Continuing with this month’s theme of stories, I’m delighted to welcome local storyteller Onyx Shelton as this week’s guest blogger. Originally from Winnipeg, Onyx is a proud member of the Little Saskatchewan first nation, and a musician, writer and screenwriter with a particular love of creating horror and ghost stories. One of Onyx’s many passions in life is storytelling, a skill he uses every day in his work as a Wayfinder for the Writing Symbols Lodge Ótáp ímisskaan: Indigenous Youth Leadership Program at the University of Calgary.

I asked Onyx what he loves most about Halloween, the genre he writes in and where people can go to learn more about him and his work? My favourite things about Halloween are definitely dressing up and making costumes from scratch. My partner and I make our own costumes and she will try to make some for our dog. I also really enjoy watching scary movies while carving pumpkins or listening to old radio shows while I bead and draw. My elementary school had Stephen king books, so I read them when I was in grade six. When I was eleven or twelve I started reading It, Pet Semetary, The Running Man and others. I think reading his books and others like Edgar Allan Poe and Michael Chrichton really influenced me to write stories. You can find some of my work via my Coverfly page.

And now without further ado, Onyx Shleton presents:

The Painting

When I left the bar yesterday, I wanted to collapse. I was drained from all the noise and interactions that came with being a barback. The usual scraps, obnoxious attitudes and mischievous antics get old real quick. I couldn’t wait to get home and pass out on my living room sectional. It was my favourite place to sleep, and I always had a good rest there.

Opening the front door, I was kissed with the familiar scent of nag champa. Home sweet home. I took off my muddy boots and threw them to the side without looking. They landed squarely on the battered metal shoe rack, snapping into place like they were magnetized.

I removed my coat and hung it in the front closet. Checking my teeth in the mirror of the closet door, I tossed my keys over the shoulder and they found their home in the small bowl I had brought back from my recent trip to Guatemala. The designs caught my eye over a fresh cup of coffee I was enjoying at a pit stop on my way to the ancient city of Tikal.

Turning, my feet slipped into the warm moccasins I keep at the foot of the tiled hallway. They were a gift from a friend, whose Nokomis had sewn and beaded. They were my favourite piece of footwear. Shuffling my aching feet, I entered the quiet living room. Another favourite feature of my condo was the thickness of its walls. After a long night at a loud bar, nothing beats peace and quiet so I slumped onto the dark leather sectional and let my tiredness creep in. Time to sleep, time to rest.

I awoke the next day feeling refreshed, happy and ready for the day. I made breakfast and watched a John Carpenter movie called “In The Mouth of Madness.” After enjoying the film, I hit the gym and got some dinner before heading to the bar for my shift. As the hours passed, waves of people drifted in and out. But with every pint, shot glass and occasional belch, the scene was getting old. I’m a bit bitter about the job but can’t say no to the money. It’s just too good and all that really matters right now is home. I use the money to keep it nice and clean; whatever I can do to make it my own.

After my shift, I refused a round of drinks with the other bar staff and got home around three in the morning. For me, it was too late to stay out, especially when they started free pouring the house lager, which to be honest, wasn’t very good. Reaching my front door, I stopped, taken aback at the sight of a large rectangular package wrapped in brown paper and twine. It stood upright on my front doorstep and looked like a strange, thin monolith under the flickering porch light. There was no return address on the box but I was really curious as to what it was so I decided to bring it inside and further my investigation.

Lifting, I found it was pretty heavy and initially I struggled to move. The weight caught me by surprise but I did manage on my own. Setting it down in the living room, I flicked out my pocket knife. The blade clicked into place and quickly cut through the twine. I dragged it down, opening it with a tear. A large reddish painting that looked like frustrated smears of someone’s blood over a white canvas. Some parts were dark and coagulated, others spots were soft and fleshy. There were fair pieces of thread that looked like forearm hair and tiny brown spots that reminded him of birthmarks.
It bewildered me. I am not sure how long I sat there for but it was long enough for my eyes to run dry and grow puffy.  My eyelids began to swell, I could feel my heartbeat pounding in my head like a drum. A primal sound echoing thru me. When I finally pulled my eyes away from the painting, I saw the sun had begun to rise. I was exhausted and wanted to sleep but I kept thinking about that painting. I wonder who made it and why they made it. What fueled those weird intertwined strokes and why did they just leave it? Tracing the long virgules of red, I questioned if they were made by a brush or something else, something like a needle. Violent bursts of scarlet anger hinted at the possibility of a malicious tool. My fingers slid across the leathery surface. The painting had such a fascinating and somewhat unsettling onset of colour and texture, I could not pull away.

Looking at the time, I was shocked to see that it was now 5 pm. Did I really just spend thirteen hours staring at this painting? My shift started in thirty minutes and I knew I wasn’t going to make it in time. I grabbed my phone and called my boss to tell them I was too exhausted to come in. That I had spent the night dealing with personal family issues. They tore into me a bit but I wasn’t really listening. I was staring at the twisting coils of red. Even if I looked closely, it was hard to tell where the colours stopped and started. I apologized to my boss but realized I had been absently listening to the dial tone. They must have hung up without me noticing so I hung up the phone and checked the time. 10 pm. That’s weird. I had zoned out again. What is happening?

My stomach growled with anger so I got up to fix something to eat. I preheated the oven and grabbed a frozen pepperoni pizza out of the freezer. Tossing it in the oven, I set an alarm on my phone and let out a fathomless yawn. I returned to the living room and dropped onto the sectional. My eyes locked once more unto the mixed and strewn relationship of the painting’s surface. I felt it had some sort of hypnotic spell on me as if I had been turned into a mindless zombie.

Then I smelt smoke. The room all around me was filled with it. I choked on what little air there was and ducked under the rising smoke that was beginning to stick to the freshly-stained stucco ceiling. The smoke alarm pierced my ears and my throat felt like it had been coughing for hours. With each dry wheeze, I felt it crack and shrink. I crawled over to the nearest window and opened it. The smoke billowed out freely. My head throbbed as I made my way over to the source of the smoke. In the kitchen, trails of blackness seeped from the borders of the oven door. Opening it, I fetched out the fully charred pizza, threw it in the sink and rinsed it with cold water. It took a few hours for the smoke to clear and now my condo smells like burnt pizza.

I’m not sure how much time had passed again but I shut my eyes and kept them closed. I stumbled weakly towards where it sat in the living room. Even with my eyes closed, I felt like I could feel, even see some sort of waves, they were leading towards the center of the room, falling into an abysmal hole that was right where the painting sat. I felt the rigidness on one of the corners of the painting. I felt its heaviness on my back as I lifted it up and almost fell towards the front entrance. Outside, I dragged it towards the condo buildings trash and recycling dumpsters. In between my heaving, I would squint towards the dumpsters to stay on the right path. I tripped and scraped the palms of my hands till they were raw and numb. With the last bit of frustrated energy I had left in my jelly-like limbs, I threw the painting into the trash bin and collapsed.

Most of the money I had made in tips is going towards a new stucco ceiling and a new oven. I also got rid of that painting. I thought it’d be best to let someone else worry about it. There are more important things to focus on like fixing my home and catching up on rest. Which is exactly what I did, sleeping as much as possible and continuing to focus on building a home. Things were going great until a few days later when I came home after a late shift and saw a large rectangular brown package standing like a thin monolith underneath my flickering porch light.