Homeboy

Thugs. Rogues. Hooligans. These were always the kind of people that my mother would warn me against and tell me to stay away from. The derelicts in life who didn’t do much more than decorate street corners and stir up trouble with the law. I always managed to steer clear of these types of people. But for the man in my story, what starts as an innocent outing ends up in terror. (And breaks several laws at the same time)

　

“Homeboy”

A Michael Jackson Horror Story By

MJsLoveSlave

Manhattan

Autumn, 1987

Michael Jackson was at his wit’s end.

Sitting there, in the center of his couch, head in his hands, and openly weeping, the young man was certainly a sight.

His white silk pajamas, once spanking fresh and starched to the point of being crispy were now dingy and stained.

Michael had no clue how long he’d been wearing the pajamas, and it was the last care in his mind.

Also far from his mind, was the last time he’d had a shower. He knew he reeked of all sorts of body odors and every so often, different portions of his body would itch so fiercely, he’d swear he was on fire. Three weeks worth of funk clung to his thin body. His body that was wasting away.

As was his mind.

For the last twenty-one days, Michael Jackson had not slept a wink.

Every time he closed his eyes, even for but a brief moment, he was tormented. Wholly tormented by that event he should never have been a part of.

Gasping for air, as it felt his entire chest was suddenly caving in, Michael tried desperately to push that traumatizing event from his mind.

The event that followed him on a daily basis and effectively had turned his life into one simmering, raging Hell.

For three weeks, Michael Jackson had been a shell a man. Not eating, not sleeping, not even bathing. And occasionally, soiling himself from time to time, as he was so tired, so exhausted, so hungry, so purely weakened, he couldn’t even make it to his bathroom in time.

There he was, a hollow reminder of what had been.

He couldn’t live like this. He couldn’t bear to live like any longer.

Through the tears stinging his eyes, Michael stared at the little object glimmering at him from the center of his coffee table.

A small, gold plated twenty-two caliber pistol.

Michael’s weary, bag-laden eyes widened at the sight of the gun.

Yes. That was the way out. That was the way to him being able to sleep well again. Sleep peacefully again.

That gun would be the end to it all.

Picking up the gun and cradling it in chapped, cracked hands, Michael fondled it as if he’d never seen a gun before in his life.

Yes, if only he’d had that gun in his hands three weeks ago, none of this trouble would have happened…

Up until a scant twenty-days before, Michael Jackson was secure and charmingly pleased with his life. At the age of twenty-nine he was a self made man, owning one of the most prestigious and highly sought after dance schools in New York City. Though his academy, The Lightfoot School had only been open since 1979, it had turned several major stars. Some danced the leads in big name shows on Broadway, others in national television commercials, and still more in music videos that were splashed on MTV.

Every year, the number of people applying for a limited spot--of less than one hundred--to work personally with Michael to hone their craft.

This afforded Michael the lifestyle he had yearned for, since he grew up as the poor son of a less than minimum wage making, steel-mill working father.

Now, instead of a little three room shack in Indiana, Michael now lived in an high rise apartment, drove an apple green Beemer and generally enjoyed his life.

One of the things that Michael enjoyed doing to help the community, was that a few times a month, free of charge, Michael would bring in some of the inner city kids for a lesson, just to keep them off the street.

It was one of these free lessons that set into motion the events that would ruin Michael Jackson.


“Amanda?”


“Here!”
“Scooter!”


“Present!”
“Sheldon?”
When there was no response to the name, Michael glanced up from his roll call sheet.

“Sheldon?” He repeated and still got no reply.

All across the highly polished wooden floor of the studio, Michael saw children, between the ages of five and fifteen, in various forms of stretching in sweats, all across the room.

Doing a quick, and silent head count to himself, Michael took note that three of his students were missing.

Glancing once more at the sheet of paper in his hands, Michael questioned to no one in particular,

“Where are Sheldon, Enrique, and Morris?”

In the far back of the room, he could see a hand raised and wagging.

“Yes, Maritza?” Michael groaned and the little girl, only ten years old, (and Enrique’s little sister) came running up to Michael, her long black braided ponytail swinging behind her.

“Mr. Jackson.” The child started and was twisting the bottom of the Madonna t-shirt she wore. “Tiny, Blue and Big Worm aren’t coming today.” She informed him, calling her brother and his friends by their street names.

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his bright red dolphin shorts, Michael demanded sourly,

“Well, why not?”

This was the third time in a row that those boys had skipped practice.

Maritza, stared up at Michael, her hazel eyes wide as she merely shrugged.

“I don’t know…I guess they like going to the arcade more than they like dancing.”

The child started back to her spot near the rear of the room, and Michael grasped her arm.

“Which arcade do those boys hang out at?” He asked softly, am idea brewing in his mind.

“Um…” The child shuffled in her beat up pink dotted tennis shoes.

“Oh! It’s in the back of Lombardo’s Pizza.” Maritza grinned up at him, her two front teeth missing.

“Lombardo’s?” Michael repeated the name softly and was trying his best to place the name. Alas, he’d never heard of the place.

Maritza, seeing he was struggling supplied an answer for him.

“It’s in the Bronx, Mr. Jackson.”

Releasing the child and watching her jog back to her spot, Michael nodded grimly.

He was going to make a special trip down to the Bronx to see Tiny, Blue and Big Worm.


A Few Hours Later

The Bronx

Michael Jackson, who barely ever left Manhattan unless it was on an airplane, found himself walking the streets of New York’s northernmost borough. It had taken him three taxicabs and four subway transfers, but he had made it to The Bronx in one piece. (He didn’t want to drive his car there, for fear that if he left it unattended, he’d return to find it stripped down to the frame and up on blocks.)

He Hadn’t been off the subway a good ten minutes and it was already alarmingly clear to Michael, just how out of place he appeared.

Nearly every person he passed was dressed extremely casual in jeans and tees or jogging suits. And Michael…wasn’t.

Michael was from Manhattan and it showed in his choice of clothing.

Michael wore a royal blue silk shirt, buttoned up to the neck, black trousers with a matching blue stripe down the right leg. A double, blue patent leather belt wove its way around his hips.

Broken glass and long smoked cigarette butts and doobie remnants crunched under the heels of his silver toed boots.

Michael long curls, picked to their highest and held in place by spray rounded out the look.

Factor in the notion that Michael also wore liquid liner circling his doe eyes and that his lips shimmered just slightly with clear chap stick, he truly was gaining attention.

Michael didn’t belong in the ghetto; he looked more suited to be shaking his booty on the neon-lit “American Bandstand” stage.

Even though he was noticing all the stares and whispers that sparked up as he went by, Michael tried vigilantly to ignore them.

He had three boys to see about. He was particularly pissed at the fact that he’d opened up his academy to them--when a lesson with Michael Jackson typically cost five hundred dollars, an hour--for free and they were throwing the chance to learn something useful completely away.

Especially in New York where a strong talent for dancing could open so many doors.

And for what? To play Space Invaders?

Michael wanted to ask the boys to their faces if they planned to come back to class and if they didn’t he was going to replace them.

Finally, after going on foot for nearly half an hour, he saw it.

A small hole in the wall type of a place, with a cracked from window.

Lombardo’s Pizza.

Standing outside the establishment and looking in, Michael searched for the boys.

Behind a scarred counter, he could see a chubby Italian man tossing dough in the air, and scattered around the counter, several teens were loitering and nibbling at slices.

And that’s when he spied them.

In the very back of the eatery, he could make out Enrique, AKA Tiny, standing next to a booth and chatting, very animated, waving his hands in the air.

Just barely over the top of one of the seats he could see two heads bobbing.

Blue and Big Worm.

Incensed, Michael immediately passed through the boarded up door, a tiny bell dinging as he entered.

The inside of the building smelled of a mix of cigarettes and marinara sauce, and loud hip hop was blaring from the juke box near the counter.

“Walk this way….talk this way…I want you to…”

Strolling over as though he owned the place, Michael approached the boys.

And heard language that had no business coming out of twelve-year-old’s mouth.

“…yeah man, that bastard don’t know how close he came to getting my foot hung all up in his ass! Knows his Curious George looking ass was rocking that pinball machine too much!” Tiny exclaimed shaking his head.

As his nickname implied, Tiny was small for his age. A cute, yet hardened kid of Puerto Rican heritage, he was short, and spindly, with dark, wild wavy hair and slanted hazel eyes under thick brows.

Sheldon and Morris, AKA Blue and Big Worm were cackling wildly into their cans of Pepsi.

Blue, a tall slim boy who was so black, he indeed appeared blue, sat fiddling with the New York Knicks cap he wore covering his shiny black Jherri-Curl.

Big Worm, a fat, bald headed, pecan colored boy was smacking the table top, a splotch of soda on his green sweatshirt.

“I wish that stupid son of a…” Tiny trailed off when he noticed that Michael had appeared just behind his friends, and he choked on his words, eyes bugging in horror.

“What? What man?” Blue teased, unaware his instructor was just inches from him. “Say it wit’ yo’ chest, little ass--”

“Yo, cool it!” Tiny threw his hands up and interrupted Blue, indicating Michael with a whip of his head.

Both of the other boys turned and their faces clearly showed their astonishment.

“Mr.--Mr. Jackson!” Big Worm stammered dismayed.

“He came here? Mr. Jackson came to the Bronx! I don’t believe it! Oh shit!” Blue lamented, and was pulling his hat over his eyes, trying to hide his face.

“Madre de Dios…we are busted…damn!” Tiny whimpered as Michael gave him a soft push, indicating he sit down.

“Man, I bet you Maritza went and opened her mouth! I knew that girl was gonna tell on us!” Blue accused and Tiny went to curse him in Spanish.

“Little bitch can’t keep her mouth shut!” Big Worm put it and Tiny started to rise up to punch him, for slandering his sister.

“Don’t call Maritza a bitch, you motherfu--”

“Hey!” Michael exclaimed sharply and the boys quickly quieted down, staring at him solemnly.

