Short horror stories

Her World Painted Black

When Alexis Blakely arrived at the home of Phillip Kramer, the rain was falling in long diagonal slants beyond the windshield of her car and the whole street lay half lost in rainy haze of the cold, gray, and dismal winter afternoon. Mr. Kramer lived in a large three-story house with a double car garage that had fallen into a state of mild disrepair. In the front yard, a disfigured tree that bore the scar of a past lighting strike loomed over an expanse of knee-high grass. A dilapidated shed sat at an uncertain angle a few paces away from the double car garage. One of the two garage doors was open.

Still a little nervous about the arrangement she had made with Mr. Kramer, Lexi pulled into the garage and parked her aging '90s model Honda Civic next to a 1934 Rolls-Royce that looked as though it could have only recently come off the assembly line. The Rolls-Royce was a status symbol, something that indeed confirmed Mr. Kramer's success as an artist, but it also stuck her as a desire to strive for and achieve perfection. Lexi was only twenty-three, and while physical perfect came easy to her in terms of her appearance, she understood the visual aesthetics took numerous shapes and forms and that some of them were more difficult to achieve than others.

Lexi killed the engine, opened the driver-side door, got out of her car, and stood for a moment admiring Mr. Kramer's Rolls-Royce. Her phone rang in her hand. The caller ID displayed MR KRAMER. She pressed the green ANSWER icon on the screen, lifted it to her ear, and hoped she sounded confident.

"Hello," she said.

"Hello," Mr. Kramer said. "Is that you down there, Miss Blakely?"

"Yes."

"Splendid. Let yourself in. I'll be right down."

"Okay."

Mr. Kramer terminated the call.

Lexi slipped her phone into the back-right pocket of her blue jeans and went through the side door that connected the garage to the kitchen.

Under normal circumstances, she would have told Phillip Kramer to shove his request up his ass, but he had promised to pay her exceptionally well, and he had incredible references from other extremely famous artists, several prestigious galleries that only sold pieces upward of six figures, and models from around the world that made most of the typically Hollywood actresses look like trailer trash.

In the kitchen, Lexi detected nothing unusual for an elderly man of sixty-seven who lived alone. The light was switched off, the dishes needed to be done, and through the pantry door, which he must have left ajar, she spied a stockpile of canned food that didn't require much chewing to consume. An empty food bowl and water bowl sat on the floor. Lexi wondered where Mr. Kramer's dog was for a moment, for she heard no barking, and the bowls were far too large to have been meant for a cat, and then it occurred to her that his dog may have been deceased and that he had either left the bowls there in memory of his believed pet or simply forgot to take them up. Both options pulled at her heart strings.

She heard Mr. Kramer hobbling down the stairs a moment later and when he entered the kitchen, Lexi was surprised to discover that he not only walked with a cane but that he was only possessed one full set of fingers. The four digits of his left hand had been detached from the rest of him at the knuckle. His thumb remained.

". . . been worse," he said.

"Huh?"

"I said it could've been worse."

Lexi looked up from his hideous hand. She hadn't meant to stare, and now to her chagrin, she could feel herself beginning to blush. She tried to look him in the eye and managed to with some difficulty. His eyes were blue-gray and faded, like the sky beyond the window. Beyond the kitchen windows, the wind picked up and whipped the rain across the front yard in a cascade of violent swirls. Mr. Kramer had begun to explain.