Muse

Michelle Crowe liked to punish herself. It was the only reason why she ended up working in an art gallery showing off more successful artists’ work. It was a stretched even titling herself an unsuccessful artist. There wasn’t a garage full of unloved paintings and sketches that she had spent hours perfecting. Those hours were spent staring at a blank canvas, the paintbrush feeling like a fifty-pound weight in her hand. Her childhood years had been spent scribbling on walls and doodling on the corner of tests. She had taken every art class she could afford, bought the most expensive materials, and fought the canvas with only inspiration and a paintbrush, all for none of it to matter.

              She wouldn’t call herself bitter. It was no one else’s fault but her own. Something was missing. Fled from her in the middle of the night like a man who had no true home. Days passed where she would sit in front of the canvas and not an image would cross her mind. When she could come up with something to paint, it was dull and lackluster. Not even worth finishing. Being amongst the work of others didn’t fill her chest with envy. Instead, a weight pressed down on her shoulders, pushing her soul to the balls of her feet.

The owner, Barbara Stanton, liked to rearrange the gallery on Tuesdays. She did it so often, her employees would be surprised if their environment looked the same for longer than two weeks. Whether it was because Barbara changed her favorites as often as her wardrobe so Michelle learned not to get too accustomed to a piece, enjoying the time she did have with them.

              The gallery didn’t have much traffic, sitting in a dying mall plaza off the highway. It was sandwiched between Hallmark card store and a frozen yogurt shop. Barbara didn’t allow food inside so that chased off most people walking about. It didn’t bother too many people working in Barbar’s gallery. Most were rich like her, using this as an artsy filler for their resume. She, herself, was an older trust fund baby who put most of her money into the arts. Not having a hand in the arts herself, she loved to surround herself with people who did. Michelle admired it and thought of a future in that type of role.

              Michelle stalked down the halls of the gallery in clunky heels, the tip tap echoing throughout the white building. It was Friday, so there would be a bit more people, usually first dates looking for a more sophisticated setting. She had already gotten to know the new paintings this week. A portrait of a dark skin woman draped in silk was near the center, painted by a local artist.  A sculpture of two skinny figures in an embrace, a symbol of a mother’s love, was placed near the entrance. The others were unmemorable, a slew of landscapes and abstract objects in monochromatic colors. Barbara was approaching a beige phase that no one was excited for.

              But there was one Michelle missed. A dark painting on the back wall, tucked in a corner as if squeezed in at the last minute. Michelle hurried to it. Usually, Barbara would make a big fuss over a new arrival outside the regular schedule. This one had crept quietly into the night without a whisper or a warning. Michelle understood why once she stopped to look at it. She wouldn’t want to draw much attention to it either. Why would Barbara want this in her gallery? She was never one for harsh, barbaric pieces no matter their meaning.

This one couldn’t have any meaning besides unsettling the viewer.

The painting showed a dark blue room with three figures. The one closest to the viewer was a little boy, hiding a lit match in his palms. He looked out from the frame with a hungry gaze in his eyes that was too threatening to simply be mischievous. Nearby, a woman sat hunched over a table. Her right hand held an intricate hand mirror. Her reflection was shattered, nothing but a shadowy face to see. Lastly, there was the figure in the corner that Michelle wasn’t sure was there or not. The shadows in the corner gave no indication to any line shape or change in shade. The painter had simply shaded the corner as black as can be, but Michelle felt a third figure watching the other two, watching her.

“Weird, isn’t it?”

Robert was beside her, sneaking a few peanuts in his mouth before Barbara saw. Michelle wasn’t particularly fond of him. He was too flaky and he had wandering hands.

“Not her style,” she said.

“I always found her a bit old-fashioned, but even the most boring pieces in here look better than this. It’s not particularly painted in any extravagant or unique fashion for her to choose it.”

Michelle stepped closer. The artwork didn’t come with a plaque declaring its creator nor was there a signature on the canvas.  She frowned, then averted her gaze, breaking the painting’s hold. She scurried away, while Robert was rooted to the spot. He was still there when Barbara found him and she nearly fainted at the sight of it. Everyone gathered around to assist Barbara, the solve the mystery of the new painting. Janet and Devon were fanning Barbara with newsletters, while the three oldest examined the painting. Michelle skirted past Barbara and stood beside Robert. He hadn’t moved during the entire scene. She nudged him and he stirred, moving his face away.

“This wasn’t here yesterday,” Tanya murmured.

“Who put it here?” Someone asked.

