Fishing in Brains for an Eye with Teeth (Thirteen Tales of Terror) (8 page)

A big, broad, overweight man now appeared behind the Painter.  Talytha took one look at his dull-eyed, slack expression and knew this must be Lummox.  He was wearing nothing but jeans and cowboy boots, his enormous white whale belly hanging out.  Talytha wasn’t at all surprised to see his fly was unzipped.  As he moved past the pedestal where the boombox sat, he bumped it, nearly causing it to fall.  The Painter shouted, “Watch it, you oaf!”

Talytha wondered which was his proper name: Lummox or Oaf? 

She saw the handle of a pistol sticking out of the oaf’s pocket.

“What did you—?”  Lummox started to ask the Painter but then stopped in mid-sentence when he saw Talytha.  His eyes widening, the shirtless blob asked, “Who’s that?”

“She,” the Painter said, gesturing enthusiastically at Talytha, “is Maleeka’s sister.”

Talytha found she could still suffer additional chills when she witnessed Lummox’s reaction.  He gave Talytha an intense look that was both angry and lewd, while simultaneously licking his lips.  Leering at Talytha, he asked the Painter, “What happened to her head?  She’s bloodied.”

“Yes, my intellectually-challenged friend, she
has
been bloodied and, since you obviously haven’t been paying attention tonight to a goddamn thing that’s been going on, too blinded by tits as usual,” the Painter gave Talytha a mock weary look that said,
Do you see what I have to put up with?
, before turning back to Lummox to finish, “I’ll politely remind you that’s why Peter Proctor’s portrait will presently be placed in a position of peril.”

He looked back at Talytha. “I love tongue twisters, don’t you?”  He flapped his tongue lewdly at her, making it waggle.

Lummox snorted laughter.

The Painter pointed at his sidekick, ordering, “Go get Peter’s portrait.”

Something bright popped on behind Lummox’s beady little eyes.  “Lighter fluid, too?”

“Oh, yes,” said the Painter, his smile broad and sinister.  “The lighter fluid, too.”  He turned, looked at his congregation, and threw out his hands wide as he shouted the declaration, “I prefer Kingsford!”

The Painter then turned his attention to the man standing to Talytha’s left.  “I appreciate you using restraint, Sheriff.  Talytha has been through a lot today, I’m sure.  I imagine the flight from Chicago was harrowing enough and then when she gets here... well, what Pete did was unforgivable!”  He turned to Talytha, repeating, “Absolutely unforgivable!  He’ll receive his punishment, of that you can be assured, my dear.”

“Whatever,” said Talytha.  “If you just wanna let me and Maleeka go, I’d be happy to forget the entire thing.”

“Uh-huh.”  The Painter nodded, smiling at her knowingly.  Pointing at the man in the uniform, he said, “As much as I hate to do it, Sheriff, I think you should cuff her.”

“No,” she protested and tried to fight them but quickly gave up when a fourth man rose from one of the pews to join her three tormentors.  Talytha’s hands were pulled behind her back and handcuffed.

The Painter’s erection seemed to stand a little taller as he watched Talytha struggle.  “I apologize, my dear, but your reputation precedes you.  Before I was forced to mute her, Maleeka told me all about you!”  He licked his lips and leered.

Pushing away that image of her sister on a hook, Talytha said, “Then you should already know, if you plan on raping me, you’re in for one helluva fight!”

“Oh, Talytha!” The Painter looked appalled.  “I’m not a
rapist
!  I don’t take damsels kicking and screaming by force.  I prefer women who
submit
to me, either out of fear for themselves or out of fear for their loved ones.  Like her, for instance.”  He pointed at the woman who had been sucking him when Talytha arrived.  The whimpering big-breasted lady had crawled over behind the baby crib.  “I’ve already diminished her husband and her brother.  She and her daughter are all that remain of the family.”  He smiled, still staring at his victim.  “She’s one
hot
mama, don’tcha think?  A real MILF.”  He gave his dick a couple quick strokes, before exclaiming, “Sweet Bacchus on a grapevine, I love women!”

The Painter turned his attention back to Talytha, “And
you
, Miss Taylor?  Oh, I definitely desire fucking
you
.  All the females in this town are so
pale.
  With the exception of Maleeka, there’s no one in my collection who has any kind of...” he grinned wickedly before saying, with only slight emphasis, “color.”

