The Painting

by Ryan Casey

  The figure raised its shiny bald head and turned around to face Donny.

  He was completely frozen to the spot.

  The figure had a large, oval-shaped head. Its eyes were out of place; his white face like an unfinished waxwork model. Inside the cloak, the figure’s hands scratched at the ground, its arms as long and skinny as the rest of its body. It stared at Donny, eyes squinting as if to make sense of things.

  “Just need… just need to…” Donny tried to creep to the side, muttering under his breath as if not to acknowledge the figure. It’s not there. It’s not real. None of this is real.

  The figure frowned when Donny said the words, leaning its elongated neck towards him.

  It is fucking real.

  He stepped back. He’d have to find another way. He’d have to be ready to run.

  As the figure moved closer to him, he felt himself hit a tree behind him. His heart raced. He’d have to run. He’d have to back off and he’d have to run.

  When he felt the slender hand tickling his feet and saw the stretched, deathly pale arms beginning to wrap around him, he realised he hadn’t stepped back into a tree at all.

  Donny threw himself forward and ran past the figure, skipping his way underneath its enormous arms as it attempted to catch him. He could hear them mumbling behind him as he raced towards the house, not paying any attention to the ground beneath his feet or the trees at either side. Just run.

  He didn’t turn around once and just as well, because that’s when he saw the third one approaching from his left. Donny let out a whimper as a tear ran down his face. He could feel his knees beginning to weaken. The forest was growing thinner, the trees more sparse. Just keep going. Please, just keep going.

  And then he was outside on an open field and the house was right in front of him.

  He gasped as he examined the surroundings, which had seemingly appeared from nowhere. The dark wooden house, a few hundred yards from the mouth of the woods. A small fence in the middle of the field, the grass withered and brown from lack of attention.

  This was it.

  He heard their voices singing behind him. The singing. Like the boys, a beautiful, soft melody and rhythm. Shit. He ran across the field and hopped over the fence, making his way up the slight hill.

  When he reached the top of the hill, he turned round and saw it.

  The scene of the painting—in vivid clarity—the soft colours of the grass, the small wooden fence working its way around the area. The only difference was the lack of autumn leaves.

  Then he saw the six silhouetted figures, getting gradually larger as they approached.

  His stomach welled up with foreboding and anticipation as he turned around to look at Vittoria House. Thick ivy grew above the door, a hanging basket filled with decaying flowers swinging from side to side in the breeze. The windows were covered in thick brown grime, further hiding the darkness inside.

  He didn’t know what he had to do yet, but he knew that he’d have to go inside to find out. He turned back round to look at the scene—the six figures hovered closer, ever so slightly.

  He stepped up to the large, dirty-white door of the house and pushed it open.

  Almost home.

  Donny slammed the door shut, the sound of it rattling through the house as it slipped into place.

  He was inside.

  He soaked up the momentary relief and then turned around to examine his surroundings. There was a hallway leading down to what looked like a kitchen, two doors on the right, and a staircase at the bottom left. The carpet was discoloured and coated in dust, a damp mustiness in the air. Water trickled through the ceiling and onto the floor below, a stagnant waterfall of thick, brown gunge.

  The hallway was identical to the hallway in Manny Bates’ house back in his world. Identical in structure, just less cared for, which was surprising considering the state Manny Bates’ house had been in. He took a few steps as his breathing intensified, avoiding the dripping water above him. He had to get upstairs. He had to get to the painting and he had to wait.

  He walked up the stairs when he heard the whispering. Mumbling, too distant for comprehension, soft and unclear. Just visions. Stay strong. The whispering grew in intensity as he ascended further towards the top floor, his cold fists clenched together. As he reached the top step, he looked down the corridor—a perfect replica of Manny Bates’ house.

  The door to the bedroom was open. As he turned to walk down towards it, he heard the whispering again. It was coming from the door where he’d found the walls covered in Post-it notes back in the other world.

  The door where it all began.

  He looked down at the handle. There was a gap in the door, a red hue seeping out into the corridor. He stepped over to it and held his breath, pushing the door open, creaking to life on its hinges as it moved. He looked inside.

  A naked woman stumbled towards him, her yellowing teeth rattling as she rubbed her breasts. The flesh dangled from her bones and blood flooded the floor.

  “Get out… get out… fucking get out.”

  Donny jumped back and slammed the door shut, scratching at his forehead and exhaling rapidly. Ju-just visions. Just visions, the lot of it.

  When he looked back at the door, it was padlocked shut.

  They’re messing with you.

  He rubbed his arms together and walked down the hallway and into the bedroom. He didn’t have any more time to waste. He could hear their singing—hear their footsteps edging ever closer in the back of his mind. He knew they were coming for him. He had to let them come for him.

  When he entered the bedroom, he barely recognised it.

  The bed was completely void of any bedding, a wrinkled mess of black metal poles and sharp angles. The floor was covered in a black ash, which crumbled underneath his feet as he stepped further into the room. The window was boarded up, nails sticking out of it.

  And at the foot of the bed, a frame, complete with a rectangular painting of absolute, perfect black.

