Nocturnal

The Artist and His Subject

Rex drew. He was a good drawer, he knew that. Mrs. Evans, his art teacher at Galileo, she said he had potential. No one ever said that to him, about anything. Not since his dad had died, anyway.

Mrs. Evans was okay, but he had to hide his best drawings from her. The ones with the guns, the knives, the chain saws, the ropes — things like that. She’d seen some of those drawings and pretty much flipped out, so Rex just kept them to himself.

He also now knew he couldn’t let other kids see his pictures. Not ever, or BoyCo might hurt him even worse than before.

But if they did come after him again, Oscar Woody wouldn’t be with them.

Because Oscar Woody was dead.

Rex had made so many drawings. He’d even drawn one of the strange faces he saw in his dreams. That one had gone up on the walls with all the others, labeled with a name that he heard most often during those visions: Sly.

Rex drew. His pencil outlined the oval of a head, then the shapes of eyes, the contours of a nose. Quietly, he worked away, adding lines and shading. Gradually, the face became recognizable.

The sound of pencil on paper picked up speed. A body took form. So did a chain saw. So did splashes of blood.

Rex felt warm. His chest tingled inside.

Erase that part of the nose, redraw … adjust the corners of the mouth, coax the lines and shapes and shades into expressions of agony, of terror.

He felt his own heartbeat pulsing in his neck, bouncing through his eyes and forehead.

Erase the bicep, darken that line … the chain saw had just passed through the arm, severing it in a splatter of blood.

Rex felt himself stiffen in his pants.

He moaned a little as he erased the eyes. They weren’t quite right. Make them wider. Make them full of fear.

Fear of Rex.

He had drawn Oscar Woody, concentrated on Oscar Woody, and now Oscar Woody was dead.

Maybe it hadn’t been coincidence.

And, maybe, Rex could make it happen again.

The new face?

Jay Parlar, the boy who had put the pieces of wood under Rex’s wrist and elbow.

Rex drew.