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

by Shani Struthers

“No! Why do you keep accusing us?”

  “They weren’t here before!” Louise repeated Rob’s words.

  “But as Piero said we’ve been with you all the time. We are not guilty.”

  “The cottage could have been rigged up beforehand.”

  Piero interjected. “Between late last night and early this morning? Oh, come on!”

  Rob answered before Louise could, in vehement agreement with her. “You’re lying, you’re setting us up, probably so you can have a good laugh at our expense with your friends, tell them how you picked on some stupid English tourists and frightened the life out of them. But I’m not having it. I want off this island, give me the key to that boat and I’ll drive it away myself. I’ll bet it’s not in the rucksack at all, it’s in your pocket.”

  “It is not—”

  “But how do we know that? You’ve lied to us about everything else so far!”

  “Because I am telling you, that’s why!” Piero threw his hands in the air. “What we saw outside, the mist moving towards us, you think I can create that? Impossible!”

  “That’s just it, I don’t know what’s possible and what isn’t, not anymore,” Rob retorted. From one of anger, his expression turned bleak. “This place… it distorts everything. It distorts the mind. It’s like… it’s diseased or something, still, after all this time.” He shook his head, as if trying to remember he had a point to make. “I want to see what’s in your pockets.”

  “There’s nothing in them.”

  “I want to see for myself and then your wife, we’ll search her.”

  “You will not touch my wife!”

  “Then make it simple for all of us and hand over the key!”

  Not even waiting for a response, Rob thrust the torch at Louise, reached out and grabbed Piero by the arm. Both she and Kristina moved forward too.

  “Leave him!” Kristina shouted. “You mad man!”

  “You’re calling me mad?” Rob spat back at her. “Me? You’ve got the wrong guy there!”

  Although Rob had started the fight, it was Piero who threw the first punch but it wasn’t a convincing blow. Louise doubted Rob would even register it. When he retaliated, Louise winced – terrified he’d miss his target and hit Kristina instead.

  “Rob, stop, you have to stop!” But the men carried on struggling, too lost in individual fury to take any notice.

  Kristina was talking too but in a rapid stream of Italian, Louise was sure there were some prime curses in there from the way she was spitting the words out.

  “Rob!” Louise yelled again, stunned at how quickly the situation had deteriorated. But they were under pressure and people under pressure could do terrible things – someone could get hurt, really hurt and then what would they do? Rob had said the situation couldn’t get much worse, but it could. Easily. She had to dart aside as his elbow came out to deliver another punch. “Listen to me, please!”

  Kristina had to swiftly step aside too, still talking to herself in between sobs and then she bent down, picked up the torch that her husband had dropped and shone it in the two men’s faces. “Okay, okay, enough! We haven’t been honest with you, I admit—”

  Rob’s head snapped sideways to look at Kristina. So did Piero’s. As for Louise, she looked on wide-eyed, wondering what the hell was coming next.

  It was Piero who started speaking, but Kristina hushed him.

  “We have to tell the truth,” she said. “You shouldn’t keep secrets in a place like this.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Both men extricated themselves, making an almost comical show of brushing themselves down as they did and straightening their jackets. Louise shone the torch directly on Kristina, she and Rob wanted answers and wanted them now. As she did, she stepped away from the bones, eager to put some distance between herself and them.

  Kristina cleared her throat and took a deep breath. Piero simply looked at the floor, too embarrassed, Louise supposed, to look at either of them. She hoped that whatever his wife was about to reveal really did have something to do with the key, that they’d got tired of whatever it was they were playing at and realised it’d gone too far.

  “I am a student,” Kristina said at last, still breathing heavily, as if she’d been the one fighting rather than the men.

  A student? “I thought you worked in commerce,” said Louise.

  “I did. I used to, up until recently. Now I am in full-time study.”

  Rob was also trying to make sense of her admission. “What is it you study exactly?”

