Painting Death

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

Malika stared at the cabin in front of her. Where was she?

She looked down. She was barefoot and in a t-shirt and sweats.

“Shit,” she muttered.

She closed her eyes and breathed in and out, counting slowly. Breathe in for four counts, out for four counts. Over and over until her breathing slowed. Just like the therapist taught her.

It was one of her stupid tricks that actually worked. Everything else was talk. Asking her to talk about that day. Asking her about the nightmares. Asking her why she didn’t try the new paints her mother bought her.

Malika gave short, stilted answers. The therapist watched and waited, scratching away on her secret notepad every now and then. But at least she didn’t look at Malika like she was broken. Or have whispered phone conversations she thought Malika couldn’t hear.

She heard enough to know that her mother was worried. And sad. And frustrated. And dealing with her own grief. She couldn't help Malika. Lately Malika began to suspect that no one could.

And, now, sleepwalking was apparently getting worse.

She wasn’t sure where she was. This was only the second time she’d woken up outside her cabin. Last time she’d been standing under an old oak tree in the yard. Her grandparents were letting them stay there. After it all happened, Malika’s mom decided a change of scenery might be nice. A small town would be safer. Where better to heal than surrounded by nature? Malika wasn’t sure about that. She’d grown up in a suburban neighborhood that bumped up against a big city. Crowds and traffic was what she was used to. But she didn’t miss the stares. The inappropriate questions and uncomfortable offerings of sympathy from well meaning neighbors and friends.

“The closest neighbor is five miles from the cabin. Well, there’s a cabin not 300 yards from ours but it’s been abandoned for decades.”

Apparently, Grandpa hadn’t been keeping up with the local gossip. This cabin wasn’t abandoned. A little run down perhaps. Definitely in need of repairs. But a rocker moved to and fro in the breeze on the porch and the candle cast a warm glow through the window.

Normally, knocking on a cabin surrounded by woods in the dead of night would’ve freaked her out. But she wasn’t sure what direction their cabin lay in and, of course, she never bothered to grab her cell phone when she took off in her sleep.

She knocked softly on the door.

The floor creaked as someone moved inside. The door opened a crack and the wrinkled face of an elderly woman peeked out.

“Yes?” she asked suspiciously.

Malika glanced at her bare feet, dirty from her trek through the woods. She reached a hand up and felt her dark curls billowing out in a frizzy halo around her head in the humid summer air.

“Uh sorry to bother you,” Malika said, “But do you have a phone I could use?”

The old woman laughed.

“No, they haven’t run phone lines out here yet,” she stepped back and opened the door wider. “But you’re welcome to come in.”

Malika smiled and stepped tentatively inside. No phone? Cell phone service was spotty out here at best but that’s why their cabin had a landline.

“Sorry about the dirt,” she reached down, trying to brush off her feet, “I-”

She trailed off as she looked up. The woman was gone. And so was the cabin.

Cream colored metal shelves were on either side of her, lined with colorful tubes of paint on one side, brushes down the other.

“Oh fuck,” Malika whispered.

Screams sounded from somewhere else in the store. Another aisle. A different hobby. Yarn maybe. Scrap booking. She backed up and slammed into the tubes of paint.

Heart racing, gasping for breath she doubled over, trying to count her breaths. Breathe. She told herself. Just breathe. It’s not real. You’re safe. She reached her hands up to cover her face but they were covered in blood.

“Are you alright?” a voice asked.

But Malika couldn’t answer. Couldn’t look up. Couldn’t do anything but stare at the blood.

Something tugged on her. She looked around for her dad but he wasn’t there. Just the old woman, her wrinkled hand tugging on her arm.

“I said are you alright, honey?”

The old woman was staring at her.

“I-I’m sorry,” Malika said. “Just a bit dizzy.”

The woman searched her face but didn’t ask questions. She led her over to a simple couch in front of the fire and told her to have a seat.

“I’ll be right back with some water.”

