The grimy light of a bulb near death peppered the newest addition to a room of canvasses. Apparitions of paint and brushes sailed decisively in chiaroscuro between a wall of shelves and an easel nearly splintered from years of aggression.
Hands shaking, Jack Peintre hovered over the disfigured easel and abducted the worn brush from a loop of duct tape affixed to the easel’s left side. As the strokes were lashed down onto the chalky fabric, a grisly image began to form; blood dripping onto a pitiless sidewalk from a brightly-dressed woman’s pendent feet. Her vitreous eyes stared downward toward a congealing puddle, which reflected her complete condition. A spiny branch gripped her contorted neck and wrenched her head behind her shoulder. Her neck was perforated by the needly spines and spouted blood down her ivory dress, giving it mottled red stripes. Surrounding her was the scene Jack viewed through his window every day.
Having calmed down enough to continue playing his long-running character, Jack stared lovingly at his wife. “Honey,” he crooned.
“What?” inquired Valerie, smiling at her husband.
“You look especially beautiful today.” In his mind, Jack studied Valerie’s face closely.
After enjoying a rich dinner Jack prepared, he and his wife went to bed. “I’m so lucky to have Jack,” mused Valerie as she glided the silky blankets over herself. She heard Jack drift to sleep, and after she tugged the blankets over his exposed arm to prevent him from becoming chilly, she surrendered to sleep herself.
“Her vile hands are like talons!” Jack thought grumblingly.
Forty-five minutes passed while Jack lay waiting in counterfeit slumber, ensuring that Valerie was asleep. Satisfied, the smooth sheets aided Jack as he slipped out of the bed unobtrusively.
Jack slinked down the stairs in near-complete darkness. He thrust his arm forward with a practiced flair, and a door hidden in the wall swung open, allowing him to slip silently inside.
Awakened by the switch of a power strip, the battered bulb illuminated the tiny room with an amber glow. Jack began gathering his supplies, but before he could paint, a painting near the door caught his attention.
“Not bad for a single weekend,” he mused, observing the image of himself building the room in which he stood. He remembered removing the section of wall and hinging it to form a camouflaged door. He recalled that the space behind the wall was a closet that was never finished. The interior was unpainted, and the walls were bare wood. “Maybe if the omnipresent harpy goes out of town for another weekend, I can get some actual lighting in here…” Jack’s gaze followed the power from the dangling light socket through its cord, the power strip, and its own cord, which flowed out through a hastily-cut hole in the ceiling.
An increasingly seismic tremble of his hands took Jack out of his daze. He manhandled his paints and brushes into place and began putting the finishing touches on his macabre creation. Using the sharpened nail of his right index finger as a pallet knife, he detailed the twisting ridges of the tree.
As the night elapsed, the vision progressed. The woman’s eyes were more pained than before. Blood rushed from her open mouth. The left side of her neck was pierced by a long spine projecting from the branch of the leafless oak tree. While before the tree seemed to act impassively, the added depth caused it to appear actively malevolent. The once-vacant windows of the house behind the woman now featured a gleeful Jack, who looked approvingly down the sidewalk at his dead wife.
The next day, Valerie woke to a routine morning. Jack had already begun his day, and as she walked down the stairs, she embraced the enticing scent of a freshly-cooked breakfast of eggs, hash browns, and bagels topped with crumbled salmon. Her husband greeted her with the sonic equivalent of the scent.
“Good morning, Valerie! Your feast awaits…,” he beckoned heartily, pointing to a plate of sizzling food situated on a sturdy wooden table near the bay windows. The radiant light from the warm Saturday morning saturated the room and accentuated Jack’s doting smile to an almost cloying display.
Valerie was habitually delighted with Jack’s morning custom, and though she said only “Good morning, Jack,” she praised him introspectively.
Jack sat down to his own welcoming meal and stared deeply into his wife’s eyes. “I’m brilliant. I recreated every single wrinkle, crow’s foot, and blemish perfectly on canvas from memory!” he mentally gushed to himself. “I didn’t even need to use a photo reference.”
After the meal, laden with torturously pleasant small talk about such mundanity as the weather and Valerie’s extensive examination of the difference between a shirt and a blouse, Jack stood wearily with a scrupulously-maintained grin whose exuberant blaze rivaled the searing sun.
“Sweety,” Jack chirped, his capped teeth gleaming, “Why don’t we go for a walk? If I’m going to be as stunningly fit as you are, I’ll need some exercise.”
Since the morning had been unusually temperate, Jack and his wife dressed lightly, his wife wearing her sunny ivory dress and him wearing a light coat. They moved briskly out the door and began their journey down the sidewalk. Though the fall day was more characteristically frosty than they had expected, they continued undeterred. Even the first few yards were punctuated by Valerie’s frequent interruptions to admire the scenery. Additionally, more loathsome conversation soon began, and Jack shortly arrived at his limit.
“Dear,” he inquired affectionately, “it’s a bit chilly out here. Would you like a jacket?”
“It’s okay. It’s not that cold.”
“Nonsense, we’re not that far away from the house.” “We would be if you walked more than an inch without stopping!” Jack’s thoughts interjected.
“Which one would you like?”
“The velvet-lined turquoise one.”
“Certainly. I’ll be right back,” declared Jack.
“At last, some respite from that chirping harpy!” Jack inwardly exclaimed as he began walking to the house as Valerie continued.
Having been somewhat pacified by the walk home, Jack foraged through the conglomeration of jackets in Valerie’s closet, snatching the one she had requested. He took a penetrating breath and began the trek back to his wife.
“The hag’s faster than I thought,” he remarked, noticing her growing distance from the house. “She must start moving at a reasonable pace as soon as I leave.”
Finally, he grew near to his wife as she passed underneath a hulking oak tree undulating in the breeze. As he approached her, the tree snapped into motion with a vociferous groan. Its tendrillar branch swung down and plucked a screeching Valerie from the pitiless sidewalk, seizing her neck. It raised her into the air and wrenched her head across her shoulder as Jack watched unblinkingly awestruck.
Minutes passed while Jack stared at the corpse of his wife as blood flowed down the dress from her spouting mouth, and Jack peered into the congealing puddle that reflected her complete condition.
Jack heard the rumble of a car growing steadily closer, and as the vehicle came into view, he saw the police arriving. Instantaneously, he wheeled around and sped back to his house before the officers could spot him. He bolted through the door and flung it shut. Through the window, he saw the shocked officers approach the corpse and search it for identification. Having found it, they promptly rang the doorbell of the nearest house to inquire about the location of the body’s former residence.
Jack spun away from the window and glanced around the house for a place to hide, catching sight of the wall that concealed the room within. He scurried inside and shut the wall. The power strip’s switch glowed like a beacon in the darkness, allowing Jack to quickly find it.
In the diseased light, Jack was accosted by a horrific sight. The painting he had finished the night before hung where he had left it, but its subject had changed. In place of the spiny branch, Valerie’s neck was coiled by Jack’s raging hands. Blood gushed from the punctures created by Jack’s piercing fingernails. His eyes were inflamed by his grotesque, glaring grin.
Gawking at the canvas, Jack felt a viscous moisture oozing through his taut fists. Investigating, he beheld his blood-drenched hands. He shot glances at the power strip and the door, finding that they were both smeared with blood.
Panicked, Jack hurled a partially-finished canvas off of the easel and pitched a fresh one into place. He began to sketch another gory image onto the canvas. As the police concluded their inquiries, Jack Peintre hurriedly painted his final painting, and when he was finished, a tree-clutched Jack stared down into a congealing puddle that reflected his slit neck.
Becoming Writer 2016 Anniversary Contest 