The words hovered beneath my glowing finger, power incarnate. I lifted the text, spinning it lazily in the air, before hurling the curse at the image of my nemesis.
The photo I had ripped from the backcover of her book dissolved, dripping onto the table, her face hideously deformed, the black ink staining the tablecloth beneath.
"She thinks she can write horror," I said, the deathly silence of the basement swallowing my words. "She doesn't know what horror is." I smiled. "Yet."
They were listening.
"Have you noticed the children?"
"What about them?"
"They seem different, don't they? Since we moved here?"
"Hush. They'll hear you."
"They're all the way upstairs. They can't hear."
They were listening.
"Yes. Yes, I've noticed."
"Timmy asked me about strangulation today."
"What?!"
"You know. And Sally..."
"Yes. The, um. The incident with the-"
"The knife. Where did she get it? She can't reach the counters."
"I don't know."
"Something is wrong here, Susan. Something terrible."
"Dammit, John, these are our CHILDREN..."
"Are they? Are they, though? Look at their eyes, next time."
"What do we do?"...
Peasants. They wouldn't understand. Or perhaps couldn't. Yes. I like that. Their brains too small to grasp the magnitude of this installation.
My art has always... eluded those without intellect.
For example, to the untrained eye and mind, my first installation looked like a series of bricks, forming a wall. If you didn't notice the mortar, it looked just like that. A wall. "Oh, hey, is this the wall guy?" That's how the peons remembered me. The wall guy.
My next installation wasn't much better. Televisions playing to televisions, broadcasting video of televisions. This was before Facebook, even. Don't tell...
The conversation lasted two words. I survived.
That's what I usually told my girlfriends when they decided to end it with me after trying to deal with my post traumatic stress disorder. Those that began in 'rescuer mode' soon realised I was too much for them. The others that either were in lust with me or maybe after my money decided they would put up with anything if it was worth their while. But they all gave up in the end.
The recurring nightmare felt so real. Long empty corridor, bare walls and concrete floor. I saw him approach, tall,...
Whoever said a picture was worth a thousand words had never met Frank.
The man had never met a camera he didn't like, a paintbrush he couldn't weild with the skill of an accomplished demolition man. He didn't just fail to capture his subjects, he mutilated them, butchered their faces on canvas or in gelatin print to the point that the destruction itself was an art form.
Shadows cast a sinister light on the angelic face of his little girl. Brush strokes created abhorrent textures in the golden halo of his wife's hair.
Artists were said to put themselves into...
The year was 1986. Sorry I made a mistake, it was 1896. The day my grandfather made his first monster made from ancestral skeletons and fresh body parts (carriage accident) sneaked out of the family vault, brought to life from a mixture of alchemy, science, advance biology and sheer madness.
I wish it was 1986 because I would have killed the freak hybrid and put an end to what followed.
My family have been living on the island with unnartural servants and companions, the misfits made from grandfather's experiments and their miraculous offspring.
I am as much of a prisoner...
The curtains were the safety.
I could never sleep unless the curtains were draped and folded over each other, obscuring the window completely. I could not even take a shower in the evenings, because once the dusk and dark hit I would become convinced that the moment I closed my eyes as I washed my hair, that something.... THE SOMETHING would be staring in at me when I open them.
I believed the curtains hid that same darkness. The moment I pulled the curtains apart I would see The Something.
He laughed at me for that.
I'd buried that fear,...
When I took the photo it was still light. Tom threw his arms around me and twirled us both around, our shrieks and laughter echoed on the mountain. Ten minutes later he was dead. Torn to pieces by an unexpected pack of hungry wolves. None of them touched me. They circled, growling but left me alone. Even when I ran to the trees and attempted to climb, slipping back down the icy bark. Ignoring screams, snowballs I managed to throw. Dragging Tom's body away they left me alone to my grief, shock, sorrow, disbelief and paralysing fear.
The audience stared open mouthed at me. A skinny young woman with short spiked white hair, low cut black top and jeans sat on the red sofa in place of the stuffed panda.
All I'd asked them to do was to shut their eyes for a second. I didn't cover, block or darken any part of the stage. The girl literally appeared from nowhere. Time lapsed before they broke out in wild applause, whistles, foot stamping. I imagined the tweets, Facebook comments, illegal videos uploaded onto the internet, journalists wanting to make their mark with this extraordinary story. Not that...
Twist and he was dead. Broken neck. Watching the agony in the contorted face I could only stand in my own space of terror. Knowing that no-one would ever believe what happened. Instinct told me to run home, pack a bag, passport, money and take a plane to the other side of the world. I could not move.
Simon's hand touched mine and for the first time since kindergarten, I held hands with another boy. What seemed like hours later we moved and looked at each other, mirrors of incredulity and shock.
John had told us years ago the bizarre...