Malika curled her toes into the rug beneath the couch, leaving dirty tracks in their wake. It was soft and knotted, like one of those homemade rag rugs her mom used to make when she was little. She wondered if the woman made it.

A log cracked in the fire like a gunshot and Malika flinched.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” the woman asked, holding a glass of tap water out to Malika.

Malika nodded and lifted the glass with a shaking hand. She took a sip and handed it back to the woman.

The woman disappeared with the glass. When she came back, she plopped down in the rocking chair to Malika’s right and picked up a pair of pants that looked too long and too wide for the woman. They looked odd. A style she’d never seen.

She saw her looking at them. “The neighbor’s,” she said. The needle darted in and out of the fabric, almost too quick for Malika’s eyes to follow. Her deft hands and energy suggested a younger age than the deep wrinkles carved in her face. “Always running into things and catching his pants. He doesn’t have a wife to take care of him so I help him out when I can,” her lips tilted up at the corners. “In return, he takes me hunting sometimes.”

“Thank you for letting me in,” Malika said. “I’m sorry to ruin your evening.”

“Oh no bother at all,” she said. “I’m Doris by the way.”

“Can you tell me how close I am to my house?” Malika asked. “I live at the Russo cabin. I don’t think it’s far from here.”

The woman dropped her sewing in her lap and stared at Malika. “Russo, you say?” she squinted into the fire then resumed her sewing. “I don’t know any Russos around here. Anderson owns the cabin not far from here. These are his pants,” she held them out.

Malika felt the panic rising again. Was it possible she’d wandered that far? Even if she had, shouldn’t the woman still know the name Russo? Sherman was a small town.

“Everyone knows everyone,” her mother told her as they drove the 200 miles to their new home. “And they’re all nice. Not much happens in Sherman,” her mother’s smile was tight, nervous.

It always was when she got too close to what happened. Malika’s mom seemed to think her hometown was the answer to everything. That knowing everyone meant bad people couldn’t sneak up on you. That your husband and daughter wouldn’t leave the house one day for an errand and only one return.

Afterward, she quit painting. Her mom found her in the backyard one night burning all the blank canvases she’d amassed over the years, topping the fire with tubes of paint and brushes.

She didn’t say anything. Just blinked at Malika, turned and went inside. Maybe she was glad. Maybe she knew it would be one less reminder hiding around the house.

“So what’s the closest town?” Malika asked.

“Sherman,” Doris said. “You must not be from around here. Most people have never heard of it but-”

Blood rushed behind Malika’s ears. Sherman. So how did Doris not know where her cabin was? She’s senile, Malika thought. Probably harmless but, still, she felt the panic gnawing at the edges of her calm. Not much longer and she’d be in the middle of a full blown panic attack.

“I’m sorry,” Malika said, standing abruptly. “I really need to go. Can you tell me which direction Sherman is?”

Doris stood, pants falling from her lap. “I can, but are you sure you should leave? You look pale. Maybe at least wait until dawn?”

Malika shook her head, backing away from Doris, “I really should be going. Thank you for your hospitality,” she was at the door now.

“But -” Doris protested.

Malika threw the door open and stepped into a nightmare. It was the paint aisle again. And the screaming. But this time she heard gunshots too. A hand yanked on her arm, pulling her to the ground.

“It’s okay,” her dad said. “It’s going to be okay, Lika,” he cradled her in his arms and she started crying.

“Shhh,” he whispered. “We need to be quiet.”

She put a hand over her mouth to stifle the sobs as her dad rocked her back and forth on the floor. The shots were getting louder. Screams of terror turned into cries of pain and loss. A part of her told her to run, to get out of there. But she couldn’t move. And then he was there. A man standing at the end of the aisle holding a gun. He didn’t say anything, just moved toward them.

“No, please,” her dad said, standing so he was between her and the barrel of the gun. “Please. She’s my daughter. Don’t hurt us.”

Malika sat straight up as the shot fired.

“No!” she yelled.

