Fishing in Brains for an Eye with Teeth (Thirteen Tales of Terror) (9 page)

At least two other men were in the room.  She saw the Sheriff seated at a desk, looking at a computer screen, mouse in hand.  She also saw Lummox, sitting in a rocking chair behind the Painter, watching him work.

Oh Lord Jesus, please!
she prayed,
Please let this end!

“You should look at this, sweetheart,” said the Painter.

She didn’t move.

The Painter sighed. “Okay then.  Suit yourself.  I must say though, all modesty aside, it’s a remarkable likeness of you.”

Lummox laughed.

Through the fog of Talytha’s addled brain, she remembered the Painter saying that Maleeka was in his bedroom, hung on the wall.  She put that memory together with the fact
she
was now in the bedroom and she cried out, “Sis!”  She tried to sit up, only to be driven down again by vertigo.

“She’s not here.”  The Painter’s cheerfulness was, in itself, another horror.  “When she found out you came looking for her, she was terribly distraught.  Inconsolable, actually.  She was crying so hard, I was afraid she was in danger of making her face run.”  After snickering at his own joke, he said, “I shut her up.  Frankly, her language was offensive.”  He sniggered and said, “The fucking bitch!”

He laughed harder still.

Questions floated up in Talytha’s mind; she immediately beat them back down.

She didn’t want to know.

She wondered if she could become unconscious again and found that she could.

Just as she was blacking out, there was an explosion of noise— the slam of thunder overhead, the crash of something cataclysmic happening on the roof, the rattle of the bed and furniture and all the teeth in the room as the entire church quaked.  The lights went out but then flickered back to life a moment later.  The thunder was still rumbling, the roof was now creaking, and the Sheriff said, “Damn,” as his computer said, in a woman’s voice, “Now booting from operating system.”

“What was that, Boss?” shouted Lummox.

The Painter ordered him to, “Go see.”  He looked at the Sheriff.  “Both of you.”

Lummox bounded from the room, sounding like a charging elephant as he went.

The Sheriff went to a small window across the room and pulled back the red curtains.  Peering out through rain-soaked glass, he said, “The steeple’s down!”

“WHAT?” shouted the Painter, rushing to the window.

Lying on her side on the bed, Talytha opened her eyes wider and saw something she’d given up hope of ever seeing: the Painter’s penis finally went soft.

The Sheriff couldn’t completely keep the smile off his face as he said, “The storm knocked down that goddamn dick of yours.”

The Painter whirled on the Sheriff and roared, “GO CHECK ON IT!”

The Sheriff walked to the bedroom door, looking annoyed.  “What the hell am I supposed to check on?  The fucking thing is wrecked.”

The Painter shook a fist at the man dressed like a law officer, looking like a petulant child, a
furious
one.  Seeing his reaction, Talytha was certain that the man ruling this frightful little town was totally deranged.

You’re all wrong
, she thought, suspecting she knew the truth. 
He’s not a demon and no, it’s not something in the paint.  It’s his
madness.
  Somehow his insanity gives him power.

The realization drained her.

Talytha passed out.

******

“Wake up!”

Talytha didn’t want to wake up. People (paintings?) were screaming.

She was grabbed by the shoulders and shaken.  “WAKE UP, TALYTHA!”

Faking unconsciousness was both an act of denial and defiance.  She kept her eyes shut and her body relaxed.

She realized, much to her astonishment, she was no longer bound!

She was shaken again and then the manhandling stopped as the door slammed open.  She heard distant screams.

“The sanctuary’s on fire!”

“When the steeple went down, so did the lightning rod!  That last bolt struck the sanctuary
directly
!  It’s like. . . .”

Someone else finished the sentence, “Like the wrath of God!”

Still standing very close to her— too close— the Painter said, “I’ll show you
wrath
!”  And then he asked, “Where’s Lummox?”

“The fire is spreading!  People are going crazy down there!  Everyone is desperate to save their family portraits!  Lummox was trying to—”

Pow, pow, pow!
  came the crack of gunfire, directly below this room.

Above, the storm answered with a crash of thunder.

Talytha still hadn’t opened her eyes.

