The Etruscan Necropolis: Part 1
A Horror Story
The Etruscan Necropolis: Part 1
Part 1 | Part 2
Orvieto derives from the Latin urbs vetus, meaning ‘old city’; for it was a gray-haired town long before the Romans annexed it sometime in the third century before the common era. With its campaniles, tiled rooftops, and magnificent Duomo, Orvieto dominates the fat Umbrian plains that surround it. The city roosts on a low eminence of tufa rock, around the northwestern base of which lie the weedy ruins of an Etruscan necropolis that may date back to the time of Ashurbanipal of Nineveh.
In the summer of 1955 four graduate students from Yale University huddled around a small table in the private room of a snug osteria near the Pozzo di San Patrizio. Three of them were listening to the fourth, Bailey, recount to them a discovery he had made that he was certain would earn him lasting fame and a guaranteed position at an Ivy League university of his choice once he had completed his dissertation. The students were part of an excavation jointly backed by the Eisenhower administration and the government of Prime Minister Mario Scelba.
“My concern,” Bailey said, “is that the once the Italians catch wind of what I’ve found, they’ll contact their Ministry of Antiquities in Rome and cut me out of it entirely.”
“The Italians don’t have a Ministry of Antiquities,” Matty said. He had a faint Irish burr, being the grandson of a notorious bootlegger from County Kerry.
“Oh, you know what I mean.” Bailey sulked. “I’m the one who found it. I deserve the credit.”
“You’re so damned ambitious,” Matty sniffed, lighting a cigarette.
Jack threw an olive in the air and caught it in his mouth. He regretted applying for the program. He thought he’d have time to play football and chase skirt. But the ragazzi didn’t throw pigskin and the girls in Orvieto were more conservative than the veterans back home who’d been in Italy during the war had led him on to believe.
“I wish I knew what all the hoopla was about,” Vincent commented. He was the smartest of the group, the son of a millionaire shipping magnate from Savannah. A self-proclaimed aesthete of the Yellow Nineties variety, he was rumored to have a male lover in Miami. He called Matty Maggie—“’cause I know it makes him mad.”
Jack spoke for the first time. “Does this have something to do with that hole in the cave you showed us this afternoon?”
“Yes!” Bailey lowered his voice. “Last week I was working in vaults 12-A and 12-B with Lydia, the smart girl from Rochester. I excused myself, explaining to her that I needed to urinate—”
“Christ!” Matty interrupted. “Why can’t you just say you had to piss like normal people.”
“’Cause he ain’t normal people, Maggie,” Vincent replied. He mimicked Bailey’s fussy voice. “Urinate: from the medieval Latin verb, urinare, meaning ‘to pass water’.”
Bailey ignored them. “As you know, 12-A and 12-B extend under the mountain—”
“It ain’t a mountain,” Jack mumbled.
The three boys turned to the Arizonan.
“What?” Matty asked.
“Orvieto ain’t on a mountain. It’s more like a mesa or a butte.”
“Anyway,” Bailey resumed. “Lydia and I were in 12-B when I had to. . . piss. So I excused myself and went next door to 12-A. Two locals were inside sifting through the soil. At the back of 12-A, there’s that crack in the wall that I showed you. That’s where the men working in our sector go to take a leak. Otherwise, it’s a three minute walk to the latrines at the bottom of the trail. Behind the hole is a cave. A lot of the dirt and rubble from 12-A and 12-B is being dumped inside the cave, because once the excavation is done, the plan is to patch the wall and be done with it.”
“We know!” Matty said. “You took us behind the wall this afternoon. But you wouldn’t tell us why.”
An old woman stepped into the room to gather up the empty plates. She mumbled pleasantries in Italian. Vincent was the only one who could speak the language, so he replied on their behalf. His accent made the woman laugh. When she had gone, Bailey removed a small calfskin notebook from his pocket and flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for: a crude diagram of the layout of the cave behind the wall.
