The music played on, but no reply came and no sound of running feet or hushed voices. Jack figured there was a group of half-naked teenagers up there, too drunk to notice anything or already laying in a stupor.
Each stair creaked its own unique note; Jack reached the top and stood on the landing, listening for the direction of the tunes. A long hallway ran to the back of the house and four rooms branched off. The wallpaper was peeling and moldy strands clung to the base of the walls; a coating of thick, grimy dust lay over everything.
Jack pushed open the first door: the large room was empty, save for a ratty mattress and the molten remains of a candle. He stepped out of the room and the music stopped; whether the song ended or someone shut it off, Jack couldn't tell.
Inside the old Victorian, the darkness was oppressive: Jack had only the blinding beam of his Maglite. He was afraid of the dark as a kid, but the uncomfortable sensation creeping up the back of his thighs like a thousand marching ants wasn't fear of the dark… it was the sensation of being watched.
"Kingstown Police. Let's go guys! Get out here right now before I decide to arrest you for trespassing!" He tried to put the authoritative 'cop voice' into the ultimatum, but the cold itch creeping over his lower back sucked the conviction out. Jack felt his jaw clench and the muscles at the base of his neck tighten; his brain clicked into that alarmed state right before the fight-or-flight decision. Blood rushed to his ears, thrummed in his temples, and his heart rate rose steadily.
The second door was open, and Jack kept back from the entrance, shining the light around the room. A few empty beer bottles lay on the floor, but the coating of dust told him that whoever was in this house wasn't in this particular room. Jack went to the third door; the warped wood stuck in the frame, unwilling to budge. He passed it by and pushed open the last door; it was at the end of the hall and opened into a room that occupied a third of the second floor.
The first thing he saw triggered the last straw: he raised the gun, eyes wide, and braced himself for a fight. A ragged line of red, still slick and wet, wound across the floor. Jack's feet refused to move; he unglued them from the floor and shuffled into the room.
To his left, a portable stereo rested against the far wall next to an open cooler. A few feet in front of the boom box, Jack's Maglite came to rest on a pool of blood. The trail oozed out of the puddle and along the floor to the opposite wall, as if someone crawled away, bleeding to death. It stopped where the floor and wall met, but a thin streak like a line from a brush reached up from the floor and flowed over the gilded frame of a painting.
It was a picture of a candle-lit hallway lined with woodwork and curtains; an ornate, golden-handled door waited at the end. The line of blood entered the picture and snaked down the painted hall, ending at the base of the door. Jack's light illuminated the whole painting, and something made him do a double take; he stepped over to the frame and peered in closer. Were the candles flickering? Did he feel heat coming off the painting?
"Don't!"
Jack jumped and spun around with the gun leveled; a young girl, no more than fifteen or sixteen, huddled in the far corner of the room with a sleeping bag wrapped around her body: only her face was visible.
"You scared the shit out of me!" Jack lowered the gun. "What the hell happened here? Are you hurt?"
She shook her head. "You won't believe me… you'll think I'm crazy."
"I need something to go on, young lady." Jack laughed. "I thought I saw something in the painting move, so I'm okay with crazy right now. Start talking."
"Darrel and I was hanging out, listening to music," she said. "We was drinking and fooling around."
"Were there any more of you? I got a call about a group of kids." Jack walked over to the cooler and shined the light inside: "You're a little young to be drinking."
"Whatever. Yeah, there was two more downstairs."
"Why didn't you yell for help or run away? What happened to Darrel?" Jack looked at the puddle. "Is this his blood?"
She nodded. "He was all up on me, trying to get me to go down on him and then he just fell… he fell and something pulled him." She pointed at the painting. "Right into the picture."
Jack looked over his shoulder at the painting. "He was dragged into the painting?"
"You think I'm crazy. I knew you would."
Jack shrugged. "It doesn't matter what I think, kid. Did you see what attacked him?"
"No. He turned the flashlight off when he started kissing and feeling me up. I was so scared, like a little kid with a monster in the closet…" She stifled a sobbing sound and swallowed. "I just pulled the sleeping bag over my head and tried not to scream. I didn't want it to know where I was."
"Okay. Let's get you out of here and I'll call for someone to check this out." He helped her up and she stuck close to his side, covering her face as they left the room. "What's your name?"
"Alisha."
"You can sit in the cruiser while I call it in, all right?"
"Yeah, okay."
"What are your other friends' names?"
"Sherry and Kurt."
Jack stopped at the front door and cleared his throat: "Sherry and Kurt! This is the Kingstown Police. I need you to come outside with your friend, Alisha. If I have to come in and find you, you'll spend the night in a cell."
There was no response. Jack huffed. "Damn stubborn-ass kids," he grumbled.
