by Matt Shaw
II
I was going from room to room. I was out of breath, I was moving so fast. Not sure exactly what I was looking for. Just something, I guess, to let me know whether he’d brought the boy into the house. After all if he didn’t do it here, where else would he have done it? There was nowhere else I knew of which would have given him the privacy to carry out such an atrocity.
At first I thought he’d done it in the van but the rear was completely clear of any evidence and yet was still messy from where I hadn’t cleaned it for ages. Impossible to clean up the evidence without showing some trace that a cleaning operation had recently taken place.
In the house I had a good look around the living room and nothing was out of place. At least, nothing which hadn’t been left out of place by myself. The study - a small room - was seemingly undisturbed too; the layers of dust again suggesting no clean up had taken place. The room was dusty as I rarely went in there. Only went in once every couple of months to try and get a head start on my accounts and, during those times, I never thought to give it a clean. Upstairs only had a modest sized bathroom and a couple of bedrooms and those too looked as though they hadn’t played a part in what he had done.
The final room to check was the kitchen. I walked in, wondering why I hadn’t checked here first. After all, this was the room I had seen him in that night, acting suspiciously. I cast my mind back to what he was doing - ah yes, the washing machine. I opened the door and pulled my work uniform out. I gave it a shake and examined it. Seemed to be okay. He wouldn’t have worn this anyway, would he? He hates me wearing it. Unless he’d put it on that night in order to frame me should he have been discovered? Would he have done that? I wasn’t sure but I couldn’t put it past him. It’s not as though the two of us are close.
I dropped the uniform in a crumpled pile by my feet and continued to scan the room for evidence of foul play. Nothing. The place was spotless. Well - as spotless as things got in my house. I froze. My eyes were fixed upon a door in the corner of the room. One which I tended to keep shut. To people visiting, they’d have presumed it led to nothing but a cupboard but that wasn’t the case; it was the door to what was originally intended, I presume, to be a wine cellar. I had never used it. Only been down there once and that was when I first moved in and I was exploring the home. There was something about the room - some energy - something down there…It made me feel uncomfortable. I got out of there as fast as I could and I vowed never to go back down there. Soon, I didn’t even see the door when I went into the kitchen. I was blind to it. With this feeling running through the pit of my stomach, I wished I was still blind to it. I can’t be though. I need to go down there. I need to see. Already know what’s down there…Need to go down. Shit.
I walked across the kitchen floor and reached out for the handle. What are the chances of getting down there without him knowing? Does it even matter if he finds me, or knows I’ve been down there? I reached out and took a hold of the handle. I paused a moment, unsure as to whether he was going to come running in to try and stop me from seeing anything I shouldn’t have. Nothing. Silence in fact. I paused a moment longer; not to give him further chance, but to enjoy the silence. It had been too long since I’d had pure silence in my life. It’s blissful. A child screaming in the back of my mind snapped me back to reality. What? I’m supposed to hear the child screaming now too as though I’d been present for his murder?! I wasn’t there. It was nothing to do with me. Fucking guilt consuming me.
For my own peace of mind, I turned the door handle and leaned into the cellar. Hanging by the side of the wall, before the first of twelve steps down, was a piece of string connected to the light-switch. I gave it a tug, half-expecting the bulb to be dead. It slowly flickered into life, illuminating the room below me. Shadows cast from the over-hanging light revealed the room wasn’t empty. Proof he had been down there. I remember the room as being empty.
III
“Where do you think you’re going?” I hissed in his ear as I stopped him from venturing further down the stairs.
“Get out of my way.”
“You have no business down there.”
“It’s my house. I can go where I want.”
“You never wanted this room. You left it for me. You have no right…”
“I never said I didn’t want this room!”
“You’re scared to be in here. Because you’re a fucking pussy.”
“I’m going down there.”
“You’re not.”
IV
I pushed past him and made my way down the stairs, each step creaking underneath my weight. My mouth fell upon when I reached the bottom step and saw into the cellar.
“What the fuck is this?” I asked.
He didn’t need to answer. It was obvious as to what it was. The question I should have asked was what the hell was all of this doing in the cellar.
“What does it fucking look like?” he hissed.
“It looks like you’ve been hiding a lot from me.”
I stepped off the last of the steps, onto the cold concrete of the cellar floor - unsure of where to look first, my mind temporarily distracted from the real reason I was down here.
6.
There were different shaped easels set up around the room. Canvases were perched on top of them - some blank and some already stained with oil paint. The floor was littered with painting instruments, different sized brushes thrown here and there with no rhyme nor reason. He’s been coming down painting? What the hell? I understood why he kept what he did with the child a secret from me but why hide this? If anything, this was the sort of thing we should have been sharing…I froze on the spot as my eyes fixed upon a pile of canvases leaning against the wall. Considering the front canvas is finished - I’m guessing all of these have been completed. I just hoped that they didn’t all have the same picture painted upon them - more specifically the same subject matter. I walked over to the pile and lifted the front one up to get a closer look.