“As you saw today, you have to crouch down to get under that low-slung overhang. Once on the other side, there’s that crack in the ground that I pointed out. Even if you’re urinating back there, you need a flashlight—or else you’ll coldcock your head on the ceiling. . . I tucked my flashlight under my armpit and fumbled with my fly. The beam fell into the fissure in such a way so as to illuminate a few scratches that looked like writing. I’d say they were about 7 feet down. I finished my business, pretended I hadn’t noticed, and exited the tomb.”
Matty took a drag of his cigarette and leaned back in his chair, intrigued.
“Later that night I returned. I brought my climbing gear, a flashlight, and this notebook. You’ll recall that before the program was scheduled to start, I spent a week climbing in the Dolomites.”
“I wish you’d’ve told me,” Jack commented. “I could’ve come too.”
“I know where this is going,” Matty said. “You want us to squeeze down a shaft you’ve been pissing in for days—as some kind of sick joke.”
“Matty, let me finish.” Bailey looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening in. “There’s a cistern down there.”
“A what?” Matty squinted.
Vincent frowned. “For storing water. It’s probably part of Orvieto’s water supply, or a flooded tunnel from the war.”
“You fellas keep interrupting me and won’t let me finish,” Bailey snapped.
“Fine,” Matty said. “Finish.”
“The crack in the floor is narrow. I don’t think a man over 180 pounds could shinny down it without ripping his clothes to ribbons. There are footholds on both walls. But they’re small and slick. I made sure the ropes were secure. Then I rappelled down, taking care not to damage my flashlight. I stopped to examine the inscription, which I recognized as being from Virgil’s Aeneid.” He flipped through his notebook until he found what he was looking for. “I had to look it up in my Loeb edition: Facilis descensus Averno / noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis.”
“I hate Latin,” Jack yawned.
Vincent quoted Dryden’s translation from memory: “The gates of hell are open night and day / smooth the descent and easy is the way.”
Matty shrugged. “So you found graffiti no older than the reign of Julius Caesar.”
“Caesar Augustus, Maggie,” Vincent remarked. “You know, Vergil’s patron? Octavian?”
“That’s what I meant.” Matty stubbed out his cigarette. “No older than Octavian’s reign.”
Bailey heaved a sigh. “The inscription doesn’t matter. It could’ve been left there by fucking Goethe for all I care. It’s what’s at the bottom of the shaft that’s important. . . The shaft is about 30 feet deep and widens at the base, where it’s graded and stepped. It drops down into a rather eerie chamber, a dungeon or prison. In former times I think people were let down by rope—perhaps to die there.”
“What makes you think that?” Vincent arched his brow. “Were there skeletons?”
“No. But there were skulls carved all over the walls.”
Jack folded his arms across his chest.
“When I pointed the flashlight up the shaft to check on the rope, I saw a fresco near the bottom that I had missed on the way down. Most of it is faded or damaged from the damp. But it depicts a wild-eyed monster. I think it’s supposed to be Orcus.”
“Who’s Orcus?” Jack asked.
“The Etruscan god of the underworld,” Vincent smirked. “The eater of oath-breakers. Do you remember when we hired that shifty cicerone in Rome to show us around? The last place we visited was Santa Maria in Cosmedin.”
“That’s the church from Roman Holiday,” Jack nodded. “The one with the carved face on the manhole cover.”
“Romans didn’t call them manholes,” Matty sniffed.
“What did they call them then?” Jack stretched and yawned.
“I don’t know! But they didn’t call them manholes.”
Jack emitted a laugh as he recalled the film. “Remember when Gregory Peck puts his hand in the mouth and screams, and that scares the shit out of Audrey Hepburn? That scene was hilarious.”
Vincent looked askance at the athlete. “It’s believed to be a drain cover. But there’s no consensus on that. The face is popularly referred to as the Bocca della Verità: the mouth of truth. Legend has it that if a liar sticks his hand in it, the hand will be bitten off. Some speculate the face on the disc represents the face of Orcus.”
Bailey had been sketching on a page of his notebook as his colleagues were talking.
