The Painting of the Dog – A free short story
One
Eddie was eleven when he bought the painting of the dog at the school fair. The artist had smeared thick layers of oil paint on the canvas. In the warm sunlight, it felt sticky.
He held the painting up as he walked home so he could admire it on the way. It was a terrifying piece of art. The back of an old man’s bald head was in the foreground. The old man was staring at a painting of a black dog on a dark wall. The dog was a cross between a Labrador and a German Shepherd, except it had two heads protruding from a single long neck. Both mouths were wide open – barking – and long, red lines of drool hung from its jaws. Its eyes were blood-red and laced with sickly yellow veins. It was standing in front of an old castle. Its hackles were raised, and it looked ready to pounce. A thin streak of lightning split the black sky above the castle’s ruined battlements.
His mother gasped in horror when she saw the painting. “What’s that?”
“It’s a painting,” Eddie said.
“Are you sure?”
“Leave him alone, Cath,” Eddie’s dad said. “Where are you going to put it, son?”
“In my room.”
Dad winked. “What about in the living room?”
“Very funny,” Mum said. She folded her arms, always a sure sign she was worried. “Will you be able to sleep with that thing staring down at you?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t want you getting nightmares.”
Eddie screwed his face up in disgust. “I’m not five!”
Dad burst out laughing. “Let me finish my coffee and I’ll bang a nail in the wall for you.”
*
two
Eddie went to bed half an hour earlier than usual that night. He wanted to make the most of the evening’s fading light so he could look at the painting before he fell asleep.
He lay with his head propped up so he could stare at the painting on the opposite wall. A rectangle of light illuminated the painting through a small gap he’d artfully left in the curtains. Laughter from the TV drifted upstairs. His sheets smelt fresh and clean.
“It’s just you and me, now,” he murmured. In his mind, a breeze rustled the leaves and branches of the old oak in the painting.
Earlier, he’d dreaded his parents asking him why he liked the painting. He knew he’d never be able to explain how the painting had somehow called to him. For some reason, the painting – or the dog – wanted him to buy it. Like it belonged with him. Or he belonged with (to, the breeze through the leaves whispered, to) it.
The thought made him stir uneasily. Shifting position, he realised it was dark outside. He must have been dozing. The shining rectangle of light on the painting had been replaced by a thin moonbeam that lit only the dog’s threatening red eyes.
The air in his bedroom felt hot and heavy. As he reached for the glass of water by his bedside, a breeze glided under his door and gently lifted his sheet. Instead of the glass, his fingers touched his torch. He switched it on and shone the light on the painting, directing it left and right and up and down to eliminate every shadow.
A distant rumble of thunder sounded, underlined by another, closer, deeper sound. A dog’s growl. The thunder roared again, nearer.
Eddie glanced out of the window, wondering how close the storm was. His dad had once told him to count the seconds between thunderclaps and lightning to discover how distant storms were.
The entire painting flashed bright white while he was looking through the chink in his curtains. Eddie swung the torch onto the painting again. The dog was closer to the old man. Pouncing.
Eddie felt a sudden urge to run from his room and scream for his dad to smash the painting. He started to rise, but a new sound made him freeze. A lisping, whispering old man’s prayer repeated endlessly. “Dear God, in Heaven, release me from this prison. Dear God in Heaven, release me from this prison.”
Eddie slammed his palms against his ears, trying to block the words out. “Stop it, please stop it!”
Alerted to Eddie’s presence, the dog barked five times, each deeper and louder than the last. The hairs on the back of Eddie’s neck rose. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.
The old man’s head turned all the way round on his neck like an owl. The skin on his face was tight and shrunken, like an ancient Egyptian mummy, and his eyes were dark holes crawling with worms. His mouth opened, the lower jaw dropping much lower than it should. “He’s coming for your head, Ed.”
The dog barked ten times in a row in mocking imitation of a church’s pealing bells. Every bark sounded closer. The old man faded. The dog’s portrait within the painting expanded to fill the entire canvas.
Eddie gasped and jumped up, but his foot twisted in his sheet and he fell off his bed in a heap. He twisted to look at the painting. A dark shadow leapt out at him. He screamed in terror, but the dog’s slavering roar drowned his voice.
*
Three
Two months after their son was found dead on his bedroom floor, Eddie’s dad finally braved going back in to clear the room out.
Cath was watching telly, which was all she ever did, as if Eddie’s death had somehow sapped all the excess life out of her, leaving only a pale ghost of the woman he’d married.
His brow creased as he stared at the painting on the wall. “Strange,” he muttered. “Could have sworn that was an old man before.”
Then he pulled the painting off the wall and put it in a bag, ready to take to a charity shop.
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