Paint Me a Picture
by Greg Chapman
Art by Greg Chapman
The blank canvases shone in the darkened room, like open doors to the hereafter.
Basil stood naked before them, paintbrush clutched tight in his fist, skin slick with sweat. He shook desperately for inspiration.
He took a long, deep breath and winced at the aroma of spoiled fruit and stale coffee that assuaged the very back of his throat.
When will the inspiration come, he thought. When will it come to save me?
His gaze wandered over the canvases, each one seemingly mocking him for his failure. Art had been his world, his life. He’d captured so many faces; lords and ladies, aristocrats of all shapes and sizes, but in recent months he’d slumped into an abyss of depression. The very thought of painting stabbed at him, mind and soul. Instead, he chose to stare at his now adopted colorless world and wanted to simply fade away.
Basil dropped the paintbrush to the floor and picked up a large uncut sheet of canvas off the table. He wrapped it around his skeletal frame, savoring its texture against his body. It quickened him, but only for the length of a heartbeat. The darkness was more within than without and all-encompassing.
I am devoted to the darkness, he told himself. I am its lover.
He staggered away from the canvases to the storeroom. The double doors slid apart and revealed old portraits hung reverently from floor to ceiling. A gallery of Basil’s past life, before he believed his muse abandoned him. The faces in the paintings loved him for his skill. Each brushstroke a caress, each glint of light in their eyes a reflection of their beautiful souls.
“Where did you go?” Basil asked the portraits. “Why did you leave me?”
The tears, warm on his cheeks, became so cold, so quickly, between his fingertips. He scrambled for the discarded paintbrush, ran the bristles over his face, but the tears were gone. There was nothing…nothing…
Basil Hallward…
The male voice came from behind him, behind the blank canvases.
“Who?”
The painter’s eyes strained against the gray.
“Who…who’s there?”
I am seeking an artist… the voice said, …to paint my portrait.
Basil stood and wrapped himself tighter in the sheet. “How did you get in here?”
There was nothing discernible in the gray beyond the touch of light.
Will you paint my portrait, Mr. Hallward?
“I…I don’t do that anymore.” The words caught in Basil’s throat. It was the first time he’d ever uttered his failure out loud.
I can help you, the voice said. I can give you what you need.
“I told you… I don’t paint anymore. Not even for money.”
Yet you still require sustenance, do you not?
Basil stepped closer. “Why won’t you show yourself? Stop hiding in the dark!”
The voice became a chuckle. Yet isn’t that what you’re doing? You’re so ashamed to live in the light that the darkness is all you have left.
Basil grabbed a palette knife from the table. “I don’t know who you are, but you get out of my house right now!”
Basil circled the room, trying to pinpoint the voice. He wanted to see this man who’d seemingly appeared from nowhere.
I can’t leave Basil, and in truth, I don’t believe you want me to. I’m here because you need me. I am your Doron. Your gift.
“A gift? What in God’s name are you talking about?”
I’m what you’ve been longing for, Mr. Hallward. You’ve been searching for me when I was already here. Surely now, you can see that?
“See? I can’t see a damned thing. You’re nothing! A figment of my starved imagination.”
Now you’re beginning to understand. Paint me a picture, Mr. Hallward.
The gray shape in the dark seemed to gesture to the blank canvases.
Or are you afraid?
The knife trembled in Basil’s hand. It was more than a tool of his craft, it was an extension of his body, his soul.
You’ve labored so long, as all creators do. Judged by what you produce, rather than who you really are. Why not show them, Basil? Show them me.
The formless canvases were an audience, waiting. He turned to the pile of paint tubes on the table, the palettes caked with past attempts at color. Basil picked one up and scraped it clean with his knife. He took a handful of paints and squeezed their contents out, lurid magenta and cadmium yellow oozing.
No, the voice said.
Basil startled and almost dropped his knife. “What?”
Those are colors, Basil. Paint me a portrait of darkness. The darkness that lies within.
The palette was unrecognizable in his hand, the daubs of paint meaningless. He looked to the dim gray shape and realized it was right. All colors mixed together create black, the black of the dark night of the soul.
“Chiaroscuro,” Basil said out loud.
