Destination Wedding

"Whoa!" Eyes wide, nose pressed against the car window, Jennifer stared outside the window with the marvel of a child on Christmas morning, completely forgetting about her expensive makeup.

The rest of the band chuckled at her astonishment.

We've all been to other countries, seen other "worlds": we were somewhat immunized against her brand of awe. For poor Jennifer, this was not only her first time abroad, but the very first time outside the little town in southern Mississippi where we all came from.

Well, all except for the groom.

Aaron met Shanice at Jackson State University. I believe Tyrone was the one who introduced them, but they never told the story of how they met. I couldn't help but think there was something shameful about it they were trying to hide.

"Magnificent, isn't it? — Shanice geeked out, like usual — Some of the houses are over 1200 years old." She'd jump at any chance to use that Medieval History degree of hers. I'm afraid because, aside from lecturing her childhood friends, it has proven thoroughly unusable so far.

Jennifer, her mouth still open, turned towards Shanice, leaving a greasy foundation stain on the glass.

The bride slowly closed her friend's mouth with the back of her index finger. A silent, delicate gesture, like the prelude of a kiss. Probably trying to spare the childhood friend a bit of embarrassment.

Cheeks ablaze, Jen turned back, noticed the stain, wiped the window with a corner of her overpriced salmon dress, and resumed admiring the view.

The ghost city of Craco filled the sky ahead of us.

Like a giant perched on a chiseled stool, it seemed to overflow from the carved mountain that supported it. The carvings had an out-of-this-world look, and I couldn't help but imagine we had just landed on the moon and found traces of an ancient civilization there.

"Booyah!" Tyrone broke my fantasies. He had finally found a good spot to park the car. We could hide among the hills and trees that adorned the way towards the city, and spy on the guard who was leisurely patrolling around it.

Now and again, he would stop and flash a light into the ruins, checking for trespassers. We drank in the view and measured his walking time.

"25... 30 minutes tops. Let's go!" Tyrone exclaimed.

"A toast first... for courage?" Asked Aaron.

We all turned to Shanice. She paused, then nodded, and we grabbed a glass each.

"To the earth! May she spare us her anger." He said in an unconvincing approximation of the Italian accent, then laughed before downing the whole glass. He was clearly mocking the tour operator who had explained to us why the guided tours were closed.

"The rain... it disturbed the earth. And now she's upset." His voice resonated in my head, like a bad omen. I found Aaron's toast distasteful, and judging from the wrinkles on her nose, so did Shanice. But she said nothing, so I didn't either.

"Let's not waste the golden hour!" I said instead, pointing towards my camera, and led the way.

A photo shoot inside the ghost town was the whole reason for this destination wedding, so when Shanice found out they were closed during our stay, she freaked. But Ty came up with the solution: we break in, take pictures, and get out.

Shanice always gets what she wants.

We sweated our way up the path, over the portion of the enclosure that the guys had identified as free from cameras earlier today, and into the city.

There, all sounds died.

It felt as if we had trespassed into another dimension.

The sun reflected on the ochre stones with blinding strength, while the irregularly-shaped half-broken buildings cast long shadows all around us. We stood there for a moment, letting it all sink in.

A gunshot cracked the air.

I flinched, instinctively ducking behind a half-torn wall.

"You should see your face!" Aaron's dirty laugh made me realize it was just a champagne cork exploding out of a bottle he carried with him.

I cursed inside and forced a smile. Jennifer released Tyrone's arm; he chuckled and massaged it, and Shanice slapped Aaron's side in reprimand.

"Is someone there?" A thick Italian accent spoke behind us.

I cursed again and gestured for everyone to hide.

We ran as silently as possible through the broken wall and into a house, ducked under its window, and listened.

Steps approached behind us.

Tiny rocks crunching against one another, squeezed by heavy boots. Static crackling from a walkie-talkie. Some Italian words.

They sounded uneasy.

Then a cone of light invaded the sanctum of our hideout. We held our breath as it scanned the air above our heads, the secular dust shining bright inside its beam.

Some more Italian words. The voice sounded relieved. Steps moving away. Crunching down the path, growing softer and softer.

Then loud again.

Pacing slowly around the house, humming some unknown tune. No cone of light this time. Just pacing and humming, first to the left, then slowly to the right.

I could have sworn I heard sniffing... probably one of the guys trying to hold in a sneeze. There's so much dust in here.

Silence.

We looked at each other in disbelief. I gestured at the watch and the camera. We couldn't hide any longer, or all the light would be gone, and this would all have been for nothing. Shanice made a pleading face, and Ty nodded to her.

"Okay, okay, it's just me here," He said, standing up with his arms held high in surrender. Then he looked around, squinted, and climbed outside.

We waited, tension rising. A trickle of sweat rolled down my spine, tickling uncomfortably, but I didn't dare to scratch.

No sound.

"We're safe! There's nobody here." Tyrone's voice herded us outside.