Barbara didn’t wait for an answer. She demanded it to be taken down. Two people walked forward and gripped the frame. They couldn’t lift it off its frame, so two taller men tried. Still nothing. The painting was stuck. The question arose again of who put it here for art pieces don’t materialize out of thin air. No one spoke up, all equally clueless of its origins. Devon and Michelle went for the cameras. They watched the bottom left screen where the camera was focused on the back hall. Devon rewound it until a figure that neither of them recognized limped into frame.

A man with only a left shoe and a shirt that was hanging off his shoulders. He carried the painting in and set it aside to take off the acrylic canvas created by Sharon Ludob. She would not be pleased to know that her artwork had vanished into the night for once the man put up his piece, he took Ludob’s painting and walked out of view.

“So,” Barbara had found the strength to follow them. “A desperate low-life artist that thinks he can steal from me. Call the cops. I’ll call Sharon. She’s going to scream my ear off.”

The cops came, but it didn’t result in anything substantial. The man had broken in two days ago, but hadn’t really broken in. The alarm system hadn’t gone off. There weren’t any locks or doors broken. Janet, who opened the morning after, had been talking on the phone when she came in and didn’t remember if the door was locked or not. Devon and Marty tried to yank the painting off while Robert supervised. Although, the security video revealed that the man didn’t tamper with it at all, it didn’t make sense while they were having so much trouble. Eventually, Barbara ordered for a sheet to be thrown over it to shield her eyes from the ghastly thing.

The next morning, the sheet was gone. Everyone did their best not to pass it, sometimes avoiding the hallway altogether if they could. When a guest would ask about it, they all redirected their attention elsewhere. One stared long enough, he made himself sick. Devon had to clean it up, keeping his back to the painting the whole time.

Michelle kept her eyes down when she had to get near it. Whenever she made the mistake of looking up, she locked eyes with the boy. His expression mad with flames, he watched her walk by with slowly building glee. Robert was the only one who could stand it. He stood in his usual spot, engorging on every inch of the canvas. Janet had to usher him along and she received a pinch on the cheek for her good deed.

Michelle slept uneasily that night. Her apartment was small, but always comfortable. Tonight the walls were far too close, dark corners hovering over her. A rectangular fish tank of six brightly colored beta fish gave a dim blue glow from the hallway. It was a sign of comfort for her in the middle of the night, but it couldn’t drive the little boy’s face out of her head. He was there when she closed her eyes, his smile growing wider until it showed little white teeth lined with red.

The slam of a door woke her. If she wasn’t so disoriented, she would have had the sense to be concerned for she lived alone. She rolled out of bed, forehead weighed down with dreams of black eyes and fire. Had she slept at all last night? In the mirror, a dark color was settling under her eyes. She rubbed them with dirt smudged fingertips. She squinted at her fingers. A soft blackness covered the tips. She skimmed the counter, but didn’t find the culprit.  She washed her hands, popped a painkiller in her mouth, fed her five fish and left.

Barbara’s week only grew worse when the new custodian didn’t show up. Now thanks to him, they would have to suffer under her bad attitude. Lack of sleep also made its mark on Michelle’s day. She lost her focus when talking to guests and mix up artists’ names. She couldn’t wait until lunch where she could break free of the gallery and breathe in fresh air. The moment was short-lived when she noticed Janet was outside as well, smoking a cigarette. Janet was nice and all, but she was a talker. Sure enough, the moment her brown eyes found Michelle, she roped her into a draining conversation. Something about her new mirror shattering on the floor. Michelle was sympathetic, counting as the moments of her lunch rolled by.

                                                                        #

“I don’t know what to do.”

Michelle nodded as she sprinkled food into her fish tank. Four fish scrambled to the pellets, knocking into each other to receive the first bite. It was well past her time to go to sleep, but she made the mistake of answering her sister’s call. When she realized her sister couldn’t hear her nod, she vocalized her acknowledgement, “Do what you think is best.”

She had this conversation with her younger sister every three months or so. Laurel and her “fiancé” were in the rough seasons of their relationship. Storms that came suddenly and were increasingly more disruptive as time passed on. Their older sister gave up trying to talk sense into her, which left Michelle, who always had an ear to listen. She had nothing else going on anyway. She walked back to the kitchen to collect her toast and smear crunchy peanut butter on the top.

“I’m tired, Michelle. It shouldn’t be this hard.”

“It shouldn’t. Maybe you and Will need to spend some more time apart. Obviously you two are getting on each other’s nerves. You’re fighting about paper towels now.”

“Yeah, give him a break so he can clear his head on another bitch’s pillow.”

“It will show his character if he chooses to do that.” His character had revealed itself about three times now, but Michelle kept that to herself.

