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

way to his destination: the fragile rose trellis that extends from the ground to the roof on the east side of the house, outside the kitchen window.
Henry begins to climb up toward the peak of the roof, taking the most direct route to the trellis. His hands ache from the chill; his entire body shakes.
He’s crossing the peak when his right hand slips and he falls forward, landing chin first and sliding.
As his arms flail for anything he might be able to grab onto, two images flash in Henry’s mind for the first time in years:
First is a crumbling tree house high above his head, a path of broken branches showing where gravity pulled him to the ground.
The second is a wall of ice holding him under a raging river as an icy rush of water attempted to suck the life out of him.
Henry has no time to analyze these images as he slides down the roof, plowing through the ice and the snow toward his cold and painful death.
The darkness envelopes him and he has almost accepted the inevitability of the fall when he slams into the stone chimney that directs the toxic fumes of the boiler away from the house and into the sky. He hadn’t even seen the chimney in the snowy darkness, but he’s never been more grateful for the awful old boiler in the cellar than he is at this moment.
Henry gasps, his arms wrapped around the chimney, his eyes staring past the gutter, down at the snowy lawn three stories below. The images of the tree house and the icy river are already fading from his mind.
With no time to catch his breath, Henry crawls the rest of the way to the top of the trellis. He swings his leg over the side and plants his bare foot as if this were a regular ladder.
The thorns dig into him like teeth; he bites his lip to keep from screaming. He swings his other leg over the edge. He has no choice but to ignore the pain while trusting the collection of interlaced wooden slats with his life. Where else can he go?
There’s a slight groan as a few of the nails holding the trellis to the house pull free, and he’s certain he’ll fall this time, but Henry keeps moving slowly, lowering himself one careful step at a time, gritting his teeth as the rose thorns slice through his palms and his fingers, stab at his exposed arms and legs, and tear into his feet.
The pain in his hands and feet is nearly unbearable and when he finally arrives at the ground, he’s bleeding from a dozen places, but he’s alive.
THE BIRTH OF THE ARTIST (9)
H

enry knew he was too far from home,and
    he also knew he had to get out of his wet clothes and into a warm house sooner than later, so he did the only thing he could think to do: he followed the rabbit tracks. He pushed through the bushes and underbrush, stumbled down a hill and climbed another, all while trying to ignore the pain radiating from where his cold body had slammed into the tree.
    Henry didn’t understand what was happening, but he was experiencing more and more signs of delirium and exhaustion the further he went into the woods. Out of the corner of his eyes, he started to see movement. Little things at first, which he could explain away. That one shaking tree branch was due to a clump of snow falling from higher in the tree. Happens all the time after a snowstorm. Those two shaking branches? A couple of squirrels chasing each other, that’s all.
    But then, when entire trees were shaking and creaking with growls emerging from deep in their trunks—then Henry grew certain the forest was coming alive around him, stalking him.
    Suddenly, Henry sensed one of the trees actually following him, having broken free of the ground, hulking after him and trying to grab onto his yellow raincoat. There were thunderous footsteps chasing after him and the entire world shook from the impacts.
    Henry jumped in surprise, started to run…but then he looked over his shoulder in terror and realized the tree hadn’t moved, of course. Maybe none of them had. He stopped running, his chest heaving, his body