Facing the Guillotine, Chapter 2
Home was a brown brick structure with a moss-covered roof, ivy crawling up the sides, and four wooden pillars caging a concrete verandah. The neighbors' houses were similarly styled, also mostly covered by vegetation and shaded by nearby trees. The constant moisture in the air of the Pacific Northwest kept everything around the houses green, as though the houses had grown out of the earth, rather than been built on top of it. This fact lent a magical quality to home that filled Maureen with a warm feeling when she pulled into the driveway. She got out of the vehicle, grabbed her valise and purse, and headed for the front door.
Dad had the door open before she could stick my key in the lock.
"Hey, big girl. How's my favorite daughter?"
Maureen was her parents' only daughter, and big girl was the last thing a grown woman wanted to be called, but from her father's mouth, these things were endearing. She put her arms around his neck, and he gave her a gentle squeeze. She let him go and had a look at him. He'd gotten a paunchier over the last few years, but he still had a boyish face and all his hair, though it had gone completely white. He was wearing a button-up with squarish pattern in various colors with a pair of dark blue slacks and no socks or shoes.
"Where's Mom?" she asked.
"In the studio, of course," Dad said, flicking up one eyebrow.
"Of course."
"Come on, let's go interrupt her. She'll be less cranky if you're with me." He said it with a smirk because of course her mother wouldn't get seriously angry with her father for disrupting her painting process; he just liked to joke that she did.
She followed him into the house, dragging her valise behind her. They passed through the dining room, turned left down the hall, and went to the door of what would've become a bedroom had her parents had a second child. Her mom started selling paintings shortly after Maureen was out of diapers and had said absolutely not to more children. Dad had taken it in stride because, as he said, Maureen was plenty to handle, even out of diapers. He knocked on the door and said, "Hey, beautiful, guess who's here."
"Hmm, is it the Easter bunny?"
Something shuffled and scooted behind the door, followed by a set of footsteps. Maureen let go of her valise and folded her hands in front of her. Her mother came out of the studio. Behind her, Maureen glimpsed a large canvas on a stand, an easel full of paints, and a worn leather stool. Other canvases were strewn about the room, leaning on walls or against the wooden desk. There were bookshelves filled mostly with books on the artistic technique and books of mythology and folklore. The canvas she was working on showed a horned man with goat hooves frolicking in a lush wood. Her mother painted in a classical style but with slight hints of the macabre. For instance, in this particular photo, several children were following the goat-headed man, their eyes glazed over with an empty, drugged look.
Her mother was a lithe-figured woman with silver-streaked black hair. She was wearing her painting clothes, consisting of an old band T-shirt, faded blue jeans, and a pair of sandals.
"Well, look at you," her mother said. She frowned. "Are you eating?"
"Of course I am," Maureen said.
Her mother looked her up and down. "I'll take your word for it."
"Hi Mom, it's good to see you too."
They embraced and when they let go of each other, Dad led them toward the living room. As she and her mother caught up, Dad went to the kitchen to fix some coffee. Maureen asked her mother about the new painting. Her mother said it was called The Great God Pan after the novella by Arthur Machen.
"Sounds creepy," Maureen said.
"It is."
Dad came back with three hot mugs of black coffee and a small tray of fixings that he set on the coffee table. Maureen took her mug and added two packets of sugar and splash of cream. Her mother took it black, and Dad left his untouched.
"So, why aren't you going to the coast for Spring Break like the rest of the degenerates," Dad said with a smile.
Maureen told her parents about her project and her plans to visit Leadville. Her mother straightened. Dad took his coffee mug then; he didn't sip it, he just held it in both hands as if needing it to keep them warm. All the humor was gone from his face.
"Are you going alone?" Dad said.
"I was planning on it. Want me to bring one of your guns?"
"That's not funny," Dad said. "I've heard things about that place."
"It's just an old town, Dad." She looked to her mother for support. Her mother said nothing. "I'm going to be fine. I'm just going to ask around. Easy-peasy. I doubt I'm the first person to visit, and I'm sure I won't be the last. If I find I'm not wanted, I'll just drive back and we'll get to hang out all week. It's no big deal."
