The Painting

I got this package in the mail from my dad: brown paper wrapping, large but flat, with
the word FRAGILE written on it in black ink. When I unwrapped it, it was this big,
acrylic painting, framed in some sort of bronze-gilded plaster.
The painting itself was of this long hallway full of doors, kind of like youd see in a fancy
hotel. The walls had edging about halfway up, the upper part was painted sort of an off
white while the lower half was a crimson red that blended into the carpeting. Between
each door was an up-turned light, as well as on the far wall at the end, where the
corridor seemed to connect to another hallway running perpendicular to it, disappearing
around a corner.
It was really amazing detail, though I wouldnt call it life-like by any means. Just the
sheer amount of intricate pieces to each aspect of the scene showed that the artist really
paid attention to every little thing, like somewhere in the world was this hallway, and
you could stand in it and hold the painting up in front of you and if it werent for the
border and the clearly stylized art, you wouldnt be able to tell where the canvas ended
and the real world began.
I called him up and thanked him immediately.
But whered you find this?
I got it at an auction.
I kinda figured as much.
So I hung up the painting in my office, just behind my desk, which I realized later wasnt
the best place for it because in order to actually look at it, I had to swivel completely
around, but there wasnt anywhere better really, and once Id gotten it hung up, I felt
less willing to take it back down, so I just left it there. It kind of hung out over my
shoulder and watched me work, and every now and then Id turn around and stare at it
and get entranced by it, feeling like I could get up and put my hands in the frame and
climb into the painting as if the frame were a window.
Of course, I wouldnt be writing this if something weird didnt happen as a result of the
painting.
We had a couple friends over, Marc and Sabina, and Marc and I went into my office
when the women-folk started talking about knitting, which has become my wifes new
favorite hobby. I went and sat down at my laptop to find a video I had been telling Marc
about, and Marc wandered over and started admiring the painting.
Whered you get that?

My dad bought it at an auction and gave it to me.

Its creepy.
Its not that creepy. Its kind of... I dont know.
Hypnotic?
Yeah.
I turned around to look at it with him while the video loaded. He got up close and was
running his finger over the canvas, feeling the raised acrylic, and I just let my gaze
wander over all the details again.
Huh, I didnt notice that before.
What?
At the end of the hall, theres some sort of light coming from around the corner, and its
casting a shadow on the floor.
I got up and looked closer, because I really hadnt spent a lot of time studying the far
end of the hallway. There was definitely some yellow and some darker colors making
what looked like the shadow of a person coming from around the corner. I even reached
out and touched it to make sure it wasnt some trick of the light in the study making it
just look like there was this shadow in the painting, but I felt the paint and sure enough
it was actually there in the painting.
See what I mean? Marc said, Creepy.
I genuinely felt weirded out by it. It was one of those moments where you start
thinking, Why didnt I notice this earlier? Was it there to notice?
A couple days later, I was working on a project in my study, and it was like 9:30 at night,
and I just couldnt focus, so I spun around in my chair to look at the painting and I felt
this sudden vertigo effect, like the ground wasnt there and I had to grab my chair to
keep from tumbling into emptiness.
You wouldnt have noticed it if you hadnt looked at the painting a hundred times like I
had. The hallway was long, with exactly six doors. I remember, because I counted them
the first day. three on the left, three on the right, each with a little shiny, metal
doorknob.
Only now there were seven doors. Three on the left, four on the right. It didnt make
sense. Everything looked proportionally exactly the same, and the far end of the corridor
was just as far away, and yet there was a fourth door in the right side of the hallway, with

