The Ghost of Blackwood Lane

by Greg Enslen

  Judy had no idea what to say.

  This had always been her secret—it was what kept her sane and centered, through all the beatings.

  Vincent was looking at the painting, his bleary eyes traveling across the spray of stars and the roaring silence of the crashing waves. There was no way for her to know what he was thinking, but some naïve part of her hoped that he might be pleased—maybe so pleased with what she had done that he would allow her to continue, or even let her hang some of the paintings in the house.

  He turned and looked deep into her eyes. She must have been smiling a little because she could see his eyes do that narrowing thing, coming together like he wasn’t really understanding what he was looking at. Slowly, he smiled.

  Judy suddenly realized that all the beatings and torture that had come before were only a precursor to what would come now, things that she could not even imagine. She saw the look of someone who really wanted her dead. There was no appreciation for her talent—only anger at her presumption there could be anything in her life that did not involve him.

  All of this passed between them in the space of a heartbeat.

  She glanced at the woman behind Vincent, relieved that there was someone else here with them—maybe it would be the only thing that could save her.

  “Gina! Go upstairs, into the bedroom, and wait for me!”

  Vincent pointed up the stairs without taking his eyes off his wife. He had that look on his face again, the one that had always accompanied the worst beatings, but there was something else now, something more.

  The girl hesitated, and for one long moment, Judy thought the young woman might turn and bolt for Blackwood Lane and get away. In her mind, Judy was torn—the woman was an interloper, but her presence might keep Vincent from killing Judy with his bare hands.

  Slowly, the girl walked across the living room, glancing at the painting. She silently climbed the stairs and stepped into the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Vincent turned and looked at Judy and the painting.

  “So, you’ve been busy, huh? Is this what you do with your time when I’m not around?”

  Judy nodded, unable to speak. Nothing she could say would matter anyway.

  “Instead of cleaning this house?” Vincent said, his voice growing louder with each word. “Instead of making food for me, or taking care of all the other things you’re supposed to?”

  Silence. She couldn’t think of what to say, but she couldn’t imagine her life without her paintings. She would fight him if she had to, but if she didn’t have….

  He turned and picked up the painting.

  “No!” she shouted.

  Vincent Luciano turned and looked at her and smiled.

  “No? You’re going to tell me ‘No’?”

  The room was quiet. Judy stood still, but it felt like every nerve in her body was vibrating like a guitar string.

  “You say ‘No,’ and then what—I’m going to listen?” Vincent asked. “You’re my wife! You’re supposed to be taking care of things around here!”

  One of his fingers brushed against the lighthouse, streaking and marring the wet paint, blurring the colors together. He looked down at the painting.

  “I guess you’re pretty proud of this, aren’t you?” Vincent asked. “Well, I’m no art critic, but I can tell you that I’ve seen kindergarten kids who paint better than this. You’re wasting your time if you think you’re any good.”

  Judy stayed quiet. There was no point in arguing. Maybe, if he got it out of his system….

  He looked up at her, waiting for a response. He was waiting for the fight, she could tell, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. After a long moment, Vincent shrugged his shoulders.

  “I don’t know how many of these you’ve done, but gather them all up and throw this crap out. All the paints and brushes and shit, too. Next week I’ll search the whole house, top to bottom, and if there’s any of this crap here, I’ll beat you senseless with it.”

  He glanced up the stairs, then back to her. Judy looked at him for a long time, meeting his eyes. Usually she looked away, not wanting to provoke him, but this time it was too important.

  After a long moment of staring into his eyes, she said one simple word. She had never said it to him in quite the same way before.

  “No,” she said quietly.

  It sounded strange to her ears. She sounded confident, angry. Her paintings were all she had left.

  Vincent seemed to sense a sea change in her, and he stepped back involuntarily. His eyes searched hers, and then he laughed, loudly, breaking the tension.

  And then he stepped over and punched her in the face.

  She felt the teeth in her mouth rattle as she hit the ground. The paintbrush flew from her hand and painted a long blue streak of ocean and night sky down one wall before falling to the carpet.

  “You don’t ever say ‘No’ to me!” Vincent shouted over her. “You don’t even know the meaning of the word!”

  He threw the painting of the lighthouse to the carpet, face up, and grabbed her head, bunching up her short hair into a rough ball behind her head.

  “You don’t talk back to me, ever! You don’t defy me, ever! And you never give me that look again. Never!”

  Vincent dragged her over to the painting. “Look at it—stupid! What is it even supposed to be? You’ve never even seen the ocean, so how would you know how to paint it? It’s like some kind of kid painted it!”

  Judy Luciano was staring down at the streaked colors of her marred painting and her husband had her by the hair on the back of her head and he was yelling at her and screaming at her and telling her she was good for nothing and something inside of her snapped.

  She felt a wall collapse—as though something previously contained had suddenly spilled free of its enclosure.

  A small part of her mind recognized this moment as when she finally, inextricably crossed over the hazy line into madness.

