This Haunted World Book One: The Venetian: A Chilling New Supernatural Thriller (18 page)

As all three stood and stared, there was a noise overhead, a loud clap of thunder that made them all jump. Rain started to fall – big fat drops that would quickly soak them to the bone if they didn’t react and get out of it.

“Quick, to the asylum!” Piero shouted.

Galvanised into action, she, Rob and Piero started to scramble over the fallen tree and the vine-like vegetation back towards Kristina. She looked shocked at the sudden change of weather too, her eyes wide as she stared upwards. It seemed to take an age to reach her but, when they did, all four turned as if they were one and ran through the grounds, over the sodden, sinking earth, towards the main building that was waiting so patiently. Although it was the last thing Louise wanted to do, to go back in there, be confined, they had no choice – they needed shelter or they’d risk hypothermia remaining in cold, wet clothes all night.
All night?
She’d resigned herself to that fact too.

In the office, she grabbed the torch from Rob and scrutinised the room again, half expecting the furniture to be upturned this time, some ghostly figure responsible, but it hadn’t moved a second time. Whether that was a comfort or not, Louise couldn’t decide.

“Bloody hell, your weather!” Rob spoke as though the Italians were solely responsible for such contrary elements. “Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse.”

Piero stood shivering. “We must start searching.”

“Then we split up as I’ve already suggested,” Rob replied. “It’s more efficient.”

“No, please.” Kristina was still insistent. “It is so much safer to stick together.”

“It’s just a building,” Rob argued but Kristina was having none of it.

“It’s a dangerous building!”

Rob exhaled loudly, raking one hand through his hair as he did so. All of them were standing apart, in various poses of frustration, Kristina still picking at her nails, Piero pinching the bridge of his nose. As for Louise, so many emotions were fighting for a stronghold: confusion, despair, acceptance and sympathy – the figures in the mist, how they clung to the veiled lady, it moved her. And, after the initial shock, the writing on the wall in the cottage had had the same effect; it seemed like such a desperate act.

Earlier in the day there’d been a crash from upstairs but now there came a scraping sound, like someone dragging one of the metal beds across the floor.

They all heard it but Kristina was the first to react. She almost leapt across the distance to her husband. “There’s someone here. There is!”

“There’s no one,” Piero assured her. “If there was, their boat would still be outside.”

“Jesus wept, this is ridiculous!” exclaimed Rob. “I’ll go and see.”

Louise blocked his path. “Don’t.” Inclining her head, she whispered, “Kristina.”

The other woman was crying again, one hand wiping at her eyes, the other still holding onto Piero. “My rucksack, where’s my rucksack? Who took it, who’d do such a thing?”

Piero started speaking to her in Italian, his voice very low and very fast. Louise looked at Rob, who was looking back at her, his nostrils flaring. Whatever the sound had been, whoever had made it, it had been brief. Silence descended. But it wouldn’t last long, she was sure of it. There’d be other noises, other sights to endure. According to her watch, it was a little before six – there was still so much night to go.

Piero continued to talk to Kristina, comforting her Louise presumed, but Rob clearly thought otherwise. He stepped forward, not a gesture of solidarity, there was a definite threat behind it. “Talk in English,” he demanded. “So we can all understand what you’re saying.”

Piero looked stunned by Rob’s request. “My wife is upset.”

“Talk in English,” Rob repeated. “I don’t want any secrets.”

“Secrets?” Piero laughed but it was not the boom of earlier. “I don’t understand what you mean, of course there are no secrets.”

Something in the way he said it made Louise frown, his voice had risen slightly, but that could just be nerves. Rob was a tall man, he was broad, and Piero, although not slight, was smaller. And Rob was angry,
obviously
angry. He’d had enough of being on the island, but hadn’t they all? It didn’t do to lose your cool, not in this kind of place. Whatever was here would feed on such emotions and grow stronger. All the books she’d read on the subject in the past, be they fact or fiction, all the films she’d seen, suggested that. Anger, panic and hatred
woke
things from slumber, things that should remain asleep.

“Rob,” she said, “let’s get on with our search. The rucksack’s not outside as far as we can see. But it must be here somewhere. It can’t just disappear, that’s not possible.”