While everyone else cheered and gulped more champagne, I couldn't shake away the feeling of unease. Footprints were going left and right in front of our hiding spot. But they seemed to be coming from nowhere and disappearing again, like a cat that leapt in and then away... but they were human.

Unmistakenly human.

"These must be from a guided tour, preserved by the house's roof. The rest have been washed away by the rain." Said Aaron, matter-of-fact, next to me.

Of course, he was right.

I felt stupid.

"Let's get to a safer spot and start taking pictures before the sun sets on us," I urged the group.

We found a square where a few alcoves in the walls created interesting pockets of darkness in the blinding sun. A beautiful contrast for the white of the bride's dress. She posed there, looking intensely melancholic.

I took way too many pictures; she was a picky one.

"There!" She exclaimed all of a sudden. Eyes shining with desire.

I followed her finger and noticed the old church.

"Brilliant! Let's go!" The decadent ancient church, its light and darkness theme, the contrast with our festive attire... I loved where this was going!

"Do you hear that?" Jen's voice reached me from far back.

She was standing in front of one of the dark alcoves, squinting her eyes. I paced back, set my camera's flash on, and took a picture in front of her. The wall shone brightly back at us, hurting my eyes.

I could have sworn I saw a shadow flee.

But the camera's screen showed nothing more than an ancient stone wall.

"What did you hear?" I asked her.

"A... melody, like someone humming a song they can't remember," She replied with a thin voice.

"It's the isolation of the place. The wind howling in the narrow streets can sound like voices." Aaron said, before pushing us away from the alcove.

While we walked, I couldn't help but feel observed. I imagined it was due to the scare the guard gave us. My brain, overactively trying to prevent being caught.

I looked around — shadows were dancing in many corners.

"Passing clouds." Said Aaron, without looking at the sky.

I didn't feel like checking either.

We reached the church, which proved to be the perfect setting we expected. A single cone of light invaded the darkness of its isolation through a hole in the roof. It shone exactly on the vegetation-engrossed altar in the center of the room, while the windows on its sides looked like the eyes of an ancient goddess.

And she was weeping.

Or so the moisture under the windows made it look like.

After a while, Aaron wanted to take a picture standing on the altar, so I examined it for stability. I parted the leaves with my hands, and something golden shone in the sunlight.

"Wedding rings... here?" Shanice stammered in surprise.

"Must have been a special place for some tourists." Aaron shrugged beside her.

I picked a ring and checked inside it. It looked old, and I could only read 1963. I put it back and traced my fingers around it. There was some kind of labyrinth inscribed on the altar under the rings. It moved.

I thought my mind played yet another trick on me, but clearly the others saw it too. The altar moved, like shaken by invisible giant hands. We exchanged frightened looks.

Then the earth itself shook.

A few roof tiles fell, clunking heavily against the floor. We didn't dare move; we should have run for the door.

A second, powerful quake shook everything around us. Part of the roof collapsed, barring the entrance door. Then, with a bestial roar, the earth in front of us split, muddy waters dragging the floor away from under our feet.

We backed behind the altar.

"What...?" Jennifer's voice cried behind me. She was too scared to finish the sentence.

"We have to get out!" I cried in return.

"The door's blocked." Aaron chimed in.

"We can dig it out!" Offered Tyrone.

"No! The roof could fall any minute — intervened Shanice — let's find the sacristy door and get out from there! It must be somewhere near the altar."

"God bless the geeky bride who knows about medieval churches' doors!" Ty tried to lighten the mood.

We scattered around, feeling the rotten moss and wet stones around us in the dark.

"Here!" My fingers finally found something wooden.

Everyone gathered around me, pulling out leaves and vines, frantically looking for the handle. Finally, Tyrone had had enough and shoved his whole weight against it.

And it let us in.

The sacristy was surprisingly intact and quiet. It looked like time had no meaning here, and the quake was far away. The priest's clothes still lay on the vestment case, next to other liturgical items. The air smelled of incense and candlewax.

We didn't feel like we could stop to gape, but I felt something wrong in the pit of my stomach. Something, I couldn't pinpoint what, disturbed me about the room.

Ty found the exit door and launched himself against it. It gave up easily. Too easily.

An awful sound followed.

A scream of pain, covered by rustling stones.

We all rushed to the door and peeked outside. Tyrone was lying at the bottom of a broken stone stairway. His ankle bent at an awkward angle.

"I thought it would be hard, like the other door... I'm an idiot." He laughed loudly, widely, but didn't stand up.

Aaron climbed down like a professional mountaineer, then helped us one at a time.

"It's twisted but not broken — He assessed Ty's ankle — You'll be fine with some RICE."

"Rice?" Ty chuckled.

"Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation," Jennifer replied for Aaron, before tearing the sleeve of her dress and improvising a tight bandage on Ty's foot. I knew she had dreamed of a moment like this for a long time.

Too many romcoms, too few chances to communicate her feelings.