“At the end of the chamber,” he said, “there’s a corbeled archway that connects the chamber to the cistern. But I’m not really sure that it is a cistern. I mean it’s big like the one under Sultanahmet in Istanbul. But it could be a large tomb that’s flooded.”
“Oh dear,” Vincent sighed. “Like the catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa in Egypt?”
“Yes.”
“If that’s the case, Bailey, your discovery ends there. There’s no telling how many levels lie beneath the water. Kom El Shoqafa still hasn’t been drained, over half century since it was discovered. It probably never will be.”
Jack asked if he could bum a smoke from Matty. The Chicagoan handed him the pack as he spoke directly to Bailey. “I’m not sure I understand why you’re bothering to tell us about your discovery since you’re going to steal all the credit.”
“When I get back to New Haven, I’m going to present my findings. I’m going to call for a team to return next year for a new excavation. They’ll need me to show them where the site is. But I have to have proof something is down there. . . I thought of using my camera. But it’s too big and clunky. Besides, I can’t generate enough light down there to take photographs. When I develop them they’ll turn out black.” Bailey cast an envious look at Matty. “I know you’re an excellent draftsman.”
“He’s right,” Vincent said. “All Maggie needs to do is look at something, and click!—it’s as if it’s been photographed.”
Matty accepted the praise with a shrug. “I have to be a good draftsman if I want to be an architect in Shytown.”
“If you were to sketch the site,” Bailey said, “and if the rest of you came along, then I’d have three witnesses and some professional diagrams to back up my claim. And it’s not true, Matty, that I would cut you fellas out. I’m not like that. I didn’t grow up with money, like you guys did. Your futures are certain. Mine is not. This would mean a lot to me.”
“When do you propose doing this?” Vincent asked.
“Tonight. It’s Saturday. Everyone is going to be enjoying themselves up here—not down there in the necropolis. The locals are superstitious and avoid the tombs at night. The other Americans have gone to Florence for the weekend, including Professor Holcomb.”
Bailey put his palms on the table. “Well, how about it? You fellas in?”
“Sounds fun,” Jack said.
”OK,” Matty nodded.
Vincent pursed his lips and studied his fingernails. “I suppose.”
Together they returned to the albergo where the Americans were lodging, at the expense of the Republic of Italy.
When they had dressed for their adventure, they met in Bailey’s room. On his bed lay three flashlights, a pack, and his mountaineering equipment. There was a basket with a rope tied to it to let objects down into the hole and hoist them back up. Matty brought a kerosene lantern and a small canister of fuel. Jack had cleated shoes, which he had brought along to play football. Vincent and Matty would have to wear their work boots. In his pack, Bailey had two pairs of gloves for climbing. They would pass the gloves up and down via the basket, so they didn’t burn their hands on the ropes.
The four boys threaded their way through the cobbled lanes until they reached the outskirts of town. Here, Matty lit his kerosene lantern and trimmed the wick. To spare their flashlight batteries, they relied solely on the lantern. They encountered no one on the renaissance steps leading down to the necropolis.
At the bottom of the hill, they saw a shepherd in the distance standing among his flock. A dim amber glow around his face suggested he was smoking. High above them, festive lights were strung between tall poles affixed to the medieval battlements. The sound of a radio blaring “Eh, Cumpari!” by Julius La Rosa mingled with the murmur of garrulous young voices.
As Bailey had suspected, the necropolis was deserted. A hot wind ruffled the tall grasses between the tombs. Frogs croaked nearby. It took them only a few minutes to sneak inside vault 12-A and crouch under the overhang and into the cluttered cavern behind the wall. For twenty minutes they hammered pitons into the floor and double-checked the strength and security of the ropes.
Bailey volunteered to go first. When he had reached the bottom, he called up for Matty to let down the kerosene lantern. Once it was at the bottom of the shaft, the others descended one by one. Jack, who was a show off, said he didn’t need a flashlight and climbed down in the dark lickety-split. But Matty and Vincent, who were less experienced at scaling, each tied a flashlight around his belt. The beams jiggled crazily as they descended, and Matty’s cracked and went out by the time he had reached the bottom.
