by Create50
I can hear him approaching from afar. He’s coming to finish me off.
At first I struggled to break free when they dragged me out here and tied me up. When they exposed me and crawled all over me, I could do nothing but lie here and let them get on with it. After they finished, they left me out in the cold, grey mist and rain.
I strained hard against my bindings all night. The oily ropes creaked and gave off a pungent whiff of old tar as I did my best to break free, but they held fast. You have to admire their expertise; he and his friends knew what they were doing. I’m not the first and I surely won’t be the last.
He’s close now.
The air of death surrounds me, as does the water he’ll hide my body in after he drowns me. I suppose it’s easier if you accept the inevitable rather than fight. Just let them take you down, sink into a calm, slow death, water filling you up as the air rushes out of every orifice.
I’ll find out soon.
I think of happier times. There were bad times too of course, but I never let them get to me. I always learnt from them and was never beaten. All the good things I’ve done in my life come flooding back as he checks my ropes and climbs onto me again.
I remember my younger self, bursting with pride in front of happy, smiling faces as I showed off my new coat. The sheer joy of the freedom to run; I was always the fastest in my class.
I recall the many exciting adventures shared with my friends; the fruit-rich aroma of tropical rain as we sheltered from the storm, the abrasive tang of dry desert sands making me cough and splutter, the beads of perspiration on my skin in the hot, midday sun as the sweet smell of coconut sun-cream filled the air.
I picture dolphins dipping in and out of bow waves and cresting exciting seas. Exotic birds squawking and fluttering about my head as I laze in warm sunshine surrounded by clear blue waters. Joy and love as we came home after our long trips away, full of tall stories, bearing gifts and silly keepsakes.
He clambers back off me and I shiver.
Not because I’m thinking about what he’s just done, forcing his way deep inside me, but at the thought of frost on my skin as I gazed in awe upon a million stars floating above me as the northern lights swirled in the sky over an calm, ink-black sea.
Music echoes through me as I bask in the memory of our many parties. The bad dancing, singing and laughter. The men, and women, who played with me, slept with me, made me feel loved and special.
So much life. So much light.
I’d always been more for keeping the peace and helping people in times of trouble, but I’d shoot anyone down to solve an argument if I had to. When I did, it was only with good reason and as a last resort.
Then I got old.
I’d felt the first signs of my increasing age as I struggled to keep up. I still weathered the storms that life threw at me. I was always pretty good at that, but I became the one that people forgot, the embarrassment, the heavy burden. I became jealous of those slender young things my friends began to prefer.
What hurt most is that I’d always loved them without question and taken care of them without fail, but I came to understand that I was easily replaced and wouldn’t be missed when I was gone. Eventually, it had all got too much for me. A fierce burning took hold deep in my belly. It grew and grew and spread through me and got out of control. I could do nothing to stop it.
The stench of burning flesh invades my thoughts like a cancerous disease. The darkness drowns out the light. I’m empty and hollow, my drive gone, my heart broken.
In the cold light of this, my last day, I can’t deny the contribution I made towards my own demise. I remember what I did and finally settle back and accept what is about to happen. I let them down and I can never escape that. It was an accident, I really couldn’t help it, but that’s what made them despise me. That’s what sealed my fate.
Four people I was supposed to protect and take care of are dead because of me.
And so I don’t blame him now, as he readies himself next to my side, about to send me to a watery grave. At least this will be a quick kill. He made all his preparations yesterday.
I ponder how it all came to this. No matter what, surely I don’t deserve to suffer this ignominious end? A little of the old fight is restored in me and I fight back one more time.
It’s no use. This is how it will be. This is how it must be. You see, no matter which way you look at it… I’m a killer.
He’s ready now. So am I. Truth be told, this will be a welcome relief.
He calls someone on his radio, and then watches me with sad eyes. He waits. Has he changed his mind? For a moment I‘m filled with hope of a reprieve as I too wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Then I feel myself torn apart. My spine shatters. My guts spill open as my torso bursts in two and I feel the water rush in and take me.
I accept my responsibility for those that died because of the fire raging within me, so it’s some comfort that now I can give life instead of taking it. I will sink into the depths and decompose on the sea bed and the creatures of the deep will use me as shelter, spawning in my rotting carcass. I will stare up at the twinkling surface and watch old friends pass overhead on their way to new adventures.
I grab one last look at him. At his side, some of those old friends. They’ve come with him to watch me die.
He salutes me. They follow suit.
That fills me with pride; a moment of dignity in death, even though I know I’m now a sorry sight to the sailors who watch me from their boat.
And then it occurs to me. This is how it should be for an old Warship. At least I’m not going to suffer the shame of being shredded into a million pieces to end up as razor blades.
It’s time.
I’m drinking in the cold, salt water, filling myself up as I slowly sink beneath the grey surface. I’ll be at peace now as I lay down here with my memories and my ghosts.
Dead to the world but still keeping watch.
The Devil is in the Detail
By Nick Jackson
The manor house had stood by a coniferous forest in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales for over four hundred years, through eighteen Monarchs, two world wars and one civil war – but the fire gutted it in less than a night.
