Art is Long, Life is Short

The man stood before the wall in his studio, his work nearly complete. A sunrise peeking out over a foreign horizon lit an almost complete pond and tree line. Thick black lines upon bare drywall were jarring in the small space. The work was impeccable. The leaves boasted their small veins and the grass near the pond would move if your head turned too quickly. He had honed his craft to perfection and sold his soul to do so.

They were coming. He didn’t know who, but he knew they had found his graveyard. He’d spent long enough there to know that the punishment couldn’t just stop at him either. He’d heard rumors of the darkness that laid beyond the sunlight, but he hadn’t ever dared cross it. He couldn’t help himself, and now he would pay. He just didn’t realize that the water held more powerful forces than the ability to hide a corpse.

‘Only the pond remained,’ he told himself. Then it would need to be filled of course, but not with water. It would have to be his own sacrifice, his own blood. His heart rate quickened at the thought. He knew they would take him no matter where he went. Who knew how many holes there were in this world. No. His only hope was to open the door and leave a path for his son to follow.

He could hear them. The staircase was narrow and their hulking forms were having trouble climbing. The pastel crayon nearly slipped from his grasp as one of them lost their footing, tearing through the wall on their way up. The thin sheet rock lining the stairs gives way as easily as pencil through paper on a soft surface.

A soft moan slipped through his lips as the charcoal black of the crayon continued its line, crumbling; pieces splitting from the harsh pressure.

His art had been praised for decades for the unique and “other worldly” qualities it possessed. Fantastic creatures never seen whimsically performing everyday tasks. If they only knew.

He had allowed them to deify his talents. Encouraged speculation on the depths of his creativity. Tricks. Lies.

His talent was born of a lifetime of deceit. His only real talent was that of a memory that could not forget, even if it wanted to. Even now he could clearly see the landscape in his mind. The tree line and path. The pond.

An inhuman cry of pain erupted from the opposite side of the wall. One of the creatures was gouged as a step split beneath it, its flesh tearing as it sank.

‘I should have told him. Warned him. Anything, but this. Oh God, Jerek I’m sorry.’

His thoughts were ripped back to the present as the other creature reached the top of the stairs. A thick scratching sound followed by a screech and more drywall crumbling beneath their size. His breath poured out of him in great heaves. Sweat, far past beading, streamed down his face, into his eyes.

He didn’t notice. He couldn’t notice.

Thick squelching noises followed by bellows of anger rang out as the first freed itself from the stairs.

Black smeared in a thick blotch as the pastel broke beneath his pressure, pressing into the drywall. Another moan, much louder now, escaped his lips. The man whirled away from the wall, his mural, eyes landing on the small bookshelf resting atop the cart opposite him. He lunged for it. The wooden shelving rocked backwards under his grasp as he pried the doors open.

‘How could I have explained this to Jerek?’ he thought.

His mind flashed in images of his discovery. The blood from his nose falling on the pastel. The final stroke being completed. The doorway is taking shape.

“Selfish. Stupid.” the man said.

A small pencil case blocked the cup he needed. The cup with the markers and oil crayons. All black. It was one of 20 more in the container. All utensils are organized into color. Size, shape, ink, lead, it does not matter, only color.

The pencil case smashed into the wall to his right, his other hand scooping the cup in a great arc. The rim of the cup caught the lip at the top on the way out, toppling the whole thing onto the floor, his precious instruments spilling.

He glanced downward and forced himself to turn, a cry of frustration escaping his lips now.

The flashes continued. The oasis, the creatures exploring him, his terrible idea forming as they began to trust him.

His free hand removed a single marker from the cup and jammed it between his teeth as he took great steps back to the wall; not noticing the taste of blood from the gash in his gum it caused.

Glass shattering. The refrigerator rocking as a great weight pressed it back, followed by a second crash of the refrigerator door begin torn free; contents breaking against the floor and each other. They were coming too quickly.

‘NO!’ he shouted. ‘PLEASE!’

A deep snarl was the only answer he received. These horrors were so unlike the others he had encountered. These were as violent and black-souled as the others had been beautiful and loving. How naive he had been to think things would go unpunished.

Jerek flashed in his mind once again. ‘Had he left enough for his son to follow? Were the breadcrumbs enough?’

Memories continued to flood. The small animals staring at him, their voices in his head. The first time he stole one. The cries for its mother. The prodding and testing. Sneaking their lifeless bodies out after Jerek was asleep.

His thoughts cut short by sounds of carpet being shredded as the creature’s horrific limbs scraped along the floor. A door frame splintering as something too large for the opening dragged its way through. They were at the end of the hall.

He needed more time. Whirling around he grasped the easel. His easel. The beautiful one his son had commissioned for him. One of a kind. An heirloom. A solid work surface that could be lowered into a desk. Heavy.

He pulled with all of the strength he possessed, straining to drag it from its hollows in the carpet. ‘GAHH’ he shouted as he pulled with everything he had, veins bulbous in his neck and temples. The easel came free and slid hard across the floor a few inches. He redoubled his efforts, willing the damned thing to, ‘MOVE’ he cried out.

The thick surface of the easel collapsed under the sudden movement, slamming flat from its upright position. The weight of the slab crushed the man‘s hand with a flat crack. He howled.

