Synthetic Pigments

A sudden chill ran through his body.

Henry opened his eyes. The clock displayed all zeros. The young boy lay there in his pyjamas, staring up at the ceiling. Totally enveloped in darkness. The only light creeping into the room came from the amber streetlights outside skirting the edges of the closed blinds. It was just enough for him to make out vague, abstract shapes in the stillness of his bedroom. The low din of the city wafted through the window; the ever-present, ominous hum and occasional passing of cars or voices, but otherwise, the house was in complete silence.

A voice had called his name.

He was certain of it, but his father was asleep by now. His father always went to bed early on Sundays; the rest before embarking on another long work week. The boy lay still for some time. Listening. Breathing. Slowly and gently, making no movements at all. No sound at all. The only noise he couldn’t quell was the rapid thumping of his little heart, which only seemed to grow louder and faster with every passing second.

Henry.

There it was. The soft timbre of his mother’s voice, calling to him from down the hall. Fear chilled his blood. Was she really there?

Slowly, slowly he removed himself from the bed. He stood in the darkness of his bedroom, listening out for the slightest evidence of movement within the house. He stepped forward and the floorboards creaked underneath the carpet. His heart skipped a beat at the sudden noise. Terror held an iron grip on his body. His bones had turned to lead, and his blood flowed coarsely through his veins like a million tiny shards of glass. His heart screamed for mercy, but the boy pressed on. Step by step, he tip-toed into the corridor. Nobody was there.

Henry.

His mother was calling from the attic, but how could that be? His mother was dead. He was the one who found her body.

Carefully, he moved forward. The further from the safety he travelled, the tighter the noose constricted around his neck, like an elastic band slowly increasing tension as he pulled further away. The thump, thump, thump of his little heart echoed down the hallway. Shadow creatures of the night watched him from every corner. Framed family photos passed judgement with silent eyes. He moved slowly, but he moved with conviction. He didn’t linger. He passed his father’s room, the bathroom, the stairs, the study, the boiler cupboard, and eventually made it to the very end of the corridor, where a hatch in the ceiling led to the attic. There, he grabbed the pole with the hook on the end and positioned it with utmost caution through the latch in the trapdoor above.

He pulled down, but it was harder to open than he’d anticipated. Panic struck. With sweaty palms, he pulled and pulled until he was swinging from the pole with all his weight, then he pulled some more, until finally, the hatch cracked open. After that, it loosened up and he could manoeuvre it wide open to reveal the ladder on the flip side. Carefully, he detached the pole from the door and used it to lower the clunky, metal ladder down to the floor. He released the breath he’d been holding since setting foot out of his bed and looked up into the dark chasm in the ceiling. The darkness was thick and terrifying, like a black fog waiting to engulf him, but he couldn’t back out now. Time was of the essence. The aching voice of his mother called impatiently.

Henry.

Trembling, he began the ascent. His naked feet were cold on the metal footholds. His movements were stiff and mechanical. The rush of blood through his ears grew deafeningly loud as he approached the eye of the storm. On the cusp of collapsing from sheer terror, he poked his head up through the hatch and, suddenly, the tether loosened from around his neck.

Fear slipped away within an instant and all was quiet once again. He’d anticipated unimaginable horrors with his vivid, childish imagination, but discovered only dust, timber, foam, and cardboard boxes. Damp and musty. His mother wasn’t here. Instead, his eyes caught sight of the boxes containing her watercolour paintings. His father had stored them away after her death. The boxes were easy to spot amongst the rest, which were coated in several years’ worth of dust, darkened by age and inertia. Had the paintings called to him?

He clambered up and approached the boxes with feverish eyes and trembling legs. Kneeling down, he carefully opened the flaps to reveal the painted canvases beneath. He wiped the sweat from his hands onto his pyjama bottoms and lifted the first painting upright to see it clearly. Even in the darkness, the boy’s chest flushed with euphoria as he recognised her work. It was one of his favourites. A sun setting over the vast, sprawling landscape of a countryside valley, in the foreground of which was a single tree on a hillside. A rope swing hung from one of the branches. A woman sat and stared into the sky of molten red and gold, casting a long shadow behind her.

Despite the gloom of the attic, her vibrant palate glowed from the canvas and made the boy feel at peace. He closed his eyes and brought the picture toward his nose. The intoxicating smell of her water colours dripped down his throat. The taste of ecstasy. Here she was, within these paintings, her heart still beating and her smile still touching his soul.

Oh, Henry.

Her affectionate voice soothed his little heart. He placed the picture down and began looking through the rest of the box. He’d seen them all before. Each one was another favourite. Another memory. Crimson poppy fields under turquoise skies; Luminous clouds lacerating white through deep velvet nights clasping a shimmering pearl moon; Glass skyscrapers refracting gems of amethyst and sapphire; Onyx rivers so deep and dark, they reflected nothing at all.

His mother’s more disturbing pieces were in here too. A sickness suddenly infected the boy’s heart when he looked upon her darker works. Notes of sage leaking through lethargic concrete crevices, grimy, anaemic canals; Wretched alleyways cutting through the urban scenery of London like mortal wounds, dank places where even the bleakest of sunrays could never reach.