  Donny stepped over to it, his hands shaking. He faced it head on—stared right into it—but there was nothing but blackness. It looked like it had when the boys had got him. When they’d come into the room and the painting had exploded and they’d got him.

  Darkness. Perfect darkness.

  He heard the front door rattle free of its latch downstairs.

  Tap tap tap.

  He closed his eyes and wiped his brow, stepping over to the metal poles of the bedframe and perching on the edge of it. He had to recreate the scene. He had to recreate it and make it as much like it had been when he’d been taken.

  Picture the scene. Picture the scene.

  He imagined the luxurious red bed sheets, the warmth of the light as it kissed his skin. He imagined his phone, on the bedside cabinet.

  He imagined the boys.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  He sat with his head in his hands, squeezing his eyes shut. He could hear their footsteps creeping up the stairs. Their voices, singing that beautiful, hummed melody; a melody he could’ve sworn he’d heard a thousand times before yet could not recreate it if he tried, like a dream lost to the noise of the conscious mind.

  He heard the bedroom door creak open, the breeze brushing through the room.

  Keep your eyes closed. Keep them closed. Don’t look.

  The singing was so close now. He could hear it in his ears, right in the back of his head and throughout his entire body. The singing, the melody, the beautiful hummed vocals…

  He opened his eyes and saw them in front of the painting.

  Three boys, holding their hands up and thumping the air. Their eyes were wide and bloodshot as they stared at him—into him.

  Behind them, the three tall figures, bony white arms dangling down to the floor.

  The painting was complete.

  Donny nodded his head and tensed his eyelids shut as the figures stepped towards him.

  It’ll be over soon. It�
�ll be all over with soon.

  He kept them shut as he felt their cold breath on the back of his neck, their icy fingers rubbing up his legs and pressing him down onto the bedframe.

  He kept them shut when the gangly arms worked their way around his neck, tightening and tightening, the singing growing louder in his ears.

  And he opened them. The figures stared down at him, their mangled faces dripping mouldy flesh onto his body like wax candles.

  “Thank you,” Donny muttered.

  One of the figures pulled Donny’s jaw open and shoved its head inside his mouth, forcing its greasy body down his throat and disappearing inside him. Donny choked and tried to move but already his vision was fading.

  The singing, louder and louder.

  The figures getting closer.

  And the painting, complete.

  He closed his eyes as the entire house shook and the light engulfed him.

  III

  He gripped the quilt tightly over his head. They couldn’t see him and he couldn’t see them. He couldn’t let them see him.

  “Donny, you’re going to have to come out of there at some point.”

  At first, he didn’t recognise her voice. He thought it was his mind tricking him—his consciousness playing games, like it did when one woke up from a dream and were still readjusting to reality.

  “Donny, darling, please. We’re here for you now. We know you’re in there.”

  The voice grew more real—more comprehensible. She’d come for him. She’d got the call and she’d come for him.

  He pulled the quilt from over his head and looked around the room.

  He’d made it.

  But the painting. They would still be watching him from the painting. He felt them in his flesh. He felt them inside his body; their cold hands wrapping around his neck and squeezing the life out of him.

  A man’s voice: “We’re going to have to knock the door down if you don’t come out, mate.”

  Then a crash, then her face.

  He couldn’t let them come in here. He couldn’t let them get them too close. “Get… get out, just go, you can’t be here, they’re watching—”

  “Donny, it’s okay, it’s me,” the man said. He was holding his hands in front of him. Sara’s brother.

  “It’s the painting. They’re watching, and they’re behind you and—”

  “Donny, there’s nothing on the painting. Nothing on it. See? Look at it. There’s nothing there.”

  Donny tilted his head towards it. The bronzing frame.

  No. They’d be there. If he saw them, they’d come in. They’d get him and they’d get them all like they got Manny Bates.

  “Just look at it, Don,” Sara said, edging her fingers up to it. “There’s nothing there.”

  He squeezed his eyes together again before looking at the picture.

  The six trees. The forest. The grey sky. And the figures.

  The six hooded figures.

  He felt their presence as he smiled and shook his head, before the room was enveloped in darkness and cold.

  “See, there’s nothing there,” she said, as he drifted away into the darkness.

  Nobody spoke a word on the car journey home. He started to piece things together in his head—to make sense of what might or might not have happened. When he was in the room, in the bed, he forgot the rules of the gap. Only he could go through the gap, or at least, someone like him. Sara and her brother, they were safe.

  Probably.

  But he was back. He was home. He was safe.

  Sara’s brother—Jack—grumbled a few times as he drove them down the highway, accelerating past the already-speeding cars. Donny could tell that he wasn’t happy to be out here. Fucking madman, he’d say, and he was perfectly within his rights to say just that.

  As the car turned into the car-park of his high-rise apartment complex, he thought about Reginald. He thought about the things he’d seen—the things he knew—and what they meant for him and Sara. He felt them inside of him. He didn’t know who they were or what they were but he knew they were there now. Watching, waiting.

  Jack opened the car door and helped Donny out, who shook as he stepped into the fresh air. “Come on, buddy,” he said. “You get inside and get some rest. You look like you need it.”