“This is the third time you boys have missed my class. I want to know, do you intend to ever come back, or is what you have here so important?” Michael looked at each of the kids in turn.

When the boys couldn’t turn a response, Michael clasped his hands together on the scratched and peeling table top.

“Now I’ll tell you what I see: Three boys who have a gift for dance, who are throwing a chance for greatness in the toilet. Now you three are friends, and I know that here on your end of town, break dancing is huge. Wouldn’t guys like to be a dance team together? Like those guys from Breakin’?”

When the boys still sulking, didn’t speak he continued,

“Or you can each be dancers on your own. You know who Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire and the like of them are. You could go anywhere you wanted with dance, if you’d just put in some work. Commercials, Broadway, other theatres…it’s all there, open to you. Especially when its known you trained under me.” Michael paused to toss his hair.

“I mean is this really what you want to do? Stand around a pizza place and waste your lives? You’re twelve! You should be trying to secure your futures…”

“Mr. Jackson.” Blue spoke up and was fiddling with his soda can to avoid Michael’s blazing eyes. “Do you really think we could make a future of this dancing? I mean really?”

Michael raised a fine arched brow at the boy.

“I came all the way here from Manhattan for you kids. Of course I do. I mean I grew up like you. You’ve heard me say it. Poor in Indiana. One of nine kids. Ten if you count my brother’s deceased twin….I started dancing early and look now, I have a studio and am financially independent. I was a little Black boy in the “hood” just like you. Sheldon.”

The boy cringed at the use of his real name, but held his tongue.

He glanced at the other two boys.

“And I had to carve out a living for myself. I didn’t have anyone helping me like I’m doing for you. Now next Saturday, I want you boys in my class at eight a.m. do I make myself clear?” Michael, dropping his voice a few octaves into a serious tone.

“Yes, Sir.” All three boys nodded. It was probably the first time in their lives that the had an adult who believed in them.

The four of them sat quietly for a moment, then Tiny spoke up.

“Have you ever been to the Bronx before, Mr. Jackson?”

Laughing shyly, Michael patted at the kid’s shoulder.

“Is it that obvious?”

“I’m just surprised no one mugged you yet with those threads you got on!” Big Worm cackled.

Michael grinned, perhaps he was overdressed for the ghetto, but he was glad he’d gotten through to the boys.

And to show there were no hard feelings, he even treated the boys to a large supreme pizza with everything--but anchovies--on it and another round of sodas.

By the time they had finished it, night was starting to fall and trying to be cordial, the boys offered to ride the subway with Michael back up to Manhattan.

For the first three transfers, the ride on the subway was pleasant. Sure it smelled of urine and there was an occasional mouse running through, but all in all it was alright.

Then they transferred to the last train of the ride.

As Michael and his young companions loaded onto the train, they saw that there was only one other person on the car, on the far end, a man sat to himself, his face hidden behind the newspaper he was reading.

Michael and the boys sat on the opposite end, chattering amongst themselves.

“Did we miss a lot the last three classes?” Big Worm questioned as the found of them were settling into a row of seats that lined the wall of the car.

“Mmmm….” Michael pondered a moment and rubbed at the cleft in his chin. “Kind of. I’ve started teaching a dance to “That’s What Friends Are For.”

“Man, I hate that song!” Tiny waved a hand. “It’s so sappy.”

“Cool it Dawg. If he wants us to dance to it, I’ll dance.” Blue pouted. “I don’t wanna get kicked out of class.”

“Good kid.” Michael chuckled approvingly and noticed that Big Worm was staring off into the distance.

Following his gaze, Michael saw that he was staring at the man, who’d finally lowered his paper.

He appeared to be in his mid-twenties, a Hispanic man, with a somewhat wiry build, long black hair and a thick mustache covering his upper lip.

He was dressed simply in a black muscle tee, jeans and combat boots. A tattoo of a raging bull was curling up his bicep.

“Tiny…Tiny…” Reaching over Michael, completely oblivious of him, Big Worm was shaking his friend.

“What Brotha?” Tiny glanced at his friend.

Leaning in to him, he whispered,


“Ain’t that dude over there….ain’t that Toro Gonzalez?”
Michael noticed that both Tiny and Blue looked up angrily at the mention of the name. it meant nothing to him, but obviously was something to the boys.

“Don’t play with me Worm. You know I hate that son of a bitch since he shot my brother Ricky.” Tiny said seriously, forgetting Michael was there and swearing naturally.

He knew that Tiny and Maritza had a deceased older brother, but had never known how he’d died.

Had he really been murdered.

Stricken, Michael stared at the boys and then back at the man who was reading the paper. He did look like he could have shot someone.

“Man, just look. Ain’t that him, sitting there?” Big Worm insisted and pointed.

Michael watched as a dark cloud of anger came over the boy’s face.

“I’ll be damned.”

And before Michael could do anything, Tiny, followed by Blue and Big Worm had stood and were slowly making their way over to the man.

Shakily, Michael rose to his feet, fear starting to rise in him.

He tried to call after the boys, yet he couldn’t bring himself to utter a sound.

All he could see was that trouble was about to start.

If Michael had known how bad it was going to be, he would stopped it.

Lord knows he would have stopped it!

“Yo Brotha…” Michael looked on as Tiny and his friends stood over the man.

“What?” The man barked, looking up at the boys.

“Ain’t you Toro Gonzalez? The dude that be running around with the Eighth Avenue Locos?” Tiny questioned and to his horror noticed his hand was inching into his back pocket where for the first time, he noticed a small bulge.

The boy was going for a weapon!

“No…” Michael whimpered, so frightened, his voice was barely a whisper and completely unheard on the other side of the car.

“What’s it to you, man?” Toro spoke up and it was the last sound his made.

It all happened so quickly. So quickly. Faster than the speed of sound!

The sentence had barely cleared Toro’s mouth, when he saw it.

The black, switchblade knife in Tiny’s hand.

Michael finally finding his voice, put his hands into his hair and shrieked,

“NOOOOOOOO!”

On legs that had suddenly become pudding, Michael was trying to run.

Trying to stop this madness. But it was too late.

“This here is for Ricky Trevino, bitch!” Tiny declared and in an second, the five inch blade of the knife had been jammed deeply into Toro’s chest.

Michael still trying to reach the end of the car looked on as Toro’s eyes widened in surprise and blood flew from his mouth as he gagged, hand to his chest where more blood flowed and was slumping to the floor.

By the time Michael reached him, Toro Gonzalez was dead.

Lying there on the floor of the subway, eyes closed and turning an ashen shade of blue.

“Tiny… what have you done? Tiny!” Tears of shock at having actually witnessed a murder first hand, had shaken Michael to the core. And the fact that the murder had been committed by a twelve year old boy was even worse.

“Made things right. That motherf***er killed my brother.”

Tiny, and his friends stared up at Michael and he saw that there was absolutely no sign of remorse in any of their eyes.

They were so cold, so vacant, their eyes.

It frightened Michael terribly.

He’d never seen children like this. Never.

They were evil.

The last thing Michael saw as he turned and ran as the train reached its stop was the three boys looking somberly after him.

Michael didn’t stop running until he was back inside his apartment, all four of the latches locked and two chairs shoved in front of it to barricade the door.

That had been twenty-one days ago.

In three weeks, Michael had deteriorated as if he’d been captive for three years. The idea nagged at him constantly. Three little boys, barely out of grade school, committing a cold blooded murdered. Showing no remorse or regret for taking a human life. He had wanted many times to call the police. To report the murder.

Lord knows he had seen the report on TV of how Toro’s body--his real name was Armando--had been found abandoned and stripped of valuables.

The boys had had the audacity to rob a dead man after killing him.

Michael desperately wanted to call the police. But he soon realized he would get in trouble too.

Not only would the boys be arrested and charged, but so would he.

He was an accessory to murder. He was there. He could have stopped it.

But Michael didn’t.

For the last three weeks it was that thought that tormented him.

Kept him from sleeping nights.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Tiny sticking the knife into Toro’s chest. Toro losing color and blood and expiring right before his eyes.

Every where Michael looked, he saw Toro.

He no longer bathed, for every time he looked in the mirror, he swore he saw Toro, knife in his body beckoning him.

Heard him asking “Why? Why?”

He stopped eating. Every time he opened his fridge. There was Toro.

He didn’t go out. He even closed the Lightfoot School as every one of his pupils suddenly looked like a bleeding Toro Gonzalez.

Michael’s fevered mind just wouldn’t let him rest. Guilt was eating him alive.

There were so many unanswered questions.

Was this this the first time that child had killed? Had he done it before?

Good lord, had he done it again since Toro?

And so there Michael was. Stinking and wallowing in his own insanity, cradling that gold gun.

Michael had to stop Tiny.

That boy….that boy was a monster come alive.

He had to be stopped.

It didn’t matter if he incriminated himself.

He wanted his peace of mind back.

If he didn’t, he was going to use the bullets in that gun on himself.

Michael wasn’t sure how he got there, but he found himself standing in front of Lombardo’s Pizza, staring in the window. Standing there in his stained pajamas and bare feet, his left foot oozing as he’d cut it on a shard of broken glass, Michael was clutching the little gold pistol in his hands.

There in the same booth he’d sat at three weeks prior were the three boys, sharing a pizza and laughing it up as though nothing at happened.

As if they hadn’t all been a party to a homicide.

Shuffling over to the door, the bell dinged as he entered.

Several of the patrons stared and laughed at this ragged man.

Michael never heard them. He had his eyes on Tiny, and Tiny only.

“I never said I liked Sheena. That girl is a tramp anyway…” Tiny was laughing with his friends.

It came to standstill when they noticed Michael.

“Mr. Jackson?” The boy gulped staring at him. “Are you okay? You look like hell warmed over.”

“You know what you did.” Michael whispered dryly. “You know you killed Toro.”

Blue and Big Worm looked on frightened, their voices gone.

Tiny still maintained his vocal cords.