The subterranean chamber was cooler than the temperature on the surface, but not cold. Bailey suggested that, since there were only two flashlights left, they should use them only when necessary. The kerosene lantern would be sufficient for their purposes.
“You weren’t kidding about how smooth the walls are,” Vincent remarked. “That wasn’t an easy descent.”
“Did you see the fresco?” Bailey asked.
“No,” Vincent said, “I was too busy watching where I was putting my hands and feet.”
“Hey!” Jack shouted. “Over here!”
Jack’s tone made Matty nervous. He grabbed Bailey’s flashlight, since his was useless, and switched it on. He shined it directly into Jack’s eyes.
“Fuck!” the Arizonan shouted and looked away. He was standing under the corbeled arch.
“Keep your voices down,” Bailey said, lifting the lantern. “It’ll carry up the shaft. Even though we didn’t see anyone in the necropolis, that doesn’t mean no one was there. I don’t want to risk some jerk reporting us to the carabinieri.”
“Or, worse,” Vincent drawled, “some psychopath who thinks it would be funny to throw the ropes down and leave us here to die.”
“Bailey and I can climb back to the top without ropes,” Jack mumbled.
Vincent began examining the skulls along the walls. “I think you’re right, Bailey,” he said. “This is. . . an extraordinary discovery.” The flickering glow distorted the shadows around the skulls’ grisly features, making them look almost alive.
Matty remained quiet.
“Bailey,” Jack said. “Were there lights under the water when you were down here last time?”
“What?”
Bailey grabbed the spare canister of kerosene out of the basket and carried the lantern with him to the arch. He stepped through and went to Jack.
The floor near the water was smooth, like the edges of an ancient bath. They stood on the brink and looked down into the murky water. The submarine glimmers made it clear the water was deep.
“It’s like a swimming pool,” Jack commented.
Running perpendicular to them on their righthand side was a long colonnade that vanished into the shadows. The lights seemed brighter on the other side of the columns, but they were unable to peer around them.
Vincent and Matty stepped out from under the arch.
“Turn your flashlights off,” Bailey said.
The two complied. Bailey held the lantern behind him so the ghostly flame was not so prominent. In the dark, the glimmers were much brighter. Some were moving.
“What are those things?” Matty asked, tremulously.
“I’m not sure,” Bailey replied. “Maybe a school of luminous fish.”
Matty turned his flashlight on and shined it at them. Then he shut it off again. “They’re not moving like fish. They didn’t scatter.”
“Maybe it’s luminous seaweed,” Vincent suggested.
“What?!” Matty turned to him.
“Didn’t sailors come across electric seaweed in the South Pacific during the war?” Vincent asked.
“No,” Matty rolled his eyes. “You act like you’re so smart, and then you say something stupid and unscientific like that.”
“I think Vincent means luminous algae.”
“Oh,” Matty said. “Wait. Is luminous algae real? I thought that was only in comic books.”
Jack was removing his shoes.
“What are you doing?” Bailey asked.
“I want to see what those lights are.” The Arizonan unbuttoned his shirt and removed his trousers. He stood before them in his white boxers.
“Jack, don’t be a fool,” Bailey said. “We don’t know what’s in the water. There could be parasites or—DON’T!”
It was too late. Jack dove in and breached the surface a few feet ahead of them.
“You really are a moron,” Vincent remarked. “You could’ve cracked your skull on a rock.”
“That’s why I dove in at an angle and kept my hands in front of me. Besides, I can tell by the lights that the water’s deep.”
“I think I wanna go back,” Matty said.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
This is a two-part story that I hope to conclude by this weekend. I don’t plan to start anymore novellas or novels until I have completed my other projects.
A great spooky start. Looking forward in reading pt 2. 😀
Ooh, this one is right up my alley! How did I miss it?! Can't wait for Part 2 :-)