its little metal doorknob. I dont even know which door was the fourth door, thats how
well it blended in, I just know that there were four doors where once there were three.
What the hell is going on?
I turned away in my chair and back to check several times and make sure my eyes
werent playing tricks on me, but the number of doors remained constant.
I called my dad again and I asked him, Is this a trick painting you sent me?
What do you mean?
I mean it keeps changing. I can see it changing.
Not as far I know. It was just one in a bunch I picked up all at the same auction.
After I got off the phone I took the painting down and checked the back for some some
of mechanical or digital hocus pocus, but it was all soft canvas so I left it on the floor
behind my office chair with the painting facing the wall because the thought of it was
freaking me out.
The next day I pulled my wife into my office and held the painting up so she could see it
because she hadnt had a chance to before.
How many doors are there? I asked.
She looked it over for a moment. Seven.
When I first got this, there were six.
She just looked at me like I was being a goofball. Okay, so which one wasnt there
before?
I have no idea.
You dont know which door magically appeared? and she laughed and gave me a kiss
and went back into the other room.
It gets worse.
The next time I chatted with Marc, I told him about the extra door in the painting.
Are you sure there werent seven doors to begin with?
Well, I would swear I counted six.

Well, if another one shows up, at least Melissa counted seven, and can confirm it then.
You know what you should do? You should take a photo of the painting so you can prove
it if anything else changes.
What a great idea, so I got my phone and took a photo of the painting.
Two days went by. Nothing.
On the third day, I walked into my office and there was a man staring at me. Well, I
mean... it wasnt... I cant say that it was a man or a woman. Hell, I cant say that it was
human. There was a shape at the end of the hallway in my painting. It was oddly lacking
in the detail that the rest of the painting had, like someone had hurriedly painted it on. I
even ran my hand over it to make sure it wasnt fresh, that someone hadnt actually
come in and painted over my painting to drive me crazy.
It was really there.
And the look of it scared me more than anything else, changing painting included. I wish
I could do it justice with words, but the best I can describe it is that it was human-ish,
with legs and arms, but it seemed squat, or hunched, and lopsided, like someone had
slapped a blurry Quasimodo onto an otherwise beautiful painting. You couldnt see the
details of its face, but you could see shading on it, defining really warped features. I was
almost glad that there wasnt more detail to it, except that it left just enough to the
imagination to give one nightmares.
But I had proof! Here was proof that the painting was changing. So I brought up the file
on my laptop to show my wife for comparison, only when I did, the figure was in the
photo I took too!
At no point did I start questioning my sanity about all this. Something unnatural and
terrifying was going on, so I took the painting out of the house and set it on the curb
where we put our trash for pickup. I was so done with that painting.
Or so I thought.
The next evening, when I got home from work, it was gone from the curb. I figured
someone had seen it and taken it home, and I waved my hands and said, Good, now its
someone elses problem. I went in, played with daughter, had dinner, put them to bed,
and after watching a show with my wife, went into my office to check my email.
No, the painting wasnt back on the wall. I made sure of that the moment I walked in the
door.
But I got a message from Marc, asking if the painting had changed anymore, and I told
him about the creepy new addition and also how I had gotten rid of the painting.

Oh man, that sounds cool. I wish Id gotten a chance to see it.

Well, I can send you the photo I took of it.
Cool.
So I opened the image file.
The thing in the painting had raised its arms.
Before, you could only barely make out the arms hanging at its sides, but now both arms
were raised up over its head, and its fingers were spread apart like it was waving hello at
me. I think it was waving hello at me.
I zoomed in, as best as I could without pixelating the image, and the shaded contours of
the face seemed stretched into a grin.
Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
I sent Marc the file, but the connection kept fucking up, so I put it in a folder on my
dropbox account and gave him access to it.
The files corrupted. He texted me.
I tried to open it as well, but he was right. Every time I copied the image file, somehow it
got corrupted.
It must be the spooky magic. Marc joked.
This is no joke. Im freaking out here.
Delete the file if its scaring you so bad.
So I deleted the file.
But it gnawed at me, you know? The painting was still changing, in horrible, terrifying
ways, seemingly acknowledging my observation of it, and now it was gone. But if it was
gone, why should it matter? If something unholy happens, its the problem of whoever
has the painting now, right? And theyll see it changing too, wont they?
Oh shit.
It was two days later, and I was organizing a folder of documents and had accidentally
deleted a couple I hadnt meant to. I went into the Windows recycling bin and --you
guessed it-- there was the image file along with the documents.
I had to look. I was trembling with dread at the thought of it, but when something so
surreal happens to you, you have to witness it and see it through to the end.

