Free A Beast in Venice: (Literary Horror set in Venice) by Michael E. Henderson

tuxedo, white scarf, and top hat. When Brigham looked away and then back again, Charles was an old man with a beat-up fedora, raggedy coat, and worn shoes.
    Old man Charles walked to the edge of a canal and stepped onto the water, walked a few paces, and then turned to Brigham. “Follow me,” he said as he walked down the middle of the canal without disturbing the surface.
    Brigham followed him onto the canal, staying a few paces behind.
    Pale eyes watched from the edge of the canal, peering out from skulls covered in dry, crackling skin.
    “What do you see?” Charles asked.
    “Skeletons. They’re watching us.”
    “You see death. Follow me and see life.”
    Charles turned and walked through a large doorway that had been sealed with bricks, and vanished. Brigham followed.
    They entered a vast room. Before them on a table was a girl of about eighteen, bound and gagged, writhing and nude.
    “Drink,” Charles said, and like a vicious animal tore out the girl’s throat with his teeth, which had become huge and animal-like, sending blood spraying into the air and into Brigham’s face. Blood bubbled at the wound as the girl tried to breathe.
    Brigham watched in horror as the girl morphed into a young man, though still missing his throat and still gushing blood. Charles again commanded him to drink. With this, he woke, full of terror and disgust, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. Thankfully, the spider wasn’t there.
     
     
     
    AT AN OUTSIDE TABLE AT A CAFÉ on the Rio Terà Canal, Brigham ordered red wine and watched people go by. He was surprised to find that a large part of the population parading past seemed now to be the shroud-eating vampires the old woman had talked about.
    A girl of about seventeen came to the café and sat at a table near him. She was slight of build with black hair and pale skin, wearing layers of black clothing and platform shoes with high laces. Exotic. Sexy. A vampire, perhaps. No, too stereotypical. Just an eccentric art-student girl, reading a book and drinking coffee. Another character walked past wearing clothes from the early nineteenth century: a light-colored top hat, vest, and long coat, walking like Groucho Marx, which he did because there was something wrong with him, not to be funny. Eccentric? Or vampire? Brigham couldn’t tell, although without the dream it never would have occurred to him to ask the question.
    Oh, they could be legion, these shroud eaters, he thought as he returned home. Rose had gone out, so he went into the living room, shut the door, got a bottle of Scotch from the cabinet, and for the first time in his life drank alone behind closed doors to hide what he was doing.
     
     
     
    THE NEXT MORNING, Brigham woke up to a pounding head. He felt like refried shit. His whole body ached. It was all he could do to move. He remembered that he had arranged with Mauro to go back to the herbalist that evening. She had a magic potion designed to deal with the shroud eaters. Brigham didn’t really want to fool with this hogwash, but Mauro had insisted, and Brigham had nothing better to do. On the other hand, the dream had affected his thinking. A rational and educated man starting to believe in vampires because of a dream? But people all over the world believed in them. Couldn’t he? Nah. Snap out of it, dummy. The effects of the dream on his mind had faded in proportion to the pain in his head. The meeting wasn’t for several hours, though, so he had the day to recover. He went back to sleep.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    X
     
     
    A few old men stood at the bar talking loudly, laughing, gesturing, and drinking tiny glasses of wine the Venetians called o mbre . Rose imagined they had known each other for sixty or seventy years. Grew up together, served in the army, went to each other’s wedding, were godfather to each other’s kids. Mauro was sitting in the rear of the room, a glass of prosecco in front of him. He got up and greeted Rose with a kiss on both