Steve shivered as he stood before the easel. Had he the courage to pull the cloth off again? It wasn't really particularly horrific, but what with the title and everything, it all added up. He took a deep breath and raised his hand to pull away the paint-stained cloth.
Steve sighed. It still made no sense. The painting was a fine one indeed, with a good use of colour, realistic curves and a very sophisticated stroke style. The same sophistication would also have to be said for the subject matter, but objective critical acclaim suddenly lost all its appeal when faced with this particular work. Heads on meat hooks. Human heads. Steve took another deep breath and shifted his gaze around the rest of the painting. It was a landscape, but unlike any Steve had seen this side of the thin line between mortality and damnation. The sky was red, but a different red from that of the blood on the corpses on the foreground, and were it only the sky was cloudless, but it wasn't. The clouds, far from being the white fluffy marshmallow creatures which he had received from his other students, were ash black, not so much floating as hovering above the blasted earth. It was that same blasted earth which brought forth trees, but not trees of wood and leaf, but trees of bone and flesh, dripping with a sap, red in hue, which ran down the selfsame meat hooks attached to the tree's withered limbs.
Steve Peters was wishing now that he had never set the assignment. He would have to specify the subject matter more carefully, rather than just give a title. Most of the students had sketched or painted acceptable pictures, even if they were dwarfed by this piece in terms of technical merit. It was amazing what Raymond could interpret from the title, 'A Picnic'.
"Sir?"
Steve spun round, his breathing now heavy, his back pressed up against the monstrous painting. He stared down on Raymond before him, he of the careful artistry, he of the poisonous paintpot.
"Mr. Peters, sir? I've painted another piece, for my free choice sir. Could you have a look at it?"
Steve worked hard to stifle a groan. "Yes Raymond. Just let me finish up here, okay?"
Raymond turned on his heels and tottered across the room. My God, thought Steve, I didn't even hear him come in. The stairs down to the art room creaked, it was impossible to walk down them silently. That was part of the problem. Raymond was always quiet, soft spoken and polite. It was… spooky. At times like these Steve wished that Raymond had a crew cut, a combat jacket and big thick boots. People like that were supposed to paint things like this. What if he wore a lot of black? Yes, that would do it. If he wore black, had really pale skin, and, well, perhaps a little eye makeup, then, yeah, then he could paint like that. He would think it was… cool. There were a few like that in the art class, standing at the back, whispering to each other, wearing lace shirts, but Raymond wasn't like that at all. What did Raymond wear? He couldn't really remember. Sweatshirts? Yeah, sweatshirts, usually a bold primary colour, blue or red. His clothing was nondescript, much like his sandy, centre parted hair. The only thing that marked him out was the stare. His eyes were always open wide, boring into your skull, even as he talked to you in his calm, polite voice. There was another thing too. Raymond tottered. Teenagers shouldn't totter. They could stride, or shuffle, or simply lounge, but they shouldn't totter. Raymond's walk could, when viewed from behind, put one in the mind of a very chubby 4 year old.
Steve put his right hand to his forehead and wiped away the perspiration. His left hand… where was his left hand? He could feel it, tensing. He looked down his left side, down his arm, at the mysterious extremity. There it was, lying on the table, white with the pressure of his gripping… a paint brush? Yes, he thought, I felt it when Raymond was over here, an impulse, almost instinctive. I was reaching out for something, something I could use to kill that little fiend. He chuckled. A paintbrush? Not exactly every man's weapon of choice, but Steve was an artist.
Steve righted himself from his leaning posture and strode across the room to where Raymond was waiting, poised next to another easel, hands on the cloth, ready to present his next masterpiece. Steve took up position in front of the painting and braced himself for a shock. "Ready," he signalled to Raymond.
"I call this piece 'Journey On The Seven Seas'", he proclaimed, whipping away the paint-stained sheet with a flourish.
One could brace oneself for Raymond's works, but one could never truly get used to it. Steve was ready for the painting's horrific countenance, but he was shocked, nonetheless.
The canvas was divided into seven. In the first section Steve saw a conqueror, bent on destruction and death, wearing a crown of the purest red rubies, crushing a city beneath the feet of his horse. The second section held a similar mounted figure, but this man held aloft his sword as a beacon, and all around him men were falling upon one another with rocks and with swords and with guns.
Steve viewed the third section, this one more cryptic than the first two, still containing a rider and his mount, but black rather than the white and red of the first two, carrying a set of scales. Steve's eyes moved down to the fourth section, where a figure, a stranger to no man sat astride his steed. No one alive could mistake his skeletal features, popularised by films, the face of Death.
The fifth section contained what Steve could only assume was an altar, thronging with the spirits of the dead, who were all flowing towards the sixth section, in which Steve beheld a barren plain, not unlike the one which was behind him, across the room. The same red sky and black clouds hung above the sun-parched soil and the same bony trees were present, their upturned fingers pointing skywards towards the seventh section, crowning the painting from its place at the top.
But in the seventh section there resided no horrific scene, only a representation of a stone disc, inscribed with some dead language.
And at that moment, Steve could see it all.
He could see it from Raymond's point of view, could see what Raymond was creating here.
Raymond glared at him from behind the easel, "Do you understand, Mr. Peters?"
"Yes. Yes, Raymond I do. Your painting. It's not a journey on the seven seas, it's a journey on the seven seals! It's a painting about the Apocalypse! Which means this, which means this," Steve was almost screaming as he ran over to the first painting, "This, My Picnic, means you're a…", Steve swivelled around.
"Cannibal," finished Raymond, plunging the needle sharp brush end through Steve's heart.
A paintbrush. Not exactly every man's weapon of choice, thought Steve as he closed his eyes for the final time, but Raymond was an artist, practising his art.
