Dead Shadow: Beetlejuice Fanfiction Story

Chapter 20: A Type of Vacation

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The Real World- One Year Later

"I admit, it's very becoming," the collector said to Mister Jennings. "It might be worth buying, but I don't think I can. Isn't there death attached to this artist?" Mister Jennings didn't answer. "Everyone who has come in contact with this artist was killed, including the artist."

Mister Jennings sighed. "How did you find out?"

"Oh, I research everything I buy. This artist had such a tragic story. So give me the details. Maybe you'll still make the sale?"

"My son and his friends. They are all dead." All dead. "I'm sure you know that, don't you?"

"Yes, because they were the buyers. Everything they had somehow passed to you I see." They turned to look at him. "How'd they die? The newspaper didn't give very good details"

Rude. Mister Jennings took them to his office where he gave them the more precise findings.

"Hm." The collector pushed the glasses up her nose more. "I don't know if it's worth it, even at regular cost. This looks cursed." They glanced toward him. "Did they do something unsightly to get a hold of this?" He didn't answer back right away. "Sometimes, there is more than a blood price for art. I believe in spiritual revenge. From the way they died, that is how it sounds. Have you had anyone talk to you from the corners of your mind, Mister Jennings?"

"You have to buy it," he insisted.

"Why? Did your family dying for it not work for you? I would think not. I don't want haunted paintings that may kill my family in my lobby." She sighed. "I love expression, but I love my life more. Sorry. If I were you, considering everyone has been accidentally killed in strange ways? I would see if I could make up for it. Eternity is a long time."

"Everyone was interested!" he complained. "Every damn one of you collectors that liked your rotting hellish spooky shit. Then, this happens."

"Sir?" she warned him. "Do not speak with such a tongue. We love art for what it is, not what it was tainted to be. Good day." She walked away.

Mister Jennings just stood there, staring at the painting. "You weren't worth it. You weren't worth anything." Nobody wanted it, and now, it just lounged along on his walls. "Four people died for you, one being my son, and now none of you paintings can even be given away!" He went to his personal kitchen and grabbed a knife. He came back and started to cut up one of the paintings.

"Oh, goodness." The buyer came back. "You really do want to get rid of those paintings, don't you?" She sighed and dug in her purse. "Well, maybe I have a twenty."

"Take 'em! Take 'em all!" he insisted. "Hang them. Burn them. Turn them into firewood. Sell them to some crazy seance place. I don't care." He couldn't do it. Four teenagers in their prime didn't just accidentally die one after another.

And his own son. Who dies falling from the top of a theatre screen, when there's no way to even get there? Something supernatural took them. Here, he had been worried about cops and jail, when he should have been worried about revenge from the dead.

But, he never heard a sound out of the darkness. A dimming of lights. Any bug problems. Nothing supernatural ever messed with him. Like, he had been deemed fine, free enough to escape.

Free enough for another day. While his son and his friends paid for it all. Lost. Deemed, not involved. Nothing. A waste of time.

"Oh, hello." The buyer came toward him again. "Sorry. I feel bad about taking all of them without, you know, at least?" She patted a crunchy twenty dollar bill. "There you go." She waved goodbye and left.