“I don’t know what the hell you talking about, man. I don’t know anybody named Toro. And I damn sho’ didn’t kill anybody. I’m only twelve.” The boy cackled and was trying to brush off the situation.

“You need to carry your little ass to the police and tell them what you’ve done, Enrique. You know you stabbed Toro on that subway.” Michael insisted.

Tiny, still trying to act older than he was laughed in Michael’s face.

“This old man done lost his damn mind. Thinking I killed someone. What you need to do is carry your skinny ass somewhere and take a bath, cause you smell like hot shi--” Tiny face fell when Michael drew the small gold pistol and aimed at him.

“Oh my God, he’s got a gun!” Some girl behind Michael wailed and the pizza place was emptying out as all the other patrons were taking flight and running away. Tables were over turned, sodas spilling everywhere.

Even Tiny’s friends, Blue and Big Worm were slipping away, completely abandoning him.

Mr. Lombardo, the owner of the restaurant was ducked down behind the hind the counter. on the phone with 911 quietly begging for the police.

For the first time, Tiny had the appearance of a scared child and not that of a hardened criminal as he began cowering in the seat of the old booth.

“You have to go to the police Enrique.” Michael was urging, shaking the gun at him. “You have to tell them what you’ve done. How you killed Toro!”

“You’re lying! I never touched Toro! I don’t even know who the hell Toro is!” Tiny argued and jumped a foot in the air when Michael fired a round in the ceiling, showing he was serious.

“I’m not playing with you boy! You stabbed Toro! I saw you! Sheldon saw you. Morris saw you--!” Michael screamed tears starting to stream from his eyes.

Finally breaking, and crying himself, Tiny shrieked,

“So what if I did stab Toro? He needed to die. That bitch needed to die for what he did to Ricky! Ricky was my brother! He was only sixteen! Toro shot my brother through the head for five dollars! Five f***ing dollars! And he walked away scot-free! No one told on him cause Toro was in with the Locos and it would have started a war! Everyone was scared of the Locos. I didn’t want the damn Locos! I wanted Toro. I’ve waited three years to get Toro, and I finally got him. I hope to God he’s rotting in a special place in HELL!”

Still shaking the pistol Michael argued.

“You have to go to the police Enrique! You committed a crime.You killed a man and then robbed him! You’re just as bad as Toro if you walk away from this too!”

Pointing at Michael, Tiny roared,

“Don’t you compare me to that bastard man! Don’t compare me to him. I did this for my brother! I had to get revenge for my brother. Hell yeah I robbed him. He robbed me and my sister of our brother! Robbed my mom of her son! I ain’t going to no f***ing police! You’ll have to kill me first! Must be out your damn mind! You‘ll have to kill me!”

Very simply, Michael replied.

“Okay.”

And was pointing the gun at Tiny.

The boy, aghast, had his jaw sagging.

So that was what the last moments of his life looked like. Getting gunned down in a decrepit eatery.

Staring at the barrel of Michael Jackson’s pistol.

Frightened, Tiny closed his eyes against the sight and waited for death to come in the form of a snub-nosed bullet.


BOOM!
Tiny trembled and wet himself at the sound of the gun shot.

But other than the feeling of hot urine soaking his legs, he felt nothing else.

Reluctantly and fearfully, Tiny opened his eyes.

A large policeman had appeared behind Michael and at the moment the shot was fired, had yanked his arm up, sending another bullet into the ceiling.

“Come on, come on, drop it.” The policeman bark and was crushing Michael’s wrist in his hands.

With a weak grunt, Michael released the gun and it dropped to the floor.

“You’re being charged with attempted murder, Sir.” The cop informed Michael as he was pulling his arms behind him and handcuffing him.

“I don’t care.” Michael mumbled, as he was led from the building.

After Michael was carted away, he learned of Tiny, Blue and Big Worm’s fates.

Tiny was charged with first degree murder in the death of Armando “Toro” Gonzalez and sentenced to stay in a juvenile facility until he reached the age of twenty-one.

Blue and Big Worm were charged as accessories, and were sentenced to three years in the same facility.

Michael Jackson was charged with attempted murder and also an accessory to Toro’s death, but all charges were dropped when it was shown that Michael had no involvement in the murder and was mentally unsound at the time he threatened Tiny.

To this day, Michael Jackson can now sleep through the night, as his conscience was clear and Toro was resting in peace.

He is of sound mind, finally.

The Patient in Room 377

Hello Readers! When I was younger, I was literally obsessed with Michael Jackson’s Thriller album and the short film that went along with the title track. I used to pretend that Michael really could turn into a werewolf and haunt the woods. I was inspired for my story by just that idea, what if strange mythological creatures were indeed real and just what would happen if someone ran across one?

　

“The Patient in Room 377”

A Short Michael Jackson Horror Story By:

MJsLoveSlave

　


Boylan Mental Sanitarium

Waverly Hills, California

I was eleven years old when I made up my mind to become a doctor. When I was little, I could remember sitting on the couch with my parents and watching reruns of medical-based dramas such as “ER” and “Mash”, and being enthralled with the fast paced, high-action of emergency situations.

In my mind, I truly believed that I would grow up and go on to be an emergency room physician, spending out most of my adult years patching up bullet and stab wounds and reattaching severed limbs, sweat pouring from my brow as I rushed and ran ragged to save lives.

But when I was fifteen years old, just four short years after making my declaration, a tragedy in my family changed the field in which I wanted to work.

At that time, my father, who had spent more than thirty years, slicing out a living, working as a crane operator for a local construction company, was abruptly let go when the company suddenly went bankrupt. (It was years before we found out that the owner of the company had had a terrible gambling addiction and had basically bet--and lost--his company in a simple game of poker.)

My father, who had been the primary breadwinner in our home was now out of work and at fifty-five years old, was too old to be hired for anything other than to be a flashlight toting security guard at the local mall.

Unbeknownst to my mother and myself, that while my father put on a happy and cheerful front to us at home, when he was at work, he was a different person. His coworkers had described him as an angry, distant and loathsome man--a man my mother and I knew nothing about. My mother and I refused to believe it. Not her husband, not my father. Not the man who sat and made his baked potatoes dance with forks while he sang blues tunes just to make us laugh. Not the man who always hugged us and kissed us and told us how much he loved us on a daily basis.

Not Daddy.

Then one day, my father left for work and never came home.

My father leapt to his death from a bridge spanning a nearby river.

He had drowned himself. If it weren’t for the fisherman who had found his body tangled in his trout net, my mother and I may never have been able to give him a proper burial.

A long time later, my mother found a secret journal that my father had started a few weeks before he was fired.

And in it, was a stranger.

From the day he’d lost his job, my father’s mind had been eroding and deteriorating and his writing frequently ran to thoughts and methods of suicide, from hanging, to taking cyanide tablets and eventually, to the idea of drowning. He had felt he couldn’t come to my mother or me with his concerns, that we could consider him weak and less than a man, and it was eating him alive to have no outlet, no ears on which to air his fears and woes.

And it killed me inside that he felt his only out was with lungs full of water and algae.

At the moment I came across the last passage of the journal, I made up my mind. I no longer wanted to be an emergency room doctor. I was going to be a counselor to the people who felt alone, and had no one. And hopefully save lives.

Now, a full ten years later, I was working at Boylan Mental Sanitarium, a round the clock facility that catered to nearly five hundred at risk men, women and children who were in danger of hurting themselves.

I fancied myself as having a pretty good success rate. Over the last three years I had been at Boylan, I had worked with no less than a hundred people personally and only lost two of them.

And walking into work on that particular, sunny Thursday afternoon, I had my head held high, secure in the assumption that I had seen it all.

Women wanting to kill themselves because their “lovers” had left them for another woman (or in some cases another man); men wanting to off themselves because they thought they were the second coming of Jesus and had to do it to save humanity. Young girls killing themselves slowly, with starvation, in an attempt to attain the “perfect” body, and little boys coming off of drug fueled hazes wanting to end it all simply to stop the pain of their bodies detoxing.

Yes, I had truly seen it all.

Then I was handed the case of Mr. Jackson.

“Dr. Laroche! Dr. Laroche!”

I had barely gotten through the automatic sliding doors of the front lobby, when a young orderly, just barely out of her teens, came running towards me, a file folder clutched in her hands.

“Yes…Amanda?” I replied, stopping at the large wall of cubbyholes that served as the mail drop for all the workers in the sanitarium.

“Dr. Laroche, Dr. Pelham insisted I give this case to you. He refuses to take it. In fact, no one wants to take it. I’ve been all over the hospital trying to pass this on to someone--no one wants it ma’am!” The girl was staring at me, her eyes large and frantic.

“No one wants it--is the man threatening to harm others? Has he been properly restrained?” I questioned, taking the file from the girl, who heaved a huge sigh of relief.

We had a very strict set of protocols that we were supposed to follow if a patient was being absolutely belligerent and not only being a danger to themselves, but others.

“No, Dr. Laroche. From what I heard, he hasn’t even made a peep of noise since they brought him in last night.”

“Let’s see…Name: Michael Jackson. Age: Fifty. Race: Black. Allergies to Medications: Penicillin. Reason for being admitted to Boylan--”

I paused and blinked my eyes a few times to make absolutely certain I was reading the writing in the chart correctly.

“Amanda…is what’s written here absolutely the reason why this Mr. Jackson had been admitted here?” I demanded, slamming the file closed.

Amanda appeared frightened,

“Yes ma’am. That’s what Dr. Pelham said that man told him--”

“Well you go page Benny, eh, Dr. Pelham, right now! I have a bone to pick with that man myself!”

“Yes Dr. Laroche!” Amanda ran and immediately began calling for Dr. Pelham over the loudspeaker.

A few minutes later, Dr Benny Pelham, a large, rotund man with a permanently red face and three tufts of white hair clinging to his crimson scalp made his entrance.