Yes, the gray shape replied. Bring me to life, Basil. Make your life my own.
Basil took up the palette knife and ran its dulled edge along the inside of his arm. Crimson red bloomed there. The subsequent sting was exquisite and he let the blood drip into the wells of the wooden pallet. The deepest of reds.
Give me more of you, the shape said.
For the first time, Basil could make out its presence in the room. It was taking form, getting closer, shifting between the blank canvases towards him. The artist felt his blood falling. He so wanted to capture the visage of the being in the room.
More.
He felt the being’s touch, a warmth sliding its fingers over the wound on his arm. Basil’s whole body responded in kind.
This is the act of creation, it told him.
Basil shuddered as the gray thing that he’d been so terrified of now took hold of him. The artist could see its form, the newness of its clothes, the soft lines of its face. The wanton eyes shining out from sunken sockets.
One of the canvases lifted off from its easel into the air, coming to rest right before Basil’s eyes. Basil’s blood and essence, his sweat and tears mingled on the pallet into the blackest of blacks.
Paint me.
Basil arced the palette knife in hard strokes across the canvas. The blood-black paint smeared and slashed into lines as the portrait began. Basil etched in the edges of the shape’s face. The scrape of the knife on the canvas was an invigorating symphony. Yet, with each application of the mixture, the more Basil needed. So, he drew more blood from his flesh and more of his seed. The sweat and the tears complementing the elixir perfectly each time. He felt weak in body, but not in mind. The shape carried Basil as he worked feverishly into the small hours.
Until finally, he was done.
He collapsed to the floor and beheld the portrait. He’d captured the shape on canvas, the thing that had been his muse since he first picked up a paintbrush. The reflection he’d seen in the mirror every day of his life. Madness personified.
Himself.
Doron.
The Gift.
The Gray. His chiaroscuro.
On the outside—on the canvas—Basil’s madness was beautiful.
Mr. Gray, comprised of blood and darkness, depicted standing proudly inside the artist’s studio.
You’ve taken your ugliness and made it whole.
The voice came from the painting, from the painted lips of his inner torment.
But now you must set me free.
A second blank canvas hovered to Basil, begging to be reborn.
“I can’t… I’m spent…” Basil whispered.
A third canvas, and a fourth came to him.
“Please…” Basil muttered. “I can’t…”
Gray’s painted expression shifted to eyes afire and grimacing teeth. Basil was hauled to his feet by an invisible force, like a puppet. He was powerless to stop his right hand taking hold of the palette knife once more.
You will.
The edge of the knife kissed Basil’s body over and over. Blood spattered the canvases. Basil’s left hand took up the brush and he went into an uncontrollable frenzy of creation. Painting with one hand and slashing with the other. Under Basil’s artistic guidance, Mr. Gray’s shape strode from one canvas to the next, a procession in mid-air that led to the door. Mr. Gray was making his escape and he was taking Basil’s life force with him.
“Please…” Basil said as his body withered from the impossible exertion.
The painted man bled off the canvas and reformed to stand before the door. Paint had transformed into flesh before Basil’s fading gaze. The artist and his muse separated.
Mr. Gray turned to look at his dying creator with adoration.
“You’ve given me life, Basil,” Mr. Gray said. “And in return, I’ll grant you this promise…”
With his last ounce of strength, Basil tried to reach for his art come to life, but all he could do was hear his horrible creation’s final words:
“…you and I will live forever more.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Two-time international Bram Stoker Award-nominee®*, Greg Chapman is a horror author and artist based in Queensland, Australia.
Greg is the author of several novels, novellas and short stories, including his award-nominated debut novel, Hollow House (Omnium Gatherum) and collections, Vaudeville and Other Nightmares (Specul8 Publishing) and This Sublime Darkness and Other Dark Stories (Things in the Well Publications).
He is also a horror artist and his first graphic novel Witch Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times, (McFarland & Company) written by authors Rocky Wood and Lisa Morton, won the Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel category at the Bram Stoker Awards® in 2013.
He was also the President of the Australasian Horror Writers Association from 2017-2020.
* Superior Achievement in a First Novel for Hollow House (2016) and
Superior Achievement in Short Fiction, for “The Book of Last Words” (2019)
