Mind Terrors 1

by D I Russell

  “Still no work in it if you ask me,” said her dad.

  And there it was.

  Had her mother done it on purpose? Lit the conversational fuse that often ended in an explosion?

  “I wouldn’t waste my time,” said Kelly, always picking her battles. “I mean, what can you do with it? Not like artists make that much. You can’t really call it a career.” She placed her magazine aside and continued to thumb through the pages, scanning the articles on hook ups, break ups, and as far as Samara was concerned, fuck ups. “I’m going into sports science. Or education. Plenty of time to decide.”

  “But please, Sam, put that away now,” said their mother. “Not while we’re eating.”

  “Like I said,” Samara growled. “It’s homework. I have to plan around my final presentation.”

  Her heart stepped up. The discourse regarding the career opportunities for a young artist was a regular occurrence over dinner. A recent addition to reluctant conversations was Samara’s final presentation for the year, to be held at an art show at the college. Her family’s attendance had been up for discussion of late. Why the hell did she have to mention it now?

  Her creation, movement captured so vividly it seemed to float and waver in the paper, leered up at her, revelling in her misery. It was yet another face of the beast that roamed the dark space between her and the rest of her family. She would always be on the outside looking in, as if they sat in the lounge, watching television or playing a board game, one big happy family. Samara would find herself out in the cold night, watching the light that spilled from the windows of her house, projecting the happiness within. The entity circled the house, blocking her advance towards the welcoming sights, the smiling faces. Through its darkness, the faces inside would stretch and skew, their excited conversation becoming strange and alien. Samara simply couldn’t understand, failed to grasp the meaning. What existed between them that she could no longer see, removed by the shadow of the prowling fiend that sat between, an ethereal guard dog, sealing off the family inside?

  “It’s always monsters,” said Kelly, flicking over a page. “You’re not even that good.”

  “Come on,” pressed her mother. “Let’s put it away and enjoy our dinner, eh?”

  Her dad certainly wasn’t allowing her work to put him off his food. He cut a slab of lasagne free and shovelled it into his mouth.

  Samara stared into the eyes of her mocking black and white sketch. “Why do you always take her side?”

  “What, dear?” Her mother popped a piece of broccoli into her mouth. Her left cheek bulged as she spoke around it. “I haven’t taken anyone’s side. There aren’t any sides to take!”

  “I can’t do my homework at the table, but she can read her stupid magazine. You think I’m wasting my time doing art at college but she’s barely passing high school.”

  “I am not!” Kelly spat, finally looking up from her magazine. “I’m going to university and doing education.”

  “The only thing you could teach kids is putting a look together.” Samara smirked. “You’re not even that good.”

  “Better than looking like you,” her sister returned. “Dressing like a freak. Oh, look at me, I dress in black because I’m so different—”

  Their father’s fist slammed onto the table. The plates clattered.

  The charcoal snapped between Samara’s fingers.

  “Will you girls knock it off? You think your mum and me work all day to come home and listen to this shit? Eat your damn lasagne. Both of you.”

  Samara stared at her broken piece of charcoal, weighing up her next move. The demon in her sketch pad, caught in its amusement, pulled at her attention.

  Finish it, she thought, selecting the longer of the two pieces and resuming her frantic, dark cuts across the page. You’ve come this far. Finish it.

  Her father huffed. “Sam.”

  She ignored him. Work on the eyes. The claws.

  “Samara.”

  The blood dripping from its chin, and curve of its breast. It’s a her now. I see it. Add more teeth—

  “Samara!”

  “What?” She slammed the charcoal onto the page, causing a dirty smear as the implement snapped further, sending dark powder across the paper.

  “This,” he growled. “It’s all this. The attitude. The…” He flapped a hand towards the ruined picture, struggling to find the words.

  Samara readied herself to leave the table, finally succumbing to their demands but on her terms. She closed the sketch pad. She couldn’t sit back and return to a pleasant family meal now.

  “So you’d rather I be more like her?”

