Walking the Gallows ✔️

Chapter 12

Andy called her later that day, unsure what to believe. The operator was getting sick of him. She never answered the call. It made him more nervous considering Earl knew where he lived. He could have been watching the whole time...

By the phone he waited, frantically pacing for an explanation. No call came. Not from her, or anybody else. It wouldn't make sense for her to just leave, he thought. There was almost definitely something wrong. He analyzed the situation from every angle like he always had. His mind came up blank with possibilities. There was no reason for her to leave, not without saying goodbye first.

Having waited for over three-and-a-half hours for a call that never came, he went about his cleaning duties. He refused to vacuum or wash the dishes as doing so would more than likely make him miss a phone call over the noise. Every so often between sweeping or dusting, he would wait by the phone for ten minutes before continuing with whatever he was doing at the time. He even had some time to wash the blood from his bedsheets. Andy was unsure how to feel about it as he held the cloth between his hands and dunked it into a bucket of water and soap.

It wasn't long before all the house-hold chores were completed. He found himself wondering to the same parts of the house aimlessly looking for something to do. For the past few days, he had been avoiding his art studio. It wasn't as if he didn't want to paint. Maybe it was because he had nothing to make. Whatever it was, he knew he needed to come up with something and quickly if he wanted to make some sort of money by the end of the week. He contemplated bringing his entire set-up into the kitchen in case he missed a call.

Deciding it was best to work in the messy room, he brought out his set of brushes, pencils and painting knives. The paint was flaking off and the wood was rotting on his favorite brushes. He internally kicked himself for having left them soaking in warm water instead of properly taking care of them. Now that he didn't have any money coming in from Vin's caring allowance, he didn't have the luxury of being careless.

What a waste, he thought disappointedly.

In a moment of desperation, he used a tiny dispenser containing a clear substance over the decaying parts of the wooden stick. It was something that had only been invented a couple of years before. Despite it being expensive for such a small container, he used it for dire situations. Finishing his last brush and standing it up-side-down in the holder, he searched for something else to use while they dried off. It would probably take days before they were ready to be used again.

There wasn't much furniture in the room for objects to be hidden under. Only his easel and a very small coffee table. Off to the side were completed art wors that no one wanted or were too meaningful to sell to others. He grabbed one of his very first paintings. It was a smaller canvas compared to the rest. He noticed how much different his painting skills had been at the time. The wasn't a lot of detail on it. In the frame, his mother sat on a rocking chair staring out the window. Her profile showed different tones that were interpreted as different lightings.

However, the color of her skin, the perfect cheeks, and the shape of her face. All of it was wrong. He recalled the moment in time he had seen her that way; sitting on her chair, wrapped in holy blankets that she had entangled between her fingers, silently staring into the abyss of the outside world. She looked far from perfect that day. Her cheeks were sunken in and her eyes had been hollow. Months beforehand, her complexion had turned a light gray instead of the usual white and rose he had always seen.

Andy remembered why he hadn't added that much detail on her painting. He didn't want to remember her how she had been.

He stacked the portrait in the corner where it had been, pulling back the other canvases that stood against the wall to move it to the back. He heard a dropping sound. It was very faint, like something falling onto the carpet, but it was there. He searched the room for the cause of the sound. Just behind the canvases laid a fine brush. He picked it up and examined it. There was very little damage to the bristles. It had definitely been used before, but it was still good. He picked off red bits of paint that had dried and stuck to the fine hairs and walked back to the easel, where an unused canvas was waiting for him.

******

From the table, he looked up to the highest point on the wall. His neck felt contorted out of shape having left his head lying down for so long. Sometimes, he wondered if he could change the shape of his skeleton by doing things too often. Maybe if he sat with his back bent forward for too long, he would become a hunch-back. He could recall an old tale he heard about people pulling strange faces and then being stuck that way for all eternity when the wind changed directions. It was odd to think about, but it crossed his mind regularly. He cracked his bones to alleviate some of the tensions wracked up in his joints.

It was a very unusual situation. He had never fallen asleep in his studio before. It felt as though he had been asleep for a long time although the sun was still out. He got up from the table and onto his feet. His legs needed stretching more than anything else. Before he got the chance, it hit him that something was indeed very wrong.

The easel he was working on was facing the wrong way. It had always sat in the corner of the room, the front-facing the door he would enter and exit from. Though it was still in the same place, it faced the wall. He hadn't turned it away, he knew he hadn't. His last memories entailed him gathering his art supplies but not coming within two feet of the stand.

Uncomfortably, he took a step towards it. There was no way he could deal with his studio in such a state. After all that time in his 'dazed' state when the house was a wreck, or even after he tipped the police off about Earl and his garden became a mess, he needed one thing to be kept right. His studio was his one and only outlet not contaminated by the filth of the weeks before and he desperately needed it to stay that way.

He stepped towards the canvas that, for the first time ever, faced away from him and the stand it was mounted on. His foot touched the floor with an uneasy feeling. The carpet was an unexpected texture. Part slimy, and part crunchy. He raised his bare foot from the floor, noticing the layer of dark paint that had attached itself to the bottom. All along the carpet were blotches of colors stained into the carpet. He had never made such a mess in his entire life.

Some colors littered the lower parts of the walls. They ranged from red to dark purple, green and black. A sickening feeling that had been buried in Andy's stomach surfaced, raising its head as if from the depths of Hell itself.  He was in a state of shock; unsure of how to cope and unable to do anything. Temporarily stunned, he circled the small room in a hopeless panic. The paint had been partially dried, he could tell from the crunchy feeling he got from walking along the floor.

The room smelled of harsh chemicals he had never used before. They laced the carpet similarly to how the smell of Vin's alcohol-infused vomit would. A dirty art knife lay on the table with partially dried paint hanging off the end. He didn't know where to begin.

Grabbing the knife and dirty palette from the table, he ran from his room and down the stairs to the kitchen. He placed the palette on the counter-top and began violently scrubbing the art supply knife with hot water streaming from the sink's faucet.

He was more embarrassed than anything. He never thought that his artist sanctuary could become a humiliating space. It disgusted him to think that he could have let the room become so unsightly. The paint marks had not been there previously. If they had been, he surely would have noticed.

The stains slowly came off the knife. He turned off the tap. Next was the palette. The water began streaming again as he turned it on. A loud bang made him drop the palette into the running water. He barely had time to look around before he felt the back of his neck get pushed into the sink. The plug wasn't clogging the drain luckily. He could still breathe just fine.

His very first instinct told him that it was Earl. He had come back to finish him off for telling the authorities. As he heard the voice of the man who held him down, his entrails went ice cold.

"Andy Brooks, you're under arrest for the suspected abduction and murder of multiple women, and the assault of another." the voice of Detective Miller rung in his ears like the old bells of his first church.

He said nothing as he was pulled away from his house. Other men with guns were trained on his chest and face as he was pushed into the back seat of a police car with his hands cuffed behind his back. Alarmed and scared, he frantically searched for words to ask the people around him who he got the feeling wanted to hurt him. He couldn't form the words that he wanted and he couldn't move even an inch. Entrapped by the metal car-creature, he wondered silently if they at least turned his kitchen tap off.