I didn’t even give him a change to say hello before I blurted out sharply,

“ A werewolf? You sent me a case where a man was trying to kill himself because he thinks he’s a werewolf? Benny, honestly, it’s too late to try to pull an April Fool’s joke on me, and shame on you for coercing Amanda in on the gag!” I scolded him as I threw the obviously phony case file into his large and jiggling chest.

Dr. Pelham, in his pristine white lab coat, took on the look of a shocked polar bear as he made a grab to catch the file before it spilled to the floor.

“Brielle, you think I am joking?” He growled, becoming even redder, and was shaking the file at me. “Do you honestly believe that I would try to pass on a case if I thought I could handle it myself? I can’t. But you--you, Brielle, have the best success rate of any doctor in the hospital! One hundred patients in three years and only two casualties. I’ve had eight up and die on me in the last three years! This man is so strange, so odd, so…so….” The large man’s entire body shook as he searched his mind for the right word.

“He’s so unique, I couldn’t trust him to anyone but you.”

“Stop your lying, Bubble Butt.” I accused, shoving fists into the pockets on my coat. “ Amanda already told me you tried to pawn this off on no less than a dozen other doctors.” I revealed and Amanda was given a glare so harsh, she dropped down and out of sight behind the front circulation desk.

“Trying to appeal to my vanity won’t help you! Now if you’ll excuse me, Benny, I have to go clock in.” I spoke curtly, brushing past Dr. Pelham and going towards the time clock and hunting my time card.

“I still have eight other patients to look after, and Miss Cartwright in room 511 keeps trying to use her own hair to strangle herself. I have a full plate.”

Finding my card and punching it, I turned to find Dr. Pelham still in my face.

“Brielle, I’m begging you, please take a look at this man. If I can’t help him and can’t find someone who will, this man has no other place to go, damn it! He will hurt himself! Now please, I’ll go tend to your hair-hanger and even that guy who keeps trying to slash his wrists with the plastic sporks, if you’d just look into this man’s case. Talk to him. If you still don’t want him, I’ll do my best to help him. But please!” A beefy hand wrapped around my arm and for the first time, I noticed just how distraught and pleading Dr. Pelham’s eyes were.

He really was desperate for me to at least look at this case.

And I relented.

“Alright, Benny! Alright! I’ll look at Mr. Jackson. What room is he in?” I still wasn’t quite sure I wanted this case, but there it was, in my hands. And I would have to handle him with a delicate hand just like all my other oddball cases, like the man who tried to kill himself by licking electrical outlets.

“He’s just been transferred to room 377. I’ll take you to him…” Before I could object, I was being yanked towards the elevators.

Pulling away from him as we stepped inside the rectangular box that carried us to the third floor, I offered him nothing but a cold shoulder and evil eye.

As we came out onto the third floor and began navigating the winding corridors, I was all business.

“What method was Mr. Jackson using to go about killing himself?” I wondered thoughtfully, peeking at the file on him again, not truly believing the cause.

“His brother, who had him committed, said he found him in his garage, trying to drink a can of antifreeze. He said his brother was covered in blood and he still has no idea where the blood came from.”

Dr. Pelham was somber as we came to the closed door of Room 377.

“Antifreeze. Been a while since I had someone using that.” I nodded and motioned for a male orderly to open the door for us.

Dr. Pelham started to enter the room with me and I put a hand out.

“My case now, Benny. I’ll take it from here.” I assured him and entered the room.

“You be careful!” Dr, Pelham called after me. “Strangest of the strange, believe me!”

Room 377 was much like all the other rooms at Boylan, white with quilted and padded walls and entirely bare save for a bare mattress in a metal frame (most patients couldn’t even be trusted with a down pillow) and an unadorned window on the opposite wall.

I spotted Mr. Jackson on the other side of the room, crouched in the corner, his knees drawn to his chest, head lowered with a long mass of shiny black curls tumbling down. He was barefoot and clad in the standard issue grey pajamas that all the patients, male or female, wore.

“Mr. Jackson?” I spoke softly, so I wouldn’t startle him and drive him to act out.

The man on the floor remained still for a long while and finally, finally, he lifted his head.

I was momentarily taken aback by just how attractive the man appeared.

He had clear, pale, milky skin, a face with lovely and sharp features and bright, expressive dark eyes, under finely tweezed black brows. He appeared much younger than his stated fifty years old.

Under any other circumstances, I might have asked him out to dinner and a movie.

The expression I found in his eyes weren’t of fright like most of the people I encountered, who appeared like caged animals within their cells.

His expression was different. If I was correct, it appeared there was remorse in his eyes. A quiet sadness.

“Are you the lady that’s supposed to help me?” His voice was very high-pitched for a man and he seemed timid as he continued to stare up at me.

“Yes, my name is Dr. Brielle Laroche. I’m here to help you. May I call you Michael?” I ventured a few steps closer to him.

“I don’t mind.” He sighed softly, then added coldly, “I don’t belong here.”

“Oh, but you do, Michael.” I objected in a tone so sweet, you’d have sworn I was agreeing with him. I had learned from experience it was best to act like I was a friend to a patient rather than a foe.

“You tried to harm yourself by drinking antifreeze. That’s not normal behavior. And this claim about being a werewolf--”

I was cut off by Mr. Jackson declaring with hot conviction.

“I am a werewolf! No one believes me! I tried to tell my brother, Jermaine, and he didn’t’ believe me. He sent me to this…to this prison! And that doctor, that big fat man, washed his hands of me before he even saw me. I heard him through the door. I heard him asking God why he was given a case like mine. No one believes me. And now you’re here. Another skeptic.” Eyes running up and down me with distaste, he laughed bitterly, and lowered his head once more.

Alright, so the man thought he was a werewolf. I had everything to lose in writing him off and humiliating him any further. The sanitarium was already packed with people who’d been written off left and right,

No, if I was going to make headway with this man, I had to make him believe that I believed and was on board with his cockamamie tale.

Turning on all the charm I had in my body, I kept my voice so sweet I nearly contracted diabetes,

“I’m not like Dr. Pelham, Michael. I’m not a skeptic. That’s why I have your case…I do believe you are a werewolf. That’s why I’m here.” god I was lying through my pearly whites, but if it benefited this man, I’d pretend I thought moon was made of cheese and inhabited by little green men.

In order to help a patient, I had to learn what led them to their breaking point, what had caused them to snap and want to end their own life.

I was about to go to work on Mr. Jackson.

“Now, I want to understand you, Michael. How did you come to be a werewolf…is that why you want to harm yourself?”


Was I really having this conversation?
In front of me, Michael shook his head, tresses bouncing, and I inched closer to him.

“My being a werewolf--it’s only a part of the problem…” He paused and stared up at me, as if to study me.

“What are you, French?” Mr. Jackson asked suddenly.

“Half. My father’s French and my mother’s Russian and Romanian.”

There was no need to tell him my father had offed himself so long ago.

“Ah, Romanian…” Mr. Jackson stretched his legs out and rubbed at his clefted chin thoughtfully. “Have you, by any chance, ever been to Romania, Dr, Laroche?”

“No.” I smiled at him and patted his thin knee. “Never crossed my mind to go there--”

“Well, I have been there, and I wish every waking second I had never gone!” Mr. Jackson’s voice was now deeper, beckoning, and it was clear he felt comfortable in sharing his story with me.

“You see, I am a great traveler. Since I was a teenager, I’ve loved traveling to distant countries and learning their customs and cultures. Last summer, I had the opportunity to go and visit some Romanian villages. And that was the sort of thing I liked, seeing the country folks, untouched by modern society. I took a lovely little cabin at an inn on a beautiful mountain top, in a very small village, called Gorlak. I adored the view of the surrounding area, all pretty and green with little goats here and there, and would often leave the windows open to enjoy the cool breezes and fresh air. I tended to leave the window open for the breeze at night to help me sleep. And that was the start of the problem.” Michael groaned and put a hand to his forehead. “The woman who ran the inn, Oksana, kept begging me to close the window at night, claiming that something called a ‘reshnik’ might get me. I had no idea what a reshnik was I had never heard of such a thing and assumed that she meant I might catch a cold from the cool air. I‘m not fluent in Romanian by any means,”

“Yes…” I was nodding, trying to figure where this story was going.

“One morning, I awoke with the worst pain in my left arm. At first I thought I was having a heart attack, but when I looked carefully, I saw that I had a bite mark on my arm--like a dog had bitten me.” Michael stopped and pushed up the sleeve of his top, revealing a set of scars on his thin forearm that did indeed resemble a canine bite mark. I could make out at least seven tooth indentations that had healed over, leaving dark pink touches to his pale skin.

“I was bleeding a little and ran to Oksana to make her help me. She immediately kicked me out, throwing my things into the mud, screaming “Reshnik! Reshnik!” at the top of her lungs.

I tried going to several other homes for help, as I was still bleeding, and no one even answered their doors. No one wanted to help me.

“I eventually stopped bleeding, and came on home to California. I saw a doctor and he said it looked like I had been bitten by a dog, but that I would be alright. I was given a series of rabies shots and sent on my way. ”

I leapt back as Mr. Jackson rose to his feet, standing a few inches over me.

“And I was fine, for nearly a month. That all changed with the first full moon after my bite.” He was running his hands through his hair, hands trembling.

“I woke up in the middle of the night, with a hard, raging craving for red meat.”

“You’re a grown man, that’s normal.” I tried to ease the rapidly tensing situation with a chuckle. Mr. Jackson didn’t laugh and gazed on me with a look of aggravation.

“ It’s not normal. I’ve been a vegetarian for over twenty years. I don’t even like beef broth in my vegetable soup. But I found myself driving to an 24-hour grocery store and buying a pack of steaks. I didn’t even make it home. Right there, in the parking lot in my car, I tore the package open and ate the steaks. Raw, uncooked, and bloody. Licked the blood from my own fingertips. I ate five raw steaks and was happy as a clam.