  Squeezed between the pages in her clutched sketch pad, her creation nodded its approval. Some monsters are invincible in the darkness. They needed to be dragged out into the light, kicking and screaming.

  Her mother sighed, placing her knife and fork on her plate, and resting her chin on interlocked fingers. “Don’t try and turn this into a popularity contest between you and your sister,” she said, steel entering her voice. “I won’t have you two at each other’s throats all the time.” She swallowed, taking a pause to plan her route. “We don’t prefer Kelly over you, although that seems stuck in your head. We just… It’s not normal, hiding in your room all the time, watching those…watching the kind of films that you watch.”

  “Need to throw all that rubbish out,” said her father, subtle as a sledgehammer and tucking back into his food. It takes more than this to come between a working man and his dinner. “You’re bang on, Brenda, bang on. It’s not normal for an eighteen-year-old girl to be into all this macabre guff. You want to be out there, making friends, having some fun. Living life.”

  “And whose life is it, Dad?” Samara stood, almost knocking her chair over. Kelly had returned to her magazine, happy to help throw fuel on the fire but seeking shelter from the heat.

  Their mother, too. She suddenly found the folds and layers of her lasagne fascinating and could barely look away. “Love, please…”

  “No. It’s about time this was said.” Samara swept her hair from her face, tossing it over her shoulder. She glowered at her father. “I know you wish I was like her.” The word was vinegar on her tongue. “Because she’s just like you. The protégé. I spent so much time on this, Dad, so much goddamn time. But you know what? You’re right. I should throw all this rubbish away. You’re right. Complete waste of time. I could just be a fucking taxi driver.”

  ***

  Samara studied the delicate tool pinched her thumb and forefinger. Her family had avoided her for the rest of the night, which was a godsend. It allowed her to continue with her more intimate work. She dropped the tiny instrument into a crumpled envelope, safely depositing it in her desk drawer. Having changed into her pyjama pants, she pulled her long sleeves down and pressed play on the VCR. Looked like she’d be able to watch the sequel in peace after all.

  2.

  Samara leaned in close to the tall canvas, breathing in the smell of fresh paint. She examined the curve of bone, the result of her morning’s endeavours. The enamel shine, catching the light, before the shades of polished ivory were smeared with blood, torn flesh and skin taking over.

  Perched atop a metal stool, the artist sat back and selected a Polaroid picture from the selection lined up along the easel. The butcher had been a little confused by her request but had allowed her to proceed all the same. The picture she held displayed a hanging pig carcass, the innards removed. She glanced back and forth between the photograph and her depiction.

  She grimaced around the tip of the thin brush pinched between her teeth. The sight of the meat failed to disgust. How can one sit and eat a rasher of bacon or pork chop and be turned off by such images? No, her displeasure belonged to the limitations of the photograph. The heart of the pig had been removed, and it had probably been days since blood had circulated through the animal. Happy with her glistening bones on the canvas but unsure exactly how the fresh blood should sit, Samara heaved a
sigh and replaced the picture. Plucking the brush free, she leaned in once more, dabbing blotches of subdued crimson where bone met muscle.

  She called her final piece Outside, in tribute to the movie. To avoid plagiarising the aesthetics of Woe, the demonic antagonist, Samara had taken the time to break the character down to her core elements. Supporting her filled sketch pad of image ideas was a notebook, brimming with alternate histories and theories regarding Woe. In the films, everyone feared Woe, spending ninety minutes trying to destroy her. Samara felt sorry for the creature. It must be a lonely, living on the outskirts of society, looking enough like everyone else to blend into the crowd, yet too different to belong. This existence was both her blessing and her curse. Why would you want to be like everyone else when you had such talents hidden behind the mask? It was the hunger, Samara had surmised, that drove Woe and would ultimately be her undoing. She could never lead a normal life; the hunger always betrayed her.

