The Mural

Russell Storm’s ignored conscience had become so calloused from decades of neglect, that it was hard as rock. Not just any rock… his conscience was as impenetrable as granite. Scratch as one might to tug at his cold heart for even a flicker of remorse or guilt; the only emotion that would scrape forth was amused annoyance.

Such was the monster who hired 'Gretchen’s Murals’ to paint a dark and stormy night ocean scene onto his living room wall. Anybody else would have preferred a peaceful and pretty scene that brought to mind a warm sea breeze on a pleasant day. But, not Russell… He commissioned a dark tempest—a squall whose upheaval matched the uproar his disturbed soul craved to inflict.

He had targeted an unsuspecting Gretchen… She had no idea when she accepted his job (several miles out in the country), that Mr. Storm had long before made sure she was a sole proprietor who worked alone, out of her home—so nobody else would be aware of his appointment. His future victim also had to live alone, with no family members to immediately miss her. She had to be a private loner who wouldn’t be chatting about her customers with friends. He had observed her comings and goings well.

Russell was very meticulous in planning his perfect crime. After all, he’d done it before... Angela had been chained in his cellar for almost a year now; so long, he had become bored with her.

As soon as he could add Gretchen to the new set of cellar chains he’d already installed, Russell intended to use her own keys to enter her home at 2:30 p.m. to make sure any trace of his job-order was erased, so nobody could trace her disappearance to him, her customer. He scoffed at amateur criminals who left fingerprints, footprints, and hairs. His entire body would be covered in the pest application plastic uniform that protected him from leaving evidence, head-to-toe. He’d drive her own car there, and wouldn’t get out until it was in her garage. Afterward, he’d cut through the alley, stuffing the plastic outfit into the duffle bag he’d brought along. Then, he’d proceed to the hotel where he had previously asked the garage to deliver his car. Russell smiled to himself at how clever he was.

Although Russell was impatient for the mural to be finished, so Gretchen could join Angela in his cellar; he calculatingly only allowed her to paint for one hour each day. (An hour was as long as he trusted Angela not to rouse from the drug he'd forced her to drink, prior to each arrival.) But finally, the storm-driven waves were finished. The turbulent ocean was splendidly realistic! Russell purposely let Gretchen stay longer than an hour, so she could finish the final touches.

As she was cleaning her brushes, Gretchen heard what sounded like a moan come from the basement. Russell complained that a cat must have crawled in through the cellar window he forgot to close, and asked Gretchen if she wouldn’t mind holding a flashlight for him while he tried to grab it.

Gretchen didn’t suspect a thing, as she followed him down into the dark cellar. Thus, she was stunned when the light of her flashlight fell upon a pale, thin, haggard-looking woman curled up on a dirty blanket on the cold floor in the dark corner. (Angela had obviously aged beyond her young years.) Gretchen gasped and froze when she saw the chains around her ankles.

Not being able to comprehend what was thrust upon her senses, Gretchen's eyes darted toward Russell. As he slowly turned around, for the first time Gretchen saw and felt the evil in his gaze and his grin. She dropped the flashlight and screamed—but there was nobody to hear for miles around… Except Angela, who opened her dazed, tear-filled eyes.

But, Gretchen turned out to be a disappointing kidnap victim for Russell… Part of his thrill was using the fear of death to coerce willful compliance. However, Gretchen wasn’t afraid to die. In fact, she had made it clear that she would RATHER die than willingly do what he wanted her to do. Russell didn’t desire force; he wanted complete control.

Frustrated, he tried using her for housecleaning. He’d had to sacrifice cleaning services ever since he’d kidnapped Angela; who at first, had cleaned his house in exchange for being let out of her chains to get the exercise cleaning would provide. But for some time now, Angela was much too weak to be of any use. For the first time he let Gretchen loose to get some exercise.

She only agreed to clean his house if she could first give Angela a glass of water. Confused that she dared to make a demand, Russell allowed it, only to have Gretchen whisper to Angela loud enough for him to hear, “Pray! I promise God WILL help you. I’m sure of it!” After gulping down the water, Angela hoarsely whispered back, “I don’t know if there’s a God. But, I do know the Devil is real.”

Every time Russell entered the cellar, Gretchen fell to her knees and began praying to her God. It was amusing at first, but quickly had become so annoying that Russell decided if she’d rather die, he’d immediately give her what she wanted. Then, he’d pick a more compliant replacement—a non-religious one next time.