I recovered the file and opened it.

The walls of the hallway seemed to be melting. The partition separating the red from the
off-white was lower than it had been before, and drooped in places. The ridge on the
lights looked like they were peeling off. The carpet seemed less crimson and more
reddish brown.
And the figure had taken several steps down the corridor toward the viewers
perspective. More details had become defined: hair hanging off its head, long and black
like it had been painted with a fine-tipped brush, the eyes were little more than dull
black points under the shading of the brow. The grin came with teeth, uneven and fat,
like those of a child more than an adult. Its arms were extended out on either side of it,
touching both walls. One foot was ahead of the other, as if I had caught it mid-step in a
game of red light/green light.
I realized I was panting and shaking as I looked at it. It was really hard to breathe, an
anxiety attack. The painting was going to make me pass out, just from looking at a
digital photo of it.
Quickly, I closed the image to calm myself down, but that suddenly brought forth the
thought, What if it progresses every time I look away? The only way to stop it is to
keep looking! and I opened the file again.
No change. Oh-- no, wait, that wasnt a new change, I had noticed it before, but it hadnt
dawned on me. One of the doors was open. There was a dim blue light coming from the
room inside, moonlight I thought. And just outside the threshold of the door, there was
an object lying on the floor.
I zoomed in for better detail.
It was a little, yellow, stuffed lion with a scraggly, orange mane. A childs toy. Of all the
details, the melting hallway, the grinning fiend with arms wide open, the blue light from
the open doorway, it was the innocent nature of that little toy lion that filled me with the
most dread.
My wife came into the office.
Come kiss Gabby goodnight.
I went into her darkened room, where she was wrapped up in blankets in her bed,
hugging a half dozen stuffed animals and looking cute as could be. My little darling. I
love her so much.
I kissed my daughter goodnight. She kissed me back and hugged her little pillowpet with
the built in night light. It glowed through a variety of colors.

I love you, baby. I told her.

Can you get my Simba?
I looked around. Whered you leave it?
Over there. She pointed to the closet. The door was open, and her toy lay on the floor
just inside.
Simba, her little, yellow, stuffed lion with the scraggly, orange mane.
Seeing it lying there, just past the threshold of the closet door, while the dim glow of my
daughters night light faded from red to purple to blue, I felt my heart rise up in my
chest. The closet was just a closet. I could see it was just a closet. There were clothes on
hangers and bags with toys and blocks in them. They were right there. And yet, as I
looked at the stuffed lion lying on the floor, waiting for me, I felt as if I could see
carpeting on the floor inside the closet, even though there was none. Carpeting, not in
my vision, but in my imagination. And maybe if I went in and shut the door, Id find that
the walls beyond those clothes had a wooden partition, red below, off-white above.
And maybe there was something hunched and terrible shambling its way toward us even
as I stood there staring at that toy.
I walked, briskly, trying not to look half as frightened as I was, snatched up Simba and
shut the closet door. My breathing was heavy, like Id just run a mile, and I struggled to
avoid gasping for breath as I tried to calm myself down.
Hey, did that poster fall down? I asked nobody in particular, then pretended I was
trying to adjust a cat poster that had been on the floor by her dresser for months, and
shoved the heavy dresser over so that it partially blocked the closet door.
Heres Simba, sweety. I handed the lion to Gabby, gave her a quick hug and kiss, and
wished her goodnight before rushing back to my office.
The painting had changed, as I knew it would. The open door was closed, the toy gone
from the floor, the hallway was dimly lit with yellow light from the melting lights again.
But the thing, that not-quite-human fiend, was standing right outside the now shut
door, its body turned to face it with both hands pressed up against the door itself like it
was running its hands down it, caressing it, and its head turned toward me, still
grinning that awful, frightening grin full of gnashed, crooked teeth.
Oh God how close had it been? No, its just a closet! The hallway is not there. Its not
real. None of this is real.

