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Paint by Numbers
(© Daniel Lee)

One was for the sky and he used a soft, powder blue the color of her eyes.  In slow, lazy strokes he criss-crossed the top of the page and covered all the ones in an azure haze.  It was soothing after the morning's work.  The grass below was green and the number two would be as dark and deep a shade as the ribbons in her hair.  Her hair, alive with the scent of flowers and yellow like spun gold braided to her scalp.  Three, the sun was stark white in the far left corner of the sky.  He dipped his brush in the water colors then globbed a golden orb into the white circle on the page.  Carefully he swirled it, inking yellow into a two-dimensional vortex on the page.  The birds were next and the number four on his key suggested they be painted tan and gray.  He ignored the suggestion and looked to his muse, finding inspiration in the pale flesh behind her faded freckles bridging her nose and cheeks.

Five was for the lake, a mirror in the center of the dark green grass to reflect all the world that he had created.  He tapped the brush to his chin, smearing a dark rainbow under his lip.  What color, what shade reflected his world, what made the artist's heart bleed onto the page?  The question gnawed at him every time.  The heavens had stretched out from her eyes, her hair making the sun burn.  Her skin like snow had given the birds life and now, from the pool spreading ever farther from under her lips and chin he had it.  He dipped his brush into the slowly congealing crimson beside his water colors and stroked it once, slightly into the chasm in the center of the world, admiring for a moment before filling in the lake.

Carefully he hung it from the clothesline in his studio alongside a dozen identical copies of the same scene.  Each one had dripped red into his carpet, forever forming a lake in the thick green shag.

"Perfect," he whispered to the head on the table, her eyes staring vacantly at the gallery.  "Should we do another?"



- THE END -

Other contributions by this author:-
1. Confession (13-Jun-2005)
A confession of guilt from the man responsible for setting loose the undead on humanity.
2. End Transmission (15-Jun-2005)
Excerpts from Army radio traffic during the first week or so of the undead plague.
3. The Nightmare (25-Sep-2005)
A man's nightmares become his reality, and the world's.
4. Jacob's Tribe (31-Oct-2005)
The evolution and escalation of man's fight for survival some fifty years after the Day of the Dead.
5. Another Day, Another Dollar (16-Dec-2005)
In a world where the dead have risen and returning them to the grave is a thriving business, no one's better than undertaker Charlie Stone. This story is a narrowly avoided apocalypse and life returning to a semi-normal state.
6. In The Darkness Of Dreaming (5-Jan-2006)
A man delves into a world where nightmarish gods reign supreme and all he wants is to find his way home.
7. The Masochist (8-Jan-2006)
Mr Dalton never knew the difference between pleasure or pain until his testing began. A slip of the knife cut short his research.
8. Charlie Stone: Undertaker (Revised 14-Apr-06) (24-Feb-2006)
In a world where the dead walk and returning them to their graves is a booming business, there's no one better than Charlie Stone. I've left it as a cliff-hanger not having a better way at the moment to end it.
9. Nails In The Iron Casket (17-Aug-2006)
A soldier's thoughts as he prepares to make a drop to an alien planet miles beneath.
10. Scavenger Hunt (29-Jan-2007)
Another adventure for Charlie Stone. A macabre scavenger hunt leads to a startling conclusion for the undertaker.
11. So They Went To Denver (29-Jan-2007)
It should have been just another day for Mike. Get up, go to work, come home and get a little drunk. But today the dead have risen and they're all walking to Denver.
12. Charlie Stone: Some Enchanted Evening (28-Jun-2007)
This is another Charlie Stone story - Linda Campbell and Charlie go out for a night on the town and are having a perfect evening before a couple of ghouls ruined it all.
13. Charlie Stone: The Commission (Part One) (19-Dec-2007)
The first half of another Charlie Stone novellette. Charlie gets a visit from an old friend whose bringing bad news. A zombie snuff director is operating out of Berry Hill and he has a score to settle with Charlie.
14. Undead: A Review (9-May-2008)
A field guide to familiarize survivors with the undead. Its a relatively short piece written by the Professor of Undead Studies at an unidentified school in the surviving world.
15. Gravedigger: An Undead Super Hero (24-Jul-2008)
Gravedigger is a rough idea I have for a superhero in an undead world (kind of Batman with zombies). This is the first encounter with the Gravedigger seen through the eyes of a survivor in a small camp somewhere near Nashville.
16. Last Man On Earth (15-Jan-2009)
A short story about the last man on earth looking for the last living organism and his short trip through the city.
17. A Place To Hide (16-Apr-2010)
A man and another survivor find themselves trapped in an abandonned garage. The next morning, the man finds himself with even less than he had started out with the night before.
18. No Rest for the Wicked (11-Oct-2010)
Charlie Stone and Pete Nebraska are trying to find a breach in the wall near Berry Hill's border with the zombie infested wilderness when something new and angry attacks.
19. Hangman (5-Dec-2010)
A short zombie piece about a man sitting alone in a bar for the last time. With nothing but a jukebox and a warm beer, he struggles to remember a happier time before his eventual end.
20. Charlie Stone: Roadside Service (10-Aug-2011)
A very short road trip for Charlie. Coming back from a job his hearse breaks down and the first mechanic who shows up is anything but helpful... or living. From one problem to another, he has to comfort the poor, novice wrecker driver who has never seen a zombie before today as they load up the hearse.'
21. The First Day After (29-Mar-2013)
Coming back from a nightmarish war against monsters and zombies, a man discovers that breaking old habits is hard.

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Information
Genre:General Horror
Type:Short story
Rating:4.71 / 10
Rated By:39 users
Comments: 1 user
Total Hits:4697

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