“A work of art, don’t you think?” he whispered in my ear.
The picture was a close-up portrait of a small boy from the torso upwards. He was naked. His eyes stared out of the painting. It didn’t matter which way I tilted the picture, they seemed to stay fixed on me. A haunting, dead expression. The boy’s mouth was slightly agape, his tongue visibly lulling to one side There was a wide cut across his throat and you could clearly see the inner workings of his throat through the rip. Was this real? A portrait of the boy he killed? I didn’t see his face when I felt into the bag. I just touched his face. I don’t know what he looked like. This could be him. Is it?
“Who is this?” I needed to know.
He smiled, “You know who.”
“The child you took me to?”
He nodded.
“You killed him and painted him?”
He nodded again.
That could only mean that…I lowered the picture and noticed, for the first time, a small bed in the corner of the room. Chains either end of it. A mattress stained with red, brown and yellow. I gagged. So they lie there, dead, and he stands here watching over them, painting them as though no crime has been committed? I looked down at the pictures. The second one was of a different figure. What were the chances he just had a good imagination and it was the same dead child but with a different face painted? I looked to him. He was standing there, shaking his head as though he knew what I was thinking.
“They’re all dead?” I asked.
He nodded. I gagged again as I suppressed the need to vomit. How long had he been doing this, killing innocent children? How hadn’t he been stopped already? I wanted to tear him apart limb from limb but I knew I couldn’t. I looked down at the pictures and reached for another, throwing the one of the boy with the slit throat to one side.
“Be careful with that. Might be worth something one day,” he said.
I pulled a second painting out from the middle of the pile and was immediately horrified: the image of what appeared
to be a young girl’s body. Her legs had been cut off at the top of her thigh, her arms cut off from the elbows and her head cut off at the neck. All pieces which had been removed were missing from the picture. It was literally just her torso. Where the limbs had been removed there were harsh red brushstrokes, with a similar brushstroke over where her genitals would have been.
“A personal favourite,” he said, glee in his voice.
I threw the picture across the room as I reached for another. I could hear him huffing and puffing at me – irritated, no doubt, by my lack of care. Well sorry, but I didn’t care. If I could have, I would have thrown him across the room. A third picture was primarily of an eyeball. It was balanced in a hand and sliced down the middle. In the background of the painting was what appeared to be a young boy crying. He was huddled up into a ball, a harsh red brushstroke coming from a black hole where his left eye should have been.
“How his screaming didn’t wake you up, I don’t know.”
I dropped the picture and looked at the remaining pile. I had seen enough of them, but was giving them a quick count where they rested on the floor. Over twenty of them.
“They’re all finished paintings?” I asked.
He nodded.
We both just stood there a moment. I didn’t have a clue as to what to say. I think, going by the buzz in my head, he had plenty to say but was giving me the time needed to process it. Well, silly really, there wasn’t enough time in the world to process what he’d shown me already and now this on top of that? I could never understand what would drive a person to do such a thing.
I lunged forward and knocked one of the easels over. A second later and I knocked over the second and third until they were all on the floor. He didn’t say anything. He just watched. I guess he knew I needed to vent my initial feelings of anger from my body or else there’d never be any hope of us moving on from this. Moving on from this? Why am I thinking like that? There’s no way we can move on from this. As far as I am concerned, we’re done.
I gave a final look around the room and hurried up the stairs before I accidentally saw something else which I wouldn’t like. Can’t take anymore. Back in the kitchen, I slammed the door shut before struggling to move the kitchen table across the floor in an effort to block it. That door never needs to be opened again. He still remained silent. He just stood there, watching what I was doing. With the table in place, I dropped to my knees and started to weep for the children.
II
I’m loath to call it a make-up table because it sounds so feminine but I guess that’s what it is. A table, against my bedroom wall, a few feet away from my bed, with a small oval shaped mirror. It may look strange to people looking in, a single man of my age with a set up like this. I suppose, thinking into it a little more, it could be perceived that I’m a widower with the table and mirror - the whole set-up - belonging to my dead partner. Not the case though. There is a perfectly valid reason as to why it is here though, and that’s because I need to apply my ‘work’ make-up somewhere. Sure, I could do it in the bathroom but it’s easier to put it on whilst sitting comfortably.
I was sitting at the table now. My eyes were red raw from crying. My skin was so pale. I haven’t looked as though I’m in the best shape for as long as I can remember but - even so - I feel as though I’ve aged dramatically over the weekend.
I had all my work get-up out, spread across the table: a children’s face-painting set. I could have bought professional make-up to get the look but I found this to be more than adequate. It also happened to be a lot cheaper.
