Awaiting Sunset: The Pickman Paintings pt1

"Come here Josh, you've got to see this!"
Joshua Bradmoore turned off his computer and headed out to the shared living room. His roommate, Benjamin Turnik had been out of the apartment since before Joshua woke up that morning. Joshua had been wondering where Ben had gone, being up before noon was a rare thing for Ben.
As he walked into the room he saw that Ben was standing by the Tv, and pointing to a painting that now covered the formerly blank wall next to it.
"Isn't it stunning? What do you think of it?" Ben asked as Josh looked the painting over.
It was a large canvas painting, and for the most part was painted in the Realism style. It showed the corner of a desert mountain, beautiful in the fading sunlight (the sun itself was evident, slowly sinking down behind the mountain). The sands around the mountain swirled as if in a slight breeze. The detail in the painting was incredible, it looked as if the artist had painted each rock, crag, and nook that made up the mountain individually. At the bottom right-hand corner of the painting was the beginning of a cave opening, the light giving way to shadows and darkness. But what drew the eye of Josh was the tips of what looked almost like tentacles that were slowly making their way out of the back of the cave. It looked as if 6 of them were starting to emerge from the darkness deeper in the cave, the source of them unseen. They looked like octopus tentacles, except they were a dusky gray and purple color. They almost looked the color of bruised skin.
"Well, what do you think?" Ben repeated his question, seeming impatient as Josh took the view in.
Josh turned to his friend "Um... OK. I guess. Not sure I understand why someone would ruin a nice desert scene with those tentacles though"
"Ruin?" Ben said, a scowl on his face "Those make the painting!"
Josh shook his head. His roommate had a taste for the strange and bizarre. From his collection of cult B-movies to his eclectic books that he spent so much money on it occurred to Josh that the painting was right up Ben's alley. Unfortunately, Josh didn't share his roommates thirst for the bizarre. He wasn't quite sure how to tell his friend that he wasn't too thrilled at the prospect of having this hanging in what was supposed to be a shared living room.
"What is it called?" Josh asked to delay having to suggest the painting be removed to Ben's bedroom.
"It's titled Awaiting Sunset. I got it at the auction house over on Lilly Street. They actually had 2 different ones by him but I got outbid on the other one." Ben replied, staring longingly at the desert scene.
"By who?" Josh asked
"Oh, I don't know who won it. It was by someones representative, the person themselves wasn't even there. Personally, I don't think they should allow that. if you want one of the items you should have to be there in person to win it" Ben looked sad at the thought of having lost the other painting.
"No" said Josh slowly "I meant who is this painting by?"
"By Pickman of course. One of the best cult painters EVER. His work is very rare, I've only heard about maybe 10 of his painting known to exist. I'd never heard of this one in fact. The man at the auction house said they had been brought in by someone who wanted to remain private, but had been authenticated by the auction house's resident expert." Ben took a few steps back to be able to see the grandeur of the picture from a different angle. "I so wish i could have won the other one too. it was entitled Alone in N'Gai Woods and was stunning."
Josh turned and walked to the kitchen. Pouring himself a glass of soda he screwed up his courage. "Ben, I don't want you to think I don't appreciate your love of the macabre, but I'm not too sure I necessarily want that hanging in the living room. It is supposed to be a shared space, that's what we agreed on when we moved in and it's supposed to be a joint decision to put anything in it." Taking a sip of his drink he awaited the rebuke that was sure to come.
"But... How can you say that? This is a masterpiece! I can't just hide it away in my bedroom!" Ben sounded hurt and confused.
Josh knew that Ben sometimes didn't understand how others could possibly not appreciate the things that he himself did. They had run into this problem before, over the bookcase. Ben had placed a bookcase in the living room to display some of his more rare and bizarre collection. He and Josh had argued over it for several days before Ben finally agreed to move the collection into his room. He just couldn't grasp that such books as Edward Derby's posthumous collected poems Dreams of a Dying Soul, Randolph Carter's rare story The Eyes of Hypnos or Edgar Gordon's nightmare causing last book Evil Cast in Stone might not be everyone's choice of coffee table reading.