  “Psychology,” she answered, lowering her torch so that the darkness hid her face. “Currently, I am working on a thesis. But… when we got talking to you in the restaurant that was genuine. We are friendly people, normal people. We like to go out and meet other people, to make friends. That is not so unusual is it?”

  Louise shook her head. “No, no, of course not.”

  “I’m not sure how the conversation turned to Poveglia, you mentioned it first perhaps—”

  “I wasn’t the first to mention it.” This was the second time this weekend she’d been accused of that. “You were the ones who brought the subject up.”

  Kristina looked at Piero, as if she needed him to confirm that fact. He nodded.

  “Well,” Kristina continued, “when it was mentioned, you seemed so interested. You’d done a lot of research on the island already.”

  Again Louise denied this. “I’d read up a bit about it, that’s all.”

  “I was the one who was interested in visiting,” Rob admitted.

  Louise was grateful he’d got that straight.

  “The thing is, when we knew of your interest, we made a connection.”

  “Tesoro,” Piero said, “it was me who made the connection.” From the look on Kristina’s face, she was clearly appreciative of his honesty too.

  “I don’t understand,” Rob replied, “what is the connection?”

  “The thesis I am working on centres around the science of fear,” Kristina tried to explain. “Specifically it asks the question: what is fear? Often, when we are frightened of something or somewhere, it can prompt an expectation in the brain, so easily we imagine things that are not really there because we expect to see them. Autosuggestion plays a big part. What others have said they’ve experienced, whether it is true or not, can shape our own experiences.” Knowing she had their full attention, Kristina continued, albeit nervously. “So many myths and legends have been built up around Poveglia, not just over decades but over centuries and, as such, it is widely regarded as the world’s most haunted island. People come here because they want to see ghosts and some people think they do because their imagination obliges, it creates a spectacle for them if you like. In that way, human beings are very much like magicians. In my thesis, I want to suggest that ghosts are not real, that they are merely a manifestation of the mind, an illusion.”

  Louise joined Rob in confusion. “So… we’re a part of your thesis?”

  “In a way, yes, you would be a case study.”

  “A case…” Rob started but fell quiet, obviously needing more time to digest what he’d just been told. “So hang on, your husband’s mind started to work overtime, wondering how he could cash in on the situation. He decided it’d be a good idea to drag us over here, frighten the wits out of us to see how we’d react, whether we’d start seeing ghosts, conjuring them. And you went along with it, as you thought it’d be a good idea too.”

  “We did not drag you,” Piero growled at Rob, “you willingly came.”

  “Yes, but not to be a part of your wife’s thesis!”

  Louise intercepted. “Is that why you took us upstairs, to the high security wing? Why you led us past padded cells and rooms with bars on them, to test our imaginations?”

  “Yes,” confessed Kristina, “it is widely rumoured that the theatre, the one where Dr Gritti used to operate, is the most haunted room in the asylum. There are those that say they have gone there, but they admit they d
on’t stay long. Even the doctors after Gritti and Sanuto wouldn’t go in there as we have told you, for men of science, they let imagination get in the way of professionalism so easily. But we have been in there before, Piero and I, and we have seen nothing. It would have just been… interesting to see your reaction.”

  Although she knew he’d never do it, Rob looked as if he could hit her too.

  Kristina took a step back. “I’m sorry, as my husband said, we meant no harm.”

  Louise could hardly believe her ears. “So… that story you told us about your friend having slept the night in a padded cell upstairs, how you heard a scream, and rushed up to find it wasn’t him, was that to rile us, to get us going?” Piero nodded but it was defiantly so. He clearly didn’t like being exposed. “And you said that it’s different upstairs, that it’s easy to imagine things, thus putting the power of autosuggestion into practise.” On a roll, she continued. “Did you arrange for the bang upstairs too, the one that happened when we first arrived here and then later on the scraping sound? Have you got an accomplice with you, already on the island?” That idea took root. “That’s it, you’ve got an accomplice with you haven’t you? We’ve only your word there’s no other landing jetty, there could be. After all, if you’re going to scare us, you might as well scare us good and proper.” Her voice was nothing less than scathing. “You’d get better marks for your essay that way!”

