A long time ago in a small village, lived a young girl named Rachel. Rachel was a talented young lady in many ways, but the one thing that she was most known for was her paintings. Painting was her true passion. And although she was well liked by a lot of the villagers, there were some who didn’t like her very much. Some say they hated her because she was so talented. Nonetheless, she went on with her life painting beautiful works of art.
One day, a well-known art collector came to the village. He had impeccable taste for the finest art and heard so much about Rachel’s beautiful paintings, that he wanted to meet her. So he decided to pay her a visit. He showed up to Rachel’s doorstep while she was bathing and knocked.
“I’ll be right there in just a moment,” said Rachel as she quickly grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her slender frame. She wrapped hair up in a towel and quickly made her way to the door.
“I’m sorry if I kept you waiting,” she said as she opened the door. “Can I help you?”
“Ma’am, my name is Gerard Kafka,” said the man in the black silk suit. “I am a well-known art collector and I’ve heard so much about you and your beautiful paintings, that I would like to commission you to do a painting for me.”
After he was done introducing himself, she was very happy to have a famous art collector at her doorstep requesting her to paint something. But Rachel also felt embarrassed since she was meeting him while only wearing a towel.
“Please come in sir and take a seat,” she said as she invited him in. “I’ll go put on something more presentable and we can talk business when I come back.”
“Yes yes, of course,” said Gerard as he sat down.
Rachel ran upstairs, quickly got dressed, and came back down to talk business with the art collector.
“So what can I paint for you Mr. Kafka,” she asked excitedly.
“What I want is very simple,” Gerard explained. “I want you to paint my portrait, and I want you to make it as realistic as you possibly can. And if you do an adequate job with said portrait, I will pay you ten grand. In cash of course.”
“You have yourself a deal Mr. Kafka,” said Rachel. “And I will make sure to do a marvelous job on it. But before I start, I would like to take a few head shots of you for reference.”
Rachel then takes out her old camera and takes a few good headshots of him. When she was done, she went to develop the pictures from the camera in her dark room. When the pictures were done, she took them to her canvas and got started on the painting. With every stroke of her brush, Rachel brought life to an empty canvas. She worked day and night to accomplish the task that was given to her.
While Rachel was concentrating on her project, a rival painter named Donna was planning to get revenge on Rachel. Donna was jealous of Rachel and hated her because she had stolen a client that she wanted. So Donna came up with a plan to get a few friends who also hated Rachel, and trash her place when she wasn’t home.
While Donna was making some calls to her friends, Rachel was putting the last finishing touches on her painting. She was very proud of the finished product. She had put a lot of hard work in to every beautiful stroke.
“I’m finally done with the painting,” Rachel said proudly. “Mr. Kafka will be so pleased.”
She cleaned up her tools and called Gerard to tell him his painting is done.
“Hello,” asked a man over the phone.
“Hello,” replied Rachel. “Is this Gerard Kafka?”
“Yes it is,” answered the man. “How can I help you?”
“This is Rachel, the painter you commissioned. Your painting you wanted is finished.”
“Oh, you’re done already?” Kafka asked surprised. “That was very quick. But yes, marvelous! I will be there after breakfast to see what you have done. And if it’s better than what I imagined, there might be an extra grand for you.”
Rachel’s jaw dropped when she heard him say that. She thanked him and hung up the phone. She was too excited to sleep that night. So to relax, she started to paint again. While she was painting and trying to calm down from all the excitement, Donna was outside the house with her friends. They were about to ransack Rachel’s house while she was up painting.
Donna busted through the back door and Rachel jumped when she heard the crash. She went to go investigate. And when Rachel noticed someone was breaking, she ran to the telephone to call the police. But by the time she got to the phone, Donna and her thugs caught her and tied her to a chair.
For a while, Rachel sat there helpless while Donna would brag about how she was better than her. Then Donna started to break everything and smash all of Rachel’s paintings. All except for one, and that is the portrait of the art collector Rachel was working on.
“I am going to take that painting,” Donna explained. “And pass it off as my own work. And then I’ll get the money.”
After Donna said this, Rachel struggled to get free from the chair. Once she got free, she started to fight Donna. Donna yelled for one of her friends to help and one of them grabbed Rachel and threw her to the ground. Donna got up, wiped the blood from her mouth, and said, “I’m going to go and get cleaned up. You guys can do whatever you want with that b***h.”