Fear and sadness creeped back into his bones like an old, chronic disease. They looked ever more demonic in the darkness of the attic. Somehow, the lack of light gave those paintings a sadistic realism, as if they belonged in the shadows. His hands began to tremble again. There it was. The monster on canvas. Ink spattered on rose petals. Oil spilled into the crystal blue ocean. Leaches writhing in a pool of blood. The fingers of death reaching from the beneath the dirt. A warning from the grave. The nausea was overwhelming with each new painting, but he was transfixed. He couldn’t stop. He just couldn’t stop.

Henry.

Shards of ice danced down his spine. Henry shuddered. Carefully, he got to his feet and swivelled around with glass eyes and a porcelain face. Still, he clutched one of his mother’s paintings in his cold, stiff hands.

He gasped. There she was.

The pale, fluorescent figure of his mother in her night gown sat in the corner of the attic, dripping synthetic pigments from her skin like a watercolour painting. A painting brought to life. A glowing puddle had formed at her feet. The colours of the rainbow rippled through her translucent spirit. When she smiled, Henry wanted to cry, but something gave him pause.

Sitting right beside his mother was the monster. Fear incarnate.

It chilled the little boy to his bones. A coat of spindly tendrils plumed from its naked skin, like the whiskers of a cat, wrapping around the boy’s mother like the arms of a jealous lover. The wiry hairs of a grotesque insect caressed the gloom. Sharp pincers protruded from the corners of the chasm that was his mouth, dripping black blood down its bare chest. A set of wide eyes, glowing sinister red with a deep-seated rage, penetrated the boy in such a way that it stole his breath. His muscles tensed up, as if he’d been thrown into an ice bath. The creature seemed to grow larger, sprouting more and more appendages with every passing moment.

Henry knew it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. His own imagination was playing tricks on him. He was seeing things in the dark that weren’t there, but he was mortified none the less by the inner workings of his mind. The venomous aura emanating from the creature froze his blood and paralysed him with fear.

Henry’s mother gazed at her son with infinite sadness, dripping from her cheeks. The creature was sitting by her side, with its arms firmly gripping her shoulders and waist, running its fingers along her thighs and coiling around her neck. Silvery blades sliced through the musty air like silky webs weaving an inescapable net around her, reflecting a sharp, lustrous sheen. They quivered with a disturbing intensity.

So, this was the thing that had killed her.

Her radiant figure seemed to shrink into the black plague that coddled her. She was being consumed by the darkness. The fear of darkness. Henry was terrified, but he couldn’t stand there and watch it devour her. His mother needed him.

The boy took a step forward, “Go away. I’m not scared of you.”

The creature hissed, baring white fangs drenched in black blood, but Henry wasn’t fazed. He stepped forward again. “Leave her alone!”

His defiance was working. The tumorous evil shrunk away from him. Its tendrils slipped away from the boy’s mother. Still, it hissed like a wild cat threatening to pounce, but Henry was determined. “I said leave her alone!”

Henry shouted from his chest, and the dark, slimy cloud evaporated with a piercing screech, leaving behind only a puddle of black blood next to his mother. She gazed at her son now with pure love and sympathy glistening from her green irises. A delicate hand reached out to him.

Henry approached his mother and hugged her. She was warm, like a clear summer evening in the park. Cool like the breeze. She smelled like one of her watercolour paintings. “Thank you, Henry,” she whispered.

He held her tight, knowing this couldn’t be real. Knowing this wouldn’t last. The memory of her lifeless body was still so fresh in his mind, like an open wound, bleeding internally. At six-years-old, Henry could hardly comprehend his mother’s death, let alone the elusive cause of it, but he knew, somewhere deep down, that she’d been killed by a demon. He only wished he could’ve scared it away before she died. Why hadn’t he been there for her when she needed him?

“It’s not your fault,” said the apparition, sensing his doubts, “I promise.”

She kissed him on the forehead, and the watery paint dribbled down his face.

“Can’t you come back?” he whispered, “I want you back.”

“You know I’ll always be with you, Henry. In spirit. I’ll be there when you dream.”

“I don’t want to dream. I want you to be real.”

“My memory is real, Henry, as are my wishes, and I have one final request to make of you. I need you to fulfil a wish for me. Can you do that?”

“I can do anything.”

“I need you to take care of your father. Be strong, Henry.”

Her voice dissipated into the stale attic air, and her body melted away from Henry’s grasp. He fell forward and cried into the fluorescent puddle she’d left behind.

“Henry?”

The attic light came on. The boy turned suddenly.

The sleepy face of his father was poking up through the hatch, “Henry, what are you doing up here?” He yawned. His eyes were squint, and slightly red with spent tears and grief.

I miss her, Henry wanted to say. I want her back.

But the boy knew better, “I had a nightmare,” he told his father, “I couldn’t sleep. Can I stay in your bed tonight?”

Henry’s father exhaled and a little smile encroached upon his withered face. He reached out a hand and said, “Alright, then. That’s okay, son. You’re okay.”

The boy felt a slight tremble in his father’s hand when he took it. Henry learned an important lesson that night. His father needed him, just as much as Henry needed his father. They needed each other. There was nothing more to it.

He was determined to fulfil his mother’s last wish to his dying breath.