  She had tried to capture this in her painting. Rather than composing a direct reproduction of her idol, she had merely paraphrased in paint and brush. The girl in the picture was no supernatural being, though no one could inflict such self-harm and live. Samara had based her on a gothic model who’d caught her eye, often appearing in the metal magazines, selling corsets, boots, and spiked jewellery. The thick, black makeup couldn’t truly hide the natural porcelain beauty of the girl. And those eyes… What had she done to reach this step on the rock star ladder? What future did she see? Samara had intended her subject to have plucked out her eyes and offer them to the viewer in each palm. She scrapped the idea, desperate instead to capture the melancholy gaze of the young, delicate model.

  On the canvas she stared out, eyes cool and withdrawn despite the anguish displayed by the rest of her face. Her small mouth was spread wide in a silent scream, teeth bared. Had Samara captured them at the moment of transformation? Like Woe, the fangs and front incisors were unnaturally slender and pointed. She’d worked hard on the mouth, trying to avoid a vampiric look, what with the long fangs. The inclusion of extra needle-like teeth had created a nightmare, one that pierced the attention and held you trapped, held you close. The real terror lurked behind the thin spikes of ivory, writhing in the darkness, crawling over each other like snakes in a deep, lightless pit.

  You had to look closely to see it, and this was Samara’s intention, and her tribute to Outside. The girl on the canvas held this confused darkness inside, and a casual viewer would have no idea unless they stepped close enough to really examine the piece.

  However, what they would immediately see from across the room, the act that screamed from the painting in lavish gore and carnival glee, was the anguish of the girl. Her pale thin fingers of both hands tugged at her bare chest. Her nails pierced the soft skin, separating it like melting rubber, and tearing it from her body in two great handfuls. As a pervert spreads his jacket wide to expose himself and the sight of his intimacy invades the unwilling witness, image raping the vision, so too did the girl on the canvas. Strands of torn muscle and sinew clung to her bloodied ribs, and within, her still beating heart, wet and glossy, hung on display.

  As the painting had begun to take shape, Samara had caught some of the other students in the class staring.

  “But that’s what you want, right?” said Lily. They’d been discussing their respective days over a smoke, waiting for the bus.

  “Yes and no. It depends. Are they just looking? Or are they seeing?”

  They see her suffering, but will they get close enough to see the cause?

  Samara eased down from the high stool, heavy boots touching down on the tiles of the art room, and walked back to her workstation.

  Not bad at all, she thought, assessing her work across the short distance.

  A giggle and quick whisper sounded from the corner.

  Samara glared at the small group as she cleaned her brush. They weren’t allowed in here, especially with students trying to concentrate.

  Vicki was sitting before her own masterpiece, her back to the canvas as she chatted with three other girls. The blonde artist had done very little in the way of art over the last hour, instead gossiping with her friends in hushed chatter. Some comments were apparently too fun to keep restrained, and occasionally the volume spiked, followed by laughter. Samara had gritted her teeth against the intrusion, trying to stay focussed, wishing she hadn’t left her portable CD player at home. Some Metallica would easily drown those fuckers out.

  “Bit overboard, don’t you think?” asked one of the girls. Samara thought she was referring to the painting, an expected reaction from the clique, but the girl motioned about her face with a finger. “The makeup. Just a bit, eh?”

  Who the fuck are you? thought Samara.

  Vicki glanced across. “Ignore her, Sam. Julia thinks she’s funny. You got paint on you.”

  Flustered, Samara dropped the brush in the jar and sought out her bag. She pulled out her small, round mirror and checked her face. Black and red paint smeared her chin and the corners of her mouth, a result of clutching brushes between her teeth. Looked like she’d vomited a mixture of oil and blood. She quickly wet a paper towel and set to work. “Thanks.”

  Vicki’s picture, setting behind the group and patiently waiting for further work, was a self-portrait. A house, Vicki’s home Samara presumed, stood in the sun. With the viewpoint from the garden, with various colourful flowers blossoming around the edge of the canvas, you could see through an open window to the young woman sitting painting inside. Seated before an easel and canvas, the girl stared back at the viewer through the window, creating the illusion that the real Vicki and her rendered counterpart were capturing each other. Samara had overheard her classmate refer to the piece as Perception, a title that Miss Jones had fawned over. Technically the piece was sound, but what did it have to say? It had all the depth of…well… Samara’s father spoke in her head, just in from work and sat in front of the television. A nice bowl of fruit. Something natural.

