The Haunting Hour (11 page)

“Dylan—get away!” Willa cried.

“I can't!” I shouted. “I can't stop it!”

My brush jabbed at Willa's face. I painted black smudges on her cheeks, then a zigzag line across her hair.

She shrieked and staggered back.

“HELP ME! SOMEBODY!” I wailed.

The class had grown silent now.

My brush dipped into a red-paint jar. And I began scrawling ugly faces on the wall. On the floor. I swung away from the canvas and began to paint red bars on the window.

“STOP ME! STOP ME!” The cry burst from my throat. The hand was jerking me one way, then the other. Painting. Painting. I couldn't stop it. “HELP ME!”

Mr. Vella rushed over. “Dylan—what's wrong? Get a grip on yourself. I—”

My hand painted a thick red stripe down the center of his face. Then a stripe down the front of his sweater.

With a sputtering cry he grabbed my shoulders. I spun away from him, and my brush swiped down the sleeve of his sweater. He was covered in red paint. Then my hand moved to the art-room door and began painting the door.

“I CAN'T STOP! CAN'T STOP!” I shrieked. “CAN'T ANYBODY HELP ME?”

 

My parents kept me home the next day. They couldn't decide whether to be angry or worried about me. So they were both.

I stayed in my room. I tried to read my schoolwork, but I just couldn't think straight. The macaws were chattering away downstairs. I turned on the TV with the sound real loud to drown them out. But I couldn't concentrate on it, either.

I couldn't believe it when Mr. Vella paid a surprise visit after school. My mother showed him to my room. “Dylan is very sorry for what he did,” she told the art teacher. Then she went downstairs and left us alone.

Mr. Vella sat down at my desk. “How are you feeling today?” he asked.

“Okay,” I replied. I apologized for what had happened in class. “I…can't really explain it,” I said. I sat on the edge of my bed.

He studied me for a long while. “How long have you been interested in painting?” he asked finally.

“I didn't really get interested in it until I won some lessons. From an artist named MacKenzie Douglas.”

Mr. Vella squinted at me. “MacKenzie Douglas? I read in the paper that he died three weeks ago.”

I gasped. “Really? But I don't understand. I just finished my lessons with him a few weeks ago. And he…he sent me some of his brushes last week.”

Mr. Vella glanced at the paintbrushes on my drawing table. “Strange…” he muttered.

We talked a short while longer. Then Mr. Vella made his way to the door. “I just wanted to make sure you are okay,” he said. “That was frightening yesterday.”

“I think I'm all right,” I said. “I'll definitely be back in school tomorrow.”

He gave me a wave and headed downstairs. I could hear him talking with my mom.

I stepped up to the drawing table and studied the paintbrushes. I felt bad that MacKenzie Douglas had died.

I picked up the long-handled brushes one by one. When did he send them? I wondered. How did they reach me two weeks after he died?

That night I fell asleep quickly. I dreamed I was painting the sky. I wanted to paint white, fluffy clouds. But I couldn't reach high enough.

I was awakened by a scraping sound. “Huh? Who's there?” I whispered.

Blinking myself awake, I raised my head from the pillow. I squinted into the dim light—and gasped.

The paintbrushes were floating in the air.

They scraped across the paper on the drawing table. Tilting, bobbing, sliding up and down—the brushes were painting.

Painting without me!

“NO!” With a terrified cry, I leaped out of bed. I lurched across the room and made a grab for the brushes.

The brushes jerked and jabbed the air. I wrapped my hands around the handles and struggled to hold on to them.

My hands were pulled above my head. The brushes twirled and jerked, as if trying to escape. But I tightened my grip and held on.

I've got to get rid of them, I decided. I've got to get them out of this house. If I do, my life will go back to normal.

Squeezing the brush handles tightly, I crept downstairs. I made my way to the kitchen and stepped out the back door.

The ground was hard and cold under my bare feet. A chilling wind fluttered my pajamas. I ran across the wet grass to the back of the garage.

Four metal trash cans stood along the garage wall. I lifted the lid on the first can and tossed the brushes in. Then I slammed down the lid and made sure it was on tight.

Shivering, I ran back into the house. I climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. I could sleep easily now. I thought I had won a big victory.