“You can’t ignore what you’ve seen.”
I took the lid off the white colour and dipped the sponge into it. I looked into the mirror one last time before applying make-up and smiled. The first time I’d seen this particular face and smiled. I’m not smiling because I am happy with it. I’m smiling at it because it’s soon to disappear.
“I’ll still be here.”
I pressed the sponge onto my forehead and wiped over my brow. Every piece of visible skin (neck, face, ears) was to be coloured in this pasty white colour; a good foundation for the other colours needed - such as the purple rings around the eyes and the overly large smile drawn on.
“You can’t bury me.”
The whole face takes approximately ten to twenty minutes to complete, closer to the latter if I want it to look really professional. Right now, I’m not too worried. I just want to hide him from my sight. Help silence him.
“You’re being a fucking retard!”
III
I was standing in front of the full-size mirror I had stashed in the second bedroom. I was in my full get-up. The face was finished; I’d put the yellow wig on this time around and slid into the red jump-suit - my oldest one and - to look at it - you could tell. Definitely seen better days and, truth be told, I should have potentially thrown it out a long time ago. Not sure why I haven’t; a difficulty in letting go of the past? Not sure why that is - wasn’t exactly the best. Despite not planning to leave the house I had also stepped into the large clown shoes. Also red. I smiled as broadly as I could - accentuated by the use of the make-up. Not sure if I actually look very kiddy-friendly today or whether I look sinister.
I waved at myself, a gentle side by side with my hand.
Definitely sinister.
Was that how I always looked? Had I just not noticed it before? Or is this just because of him? He has tainted how I feel about myself in either guise. I’m not sure. Hopefully I’ve always looked like this - rather that than know he has managed to change me within the space of a night. Maybe it’s the smile? Maybe I need to tone it down a little bit? I changed the smile to a less dramatic one. I still feel as though I look evil. Please let me have always looked like this. Please. Please let it be that I’m just feeling paranoid about it now he’s made me part of his little hobby. Please. Don’t let him have changed me.
“I haven’t changed you,” he hissed in my ear, “you’re the one who changed. If anyone changed anyone, it was you changing me.”
I saw him in the mirror’s reflection. He looked expressionless as he stared back at me with cold, dead eyes. I flinched and lashed forward with my right fist, smashing the mirror in the process.
He laughed, “Whoops. That’s seven years bad luck for you then.”
IV
I was sitting in front of the television (in full make-up) with the volume turned as loud as it could go in an effort to drown out his grating voice. One of my DVDs was playing on the screen in an effort to bury the horrors I had discovered over the last few hours, not that the film was doing a very good job of it. In the background of every scene, I couldn’t help but see the images of dead children mingling with the other onscreen extras as though they’d always been there, part of the film, and I was only just seeing it. At one point - twenty minutes into the film - I momentarily believed they had always been there and that he had simply opened my eyes to it.
They couldn’t have been real, the pictures in the basement. Surely. They couldn’t have been real pictures of real people he had killed. They couldn’t have been. A mumbled, distorted voice told me they were real but I ignored it. They were most likely fake pictures. Scenarios he imagined in his troubled mind. Yes, that was it. They were the work of a sick individual and not the product of a genuine crime. There’s a big market for sick and disturbing images like that - clearly he is just trying to tap into it a little? Maybe, if I were to look around on auction sites on the Internet, I’d find links to where they’re being sold? Of course. All makes sense when you think about it. A mumbled voice asked me about the body I saw.
“I didn’t see the body,” I said, despite meaning to ignore him. “For all I know, you’re just messing with me. You’re trying to make me think we killed someone. That’s all. A sick game to try and mess with my head. Although I don’t understand why.”
The voice mumbled something under the shouting of the film playing on the screen. I reached for the controller and kille
d the volume in the hope he would admit the truth to me; it was just a sick prank to try and teach me some kind of lesson, whatever that could be.
“What about the bed in the corner of the room? The stained mattress?” he asked.
Maybe that was there from a previous occupant and he’d just left it there as moving it was too much hassle. That would make sense. It’s not as though I go into the room so he knew I probably wouldn't have helped him dispose of it.
“If you’re that sure it is all a prank, you’ll be happy to watch the news,” he sneered. “Look at the time. It’s coming up to twelve now, the lunchtime bulletins.” He showed me his watch and it was indeed coming up to the lunchtime news program. “If you’re that sure it’s a prank, change the channel.”
“I can’t,” I told him, “and you know I can’t. It’s an old set. Won’t receive digital transmissions.”
He laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“The television accepts digital transmissions. What do you think that box is?” He pointed down to a small black box which sat next to the DVD unit. I’d never noticed it before. How long had it been there? “Television just needed an upgrade and that was easy enough to sort.” He picked the television controller up and switched the channel. Adverts came onto screen, the first time I had seen any for as long as I could remember.
