When the Lights Go Out - Ink Slingers' Halloween Anthology by Joleene Naylor

Author:Joleene Naylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: vampires, horror, halloween, ghosts, demons, spooky, scary, monsters

Lizzy woke up in the teacher’s lounge, her head aching horribly. She looked around, rubbing her eyes in the early morning light. Checking the clock, she saw it was just after six. Wow, she’d really spent the night. She’d stayed late at school before, but till the next day? That was a new record. Well, at least she’d woken up before anyone could show up and scold her. Getting up, she went to the gym and into the women’s locker room, stripped, threw her clothes into the washing machines they kept for the athletes and took a quick shower. An hour and a half later her clothes were dry and she could sneak off to the nearest burger shop for breakfast. Along the way she snuck into the nurse’s office for some ibuprofen, hoping to put an end to her headache.

Later, belly full and having bought some toothpaste and a toothbrush at the drugstore next to the burger shop, Lizzy walked into school with nobody the wiser that she’d gotten drunk and spent the night at school. Speaking of which, her bag and art supplies were still in the art room. Deciding to skip first period, she went to the art room. There she found her bag, lying at the easel just as she left it.

Picking up the bag, Lizzy moved to go…and then saw her new painting. She stared at it, both awed and terrified by what she’d created. She didn’t remember painting it at all, but she thought it was some of the best work she’d ever created. As close to the work of the masters as she could get at her current level, the painting depicted a view of the front of the school, with several students, Eric Colbert and Helen Marsden and Bridgette Grey among them, running scared as brilliantly-painted tigers chased after them or crunched on their bones. One of them, a big tigress depicted in mid-leap about to claw Bridgette’s face, had Lizzy’s face.

Lizzy shivered as she stared at the painting. It looked so real, almost like the figures in it could leap out and touch her, or even maul her. The more that Lizzy stared at it, the more she expected to notice the iron smell of blood in her nostrils and the screams and roars of a massacre in her ears. It was incredible, a masterpiece.

And if Mrs. Green or anyone else saw it, they’d refer Lizzy to the school psychiatrist for counseling before burning the painting and recommending that Lizzy’s art projects be more closely supervised from now on. She’d have to cover it up so that nobody would bother it. Then she’d take it home and hide it so her mother wouldn’t see it and worry about her daughter’s mental state. Getting a large canvas cloth from the closet, Lizzy covered the painting and left for class.

Even when she got to class though, the painting occupied her thoughts. There was something about it that bothered her, like she was forgetting more than how she’d created it.

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