This Haunted World Book One: The Venetian: A Chilling New Supernatural Thriller

by Shani Struthers

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Louise, sweetheart, you’re all right. Come on, come back to me.”

  It was Rob’s voice, sounding as if he were talking to her through some sort of muffler, but gradually he became clearer, his voice joined by two others: a man and a woman.

  She struggled to sit up, the other voices belonged to Piero and Kristina, of course they did, and she was on an island in the Venetian Lagoon. She was on Poveglia. And then another memory surfaced, the veiled lady; she was on the island too. Who was she? What was she doing here, as though lying in wait? She longed for merciful oblivion again, a refuge, but it refused to come. She was growing more conscious by the second.

  “Wh… what happened?”

  “You fainted,” Rob informed her, he looked around him, as if searching for a reason why. “You’re right, the air in here, it’s so oppressive.”

  It was but it had nothing to do with what had just happened. Before she could say anything more, Rob helped her to her feet, a protective arm still around her when he addressed Piero, who, she had to admit, looked concerned too.

  “No more bloody nonsense, mate, I’m warning you, just get us out of here and on that boat. When we get back to Venice we’ll say no more about it, we’ll go our separate ways. We just need to get out.” To Louise, he said, “Can you walk?”

  She managed to raise a smile at this. “What are you going to do if I can’t? Carry me?”

  “If necessary.”

  She was impressed; he meant business. Thankfully Piero and Kristina realised that too. Without another word, Piero started retracing their footsteps. He looked, if not exactly sorrowful, embarrassed and so did Kristina. Something she’d take satisfaction in if she could, but all that concerned her was getting into the open. She was desperate to leave.

  At long last the maze thinned out, she thought she recognised where she was: in the corridor that the main wards fed off – they could navigate their way from here alone if they had to, although to do that wasn’t a good idea, as they could only get so far without Piero and Kristina. Her mind returned to the veiled lady. Could she really be following her? Was such a thing possible? Had the others seen her too? They couldn’t have done. Someone would have mentioned it if they had. She was the only one who’d seen the ghost. Ghost? Oh, God, this place was playing havoc with her! But then Venice had done that too, the world’s most beautiful city, the most romantic, and the world’s most haunted, a prospect that had amused and intrigued her prior to travelling, but not now.

  Passing one of the wards they’d inspected, the one with the spectacles in a shelf on the side table, she couldn’t bring herself to even glance in. She kept her eyes trained solely ahead. At the top of the staircase she breathed a sigh of relief and with Rob’s help descended it quickly. Through the window she was dismayed to register that the light outside – and therefore inside – was failing, rapidly. The last thing she wanted was to be here when it got dark – she’d been promised that wouldn’t happen. Not just frustration, she felt a flash of rage. Her life seemed to be full of broken promises, full of disappointment. She remembered a quote she’d read in a book: My life is like a broken stair, winding round a ruined tower, and leading nowhere. She came across the quote long before undertaking cycle after cycle of IVF, it could even have been in her teens, and it had resonated with her, the melancholy of it. This place was melancholy. If darkness existed within a person, it would thrive here. She couldn’t bear it a minute longer.

  “Are we there? Are we nearly at the boat?”

  “Lou, it’s okay, you know where we are now, it’s just down the stairs and along a bit. We need to grab Kristina’s rucksack—”

  “Rucksack? Who cares about her bloody rucksack? It’s getting dark, Rob!”

  “I know, I know. But it’s still early, it’s not even four o’ clock, we’ll be fine. We’ll be back at the hotel soon. We can forget all about this.”

  Forget? She’d never forget. Even so, she’d be glad to reach the hotel. It seemed like an oasis – a sanctuary. She’d rush in, ignore that damned painting in the lobby, go straight to her room and collapse on the bed. She was exhausted. And in the morning they’d get up and they’d go. A longing for England washed over her, home sweet home, and she was amazed at the intensity of it. It was a small world and Venice but a short plane ride from London, but it felt so different suddenly: the culture, the people, the food, everything.

