Part One

My father was a military man. Retired back in ’95 from the Navy after 20 years of proud service to our country. But before that, we moved often… every 3-4 years or thereabouts we’d pack up and get shipped somewhere new. Early 1989, a wonderful opportunity arose and dad took it. A 16 hour flight later, and we were stationed at N.A.S Sigonella, Sicily. I guess I was about, ohhh 10 or 11 at the time. Those years were blurred save those pinpricks of memory that still haunt me. That still plague my dreams from time to time.

Our first home there was an apartment in a complex called “Bellavista” far from the Naval base. There was a waiting list to move into Base Housing that generally ran for about a year and a half’s wait. Until your time to move, you had to live amongst the locals wherever you could. Bellavista was a beautiful place… we lived on the upper floor of the complex and had a wonderful view of the countryside off our back balcony. At night, one could look up at the night sky and see a thin trail of fiery red lava slowly ebbing from still active Mt. Etna. And in the morning, everything left out in the open was often found to be blanketed ever so slightly in volcanic ash, almost like a light dusting of snow.

But naturally, as perfectly nice as Bellavista was, it wasn’t meant for us for long. The lnadlord’s daughter was pregnant, engaged… and homeless. Guess who got the boot? So we moved, with the landlord’s assistance, into another home. Motta S. Anastasia, a little cobblestone-streeted town near Catania, and much closer to the Navy base. The day we drove up to the new place, I felt ill. Of course, nothing was thought of this at the time, but I’d swear in retrospect I was being told something. The place was a 3 story house with an apartment on each floor. I really don’t remember the neighbors, but both were similarly Navy families. And I can imagine I pissed them off a lot with the screaming.

Dad unlocked the door and proceeded into the small entryway. The cobblestone street gave way to a marbled floor entrance and a matching set of marble stairs up to the second floor, which was our new home. The place was stunningly beautiful. Marble floors… glass french doors into the living room area… balconies attached to nearly every room, save the one that was to be mine. Claw foot bathtub…bidet… all the modern conveniences expected of a home in Europe.

I walked into the room that was going to be mine. Small, simple, square and quite cold. To the left, at the end of the wall was a door covered with a “persiana.” Basically, a form of window blinds made from heavy horizontal flaps that was operated via a cloth strap attached to the wall. I pulled it up to see that the door was mostly glass and beyond it was a very small “room” lined with brick along the floor and walls. I opened the door and stepped into the room and looked up to discover the room extended all the way up through the third floor and up to a hole in the roof. There was no covering on the hole either… it went straight into open air. The shaft allowed a fair amount of light to shine into the only room in the house without a window in it, which I thought was pretty damn cool initially.

The chill seemed to come from the room, despite the glaring sun nearly directly overhead. It was then I heard the first whispers. Like… if you were to take a wire brush and softly rub the stiff bristles against your jeans. At the time, I attributed it to echoes off the brick… but I couldn’t help but feel weird about it. It wasn’t coming from any discernable direction or source… but it surrounded me like a blanket, as if sound could be tangible and touchable. It pressed in gently on my ears like pressure on an aircraft ascending or descending. I turned to leave and I noticed a glinting drain in the middle of the floor. It was obviously for rainwater to drain away but my nausea increased when I saw it. My stomach gnawed at itself as I ran out of there and I swear I saw the drain cover jiggle a bit on my way out. I lowered the persiana quickly and rejoined the family in the living room, shaking and sick as a dog.

Part Two

Now granted… a little brick room was far from the norm for paranormal ghosty stuff. But try telling that to whatever was in there. Christ. For weeks and weeks, I’d get up the nerve to open the persiana in broad daylight and risk a peek… only to stumble back from the door sick as all hell to my stomach and trembling. I tried telling my parents of course… but an 11 year old’s ramblings about a scary brick room generally get chalked up to too many “Freddy” and “Jason” movies. The whisperings rarely stopped at night. They were persistent from the time I laid down until I finally forced myself into slumber. Often, I’d wake up in the middle of the night to silence, and then the whisperings would start up again, as if it was waiting to make sure I was awake.