Ive put up signs around the neighborhood, knocked on doors, asked everyone I know
and many I dont if they know who took the painting. I need to find it and get it back. I
want to tear it, shred it in my hands, throw it in a fire and watch it burn to ashes. Jesus
God in Heaven, I hope it didnt end up in some landfill.
I've learned the awful truth... All Doors Lead To The Hallway
It never stops.
I dont know the rules. There dont seem to be any. I thought, Okay, this thing is bound
to a painting, but then the digital photo I took of the painting began to change too.
Then my daughters toy appeared in the image, and in a panic I barricaded her bedroom
closet. I wish I could tell you how it works. All I can tell you is that if you are the one who
ends up with it, its too late. Im sorry.
For over a week, I hunted for that painting. I had put it on the side of the road to be
carted off on garbage day, but someone saw it and picked it up, took it home with them.
Who? I dont know. Do they see it changing? Is it terrorizing them now? What do I do?
It eats at you, not knowing. I refused to open the image file, afraid to see what it showed,
certain that that hideously deformed creature would be twisting the knob on the door
that presumably lead to my daughters bedroom. I lay awake, listening for the distinct
sound the hinges on that door make, my heart racing like a track runners. Sometimes I
would imagine I heard it and bolt into her bedroom only to find it dark and empty, only
the soft sound of her sleeping. The closet door still shut and blocked behind a wall of
boxes.
In desperation for my own sanity, I removed the doorknob. And then I sat there at my
desk, studying the knob, wondering if that had made a change in the image. Was the
knob gone in the painting? Oh, God, it was killing me to know... to see whether I was
safe or not.
So I opened the file.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I opened the image, biting my knuckle in tension, and when I
saw it my jaw clenched up so tight I tasted my own blood and nearly broke my finger.
It was there. I mean, it was --right --there. The monster, the freak, the thing that lived
inside that fucked up painting was staring right at me, filling the screen, details so vivid
it didnt look like a painting at all, it looked like Id taken a photo of a disfigured man
standing in front of a canvas.
You want a description to go with your nightmares? Its skin was like wax... pale, greasy
wax. The flesh lumped up in places, sloughed off in others. It was as if someone had
tried to build a human head out of modeling clay and then left it out in the rain. There

was hair, black and brown and white streaked hair that hung like seaweed off the top of
its head, running down over its face, covering its ears. If you asked me to sum up this
thing in one sentence, I would say it looked like a desiccated corpse that got dredged up
out of the East River after a week in a hot July.
But the eyes, oh merciful fucking heaven, the eyes were the worst part. There was a
clearness in them, a sinister intelligence that stared back at me as I tore into the flesh of
my hand with my teeth. No dullness or milky-coloration, just piercing brown eyes,
looking dead at me.
And a mouth full of teeth curved into a mischievous smile. And I mean full of teeth. It
was like I was looking into a sharks maw: behind the first row was clearly another row
of the same crooked, yellowing teeth. Two rows, exposed by its excited grin. That was
what it was, not mischievous at all, but excited. It was happy to see me.
It was happy to see me.
And as I had that thought, staring in escalating horror at my computer screen, this
inhuman nightmare staring back at me, I knew it was true. It could see me. It wasnt just
a painting that looked like a freak of nature was staring out of the canvas, it
actually was looking at me, out from my screen just as I was looking at it.
FUCK YOU! I shouted and closed the image. Then I deleted it. Then I emptied the
recycling bin just for safe measure. Then I got up and ran away from the computer and
spent the rest of the day pacing and feeling irritable and snapping at every question my
wife or daughter asked until finally they just stopped asking me anything at all.
When I close my eyes I see it. Its there behind my eyelids now, smiling at me, its head
cocked ever so slightly like a curious dog. It cant speak to me, but I feel like I know what
it was thinking. It was thinking, Do you really think you can stop me? No. I dont think
I can.
My wife came into my office that evening. She stood there, frowning heavily and
seemingly waiting for me to say something, but I was too distracted to speak up.
Finally she broke the silence. Youve got to stop.
Stop what?
Stop taking things out on me and Gabby! Stop this story about a painting with a
monster in it! Stop acting like youre crazy!
The painting is real. You saw it! Ive got the image on my computer to prove its still
changing!

