Emanuele Stefanori & Michela Guida, translated into English by Ruth Stephens
Chapter 5 – Paranormal Phenomena
It’s half past eleven and the streets are almost empty.
“How can people in this day and age still believe in such rubbish?” thinks Paolo as he strolls calmly back to the villa. “Ghosts! Please… do me a favour!”
Before going to his room he locks the big entrance door and the windows. He gets into bed and reads the notes he has made for his book, ready for work the next day. But after only a few minutes he falls asleep, with the notes on his chest and the light still on. The fatigue of his journey and the unaccustomed silence of the house and the surrounding area, so different from the usual racket of city life, has lulled him into a deep sleep.
Paolo isn’t sure how long he has slept when he is awoken very suddenly. Disorientated, it takes him a few seconds to remember he is not in his flat but in another house and another bed. And, what’s more, that he has heard a loud noise from the floor above. A little unsettled, he gathers up his papers and arranges them on the bedside table. As he is about to turn off the light he hears the same noise again.
“It must be the wind,” he thinks, trying to settle back to sleep, “tomorrow I must remember to close the upstairs windows.” He turns over, and closes his eyes but then a third time the noise resounds through the silence of the night. Although reminded of the story told by the proprietor of the restaurant, after a few minutes he manages to drop off to sleep again.
The next morning Paolo awakes around half past ten. He feels calm and rested and in a good mood, having slept well in spite of everything. But, going into the kitchen he is surprised to find cupboards and drawers open. Pushing them shut while wondering how they came to be open, he finds in the last open drawer a large kitchen knife. A cold sweat breaks out on his forehead as he realises this knife would be like the one used by the doctor to commit his crime all those years ago.
Scared and disconcerted, he goes upstairs to have a look around, whistling a tune to give himself courage. He opens all the doors and goes into every room but finds nothing out of place. Back on the ground floor he checks all the windows but they are all closed as he had left them the night before. Feeling uneasy, he decides to get out of that house and distract himself by going to do some more research for his book.
After a good day spent wandering along the coast, Paolo returns to the villa in the late afternoon and settles down to work in his room. But again, after a few minutes he hears strange noises coming from the floor above. And now he’s sure he can also hear footsteps.
Armed with all his courage and a rolling pin from the kitchen, he slowly climbs the stairs.
As before, he checks all the rooms but, apart from himself, the house appears completely uninhabited. Until he reaches the main bedroom and stands frozen to the spot by the sight before him: on the bed is the clear imprint of a body, like an invisible presence lying there.
“He went up to the bedroom and saw his wife in bed with another man. In a fury he went to the kitchen, found a knife and…..killed them in cold blood*”
The words of the restaurant proprietor echo in the young man’s mind. With his heart in his mouth and going no further into the room, Paolo runs down the stairs to the relative safety of the floor below. Feeling a little foolish, but at the same time really shaken, he has no idea what to do.