There was never any real words to the whispering… just a hollow “ksssh sshhhaww hissssshhhhh haaahhh ooooshhhh aaashhhhh” that seemed to repeat, but never in the same cadence. There was no emotion behind it either that I can remember. It wasn’t angry, it wasn’t sad nor happy. Just there. Always fucking there.

One night, after about 2 months of this, I was awoken by a particularly horrifying dream. I seemed to start having those dreams after we moved in… I had never had constant nightmares prior. But I awoke from the dream with the feeling that something was terribly, terribly wrong. Immediately my eyes darted to the door… and saw that the persiana was up. Now, European goons with experience, back me up… Persianas are about the noisiest damn things to have in a house. They’re generally metal slats hooked in with metal hooks that grind and squeak loudly in protest as they’re pulled open. There was no way in hell that the persiana, which was always closed, could have been opened without waking up everyone in the house. But sure enough, it was open about 3/4 of the way up the damned door. A bit of moonlight reflected off the bricks in the shaft and into my room with a dull bluish tone. I lay there for hours, paralyzed in my bed, but unable to look away from the door, lest there be something there when I looked back. Eventually, I just conked out…

The next morning crept up finally and I was freed from my paralysis. I ran to the door amidst a wave of nausea and pulled the persiana shut as fast as I could. There was a light dusting of volcanic ash on the brick floor and I’d swear I could make out footprints or scuffing in it. Mom, still asleep at the time, yelled at me from across the hall after hearing the noise, but I couldn’t care less.

Over the course of the next 3 months, it was the same routine. The whisperings never faltered. The persiana would be found at least 2 to 3 times a week opened, and the blackness of the room would stare out at me in my bed. Then one night, it was different. I still have nightmares of this incident and it makes me cringe and want to curl up in a ball still whenever I conjure it up. I had awoken again in the midst of a terrible nightmare. And sure enough, the persiana was up, but this time it was all the way up. The moonlight was barely filtering in that night, but I’d swear I could make out something there in the room. It felt like I was at just the right angle for me to see whatever it was, and if I were to move the slightest bit, I’d lose sight of it. It was a small sphere that shimmered like a soap bubble does. But it was so faint I could barely make it out. I watched as it hovered there for the longest time. It began to shrink like some TVs used to do when you turned them off… shrink into a tiny dot of light.

But before it winked out, it flashed and expanded. It did so at an alarmingly fast rate and solidified into the form of a woman. She looked to be in her early to mid thirties, dark curly hair… definitely a local Sicilian. When she became “whole” and a solid image, she began shrieking and pounding on the glass doors with both fists. Her head swiveled wrong on her neck, shaking back and forth like if you put a teakettle on a stick and shook the stick around. Her eyes were completely black and full of anger and hatred… The skin around her mouth flapped loosely, giving me glimpses of her teeth and tongue and her hair was tossing around violently. Some sort of liquid oozed in small spurts from the corners of her mouth and flecks of whatever it was flew as she shrieked. Her screaming was horrific and nonsensical, and all I could do was scream back. My dad charged into the room to my bed, thinking I was having a nightmare. She shrank back from the door and… ugh. She slithered down the drain somehow. She twisted and distorted and I’d swear I could hear her bones splintering and cracking as she wound herself down into it. It was awful and to this day, dad says he’s never heard anyone scream so inhumanly before. I often ask him jokingly if he meant from me or her.

Extras

“Did you ever find out the history of this place?”

Sadly, no… I never could find out what it was that had happened there. Anyone that knew anything about the place spoke only Italian. And I do recall the landlord and especially his wife staring at me when they would come for maintenance or the likes. They looked sadly at me it seemed, too… like they felt sorry for me. I remember one day, it was pretty early in the morning after a particularly dreadful night. I heard knocking at the front door, so I ran to answer it, thankful for the distraction. The landlady must have seen it in my eyes because she cupped a hand over her mouth when she saw me and tilted her head, shaking it. “Bambino…” is all she said and walked in to talk with my mother.