  Certainly not prize-winning material. Art needed layers.

  Done cleaning her face, Samara turned her back on the chattering quartet to once again study her own creation. Standing a few metres away, even she failed to see the presence, the dark facet of the girl, contained inside. Only her pain.

  Weeks of work. Months of her family telling her it was all a waste of time. A lifetime of questioning stares from across the room.

  It didn’t speak to her from the canvas. It wailed.

  She picked up her brush once more, flicking bloody droplets from the bristles.

  ***

  “I don’t get it,” said Samara, gesturing as she spoke, waving her cigarette like a magic wand. “If I had a group of friends in there, Jones would kick us all out straight away. But they’re always there. Never shut up.”

  Lily, sitting beside her on the low wall outside the main college building, nodded, pinching her own cigarette. She wore violet woollen gloves against the growing autumn chill, with fingers crudely cut free, so she could still smoke.

  Night had already begun to descend. Lights blazed on the upper floors, mostly the science departments. Those who strode past on the way to the bus station were wrapped up in thick coats. Lily’s copper hair, not short enough to be boyish but short enough to make her mother cry, was hidden under a knitted cap.

  Across the road lay a wide playing field behind an empty church, a short cut to another area of the college. Come lunchtimes, the worn patch of green would be occupied by students seeking to escape their readings and assignments by kicking a ball or basking in the sun in June. No games were played this late in the dying afternoon.

  Samara squinted through the murk, staring across the wide, grassy area. Rows of windows shone on the far side; classrooms still holding their captives. They threw enough light across the playing field to reveal a lone figure, standing in the centre circle of an impromptu football pitch. A girl with long dark hair, black clothes, barely visible in the creeping night.
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br />   Samara took a long drag of her cigarette, savouring the rich, dark taste, the slight chemical tone beneath, and turned back to her friend. She loved this time of year, and not just because of Halloween, no matter what her parents thought. The one night of the year she passes as normal! her dad often joked. The early darkness and the tightening cold were festive. So many celebrations to look forward to. The usual Halloween costume party at The Scholar pub just down the street, bonfire night, Christmas… The hint of smoke on the breeze at dusk as those with fireplaces lit them up. People grew closer as winter started to rear its head.

  She glanced back at the playing field. The girl remained.

  “You think your final piece will be ready for the show?” asked Lily, casting a nod at Samara’s sketchpad that lay between them on the wall. Her friend studied languages and knew little about art. She, of course, loved every sketch and painting of Samara’s, and even had one of her more bizarre pieces on her bedroom wall: a soul-consuming digital spider traversing a web of colourful wires, diodes, and twinkling LEDs. It meant the world to Samara that Lily enjoyed her work. “Only a few days left.”

  “Doesn’t need much more now. Mostly background work, but I’m not quite decided what I want.”

  “Blood!” cried Lily. “Guts! More maggots! Go all out. Really fuck with them.”

  “You can’t just throw that stuff in,” said Samara. “Not without reason.”

  Lily sucked in the remains of her smoke, stubbed out the butt on the brick wall, and tossed it over her shoulder onto the college lawn. “Which bus you getting?”

  Samara gripped her sleeve and checked her watch. It showed a little after five. Kelly would have been back from high school for about an hour, taking up residence on the sofa, claiming the television until their dad returned and took charge. Then the house would be filled with the sounds of football commentary. Or rugby. Or cricket. Whatever he could find. Mum would finish her shift and come home harried, slamming into the oven what she’d grabbed on her way out of the supermarket. Samara had aimed to get the first bus back and watch Outside 2 again, uninterrupted from start to finish. Fat chance of that. Having the worth of her work dissected over an oven-ready pizza would be the agenda for the evening.