Read Online A Beast in Venice: (Literary Horror set in Venice) by Michael E. Henderson - Free Book Online Page A

canal.” He stepped out of the pile of wet clothes, past Rose, and into the bathroom. He grabbed a towel off the rack and started drying himself off.
    Rose stood in the doorway, hands on hips. “Then what happened?”
    “I jumped into a canal.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”
    “And I didn’t have anything to drink until after—”
    “Please, I know you, and I wasn’t born yesterday. Tell me what really happened.”
    He told her. She expressed her disbelief of his story; it was clear to her what had happened to him. The courage from the booze had waned, and the canal-water-and-gin-soaked Brigham, though innocent, was lashed convincingly by the tongue of woman.
    “You didn’t see anyone go through a wall” 
    “Okay,” was the only answer he could muster.
    “And no one was chasing you.”
    “Then who were they chasing?”
    “They weren’t chasing anyone,” she said, her voice tight but not quite shouting. “They were just running. You are starting to see things. You need to lay off the booze. It’s going to kill you.”
    He showered and then lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. There was no point in arguing. Who could blame her? He had been drinking and had fallen into a canal. That’s all she could see, because that’s all there was to see. They didn’t say anything to each other the rest of the night. For the first time in fifteen years they went to bed pissed at each other. She was right about the booze, but he did see people go through walls, and he was chased. And by God and by glory, he was going to find out why.
     
     
     
    THE NEXT MORNING, the air still heavy with tension, he made coffee and tea, sliced strawberries, and scrambled eggs with scallions and served it to her in bed.
    She smiled when she saw the tray’s contents. “Oh! This is beautiful. And it smells so good.”
    “Hard to mess up scrambled eggs and onions.”
    “It’s very thoughtful, and I accept your apology.”
    “You’re right about the booze.”
    “I worry about you. It could really affect your health,” she said, holding out her arms for him to come to her.
    He moved toward her. “I’ll try to cut back.”
    “That’s all I ask,” she said, giving him a hug and a kiss. “And forget about people going through walls.”
    “That too.”
    “Perfect.”

 
     
     
     
     
     
    IX
     
     
    At the studio, he made a pot of coffee from a new tin and started to work. He put a blank canvas on an easel, soaked a brush in turpentine, mixed it with black paint, and scribbled a few lines and curves across the barren white surface. He studied it, sipping coffee. It sucked.
    “Tell me why I shouldn’t throw you into the canal,” he said to the painting. The painting didn’t answer but stared back innocently.
    “Tell me why I shouldn’t throw you all into the canal,” he said to all the paintings. They didn’t respond but sat quietly like wrongly scolded children. Good thing he wasn’t fucked up. He might very well have taken the whole bunch of them and tossed them into the water.
    After staring hopelessly at the new painting for a few minutes more, he applied blue in the same manner as the black, resulting in numerous drips of turpentine-diluted blue paint. It didn’t look so bad, and he thought maybe he should stop there and declare the painting finished. He sat on the sofa. Tired, weak, and beaten from his labors, he soon fell asleep.
     
     
     
    WHEN HE WOKE, a huge spider dangled from the ceiling and dropped toward him. He flew off the sofa, shouting in terror, landing on the floor on his rump. He scrambled backward to the other side of the room in a crab walk, knocking over a table, sending paint and turpentine crashing to the floor. When he looked back, the eight-legged son of a bitch had vanished. He moved the cushions of the sofa with a broom handle, flipping them up and jumping back. Nothing there. And for good reason: there was no spider.
    “I fucking hate that,” he said. This wasn’t the