“You’re okay,” Doris said. “You fainted.”

“What?” Malika asked.

She was on the couch now. Doris standing over her. She looked older than she had a moment ago. Grayer and darker.

She looked over at the fire but it was gone. The fireplace was empty, covered in cobwebs.

“But,” Malika said, pointing.

“What?” Doris asked, glancing at the fireplace. “Are you cold? It’s too hot to put more logs on but I can get you a blanket.

Malika watched Doris leave the room. Her spry walk from earlier had slowed into a stooping, uneven gait.

She glanced back at the fireplace, thinking it was just the flashback. Just her stupid, broken brain playing tricks on her. But it was still empty. A cobweb moved in an errant breeze from the flue.

“Here you go,” Doris draped an old quilt around her.

Malika looked up from the empty fireplace and screamed. There was a hole in Doris’s chest, weeping blood.

“What is it?” Doris asked, smiling at her.

She moved closer. Malika closed her eyes and breathed.

“It’s okay,” she patted her hand.”Just a hunting accident. Anderson never was a very good shot.”

“It’s okay,“ a deeper voice said.

“Daddy?” she opened her eyes.

He was lying on the floor of the paint aisle. Blood was spurting from his chest. Too much blood. Too quickly. A puddle on the floor grew bigger, sweeping out to cover the tubes of paint she was holding before the shots.

“I love you, Lika,” he whispered and then his hand went limp.

“Daddy, no. Please don’t leave me,” she was crying again. She looked at the blood on her hands, her dad’s eyes open and unseeing.

She squeezed her eyes close, prayed it would stop. That she would open them and be back in her bed.

But instead it was Doris, her eyes were missing now. Sinew and bone poking away where her face rotted.

“What?” Doris laughed, a piece of skin falling from her face with the movement. “You’ve seen someone murdered before. At least this time it wasn’t your fault.”

Malika screamed and scrambled for the door. She yanked it open and ran outside, tripping over a branch.

She woke up in a pile of blankets on the floor.

“Malika!” her mom was shouting her name. “Malika, it’s okay. You’re safe.”

She looked up at her mom’s pale, tear stained face.

“Mom?” Malika asked.

She nodded and held Malika until the shaking stopped.

“Let me get you a rag,” her mom said.

“Mom, no, please don’t leave me,” she grabbed her hand.

Her mom looked at their clasped hands and gave Malika an odd look but seemed pleased. She pulled her closer.

“Malika,” she said tentatively. “It wasn’t your fault. What happened. You were talking in your sleep. But it’s not your fault.”

Malika cried harder as her mother held her and rocked her on the floor. She couldn’t know that that’s exactly what her dad did because Malika never told her.

After her crying slowed, her mom peeled away from her. “Let me get you a rag. Okay?”

Malika nodded.

She heard the squeak of the faucet turning on down the hall and then squeezed her eyes shut and slowly opened them. But she was still in her room. She sighed a breath of relief and threw the tangled covers off so she could climb back into bed.

She looked down. Her bare feet were covered in dirt.

The faucet in the bathroom switched off. Malika quickly wiped as much dirt off her feet as she could before climbing back into bed.

“It’s okay, baby girl,” she laid the cool rag on her forehead, ran a hand through her hair.

“Mom?”

“Hmm?”

“Who owned this cabin before Grandpa and Grandma?”

Her mom hesitated. “I think his name was Anderson. Why?”

Malika swallowed. “Just curious. What happened to him?”

She looked confused but answered, “Up and left one day. He was good friends with the woman down the road. She died and he said he didn’t want to be here. Some sort of hunting accident I think. It was odd because no one had ever seen her hunt.”

Malika nodded.

“Are you alright?”

“Just tired,” Malika whispered.

“Try and get some rest.”

Malika rolled over as the door clicked shut.

Her mom was wrong. Bad things do happen in small towns. They’re just better at hiding them.

Malika got up, dug the paints her mother bought her out of her closet, and began to paint death.