Now Dad looked to her mother for support. "Are you going to tell her about the other painting?"
Maureen's mother leaned back to give the impression that she was relaxing, but her face told a different story. Her gaze was even darker than usual, and she seemed to be staring at something somewhere behind Maureen, even though the only thing there was a blank section of the living room wall.
"Someone from Leadville commissioned a piece from me. It was disturbing, to put it mildly."
"Mom. You paint scenes of horror. Isn't 'disturbing' kind of your M.O.?"
"Not like this," Dad said. "This was…"
"Different."
"To say the least."
"Well, what was it?" Maureen asked. "You're leaving me in suspense here."
Her mother met her gaze. "It was several headless corpses holding hands."
"And every time she would show the buyer progress, they'd ask for it to be gorier. Because of the money she…"
"I didn't want to say 'no.' Yes, horror is my M.O., but I rarely do gore. And when I do, it needs to be somewhat tasteful. This was just beyond the pale."
Maureen wanted to tell her mother that people were desensitized nowadays. They didn't want tasteful gore; they wanted the whole sloppy enchilada. Instead, Maureen thought about her (episode? daydream?) on the highway. What had the carnival barker over the radio said? Something about a guillotine.
An interesting coincidence, sure, but she was sure that was all it was. She'd learned long ago in therapy not to draw connections when there wasn't any hard evidence. And besides, "No matter how disturbing that painting was, that's just one person with eccentric taste. It's not like it was commissioned by the whole town."
"Except that it was," her mother said. "At least that what the buyer said."
"He could've been joking."
"I suppose he could've. It's an odd thing to joke about, though, no?"
"I'll say," Dad said.
"I mean, yeah, but it's also odd to commission a painting of headless corpses holding hands. I'm sure it's not a reflection on the whole town."
Her mother sighed. "When were you planning on going?"
"I was thinking maybe this evening."
"At night?" Dad said.
"I'm a little old to be afraid of the dark, Dad. So are you."
"He isn't afraid of the dark. He's concerned about you."
Maureen looked at her parents. They were both staring at her. She'd hoped to get a head start on her project, but her parents had a point. A girl probably shouldn't be walking home alone at night in any town. A shame, but that sad and frustrating fact wasn't something she could change by going out and tempting fate. She also didn't want her parents to worry more than was necessary.
"Okay," she said. "I'll go tomorrow. Does that make it better?"
"I'd rather you didn't go at all," her mother said. "But I can't stop you."
"Just be careful, okay?" Dad said.
"Of course."
After coffee, Dad took Maureen to her room. It was just as she'd left it, albeit a little cleaner. The carpet was freshly vacuumed, and a dehumidifier was running near the window. All her books were on shelves, and aside from the chair she'd taken to her new apartment, all her furniture was still in place. A painting her mother had done of Maureen—one of her rare non-horror pieces—was hung above the dresser. In it, she was standing ankle-deep in the ocean and couldn't have been more than seven or eight. The image made her cringe during her teen years, but now, it made her smile.
She thanked Dad for letting her stay, and he gave her a look. "I can't say 'no' to my favorite daughter."
Except when I want to visit Leadville, she thought but didn't say.
She set down her bags, and he left her to her own devices. She took out her phone and texted Charlee that she'd arrived safely. Her friend wrote back almost immediately with a blue heart emoji. She set down her phone and dug out her laptop and the local interest book. Two sentences jumped out at her from the blurb about Leadville.
The people of Leadville like their privacy.
and
You might say the locals are stuck in the past, but they like it that way.
It struck her as mighty peculiar that a town's population that preferred to not draw attention to themselves would commission such a lurid piece of art from a renowned painter. This led her to believe even more firmly that it had been one local acting alone. Likely, it was a younger member of the population, some college kid like herself perhaps.
Except, aren't most college kids broke?
She drifted to the second sentence, again took in the fact that she was in her old room, working on a research project centered around a town she'd been intrigued by since her childhood. Maybe she and the people of Leadville weren't so different from each other.