The next morning I was sick to my stomach from the meat. I didn’t know where the craving had come from, but as soon as I ate the steaks, the feeling left me. And it continued like that for the next six months, Dr. Laroche. Every full moon, I’d eat a bellyful of raw meat. Then came the fateful night this past February. Things changed.” Mr. Jackson turned his back to me and was gazing out of the small window. “I began craving strange things. Stranger than the meat. At home I have a pet snake and once a week I’d feed him a mouse. And one night I found myself wanting to eat the mouse. Me. I was looking at the small mouse in my hand like it was a hamburger with all the trimmings.”

He confided, voice quavering.

“And did you eat the mouse, Michael?” I inquired and instantly regretted it.

The man whirled around, aghast, skin grey in disbelief.

“Hell no! I didn’t eat the mouse! What do you think I am, some animal with no self control? I walked into this building, not crawled in on all fours! I do have some self control you know--see, I knew you wouldn’t understand!”

He shouted and behind us, the door cracked and an orderly put his head in, surely checking to make sure I wasn’t being attacked.

I quickly waved him away and placed my hands on Mr. Jackson’s shoulders. It was against protocol to really physically touch patients, but this man seemed so disturbed, I figured a kind touch wouldn’t hurt.

“I want to understand, Michael. Make me understand.” I encouraged him and was patting at his back.

Mr. Jackson appeared to calm a bit and trust me again.

“I’m getting to it. I began searching online and trying research this crazy behavior of mine, these odd cravings. I always remembered that woman yelling “Reshnik” at me and looked it up on a word translation site. I almost fainted when I saw what it meant. It’s an old Slavic word that does mean “werewolf”. it seemed completely ridiculous to me--I don’t even really believe in things like this myself. Then I began reading into the folklore, the stories about werewolves. And the more I read, the more it seemed like I had this…this disease.” The man was trembling beneath my hands.

Michael Jackson truly believed he was this mythical beast. Oh, I had an extremely long road of therapy ahead of me in helping this man.

“It’s not like how it appears in the movies, a man growing a coat of fur and a long snout and claws. That’s just Hollywood imagery. In truth all I have are cravings. I haven’t changed physically at all. Every month, just at the full of the moon, I go meat crazy. The rest of the time, I’m a vegetarian and could care less about red meat--”

This man was talking in circles and I still had many patients to see on my shift. I had to hurry him along.

“What drove you to want to kill yourself? I see the idea with being a werewolf and being bitten, but it’s not telling me what I really need to know.” I announced, a sharpness creeping into my tone as I was starting to get fed up.

I was ignored, but got my answer soon enough.

“I was visiting my brother, Jermaine--the same steel-headed so and so that had me committed--and we happened to see the weather report. It said that in two days there would be a lunar eclipse.” He turned to me suddenly, staring plainly as if this bit of information was to have awaken a revelation in me.

I stared back just as plainly and it became clear of my ignorance to whatever it was he was implying.

“Ah, how would I expect you to know what a lunar eclipse means to a werewolf. You’re just a doctor.” He simpered, wrapping his arms around himself, if though he had a chill.

“I’ll tell you what a lunar eclipse means to a werewolf--it means death.”

A long slim finger wagged at me. “You see, any werewolf exposed to a lunar eclipse, even the tiniest bit of exposure, he will die a violent death. I’m not completely sure what happens, if we go up in flames like vampires before the sun or what-- al I know is me and my brethren caught in the eclipse will suffer greatly. And I didn’t want that. That’s how I ended up in Jermaine’s garage, chug-a-lugging that green goo.” Mr. Jackson turned and brushed past me and dropped down on his bed.

“It was sweet, but made me so sick, that I began vomiting, over and over, until blood gushed from my mouth. And then I blacked out. I was already out when my brother found me and rushed me to the hospital. They pumped my stomach and while the stuff was still coming out of me, my brother signed the papers and put me away in here. And here I am. I didn’t want to die in a violent way. You see Dr. Laroche…” He held his hand out to me, and I took it, not sure what force had driven me to it.

“I am not afraid to die; I know there’s something for me on the other side. It’s just the way to go. I don’t want to hurt. I have a very low threshold of pain, and I just wanted to be painless. I know I’m going to die, tonight. The eclipse is tonight” He was somber and looking like a small child.

I didn’t usually play into my patients eccentricities, but there was something in Mr. Jackson’s eyes that moved me to say,

“You have to be hidden from the eclipse, tonight. If I could find a shade or something to block that window--” I indicated his tiny hole in the wall,

“--then you would survive the eclipse and we can work on some therapy for you.”

Mr. Jackson hung his head woefully,

“I don’t want to survive the eclipse, Dr. Laroche. You see, I’m terrified of these cravings. Sure it started with steaks and wanting a mouse, but what about the future, what lies down the line for me? Will I one day want human flesh? Will I one day crave that? And what if I give in? It would be hell on earth for me if I was going around, murdering innocents. I couldn’t stand it. I want to remove myself from the situation before it comes to that. You must understand, I’m trying to help mankind. I’m no longer a man, not really. I’m…I’m something else, Dr. Laroche. Something different.”

I was almost convinced this man was a werewolf, he was so soft and gentle in his ways. I actually felt pangs of guilt for laughing about him earlier.

“Dr. Laroche…” tearing my eyes from Mr. Jackson, I saw that Amanda, the orderly had poked her head in the room. “Dr, Pelham needs you. Miss Cartwright has bitten him several times and he needs your okay to administer a sedative to calm her” She alerted me.

I waved a hasty hand at her. “Give me a few moments, I’m with a patient here, dang!”

“Yes ma’am!” Amanda leaned back and closed the door.

“Will you excuse me, Michael?” I started to leave, when I saw tears falling down his cheeks.

“Why are you crying?” I dropped to my knee before him and grasped one of his large hands in mine.

Sniffling, I got a choked reply,

“You were the first person to listen to me. My brother wouldn’t listen to me, and neither did Dr. Pelham. I, I thank you so much for listening to me, Dr. Laroche.”

Before I could stop him, Mr. Jackson leaned and pecked my mouth gently.

I recoiled in horror. I could have easily been fired and lost my practicing license if I was founds engaging in such an act with a person entrusted to my care.

“Forgive me, Doctor.” Mr. Jackson’s cheeks tinged pink with embarrassment. “I lost myself. I was so overcome with emotion, at finally having an ear to my troubles and not being tossed away. I apologize, but I do thank you so much.”

He was squeezing my hand appreciatively, and I did feel as though I had accomplished a breakthrough with Mr. Jackson, and that was the first step to a full recovery and going back out into mainstream society.

“It was nice to meet you, Mr. Jackson. I have to go see my other patients, but I will be back to check on you in the morning. And you will be fine.” I assured him, and Mr. Jackson’s hand went limp in my hand.


“I won’t be here in the morning.”
Was the last thing he said to me, as I slipped from the room.

* * *

I worked overtime that night, as a crisis with another one of my patients (we solved Miss Cartwright’s want to hang herself, right away by shaving her head bald of any hair to keep her from trying to strangle herself with it). This other particular patient had managed to loosen a screw from his metal bed and used the pointed end to gouge jagged holes in his wrists to try to bleed to death.

He’d managed to stay coherent despite bleeding profusely and it had taken all night to talk him from his anxiety drenched high to where he could be taken and have his wrists stitched closed.

I was tired, and drained, and would have loved to have driven home and dove into bed, but something compelled me, drew me back up to the third floor to check on Mr. Jackson.

I wanted to see that he had made it through the night and tell him “I told you so.”

I never got to.

As I stepped off the elevator in the early morning hours, I became acutely aware of a man shrieking at the top of his lungs.

“…I trusted you! I trusted you! You big bastard! I should kill you!”

I flew into defense mode, thinking that some how one of the patients had escaped their cell and was threatening somebody.

Running through the halls, I came upon a wild scene.

There was a man I had never seen before, being restrained by two large orderlies and was screaming and reaching at Dr. Pelham, who was standing just out of the man’s reach.

“You son of a bitch! You told me my brother would be safe! You told me you’d help him! I’m gonna break your damn neck! My brother! My little brother! Michael! Michael! I’m sorry Michael! Michael!”

Michael? Oh no… No!

The man sagged to the floor, breaking down and weeping, hands mashed to his rough and leathery face.

I was in a daze as I got over to Dr. Pelham.

It couldn’t be true, it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

“Benny…Benny…” I swallowed hard as I grabbed onto his arm.

“Is that Jermaine Jackson?” I barely heard myself my voice was so weak.

“Yeah,” Dr. Pelham, voice cracking, turned to me, his own eyes watery.

“I’m sorry Brielle…I’m really sorry.”

“You mean Michael is…he’s…” I put a hand to my chest as it began heaving.

Behind us, the door to Room 377 opened and I had to hold on to the wall as my knees became weak.

Two medics came by, pushing a sheet covered gurney between them.

At the sight of the gurney, Jermaine was inconsolable.

“Michael! My brother! NOOOO! What am I going to tell our mother? How can I tell her that Michael is…is….Oh God!” He screamed and breaking from the orderlies laid himself against the sheet covered remains of his sibling.

“I’m sorry. Forgive me! I love you! I thought I was doing the right thing, Michael! Please forgive me!” he dropped to the floor again and as the medics continued on, I noticed something that would haunt me every time I closed my eyes.

As Jermaine had jostled his brother, one of his hands had fallen from under the sheet and dangled.

At least what was left of his hand. All I saw was bloodied, bruised and torn flesh, a few bones peeking through.

Reaching a hand to Dr. Pelham and holding on my throat with the other, I wheezed,

“Benny, what the hell happened to that man? What happened? He was fine when I left him and…did you see his hand? No one does that to themselves!”

“I don’t know! Nobody knows what happened. Around midnight last night, I got paged and one of the orderlies said that Mr. Jackson had begun shouting and raising a ruckus, carrying on, hollering for help. They thought he was just coming to terms with being in Boylan. Eventually the noise died down….but I didn’t know that the man had himself died.”

Benny slapped a hand to his forehead.

“How did he die? How did he manage to kill himself? There was nothing in that room to harm him!” I was still trying to be objective, vainly pushing the thought of the Reshnik Curse out of my head.