  She planted her arms and legs and kicked, hard, catching him waiting for her answer. She bucked him off her and stood up straight, looking at him, her eyes blazing with a fire she could feel coursing all the way up from her feet.

  Judy yelled and came around the coffee table and shoved him, knocking him backwards. He stumbled and fell over the table and onto the couch.

  Judy felt ten feet tall. She felt she could pick him up and body slam him to the carpet like she’d seen the guys on television do.

  “That’s where I want to be—anywhere but with you!”

  She felt something new in her mind. There was a strange, high-pitched whining in the air, like she was standing too close to a power transformer. She felt herself clenching and re-clenching her fists, waiting. Perhaps this would be the moment when she could figure out a way to kill him—she needed something heavy, like a frying pan, or maybe the axe from the woodpile outside—

  He leapt over the table at her, screaming.

  She was angry and full of fire, but he outweighed her by at least a hundred and fifty pounds. He tackled her to the ground, then rolled off and punched her hard, three times. He stood and kicked her like it was a real fight, not a man beating his wife. No pulled punches, no open-faced slaps—these were the kind of blows designed to hurt or maim. They came and came and she fought back as best as she could, scratching at his arms and face, but he was bigger and stronger. The new fire roared within her, giving more strength than she had ever known, and twice she kicked out her leg to catch him in the balls, but he deflected her. She swung her arms and tried to claw at his eyes, but his punches came faster—too many and too fast and they hurt too much.

  Judy rolled away, trying to get up, but he pounded her again. She felt her arm grow suddenly heavy, numb. He kicked and punched and screamed at her, and after a while the words and the blows all blended together into a haze. He was shouting something at her, over and over, but she didn’t hear the words—a fog had taken over and she was having trouble opening one of her eyes and her arm
hurt like hell.

  After a while, Vincent must have grown tired because the beating stopped. She couldn’t see him—she was balled up on the floor next to the couch, bleeding from her nose and mouth. Judy tried not to moan—each time she did, the beating would start again—but the pain was something that could not be contained. She felt herself bleeding from a dozen wounds, and wondered at the beautiful release death would afford her. The madness that had lurked within her before had abandoned her, leaving only pain and emptiness.

  “This is where you want to be, huh?” Vincent yelled again, and some part of her realized that these had been the words he’d been shouting over and over.

  She opened one eye—he was standing over her, panting and pointing at the painting of the lighthouse on the ground near her. He leaned over and grabbed the back of her head and dragged her over to the picture.

  “You want to be here?” he asked, and then shoved her face down into the painting.

  She felt the paint ooze around her skin and into her open mouth and nose. He pushed hard, not letting up. He ground her face into the rough canvas before lifting her head and flinging her head to one side with enough force to spray the extra paint from her face onto the opposite wall.

  Vincent stood and stormed away from her, heading off into the kitchen.

  What would he kill her with? It would be the screwdriver, or the hammer. What would he choose?

  The paint was stinging her eyes, but she couldn’t brush it away—it hurt too much to move anything. The tears came, and she blinked and watched in the direction of the kitchen—she heard cabinets being opened and slammed shut, then heard him move into the laundry room.

  She prayed he wouldn’t find them, but her prayers fled with a loud shout of joy from the laundry room.

  Vincent came back into the living room carrying two more paintings, the last two she had finished. She hadn’t had a chance to move them up to the attic—they had been hidden behind the washing machine.

  One was a beach scene with a family splashing in the water, and the other showed a crescent moon reflecting on a dark bay. Both were good. If she had had any energy left in her body, she would’ve gotten up and beaten him for them.

  But she couldn’t feel one arm and the rest of her was going numb and her eyes refused to stay open. All she could do was will him to suddenly drop dead of a heart attack.

  “These too?” Vincent asked. “Wow, you’ve been a busy little beaver. Well, I think these suck, too! Look at these stupid kids!”

  Vincent threw the paintings to the floor beside her. She reached numbly for the one with the family and he kicked her in the ribs.

  “Don’t you get it, woman—nothing you do amounts to anything! You’ve spent all this time sneaking around and for what? A bunch of crappy looking paintings—paint-by-numbers shit.”

  He glanced around and held up the first picture, her picture of the lighthouse, for her to see.

  “This is the only one you’ve done around here that looks halfway real—and that’s ‘cause I made it better. What do you think?”

  She looked up and saw her painting—or what was left of it. Right in the middle of her painting was the image of a face, of cheeks and a jaw and a forehead, everything outlined in smeared paint and blood. It was disconcerting to see the reverse image of her own face pressed rudely into her painting—it was a good enough impression to be recognizable. The face was smeared in a dozen colors and surrounded by the undisturbed painting of the beach and the lighthouse and the stars above.

  Vincent stooped and picked up the other two paintings and walked out the still-open front door, heading out onto the front lawn. After a long moment, he came back inside and dragged her painfully out onto the front porch.

  She opened one eye to see what was happening. Her paintings were in the small fire pit on the front lawn, sitting on some sticks and small logs from the woodpile. As she watched, he hefted the gasoline can they usually kept on the front porch, sprinkling gasoline onto the paintings.

