as he cupped the headphones over his ears and listened intensely and without realizing it, until Syd gave her a strange glance, bounced her feet nervously. When Syd looked at her she stopped immediately, though started up again once he looked away.

  It took forever and Jorden began to think that, in her boredom, she’d started hearing things – that there really wasn’t anything there. Then after about another fifteen minutes or so, Syd finally started making notes. After that it only took another couple of minutes before he finally stopped the playback and took the headphones off.

  “Well?” Jorden asked impatiently.

  Syd rested back against the sofa with his pad of paper in his lap and he looked at her as though it was just another tea break and Jorden could have killed him. Though in many ways she loved Syd like a father, there were times when she hated his resounding calm. She definitely could have killed him.

  “I’m not sure if I heard this right, after all, it was quite grainy and there was a lot of white noise, but I think I was able to make out two partial sentences,” he reported and put his glasses on as he looked down at the pad of paper. “Before I start though, I want to tell you that I wasn’t able to make anything of the growl at the beginning of the segment, but somehow I think that it may be connected.”

  Jorden was struck curious and she stiffened. “How so?”

  “Like I said, I don’t know what to make of it, but I can’t let go of the fact that it’s somehow connected with the sentences and I think that you’ll agree once you hear this,” he said coolly.

  “Hey you guys, what’s going on?” Jesse asked as he walked in from the dining room.

  Both Jesse and Tony had stopped working about an hour ago, though she could hardly blame them. Looking at computer monitors for twelve hours was a bit more taxing than listening to digital recordings of mostly nothing…mostly.

  “Syd was just getting ready to tell me what he and I heard on the recording from your night in the mausoleum,” Jorden said with a playful smile, though she was feeling anything but. Somehow, she knew the playfulness would be gone once Syd told her what he heard.

  Jesse’s almond eyes widened and his brows rose with astonishment. “You mean we actually got something?” Immediately he grabbed a chair and took a seat at the opposite side of the coffee table.

  Syd nodded. “First I’m going to play the recording.” With those words, Syd started the playback and once again, Jorden listened to the growl followed by the incoherent murmuring.

  “Honestly I don’t know how you can determine anything from that,” Jorden said.

  “I was able to clean it up a bit. That was the original,” he said then clicked on a second window, “this is the cleaned up version.”

  Again, Jorden, along with Jesse, listened. Once again they heard the growl, which sounded only more eerie and ominous than before, and then words though she still couldn’t make them out. At least this time the words seemed to have some definition.

  “So what are they saying?” Jesse questioned.

  “First off, before I tell you anything, I want you to know that this is just best guess. I could be wrong, but I’m fairly certain that I’ve got this correct.”

  Jorden nodded impatiently.

  “The first sentence sounds to me like, ‘Essa detiene mia anima prigioniero’,” he said. “In English it translates to ‘it’s captured my soul’.”

  Jesse shook his head. “It’s captured my soul?” he questioned.

  “As best as I can tell,” Syd confirmed.

  “What it?” Tony questioned.

  “Aren’t most spirits or ghosts trapped souls unable to move on?” she questioned. “Maybe that’s what it means.

  Jesse nodded. “Indeed. And I don’t see how that nasty growl could have anything to do with it. Do you think it could have belonged to an animal?”

  “Did you hear anything that night that would suggest to you that it was?” Jorden questioned.

  Jesse reluctantly shook his head. “No,” he said. “I have to admit that I didn’t hear any of this.”

  “And as I said, there were two sentences,” Syd said and rested back, taking his glasses off and resting them on the lamp table to his right. “And it’s the one that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.”

  Again, both Jorden and Jesse were surprised. If Syd was ever uncomfortable he never showed it, nor did he even admit to it…until now.

  “What is it?” Jorden questioned.

  “First, I want you to listen to it again,” Syd said then played the cleaned up version of the second segment a couple of times. “Would you agree with me that it sounds very much like ‘il demone portare le anime’?”

  They listened a couple more times and eventually agreed. “What does it mean?” Jorden asked as her heart started to race in anticipation of an answer she wasn’t sure that she wanted to hear.

  Syd looked at her with his hazel-green eyes. “It means ‘brings souls to the Devil’.”

  Jorden looked at him for a moment, not believing what he said when the gravity of it hit her. “Oh my God. You mean you think that the growl is a demon…the devil that the voice mentioned?” she questioned, springing to her feet before he could answer…he didn’t need to.

  Jorden blew through the front door, nearly running over Jonas, who was standing on the front porch smoking a cigarette.

  Fifty feet from the cottage the sky finally opened up and sheets of rain poured down in to
rrents around her but it didn’t slow her, nor did the wind, which threatened to knock her to her knees more than once. She had to reach the mausoleum.

  When she reached the iron bars of the cemetery, the gate had blown shut and had locked. Though her hands were soaked with water and the fence was slick, she climbed the bars and hauled herself over the top and hit the ground with a thud. She was covered in mud, but didn’t let it stop her. She continued to run as fast as her feet would carry her until she reached the far corner of the cemetery and the mausoleum.

  Jorden reached for the door, but it wouldn’t open. With her soaked, muddy hands, she began to pound on the thick stone in vain. “Matt! Ana! Are you in there?”

  Behind her she could hear something pounding up behind her, breathing heavily and without warning the sound on the tape – the growl – entered her mind.

  Again she pounded on the door until she felt a sharp pain in her hand, and even that didn’t stop her. “Matt! Opened the goddamned door!”

  Still the door wouldn’t open and the rapid, sloppy footfalls grew closer followed by the sound of heavy panting.

  “Matt!”

  A big hand suddenly grabbed Jorden from behind and elicited a shrill scream.

  “Jesus woman,” Jonas said then panted as he attempted to catch his breath. “You could blow out someone’s eardrums with a scream like that.”

  Without thinking, Jorden slugged him in the stomach, furthering his difficulty in catching his breath. “You son of a bitch, you scared the life out of me.”

  Jonas tried to respond but was too busy gasping.

  The stone door behind Jorden swung open and she jumped and yelped a second scream when she was seized from behind.