The Painter stepped down off the stage, approaching her with his hard-on leading the way.  She tensed, causing a jolt of pain to stab her brains.  The Painter pointed, saying, “You’re a total fucking hottie.  You know that, don’t you?”

She wouldn’t respond to him at this point if she knew how.

From somewhere close, Talytha heard a man crying.

The Painter’s face darkened, his smile vanishing. “You are a sublime work of art, Talytha.  You
know
that, right?”

He was close enough for her to spit on and she did it without thinking.  The splat of saliva hit him on his hairy shoulder, just above the hairy tattoo of the burning heart.

“Oh, the indignities I must suffer for my craft!”  Smiling, he wiped away Talytha’s spittle, telling her, “We’ll deal with you in a moment.” 

The Painter looked to Lummox, who Talytha saw had returned with a painting, its back— complete with wire hanger— facing her.  “First,” said the fiend, “we must punish Peter for the unforgivable way he welcomed you to Paintersville.”

Windows rattled as wind pounded the church.  Outside, the leading edge of the storm-front arrived, bearing rain.

Inside the chapel, the Painter took the portrait away from Lummox and, after a hand flourish and a “Ta-dah!” he turned it around for Talytha to see.

The man in the green cap who went berserk in the store and bashed her in the head with a shovel was, indeed, Peter Proctor.  This portrait of Pete was wearing his green baseball cap; it depicted just his head and shoulders; and the portrait was
animated
. Peter was holding his painted face in his painted hands and crying his painted eyes out.

This was the weeping she’d been hearing since Lummox returned.  A
living
man was trapped in oils.

So many thoughts struck Talytha’s mind simultaneously, she was dizzied to the point of almost swooning.  Seeing the moving painting was the most mind-boggling, most terrifying sight she’d ever seen.  Pete’s anguish was palpable, rolling out of the portrait like waves of bitter torment.

All the many things she had seen and heard since she came to Paintersville suddenly made more sense.

She knew, for instance, Maleeka wasn’t hung on a meat-hook somewhere.

She was hung flat on a framed canvas.

Talytha Taylor screamed. 

When Painted Peter Proctor was startled by her shrieks— he opened his puffy eyes, looking directly at her— and Talytha screamed even louder.

The Sheriff grabbed Talytha by her shoulders and smacked her face, turning her screams into sobs.

The Painter tilted his head and stuck a finger in his ear.  “Thank you, Sheriff.”  He sighed. “I’m surprised I’m not deaf by now.”

Lummox snorted laughter.  “Why do they always have to scream, huh, Boss?”

The Painter rolled his eyes. “Moron.”

The naked artist took Peter’s portrait from Lummox and walked to the far side of the stage, away from the baby crib and his current work in progress.  Above a blackened spot on the stage, a long wire was draped over the rafters.  Talytha watched with queasy fascination as the Painter hung the painting on a hook, then pulled the wire and hoisted the portrait a few feet into the air. 

Meanwhile, the picture of Peter Proctor pled for its life.  “Please, no!  Don’t DO this!  I thought she was going to get away!  I thought you’d
want
me to stop her!”

Opening the can of lighter fluid, the Painter walked over to the portrait and calmly replied, “I
did
want you to stop her.”

“I knew that,” babbled Peter’s portrait.  “I
knew
you’d want to
paint
her, just like you did her sister.  And I
knew
the troubles Maleeka gave you!  I thought you’d
want
me to prevent this one from getting away!”

The Painter squirted lighter fluid on the hanging painting as he skipped around it in a circle. “I do want to paint her.  And I remember, better than anyone, the trouble Maleeka gave me.”

“Then you don’t need to—!”

The Painter interrupted the painting, “BUT...”  He glanced at Talytha, then at Lummox.  “What’s the rule when relatives come to town, Lummox?”

“Subdue but don’t injure.  Don’t
bloody
‘em.”

The Painter repeated, “‘Don’t
bloody
them.’”  He reached up, underneath his wild hair, and pulled out a match from behind his ear. 

An hour earlier, after this man bashed Talytha in the skull with a shovel, if someone had offered to hang green-capped Peter Proctor from the highest tree, she would have joyfully provided the rope.  Now, however, she felt none of that need for vengeance.  Certainly this wasn’t
justice
.  This hideous punishment did not fit his crime.

So she groaned, “Don’t do it.”

