As he waited at his gate Braydon could not put what had just happened into any kind of context. His nerves shot, his body spent but incapable of resting, he put a hand over his mouth and began to cry. When he looked up he saw concerned faces. I guess it is unusual to see a guy overcome with emotion, that it is indicative of a milestone crisis, a divorce, a deceased family member - not an escape from an attempted murderer.
4
All throughout his flights Braydon chewed over what he would take back to Canada with him. The conclusion was that he wouldn’t tell Jennifer anything about the incident. He had no intention of reporting it. He just wanted to sweep it into the furthest corners of the mind. Once back in his hometown he went straight to her parent’s house (who she lived with) and gave three good knocks at the door. Jennifer’s mother opened and smiled, mainly on behalf of her daughter who she called for very casually. When Jennifer saw who it was she cried, laughed and clung onto Braydon like a barnacle. When she eventually got off she asked, “Did you miss me that much?”
“Well, yeah, you could say that.”
He decided to stay with them for a few days before letting everyone else know what was going on and waited for the postcard to arrive which he managed to get off the postman, tear up and bin right away. Duly he touched base with his parents and fishing business. He got back to the formalities of life in something of a haze, the nightmare in Hallstatt hovering over everything he did. The months wore away and, to some degree, so did the awful memories. The business continued to thrive, Jennifer aced her final year and the arrival of two children helped fill up a new four bedroom house. Almost three years to the day Braydon had set off to travel he picked up the latest newspaper and shuddered at something which had made it across the Atlantic. It involved a trio of killers, in Austria:
“The charming village of Hallstatt in Salzkammergut, Austria is not somewhere you would expect to stumble upon a real life horror but that is exactly what police discovered when seven-year-old Timothy Jones went astray of a salt mine tour and found a secret area with five wooden coffins. Inside them were bodies, currently being identified but all are foreigners. It was this detail which led police to Jürgen Wolders and the discovery of a one-of-a-kind radio contraption. Implanted in each coffin was a receiver in which the victims could talk back, and therein the true depravity came about as landlord Jürgen later confirmed that they had kept the victims alive in a soundproof coffin for daily correspondence.
Stefan Andris, one of the salt mines tour guides, had slowly built and wired these coffins during closing hours. He has since admitted to all the charges and walks with a limp that he attributes to an accident. In order to get their victims to go to the salt mine, Stefan would promise to show them this ‘secret area’ during a dinner arranged by Jürgen. They would also be joined by Mark Diffley (posing as American Tommy Braxton) who claimed to be a traveller like the victim in order to create a trustworthy atmosphere. Once there Stefan would choke out the victims with a cord and seal them into their premature graves. Special compartments allowed for intravenous feeding. As Jürgen has since disclosed, “The idea was to see if we could accustom one to living in the smallest of spaces. I had a unique relationship with each member who I called by names they learnt to respond to. After a year I would order Stefan to open up the coffins, to see if they wanted freedom. One did manage to half escape though the muscle atrophy didn’t help his cause. Stefan then cradled him like a baby back into his home until there was no desire to leave, until they were opened in another year’s time.” It is believed that all perished through negligence when questioning began.
The three men involved are expected to serve multiple life sentences. There is a chance of survivors but nobody has come forward as of yet. The resident chef, Pruitt Duchamp, has been acquitted of having anything to do with the murders.”
All the little details of his trip suddenly returned to Braydon in the most awful way. Now he knew what that equipment was in the room behind reception, that Tommy would have been that different German voice he heard, and worst of all, that the unsteady thing he had stood on while trying to save himself was a coffin, probably with a live person inside. Again he was overwhelmed and locked himself in the bathroom. It was now guilt that ate him up. If only he had done something to help those people, but how could he have known? When Jennifer went looking for him he took a deep breath and decided to take a shower. No, he was not going to tell her. He was going to carry on with life as best he could. The evening went ahead snuggled up on the sofa and talking about the future.
Before a new day broke Jennifer was always on standby for a bout of sleep paralysis. Generally he had phased it out but it still happened. She would hear the repressed breathing, give him a nudge and ask him if he was okay, to which Braydon would nod and give her a kiss. Sometimes he would say “thank you.” Sometimes he was too slow blocking the cord.
Divine Art
The average person is unmoved in the presence of a masterpiece. A crude sort of appreciation occurs were they recognize effort, the reputation it has. There’s no emotional response. The untrained eye merely identifies. Physical excellence is different as the observer has a rough idea of what it takes to succeed. They’ve ran the 100 metres before, been part of a football team, swam a few lengths. Art which flows from the brush is typically abandoned after youth and as such there are no developed feelings towards the practice. The average person is unable to access what appears to be in plain view.
It is also true that art has no boundaries, from the hyper realistic to the laughably abstract. This provides something of a lifeline to the observer who knows nothing about what makes traditional paintings work. Occasionally they will see things that resonate. There is however a problem with this comparison. How can one explain the painting which equally baffles expert and amateur? At first glance they go through the same process of trying to get a hold of the subject, that basic security measure to try and bring it under their understanding. They wait and it still doesn’t make sense. It feels like they’re vision is being manipulated. You question whether it is a regular canvas. Well, that may sound overdramatic, but there was such a painting within the immaculate and stately grounds of Ferncott manor.