The Painter bellowed, “Find out what’s going on!  ALL of you!  Find Lummox and evacuate the paintings to the farm!”  A split second later, he shouted, “And take these with you!  You!  There!  Take that one!”  There was a great deal of stomping and some piece of furniture was dragged scraping across the floor.  “Go!”

“Wait!  Don’t forget me!” shrieked some poor painting.

As the sounds of anxious people and frightened portraits begin to recede, the Painter shouted after them, “Meet me at the farm!”

Talytha heard the squeak of the door as the Painter closed it.

“Now,” the madman said and there was definitely a change in his tone.  He no longer sounded so chipper.  “Let’s see if you really
are
still asleep.”

She heard him coming toward her, heard his labored breathing, and immediately opened her eyes, just in time to stop him.

He was about to plunge a sewing needle into some delicate part of her.

“Ah,” he said, stepping back. 

Wind battered the church with howling ferocity.

The moment she saw him again, Talytha shouted, “It’s all coming down around your ears, fucker!”  Three rapid gunshots rang out downstairs, followed by a woman’s high-pitched screech.  Talytha managed a smile.  “It’s all coming to an end!”

In her mind she prayed,
Dear Jesus, let it be so!

The Painter smiled and said, “You’re right about that.”

He lifted up her portrait, turned it around, and showed Talytha her own face.  Even though he painted her when she was dead unconscious, she was depicted here as wide-eyed, awake, and smiling.

Talytha saw her painted eyes blink.

Suddenly she understood that this was why he had to wake her.  He had to
show
her the painting— she had to make eye contact with herself— in order for the Diminishing to take place.  She felt her body become very light, weightless, and then numb.  She blinked, experiencing a brief spiral of vertigo, only to then feel nothing as she awoke to her new life on canvas.

She was wrong.  He
was
demon-possessed…
in addition
to being totally mad.  And he just used the power of Hell to steal her body.

The Painter turned the portrait around and looked down at the new, two-dimensional Talytha.  Clutching the frame of her new existence, spittle was shot out of his mouth as he raved, “Your sister tried to
leave
Paintersville!  You know that?  And then she
cut
me!  She fucking
cut
me!”

Talytha laughed, blurting out, “Way to go, Sis!”

“And now you— coming to town and bringing this storm with you, like some ill-fated flaggen-flop, slim-slurpy finger-seeing magar-hound dream killer!”

“What?”  Talytha’s eyes grew huge.  “You’re completely insane!”

“Insane, huh?”  cried the Painter.  “Well, I may
be
insane but I’ll have the last laugh on you, my dear!  And your little dog, too!”

Holding her portrait so she was looking up at his bug-eyed, hairy face, the Painter took Talytha and hung her on the wall.

With her peripheral vision, she saw him go to a closet and take out Maleeka’s portrait.

He brought Talytha’s flattened sister before her so they were portrait-face to portrait-face.  Talytha cried giant tears of rage when she saw what the psycho had done to Maleeka. 

“You see?”  He asked.  “You see what I had to do to her because she
wouldn’t shut up
!”

Maleeka’s portrait was absolutely perfect in every regard except one: her
mouth
had been removed, as if it was never there.

What was most horrific to Talytha was, despite the fact Maleeka had no mouth, her portrait was still making pathetic little sounds as she wept, her tortured cries trapped deep inside her quavering throat.

The Painter hung Maleeka’s portrait on the wall opposite Talytha’s.

“YOU BASTARD!” shouted Talytha and instinctively spat at him.  This time her aim was much better than before.

The Painter was hit between his eyes with a splat of green paint.

Wiping his forehead off with a handkerchief, Talytha suddenly realized he was no longer naked.  The Painter was wearing black slacks and a long-sleeved puffy white shirt.  He dropped his stained handkerchief on the floor and said, “And with that, my ladies, I will leave you here to burn.”

Talytha raged, “We may burn tonight, you miserable fuck, but, by God, one day soon
you
will be burning in Hell!” 

The Painter looked back at her and started to say something when more shots rang out from below. 

Closing his mouth, saying no more, the Painter opened the door and rushed out, never to be seen by them again.