His brain refused to stop. ‘How easy it had been to simply toss them into the pond. How easily he had done it again and again. After abducting them, what was posing them for a picture? Skewering their bodies in place like fruit neatly stacked in a bowl.’

An ear-splitting shriek echoed his own howl through the studio door. The room seeming to shake from the force of the creatures just outside

He dove across the newly flattened surface, screaming for his hand, placing the whole thing between himself and the door. He braced his back against the wall and sank, placing his feet against the underside of the easel. He shouted as he drove it forward, the wall popping and giving beneath his back as he pressed.

The easel slid and toppled, as he’d wanted. He rose and buried his shoulder into the underside of the monstrous object, pushing it as close as he could get to the monsters coming for him. It was the only hope of holding them long enough to finish.

The door nearly crumpled as it was hit. The top half folded inward, a large crack running from the knob to the top of the opposite side. The door collided with the upturned desk, jarring the creature back as it jammed its limb through the opening. Its screech wet and wretched this close.

His heart nearly stopped at the sight of the limb protruding from the monstrosity.

The flesh was rotting away before his eyes. A claw, with only four gnarled talons, that far too closely resembled a human hand, scraped at the blockage. The almost hand left scraps of its putrid meat on the edges of the door where it scraped. The leavings oozed and stained a dark greenish brown.

The smell. Oh God, the smell.

The man nearly fell in terror. The wall stopped him as he stumbled back. His mangled hand reaching uselessly out to stabilize himself, only succeeding in sending fire up his arm. He hadn’t realized he was screaming, but the sound turned to an agonized cry of pain. The pain brought clarity, though.

He turned his eyes to the floor in search of his marker. He must have thrown it in his urgency, but the rest of the pastels and markers were scattered at the foot of the wall. He stooped to grab something, anything. He had run out of time.

The claw found the edge of the easel and latched on. A bone in its talon snapped with the stiff sound of a pencil being broken. A deafening shriek of pain erupted from the hallway. The man’s eyes forced themselves nearly closed from the sound.

He was so close. He needed to finish the pond. If he didn’t get it perfect, it wouldn’t work. He needed it to work. He wouldn’t let this happen to Jerek.

The man raised his crayon, and the black line continued to close in on its origin, so close to completing the shape. The pond was small and not quite perfectly round. The line of the far side was broken by steps of some sort.

The door gave way and two more of the nightmarish arms appeared. The easel was off the ground and flying a heartbeat later. It smashed into the wall above where it had been only a minute before. It lodged itself feet from the ground within the wall.

The man screamed in horror as his one good hand closed the loop, completing his drawing.

The black pastel had no sooner finished its job as the monstrosity took hold of him. Primal terror erupted from his lips as he fell away from the horror, clambering backward.

The amalgamation before him was a creature from the blackest pits of his nightmares. He’d always gone during the day and stayed well away from the pond, because a part of him knew this was coming. He wouldn’t get away with it forever.

The hands were Hesia’s. She’d been his first. She closely resembled a human child, appearing familiar until those talons. The shredded torso was Gritan’s. The poor fool simply trusted and followed. He had been closer to something out of a fantasy story, but his likeness ushered in a line of merchandise unlike any before.

The man’s mind nearly snapped. He could feel the madness pulling at him. The guilt had been nearly too much all these years, and now his worst fears had been realized.

He turned his gaze to the picture he had finished a moment ago, and panic lit inside of him.

‘THE BLOOD’ he screamed inside of his own head.

He glanced down at his destroyed hand. Before he had time to register what was happening a talon had closed over it and squeezed.

The pain was too great to cry out. He began to pull back from the monstrosity and a second talon fell on his face. The bony, needle, point piercing his eye. He heard it give way beneath the pressure with a soft pop. The Hesia, Gritan, thing roared in triumph.

The rotting flesh from the monster began to pool on the man’s face. It slid down the glistening bone of the limb as an over-large sleeve would, pooling in small mounds.

The man’s one remaining eye was fixated on the pond. If he failed now, they would come for Jerek. He couldn’t let that happen.

The talon seizing his ruined hand continued compressing until the pain was nothing but a white-hot flare in his mind. He yanked downward, crouching and shrinking away from the monster, with everything he could muster.

His arm pulled free of his hand with a sickening pop. He lunged for the wall and dragged his stump across the body of water, forward and back. The blood sprayed and smeared across the surface of the wall, running and dripping.

The creature folded its remaining talon, so the fingers were all flush. The tips compressing into a point.

The man saw the second creature waiting for him in the doorway. It simply watched as he used what was left of his limb to streak the wall, his head skewered the same way he had treated all of them. A smile playing at the edges of its grotesque mouth.

He moved his one eye back towards the wall. The man had used his limb to paint a thick layer over top of the scene.

The blood and gore that smeared and ran down the wall began to draw back inward. The man smiled.

He heard a voice in his head as everything began to dim.

“Oh hush, it isn’t that bad, just sit still.” the voice teased. It was Hesia, or this version of her. The creature began to lift the man and turn him, so they were face to face. “You’re going to stay where I put you, whether you like it or not.”

The man opened his mouth to speak, to apologize, to beg for this to be over.

Hesia’s talon shattered his teeth and buried them in the flesh of his throat as it tore through the opening he was going to use to apologize.

The blood had disappeared from all except the pond on the wall. The red surface rippled as if brushed by a breeze.