No respecter of history, fire. Tapestries, antiques, priceless works of art and historical artefacts: it consumed them all. By the time blue lights flash through a grey dawn, little remains of the house, and within, nothing has been spared.
Almost nothing.
“I found it through here,” the Fire Officer leads the way along the main hall, now redecorated in shades of ruin. The second man, Jerome, ignores the devastation. With precise taps, his fingers tease a tablet’s screen to life.
“Who else has seen it?”
“The rest of my fire crew, obviously. Listen, the whole bloody floor above came down but that thing’s not got so much as a scratch.”
Jerome says nothing. But, as the Officer steps through the doorway, he does feel that familiar twist of guilt, and hopes the doomed man hasn’t got a family.
Then he lifts the tablet so that its display fills his vision, and follows.
“The servants ain’t seen it before,” the Officer says. “As for the owner, Christ knows where he is…”
Jerome recalls once seeing Lord Langstrothdale perched atop a horse, his corpulent frame ridiculous in full hunting regalia, and as the tablet’s camera zooms in on the one object granted amnesty by the flames he allows himself a tiny smile.
And he says: “You won’t find him.”
Named after the First Earl of Oxford, Harley Street has always attracted affluence. Not for nothing is it home to so many private medical specialists. At the prices they charge, it certainly is not for nothing.
Yet money can’t buy everything – as one distinguished visitor has just discovered.
If the prematurely white hair makes some think of a kindly grandfather, then the way it sweeps back from a
widow’s peak reminds others of Bram Stoker’s Count. Sir John Marlow is a rare sight in London nowadays. Since his bank collapsed, he’s seldom left the Cayman Islands. But some things are not handled over the telephone.
The piece of paper in his hand, for example: the results. Now crumpled into a ball.
At first Marlow doesn’t notice the faint whirring, so distracted is he by thoughts of mortality, but eventually he hears, and answers, his vibrating phone. He listens. Terminates the call.
And the man, who that morning had been told he was dying, begins to laugh.
Jerome follows the attendant through the gentlemen’s club – red leather wingbacks, low mahogany tables, vaguely recognisable faces buried in the Financial Times (its pages pinker than their complexions) – and resists the urge to shout profanities for fun. He’s only here on sufferance, and must not get thrown out until his business is complete.
The door to the private lounge closes silently behind him. Places like this are used to keeping things quiet.
“Was it there?”
Jerome glances first at the projector on a stand, then to the screen opposite, before finally acknowledging the pinstripe-suited man. “It was. And now it’s elsewhere.”
“They let you take it?”
“My credentials are good enough. And if they’re not, my money certainly is.”
The other man nods. “And you didn’t look at it?”
“I wouldn’t be here otherwise.” Jerome despises fools like Mr Pinstripe here – Paul Willow, the (dis)honourable member for Cash-For-Questions – fools who don’t realise that when someone else makes your debts disappear, there’s always a price to pay.
“There’s been more deaths, in Yorkshire. An entire fire crew –”
“They looked”, Jerome interrupts, “but they didn’t see. Not everybody can be so worthy. Your grief would be more plausible if you’d warned them first. You knew. But instead, here you are.”
Willow gulps. “I’m only the intermediary. My client’s anonymity –”
“Yes, how is John Marlow?”
As Willow falters, the answer comes from the third man, in the doorway: “Aside from a little indigestion, I’m feeling much better.” Marlow bows his head. “Mr Jerome, your initial contact last week came at a most fortuitous time. And today Willow tells me that you have what I need!”
Marlow places a small casket on a table, unlocks it and removes a whisky bottle. “Now, why don’t you show us?”
The heavy curtains are drawn, the table lamps are extinguished. Faint scratches of light pick out dark panelling. From the centre of the room the projector showers that morning’s footage, in pixel-perfect clarity, upon the screen. Jerome ignores the images; instead, he watches Willow and Marlow, and they cannot tear their eyes from it.
The charred doorframe. The devastated room. The undamaged, untouched object…
The painting.
Perhaps it’s the contrast to the greys and blacks of the scorched wall on which it hangs, but the colours seem almost alive. Burning reds, earthy browns, vibrant purples, dazzling oranges. As the tablet closes on the painting, the men see its detail for the first time.
It looks like an Italian medieval town. The backdrop shows a cathedral at sunset. The foreground, a huge square, is filled with hundreds of people; and amongst the townsfolk walk strange, man-size, insect-like creatures, their black bodies shimmering.
Willow covers his mouth. Jerome smirks. And the third man slowly approaches the screen until he is so close its image reflects upon his spectacles. Obliterating his eyes. “It’s beautiful,” Marlow whispers.
The footage focuses on the painting’s top left corner before moving across the surface. Marlow’s hand glides with it. “See how depictions of morality and sin intermingle, as those grotesque creatures walk among the populace? This is why many still attribute it to the Surrealist, Hieronymus Bosch. However, if you notice the surface, the way the glaze smooths out the oils? That’s a trait of many Fifteenth and Sixteenth century painters, but not Bosch’s textured impasto style.”
“It’s a lot of money when you don’t know who painted it,” Willow says.