They had had a similar problem over Ben's movie collection. Josh had been forced to have Ben get a Tv for his bedroom after Ben had played a video recording of an opera called the Veil of Time by the Addleton brothers. Some of the story had caused Josh's then girlfriend to be disturbed and she had left to go home. Josh, who had expected the night to end in a much different fashion, had been quite upset. Then when Ben played a film called Geheimnisse Eines Unterzeewelt during a party, and some of the images made people sick, Josh had exploded at him.
Sometimes Josh worried that moving in with his old friend had been a mistake. While they had been great friends through 6 years of collage, since then they had definitely walked down different paths, and perhaps soon they would have to diverge completely.
Yet so far the fights had all passed. In fact after the last one Ben had gone out and bought Josh a pair of expensive Nike shoes to make up for ruining the party. Josh worried that accepting them meant he was appearing to be able to be bought off, yet he liked the shoes enough to let the matter pass.
"Look" Josh spoke, trying to be diplomatic "I know how much you love the weird stuff you collect, but we have to live here together and since I don't inflict my county music or Louis L'Amour books on you then the least you can do is keep the stranger stuff you own to yourself ok?"
"Look, let me just keep it up till next weekend Ok?" Ben asked "I'm having Abraham come over on Friday and I know he'll love to see this. The lighting's all wrong in my room for it to be viewed properly. Once he's seen it I'll move it ok?"
"Well... Ok. But just till the weekend." Josh agreed reluctantly. He didn't like the idea of staring at the tentacles all week, they bothered him worse than they should. But he also wanted to avoid another big argument with his friend.
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Work kept Josh busy that week. He got home late most nights, ate and went to bed. He barely saw Ben at all, but whenever he did his friend seemed to be just sitting around the living room staring at the painting. Josh couldn't wait till Friday came and went so the thing would be gone. He was glad that Ben was always in the living room, for some reason Josh didn't like the idea of being in the room alone with the painting. Which he knew was ridiculous, but the feeling was there nevertheless. Every time he walked by it his eyes seemed drawn towards the tentacles coming out of the cave. It gave him the creeps.
At one point, on Wednesday night just before he went to bed, Josh stopped and took a closer look at the painting. He noticed that he had been wrong before, there weren't 6 tentacles but 8. What was worse that when you looked up close you could see that the tentacles had suckers on them, and in each sucker was what looked like small deformed face with a mouth full of sharp teeth. Josh called Ben's attention to this, but Ben just looked at him blandly, as if he already knew about it, until Josh shook his head and walked away.
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When Josh got home on Thursday it was very late. One of the night workmen had called out at the last minute and Josh had been forced to stay till they found someone to come in. So by the time he drove in the driveway he felt like skipping dinner and going straight to bed. He had already told his boss he was going to take the next day off and give himself a nice long weekend.
As he walked in he saw Ben standing in the living room, staring closely at the painting. Josh noticed that Ben was wearing the same clothes as the day before. In fact, as Josh thought about it, Ben had been in those clothes the last few days. Ben's hair was slick and oily, as if unwashed. He had a lean look, his skin looked sallow and blotchy. A horrible idea hit Josh and he slowly walked into the living room not even bothering to take off his shoes as he entered.
"Ok, tell me you haven't spent the whole week just sitting around staring at your painting" Josh said as he walked towards his friend.
"I have to watch it." Ben said in a small far away voice "It changes when left alone."
Josh saw that Ben was shaking slightly.
"Changes? What the hell are you talking about?" Josh demanded, wondering if he would have to deal with another argument.
"When I bought it, there were just 4 tentacles barely visible from the darkness in the cave. Now there are 10 of them. The sun has fallen further down behind the mountain and whatever is in there is coming out." Ben looked over at Josh as he spoke, and Josh shuddered himself at the look of horror and sadness in his friends face.
Josh wondered if his friend maybe was suffering a nervous breakdown. Too many horror books, too many late nights watching disturbing films. How much till it all became unhealthy for the human psyche?
Josh walked up to his roommate. He put his arm around Ben's shoulders and turned him towards the painting.
