Halloween Haunts: It’s The Day of the Dead – Be Happy! by Samuel Marolla

We haven’t the Halloween tradition, in Italy.

Well, to tell the truth: we have had it for a few years. But it’s not a tradition, it’s not folklore, and it’s not a great, popular celebration as in United States of America. Unfortunately, in Italy it’s only a superficial, commercial business trend. We don’t really feel it in Italy.

Here we have Ognissanti (“All the Saints”), the first of November. It starts the midnight of October 31. And the day after, the second day of November, we have I Morti (“The Dead”). Indeed, this holiday is more interesting for a horror writer like me…

So, we don’t have the “real” Halloween, but… we have other weird traditions. Very weird. I could even say… a little creepy.

Italy is an ancient country, and Milan, where I was born and where I live, is an ancient city, one of the oldest in Europe. Founded by the Celts in the wild heart of the old pagan Europe, they thought they had discovered a nemeton, a centre of the Celtic mystic power. “Nemeton” became the Latin “Mediolanum”, the name of the city during the Roman Empire – and Milan was, for about a century, the capital of the Empire. Mediolanum means the Middle-Earth.

Beside the monuments, the paintings, the castles, and the palaces, there is something else. Something that is remote, drowned in the fog and smog. Something that whispers in the night across the legions of gargoyles, scattered on the multitude of Gothic cathedrals and churches.

Milan is an ancient metropolis, an old-time lady, and she has her secrets, such as the days of “The Saints” and “The Dead,” the real Italian version of Halloween. In the Milan vernacular, we say: “L’è el dì di mort, alegher!” “It’s the day of the dead: be happy!”

This dark secret is hidden inside the San Bernardino alle Ossa church.

It’s a church set in the Brolo quarter, the area where the Celts used to live before the Romans. And it’s also one of the most ancient, scary, and suggestive European ossuaries. If you google “San Bernardino alle Ossa” you will see many walls covered by human bones. Bones of men, women and… children. Yes, children. Hundreds and hundreds of little children skulls. And crosses made of bones. Writings made of bones. Columns made of bones. Yes, like in a horror tale. But it’s real. I’ve seen it. After all, I’m a horror writer!

At this point, the story ends, and the legend begins. Inside the church, there is the complete skeleton of a little girl. At the midnight of October 31, she rises from the ossuary and begins to dance. She dances in the center of the apse, awakening all the skeletons inside the ossuary. The bones rejoin themselves and become hundreds of whole skeletons. They all dance, following the first little skeleton girl.

At midnight on Halloween, if you walk near the church, in Santo Stefano square and in The Signora Road, you can hear the ringing sound of this dance of the dead…

Anyway: enjoy your Halloween, dear friends. There is no danger. The San Bernardino doors are well closed, and the ancient church is very far from you guys…

As the old Milanese people used to say: it’s the day of the dead! Be happy!

TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: Samuel is offering one digital copy of his ebooks Imago Mortis and Black Tea and Other Tales. Enter for the prize by posting in the comments section. Winners will be chosen at random and notified by e-mail. You may enter once for each giveaway, and all entrants may be considered for other giveaways if they don’t win on the day they post. You may also enter by e-mailing membership@horror.org and putting HH CONTEST ENTRY in the header.

SAMUEL MAROLLA is an Italian writer of horror and weird fiction. He was born and lives in Milan. His works have been published by some of the most important Italian publishers (e.g. Mondadori for fiction, Sergio Bonelli Editore for comics). His horror tale “Black Tea” received a Honorable Mention from Ellen Datlow in 2013, and in 2015 it was selected by Apex Publications for the fourth edition of the Book of World. In 2014 he co-founded Acheron Books (www.acheronbooks.com), a digital imprint that publishes the best of the Italian speculative fiction in English language next to a selection of works by international authors and editors, such as Paul Di Filippo and Lavie Tidhar.

His latest releases in English language:

http://www.amazon.com/Imago-Mortis-Samuel-Marolla-ebook/dp/B00R4N91C4
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Other-Tales-Samuel-Marolla-ebook/dp/B00PQZH4MG
http://www.amazon.com/Apex-Book-World-Speculative-Fiction-ebook/dp/B012YMFSPS

Excerpt from “Imago Mortis”:

I went back to my office, got all the stuff ready and snuffed a line of the ashes of the late Rosa Colombo, better known as Nanà. It was a small dose because crossing over to someone who’d been killed was always a leap into the unknown.

I waited in the half-light. My eyes started to slip shut and when I opened them I could feel piercing cold coming from a corner of my office. I could see my own breath cloud up each time I exhaled. The cold from outside had wormed its way into the house, even though the windows were shut. Here we go, I thought.

“Rosa?”

The figure took a step forward. She was once a beautiful girl and had probably been so until a moment before her death, but now half her face was missing, the left side a mess of red, throbbing, mangled flesh with an eyeball sticking out, like a glowing light in the dark. Blond hair caked in blood and scattered with skull fragments covered the other side of her face. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear, a bright scarlet sash. One of her arms had been cut off at the elbow and, among the torn flesh, the grey bone shone through.

She raised her good arm and moved her hand. It looked like a white shellfish swimming through dark water. She seemed to be trying to write in the air.

I looked for a pen and paper. The cold was biting even more, making my skin almost burn. I looked at her again. I realised she had no depth. She was two-dimensional, a sort of low relief jutting from that dark corner of my office.

“I want to help you.” I whispered. “Just let me help you.”

She moaned. My hand started writing on the piece of paper without me even realising it. Jesus Christ, they’d really made a mess of her.

The ghost of Rosa Colombo, better known as Nanà, scribbled on the paper using my hand and I thought she moved her mouth at the same time. I tried to read her lips as my hand wrote on its own. I closed my eyes for a millisecond, but when I opened them again she was gone, my digital clock told me it was two hours later, the ghost had vanished without a trace but on the paper, in handwriting that was not mine, the following words had been penned:

THE UNHUMAN

Someone rang the intercom. I strode to the receiver. “Who’s there?”

“I want the money,” said an electronic voice.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Give me fifty thousand neuros or we kill you.”

I hung up. I looked out the window. It was five in the morning and three thugs were waiting at the main entrance.

My mobile rang. Unknown caller. It was the same voice. “Come down, motherfucker, give me the money.”