Outside, rain poured and bolts of lightning dropped continuously from the sky.

Talytha looked into her sister’s eyes and said, as calmly as she could, “Listen to me, Sis.  We are
not
going to burn!  God is
not
going to let that happen!  You hear me?”

Maleeka nodded, wiping tears from her face.

“Pray with me.”

Both portraits bowed their heads and closed their eyes.

Downstairs, the shouting was finally done.  Everyone had fled the burning building.  In the storeroom below this bedroom, flames had reached the ceiling.

The smoldering floor built up a thickening smoke screen between the Taylor sisters.

Talytha prayed, “Dear Lord Jesus, Son of God, save us from these flames!  Deliver your daughters Talytha and Maleeka from this terrible Evil that has captured us!  Save us, Jesus!  Send us to our grandmother’s home!”  Talytha heard a startled squeak of surprise from Maleeka.  She concluded her prayer by saying, “In the name of Jesus Christ, Our Savior, I pray, Amen.”

Opening her eyes, she saw her sister nod and knew she just thought an answering
Amen
.

A spot in the corner, heavy with lint, was the first part of this bedroom to catch fire.

The room below was an inferno.

Talytha was focused completely on Maleeka. “Remember the painting Grandma Diana had done of herself?  You remember!” Talytha went on, even though Maleeka was already nodding.  “The one Grandpa always said looked just like her, but Grandma keeps it in the attic because
she
said her mouth was painted too big.”

The smoke was getting thick.  The thunder was so continuous, Talytha had to shout to be heard.  “We’re gonna go there now, Leeka!  We’re just gonna
wish
ourselves right into that painting in grandma’s attic!  You know that big-ass painting!  There’s room there for you and I, don’tcha think?”

The portrait of mouthless Maleeka nodded.

“I know it’s crazy, Sister, but this whole thing is just about as crazy as it gets!  So let’s be like Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz
.”  She barked a choked laugh.  “We close our eyes, focus on that painting of Grandma Di, and think, over and over, ‘I wish we were home, I wish we were home, I wish we were home.’  We’ll wish ourselves right back to Chicago!”  Talytha fought back her own tears, sniffling.  “Are you with me, girl?”

Maleeka nodded.

“I wish we were home.  I wish we were—”

In the end, when lightning struck Paintersville, the Taylor sisters were together.

God threw down a final, devastating thunderbolt and sent Maleeka and Talytha home.

THE END

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“Alrighty.  If you’ve just tuned in on your drive home from work tonight, I’m Kylie McKinney and we’re discussing our Daily Dilemma.  A young woman is having all kinds of problems with her boss.”

“He’s basically stalking her,” said the radio station’s Traffic Update girl.

“Pretty much, yeah,” said Kylie.  “It’s really creepy.  This poor woman— she’s in her mid-twenties and she’s working for a guy who’s old enough to be her father.  For about a year now, he’s been making the occasional inappropriate comment at work.  Then, about three months ago, he got a divorce and that’s when things
really
got crazy.”

“I feel so sorry for this woman!” said Traffic Update girl.

“I know,” said Kylie.  “So, despite the fact she’s repeatedly told her boss she’s not interested in him, he just won’t give up.  And
now
he’s bombarding her with emails and calling her at all hours of the night.  And he’s acting like
he’s
the injured party because she doesn’t want anything to do with him, outside of a professional relationship at work.”

“I
still
think I’d just look for another job,” said Traffic Update Girl.

“Well, it’s not that easy.  She likes her job— except for dealing with this jerk— and she makes good money.  She’s trying to pay off her student loans.  And besides— like one of our callers already pointed out— if she quits, doesn’t that mean
he
wins?”

“I see that, too,” said Traffic Update girl.

“Let’s take some more calls,” said Kylie. 

After an audible click, as a phone line was punched in, Kylie said, “Hello. Did you have a comment about the Daily Dilemma?”

“Yeah.  I was wondering if you knew how long this woman has been working there.”

“She just says ‘a few years’ in her letter.”

“I’m just wondering,” said the caller, “if this creep might have done something like this before.  How does she know he isn’t hitting on five different girls at once and every one of them thinks they’re the only one?”