With the caffeine pulsing through her veins, Maureen opened her raw research documents and the blank document that marked the as-yet-begun paper. One of the main reasons she wanted to visit Leadville was the lack of documentation about the town. She had to know the general area to search and zoom in extra close to even see its name on any online map. All she had was a handful of articles that said basically the same thing, the blurb from local interest book, and whatever rumors she remembered from when she was growing up. Seeing the town for itself and interviewing some of the locals was the only way she was getting anything meaningful, original, or interesting for this project.
Her phone buzzed with another text message. Habitually, she set aside everything to check it. The message was from Charlee, asking if she was going to visit Leadville tonight or tomorrow. She typed back that she'd promised her parents that she'd wait until tomorrow. And she intended to keep that promise, not just out of loyalty to her parents but also due to the fact that the drive had tired her out and all the copious amounts of caffeine she'd consumed didn't seem to be making much of a difference.
But when Charlee wrote back and asked if meant to keep that promise, Maureen paused before responding. Her hesitance caught her off-guard. Although she could be curious to a fault and occasionally impulsive, she tended to take her word very seriously. And she had given her parents her word.
Yet, even when she typed back that, yes, she intended to keep her promise to her parents, she caught herself fantasizing about sneaking out after they'd gone to sleep.
She waited until the house was dark and silent before heading downstairs. The tightness of guilt and the butterflies of anticipation waged war in her abdomen. She took each step one at a time, tiptoeing and holding tightly to the railing with her right hand. In her left, she clutched her purse to her hip. Some of the stairs groaned under her weight, but she told herself that her parents would chalk the noises up to the old house doing its old house thing.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and exhaled, not realizing she had been holding her breath through her entire descent. Though she couldn't see more than a foot in front of her, she had the layout of the house memorized. She'd lived there her entire life, and while her parents like to redecorate from time to time, they weren't ones for rearranging.
Still tiptoeing, Maureen took slow, short steps across the living room floor. She reached the front door and grabbed the knob.
"Is that you, Maureen?" her mother called from somewhere in the dark.
Maureen squeezed her eyes shut and withdrew her hand. When she opened them, she turned and looked. Somehow, she'd missed the faint sliver of light coming from under the door to her mother's studio. Fortunately, her mother wasn't out in the living room with her.
Maureen set her purse down on the entry table and strode to her mother's door. When she opened it, she found her mother hunched over the painting of the goat man, adding additional details, mostly flourishes of dark maroon that could've been flowers on the background vegetation. A couple of LED lanterns were on shelves, splashing haloes of light across the otherwise shadowy space. Beside her mother sat another figure, one that Maureen couldn't quite make out in the dimness. Something was off about the figure, but she stepped forward to examine it more closely. What she saw made her halt in her footsteps.
The figure was human, but it had no head. This had to be some cruel trick of light and shadow, not something she was seeing for real.
"Mom?" she said, her voice coming out slow and wavery.
Her mother turned toward her, freeing up the light from one of the lanterns. It illuminated the figure, confirming that its headless state was no trick of the dark. The figure had been beheaded cleanly, as though by a straight, recently sharpened blade. The severed spine gleamed white in the crimson puddle of body's neck stump. She recognized the blood-soaked shirt as the one Dad had been wearing earlier that day. She tried to scream but couldn't find her voice, tried to backpedal but couldn't move her legs.
Her mother reached with her paintbrush and dipped it into the bloody neck wound. She grinned at Maureen, showing that her usually immaculately white teeth were stained with a tarry substance. When she removed the brush from the headless neck, it dripped with the same dark maroon she'd used to add those flowers that could've also been spatters of blood in the world of the painting as well as that of the painter. She returned her attention to the canvas, leaving the shadows to retake Maureen and Dad's headless corpse.
Marueen awoke whimpering and couldn't move her limbs. She scanned the room using only her eyes. It was early morning, judging by the gray light that slipped through the space between her blinds. With great effort, she managed to turn her head. On her nightstand, beside the lamp, sat her father's head in a puddle of dark maroon, its eyes rolled to the whites, its tongue swollen and purple.
Maureen screamed herself awake, fully awake this time, and her father's head was gone from her nightstand.