The Dead Angel

Experimental. Final chapter of... something. Possibly a story in there somewhere. The Ending.

Lightening flashed just as he reached the house and his emerald eyes darted towards the windows to hunt for any silhouettes that may have detected him. The house seemed desolate but inside he suspected a venomous danger that was not expecting his arrival. He knew that as he paced down the path, he might be gravitating ever closer to his agonising death. Come on Aaron, he commanded himself. You can do this. You can save her. A quick inhale of air braced him as he knocked on the bolted door.

 

Warm, delicate eyes welcomed him as the door opened.

“Hey Aaron, didn’t think you’d be coming round today.” Charlie pledged a grin and leant joyfully on the peeling doorframe. Aaron presented a false smile in return and purposely pulled his coat to cover his chest; implying that it was cold, so that Charlie would step aside.

“Would you like to come in?” As Aaron ambled cautiously along the corridor, he studied the magnificent sculptures " some smaller ones placed decoratively on tables and the larger ones in the living room. Charlie had a great passion for art, and Aaron had always stood alongside each masterpiece and each disappointment. Charlie was Aaron’s best friend, he trusted him, until now.

 

The countless art materials swamped them both as they entered the living room. There was one in particular though that peaked Aaron’s attention. It hung majestically on thick, solid card. A delicately detailed sculpture of a petit woman, her head dropped down, and her straight, golden hair left dangling freely. Her body was naked except for a colourless cloth wrapped creatively around her, securing her dignity. Aaron stepped closer to observe her limp, sculptured arms that were held by a thin wire ahead of the two, angel-shaped wings that reached up towards the ceiling. But they were not feathers; they were bones " ribs and joints crafted together with glue.

 

Aaron studied it closer, examining the miniscule initials scratched at the bottom: ‘SJ’.

“This one isn’t yours?” He turned inquiringly at Charlie. “This says SJ on it. It’s Sydney Jackson’s.” There was no reply. Aaron prepared himself for a fight; if her artwork is here then she must be too. His vast imagination uncontrollably created an image of her trapped in Charlie’s basement, clawing her way out, screaming for him to save her.

“Charlie, where is she?” He never broke his glare on Charlie. “You’ve been my friend for as long as I can remember, and I could always trust you.” He gulped. “Though now I’m starting to notice that you’ve become worryingly interested in Sydney " following her and constantly waiting near her house... and I saw the sketches in your notepad.” Charlie’s headshot up, his joy had now subsided as calculated a response.

“She asked me to keep hold of her sculptures, I know she’s your girlfriend Aaron and I’ve been close to her recently, but I have a van to transport her work.” Aaron was not convinced. His eyes scanned the paper machéd heads and limbs around the room, and red paint overflowed in tins around the room. The anger that grew inside him transformed into an idea, and another flicker of lightening provided the adequate distraction. Aaron dived forward and forcefully struck Charlie’s right cheek.

“Tell me the truth!” He demanded, “Where is she?” He struck him again, this time sending him ferociously to the floor. “I know she’s here you’re always watching her and cautious around her. I told you I saw the, supposedly, anonymous death threats sent to her!” He bounded closer.

“Where is she?!” Aaron had raised his voice, his anger bellowed from each punch until Charlie pleaded for mercy.

“Stop! Stop! Please! She’s in the basement.” I knew it, Aaron thought. He clutched Charlie’s blood-stained shirt and together they shuffled down the basement stairs.

 

The basement light illuminated the cans of paint and glue that were arranged neatly in the vast room, and a sculpting table cradled a body and various materials used for the artwork. Aaron softly called her name and she descended freely from a shadowed corner. Relief soothed him, as she had not been physically harmed. Sydney’s face emitted no fear but consolation, and her ivory curls swung round her bare shoulders, locking onto the straps of her vest top.

 

Aaron motioned his head back to signal for Sydney to come towards him so that he could protect her. Although, as she lumbered foreword, a muffled groan escaped the mouth of one of the bodies on the table before them.

“Is he…alive?” Aaron swiftly turned to face his friend. “Charlie? Is he alive?”

“I was going to tell you Aaron. I was truly.” Charlie was convulsing now, which shook his next words as they travelled terrifyingly to Aaron’s ears: “It’s real Aaron. The artwork, the sculptures… they are all real.” Terror bleached Aaron’s body and flooded it as the realisation hit. He reflected on the secrecy of their school art block. The bolted downstairs’ corridors and the modelling skin that felt so suspiciously life-like. Images conjured in Aaron’s mind: the heads and limbs that he believed to be paper maché. The thick, red paint now uncovered as blood. The girl made into an angel, her bone wings… they are all real people.

 

A sudden look of disgust encircled Aaron’s face as he shoved Charlie away from him.

“How… how could you? Charlie, you’re sick, you need help.”

“No Aaron, please believe me! I didn’t kill them or craft them; I just found them and bought them to her. She threatened me Aaron, she’s smart!” Aaron anxiously searched his friend’s desperate eyes, becoming increasingly confused as he questioned further.

“Charlie, who creates the art? Who is ‘she’?” Hold on, he thought, the SJ, on the dead angel. A lethal knife was thrust into his back, abruptly halting his thoughts, as he painfully tilted to see her. Sydney " the girl he had once loved. She spoke with great care, as if this act was her gift to him.

“Aaron, my dear, remember that I promised to make a sculpture of you.” Her carnage filled eyes embodied his shock as he stumbled backwards onto the hardwood floor. The blade tore further down his skin, sinking deeper and closer into his vertebra.   He could feel it scraping his spine as she leant over his chest, caressing his chiselled cheekbones with her palms. Aaron’s eyelids fluttered shut. And his mind became buried beneath the pain.