With Tyrone propped up between Jen and Aaron, we stumbled our way through the exclusive part of Craco. No guided tours were given here as far as we knew, and we couldn't help but wonder why. It looked magnificent in a dark, decadent way.

"Check this creepy voodoo out!" Tyrone tried to joke, his voice shaking with the struggle to keep the pain at bay.

Many houses in the street were still perfectly intact, filled with everyday items, an eternal testament to man's insignificance in the face of nature's anger.

The house Ty was pointing at had two dolls in the window. They were looking at each other with their vitreous eyes, their hands stretched out like children playing a game of patty cake. I would have thought it was cute if it weren't for the burned hair on their heads and the weird symbols painted on their naked porcelain bodies.

I checked my phone's screen. Still no signal.

I activated the flashlight and pointed it at the inside of the house behind the dolls. I expected to see more of the weird symbols, or maybe even some pagan altar, but there was nothing of the sort.

It looked like a serene painting of a morning in the 1980s.

Coats were hanging by the fireplace, a cup of coffee was standing on the table, with a yellowed newspaper nearby. Some kind of cake or pastry on a plate nearby. It looked as if the owners of the house stepped out for a moment and never came back.

Everything was forever frozen in time and preserved in dust.

Dust.

"There was no dust in the sacristy!" I squealed as I finally realized what was so weird about it.

"Makes sense, it was so well preserved. It must have been an important part of the guided tour, so they kept it clean. " Aaron explained my doubts away again.

We tried to go around the church, retrace our steps, and get out, but the treacherous medieval streets wouldn't let us. They twisted and wound onto themselves, leading us to broken walls and piles of rubble. We were forced to improvise, but no parallel street was actually parallel.

And every time we thought we were getting somewhere, the creepy dolls in the window let us know we were back at square one.

And the wind kept humming in the streets around us. At least I thought it was the wind, like Aaron said.

When the sun set on us, we tried to navigate the narrow, perilous streets in the tenuous lights of our phones. It didn't work.

"I'm freezing!" Shanice whined as we sat down to let Tyrone rest. He was pale and sweaty, and the blood seemed to slowly drain from the rest of his body into the swollen ankle. He unbuttoned his jacket and handed it to her.

"I'm sweating anyway," He tried to minimize the gesture. Even in these circumstances, he would do anything for her.

"There were coats in the creepy dolls house," Jen remarked, clearly unhappy with the subject of Ty's chivalry.

"Wait here," Aaron told the others, while grabbing me by the elbow, to go into the house.

Why couldn't he just go alone? I raised my head to protest and noticed the unsettled look in his eyes. Not even the pragmatic Aaron was immune to fear after all.

We slowly made our way inside the dark house. My phone's light in one hand, Aaron by my side.

Then something vibrated, and the room went fully dark.

Something grabbed my hand tight. I screamed. A hand covered my mouth. I bit. Hard. Then Aaron screamed.

Shit.

"Sorry, man! I thought..."

"Don't worry about it — he grunted in pain — I just didn't want you to scare the others."

"Fair point. Don't do it again. Turn the light on your phone instead."

"It's in the car."

"Fuck!"

We tried feeling our way in the dark, but the contact with the sticky secular dust made my skin crawl. I got a better idea.

I grabbed my trusted camera, set the flash on, and clicked the shutter.

I heard a muffled squeal of pain.

"Aaron?"

"Mice."

My flash illuminated the room again, leading us towards the coat rack... but no coats hung there.

"We must have knocked them down somehow."

There were no coats on the floor either... and no dust around the rack.

"Must be a different house," Aaron said. More to himself than to me. I grabbed his hand and led him out. He was shaking.

By the pale light of the moon, I could see that Ty was having trouble staying conscious. Jen and Shanice looked terrified.

"What the hell happened in there?" Jen's crying welcomed us back.

"Where are the coats?" Shanice whimpered, her teeth chattering.

"There were no coats. It was the wrong house," said Aaron.

"No — protested Jennifer — it was the creepy ass dolls house. There are the creepy ass dolls, so this is the house." She illuminated the window with her phone's light. Creepy eyes reflected it back.

The dolls were now holding hands, staring at us.

"They moved!" I shrieked.

"Dolls can't move." Aaron massaged his temples.

"They were facing each other before." I protested, panic growing in my chest.

"Must be a different house. God knows how lost we are in this maze! There must be another house with creepy dolls facing each other and coats on a rack." He argued.

"In front of the church's steps?" Jennifer asked in a fragile voice.

"You must be remembering wrong!" he yelled.

I flipped through the pictures to prove to Aaron that this was indeed the creepy dolls house from before.

I shouldn't have done that.

I saw the first pictures, the bright bridal gown against the black alcove. A reflection of teeth behind her. An uncanny smile.

Could it be stone?

Then, I saw it again, in the first picture I took inside this house... and just now, in the window behind the dolls.