  Continuing to lean on Rob, they re-entered the office, twin beams doing their best to penetrate the gloom.

  Kristina walked over to where she’d left her rucksack, then turned around, as though scanning the room.

  “What is it? What’s the matter?” asked Louise.

  “My rucksack,” Kristina answered. “I left it here, by the leg of this desk, I’m sure I did.”

  “Yes you did,” Louise agreed. “I saw you.”

  “But it’s not here now,” Kristina replied.

  “Well, where is it then?” Rob’s patience was still on the wane.

  “I… I don’t know. It’s odd.”

  “Leave it,” Rob decided. “It’s not important, there’s only food in it, maybe you didn’t close one of the boxes properly and a fox or something snuck in and dragged it away.”

  Piero was also looking confused. “Has the desk been moved? It was in the centre of the room before. It isn’t now.”

  He was right. It was definitely more to the side of the room and at a different angle too. Louise pointed to the filing cabinet. “Rob, shine your light over there.”

  Several drawers had been left open before; some drawers had even been taken out and left on the floor. Now, only two drawers remained on the floor, there were more before, she was sure of it, three at least. Of those two, one of them was now closer to the desk, as if it had been trying to reach out. Frowning, she asked to borrow the torch and walked over to it, kneeling down and shining the light on its contents – just mulch, as it was before, notes, documents, whatever had been in there, ruined. She was about to stand, join the others again, when the torchlight caught the edge of something – a scrap of paper on which the writing was more legible. It was addressed to someone, a letter perhaps, she could make out a capital ‘A’, an ‘l’ and a ‘b’ – Alb – but nothing more. She was entranced by it, wondering whom it was to and about the hand that had written it, when Rob, swearing under his breath, brought her back to the moment. As she rose his worried gaze met hers. Things had changed in here for certain, but who’d changed them? Other people on the island could be good news or bad. Either way she didn’t want to hang around to find out.

  “We need to get to the boat,” she insisted.

  When Piero and Kristina didn’t move, she repeated her words. Rob, clearly incensed by their lack of reaction, raised his voice considerably. “Get us off this bloody island now!”

  Piero held his hands up. “I would, I intend to but… we cannot leave without the key.”

  “The key?” Rob repeated, “What do you mean?”

  Kristina stepped forward and laid a placating hand on Rob’s arm. “He means the key to the boat. It was in the rucksack.”

  “In the rucksack? The one you left here?”

  She nodded.

  Rob’s rage peaked. Focussing entirely on Kristina, he gave full voice to his anger. “Why the fuck did you leave the key in the rucksack? Why didn’t you take it with you?”

  Kristina hastily withdrew her hand. “I thought it would be safer in the bag, just in case I tripped and fell or something, maybe it would roll out of my pocket.”

  Rob was incredulous. “That’s it, that’s the reason?” He looked as though he was about to tear his hair out. “Christ Almighty!”

  Mindful of how time was slipping away, Louise tried desperately to search for a solution. “Piero,” she said, “you must have a spare key?”

  He gulped. “I have but it’s at home.”

  “At home?” She was the one who exploded now. “But why did you give th
e damned key – the only key – to your wife? You were the one driving!”

  “My wife, she is better at looking after things than me,” he attempted to explain.

  “Really? Well, not on this occasion!” Oh, what was the use of standing here screaming at the pair of them? She forced herself to calm. “Piero, you said before that if anyone else was on the island they’d have to dock their boat by yours, there’s no other landing jetty.”

  “That’s correct.” He sounded on the verge of tears, as fearful as them.

  “Well, let’s go and check then. See if someone else is here.”

  She darted towards the doorway; the others close behind. She expected the fresh air as it hit her to revive her somehow but it was as leaden as the atmosphere inside. Propelling herself towards where the boat was moored, she shone the torch, wishing it would cut through the mist more efficiently. Was there another boat beside theirs? There had to be. But as she drew closer, she realised their boat was alone, hardly even swaying on such still waters.

  “Fuck!” she swore. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” She swung around, still trying to find an answer. “Perhaps someone did come but they’ve left. They came in, played silly buggers, moved furniture around a bit and stole or hid our rucksack, trying to scare us.” To Piero she said, “That’s possible isn’t it?”