"Look, I counted the tentacles myself the other night and there were eight." Josh told him gently.
"How many are there now?" Ben asked, refusing to look at the painting before him.
Sighing Josh turned and counted the things emerging from the dark cave. Then he counted again. He let go of Ben's shoulders and counted a third time.
"See" Ben spoke as Josh rubbed his eyes and re-counted once more "It's not just me. Whatever is in there has been waiting for darkness. Now darkness is almost there. Soon it will be free. Free to come forth. I don't want to know what it looks like, but I'm afraid to stop looking." By the end Ben's voice was a whisper.
Josh reached up towards the cave. He could clearly see the ten tentacles, one of which actually seemed to be pressed up against the edge of the painting. It was darker on the canvas, the sun was no longer visible next to the mountain and the shadows had grow longer. Gingerly Josh put his hand up to the painting.
"WAIT!" Ben cried
But it was too late. Josh's hand seemed to press against the canvas for a moment, then in an effect that rivaled anything by Hollywood it appeared to push through into the painting itself. Ben's eyes went wide as Josh looked stunned for a moment.
Then Josh began to scream.
Ben could see his friends hand in the painting. The tentacle near the edge was now wrapped around the hand and part of the arm that could be seen in the image. Josh yelled at the top of his lungs as he seemed to be violently jerked towards the painting. More of his arm slid into it, and the moving tentacles in the painting moved towards the arm, wrapping it tighter and tighter in their clutches.
"Help me!' Josh yelled, looking over at Ben. Ben's face had gone white and his breath was coming in gasps.
Again Josh yelled, trying to break Ben out of his stupor "For the love of GOD Ben, HELP ME!"
"IT HURTS! IT"S EATING ME!" Josh yelled even louder, the veins on his neck standing out as he desperately tried to pull himself free. Ben could hear the squeaking of Josh's Nike shoes as the slid on the floor.
Ben stared at the scene before him. It was too much. After a week of barely sleeping and not eating and watching the horror get worse he just couldn't stand it anymore.
Ben fainted.
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When Ben awoke the first thing he did was scream.
Looking up he saw no sign of Josh. The painting was there above him, but something was much different about it. Slowly getting to his feet, Ben peered closely at the cave entrance. There were no tentacles coming from it. The light in the painting was bright, and the sun could be seen in the upper left hand corner.
Ben looked around the apartment. There was no sign of Josh. Very slowly Ben tried to piece together what had happened. Vaguely he felt that something bad had occurred, but his memories seemed to stop at some point in the last few days, and try as he might he just couldn't recall what was bothering him.
Not knowing what else to do, Ben crept to his bedroom and went to sleep.
The next day he saw that there was still no sign of Josh. He called up Josh's work and found that Josh had taken the day off. Ben figured that perhaps he had made plans without telling him.
Yet ever time Ben walked into the living room his eyes seemed drawn to the painting on the wall. Something about it bothered him badly.
It was that night, while showing the painting to his friend Abraham that Ben finally put his finger on the problem. Abraham loved the painting, pointing out that you could actually see a single tentacle coming out from the darkness of the cave. But that wasn't what made Ben decide to sell the painting to Abe, at a fraction of the cost. It was when Abe asked, quite innocently, why there was what looked like a small Nike shoe lying forlorn at the entrance of the cave.

Till Death Do Us Part

She lies next to me on the bed. She's asleep now. I lie here quietly and wonder if what I'm doing is right. I love her. I've always loved her. I believe in some place deep inside she loves me as well. Some part of her that is still the woman I married. That's why I'm still alive.
It's dark in our room. I kept the lights off while I did my work. Making no noise, although she never seems to stir no matter what movements I make, yet I feel inside me that if she know then I would be in danger.
Gently I touch her. Her skin, if it can still be called that, is hard and rough. More like hard wood than flesh. I cannot feel any trace of a heart beat. There's no sound of her breathing. No movement to say that this is not a statue beside me.