Lets see it.

Fine! Oh, wait... I just deleted it.
Youre giving Gabby nightmares! I had to change her sheets today because she was
afraid to get out of bed to go to the bathroom! This has to stop!
Im trying to protect her! Im trying to protect us!
Monsters dont come out of paintings! She threw her hands up in frustration. Youre a
grown man! Stop acting like a child! Stop scaring your child!
Its real, god damnit!
She stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. I just sat there, holding my
head in my hands and tearing at my hair. It felt like my stomach was eating itself from
the inside. It groaned and tugged at my guts.
Wed fought before, but never like this. I should apologize. I thought.
She was in the bedroom, packing a suitcase.
Where are you going? I asked.
Im taking Gabby to my parents.
In Indiana? For how long?
She threw a bunch of clothes in the pile. I dont know! That depends on you!
Dont go. Please.
Look, she sighed, you could use some time to relax. I think youre too stressed lately.
And I havent seen my family in months.
I could go with you.
She looked at me. Could you?
I couldnt. I had taken too much time off already from dealing with Gabby being sick
over the Winter. I pulled at my hair. No, probably not.
She went into Gabbys room and came back with a pile of her clothes to go in the
suitcase.
Its a two-day drive. I reminded her.
Well stop in a hotel, like we always do. Gabby likes the one with the big pool.

I covered my face. I didnt want her to see that my eyes were brimming with tears.
Please...
I could feel her eyes on me.
...call me when you get there.

I sat at my desk in an empty house. Just me and the television to keep me distracted, to
keep me from thinking too much. Shut the brain off, dont let the mind wander, you
know? I wasnt actually watching it, just listening. If you asked, I wouldnt even be able
to tell you what channel it was on.
The clock on the wall said it was just after 11 PM. My wife and daughter had left hours
ago, and would most likely be stopping at the hotel shed made reservations at soon.
That was when I got an instant message from Marc. I hadnt talked to him in a couple
weeks, since the whole nightmare had begun. When the painting had started to change,
Id taken the photo of it and tried to send it to him, but for some reason, the file got
corrupted every time I sent it. It felt good to get a little outside contact.
I WANT YOU TO SEE SOMETHING his message read.
What is it? I wrote back.
DING -- he sent a file. I double clicked and opened it.
It was the photo of the painting. The hallway was back to normal though, and no
freakish shambling horror was staring at me or anywhere to be seen. The walls werent
melting, the lights were normal, it was just like it had looked when I first received it
from my father.
Except there were eight doors in the hallway. And like before, it fit so perfectly that I
couldnt tell you which door was the new door.
I closed the picture and wrote Marc back.
I thought the file was corrupt?
He didnt respond. I sat there, waiting.
It looks just like it did to begin with. Did you do something to it? I wrote.
LOOK AGAIN

Something was off.

I saw there are eight doors now.
LOOK
A pause.
AGAIN
I double-clicked the file and the bottom dropped out of my stomach. There was the
painting. There was the hallway. There were the lights. There was the red carpeting.
There were the eight doors.
And there was my wife and daughter walking into the eighth door.
And in the background, there was the shadow of the shambler coming around the
corner.
Oh Jesus,
I scrambled to write a message to Marc. Whats going on???
SEE YOU he wrote back.
Or did he?
SOON
Marc? I typed.
No response.
I wrote his name again.
Fuck this, I thought, I need to call Melissa. I ran into the other room and grabbed my
phone. Running back into the office, I kept trying to get Marc to respond while dialing
her cell number.
When she answered, I nearly screamed in relief.
Whats up? she sounded tired.
I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I said, trying to not sound as panicked as I
was.
Yeah, we just got into the hotel room. Good timing.
What does it look like?

