The Art of Nightmares - Chapter One

 ONE

 

The boy was drinking a Cherry Coke in one of those classic diners that you read about in Archie comic books and Lee Child novels but rarely saw in real life anymore. He’d just finished eating some fries and some salad. The place unfortunately had no veggie burgers on the menu. He’d had quite a trip the last few weeks from the farm where he worked as a farmhand. He wasn’t at first sure where to go next until he found the discarded magazine at a truck stop. He was looking at the magazine while drinking his Coke.

The headline of the article he was looking at read “Art of Nightmares”. The article was about an artist called Beth Simmons. She painted these incredible pictures of nightmarish creatures with so much detail they had made her work very popular. People called her work disturbing, frightful and nightmarish. The boy tried to see what those people saw in the paintings. He understood the praise for the matter of detail in them. The claws of the demons depicted seemed to gleam, the blood of mauled victims practically seeped off the paintings, their eyes staring right into the viewer’s. He didn’t think they were frightful however. Nothing was ever frightful to the boy. That’s why he left his home a year or so ago. He’d never felt anything resembling fear and really felt that was an experience he had to have. So he’d packed a backpack and travelled around the country, looking for things to scare him. Bungee jumping, breaking and entering, driving fast cars, jumping off cliffs, even encountering extradimensional creatures and Native American monsters had failed to scare him.

There was a picture of Beth in the article. She was in her thirties, short reddish hair, freckles and big glasses. She looked somewhat plain and mousy. Not the person to paint these pictures of monsters, demons and carnage. That was fascinating to him. Where did these pictures come from then? How did she know so well what would frighten people? In the article she’d told the interviewer she wasn’t sure where they came from. Still, the boy thought she might be able to help him understand how to fear things. According to the article she’d lost her hearing years ago but could read lips. Hopefully she would have no trouble understanding his questions.

It was only an hour’s walk over to Beth’s place from the diner. That was nothing to the boy, he’d gotten used to walking almost entire day’s when he couldn’t get a lift or spare a bus ticket.

“Hey, that’s Beth,” a female voice said. The boy looked up from the magazine. The waitress, a middle-aged woman with kind eyes and a wild perm was standing next to her table.

“Yeah, you know her?”

“Of course. Everybody in Cheshire Lake knows her. She’s quite the celebrity. Doesn’t go out much though. She used to come here more often, but ever since she lost her hearing she seems to avoid people.”

“Do you know how she lost her hearing? I wasn’t able to find that anywhere.”

The waitress gave him a suspicious glare. “Why are you so interested in Beth?”

“I’m interested in the concept of fear. She seems to know all about it.”

The waitress shrugged. “Don’t know about that. She paints some horrible things, that’s for sure though. Odd, she had such an average childhood and was working as a clerk at the post office. Suddenly she is able to paint these amazing pictures and loses her hearing. She’s been quite a mystery to us ever since, to be honest.”

“I mean her no harm. I just want to talk to her,” the boy told the waitress.

“Then you should ask her how she lost her hearing. Nobody seems to have any clue about that.”

The boy smiled. “Maybe I should. Thanks for the food, it was excellent. I’m really sorry I don’t have enough money to tip you.”

The waitress had a look at the boy’s wrinkled shirt. “You don’t look like you do.”

“I’ve on the road for a long time,” he said.

“You seem like a nice kid. You remind me of my boy before he went to college. If you want, I can get you some of his old clothes. They might fit you.”

“That would be great,” the boy said.

“Be here at ten, we close then. We’ll go over to my place and pick up the clothes.”

“Awesome. I should be back from visiting Beth by then,” the boy said. In his travels he’d encountered many kind people. Looked like Cheshire Lake had them as well. He was wondering if Beth Simmons would be as kind.

 

The Art of Nightmares - Prologue

 

PROLOGUE

 

Beth had no idea where the images she painted came from. All she knew was that she had to put them on a canvas. There was this uncanny need to exorcize them from her mind by painting them. Her studio was filled with paintings. What was depicted on them was the stuff of nightmares. Screaming demons, naked men and women with their eyes and tongues ripped out. Butchered animals. Monsters dwelling underneath the earth. She had amassed quite a fan following among the lovers of this kind of dark art. She couldn’t really like her work herself. She hated the darkness, the goriness of the images. She was actually a pretty upbeat person herself. She liked the sunny kind of country music, not the dark country kind. She dressed in pink, not black. Most of her fans expected her to be this goth looking young woman, not the blue-eyed freckled brunette she was.