I didn't know that my brush troubles weren't over yet.

 

The next morning I peered through my bedroom window down
to the backyard. “What?” I let out a hoarse cry when I saw that the first trash can had been tipped over.

I turned and saw the paintbrushes stacked on the side of my drawing table. “Oh no!” I moaned. “They're back!”

My heart pounding, I raced across the room and grabbed them. My parents were in the backyard talking to our neighbors. Holding the brushes tightly in both hands, I ran down the stairs to the basement.

I carried them past the laundry room to Dad's workshop. My dad is a real handyman, and he has a lot of major-league tools.

I flicked the switch on Dad's table saw. Of course, I'm not allowed to use it. But this was an emergency.

The saw hummed to life. The round, jagged blade began to spin. Holding the ends of the brushes, I slid them toward the blade.

“Good-bye, brushes!” I shouted.

The big blade made a whining sound as it grated against the first wooden brush handle.

To my shock the wood didn't split. The brush bounced off. The blade couldn't cut through it!

I tried again, pushing the brush handle against the whirring blade. The blade whined—and bent. The brush bounced off, unharmed.

No. This is impossible, I thought. This can't be happening.

I shut off the table saw. I grabbed the blowtorch from the floor beside the worktable.

I
definitely
was not allowed to use this. But I didn't care. I was in a total panic. I had to destroy these brushes—before they ruined my life!

I set the brushes on the concrete floor. Then I lit the blowtorch. A bright-blue flame burst out with a roar.

“Yikes!”

Startled, I nearly dropped the heavy thing onto the floor. But I held on and aimed the flame at the brushes.

And waited for them to burn. And waited.

The brushes didn't burn.

Cold panic swept over me. I stared at the brushes lying unharmed under the powerful, hot flame.

I'll take them far away, I thought. Maybe I can mail them to another country. Or maybe I can bury them.

I turned off the blowtorch. Then I gathered up the brushes and carried them back to my room.

I tried to drop them onto my drawing table, but the brushes stuck to my hands.

I struggled to uncurl my fingers, to let the brushes fall. But instead my fingers tightened around the handles.

“No! No! No!” I chanted, squirming, pulling, twisting, fighting the power of the brushes.

But I no longer had control of my hands. They were dipping the brushes into paint, then moving to the paper on the drawing board.

“No! No! No!”

I couldn't stop them. I couldn't free myself from them.

The brushes scraped across the paper, painting words in fat red letters.

“No! No!”

I gaped in horror at the message the brushes had written:

YOUR HANDS ARE MINE NOW. WE WILL PAINT TOGETHER—FOREVER.

The message done, the paintbrushes dropped from my hands beside the paper.

I was gasping for breath. My entire body trembled. I stared down at them. How can I get rid of these brushes? How?

Then, suddenly, I had an idea.

 

A month later Julie and I were at her house, watching a newsmagazine show on TV in her den. Julie started toward the kitchen to make popcorn, but I pulled her back. “It's coming on now,” I said. “Watch.”

She sat back down, and we watched my dad appear on the TV show. The camera backed up, and we could see Flash holding Dad's hand. The chimp was all dressed up in a silvery suit.

Dad led Flash to a drawing table. Flash sat down, picked up a long-handled brush, and started to paint.

“This is amazing!” the TV reporter exclaimed. “He's painting a monster. His paintings are strange and ugly. But this chimp paints better than most humans!”

The camera caught a big smile on Dad's face. “That's why we're selling Flash's work to museums all over the world,” he said.

The camera moved in close on Flash's hands as the chimp changed brushes and continued to paint.

“How did this happen?” the reporter asked Dad. “How did you discover this chimp had so much talent?”

Dad smiled into the camera. “It was an accident, really,” he said. “My son Dylan gave Flash an extra set of brushes. We sat Flash down in front of a drawing board—and the rest is history!”

Flash jumped up and down and uttered a hoo hoo hoo as his hands moved the brushes over the paper.

Julie turned to me. “Dylan, don't you feel bad?” she asked. “You're so serious about your painting. Aren't you jealous that Flash is such a famous artist?”

A big smile spread over my face. “Me? Jealous?” I said. “No way!” And I settled back to watch Flash paint.