Even as she said the words, she wasn’t sure she believed them. At this moment anything seemed possible. They’d entered into some sort of twilight zone in which the ‘Italian Dream’ had fast become a nightmare, and they the star players. The world was still out there, the normal world, the world she knew, but it was so far away. She clenched her teeth, screwed her eyes shut.
Stay calm
. She’d try but the others weren’t faring so well.

Rob was much closer to Piero and Kristina now, standing in front of them. “Louise is right, it’s impossible that a bag could just disappear. Are you sure you haven’t hidden it, that it’s not part of your game?”

“Game?” The word ignited Piero. He forced Kristina’s hand from him and squared up to Rob. For a second Louise wanted to giggle,
insanely
giggle. He reminded her of a terrier, small and brave, but stupidly so, not realising his limitations – that in a battle between them the Rottweiler would always win. “You think I wanted this to happen, for the rucksack to disappear, that I planned it? It is an accident, just an accident.”

“A
convenient
accident.”

“What is convenient about it, Rob? I don’t want to be here any more than you do! Not after dark.” He flustered. “I admit it is a mistake we’ve made, a bad mistake and one that I… that
we
will learn from but there’s no point in arguing. Time is getting on.”

“Then tell me where it is!”

“I’ve told you, how many times must I tell you, I don’t know!”

Kristina stepped forward, wrestled the torch from her husband and started shining it haphazardly around, the light jagged as it bounced off the walls. “It’s here,” she was muttering, “it has to be here.”

“It’s not,” Rob sneered at her, “unless you’ve returned it behind our backs.”

“Behind your backs?” Piero exploded. “When, Rob, when?”

“Ughhh!” The sound that escaped Rob was guttural. “We need to fucking find it.”

Louise interjected, “Rob, come on.”

All eyes looked towards the doorway, to what lay beyond. It was so dark, so
unknown
. What if… whatever had been in the mist was now in the asylum, external walls no barrier to such an entity. What if it had drifted through cracks and windows and was now clothed in the gloom of the interior, something black instead of white and therefore harder to spot. Beings that moved, that writhed, that were reaching out, the veiled lady herself, whom she’d already seen upstairs, who seemed to be stalking her, following her from the alleys of Venice to the corridors of Poveglia.

Go Home
. If they wanted that to happen, they had no choice, they had to go deeper in, observing Kristina’s rule about safety in numbers, even if two of that number weren’t to be trusted. The dining room was their first port of call. On the alert for any other sounds, they left the office and trooped towards it, the four of them huddled together, forming a barrier against what might suddenly appear as the mist had appeared. Turning right again, they entered a large room, a few tables and chairs in it as well as plenty of rubble covering the floor and vegetation that had lost all its colour in the low light. Piero and Rob were back in charge of the torches, shining them into every corner. There was a scurrying but before Kristina had a chance to react, Piero was on it.

“
Topi
,” he said, “it’s just mice.”

Mice? He was playing it down. It’d be rats, altogether more sinister creatures.

There was nothing in the dining room, or in the day lounge except more empty chairs. The sight of them causing Louise to shudder, it was easy to imagine patients still occupying them, some sitting perfectly still, others rocking back and forth whilst gazing fixedly ahead – spending hours that way, days, weeks and years. She was relieved to leave and enter the laundry room but her relief was short lived.

As the men shone their torches into the mangles, Louise stumbled into something: it made a clattering sound as it fell to the floor. She looked down, half knowing, half fearing what it might be. She swung round, glared at the others, at Piero and Kristina in particular.

“What are they doing there?”

The other three came hurrying over.

“What is it?” There was a note of hope in Rob’s voice. “Have you found the rucksack?”

“It’s bones, more damned bones.”

Rob looked crestfallen. “They weren’t here before.”

“No,” agreed Louise, “I’m aware of that.”

“
More
bones?” asked Kristina. “What do you mean?”

Louise had to remind herself that Kristina hadn’t seen what was in the last room in the cottage, that she’d kept her distance. Deliberately? She turned to her, turned
on
her if she were honest. “Did you do this, put these here, you and Piero?”

“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.”

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 don’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.