“That’s what no one can grasp.” Dr. Pelham grasped my arm in his hand and was leading me to Mr. Jackson’s room. “I hate to show you this, but you have to see.”

Pulling me along with him and pushing the door open, I felt my eyes swelling first in disbelief and then blurring over with hot tears of my own.

The room.

My God that room looked as though a napalm bomb had gone off in there.

All over, the padding had been ripped and torn off the walls, the bed all the way across the room and over turned.

Blood was everywhere. So much blood. Streaking the walls, spattering the ceiling, even pooled on the floor.

“We don’t know what the hell happened. It’s like the man himself exploded and everything flew everywhere. We just don’t know. The only thing we do know is that man didn’t have any weapons on himself or hidden in here to do this. And I saw that man, it looked like he went into a knife fight, without a knife. He was gashed all over. It was something out a slasher film. Four orderlies threw up when they saw him. It was the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen in my life. What did that man tell you? Did he give you any clue about what he could have done I‘m so sorry I gave this to you!“

My colleague was pulling at what was left of his hair in anguish.

It was completely obvious that in what ever agony he’d been feeling, Michael Jackson had not only ripped his room, but himself to ribbons.

Patting his shoulder I shook my head and cried harder.

“You wouldn’t understand, Benny. You just wouldn’t understand. That‘s what he told me. This is something that‘s different, and bigger than us.”

That was the last thing I remembered before collapsing in grief.

When I came to a few hours later, I immediately requested for a transfer to another facility. Any facility.

Dr. Pelham followed suit and also left the hospital.

I just wanted to get as far away from Boylan Sanitarium and hopefully never encounter another patient like the patient in room 377 ever again.

At least that’s what I pray for every day.

It was never explained what truly killed Mr. Jackson, but I will believe that it was the Curse of the Reshnik.



　

　

ALTERNATE ENDING FOR THOSE WHO DON’T LIKE MICHAEL HURT:



I worked overtime that night, as a crisis with another one of my patients (we solved Miss Cartwright’s want to hang herself, right away by shaving her head bald of any hair to keep her from trying to strangle herself with it). This other particular patient had managed to loosen a screw from his metal bed and used the pointed end to gouge jagged holes in his wrists to try to bleed to death.

He’d managed to stay coherent despite bleeding profusely and it had taken all night to talk him from his anxiety drenched high to where he could be taken and have his wrists stitched closed.

I was tired, and drained, and would have loved to have driven home and dove into bed, but something compelled me, drew me back up to the third floor to check on Mr. Jackson.

I found Mr. Jackson, in the wee hours of the morning, asleep on his cot of bed, stretched out under thin standard issue blanket.

He appeared so peaceful lying there, the first strains of morning sunlight coming through the one window of his room.

Everything about the poor man appeared normal, except for the fact that his clothing was stuck to him-- Mr. Jackson was drenched in sweat.

I figured it was probably from his own anxiety and worry of a fairytale death that was not to be.

But he was none the less alive, his chest going up and falling with each breath he took.

Placing a hand on his smooth forehead, I leaned and whispered into his ear.

“You’re fine; I told you so.”

Shifting in his sleep, one of Mr. Jackson’s hands fell from beneath the blanket and as I stared at it, I found my eyes widening in awe and horror.

His hand was badly bruised and bloodied, the nails completely knocked back.

Stunned and wondering how he’d hurt himself, I turned to call for an orderly.

And that was when I saw it.

The padding on the inside of the door was torn and ripped to shreds as if it had been gashed by a wild animal.

At the sight of the blood stained door, I stood, squared my shoulders and walked out of the room.

And I kept walking.

I never returned to the sanitarium or the patient in room 377.

Death in Oils

Paintings. Before the advent of the photograph, paintings were one of the few ways to record a memory. An image of someone or something, that could stand in a frame as a testament to history. Every painting out in the world is of something and behind every painting’s subject, is a story. And as the characters in this story learn, it’s a story better left untold.

　

“Death In Oils”

A Michael Jackson Horror Story By:

MJsLoveSlave

　

Bringham and Butler Law Office

Overton, California

Spring 1990

Two men--two brothers--stood together on the sidewalk that bright and crisp afternoon. One is dressed sharply in a cool grey suit, offset with a fashionable abstract print tie. The other is dressed a bit more flamboyantly in a black blazer, affixed with silver buckles and fringe down the front and hanging from the sleeves and tapered black trousers.

The man in the grey suit is as cool as he looks, leaning against the front of the five story, brick Art Deco building, hands shoved into his pockets calmly looking at the passers-by.

Meanwhile, the man in black is the complete opposite. He appears shaken, the dark eyes in his pale face, widened and rambling, his pink mouth drawn into a tense and terse straight line.

He is visibly trembling.

“Come on, Michael. I know this is hard.” The man in grey speaks suddenly, placing a large hand on the man in black’s thin shoulder. “But we have to go in. Stalling out here won’t change things. I understand. I’m sorry--”

The man in black looked up at the man in grey, a sad fierceness to his eyes.

“No, you don’t understand, Marlon.” He whispered, his lips just barely moving to let the words out. “If I go in that law office, then it means Alec is dead--”

“Michael...” Marlon grabbed onto Michael’s shoulder and stared him in the eyes.

“Alec IS dead. We went to his funeral two days ago. And now we’re at the law office because his attorney says he left you something. He is dead--”

Unable to contain himself, Michael grabbed onto his brother and hugged him close as the memories, still fresh and raw in his mind came flooding back.

Alec Warner had been a kindly, elderly gentleman who had lived across the street from Michael. And over the course of five years of visits and shooting the breeze over cups of herbal tea (spiked with spiced rum) the two had become good friends. Michael even thought of Alec, a man in his nineties, as somewhat of an adopted grandfather.

Then there had been that fateful day, just a week ago.

Michael, who had a key to Alec’s home, had come over for his daily cup of tea (and rum) and to spend time with his friend.

Michael had happily entered the home, calling Alec’s name.

When he got no response, curious and a tad worried, Michael had started through the house to look for him.

And he found Alec. Just not in the way he had wanted.

Sprawled at the bottom of the staircase of the home, bruised and battered, was Alec Warner.

Dead.

He couldn’t handle it.

Michael had fled the house in hysterics, screaming and crying for help, before collapsing in the street with grief.

The coroner later said that the cause of Alec’s death was a fracture to his skull, from an apparent fall down the stairs.

That had been one week ago. A mere seven days.

The whole thing was still too unreal to Michael.

His dear friend. Dead and buried.

It was too much.

And now he was at the law office to collect something that had been left behind for him.

By his dead friend. It was just too much.

“Mike, I’m here with you. I’m right here.” Marlon assured Michael, patting at his back and slowly leading him into the lobby of the law office.

Marlon had been with Michael the last week as it seemed Michael was truly taking the death of this old man so horribly.

Aside from an overnight stay in the hospital to treat him after his collapse, Michael Jackson was truly grief stricken. He was barely eating and without the constant prodding of Marlon, he probably wouldn’t have kept himself clean or cared for his dozen little caged pets.

He was just a mess.

Michael indeed seemed to be in his own little world as Marlon led him to the secretary at the desk and explained who they were and that they were there to see William Butler, Alec’s attorney.

And he remained silent as they were led up onto the fourth floor to Mr. Butler’s office.

It was a quite tight few moments as the Jackson brothers sat together in the wood paneled office, portraits of presidents past staring down at them.

Finally, Mr. Butler, a squat man with wide rimmed glasses, perched on a long nose entered, a manila folder in his hands.

After the cursory greetings, Mr. Butler got right down to business.

“Mr. Jackson, I am sorry for your loss. It was brought to my attention that you and Mr. Warner were friends…”

“Yes.” Was all Michael said before producing a red handkerchief from his jacket and holding it to his nose as it ran.

“Mr. Warner thought very highly of you, Mr. Jackson. You see, Mr. Warner had only one relative in the world, a granddaughter named Delphine…”

Michael nodded solemnly. Though he had never met the woman, he had heard mention of her, many times from Alec.

“I don’t know if you were aware of it, Mr. Jackson, but Mr. Warner was quite wealthy…” Mr. Butler continued speaking but Michael barely heard him.

Of course Alec was wealthy.

He’d made his money as an art dealer for the greater part of his adult life, and his home had reflected that.

He lived in a grand two story mansion right across the street from Michael, in one of the best neighborhoods in town. His home was filled with some of the finest European furniture and amenities Michael had ever seen. The nice afternoons Michael had spent in that house…


“…and, um, what do you do for a living, Mr. Jackson?”
Michael came back down to Earth at the question, and for the life of him couldn’t form an answer.

Thankfully, Marlon was there.

“My brother and I own a video game distribution company. The Players.” He replied and Michael bobbed his head.

Both men were unprepared for what the attorney said next.

“Well, clear a space in your bank account Mr. Jackson. Mr. Warner thought of you as the grandson he never had and he left you some money, the same amount as Delphine, totaling the sum of two million dollars.”

Michael’s hanky fell to the floor as shock over took him. He sat, still and silent, mouth agape as he had no words for this generosity that had been bestowed upon him. Two million dollars? He’d earned two million dollars in ten minutes? Was this the Superbowl? He was speechless and his mouth just swung as he tried to efficiently express his feelings.

Marlon expressed it pretty well.

Leaping from his seat and whipping his jacket off and over his head like a lasso, Marlon shrieked,

“Holy shit, Michael! You hear that! You hear that! You rich, boy! Lord!”

The way Marlon was reacting, you’d have sworn the money was for him.

‘Mr. Jackson! MR. JACKSON! Calm yourself!” Mr. Butler, flagging after Marlon exclaimed.

Reeling himself in, but still giddy, Marlon was clapping at and rubbing his siblings shoulders.

“Now as I was saying…” The attorney paused and cast Marlon a stern glance. “Mr. Jackson, Mr. Warner has left you something in addition to that sum of money--”

“The house? He left Michael the house?” Marlon gasped breathlessly as he had admired the sprawling Arts and Crafts mansion from afar.