“I’m not interested in who painted it,” Marlow snaps, “only in what it can do for me. Mr Jerome, how do you like the whisky? It is one of only a dozen bottles in the world.”
“I’m more a vodka man.”
“Very good. I have other blends at home. One day I shall own the rarest. Do you know what happens on that day?”
Jerome shakes his head.
“I drink it. I believe the finest things should be enjoyed. But, to quote those execrable inspiration mottos, life is too short.” Marlow inhales the whisky’s aroma. “Or it used to be.”
The whisky disappears.
With a glance from Marlow, Willow offers a gold credit card to Jerome. “Half a million. PIN set to 1111. The rest will be deposited when the painting arrives.”
Jerome gives him the tablet. “It’ll be at the Kensington address tonight.”
Marlow nods. “Then our business is concluded. Enjoy your good fortune, Mr Jerome.”
“Enjoy your painting.”
“I will,” Marlow says. “For a long, long time.”
Bookcases of leather-bound volumes tower over the room, and yet it is the much smaller object, rectangular in shape and hidden beneath a white sheet, which dominates. Only the easel’s base can be seen, like the feet of a child dressed as a cartoon ghost.
Nobody knows why the painting is called The Three Sisters. Certainly many women appear within its frame, but never three together. The reason for its existence, like the man who created it, remains a mystery. One of the few indisputable truths is the painting exists.
And it is cursed.
As the years pass, speculation and notoriety breed a thousand stories: that the oils are mixed with blood; that anyone who looks at it dies shortly after; that, if you listen very carefully, you can hear faint screams… If a picture paints a thousand words, then what does this one say? Don’t come too close, it might warn. Don’t stare too long. For I have secrets you do not wish to share… And indeed, those who do come too close and do stare too long, perhaps hoping to find that trio of elusive sisters, may inadvertently see something else instead.
A much darker secret.
The stories drift into legend; the painting slips into myth. But rumours persist, whispers of a challenge within its colours, a great prize if you solve the riddle. If you find the devil in the detail.
If you believe that sort of thing.
One man who does believe that sort of thing, and has that day paid a million pounds for it, stands before the covered painting. Marlow holds a screen-grab from the tablet: an enlargement of one section.
The second man, less convinced yet more afraid, stays by the door – safe – for he cannot see the painting from there. And the painting cannot see him.
The sheet slides away. Although he has spent hours studying the tablet, nothing prepares Marlow for the sheer power of meeting The Three Sisters firsthand.
His eyes feel heavy…
Marlow tries to focus. He’s memorised the exact spot: to the left of a cart near the cathedral, beside two street urchins assaulting a portly aristocrat.
Depression grips him like a fever…
And then he sees.
Those urchins, that aristocrat – and one character peering directly out of the frame. White gleaming eyes. Red glowing skin. Two horns.
Marlow blinks several times as though waking. Licks his lips. “‘Find Old Scratch ‘fore he finds you, and life eternal is your due.’ I see you.” He reaches towards the tiny red character in the painting; the character that, bizarrely, seems that little bit larger than it did a few seconds before.
The glaze is smooth beneath his fingers. Marlow breathes deeply, as though drawing new life from the old art. He feels vibrant, warm. “It’s like electricity running through – Did you hear that?”
Willow frowns. “Hear what?”
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“People, screaming…” Marlow stops. Looks at the painting. His throat is so very dry.
Marlow’s limp hand falls from the glazed surface. Revealing an empty space.
A gasp from the corner.
Willow’s eyes grow wider, their whites becoming more apparent as they start to water. Unable to speak, barely able to move, he manages to lift one trembling arm. To point.
To point at something directly behind Marlow.
Some thing casting a shadow over the man before the painting. A shadow with two horns.
Marlow feels a large leathery hand upon his shoulder, feels long pointed nails pinch his skin, feels a single tear run down his face. Feels that heat within his body getting hotter and hotter…
His mouth opens onto a fiery, white-hot furnace. His eyes melt into two burning headlights. His smoking body trembles, and the fire rips Sir John Marlow asunder.
It erupts upwards, rolls over the ceiling, devours the bookcases – an unnatural, insatiable, unstoppable inferno.
Willow wrenches the door open, and stares at the huge beetle-like creature with its myriad eyes and the fire’s glow reflecting on a shiny black shell. His scream dies just before he does. Price paid in full.
The Georgian town-house had stood near a park in the centre of Kensington for over two hundred years, through nine Monarchs and the German bombs. But the fire guts it in less than a night.
“It’s a mystery to me. The alarms didn’t go off; the sprinklers didn’t come on…” The Fire Investigator surveys the remains of what had once been prime London real-estate.
“Through here?” asks the man adjusting settings on a new tablet.
The Investigator leads his guest into what, judging by the charred remnants of leather-bound books, may have been a study.
There it lies, undamaged in the ash. Dazzling oranges. Vibrant purples. Earthy browns. Burning reds.
“We’re still searching for the owner.”
The tablet’s screen zooms onto one section. Two street urchins assaulting a portly aristocrat with his own riding crop – and there, next to the devil, a bespectacled man with a horrified expression, below white hair and a widow’s peak.