The Painted Darkness by Brian Keene, Brian James Freeman Page A

into his peaceful world for longer than he cares to admit. Maybe even since he and Sarah bought the house. Maybe even before they bought the house. After all, the first time he felt worried here was when the real estate agent reluctantly showed him the steam boiler.
    There’s definitely something wrong and Henry doesn’t have the slightest idea how he’s supposed to fix it. He’s an adult and adults fix problems, that much he knows. There aren’t bogeymen in the real world, but he also knows what he felt and what he saw in the cellar. All of it was real.
    There’s another greasy thump from the second floor. Then another.
Henry looks out the window at the storm. The snow banks across the property are large and drifting; his little Honda in the garage is definitely no match for them. He watches the snow and the ice blowing in the wind and he wonders how far he could make it if he had to run for help.
Probably not very far. He doesn’t even have his shoes on and there’s no way he can get to them—they’re in the bedroom on the second floor, well beyond whatever is stalking through the house.
As if to remind him he is trapped, the meaty thump, thump arrives at the bottom of the stairs to the attic. Whether or not that’s a real monster doesn’t really matter now. Something is down there and it’s coming for Henry and if Henry’s best defense is to hide in the dark, the results are going to be very unpleasant for him.
He only has one choice: the window.
He passes the unfinished painting he had been working on earlier when he left to care for the boiler, then stops suddenly in his tracks. There are splashes of red and gray and black across the canvas. The ancient dungeon has rough stone walls damp with blood and there are dead rats scattered across the brown dirt floor. Hidden in the darkness are red glowing eyes, hundreds of them. But the focus is the princess in her tattered gown. She stands between a lumbering monster and a small child, and she has raised the sword, as if preparing to charge the hideous beast.
Henry reaches for the canvas from yesterday, which he had faced at the wall with all of his other recent works so he couldn’t see what he had painted.
The image is basically the same, but there is more distance between the princess and the monster. Henry moves down the line, turning the other paintings, none of which he can remember creating—just like he can’t recall what he was thinking when he painted them.
They’re all part of this series, which he’s apparently been working on for at least a month. They’re essentially the same image, with one small difference: the older the painting, the further the monster is from the princess. Very little changes otherwise. Just the depth of the shadows here or there, along with the number of the dead rats. Red eyes always glow in the darkness, watching the scene unfold.
What does this mean? Henry wonders.
There’s another thump, thump, this time right outside the attic door.
Henry drops the painting and shoves the small attic window open, eliciting a cry from the monster behind the door. The winter wind smacks Henry in the face like a fist.
Snow blows into the attic as Henry climbs onto the slate roof, his hands already cold from gripping the splintering window frame. Once he’s on the slick slate shingles, he closes the window again as the wind and snow whips past him. He watches through the window as the attic door bursts open and something slithers into the darkness.
Henry doesn’t want to see what has come through the door. Instead he turns and crawls along the roof, the blistering wind biting into him. He’s still only wearing his t-shirt and shorts, and the ice and snow against his legs and feet is so cold it burns him until his skin is numb.
He turns the corner at the side of the house, looks at the swaying tree in the front yard, then at the garage. That’s where he has to go if he’s to have any chance in this weather, but there’s only one