The piece she was currently working on was another bizarre one. It depicted a young man, well more of a boy really. The boy was standing in the dark. A small gaslight illuminated him. Above the boy, barely visible was some kind of demonic looking creature with glowing red eyes. The boy seemed unaware of the danger above him. She couldn’t understand how she was able to perfectly illustrate the boy’s face. Like she’d seen him before. She pretty sure she hadn’t though. The last few months she actually didn’t leave the house that much anymore. She just had to paint, paint and paint. She couldn’t stop. Like an addiction.

She screamed. She couldn’t say how loud as she had lost her hearing already ten years ago. But she did, startled by the image that was suddenly standing behind the painting. It was vaguely humanoid. A sinewy, tall man with grey, stringy hair, hollow eyes. The man smiled. His teeth were yellowing, grimy. It was the kind of man she would paint, but it was right there in the room with her.

She stood from her chair, stepping back from the easel she was working on. The man stepped forward, right through the canvas if it wasn’t there. It reached out a hand. The fingernails were dirty and chewed off. The man spoke, but Beth was unable to read his lips. The man’s jaw dropped open, started to stretch. He vomited a bunch of writhing maggots.

Beth was standing against the wall, screaming again. The maggots made their way across the floor. She tried to crush them with her foot, but stepped right through them. Then the man was gone. The maggots were gone. It was as if nothing had happened.

She looked at her watch. Just when she was expecting company. She would have to gather her wits quickly. She wouldn’t want her visitor to think she was going crazy.

Skinwalker Valley - Chapter Thirteen

  

THIRTEEN

A week after the horrifying death of her father Glory had somewhat managed to work on the farm again. The boy had been helping her along as best as she could as had Blackcrow. After another day of hard work, working extra hard probably to prevent her from thinking about the fact she had lost all her family the boy told her he needed to talk.

They sat at the kitchen table. Glory had some coffee, the boy just water.

“Glory…I’ve enjoyed your company. I’ve enjoyed helping you along but the time for me to go has come,” the boy told her.

“Why? If you like it here, why not stay?”

“Right now, the mission in my life is to find fear. I will not get any peace, be truly happy until I do.”

Glory shook her head. “I just can’t believe you didn’t feel any fear when the skinwalker was trying to kill you. I will be having nightmares for years to come.”

“The skinwalker isn’t the first creature I’ve seen that would scare most people but didn’t scare me. I think it will not have been the last either. I need to go, travel again to find whatever will scare me.”

“I will miss you. Not just as an employee but also as a friend. I will forever be grateful that you saved my life.”

“Most of that gratefulness should go out to Blackcrow. If he hadn’t been carrying that bullet filled with white ash we’d both be dead.”

“Well, you were the one who fired the bullet.”

There was a knock on the door. Glory walked over to it. At the door was Blackcrow.

“Hi Glory,” he said. “Nice to see you. You look great. Kid, ready for your ride?”

The boy stood. “Let me grab my backpack.”

The boy walked out of the kitchen, leaving Glory with the conservation officer.

“How are you feeling now? Relieved you avenged your father’s death?” Glory asked Blackcrow.

“Partly. It also has taken some kind of purpose from me that now has forced me to really come to grips with his death. I feel your pain about your own father, Glory.”

Tears rolled down Glory’s face. She reached out to Blackcrow, hugging him. He hugged her back, tightly and kissed the top of her head. When they let go of each other they had a long look into each other’s eyes.

“Will you stay over for dinner? I don’t want to be alone tonight,” Glory said.

“I would love to. As soon as I drop the boy off at the Greyhound station.”

The boy walked back into the kitchen, backpack slung over his shoulder. “Ready to go!”

Glory hugged the boy. “Have a save trip. I’m not sure if I want you to succeed in your mission though. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

The boy smiled. “I’m not afraid of that.”

 

 

 

 

 THE END

The Boy Without Fear will return in THE ART OF NIGHTMARES!