A Picture's Worth A Thousand Eyes...Watching

A Story by Alexzandria R.

A woman moves into an old house and begins to make it her own, only to find that the paintings on the walls don't come down. When she finds out why, she certainly wishes she'd moved somewhere else.

The house was cheap even for a rented one. And it was small. One bed, one bath, a kitchen, and a living room. Diminutive little thing with ugly fuchsia walls, beneath which I could see the too-obvious outline of a door that had been sealed off and painted over, and squeaky floorboards. Three hundred ninety-four square feet. But I moved in, repainted the walls multiple coats of a nice pale yellow to cover up that god awful fuchsia, tuned out the noisy floors, put in some rugs, put some furniture in front of the sealed door shape, and unpacked all of my things and soon enough, it felt like it was growing on me. Like I’d made it my own and actually, it was sort of cute in a dainty way. Except for the paintings on the walls.
They were nice paintings. Nothing too bad. But I was unable to remove them. I discovered this while repainting. In every room, there was a painting or two and every single one was attached to the wall as if it had been built into the house. I called the landlord regarding it the day I began repainting. He claimed that he knew nothing of the permanent paintings. Said that there had been a previous owner who probably had them put in for whatever reason and he apologized for the inconvenience. He even very generously offered to have them removed for me so I could paint over the spaces but I denied. I could live with them. I wasn’t about to have people in the house prying these things off the walls just so I could repaint. It seemed to be a waste of time. Thinking about it now, I wish that I’d taken him up on his offer.
The paintings caused me no trouble. It wasn’t anything like what you hear about that cursed painting of the crying boy surviving fires and causing paranormal events. They were paintings. That’s it. They were just all copies of paintings from famous artists. A DaVinci in the living room, a Monet in the bedroom. That type of thing. After a few days, they seemed kind of nice, actually. The whole house had grown on me and I was comfortable. Until about a week after moving in.
I thought I was crazy. It was a Saturday and it was storming outside, so I’d ordered a pizza and rented a movie and I relaxed on my couch without makeup. It was a lazy day. Nothing to do but watch a movie and eat a whole pizza by myself. I remember it was an action movie, so it was quite loud throughout the entire film. As I sat there with my pizza, watching the movie, I began to hear faintly audible whispers from over my shoulder. I paused the movie and listened closely. Nothing. I looked over my shoulder to find nothing but the fake Mona Lisa that hung on the wall over the couch. I played my movie again. And again, I heard them. I knew I wasn’t crazy. Several people were very audibly having a conversation over my shoulder. It seemed to actually be three or four people arguing over the plot of the movie. Again, I paused it. As I reached for the remote, I heard the whole group shush each other. Then silence.
At this point, I was a bit scared, so I never played the movie again. I finished the last slice of pizza and went straight to bed. It was only 4:30, but the sound of the rain and the sight of the gloom outside was making me drowsy. I didn’t even remember going to sleep. I recalled entering the room, lying down, and nothing more. I woke, disoriented, to pure black. For a moment, I questioned whether or not my eyes were open. I blinked a few times to be sure and sure enough, I was awake. My heart was racing though. I couldn’t remember having a nightmare. I decided that I’d probably been startled awake by a thunderclap or the sound of an animal outside.
I checked my phone to see the time. It was almost 3:30. When I locked my phone again and the room became dark again, I was startled by a movement that i’d noticed in my peripheral vision just as the light shut off. My heart raced more than it had when I woke and I reached a shaking hand toward my phone on the bedside table again. I swore I’d seen someone standing there and then dart out of view. I aimed my screen at every dark corner and every wall. The closest thing to a human in the room was the portrait of The Scream near the bed. It must have been my mind playing tricks on me. I must have been seeing the painting out of the corner of my eye. When I locked my phone, it must have just given the illusion of movement. Right?
Once I was laying back down with my phone locked and the room dark again, I heard them. The same voices that i’d heard while watching the movie except this time, it came from The Scream portrait. It was very audible and I could almost make out every word. Three or four voices were berating another one. They were all whispering the way you whisper when your children are acting up during church but you can’t yell and interrupt the sermon. Aggressive but quiet enough to almost not be heard. I decided that I was probably just hearing people argue outside. It seemed unlikely that there’d be people out there at this time of night, but what other explanation was there other than the voices just being in my head?
After almost half an hour, they shut up and I was able to get some sleep. I was startled awake by a clatter and crash in the kitchen. My first thought was that someone had probably broken in, but I heard nothing after that so I figured that if someone had been there, they’d left,or there had been no one at all. Still, I felt I should investigate. I had no weapon to take with me incase the intruder was hiding in the house or something, but I felt safe enough going in and taking a peek. I crept down the hall, through the living room, and craned my neck around the wall to see into the kitchen. I saw no one but the refrigerator was hanging wide open, as were a couple of cabinets. The crash had come from some dishes that had fallen to the floor from a shelf and shattered.
I closed the refrigerator and as I did so, I noticed a significant amount of food missing. Two tomatoes out of a bag of three, an entire package of Kraft cheese slices, half a dozen eggs from a brand new carton of a dozen, etc. Maybe someone homeless had attempted to break in and make some breakfast? But if that were the case, where were the cooking utensils? Someone would have needed to have taken all of the food with them in a bag or something. I accepted it. Whoever stole the food must have needed it more than I.
As I swept up the shards of plates and bowls, I heard some sort of scratching inside the wall. For a moment, I thought maybe I was hearing the sound of the ceramics scraping on the tile floor but this was different. It was coming from behind Starry Night on the wall to my left. Just a constant scraping and scratching like there was some sort of rodent living in the walls. I suspected that it most likely was a rodent.