Her size is still astounding. I'm amazed the bed can hold her. I think it was the first thing I noticed when she started to change. I've heard of people putting on weight fast, but not like this. I thought perhaps she was pregnant. But even then I think she knew.
It was all because of that book. I should have thrown it away once I realized what it was, but she begged me. She said she needed it for her studies. But part of me knew. She always loved the idea of forbidden knowledge. The thought of something beyond science. No, even at the beginning I knew it was far beyond her masters thesis for her collage courses.
But I didn't connect her growth to it at first. I had no way of knowing. Then she started to pull away from me. I thought it was just hormones, that old male stand-by when women do things we don't understand. She barely talked to me, didn't like having me around after all these years.
Things had been so good for so long. We got married just after I graduated collage. I worked two jobs to allow her to continue her studies. We bought the house four years after the marriage. Everything seemed to be so good. She got her degree, decided to go for another one. One of my jobs promoted me, with a big enough raise to allow me to quit the other job. We spent the weekends driving to universities out of state to allow her to consult books not available at her collage. We both liked to fish and would rent a cottage in the summer and compete to see who caught the biggest.
Then she came to me one night and said she needed a lot of money to purchase a book for her studies. I think she would have done it behind my back if she could have, but it was too much money for me not to notice. The book was called De Vermis Mysteriis, a Latin book that was apparently very rare. I agreed, sad to think that we might have to cancel our trip this year but willing to put her degree before fishing.
She knew how much the trip meant to me and even suggested that I go on the trip alone.
Was she trying to protect me? Or afraid I'd realize what was happening and try and stop it? Did she know what would happen even then?
Several weeks passed without anything unusual. But then the weight gain started. I wanted her to get a test done. She agreed, but for some reason I felt, even then, that there was something she wasn't saying. But the pregnancy idea faded once she started to change.
That last time we talked....
She begged me to leave. Told me she didn't know how long she could control it. I knew by then. The disappearances, the stains on the floor, the strange lights at night. I knew by the rough texture of her skin. Even then I couldn't resist her when she told me to leave the book alone, to not destroy it. She was always the strong one in our relationship. But I wouldn't leave. I couldn't. What good was my life without her? After all these years, who I am was too wrapped up in her, our lives too entwined.
I had a breakdown. It was after the little Marchen boy up the street went missing. Pets and vagrants were one thing, but a child? But by then she didn't even pretend to listen to me. She knew I'd never go to the police. Or maybe even then she didn't care.
So I made myself sick. They took me to the hospital. For two weeks I was in and out of consciousness. She never came to see me. She couldn't go outside in daylight by then. Not without someone seeing her.
By the time I got back she was as she is now.
Huge.
Solid.
Changed.
Yet I still love her. She is still beautiful to me, even if she no longer has a face.
To my amazement the ring is still there. It's bent and twisted, but it still lies on what was once finger. That's how I know she still loves me. That, and she hasn't killed me.
Perhaps I would have never had the courage to do anything. Perhaps I'd have just lived this way, tending her by daylight, ignoring the blood I sometimes found in the house when she had been out at night. Sleeping in the afternoon next to this monolith that was once my wife.
But yesterday I finally knew it had to end. When I saw what was in the basement. She must have started it before she lost her mouth, read something out of the book that caused it to form. It's growing, even overnight I knew it had grown. Is that what the bodies are fed too? After she's done with them? What will it become? It moved a little, when I went down today, and I could swear it was watching me. How it could without eyes is a mystery, but then again so is much of what has happened.
So I got what I needed today, while I was grocery shopping. A quick stop at the gas station, not long enough to vary my timetable so as to make her suspicious.
Now I lie here. The lighter is in my hand. The smell of the propane is almost overpowering, but the window next to me is letting in just enough of a breeze to keep me from passing out. I can hear a noise from downstairs. It knows what I'm doing, but even It cannot make her rise before she is rested. I know her schedule too well. I have almost an hour left.
So I'll wait a bit.
To think back on good times.
To think back on regrets.
While the thing in the basement stirs and struggles.
While the moon rises higher.
While the tears fall down my face.
A little while to lie here next to her and love her just a bit longer.
Just a little while longer.......