The Painter stopped, gave Talytha a long look, one eyebrow raised, then he flicked the match afire with his thumb and casually tossed it at the painting.

A whoosh of fire reverberated through the sanctuary.

As he was burnt alive, Peter Proctor shrieked and screamed.

Talytha looked away, causing her wrists some pain when she spontaneously tried to cover her ears and couldn’t because of the handcuffs.

Peter’s wailing death-throes lasted less than five minutes but they were the longest minutes of Talytha’s life.  She tried to keep her eyes averted but made the mistake of glancing up at the picture.  That fleeting look showed her a charring tongue jutting from the screaming mouth of a face on fire.

By the time the portrait stopped howling, Talytha realized
she
was screaming, as were many others inside this desecrated church.

The Painter let the moment play out until all the screams dissolved into sobs.  He then nodded at Lummox and pointed at the still burning canvas.  At some point when Talytha wasn’t looking, Lummox retrieved a fire extinguisher that he now used to put out the sputtering flames.

Talytha looked back at the Painter and shook her head with disbelief.  His erection
still
hadn’t wilted.

“Well,” he said, and then paused to look at the people of Paintersville.  When he finally spoke again, it was in his raised-volume orator voice.  He shouted, “Let’s hope we don’t have to witness anything like
that
ever again!”

Several voices said an, “Amen” in unison.

Walking away from the charred ruins of Peter Proctor, the Painter looked at Talytha.  He tapped the tattoo on his left breast, shouting, “Everybody here tonight has loved ones who are now a part of my collection. 
Every One Of You
has friends and relatives who could easily suffer a
similar fate
if you fail to please me.  And this,” he tapped the tattoo again, now addressing Talytha, “is why no one here will
ever
defy me.  Lummox, tell Miss Taylor here what happens if
my
heart should stop
.
”

Lummox snorted. “Everybody dies.”

“That’s right.”  The Painter smiled.  He shouted, “If anything happens to
me
, all my paintings—all their LOVED ONES WILL
BURN!
”

The Painter strolled up to Talytha, who was prevented from backing away by Brown Overalls.  She grimaced as the Painter came so close his erect penis nearly brushed against her.  Tapping his tattoo one last time, he spoke now only for Talytha, in a low whisper, telling her, “When I die, all my good work will go up in flames. 
All
my work,” he said ominously, “and everyone
in
it.”  He leaned in and whispered in Talytha’s ear, “Including your sister.”

The Painter grabbed Talytha’s head and roughly kissed her.  She tried to struggle but he was very strong.  And so she tried to bite him but he pulled away just before she could.  “Ha,” he said, rubbing his lip to make certain it was still whole.

Talytha didn’t realize how stupid the words were until they’d already flown out her mouth, “You’ll never get away with this!”

“That’s what they said to Hitler.  And Van Gogh.  And Milli Vanilli.”  The Painter snickered. “Nobody gets away with anything
forever
.”  He winked at Talytha, still tittering.  “The trick is to enjoy your little evils while they last!”

Before she could respond, the Painter ordered, “Doctor, do your duty.”

A cloth soaked with chloroform was slapped over Talytha’s mouth and nose.

******

She awoke to a groggy existence where she was gagged and bound, spread-eagled on her back, her wrists and ankles tied to the four posts of an elegant bed.  A feather pillow was under her head; a cotton canopy was above her; and silk sheets were beneath her.  Her brains didn’t hurt so much anymore but when she opened her eyes and tried to raise her head, dizziness prevented her from getting anywhere.  Talytha moaned.

The Painter said cheerfully, “Ah.  There you are. Your timing is perfect, actually.  I’m almost done here.”

She was no longer in the sanctuary of the defiled church but the sounds were almost the same.  The ballad on the boombox was fairly loud; Buckcherry was singing
Crazy Bitch
.  She again heard people weeping, although not as many, and their sobs didn’t echo the way they did in the sanctum.  Above everything, the noise of the storm was much louder now.  Lightning struck close by and the crack of thunder was so loud, she jumped, causing a shudder to rock the mattress.

Talytha closed her eyes.  She didn’t want to see.  She didn’t want to
know.

She couldn’t think straight and she didn’t want to.

She only caught a glimpse before she closed her eyes but she knew she was in the Painter’s bedroom.  At the foot of the bed was another canvas on an easel where the nude madman was painting the portrait that would capture her body and soul.