  “There is no one else on the island.” In contrast to Louise, Kristina sounded weary. “What we did was stupid. We haven’t done such a thing before. We are not bad people, I promise. We are not dangerous. It was just… you were too good an opportunity to miss. As for that bang it could well have been some masonry falling, but the scraping sound, I don’t know. Look, you cannot deny we have been with you the whole time; we haven’t had time to do the things you accuse us of.” She faltered slightly. “Please, believe me.”

  “Believe you?” Rob spat. “There’s no way on God’s earth I believe you.”

  “On God’s forsaken earth.”

  Rob turned to Louise. “Sorry?”

  “Forsaken earth, that’s what this is, Rob. There’s no Godliness here.” Tears sprang to her eyes as she said it.

  “Lou,” Rob’s voice was surprisingly soft, he reached out a hand, meant to comfort her she thought. “I’ll tell you what isn’t here: ghosts. Kristina’s right about that at least.”

  “But the mist—”

  “Was a natural phenomenon, it was nothing more than that. We were all a bit spooked by the disappearance of the rucksack, our minds could have exaggerated what we saw.”

  So he was in agreement with Piero and Kristina, that it was imagination at work, collective imagination. But she had stood apart from the collective and seen something different in the mist – the veiled lady again. The first time she’d seen her, in Venice, she’d told Rob about it, but he’d dismissed it so readily, and walked away, not giving it another thought. She hadn’t told him about subsequent times. Would he believe such a neat theory if she had?

  Rob was addressing Piero. “You’ve got the key, I know you have. If you don’t give it to me right now, don’t blame me for my actions.”

  Kristina rushed to stand in front of her husband. “It was in the rucksack!”

  “That’s not true. Give it to me.”

  Piero stayed put behind his wife. “I haven’t got it. Accusing me won’t change that.”

  “Yeah, right. We’re not as naïve as you first thought.”

  As Rob made to step forward, seemingly determined that Kristina should not be a barrier to his intentions of hitting Piero again, and to shaking the key from him if he had to, there came a sound like the crack of a whip behind them. Close behind them. A huge whoosh of air actually accompanied the noise – Louise felt it brush against her cheek.

  Kristina whirled around. “Who’s there?” she screamed. “Who’s there?”

  But there was no one there. At least no one living.

  Kristina started sobbing. “I don’t understand. I don’t.”

  Piero thrust his hands at Rob. “See, how can I have orchestrated that?”

  Instead of stepping closer to Rob for comfort, Louise stepped back. “Have you… have you ever experienced anything like this before on the island?”

  Kristina shook her head. “No, I’ve told you, but we have never been here after dark.”

  “So you’ve never camped overnight, Piero?”

  “Only the insane would stay overnight.”

  Louise almost laughed. Did he realise what he’d said? Only the insane would stay overnight, and, if you weren’t insane, the island would do its best to drive you to it. Certainly her grip on reality was becoming tenuous. So much so that the sound of footsteps running overhead barely registered. Rob, Piero and Kristina, however, acted immediately, moving outwards, heading for the staircase.

  “Louise,” Rob barked. “It could be their accomplice!”

  Instead of following him, she retrieved her mobile phone. As the screen burst into life, she checked reception in the vain hope there’d be some signal, but it was non-existent. Next, she went to her photo gallery, the reason she’d taken it out in the first place.

  Rob finally noticed she hadn’t joined them. “Louise!” he called again.

  “Coming,” she said, walking forwards but slowly, taking her time.

  The sights and sounds of Venice as she scrolled through were almost a torment, full of landmark buildings, canals, bridges, houses, her and Rob, the two of them smiling, posing, pulling faces. There was even one of the four of them sitting together at dinner last night. The waiter had taken it, their glasses raised in salute. Was it really only last night?