  Sara smiled at him as he stepped out of the car. How long had he been out there? Had they come right away after he’d called her? He couldn’t be sure.

  When they stepped inside, Sara’s brother told Donny he’d make him a cup of tea but to go right through and get some rest. “If you want to talk, y’know… in your own time, okay?”

  Donny nodded. Sara was still completely silent, barely looking him in the eye. He stepped into the bedroom and sat on the bed, his mind easing off as he tried to comprehend it all.

  A few minutes after he’d been sitting alone on the bed, Sara came into the room.

  She moved slowly, as if too much action was bad for Donny’s senses or something. She was holding something to her chest—his notepad. Donny’s eyes lit up. His book. She’d saved his book.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  Donny leaned his head into his hands as she stood above him, scratching her arms. “Just tired. Just… just tired. I could really do with some rest.” He smiled at her.

  She raised her eyebrows in delayed acknowledgement. “Rest. Right, rest. That’s fine. I…” she placed the notepad onto the table. “How’s the book going?”

  Donny smiled. Not only did he have all his progress, but he had his memories. He had it all. He could finally work on providing for them. He could finally be okay again. “It’s good,” he said. “The house—it helped. It really helped.”

  Sara smiled. He could see the tears welling up in her eyes. She nodded and walked back towards the door. “That’s good,” she said, choking back the tears. “That’s good. I’ll—” He saw her eyes divert towards the notepad. “I’ll be back in soon. You… you get some rest.”

  “Sara,” Donny said.

  She stopped by the door and rubbed her arms as if his company was the last thing she wanted to share right now. She turned round and smiled. He could see her eyes were red and distant. He hadn’t seen them that way for years.

  “How did you know? To come for me? How did you know?”

  Sara laughed and wiped her eyes. “You don’t remember?”

  Donny frowned. “What d’you mean ‘don’t I remember?’”

  Sara shook her head, then pulled her phone out of her pocket and hit the middle button, holding the handset in the air.

  “Sara, I… please. You need to come. You need to come get me. Please. It’s not safe. I lov—”

  Then crackling and white noise.

  Donny stared at Sara, his mouth dangling open. “I… I didn’t send that. I did—”

  “I got that message this morning,” she said. “You called me at eight AM this morning and you left me that message. You don’t remember that?”

  Donny’s head rattled with ideas. “This… it can’t have been this morning. I—I wasn’t there this…”

  “You rang me and you left that message this morning, Donny,” Sara said, raising her voice. She sniffed away at her welling tears. “We promised. You promised, remember? After what happened last time… We promised if anything like this happened again that we’d go straight back to the doctor.”

  “Sara, I didn’t leave that message,” Donny said, digging his fingernails into his palms. Why was this happening? “I—I didn’t send it. I didn’t.”

  Sara watched him with pity and nodded. “Right. Right. You… you settle back in.” She smiled. “I need to get my brother a drink or something. He’s done so much for us today. I’ll be… yeah.” She turned and walked out of the room.

  The door closed and he was on his own again.

  The answerphone message. What did it mean? Was it them trying to speak through him? He saw his notepad staring out at him. Did the message even matter? Sure, he’d been gone a coupl
e of days, and granted, he wasn’t in the best state. But he was here. He was here, he was safe, and he was about to make this work. They were about to live those dreams.

  He could finally hide that ring beneath the cushion when they got their new home.

  Donny walked over to his desk, perching into his roller-chair. How he’d missed his bloody roller-chair. He reached his arms behind his head and spun around a couple of times in it before leaning forward and aligning his notepad. He was tired, but he needed to get the story down on paper. If he could just outline it, get it down, then he could get some sleep.

  He opened the front of the pad and he saw it.

  He flicked to the second page and he saw it again.

  How could this be happening? This couldn’t be right. He’d… he’d started the novel before the painting. He’d started the novel before any of this had happened, and yet…

  He tore through every page but they were all the same: the same red handwriting, the same two words. It must’ve been the wrong notepad she’d picked up. Something can’t have been right.

  He turned back to the front cover and he saw the project note staring at him in the top corner: Manny Bates, 2011. This was his notepad. There was no mistaking it. He slumped forward and scratched his forehead with his hands. Why was this happening?

  The door creaked and Sara was in the room again. This time, she was with another man—a man in a white coat. He smiled at Donny and nodded, his eyes flicking to the pad.

  “Who’s this?” Donny asked.

  Sara bit her lip and brushed away her tears. “Donny, this is… this is Doctor Rogers. He’s—he’s here to make you better, honey. He’s here to make you better so we can make a fresh start again.”

  Donny’s hands shook as the doctor walked towards him. “But—wait, I don’t need a doctor. None of this—all of this happened. I was there and I fell through a painting and, and… and Reginald. Ask fucking Reginald. I’m okay. I’m here now. I’m here now and I’m oka—”

  “Donny, you’re not okay,” Sara said, pity in her eyes. “But we will be soon.”

  Donny squeezed the sides of his head. This could not be happening. He’d got back. Things were supposed to be okay now. Things were supposed to be better than ever.