  “I… I don’t know, I suppose. It is strange though, very strange. Why would they do such a thing? For what purpose?”

  “Because the people who come here are weird that’s why, you’d damned well have to be!”

  Piero ignored her insult, jumped onto the boat, and started to rummage around. “But if people have been here with the intention of stealing, why did they not steal what was on the boat? Look, there are things that might be considered valuable. I have a camera on-board, binoculars, my wife’s Gucci sunglasses and a medical kit, certainly things that are of more use than food boxes! Why did they not steal the boat itself? The key was in the rucksack, surely they would have looked inside and noticed that.”

  “If it was just one person, they could hardly have steered both boats!”

  Rob’s point was valid, assuming that someone had visited the island whilst they’d been upstairs – a lone person. But, there was still the possibility that an animal had dragged it off, in which case, it couldn’t be far. But the furniture… what about the furniture?

  Her head fit to burst, Louise turned to Piero again. “You’re not mucking us about are you? Playing another one of your games, hiding the key?”

  “No! I assure you, we are not. What happened upstairs, I… wanted to show you that’s all, so you’d have seen all that was worth seeing here.”

  “Against our will,” Rob pointed out.

  “Yes, but… I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I meant no harm.”

  Louise tried to convince herself his apology was meant. “Perhaps it is in the building somewhere,” she conceded, “or in the grounds.”

  “But what about the furniture…” Rob was thinking along the same lines as her.

  As tempted as she was to accuse Piero and Kristina of doing that as well, they couldn’t have, at no point whilst they were downstairs were they apart. Only upstairs that had happened, and even then, they’d still been close by. She made up her mind.

  “Our priority is the rucksack. If it’s here, we have to find it.”

  “Then we split into pairs,” Rob suggested. “Start searching.”

  “No!” It was Kristina who’d objected. “We stick together. It is safer. Much safer.”

  As much as Louise wanted to get away from them, Kristina was right. Anything could happen in that building. You could fall through a roof or have the roof fall on you. They needed to keep together, but still search widely and efficiently. What a mess, she couldn’t help thinking, what a bloody mess!

  Despite being only late afternoon, night seemed to have fallen in its entirety. They needed to come up with a plan and quick.

  “Okay, okay, look, we spend an hour searching,” Louise suggested. “If no luck, Piero you can phone the police and get them to come and rescue us.”

  “Phone?” Piero looked at her as if she was mad. “There is no signal on the island.”

  “What? There must be.”

  Retrieving her mobile from her pocket, she checked the bars on it as she’d intended to do earlier. He was right, there was no signal, nothing. “Then… what are we going to do?”

  “We find the bag, that’s what we’re going to do.” Rob responded, taking long strides back. Catching up with him, Louise could feel tingles along her spine, little stabs of electricity jabbing at her mercilessly. The building ahead had seemed, if not benign during the day, not overly threatening. In the fading light, however, it loomed like something out of a Hammer Horror movie, hosting a multitude of unspeakable sights and sounds within. And the windows, there were rows and rows of them, like gaping black holes…

  She turned her head, refusing to look at the windows. Perhaps they’d only have to search downstairs. If it had been an animal, they wouldn’t have been able to haul it upwards. The rucksack would be downstairs or in the grounds. Speaking up, she suggested they explore the grounds first, anything to delay going back in.

  “We shouldn’t stray too far,” Kristina still sounded agitated. “We mustn’t go to the fields.”

  “Why not?” Rob’s voice was scathing. “Because they’re the supposed plague fields?”

  “There’s no ‘supposed’ about it,” Kristina said, rallying.

  Piero intervened rather than Louise. “What Kristina means, and what I have already told you, is that in the fields the ground is soft underfoot. The people that died here, they weren’t transported to the mainland, they couldn’t be, even in death there was a risk of infection, they were burnt here, cremated. The mass graves, we are not making that up.”