A door shut. A loud click echoed though the room a second before Laurel dove into another tale. Michelle didn’t bother to tell her to hold on. Her socked feet slipped across the kitchen tile. She peered down her hallway. All her lights were on. She never understood why people preferred to stumble in the dark instead of turning the damn switch on.

Click!

Michelle tiptoed to the noise while her sister yapped in her ear. The noise grew increasingly louder. A growl of wood hitting against itself.

Click!

She entered her modest bedroom with a small desk sitting under a closed window. Across from her bed was a tv with a 90’s sitcom playing on mute. Her closet door was left open, swinging back and forth. The knob clicked when it shut but must be jammed for it swung back open. Michelle kicked it, pushing it in the back of her mind to get it fixed.

The air burned. The frightening scent of an emerging fire.

Michelle ran back to the kitchen, tripping over her own feet, her phone bounced over the rug while her sister rambled on. Gray smoke blew out of the toaster in a jet of stream. She stood and yanked the toaster cord out of the outlet, then threw a dish towel over the fiery sparks rising out of the appliance. Michelle took a step back, huffing and puffing. She picked up her phone, her sister not missing a beat in her story. She stared at the empty plate, then back to the toaster. Michelle leaned forward, picking up the edge of the towel. The bread inside had a sheet of black over it while globs of peanut butter was scorched to the red coils.

Why would she do that?

When did she do that?

She was about to take a bite before she got distracted by the door.

Click!

                                                                                      #

The next morning, the smudges on her fingertips returned and blossomed. Streaks of black and gray cascaded down her nightgown in violent swirls, staining her beige sheets. She cursed, following the trail of charcoal on her carpet to her spare bedroom. It had been cleared out to be her studio. When she wisely gave up on that, the room became storage for holiday decorations and other abandoned projects. She only had one blank canvas collecting dust in the corner and she had tossed all of her art supplies long ago.

Michelle took three deep breaths. What was happening? Nothing was happening because nothing was wrong with her. She was wine. She stripped the nightgown and threw it on the floor. She showered quickly, her ear catching footsteps blending in with the pitter patter of water drops.

Her throat tightened. A cold grip crushing her from outside and within. She hunched over, gagging up phlegm and saliva until something solid rose in her throat. A slimy object wiggled into her mouth, followed by another and another. She opened her mouth. A red fish fell out, flapping along the porcelain tub. She heaved up two more and passed out next to them.

                                                                        #

The custodian still hadn’t shown, adding to Barabara’s distress. Honestly, she had been on edge since the painting arrived. A woman who was well kept, her clothes finely pressed, her lipstick full and vibrant, looked like she hadn’t faced a mirror in days. Her lips were smeared, and her makeup was a day old. She, too, had bags under her eyes. Everyone did, coming to work looking disheveled, too tired to give adequate conversation. A fog had fallen over the gallery and the only person whose head remained clear was Robert. The only change in him was that he was staring at the painting that often. He now stared at Michelle too.

Michelle was thankful to be home. She couldn’t remember her day, for some reason, but it weighed down on her shoulders, pushing her heels into the ground. She was almost tempted to skip a shower all together and just throw herself in bed. A flicker of orange caught her eye. She craned her head up to her bedroom window where flames were rolling out into the sky, black smoke spreading through the air like spilled paint. Her screech woke half her building. She thundered up three flights of stairs, begging for someone to help her. Her floor was covered in a blanket of smoke. She banged on closed doors as she went, urging them to leave. It was only 9pm. Someone had to have smelled her life burning or heard the crackle of fire creeping towards their own homes. Her door was wide open, and she ran inside to see her perfectly intact, somewhat messy, home. Michelle’s body was planted to the floor like a bewildered tree. It was one thing to imagine it, but she heard it, she smelt it. The smoke was still trapped in her lungs.

An irate neighbor fumbled with the lock on their door and Michelle quickly shut hers. She used the wall for support as she carried herself to the bedroom. This wasn’t a mental break, she told herself. Nothing had happened for her to have one. Life was fine. Until that painting showed up. Paintings don’t make you believe your house is on fire.

Click!

Michelle howled and ran to her room. She slammed her closet door open and propped it to stay with a pile of shoeboxes. Did she need to move? Was it this apartment? It had to be. It couldn’t be her. The carpet at the bottom of her closet caught her eye. The left corner had been lifted. She leaned down, her finger trailing over the hump under the fabric.

How had she not noticed this before? Without hesitation, she ripped the carpet up, finding a canvas with a dark room painted on it. The same dark room of the painting at the gallery. This one only had the boy in the corner with a bright flame that leapt off the canvas.

