The Nosferatu Scroll

Epilogue

Venice is a maze of narrow streets and canals, lined with old buildings. Because of the continuing problems with flooding and subsidence, many of the older properties and especially a number of the early palaces, the palazzi, have been abandoned because water damage to their lower floors has fatally weakened the entire structure. Sad, crumbling and in some cases too dangerous to enter, these ancient buildings endure mainly because they are supported by adjacent properties. Without this, most of them would have collapsed decades or even centuries ago.

Beside one small canal at the southern end of the Cannaregio district stands a tall and narrow building that dates almost as far back as the founding of the city. Last inhabited in the early nineteenth century, both its doors – the canal and the street entrances – are locked and barred and the windows shuttered, as they have been for decades. It is beyond repair, the foundations slowly crumbling away into the waters below. Occasionally, the occupants of properties nearby can hear the rumble and splash as yet another piece of masonry falls away and tumbles down the interior of the building.

They have grown accustomed to these sounds, and rarely even remark on them. But these are not the only sounds that have recently been echoing through the old building.

Sometimes, late at night, the family who live next door can hear a faint slithering and swishing sound from one of the rooms on the very top floor of the doomed building, a room that they know has not been occupied for many years. Sometimes, the noises are loud enough to wake their children. And neither of their cats will even enter the rooms on the side of their house that abuts the deserted property.

They don’t know exactly what is making the noises, but they have their suspicions, because of the smell. Faint, but all-pervasive, the ruined house is beginning to smell distinctly of rotting flesh. Obviously something has got in there and died, they tell each other. And maybe the other noises are rats feeding on the remains.

Recently, the noises have started getting louder, and the smell stronger.