Every Saturday afternoon, Timothy and Marie Daniels would travel here for a little food, chitchat and to appreciate the scenery. A pact was always in effect - that Marie preferred to chitchat while Tim preferred the scenery and so there was a parting you could set your watch to at 3 p.m., precisely half an hour after finishing lunch. “Try to stay out of the sun,” Marie would tell Tim as he slowly got out of his chair, leaving her to natter with her friend of many years, Kayleigh. “Won’t be longer than an hour,” he insisted and donned his cap.
Whenever Tim exited the front doors he had this little moment were he pretended to be lord of the manor, something that could never be in his life (certainly not in what was left of it) so he went full board with the fantasy, that everything he saw had been especially prepared for him - the perfectly maintained gardens, the opulent fountains in the middle of them and the winding gravel driveway fringed with trees. Halfway down and to the right of this driveway was a lake where, every Saturday, a group of painters collected. A recently operated on knee turned a ten minute walk into a twenty minute one. There was still some pain but it wasn’t going to derail his favourite part of the week.
A spacious formation of twelve artists looked out over this lake, each with their easel and a paint box. Some had food on the other side. A couple preferred to stand. Tim joined a straggling group of admirers. They made sure not to get too close or distract them in anyway, but so long as you abided by these tacit rules you could observe a dozen interpretations of what lay ahead. Beyond the lake were a series of green hills, oak trees, farmland and a stone house – your typical country snapshot. The tutor casually monitored everyone, asked the odd question. Some of the work was of a high quality and various techniques were on show. One used short little brush strokes like Van Gogh
, giving the picture great vibrancy. Another used oil paint in which everything bled into each other. As the admirers went from one to the other Tim noticed they eventually huddled beside an artist who jutted out on the left flank like he needed more space to work. It took a few minutes for them to move on.
Tim shuffled along the grass towards a man in drab clothes. He was bald and unkempt with messy hair sprouting from the sides and back. He was probably twenty years younger than Tim which would put him in his sixties. Three metres felt like the proper distance from which to observe. When he saw past his shoulder his first impression was of an artist who didn’t have the foggiest what he was doing. Another moment put that first impression to bed. Tim was intrigued and not a little. What were apparently the green hills were dark, lumpy mounds. There were no trees, only holes where they were supposed to go. The cottage house was a muddled structure of stone, glass, carpet and wood, like it had been knocked down then rebuilt completely wrong. The ploughed farmland riveted differently. Only the lake and blue sky appeared the same which must signify something thought Tim.
Happy as he was staring, Tim knew he could not let Marie worry with her blood pressure. One thing he did do before leaving was to shuffle over to the tutor who confirmed that guy was not part of the clan but that he had seen him before. “Have you seen what that man is painting?” asked Tim in a raised tone. “I have,” the tutor sounded disappointed, “and I love it, but trying to get more than a few words from him is tough…but hey!” he threw his arms up a c’est la vie style, “some people are more private than others.” Tim nodded with a face that wanted more detail.
In his eighty three years he had seen artwork ranging from the contents of the Louvre to what appeared on the streets of Panama. He had seen things designed to awe, challenge and disturb. Still, in almost every case he could guess the inspiration. What he had just seen was unlike anything he could remember, a sort of bastardized reality that could evade most if not all interpretation. There was the chance he was getting ahead of himself. Part of its impact may have come from the juxtaposition of seeing something like that in a location like this. Tim re-entered Ferncott manor with a mind scratching for answers. Marie was still chatting to her friend enthusiastically which he was glad to see. “Sorry if I’m a bit late.”
“Oh, that’s okay, Tim.” His reappearance interrupted them. “How was the knee?”
“It’s working.”
He took a load off and nodded Kayleigh’s way who he didn’t talk to much aside from the shared topics of their acquaintance, the good food and scenery. Before Marie resumed he got in there first. “That group of painters by the lake. There was someone else nearby, not part of the group. Boy was his painting strange, mostly dark colours and all distorted.” Though they listened politely Tim could not pique their curiosity the same and had to give way to his wife’s urge to talk about one of Kayleigh’s grandson’s. He decided to order some more tea while they got it out of their system. Before leaving Marie asked her husband if he cared to come back this Wednesday as there was an antiques show being held which some other friends were going to. Well, he had no care for that, but he was keen to return earlier in the week to see if that artist was here so he happily agreed.
One thing Tim had resisted for a long time was a computer and the internet. His finger still circled above the keyboard for the right letter but he was improving. Marie had insisted they get one because she didn’t want to be that far behind. They used it maybe once a week. For the first time Tim was on it daily, making use of its search facilities, seeing if any of that artists’ work was online or if he could find anything similar. The best he could get was a brief mention of him on a forum. There were no interviews or exclusives. Tim used what little energy he had in the day to find out more though he was coming to realise that the surest way to do so was to watch this guy work.
