The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 19

'Jesus!' I swore quietly. 'You could have warned me.'

'Power's still on. Everything's still on. Seems like most people don't even know Old Hubert's dead.'

Or was even alive, I realized.

'So, what's this boundless treasure-trove you're so eager to show me?'

I was aware, by now, of the heavy smell of oil paint in the large, windowless room. And there was an easel propped against the far wall. Different colours spattering the floor. This was where the man had worked.

'That's the crazy thing, dude,' Jerry now informed me. 'All the rest of the stuff in this place? It's in the plastic-dolphin, souvenir-of-Seaworld category. And this old cat had money? But the stuff in here…'

Framed canvases were stacked, facing inwards, thirty or forty deep, against the two side-walls. Pile after pile of them. They were ranked according to size. None of them as big as the Monet triptych, but there were some very large ones. There were also dozens as small as an edition of Hustler.

More than a thousand in all, I took a quick guess. The smell of oil paint had grown so strong, now, it was starting to make my head reel.

Why might Hubert paint all these, simply to keep them here and face them inwards?

But then, why would Van Gogh want to go and cut off his own ear?

'Jer,' I said to my friend. 'I thought you weren't into paintings.'

'Usually no, but —»

'Are they valuable?' I cut in.

'I'd suppose so, dude. I can't imagine anybody not wanting to buy them. Take a look.'

And he turned one of the largest ones to face me.

The truly weird thing was, when I'd gone into that blank at the Monet exhibit, I'd at least still been aware what I was looking at. A pond. And lilies.

But I have simply no idea, to this day, what was actually depicted on the canvas that Jer showed me. Except that I'm sure it wasn't abstract.

A pastoral scene? A garden? A house? Cityscape? Night sky?

I just don't know.

What were the main colours used?

So far as I can remember, all of them.

Jerry shook me rather annoyedly.

'Hey, man!'

'Wh —»

I looked away, with difficulty.

'Dave? I've been talking to ya, like, the last five minutes. You been dropping too many painkillers?'

I looked back at the painting.

Jerry shook me again.

I didn't even say «wh-» this time. Didn't look around. He had to physically put a hand to my face, turn it.

'Dude, what are you on tonight?'

I shook my head, trying to clear it. 'Nothing,' I replied, trying to hide my own confusion.

Something in me screamed out not to look back at the painting.

'Ain't it great?' Jer was enthusing by this time, though. 'And they're all like this, all the ones I've looked at, anyhow. And I don't normally dig this kind of stuff, but these are… such amazing use of colour! Hubert was a genius!'

He set the painting back in place, face inwards. I felt a massive sense of relief.

Now, however, Jerry switched into full Scheming Mode.

'We can't just move them all at once.' His tone had become staccato. 'What I say is this. We take a half dozen of the smallest ones —»

'You take them. I'm a cripple.'

'And we show them around some galleries and stuff, and get some valuations. Man, the ones I've seen aren't even signed. I could say that I did them myself.'

Which made me wonder if the art world was quite ready for someone like Jerry Mulligrew.

'And if it turns out they're worth something, yeah? We can borrow Ray's pickup and load it up. We might be sitting on a goldmine here, bro!'

He chose five, in the end, of the little ones he liked the best. Helped me through the window, but then let me limp back home myself.

What had happened back there? Just what had I seen? Colours flashed behind my eyelids, every time I blinked.

There was two-thirds of a bottle of generic vodka waiting for me when I got indoors. I finished the lot during the next couple of hours. Don't remember going to bed.

It was noon the next day when I awoke. I was woken by the phone.

'Dude?'

My tongue just about managed, 'Hi, Jer.'

'You've gotta get over here!'

'The house again?'

'No, man. April's!'

April was a waitress he'd been dating — if you could call what Jer did that — for the past couple of weeks. She lived a couple of blocks crosstown, on Miller Drive.

'What's up?'

'I'm, like, scared man. She is really out of it. I think she's gone and done some bad stuff.'

'Call an ambulance, then.'

'Man, get your butt here!'

The hangover drew attention from the pain in my ankle, at least. I went up the short flight of steps to the front door of April's tiny but incredibly neat dwelling. Went to press the buzzer, but the door was off its latch.

I found them both in the elevator sized living room, April sat cross-legged, and Jer hunkered over her, every contour of his body a map of concern.

Her pretty, fine boned face was entirely slack. A trail of saliva depended from her painted lower lip into her lap. A pool was forming.

She didn't seem to blink at all. Her pale blue eyes — were they reflecting something?

'She was like this when I found her,' Jerry said, his face screwed up with inner pain.

And it was a familiar one. People like us, with acquaintances like ours? Once every so often, a pal, a girlfriend winds up in this state and finishes up in ER. Quite literally finishes, from time to time.

He'd just never believed it would happen to someone like April. Yes, she did a little blow, like any normal person. But nothing else that either of us knew about.

She was facing something that was propped against her armchair. I couldn't see it from this angle.

'Tell me what happened?' I asked.

'Man, I dropped around to see her last night, after… you know! We smoked some, then fooled around a little. I even brought her a gift. Came back here 'bout ten this morning, and she was like this. Her skin's cold, man, like she's been sitting here all night!'

There were no spoons, candles, or tin foil near her. I inspected her arms, found no tracks.

Then I looked at what she was looking at.

Jerry… shook me.

'Dude, what the hell are you doing?'

I had to force myself to look away.

'That's the gift?'

'I thought, why not? We've got plenty of them to spare.'