  Louise could feel her whole body tense. “Then why do you do it?” she said, her voice much higher than she intended it to be. “Why do you come here, because you do don’t you? You’re regular visitors, I think. Surely there are better places to have a picnic!”

  “We are not ghouls!” Kristina insisted.

  “Then what are you?” Louise demanded.

  She faltered. “We have… that is, Piero, has family connections to the island.”

  “Family connections? Regarding the asylum you mean?”

  “No!” Piero seemed horrified Louise would think that. “She means family much further back than that, family affected by the plague.”

  “How do you know? You have records?”

  “Of course! The Benvenuti family know their lineage. Family is everything to us!”

  Family is everything… His words pierced her. Her and Rob’s family would end with them and no amount of travel could make up for that. In fact, right now she didn’t care if she never travelled again, it was not the remedy they’d hoped for. England was home, their home and the subject of adoption, she’d raise it again, make Rob see it was a valid choice, that they could love a baby born of others as much as one born of them. She certainly could, she knew it. She also knew she couldn’t continue without a child to love, never had the desire in her been so strong as now – never had it seemed so crucial.

  Rob shook her out of the reverie she’d fallen into. “Louise, who cares why they choose to come here, it’s of no importance to us. We need to start searching, come on.”

  “Okay, okay,” she replied, having to bite down on a retort. Clearly his impatience had extended to include her. But the fact that they were stranded here, without a boat key, without any mobile phone signal, was not her fault. And he’d better not start acting like it was. She might have been the one who’d found out about Poveglia, but he was the one who wanted to come here, taking ‘off-the-beaten-track’ to a whole new level.

  All four trudged miserably round to the far side of the building. The men had charge of the torches again, and, working as a team, they were aiming the light in different directions, the women busy
scanning for any sign of Kristina’s rucksack, the incessant mist hindering their task. At the back of the asylum, there was a bank of grass, with stone steps leading downwards into more rough grass, the plague fields, the graves, and not just those that belonged to the diseased either, Louise would bet. How many people who had died at the asylum weren’t transported back for burial? Piero had said that in Italy family was everything, but did that extend to include mad members of the family? He had baulked when Louise suggested his ancestry might be marred in such a way.

  Side by side in their respective couples, Rob and Louise in front, they negotiated the steps; many were chipped or had chunks missing from them, yet more victims of neglect. At the bottom her feet sank initially but then rested on ground that was firm enough.

  “We don’t need to go too far in,” Kristina said. Louise could tell she was shaking.

  “We do if we’re going to find that key,” Rob replied.

  “It’s more likely to be in the building,” Piero cut in. “If it was an animal, they like shelter, they wouldn’t want to be out in the open where they feel exposed.”

  Still Rob was determined. “We need to do a thorough search.”

  They moved forward at a tentative pace, their torches making wide sweeps of the ground ahead. It looked empty, although beneath the soil it was perhaps far from that. Louise felt Piero’s suggestion that they look inside first made more sense and was about to say so when she heard a scream from behind. For a minute she fancied it had come from inside the asylum, but then she realised it was much closer than that. It was Kristina.

  She spun around as did Rob. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Over there!” Kristina could barely get the words out but she managed to point and all three looked to where they were being directed, back over the plague fields again.

  “Holy fuck!” It was Rob who’d sworn; Louise could only stare. The mist that had stubbornly surrounded the island all day was moving towards them, a wall of it, as wide as it was tall. She’d never seen mist moving before, not like that, so purposefully. But there was something even more alarming, the mist wasn’t just a single band of white, there were shapes in it, becoming clearer the closer it got. So many shapes, hundreds of them, their arms outstretched as if seeking help, and solace too, comfort of any sort. Louise was momentarily mesmerised, fear beginning to give way to pity, she wanted to understand them suddenly, those that were appealing to her, their sorrows, what they had suffered, and then the atmosphere changed. Someone yelled for them to run and panic filled the air, as infectious as any disease. Backing away, she joined the others as they fled, wondering all the while if the figure she’d seen in the centre of the mist, the one to whom all the other shapes cleaved to, was the veiled lady, her hands reaching out too.