"Maybe something happened to them, too," Alisha whispered.
Jack felt the cold itch reach up his spine again. "Come on." He escorted Alisha to the car and put her in the back seat.
"Dispatch, this is unit sixteen at Tanglewood Lane, over."
"Go ahead, sixteen," the dispatcher replied.
"We have a possible missing person and evidence of an accident or violence at the scene. One teenager is in the car with me and three others are unaccounted for at the present. I'm going to need some help out here, over."
"Copy that, sixteen. Expect emergency services and investigative units soon."
Jack turned to face Alisha. "I'm going to check the ground floor and see if I can find any sign of your friends. You stay right here, understood?"
"Yeah, I got it. I don't wanna go anywhere near that house." She still had the blanket wrapped about her, huddling in the back seat.
Jack got out and locked the car doors. He walked back to the house and began searching the ground floor. A big kitchen area opened to the right; none of the furniture remained and green-black mold coated the sink. The kitchen gave way to a dining area, where shreds of tapestries hung from the paneled walls and shattered glass and ceramic, along with a few intact cups and plates, littered the room.
Jack crossed the main corridor into a parlor. A blackened fireplace occupied one wall, topped by a stonework mantel. The carpeting was soft but stained and faded with age and neglect; likewise, the leather chairs and couches were cracked and torn, revealing a yellowed padding. A broad window opened into the overgrown yard and next to the window hung a painting in a thick oak frame.
The sight of it made Jack shiver, but he didn't see any blood on or in the picture—nor did he see any evidence of violence in the room. The painting showed a group of six people seated at a polished dining table; on the table, Jack saw plates of food, glasses full of dark wine, and a dozen tall-stemmed candles. Something on the table shifted and rolled side to side.
"What the…" Jack focused his flashlight on the painting. "No… that's not possible."
On the table was a young olive-skinned kid, probably about Alisha's age; he was tied with thin black wires and an apple was stuffed in his mouth. Jack clearly saw the boy's legs shaking and his arms straining; his head twisted side to side, staring in horror at the people around the table.
Jack was inches from the painting, examining the people at the table, when there was a thump from upstairs. It was heavy; Jack thought it sounded like a head smacking hard on the floor. He bolted out of the room and up the stairs.
"Darrel! If you can hear me, I need you to call out!" Jack reached the landing, twirled around the banister, and ran to the large room where he found Alisha. Lying beneath the hallway painting, a lanky black kid twitched and groaned; there was blood all over his body.
"Shit! Darrel, can you hear me?" Jack knelt down, checking the boy's pulse and shining the flashlight in his fluttering eyes. Deep lacerations crisscrossed the dark skin; the wounds were clean and deep, cutting several inches in thin, straight lines like a razor. "Hang in there, Darrel. There's an ambulance on the way."
Jack glanced up at the painting and a bright light flashed in his eyes, temporarily blinding him. He blinked and looked away, but the brilliance persisted; it was like looking into his own Maglite.
What the hell was that
, he thought. Was there a mirror in the room? He couldn't recall.
Standing up, Jack lowered the flashlight and the blinding beam fell away; he looked at the painting and staggered: his own face stared back at him, colored in the smooth contours of oil paint. They met eyes and Jack felt terror for the first time in his life; his knees weakened, bile rose to his tongue, and tears filled both eyes. He couldn't move and he couldn't do what he wanted to do most of all: run.
Painted Jack raised the flashlight and real Jack felt his arm lift up, mimicking the gesture. The beam burned his eyes; Jack tried in vain to look away or blink, but he was trapped—a screaming mind inside a hijacked body. When he was sure that blindness was inevitable, the light faded away; Jack's arm hung limp at his side and the flashlight fell to the floor with a bang.
He dropped to his knees, pressing palms to his eyes and struggling to control his erratic breathing and hammering heart; pain lanced down Jack's arms and he felt hot tears streaming down his cheeks. Vomit shot onto the floor, splashing on the carpet and the tops of his polished black shoes. He sputtered and coughed, spitting onto the soft ground.
Soft… was there a carpet in the room?
Jack's mind fought to regain control.
There was a carpet in the hallway… in the painting
.
He struggled to stand, placing both hands on his knees and blinking through the orbs of light dancing and bouncing in his vision. Jack focused on the dark red carpet and followed it with his eyes; he was in a hallway and at the end was a polished, golden-handled door.
Jack spun around; behind him, hanging in a gilded frame, was a painting of the upstairs room in the Victorian house on Tanglewood Lane. Darrel's body lay on the floor; red and blue sirens flashed through the windows. Jack pressed a hand to the picture, not believing what his senses were telling him: he was in the painting.
"Somebody please help me!"
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Appendix: Sample chapter from "Painted"
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