  He walked over and dragged her to the fire, handing her a book of matches. “Okay, strike a match. We’re going to get rid of all of this crap, now.”

  Judy looked at the book of matches, then down at her paintings on the dark grass of their front lawn.

  Beyond them, she saw the sodium-yellow runway lights of Scott Air Force Base, highlighting the horizon. Beyond was the rest of the world. But nobody in that world cared about this little drama on the lawn. Or about her.

  But she cared.

  Judy struck a match. As he leaned in to take it from her, she burned his arm.

  He yelped and punched her in her bad arm—it felt broken. She saw stars and crumpled to the ground. He pulled her up and slapped her again and again until she came around.

  “Now light me a match, you stupid bitch, or I swear to God you’ll be burning right along with your stupid paintings. And I don’t think anybody would miss you.”

  She struck a second match and handed it to him.

  He took it, smiling at her for long moment her, and dropped the flame onto the small pile. The paintings caught instantly. The flames were multicolored and gave off an odd smoke that twirled and danced in a thousand different shades of blue before drifting up and disappearing into the dark sky.

  She envied the smoke.

  The dancing fires mesmerized her, and in the minutes it took for the paintings to char and burn, all she could think about was the fire, dancing crazily up from her proudest work.

  Vincent watched her staring helplessly at the fire and must’ve thought it hadn’t been humiliating enough, because he stepped up next to the smoldering fire and unzipped his pants. He laughed as he pissed on her paintings, putting out the fire.

  But it all really didn’t matter—something else had let go inside her. It had started with the fight inside and had ended with the fire. Now something angry roamed her mind, and any notion of trying to control it had drifted away with the smoke.

  And for the first time in her life, Judy didn’t have the slightest care in the world.

  Vincent went inside and closed the door behind him. Judy wondered if he was trying to teach her a lesson or if he was just insane.

  Slowly, she stretched out her arms and crawled over to the fire. Picking through the remains of her paintings, she found that most of the lighthouse painting was still recognizable but that the other two were charred and lost. She left them in the ashes and crawled back to the porch, her arm throbbing.

  Judy heard the sounds from her bedroom window, the one that opened out onto the roof of the garage. They were the shouts and groans of a man and woman in the throes of passion. Or maybe all the noise was just for her benefit. Either way, she didn’t really care.

  She was going to get better, and then she was going to kill him. And that pleasant thought accompanied her mind down into the darkness.

  Chapter 34

  Mike relaxed, waited until his friend was fully asleep before turning up Letterman a little louder. Just before Gary had gone to bed, he’d been fiddling with that deck of cards again, something he’d done during most of the flight from LA, flipping the cards expertly. It looked like a nervous habit to Mike.

  Mike watched through the reading of the Top Ten list before thinking about the cards again. He glanced over at Gary and saw that he was sleeping soundly. Mike quietly stood and picked up the box of cards. Sitting back down on his bed, he pulled the cards from the box and began looking through them.

  They were a large stack of color, illustrated cards, larger than playing cards. There were four “suits,” except these suits were called Cups, Rods, Swords, and Pentacles, and each had numbered cards from ace through ten, a page, a knight, a queen, and a king. There were twenty or so other cards with interesting pictures—the moon, the sun, the devil, stars, and a dozen other symbols. Other cards showed pictures of ominous figures labeled “Justice” or “Death.”

  Mike flipped through the little instruction book and began reading, shuffling the
cards as he went. He took cards out of the stack at random and found them in the booklet, reading about what it was supposed to mean, and he began to understand what Gary had been doing. Each of these little cards was like a personal horoscope, and just like those blurbs printed in every newspaper in the country, the “meanings” of each of these cards was open to speculation. Any event could be interpreted in many ways. Flipping through the cards and finding something “important” and “insightful” all depended on how willing the viewer was to make the card’s predictions fit with reality.

  Mike shuffled the cards and pulled one out.

  The card was an upside-down Six of Rods, a picture of a rider on horseback carrying five wooden rods while another man next to him on foot carried the sixth. Atop the highest wooden rod was a wreath. Mike found the description in the booklet.

  “Six of Rods—a horseman carries a flowering rod decked with a wreath while a companion walks nearby. Meanings: conquest, triumph, good news, gain, advancement, expectation, desires realized as a result of efforts. Reversed meaning: indefinite delay, fear, apprehension, disloyalty, superficial benefits, inconclusive gain.”

  That didn’t sound very good, but then the “inconclusive gain” part just about summed up this entire crazy trip for him—he was here because his best friend in the world was taking a walk on the “losing it side.”

  That, and the fact that Mike was more than a little curious about the girl in the picture—was she truly the old girlfriend Gary could never remember? And what if there were some kind of crazy explanation about the dreams?

  He glanced back down at the card again, shaking his head. It was like a horoscope or one of those crazy psychic readings Gary was always getting—someone reaching at straws would grasp for the first thing that looked reasonable. These cards were interesting, but you didn’t have to be a psychic plying the dark mysteries of the occult to know that this trip would be interesting.