“What the hell?” Michelle picked it up, drawing it close to her face. The flame danced through charcoal, warming her cheek. The boy’s smile widened, nasty and eager. Michelle went to her open window and tossed it onto the concrete below. She watched it hit the pavement, the front facing the sky. The flame dazzled again, stepping foot off the canvas. The fire spread up in the air, but was confined like water in a bottle, forming a small figure with a vicious smile. Around the smile, flesh blossomed from smoke and ashes, raw and red with pain. Michelle could feel the fire prickling on the thing’s skin, what should be stripping it to nothing, instead replenished it to smooth light brown skin. The boy from the painting smiled at her, mouth burning red. He touched her building and a shiver went up her spine as if his grubby fingers were pressed into her back. All of his limbs were plastered against the brick wall. Then he climbed. A black and red spider crawling up the wall to its prey. The fire claimed him again, burning him to flesh and bone, then it would appear again. Only his smile was constant.

Michelle pressed down on the windowpane but the damn thing wouldn’t budge. It creaked under her wake while the smiling boy got closer. She skimmed the room. She had nothing to truly hurt him. Not even a basket large enough to hold water nor did she have the time. No. Her taser. She didn’t want to be that close to him, but what else did she have? Michelle scrambled to her bedside drawer, finding a tiny taser that could barely hold off an average man, let alone a monster. She set it on and turned around to face the empty window.

She knew better.

He was waiting just below. Michelle crawled over her bed and towards her desk. With her one hand, she gripped a leg and tugged, sliding it down the wall. Taser leading the way, she edged to the corner of the window, expecting to see the boy’s nasty head resting against the brick. He was gone. When she went towards the window again, the damn thing finally shut. She backed away, feet sliding across the coarse carpet. Her heart raced between her ears, her eyes unable to settle on one spot, jumping to every possible movement in the room. Her breathing was so loud, she almost missed a whisper in her ear.

“He’s coming.”

Michelle slept in her car last night. A dog growled in the distance.

                                                                        #

“Janet,” Michelle had cornered her in the parking lot. Janet was a loudmouth that Michelle typically avoided but she was a kind person. An understanding person. Janet looked up from her car, eyes tinged with red.

“Yes.” Her voice was dull and hoarse.

“I need your help.”

Janet blinked, “You need my help.”

“I can’t stay in my apartment right now. I can’t explain.”

“No. Explain.” Michelle hesitated. Through the fog in her own mind, she stared at Janet. Her brown roots were showing and her skin was paler than paper. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“I am crazy.”

“So am I.” Michelle said. She looked across the parking lot. The sunlight beamed down on them but she couldn’t feel its warmth. Unless it came from the canvas, she didn’t feel it. “The boy is in my house.”

Janet gave a guttural sort of gasp, possibly a sigh of relief. “The woman’s in mine. Every mirror I have is shattered. She’s always crying, and she keeps getting closer, Michelle. At first, she was outside. Then she got in and now…she’s at my bedroom door. I don’t know what she’s waiting for! I don’t know why she doesn’t just-“

“Hello ladies,” Robert ambled by, a proud grin on his face. His hands dripped with black and red paint that splattered on his pants.

Janet said, “He was outside my house, too.”

“Robert?”

She nodded. He had gone inside, but her eyes kept on the door. Her voice lowered, “He thinks I have something. I don’t know what, but he…is scaring me.”

“Tell Barbara,” Michelle urged. “Tell the police.”

“I can’t.” Janet rolled up her sleeves. Red lines slashed across her thick wrists. “She cut me. Look at me, Michelle! If that little demon wasn’t visiting you, would you believe me?”

Michelle said, “It can’t be just us.”

A scream split the air, sending a prickly fire through Michelle’s heart. Janet raced inside and when Michelle gathered her nerves, she followed. The custodian was found lodged into a broom closet. There was no blood. The poor man’s features had been distorted as if someone stuck their fingers in his eyes and mouth then yanked down. The police filtered in, pulling everyone aside to get their story, get clues, and pinpoint a suspect. But what could they say? The most likely culprit were the frightening characters in a painting. They’d locked them all away. Maybe that was the only answer.

Michelle glanced at her coworkers. Marty and Devon were off to the side, muttering under their breath. She stepped closer. With each step, Robert’s eyes followed her.

“Doesn’t matter how its done, man,” Marty said. “We need to destroy it.”

Devon caught Michelle watching. Then his eyes slid over to Robert. “He’s going to stop us.”

“I’ve got a plan for him.”

Four of the six employees scrambled into the back office with the cameras while Barbara spoke with a kind officer. Michelle watched Robert on the bottom monitor. He stood closer to the painting, his hand resting on the canvas.