Wednesday afternoon and they drove up the gravel road towards the manor. Tim could not see the artist anywhere which was a real bummer. He’d have to load up on tea and sandwiches to validate the trip. Meeting up with Marie’s other friends wasn’t as painful as he thought it might be but he would have preferred to be back home reading the paper. Other than that it was a lovely day with clear skies. Every ten minutes or so cars parked up and unloaded new families. Tim took a pew and watched the afternoon unfold. An hour passed like this and he started to get a little restless, partly because of how much busier things got which underlined how he had not come here for this. Another car pulled up. This was an older model, perhaps a Jaguar. Tim watched a person get out with eye-catchingly drab clothes. Then an easel was pulled from the car. It was the painter.
A moment later Marie approached her husband, asking if he would mind staying an hour longer than planned. It was like he had suddenly had a personality transplant when he sat up and was happy to. Marie quickly noticed him watching the painter walk from his car to his spot and told him, “Careful on your knee.” He could afford to wait a bit more until he had set everything up. One more little sandwich and he started to walk.
Tim realised this meant he could be here every day. Not wanting to come across as a stalker he walked up to the edge of the river first where the painter could see him. A few minutes of admiring the scenery and he drifted until positioned a few metres behind. Tim was sure he knew of his presence but carried on. Though the image looked virtually finished extra, minute details were constantly put in, either with the brush or a charcoal stick. When Tim wasn’t lost in the painting he marvelled at how its creator went about his work, the way he would sit up very still, looking out at the view ahead and then rapidly add details like he was ticking boxes on a questionnaire. Tim watched on, wondering what else needed to be added to a painting that looked done. The dishevelled artist leant down to get another colour and, in the same motion, turned his head to make a note of who was behind him. Tim remembered what the tutor had said but was too curious to keep quiet.
“I don’t think I’ve seen anything like that before.” The artist briefly stopped what he was doing then carried on. Tim felt he should follow up with a question after disturbing the peace. “What was your inspiration for it?” The artist carried on without stopping. Tim smiled and nodded to himself. He didn’t want to disturb him anymore, speaking once more just to let him know, “Well, it’s a lot more interesting than what the group was painting.” He looked back over to the Manor to see if Marie was looking for him.
“Everyone thinks there has to be some inspiration for what you are doing.” Tim turned back around. The artist still had his back to him but he had opened his mouth. He added another few details with a charcoal stick. “Do they not comprehend it’s just how I do things?” Tim was quiet for a notable period, taken aback that he had spoken, puzzled on how he should reply. Ten seconds passed as he watched him continue to work like a man in communication with his painting. “You mean you paint like that all the time?”
“Like what?” The charcoal stick was lowered and he straightened his back. Again the reply made Tim hush up for a bit. If the painter in front of him was a charlatan he could have laughed the remark off as pretentious, but he clearly wasn’t. “Well, like that…”
“What do you see?”
Tim looked ahead at the rolling hills and how the uninhibited sun brightened the stones on the cottage house. “Well, I see something very different than what lies ahead of us…it’s like it’s the opposite…” The painter put the charcoal stick down and shuffled around on his stool, interlocking hands between his knees. His old face, technically younger than Tim’s but more weathered, smiled back. “A discerning eye! It’s something of a gift I have,” said the painter in a reflective tone and analysed his hands which made Tim do the same. Another silent period occurred, something that would be unusual in general conversation but perfectly fit this strange intro. Tim was torn between leaving and asking another question. The painter seemed to look Tim up and down before saying, “You look like a man who would appreciate a tour.” That same feelin
g of leaving or staying was intensified. “Umm…what, do you mean you have an exhibition somewhere?”
“Sort of - at my office.” Tim’s body language became more standoffish, feeling his knee as he adjusted his stance. “It may seem inappropriate but I sense you comprehend my work, and that is a rare thing indeed.” After eerily constructing that last sentence he smiled again; an attempt to mask something? There was no telling. Tim also saw it as a compliment. He glanced once more at the painting. Its magnetic pull was the same. If he went to this man’s place of work he may be given the secret to the effect he achieved and that, at this exact moment, was the top priority in Tim’s humdrum life.
“Okay, why not. We should be back here next Saturday.”
The painter nodded civilly. “I’m interested to see what you will think of my other works, if your praise is genuine.”
“Oh, no, I stand by my remark that it’s really something else. So do you live near?”
“A couple of miles away, I can drive you there, and we needn’t stay long.” He turned back to the painting and retrieved his charcoal stick. Tim frowned. “Meet at 2 p.m.?” He asked. “I’ll be here most of the day.” When he made it back to Marie and her friends it was nice to see their separate agendas had run parallel. It was time to go home. Once there he let her know of his plan to check out this man’s painting collection, and that he would meet back up with her at Ferncott manor. When she asked what he was like Tim told a bit of a lie so she would not worry. “He’s very nice and open. He’s shown lots of people his work.” The computer went back to being a dust collector. At night there were second thoughts about going to this man’s private workplace. In the morning Tim grumbled at his sore knee and promised to keep moving - that included seeing these paintings. The notion that he may encounter works even more impressive than what he saw on the grasses of the manor lifted his mood greatly.
Dare to Read: 13 Tales of Terror Page 7