  “Louise, come on, someone’s upstairs!”

  No, not someone, she knew that now. Something. The figures that they’d seen outside were no longer in the mist – they had, as she feared, found their way in. So many of them, the victims, but there were other energies too, more malevolent in nature – the perpetrators? All of them with one thing in common: they were excited because there was new energy to feast on, fresh blood. And the veiled lady was here too, leading the way.

  There it was! The house over the archway, the one in the painting in the hotel lobby, that she’d found whilst exploring and taken several photos of – expecting, always expecting, but that expectation hadn’t come true – until now. Of course there was the possibility that her imagination was playing tricks on her – that she was indeed a prime candidate for study, as Kristina had hoped, but somehow she didn’t think so. The veiled lady hadn’t been in any of the shots before, but she was in them now, staring, beckoning. Follow me. Find me. I am here.

  Someone had hold of her arm. “Louise, why the hell are you looking at your phone, it’s useless! Something’s going on upstairs, we’ve got to investigate. It might not be an accomplice, it could be animals.” He paused, as if struggling to convince himself of that. “I expect it is bloody animals. If they’ve got our bag we can get it back.”

  She felt like yelling at him, shouting – there are no animals up there, there are barely any on the island – nothing can live here, make a home here, be happy here, don’t you realise that? Nothing! But she didn’t, she let herself be dragged into the corridor where the other two were anxiously waiting, their eyes darting from her to the stairwell. Again Louise was reminded of those words she’d read a long time ago – My life is like a broken stair, winding round a ruined tower and leading nowhere.

  The stone steps ahead, they were different, however. They didn’t lead ‘nowhere’ – they led to hell, to so many people’s hell.

  Follow me. Find me. I am here.

  Staring at the steps, she gauged the distance between them and her and then, her mind made up, she pushed a startled Rob off her and started running. Holding onto the bannister this time, using it as a towrope almost, she hauled herself upwards.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “LOUISE!”

  Although she could
hear Rob’s voice, once again it had that muffled quality to it. They were in an empty building, it should be more resonant than that but he was in a different reality now, and she had entered another. Using the light that was on her phone, she continued to run, surprised at how sure-footed she was, how confident, as if she knew the way ahead, as if she’d trodden it a thousand times. Perhaps she didn’t need the light. She could feel her way. And if she faltered, the woman – the veiled lady – would guide her.

  I’ll follow you. I’ll find you. I promise.

  If she did, she might also find resolution.

  Are you evil?

  Would so many cleave to her if she was?

  Protect me. Keep me safe.

  Would she do that? Could she trust her to do that?

  She’d find out soon.

  Piero and Kristina had joined Rob in shouting her name, all of them demanding she stop putting herself and them in jeopardy. Their voices were at once angry and bewildered.

  “What do you think you are doing?” It was Piero. “Come back.”

  There was another scream – a man’s voice, not a woman’s.

  The sound stopped her urgent tracks. She had just turned the corner on the half landing, out of sight but close enough to listen, to hear what was unfolding.

  “Is it your ankle?” Piero was asking.

  “Yeah, I… I tripped. Where the hell did that big chunk of masonry come from? I don’t remember seeing it before.”

  “There is rubble, much debris. It must have been there,” Piero replied.

  “It wasn’t, I’m sure it wasn’t. We were only here a short while earlier, I think I’d have remembered, I’d have known to avoid it.” And then he cried out again. “Bloody hell it hurts! Help me. I can’t get up on my own. We have to get Louise.”

  “Why did she run off?” Kristina asked.

  “How the hell do I know? Get me up. Ah, shit!”

  “You cannot stand!”

  “No, Piero, I know that!”

  “Have you broken it?”

  “It’s a sprain I think, but a bad one. I can’t put any weight on it.”