“Please….shut the hell up…” Michael hissed, starting to become embarrassed at this display of greed.

Mr. Butler shook his head.

“No…he left the house to Delphine. She informed me that she will be coming from France to look it over in the next few days…” Both men noticed that Mr. Butler was signaling someone with a wave of his hand.

Two interns came carrying a large rectangular box.

Curious, Michael absently rose to his feet and going over to the two young men as they held up the box.

“Mr. Jackson.” Mr. Butler touched Michael’s arm. “As you know, Mr. Warner was an avid art collector. And shortly before his passing, he informed me that as he shared his collection with you, that a particular painting caught your fancy--”

“Oh my God!” Michael gasped, putting his hands to his face. “He didn’t! He didn’t possibly!” He never did let the attorney finish his sentence.

Yanking the box from the men, Michael was tearing cardboard away.

He eventually revealed a substantial painting.

“Jesus Christ! I don’t believe it!” Stunned beyond words and touched, Michael was kneeling before the painting, hands to his quivering chest.

“The hell?” Marlon dumbfounded was scratching at his head.

The painting was of three children, in late 18^th century garb in an outside scene.

Two infants, presumably twins, in white gowns affixed with bright blue bows, were sitting in little lace trimmed bassinets, both staring forward with wide, grayish green eyes, little mouths curled into sweet smiles.

Standing between the babies was an older girl, about nine-years-old with the same greenish eyes and long honey blonde curls. She wore a white dress and straw hat, both adorned with coral colored bows. Unlike the babies, the child appeared serious, arms folded over her chest and the corners of her mouth pointing southward.

“I can’t believe he left me the painting…” Michael unable to maintain himself any longer, had tears oozing from his eyes.

Michael couldn’t grasp it. For years he’d adored this particular painting, of which Alec knew little of, other than it had once belonged to a British aristocrat.

He had nearly coveted the painting.

To Michael, who loved children, this painting meant more than the money.

It really meant that, yes, Alec Warner had loved him like family.

And from a gesture of love, a fireball of hatred would erupt.


The Following Morning

For the first time in a week, Michael Jackson felt very close to the man he had been before losing Alec. That morning as he climbed out of his bed, clad in his little red pajama bottoms, the first thought on his mind was tending to his animals.

Across the hall from Michael’s bedroom, was a large room that held the cages of his pets--four pure white cockatiels, three hamsters, four canaries and a five foot long boa constrictor.

So happy and blissful, to the point he was almost skipping Michael crossed the hall and flung open the door to the room, which had sunlight streaming in through the stained glass windows.

The light perfectly complimented Michael’s new painting which he had proudly displayed over the mantle of the fireplace in his animal’s room.

It was music to his ears to hear the little animals tweeting and chattering merrily at the sight of him.

He truly believed the animals recognized him and loved him.

“Good morning, babies…” Michael was all smiles as he breezed into the room.

Going over to the closet, where he kept all his pet’s food (even the little mice for the boa) he saw it.

“Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!”

The howl broke the quietness of that morning and startled Marlon Jackson, who had been sleeping in a guest room, so badly, that he went flying out the his bed and crashing to the floor.

“Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!”

Not even bothering to grab his robe, Marlon, in nothing but a pair of boxers, went flying barefoot out his room and down the hallway.

Bursting into the pet room, Marlon found Michael crumpled on the floor, clutching his hands to his chest, screaming.

“Michael! Michael! Oh damn! What‘s the matter! Are you alright?” He gasped, frightened, dropping to his knees and trying to grab after his brother to help him.

“They’re dead! They’re dead!” Michael was screaming hoarsely, his face scarlet.

“Who? Who’s dead?” Confused, Marlon’s eyes grew wide in his head, thinking Michael was having another lapse of grief about Alec.

“Teeny and Tiny! They’re dead! They‘re necks are broken!” Michael cried, holding his hands out.

Cupped in them were the little limp bodies of two of his hamsters.

Both dead.

Marlon breathed an inner sigh of relief. At least he was seeming to start to get over Alec’s death.

Hunting around for an explanation for the little rodent’s death, Marlon spied the hamster cage. Lil’ Bit, the last hamster left was walking in circles, seemingly looking for his friends. The door to the cage was wide open.

“Look Mike, the door to your cage is open.” He pointed out the cage to his brother who was still sniffling. “Your hamsters probably fell out the cage. I’m sorry. I know you love your pets.” He was trying to comfort Michael.

Michael, calming some, nodded and was climbing to his feet.

“I…I have to bury Teeny and Tiny…excuse me…” Shaken and looking frail, Michael quickly left the room.

Sighing to himself, Marlon, too, got up and went to close the hamster cage. There was no need for Lil’ Bit to fall out.

As he latched the little door, Marlon happened to glance up at Michael’s painting of the three children.

Pressing his hands to his trim waist, he stared at the painting a few short moments.

Something about the painting didn’t seem quite right.

He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he could have sworn something was off.

Something was wrong…

And it was about to get worse.


Two Days Later


Hoooonk!
Michael Jackson sat at the breakfast table, blowing his nose loudly.

A plate of crisp bacon and sunny side up eggs were cooling before him.

Across the table, actually eating his food, sadly watching his brother was Marlon.

Once again, Michael was down in the dumps and beside himself.

In the last two days, for some unknown reason, four more of Michael’s animals had died. Two of the parrots, a cockatiel and a canary had all been found lying on the floor with broken necks.

Neither, Michael nor Marlon could come up with a reason as to how the animals got out--all their cages were closed and latched securely.

“I just don’t understand it…” Michael spoke, his vocal chords so swollen and raw from his now daily tantrums over his pets, he could only whisper .

“First Alec dies and now my pets are leaving me…I just don’t understand it. I don’t know what’s causing it, Marlon.”

Marlon, dipping his bacon strip in his egg yolk, nibbled on it thoughtfully for a moment.

He had something he wanted to ask, and he knew he had to word it just perfectly, or risk another Michael Jackson meltdown.

“Mike…I, um…I know you’ve been through a lot lately…” He paused and was wiping at his mouth as Michael turned bloodshot eyes on him.

“This is difficult for me to ask, but given the circumstances and how you used to sleepwalk occasionally when we were kids…” Marlon began and almost immediately, Michael Jackson’s grief left him and he went stiff with rage.

“You got a hell of a lot of nerve Marlon!” Michael, just above a whisper, growled through gritted teeth, getting up from the table so quickly, he threw his chair back and overturned his untouched glass of orange juice.

“Michael!” Marlon, concerned, rose, hand extended to grab Michael.

“ Shut up! Don’t touch me! After everything I’ve been through, especially losing one of my closest friends, you sit there and have the gall to accuse me of breaking the necks of my own animals? What kind of a monster do you take me for? I love my animals, all of them. They’re my babies! I’d rather break my own neck than theirs!”

Michael slapped the table top, growing redder every second.

“I gotta get out this room, and get you outta my sight.” He muttered. “If I don’t, I’ll hurt you. Got some goddamned nerve--I’m your brother!”

With that, Michael stormed from the room and Marlon could hear him stomping up the stairs.

A moment later, his bedroom door slammed.

Sagging in his seat, Marlon grasped his head in his hands, unsure of what to do, or where to turn. He couldn’t make heads or tails of the situation.

The sudden and strange way the animals were dying. Almost systematically being killed.

And in his heart, Marlon knew what Michael had said was true--that he wouldn’t touch the animals.

He had one nagging little thought in his head, but it was so strange, so farfetched, that he barely believed it himself.

Somehow, in some twisted way, Marlon was partially convinced that all of the recent sorrow befalling his brother had to do with that painting.

The last two nights, while Michael had wept on bended knee beside the little mounds that served as graves to his deceased pets, Marlon had laid awake, his mind on the painting.

He just knew something was wrong with it, but he couldn’t figure what, though.


Bing-bong! Bing-bong!
Marlon’s train of thought was broken by the sound of the doorbell softly chiming.

Cursing under his breath at the arrival of this inopportune company, Marlon started towards the front door.


Bing-bong! Bing-bong!
“I’m coming, I’m coming…keep your shirt on, Hell.” Marlon, perturbed, grumbled as he got to the heavy oak door and swung it open.

Instantly, Marlon’s jaw sagged with intrigue.

Standing on the front porch was a woman.

A petite, slender, stunning creature with skin the color of café au lait and swirls of dark hair wearing a body hugging polka dotted dress.

Slanted, hazel-flecked green eyes, outlined in kohl, widened at the sight of Marlon.

Her fine mouth, painted a dark crimson curled in a pleasant and friendly smile.

“Michael Jackson?” When she spoke, it was with a heavy French accent and sounded as “Me-Cool Jack-soon?”

“Nah, I’m Marlon, Michael’s brother. Can I help you?” Marlon heard himself speaking but didn’t know the words as he was smitten with this woman.

“How do you do Marlon?” The woman extended her hand and he shook it lightly. “I’m Delphine La Larue, Alec Warner’s granddaughter.” She introduced herself.

“Oh, yes. Will you please come in?” Marlon offered and was starting to open the door wider for her.

“I can’t at the moment, I have to get settled at…home.” Delphine paused and glanced back at the house she had just inherited. “I just wanted to let your brother know I was across the street. It was nice meeting you--”

The woman started to walk away.

“Um, Delphine…” Marlon grabbed her arm gently and turned her back to him.

“Oui?” A thinly arched brow was raised in question.

Marlon averted his eyes from her lovely ones as his heart was thudding in his ears.

“Are you familiar with the painting your grandfather left my brother? The one of three English children?”

“Not too much, I had only seen it when I spoke with Monsieur Butler, Grand-Papa’s attorney. Why?” Delphine inquired prying her arm from Marlon’s hand.

“I was just curious about it…” Was all he could come up with. He certainly didn’t want to start off with telling her he thought the painting was strange or possibly affecting his brother and his pets.

