She was just a portrait I was told, a picture that was painted many years ago by a haunted artist. I worked in a museum you see, a great big building with art as far as the eye can see. However, this one painting intrigued me more than most. She was an old Victorian lady painted in her home.
She was supposed to be someone of royalty, but she seemed to have been forgotten throughout the ages. The picture was bland, and the art was filled with dull browns and blacks. She had a regal poise in the picture, a ghost of her former stature. The thing that stood out amongst the boring painting was her face. You see she didn’t have a boring old smile in this picture. Oh no, she had a grimace that made all my hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Like she was ready to rip the flesh of my bones. Whenever I walked past this painting, I would keep my head down. I could feel her eyes piercing into my soul. I first heard the story behind this picture when I was doing a midnight shift with two art handlers who had worked at the art gallery longer than me.
I was shaken to my core that I would be spending the night with that picture. The two handler’s were reassuring me that it would be fine. They told me that they would be patrolling the halls and making sure that everything was safe. You wouldn’t be anywhere near the picture. Halfway through the shift we started to get bored and the older of the two handlers asked me if I wanted to know the story behind the old Victorian woman’s painting.
‘Yes’ I stated eagerly
‘Well’ he said ‘It was brought to us four years ago, mailed in an unknown courier no one could decipher where it had come from. It was crudely wrapped with butcher’s paper. Even weirder was the saturation of the paper with a red substance on the left side. It looked like someone had left a bit of red meat in a piece of butcher’s paper for too long and it had started to drizzle. The even more curious thing was that when I opened it, I couldn’t find where the blood was coming from. There were absolutely no leaks at all coming from the painting itself.
So, I had to get three of my strongest men to lift it and mount it on the wall. It was a tremendous effort, but we did it. Once we lifted it up and looked at it in all its splendour mounted on the wall she was smiling. She did not have the grimace she has on her face now believe it or not. Her face started to change after that’ the veteran sighed deeply. ‘We did not know what caused her mouth to frown out of nowhere we looked at the camera’s and no-one had tampered with it.
No-one had been near it, and nobody had painted a grimace on her face. I was very disturbed by this painting and wanted to find out more. I walked to the Gallerist’s office to ask him about the curious painting. The door was ajar when I walked in, I saw his office was dark and the computer screen was on. I called out his name a few times to no answer. I moved closer to his screen, and I saw a website that sold haunted paintings.
I heard a dripping sound coming from behind me. I slowly turned around and I saw the new art handler that we hired last week hanging upside down. There was a hole in his neck, and he was being drained like a pig. A metal bucket was underneath him to catch the blood. I felt the Gallerist’s eyes burning into mine like a cattle prod. I looked to the side, and I saw him standing there with a grimace on his face.
‘Why?’ I had asked him ‘It’s for the live feeding’ he stated ‘What live feeding? I had asked him in response. ‘The other paintings were not bringing in people, this live feeding will make them come in droves.’ I don’t remember much after that because I had been knocked out cold. They arrested the Gallerist before he could do the ‘live feeding’. Someone had given a tip to the police you see.
‘So what happened after that?’ I hesitantly asked. ‘Nothing much’ the handler said ‘He was put in a psychiatric facility. The Victorian woman is still hungry though don’t walk too close to her or she’ll bite you !!’