Donna walked out of the room with the painting. But right before she left, Rachel yelled out, “I hope you die and whoever possesses that painting will forever know pain.”
“Whatever,” Donna said. “Somebody shut that w***e up.”
Then one of Donna’s friends struck Rachel in the face, causing blood to gush on to the floor. And when the door closed behind Donna, her friends gagged Rachel’s mouth and proceeded to beat her. Most used wooden bats and crowbars while some used sharp knives to give her lots of cuts. The beatings and cuts started to get harder and deeper, until the unspeakable happened. Little Rachel died from the intense beating.
After the deed was done, one of the friends went down into the basement where the fuse box was and tampered with the wires. While one of them was doing that, the others started to douse the house in kerosene. Some even poured kerosene on to Rachel’s lifeless body.
And when they were all out of the house, a few wires sparked causing the house to catch on fire. The whole place was engulfed in flames, leaving no trace of evidence that little Rachel was murdered.
The next day when the Gerard came to retrieve his painting, he saw that there were sirens surrounding the place where Rachel’s house was. Gerard was shocked and horrified to see the smoldering ashes.
“Officer,” Gerard said while coming out of his car. “What happened?”
“Well sir,” replied the officer. “Apparently there was an electrical fire. And I’m sad and sorry to say that the person who lived here didn’t make it.”
“Oh God, that poor girl,” Gerard said. “And right as I was going to pay her for one of her masterpieces. Such a shame, now I won’t be able to see her work.”
“Yeah, that is a shame,” the officer said.
As the two men were talking, Donna saw this as an opportunity. So as soon as the officer stopped talking to Gerard, Donna approached him professionally.
“It’s such a shame what happened to her,” Donna said to the art collector. “She was my best friend you know.”
“Well I’m sorry for what happened to your friend,” Gerard said to Donna. “Too bad I never got to know her like you.”
“Yeah, she was a real friend,” Donna said, trying to sell the act. “Actually she was more than just a friend, she was also a good teacher. She taught me everything she knew about painting and art. Speaking of which, I hate to bring this up since it’s a bad time. But since I’m a painter and a dear friend of hers, I believe she would want me to carry on her Legacy. So would you mind if I paint your portrait, free of charge?”
Donna smiled hoping he’d take the bait.
“Well if you can do you as good of a job as her,” he explained, “then I don’t see why not. But I will pay you. Because people taking something for nothing wouldn’t feel right to me, even if it was out of the kindness of their heart.”
After knowing that he took the bait and she will get paid big money for a painting that she didn’t even paint, Donna got excited. But for the sake of the act, she stayed professional.
“You got yourself a deal sir,” she said happily. “I will have your painting done in a couple of days.”
“Okay, I will see you in a couple of days then. And sorry again about Rachel,” he said while going in his car.
When Donna got home later that day, she started to dance and sing happily and brag she will become famous. But her happy time was briefly interrupted by noises coming from her house.
“What was that,” Donna thought to herself.
The noise sounded like a loud banging that kept getting louder and louder. So Donna went to go investigate. But when she did, the noise stopped all of a sudden. So she just shrugged it off as noisy pipes and went back to being very happy. Then she went into the kitchen for a celebratory drink.
As she made her way into the kitchen for a bottle of wine, she started to hear the noise once more. But this time, the knocking was followed by scratching noises as well. So Donna went back to figuring out where those noises were coming from.
She noticed while walking down the hallway, that the noise got louder and LOUDER. And that’s when she soon realized that the noise was no lousy pipe.
As she got closer to the living room where the painting was, the noise got so loud to a point where it was almost booming. Donna was terrified not knowing what lies beyond the living room waiting for her.
As she slowly approached the doorway to the living room and gently flipped on the lights, the noise stopped again. And as she looked around trying to find where the source of the noise was coming from, there on the chair stood the painting… staring back at her.
“Must be my imagination,” she said to herself reassuringly. “I must be hearing things. Yeah, that’s right! But did I put the painting on the chair?”
She thought real hard trying to remember if she put the painting on the chair.
“I guess I did and must’ve forgot. Yeah, that’s right.”
She approached the painting, took it from the chair, and wrapped it up neatly in a cloth so it didn’t get ruined. Then she looked into the eyes of the Painted Man and something disturbed her down to her spine. Those eyes were glancing right at her. No, they were piercing right through her soul.