Driving home from the harbor, Russell congratulated himself on how easy it had been to dispose of Gretchen’s body... In a bar some time back, he’d become acquainted with a drunk who supervised the loading dock of the after-customs cargo. It had been easy to knock on his door in his pest-application garb, saying he had just finished a job in his neighborhood and sure could use a cold beer. It was easy to drug his beer with a fatal concoction when he wasn’t looking, and steal his automatic entry pass and work clothes.

After cleaning up thoroughly, he didn’t waste time entering the dock yard in the middle of the night in the drunk’s own truck, inserting his pass to open the gate. He’d brought bolt cutters, a new lock, and Gretchen’s body (which he’d transferred while in the man’s garage), as well as the drunk’s body. With his cap pulled down to hide his face, he used the bolt cutters to open a cargo container scheduled to be loaded onto the very next ship; attached the new lock, drove the truck back into the man’s garage, got into his car, and drove home, whistling.

“With no identification, it will take a while to figure out who Gretchen was. And they’ll NEVER connect either of the bodies to me, whenever this cargo is unloaded," Russell smirked to himself.

After he threw the uniform into his fireplace, the light from the burning cloth caused Russell to notice a tiny cargo ship on the horizon in the corner of the ocean mural that Gretchen had painted. “How did I never notice that cargo ship in the mural before?” he wondered, uneasily. But dismissing it from his mind, he went to bed.

The next morning, Russell wondered if he had been seeing things in the firelight. But, when he looked at the mural again in the clear light of day, he dropped his coffee cup and it shattered glass and coffee all over the floor. “What the hell?” he exclaimed. This time the cargo ship was quadruple the size, and had moved, as if it was coming closer!

Russell decided to distract himself by taking his anxiety out on Angela—making sure her chains were still securely fastened, in case she was the one who was somehow messing with his mind. The chains were definitely secure—which troubled him even more. When he came back upstairs, he avoided looking at the mural altogether. He averted his eyes from it the following morning, too.

But by the next night, Russell couldn’t help noticing out of the corner of his eye that the cargo ship had now filled almost the entire ocean scene! For the first time in his vicious life, fear gripped Russell... and it gripped him down to his very core.

Looking more closely, he noticed one of the cargo containers on the painted ship had opened up. “That’s ENOUGH! It’s time to put a stop to this!” Russell shouted to the empty air.

He hurried into the garage to grab some black paint and a roller pan. Not caring about getting drips all over the floor, Russell hurriedly and angrily painted over the entire mural with shaking hands. When he was finished, he left the paint-filled roller where it lay, poured himself a bourbon, and stomped out of the room to bed.

In the morning he woke up relieved, remembering that Gretchen’s mural was no more. He was chuckling at the thought of how he had outsmarted her—and her God! That is, until he walked into the living room and was stopped in his tracks. The mural was BACK!

This time, all he could see was the opened cargo container, large enough to fill his entire wall. Russell's blood ran cold. But that wasn’t what made him gasp… Gretchen’s arm was reaching out of the open container door, and her hand was clutching something.

Trembling, Russell inched forward to get a closer look at what she was holding… IT WAS HIS WALLET! Frightened, Russell knew that he had just put his wallet into his back pocket a few minutes before. Desperately, he fumbled, feeling for his wallet, turning his pants pockets inside out. HIS WALLET WAS GONE!

The last thought that crossed Russell’s dying mind as he clutched his racing, pounding heart, was Gretchen’s voice, whispering to Angela, “I promise God will help you. I’m sure of it!” But, even seconds before death, Russell still wasn’t sure if it was her God or his Devil, behind his mural.

Later that day, after the ambulance sped away to the hospital with Angela; the deputy turned to his sheriff and as they looked down at Russell’s dead body, he asked, “It’s the darnedest thing… If Mr. Storm went to all that trouble dumping the bodies in a cargo container, WHY wouldn’t he take back his wallet that the female victim grabbed? I mean, we never would have known he was a murderer and a kidnapper, if customs hadn’t called us with his I.D.!”

The Sheriff paused, then answered, “Welp, some killers are just plain psycho crazy, I guess... But," he continued as he scratched his chin and tilted his head back to take in the entire view, "I sure do like that sunny mural of the ocean that’s here on his wall! Have you ever seen such pleasant gentle waves and pretty blue waters as in this mural?"

The deputy gazed for a moment, then replied, "No, it's the most peaceful painting I've ever seen." Then, shaking his head, he looked down at Russell and lamented, "Too bad it didn’t soothe his evil, troubled soul.”