“What were the dreams you would have? You never once mentioned them.”

Ugh… the dreams were always terrible, and it was hard to tell whether they came from my own imagination and subconscious or if they were from the drain lady. There was never any certain sequence of events like a story. My normal dreams are generally like that. A story or a logical, albeit absurd procession of events or dialogue. But these nightmares were flashes or terror. Like waves, they would build and break… Hot, red, angry visions of flesh, blood, and bone or of hideously deformed beasts or people.

I still speculate what could have happened in such a tiny space… I used to entertain the thought that it was a woman that lived in the house. I forgot to mention, but to add to the disturbing nature of the whole thing, she was nude. Anyhow, I used to have really strong daydreams and would envision she had been punished by someone close to her. They had taken her to the top of the roof and flung her down into the shaft and left a hose running water into it to slowly drown her… this of course being before a drain had been installed. As a result of the fall, her legs had been broken so she slowly drowned, painfully and unable to move much at all to escape the rising water. The drain looked oddly modern in the brick shaft… maybe that was the significance. Had there been a drain, she’d not have died. I wish I could explain the nausea though… it’d hit me like a ton of bricks every time I stepped near that door. It increased when I’d try and close the persiana, as if she wanted me to see. As if she didn’t want me to shut her out. After I’d have those daydreams, I’d almost feel sorry for her…

After that one big incident, she never much bothered me anymore. There was still the whispering… and the persiana opening about twice a week. One night I tried to stay awake the whole night to try and catch her opening it. It was a little after 2 am that I drifted off for about a minute. When I opened my eyes, the damned thing was opened. I looked at the clock and only a minute had passed…

“I want more details about this drain lady. Her neck, the way it bobbled, was it maybe broken at some point?”

I’ll try and give you what I can remember. Now that it’s daytime, it’s a little easier to conjure up her picture in my head. She was smallish in stature… about 5’6″ or so. Thick, but not fat… about 33-38 years old I would guess. Her hair was long and dark… either black or dark brown and curly. Not tight curls, but a looser spiral curl. She had thick, black angry eyebrows. Her brow was furrowed and the lines in her skin were very visible even from where I lay. All of her skin seemed “loose” for lack of a better word. As she violently pounded on the door, all her skin seemed to ripple just a millisecond or two behind what her bones were moving if that makes any sense. She wasn’t fat, and it wasn’t like rolls of flesh rolling… it was more her skin that rolled.

Her neck showed no visible signs of injury, but the way her head lolled around on her shoulders was inhuman. And yes, it seemed like it was broken and flopping around. As I aluded to earlier, the best analogy I can come up with is to go get a broom and stick a teakettle or a cooking pot on it upside down. Now jerk the broom back and forth in front of you. An old roommate of mine did that once and I nearly threw up, remembering the awful woman. Now couple that imagery with her loose-skinned arms pounding really fast in a staccato rhythm and you have one very scared little boy.

Her screaming reminded me of what mythical harpies or banshees would sound like. Extremely high pitched, almost like wind when it whistles through a tight spot. But the sheer volume of it was maddening. Not to mention it was a full sound… not hollow. Mmph. Best as I can describe it. Something that had gusto, from down deep inside whatever it was. Her tongue lolled around lazily in her mouth and now and again I’d get a glimpse of her teeth. They were white and very crooked… at least initially they were white. A few seconds into the screaming she started like… drooling or something. It was a thick, dark colored liquid. Anyone remember the “brown stuff” sketch from Kids in the Hall? Very akin to that. It oozed from the corners of her mouth and splattered against the glass as she screamed. The next day, there was nothing on the glass at all.

I wish I was any sort of an artist that I could draw for you what she looked like…