“We can slash it,” Janet suggested.

“That bastard kid set fire to my carpet last night. I don’t think knives will do anything.” Marty said.

Michelle said, “I also don’t think we should approach Robert while holding a knife.”

Some officers were still behind on the scene. The custodian’s body had been taken to the coroner. None of them in that room cared that an altercation was about to occur. Michelle thought it would be best as Robert’s head slowly lifted to the camera, glaring through the screen and directly at her.  

“What do we have to destroy it?”

“Uhh bleach.”

“Fire.” Devon pulled out a couple lighters from his pocket.

Janet asked, “Should we explain to the officers?”

“You can,” he was already out of the door.

Michelle turned back to the screen. Robert was gone. In the center monitor, a woman stood in the middle of the hallway. Her back to the camera, a translucent object in her trembling hand.

Janet gasped and grabbed Michelle’s arm.

The woman walked backward until she was out of the frame. She reappeared on another monitor, her back still facing the camera. The three officers left at the scene immediately pulled out their guns when they spotted the mirror shard in her hand.

“STAND DOWN! PUT IT DOWN!” They shouted through the walls.

Devon was at the painting, leaning his lighter against the canvas. It wasn’t catching. Michelle’s eyes darted between monitors as different scenes played out. Robert was approaching Devon from behind. Marty fled the room while the officers took their first shots. If the bullets hit their target, her body never jerked in response. Robert raised a crowbar over Devon’s head. Devon’s lighter finally caught flame, the fire turning on him and engulfing him on the spot. Barbara ran to the exit. A shadow overcame her screen. One officer was down in a red puddle. The woman was cradling the other, hacking his face. Marty had a bag over Robert’s face, dragging him to the ground. Devon was slamming himself against walls until every portrait he touched caught fire. The last officer screamed but Michelle and Janet had already left the office and didn’t see what became of him.

They dodged Devon who had collapsed on the tile. A body slammed into Michelle, knocking her to the floor. Janet was still running to the back door. The last officer’s bullet caught her before she laid a finger on it. With eyes of coal, he turned his attention to Marty who scrambled out of his view.

Robert’s nails dug into her neck. His fingers pressed painfully under her chin. “It shouldn’t have been you.”

A growl emerged under the fire. Two figures watched as he strangled her in the burning building. One with a nasty, satisfied grin on his face, the other hiding hers. She softly cried to herself while clutching a bloody shard.

Robert suddenly let go and Michelle gasped for air. He was no longer looking at her. Head craned up to the third figure standing over them. A mass of shadow bleeding over mirror and flames. A guttural growl slipped from it and slithered onto the floor, enveloping Michelle. The terror of the last few moments had passed and as she lay under the smoke, she felt a certain calm.

Robert smiled up at the shadow, “I am willing. I am willing. I can do it for you! Let me!”

The shadow overtook Robert. A wave of black crashed upon his head, but he still stood. His muffled moans were indistinguishable from anguish or delight. His body jerked as the shadow writhed under his skin. The crack of bones struck Michelle in the chest. Then Robert stopped moving, then his torso leaned forward. Black goo poured out of his eyes and mouth, stretching all three holes to the size of potholes. The shadow reformed and stepped away from Robert, allowing his face to hit the wall with a wet thud.

Now the shadow was upon her. It slipped inside and she understood.

She was standing now. The fire circled around her. The figures were gone. The painting was burning. It was no longer needed.

The one she stood in front of now was almost complete. Her charcoal smudged fingers finishing the final piece.

                                                                        #

The manor was gorgeous even in the night. This was Michelle’s first time seeing it and she’ll never witness it again. She’ll be long gone soon.

The shadow didn’t explain why this place. Why these people. It shared its reason only with Robert and let him die with the knowledge. The guards were unobservant. The doors were all unlocked. The shadow led her throughout the house of expensive trinkets and sculptures. These people were art lovers as well. Every inch of the walls were covered by a frame. Finally, in a narrow hallway on the left side of the manor, the shadow stopped Michelle and she face a painting.

A family portrait of around three generations. An older, but spry man sat in a velvet chair while his children and grandchildren gathered around him, sharing the same nose and strawberry blond hair. Michelle looked at the youngest. A boy barely over seven. Not even a twinge of regret visited her. It was done now. She took down the portrait and replaced it with her own. Tucking the ill-fated family under her arm, she left the way she came and disappeared into the night, leaving behind the painting of the shadow, the woman holding the mirror, the boy and his flame, and a large, shaggy dog with eyes of hellfire.