So she quickly wrapped it up and tucked it away. She came back to her senses after wrapping the painting and went back to the kitchen to calm her nerves with a drink. After a while, she realized she had finished a whole bottle of wine.
Donna then called it a night, so she went upstairs to change and go to sleep. After a few hours of sleep, she was woken up and scared by another loud knock.
“What was that?” Donna thought as she jumped to her feet.
The noise kept getting louder and LOUDER AND LOUDER… almost like it was getting closer. The noise kept getting closer and closer to her door. She put her hands over her head trying to block it out.
“This can’t be real,” she screamed. “It’s only in my head! Wake me up from this f*****g nightmare! Please God!”
And just like that, the knocking had ceased. Donna mustered up the courage to get out of the bedroom. But when she opened the door, her heart slowly sank into her stomach because right there in the hallway staring back at her… was the stolen painting. But this time, the eyes that were looking at her was different. Almost like they were fiery in nature. Donna was unable to move and speak, all she could do was cower in fear.
After a few minutes of cowering, she came back to reality and quickly grabbed the painting to put it away in a closet. She locked the door and began to walk away from the closet, hoping it was all just her imagination. But then she heard the scratching and knocking again. But this time, it was coming from the closet.
That painting, that painting was haunting her because of what she did. She put her hands over her ears to drown out the knocking, repeating to herself that it’s not real. While she was having a breakdown, she didn’t notice where she was going and tripped and fell through the banister, hitting the ground and snapping her neck… killing Donna instantly.
The next day, Gerard came to collect his painting. But instead of seeing Donna with his painting, he saw the police taping off the property.
“Excuse me,” Gerard said to the officer, “but what’s going on here?”
“I’m sorry sir,” the officer said. “But you can’t come through here, there’s been a terrible accident. This poor woman fell and broke her neck.”
“But I was supposed to meet her here,” Gerard told the officer with slightly irritated tone. “She was supposed to be presenting a painting to me.”
As he said those words, Gerard noticed the same officer that was at Rachel’s crime scene. He appeared to have the painting in his hand. So Gerard approached the officer and started to ask him some questions.
“Officer,” Gerard asked “Can you tell me what happened to her?”
“Well what did the other officer tell you?” he said.
“They said it was an accident and that she fell and broke her neck,” Gerard answered.
“Then that’s what happened,” the officer said. “From what we hypothesize, she was trying to put up this panting, but she tripped and fell through the guardrail. Because when we found her, she was laying there clutching this painting that has your image on it.”
“That must be my painting she was working on,” Gerard said excitedly. “Can I have it?”
“I’m sorry sir, but this is evidence. I’m afraid I can’t give this to you,” the officer said.
Gerard wasn’t too happy to hear that, so he thought he could just bribe the officer to get the painting. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of cash and said, “I will give you $10,000 if you let me take the painting. Besides evidence goes missing all the time.”
“I don’t know sir, I don’t want to lose my job for this,” the officer replied with a nervous tone.
“Officer, officer, officer… you’re not going to lose your job. Besides, I know a few people and I can pull a few strings. So I can even make sure you get a promotion.”
“Well…” the officer replied. “Okay you can have it, as long as no one knows about this.”
“Oh, they won’t officer. That I can promise,” Gerard said with a smug look on his face.
Gerard slipped the officer the money and the officer gave him the painting. But when Gerard touched the painting, a cold feeling overcame him. But he shrugged it off like anyone would, and took it to his car. Then he started the car and drove away.
As he was driving down the road, he adjusted his rear view mirror to the back seat facing the painting. Just like Donna, he was greeted with the same piercing eyes looking at him. He didn’t pay it any mind though. But because Gerard wasn’t focusing on the road, he didn’t see a stop sign up ahead. And then out of nowhere, an 18 wheeler crashed into his car, killing Gerard instantly.
When the cops got there, they cut it out Gerard’s lifeless body and contacted his family member to come to collect his things at the hospital. Amongst those things was his wallet full of money, credit cards, and the painting.
“Oh my God, that is a beautiful painting,” said Gerard’s relative
Later that night, they took the painting home. But after about a week, they were found dead by lead poisoning. After that, the painting since disappeared and showed up once more, claiming a few more victims. And now that painting is in a museum, behind thick bulletproof glass where no one can touch it or steal it. But those safety precautions are not for the painting, but for the people.