“Well…” Delphine tossed her hair haughtily. “Grand-Papa was an art dealer. I’m certain he has some sort of material with information on that painting. Is there anything in particular you’d like to know.”

Chewing on his bottom lip, Marlon contemplated letting the cat out of the bag.

Curtailing himself, he only said,

“Just anything odd. Like strange occurrences. You see, strange things have been kind of happening since Michael brought that painting home.”

By the way her eyes briefly lit, Marlon could tell he had piqued Delphine interest.

“Strange occurrences? What sort of strange occurrence?” Delphine repeated giving him a quizzical look.

Against his better judgment, Marlon let his tongue wag.

“Well, my brother has these pets upstairs. Hamsters, things like that. Since he’s brought that painting home, six animals have died, all with broken necks. And that painting hangs in the animal room. I know it sounds insane, but just look into it, if you could. Please.”

Delphine appeared to think it over, but did nod.

After Delphine had departed back to her Grand-Papa’s old house, Marlon, still unsettled about the painting started upstairs.

Once there, he peeked in on Michael.

Michael was asleep in the middle of his rumpled bed, hugging his pillow. He wouldn’t be any trouble.

Crossing to the animal room, Marlon stood in front of the mantle and gazed up at the painting of the three children, trying desperately to figure what was different.

It took Marlon Jackson nearly an hour of standing there, squinting, almost to the point of inducing a migraine before it dawned on him.

The infants!

The infants expressions, it seemed, had changed. If that were at all possible.

(Everything was so upside down and cockeyed nowadays…who knew?)

Staring at them, Marlon could have sworn that at the law office, the children had been looking straight ahead.

And now, as he was looking on the painting, the two babies were instead staring up at the little girl.

Completely jumbled and starting feel dizzy, Marlon decided he needed to get some air.

Going downstairs and grabbing a jacket out the closet, Marlon didn’t know just how his world was going to turn.


A Few Hours Later

Marlon was slowly sauntering up the street back towards Michael’s house, carefully balancing the box with a large “everything” pizza in his hands. It was his peace offering to his brother, and his attempt to get him to eat.

“Marlon! Marlon! Oh, Marlon!”

At the sound of his name, Marlon was startled to see Delphine La Larue, running towards him, a look of sheer panic on her face.

“Marlon! Mon Dieu!” She gasped bending to catch her breath. “I have to speak with you--now. It’s about the painting!”

At the mention of the painting, Marlon nearly dropped his pie.

“Tell me!” He demanded as Delphine seemed to finally calm down.

“I was reading in one of Grand-Papa’s books about that painting…” She started and at Marlon’s waving, they both took a seat in front of the house on the curb.

“It… it was painted for one of my ancestors. An English man named Paul Harlow. The painting is of his children. The older child is Agnes, who was eight at the time the painting was commissioned in 1782. The infants are his twin sons, Paul Junior and Saul. They were eighteen months old. Paul was widowed when his wife died shortly after giving birth to the twins--”

Delphine was breathlessly explaining and Marlon put a hand up.

“That’s nice that’s your family, but that doesn’t tell me about any of the strange stuff that happened.” He interjected and frustrated, Delphine turned her nose up at him.

“I’m getting to that!” She insisted, and half mumbled a curse in French. “You see, not long after the painting was painted, in a fit of rage, possibly because she hated her little brothers for killing their mother when they were born, Agnes murdered Paul Junior and Saul as they slept in their nursery--”

“No!” Marlon aghast looked on the pretty woman with eyes widened in shock.

“And you know how she killed them?” Delphine wondered and without letting Marlon answer replied. “She snapped both their necks!”

“What you say?” Marlon dropped the pizza box and it spilled onto the street.

His head was swirling. It seemed the entire street was tilting.

The little girl had killed her brothers, the same way Michael’s animals were dying. Two by two. Just like the boys! With broken necks!

“That’s not all!” Delphine gripped Marlon’s arm in her excitement. “When a distraught Paul found out what happened, he disowned Agnes and banished her to live with an aunt. He couldn’t stand the sight of her. Agnes didn’t live past her tenth birthday. She contracted Tuberculosis and died in her aunt’s care….” Delphine gasped for air, then suddenly jumped to her feet.

“I’m worried for your brother!” She declared suddenly and it sent chills down Marlon’s spine.

“What? Why?” He was staggering up.

“The article I read said that since Paul had the painting made, it’s changed hands more than a dozen times over the years and each person died under mysterious circumstances, all apparently of falls. Falls out of windows, off horses, off boats and drowning--” Delphine was chattering and Marlon broke in.

“Falling down the stairs….like your grandfather.” He stated grimly and a hurt tear streamed down Delphine’s heavily blushed cheek.

They stood there a moment, quietly letting the idea sink in.



CRASH!
At the sudden noise both Marlon and Delphine struck out running up the front walk alarmed.

“Michael! Michael! Mike! Answer me!” Marlon shouted as he and Delphine went tearing into the house.

Through the hallway, Marlon could see Michael slowly climbing to his feet at the base of the stairs. A side table had been knocked over, the books atop it scattered on the floor.

“Michael!” Marlon was quickly at his brother’s side, holding him up.

“What happened?”

Shaking in his brother’s arms, Michael shrugged.

“I…I don’t know. I was at the top of the stairs, coming down to get something to eat, one second and the next I was on the floor.” He stammered and glanced at Delphine.

“Who’s that?”

“That’s Alec’s granddaughter.” Marlon said quickly. “Michael. You need to listen to me. It’s about that painting. There’s something wrong with it. I think it’s cursed!”

“What the blue hell are you talking about?” Michael demanded and trying to struggle from his brother’s grip.”

“Michael.” Delphine was pushing his curls out his face. “Marlon told me how your animals are all dying with broken necks. Two at a time. Agnes, the little girl in the painting, she killed the two babies in the picture with her. Her little brothers. The pair of them.”

“What?” Flabbergasted, that was all Michael could muster.

A painting? A cursed painting. Why would his friend leave him such a thing.

Those types of things didn’t exist!

Delphine had to be making this mess up. She was probably mad that he’d gotten half of Alec’s fortune and this was her revenge.

“And we’ve got reason to believe that whatever the hell that thing is, ghost, whatever, is going to kill you--” Marlon was trying to control Michael as he was starting to wiggle.

“You’re whacked! It’s impossible!” Michael screamed and was trying to pull free of Marlon, but a week and half of not eating had left him considerably weaker than his brother and he wasn’t getting loose.

“Michael, over a dozen people have owned that painting and all of them have died from falls! Like Grand-Papa! My Grand-Papa!” Delphine pleaded.

“I’ll be damned to hell if I let you die!” Marlon professed. “We gotta destroy that painting! We’ve got to. We have to.”

“What! No! Alec left it to me! Alec!” Michael was quite literally spun as Marlon threw him to the side as he and Delphine took off running, destined for the animal room.

“Noooo!” Michael shouted after them when it became clear what was happening.

Getting to the top of the stairs and racing into the room, Marlon dropped to his knees and began building a fire in the fireplace.

He had just lit the fire when Delphine’s shrill wail made him jump.

“Marlon! The painting! The painting!”

Turning to the woman, he saw that she was staring fearfully up above him, all the color draining from her face.

Craning his neck to look up at the painting, Marlon saw what all the commotion was about.

The painting had changed once more.

And for the worse.

Both of the babies, who had been looking up at Agnes, appeared to both be dead in the painting.

Tiny, blue, swollen and with their necks at distended and strange angles, obviously broken.

It was a terrible, grotesque sight before his eyes.

Worst yet, Agnes was completely missing from the painting.

Agnes was gone!

“What the fuc--” Marlon began in awe.


“They killed Mother!”
A cold clipped and foreign voice spoke up, causing Marlon and Delphine to twirl.

In the far corner of the room….was Agnes Harlow.

Or at least what was left of Agnes.

She was a tattered and diaphanous version of herself.

The white dress from the painting was torn and shredded, one of the coral bows missing. Her hair, lovely and tended in the portrait was matted and sticking everywhere. The girl appeared gaunt, her eyes wide, dull and consuming her face.

This was Agnes, not how she appeared in then, but at the end of her life.

In the final throes of Tuberculosis.

In her little dirt smudged and transparent hands was another dead bird, it’s head hanging crazily off to the side.

“My God…” Shakily, Marlon rose to his feet.

At that moment, an exhausted Michael appeared in the doorway.

“Ah!” The gasp left his mouth at the sight of Agnes there with his dead bird.

“Tweety…” The only word he uttered before sagging to his knees, weakened furthermore.

“You can’t keep doing this Agnes! You’re dead! You’ve got to stop harming the living! You have to stop!” Marlon shouted and went to grab what was left of the painting.

Marlon found himself, along with Delphine in a heap on the other side of the room.

Agnes looming over them, and the room suddenly turning to ice.

“Mother died to bring those two brats here. I didn’t want brothers!” The girl confessed and for the first time, Marlon noticed she was hovering about a foot off the ground. “I didn’t want anyone. I was perfectly fine with Mother and Papa and me. We didn’t need them!”

Floating still higher, her voice deepened and took on a more sinister, demonic tone.

“And I didn’t deserve to die. Not in the dawn of life. I was only ten years old! No one should be allowed to live longer than me. No one--”

Mid-sentence, Agnes began suddenly contorting and jostling, before throwing her head back, unleashing an otherworldly screech so unearthly that both Marlon and Delphine clung to each other for dear life.

Before their eyes, Agnes went up in flames and a poof of sparks.

The dead canary fell to floor.

Across the room, Marlon and Delphine saw a miracle.

The painting was sticking out of the fire place, consumed with flames.

Michael, passed out laid about two feet away.

Using what was left of his bodily strength, Michael had saved the three of them by destroying the painting.

Going over, Marlon picked up Michael, cradling him against his body.

With Delphine at his side the three of them exited the room.

Alive to face another day.

And the day after. …

And the day after….

The rest of their lives.