There was a long pause. I could hear Gabby asking questions about the TV in the
background.
What does the room look like?
Well, actually-- what does the hall look like?
Uh...
I stopped typing Marcs name into the messenger box and double-clicked the image file.
The melting man was there. He wasnt as detailed again, mostly a jumbled smudge of
paints, but he was clearly halfway down the hall and looking not at the doors of the
hallway, but at me again. I could see stipples of white showing the teeth in his grin.
Oh shit, hes right there.
On the other end of the phone, I heard my wife. I didnt really look. Hang on. I could
hear the latch on the hotel door turning.
No! I squeezed the phone in my hand like I was holding her hand and pulling her away
from whatever was on the other side of her hotel door.
What?
No! Dont-- dont worry about it. Tell me tomorrow. I sat there and stared at the image
on my screen. Maybe if I left it up, the thing wouldnt be able to move. Why the fuck
hadnt I thought of that before? Leave the image up and it cant possible change, right?
But what the fuck was up with Marc? Why did he send me the photo? Did he? He still
wasnt responding to my messages anymore.
Youre not Marc, are you. Had I infected Marcs computer by sending the file to him?
What was that, honey? Oh, damn, I was still on the phone with my wife.
Just talking to myself.
I heard Gabby again in the background. Can we play in the pool?
Look, I gotta go. The pools only open for another half hour, and I promised Gabby she
could play in it. Shes all wound up from being in the car. To our daughter in the
background, Do you want to say goodnight to Daddy?
Wait... She wasnt listening to me.
Gabby got on the phone. Goodnight, Daddy.

I love you, Gabby. I told her. Can you put--

My wife was back on the line.
We love you, honey.
I-- She hung up.
I sat there in the dark of my office, the quiet of my house, even the television seemed to
have gone quiet. I sat there and stared at the image on my computer screen and
prayed. Please, God, protect them.
He didnt hear me.
I should have been with them. I failed to protect them. Instead, I sat there at my desk all
night and stared at the picture of the grinning beast as it lurked in its seemingly frozen
state outside the door to my wifes hotel room.
The phone ringing in the other room snapped me awake. I wasnt really asleep, mind
you, just sitting there in a trance, like a zombie, staring at the computer screen. My
brain was in a fog. I shambled into the other room and picked it up.
It was a police officer from Pennsylvania, calling to give me the bad news. They had been
found in the hotel pool the following morning. They suspected that my wife had slipped,
hit her head on the tiles and fallen into the pool, holding my daughters hand and taking
her in with her. The injury apparently caused my wife to seize; Gabby had bruises on her
arms.
I knew what really happened. They had wandered into its realm. That thing in the
painting. And it had finally gotten what it wanted.
I dropped the phone and walked in a trance back into my study. My stomach was
fighting to reject everything inside it. Both legs seemed confused about which direction
they were supposed to be going. But I had to keep looking. I had to keep my eyes on the
picture. I had to keep the monster in the painting.
Melissa and Gabby were waiting for me when I got back to my desk. It had left them
dumped unceremoniously in the middle of the hallway. There was blood... on the walls...
on the doors... on the two sad forms flopped in the middle of that crimson carpeting. If I
hadnt just gotten off the phone, if I hadnt known what my wife and my daughter looked
like, I might have mistaken them for just a pair of sloppily painted on additions to the
whole scene. It left them for me to see. It was gone.
I closed the picture and reopened it.
Nothing changed.

I closed the picture and reopened it.

Nothing changed.
It... It was supposed to come for me. It was my curse. Not theirs.
When I finish writing this, Im going into my daughters bedroom. I reattached the
doorknob to her closet door earlier today. Im so sorry, Gabby. Daddy loves you. Im so
sorry, Melissa.
Ill see you both soon.