I called the landlord that afternoon and he told me that he’d have someone come over to check for rodents in the walls within the week. The week came and went and another week came and went and no one showed up regarding the suspected wall-dwelling rodent. And the longer I waited for someone to come, the sicker I got of looking at these paintings. All day for the past few weeks, I’d been hearing strange sounds from behind them and every night, that painting of The Scream gave me the creeps. It always looked like there was someone standing over my bed.
One night, I sat up in bed reading until I couldn’t hold my eyes open. Then, I placed my book on the bedside table and my reading glasses on top of it. Then, I switched the light off and went to sleep. As usual, I woke at various times during the night and every time, I was startled by the illusion of someone standing over me. I was sure it was an illusion, at least. In the morning when I woke, the book was gone. Only my glasses were left. As I searched for my book, I heard a faint scrape and click come from The Scream.
I stopped where I was, remaining perfectly still and careful not to make a sound. I needed to know I wasn’t crazy and there was something wrong with these paintings or the walls behind them. No sound came from within the walls at first. But then I heard a sort of shuffling and scraping. I was certain there was something in there. I needed to investigate.
I went out to the toolshed and found the crowbar before taking it into the house and choosing a painting to pry off. Of course, I could have called the landlord and taken him up on his offer to have a professional remove the paintings, but I wasn’t about to wait several weeks for this. I wanted them gone now. I knew that prying them off would most likely only leave a bare wall there and give me no insight as to what was living in the walls, but if that were the case, I was willing to investigate that myself as well. I decided to remove The Scream. This way, I could at least get some sleep without that feeling of being watched.
I took the crowbar into the bedroom, found enough leverage under the frame to pry the painting up, and pushed toward the wall as hard as I could. At first, nothing happened and I was discouraged, but then I heard some crackling and I felt the painting loosen up. I pushed the crowbar in a bit further where the painting had began to separate from the wall and pushed toward the wall even harder, feeling the painting loosen up even more and hearing a louder crackling and snapping. This thing was coming off today. Finally, after almost ten minutes of prying at this thing with the crowbar, it fell to the floor with a bang and I jumped out of the way to avoid it landing on my foot.
When I looked up from the painting on the floor, what I saw confused me. There was a rectangular shape with hinges cut into the wall as if it were a little door with no handle or latch. I pushed on it, expecting it to cave into the wall considering it had no latch or deadbolt but it didn’t even move. This thing was solid. This wasn’t enough as far as answers. I needed to know what was back there. I went back to the toolshed, returned the crowbar, and exchanged it for a large hammer. I brought it up to the bedroom and began smashing into the little door shape. I smacked the edge opposite the hinges as hard as I could with the hammer and it made a different sound than expected.
The hammer hitting the wall made the obvious sound at first, but then I heard a metallic clank as the chunk of wall fell into some type of cavity and landed. This intrigued me. What had I hit? I pushed on the door shape again and it still wouldn’t move. I looked at it for a moment, examining it, examining the hinges. I came to the conclusion that this door was actually meant to open toward the bedroom. I tried that. I gripped the hole that i’d smashed through the wall and pulled on the door shape gently. This time, it opened. When I got it opened the whole way, I was suddenly looking down a small hallway like a cubby or a crawlspace. I examined the chunk that had fallen into the little hallway. Attached to it was a locked latch. The little door had been locked from the inside.
Curiosity got the best of me and I needed to find out more. I pulled myself up into the little space and began crawling down the cubby-sized hallway, taking my phone with me to use as a light. As I moved, I found that my knees shuffling against the floor in there was making the same sound that I’d been hearing. That shuffling, scraping, scratching sound. Briefly, I thought that maybe I’d been hearing someone crawling around in there but I dismissed that thought. That was crazy. Right?
As I crawled, I came to a left hand turn in the little cubby space. I followed it out of curiosity and it took me to another little door locked from the inside. I opened the latch and pushed on the door to find that it opened up into my kitchen. This little door was behind the painting of Starry Night. I found this fascinating. Maybe I should have been a bit more scared than I was, but I saw no reason for that. I was alone in this house. This all just intrigued me. I closed the painting-door and latched it behind me. When I turned around in little cubby-hall, I was looking at a ladder going down. This place didn’t have a basement or a lower floor, so I was confused as to where the ladder could lead, but that only made me want to climb down.
I dropped my legs through the opening in the floor and eased myself into it, gripping the ladder when I got close enough, being careful not to hit my head in the tight space. I climbed down the ladder into what felt like a large room in the darkness. I used my phone to illuminate my surroundings. I seemed to be looking at a basement. But how? Then I remembered the sealed door. This must have been a basement before that door was sealed forever. I explored the basement, still using my phone for light. As I explored, I grew more intrigued but confused.
On a table in the corner sat the food that had been missing from my kitchen along with a few dishes that I hadn’t noticed the disappearance of. This unnerved me. How had the food ended up here? On the floor to the left of the table sat the book that had gone missing from my bedside table. I was so confused. How could any items from inside the house have traveled all the way down here. Tomatoes and novels don’t crawl or climb ladders. I suspected rodents again but that was crazy. Rodents don’t know how to unlock a latch or even install it in the first place. What was this?
With that thought, I felt I wasn’t alone. I stopped and remained still, barely breathing. Despite the fact that I was only faintly breathing, I heard very heavy deep breaths coming from behind. I gathered the courage to turn around and shine my light there. I only saw a stack of tool boxes. I relaxed for a moment. Everything was ok. My imagination was playing tricks on me. Until I saw the pair of bright blue human eyes peering across the room at me from behind that stack of tool boxes. Followed by another pair. And another pair. And another pair. And another pair...