Raichel’s Gallery

Raichel’s Gallery:

Or

A Statement to the Police

 

I tell you, of all the hideous manifestations of that unwanted part of the human unconscious, nothing is more hideous than that which plays upon the fancies of those calling themselves Artists. My own expertise has gained me a wealth of knowledge on such things, or so I though. All of what I have seen this evening I have relayed, with the utmost clarity as I can muster considering the circumstances. Choose to ignore me if you will, for at this point I know you all must think me mad! But I tell the truth as I have known it to be. Oh God, what a hideous thing is life? That the mind and body can be so separated, can be so deranged, I’ve known Samantha Raichel since we entered Cheektanovia University together almost 15 years ago as students of the visual arts. I was there when she unveiled that first miraculously horrifying canvas, I heard her explain her inspiration, her methods, her methods, but I never thought of what I know to be the truth, I never suspected, though I probably should have. That painting was so life like, all the lines, dimensions, shades and tones, everything fit perfectly with the subject, that first terrible Thing.

As I said, I met Sam on our first day at Cheektanovia University. She was a most magnificent girl, dark hair, dark eyes, but with a smile that could light up the whole room, I never thought- but that’s not important now. We became good friends, I thought. We worked together on a few join projects, she always added her touch of, how should I say it, morbid whimsicality, to whatever our project was. She had such a way about her; she seemed relatively normal, but occasionally fell into fits of melancholy. But it was in her solitary paintings that the first tones of hideousness first manifested themselves.

I can’t remember, maybe it was in our third year, yes that must have been when, I began seeing less and less of her, she told me she got cheap studio space someplace on the West Side so that she didn’t have to use the school space, which was thinly distributed as it was. I admit I didn’t think much of it at the time; by their third or fourth year most serious students had acquired independent studio space, it wasn’t that uncommon so there was nothing to suspect. It was when I asked to see it; she expressed a certainty that I would find it quite uncomfortable, due in part to the “run down nature of the place.” Shortly thereafter she started painting what has now made her famous in certain occult or underground circles, but largely underappreciated in the broader art world. Oh, the look on Professor Banergie’s face when Sam unveiled the first piece, his eyes nearly popped out of his head as I recall, I think someone in the class even fainted.

There before us in glistening acrylic stood what appeared to be the dark form of a man, naked and covered in blood, eyes wild with animal furry, holding up the severed head of a young boy, whose face shown of supreme terror, his naked body lay at the feet of his attacker. The whole scene was especially gruesome, as I recall, yet exceptionally life like, as if it were not a painting at all, but a photograph. What happened next? Professor Banergie reported the horrific nature of the painting to the head of the department, before long and after little inquiry, Samantha Raichel was expelled from Cheektanovia University, cited on having delusions of mind and spirit.

After that, I don’t really know what happened to Sam, we stayed in contact for a while, I moved to Providence and we lost touch. It was only recently, upon my return to Shannon that I uncovered an old letter from her, which had her address. Oh God, had I known, I would have never tried that place. The address was of a West Side warehouse near the docks, not a house, not an apartment, not even an art studio. But by this time I have made a small name for myself in Providence as an artist and I was eager to exchange stories with my old friend, so I tried the door and found it unlocked. What I found inside shocked me beyond words, what I had discovered at the address of my old friend was an art gallery, of sorts. A gallery of the macabre, seemingly devoted to a single artist, whose scenes of ghastly murder remained unsold in the warehouse, my old friend Samantha Raichel.

As I wondered the hideous portraits, I gazed upon scenes and images that made my stomach lurch with fear and disgust. One rather large canvas near the center of the warehouse showed a young woman, appearing of eastern extraction, being brutally ravaged by an unseen attached, her face showed the supreme expression of fear, pain, misery, humiliation, and hideous knowledge, knowledge that she would not survive the end of the scene. Cuts above her stomach revealed what appeared to be her internal organs, spread out in the hands of her attacker. As I gazed at the monstrous thing, I nearly vomited.

Another showed two young children, one boy and one girl with their appendages cut off. I dare not describe their faces, scarce that say that by now my lunch had reappeared by my shoes. The Background showed two others, certainly the parents of the children, feverishly feasting on the arms of their children and laughing with utmost despicableness. By this time I had dropped to the floor. The room swam before me, a mixture of darkness and far off light.

When I came too, I found I had fallen atop some sort of trap door in the floor, only visible because of a metal ring that for an unknown length of time formed my impromptu pillow. Desperate to relieve myself of those murderous paintings, I gripped the metal ring and pulled with all my strength. What I uncovered, a blank aperture so dark that wisps of the blackness seemed to emit themselves from the gaping chasm, the only thing visible was a lone wooden step. I placed my foot and tried the plank and feeling as though it would support me, I stepped down onto it. Feeling for another in that damnable blackness, I descended into the blackness.

Or what I soon discovered to be a pit, massively huge so that the other side remained cloaked in darkness. On the third stair I discovered a flashlight, which confirmed my terrible fear that I was not the sole uncoverer of that mysterious trap door. Using the flashlight to illuminate the stairs ahead of me, I continued into the abyss. I walked for what seemed like hours, down down down into the cooling hell pits of earth, until I found myself at a door, a great wooden door opening to the abyss of black nothingness. Oh goodness, how I was happy to find that door, and relieve myself of that internable blackness, If I had known what laid beyond, I would have turned back, and tried my luck in the gallery of hideousness. Opening the door, I found to my surprise the studio of my long friend Sam Raichel, hidden for 15 years from the eyes of the world and when I entered and shined the light on an unfinished canvas. I finally understood.

There before me in the miserable blackness, illuminated solely by my flashlight, the unfinished canvas and behind it, its beaten, bloodied, and clearly dead subject. The horrid lifefullness of the canvas first unveiled for my class 15 years ago, the damnable realism of the gallery above my head did not originate from the twisted fancy of my old friend, but from actual scenes of reality. I do not know how loudly I screamed, I do not know how I found myself back on the surface with no memory of leavening that subterranean horror, of running up the stairs in blackness, or racing through the gallery above, or finding the light from the sun for the first time in hours. When my memory returned, I came here.

You have to believe me; I could not make up a story like the one I have told again and again to your various interrogators and detectives. By God, 15 years of unsolved crimes could be uncovered in that hellish gallery. I do not know what has become of Sam Raichel, I do not know if I would be able to recognize such a person if I saw her, I do not even know if I could call her a person, after what she’s done in the name of Art. By God I will never paint again, never. I shall never again see such horrible things, things that come up from the blackness below the earth, such terrible vistas of murderous awfulness. How we all wondered where those scenes came from.