The Devil I Know

Photo Credit: Christian A. Goicoechea

The door creaks open slowly, as if the room might refuse him. 

Blinding hallway light fills the nursery. The pink and purple pastel wallpaper makes the walls feel that much more illuminated. Jeremiah carefully walks in with Helena tucked into his arms. He starts to gently pat her on the back as he crosses the room. Helena’s soft snoring gets interrupted with every pat.

“Goodnight my love. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he whispers as he puts her down in her crib. He tastes the alcohol on his breath and quickly turns his face away as if the scent might wake her. 

He straightens and presses the power button on the baby mobile. The planets on the mobile begin to spin, but the melody struggles to start. He had just changed the battery yesterday. He presses the power button impatiently a few more times before a lullaby begins to hum against the walls. He turns around and starts to carefully walk out of the nursery. 

He looks back at Helena and wonders what she thinks of him. In the dim light, her face is hard to read. Even when she’s awake, he can barely understand her. He’s just glad she’s asleep so that he doesn’t have to meet her eyes. 

Helena’s fingers twitch and she begins to shift in her crib. His AR lenses read her vitals and display her heart rate starting to pick up. The notification startles him. He takes the lenses out and puts them in their case, irritated at how quickly they reduce her to numbers. He looks back at Helena and notices that the light from the hallway is hitting her closed eyes. For a moment, he doesn’t move. Simply admiring her. Then he finally steps back and closes the door. 

He turns and keeps his hand on the wall as he makes his way down the hallway. The hallway is decorated neatly with modern art and classic paintings alike. None of which are his own work. Jeremiah stops at the bathroom next door to the nursery. He puts his password into his WristPad before texting Rebecca. 

“I just laid the baby down. Do you think you can refill my glass for me?” He turns the light on in the bathroom and closes the door. Before he can even take off his WristPad, he feels the notification vibration on his wrist.

“Yeah I’m in the living room now anyway. Same thing?” 

He stares at himself deeply in the mirror before texting back.

“I had Jack in there tonight. You can add an ice cube if you want.”

The message is delivered and left on read. 

Her silence lingered. He takes off his WristPad before turning on the sink as cold as it will go. When the sink is done filling, he submerges his face in the water. The water stings but he keeps his face under anyway. 

The lights above the sink’s mirror flicker. Only for a few seconds. The brief darkness frightens him. He hastily checks behind himself before looking into the mirror again. His eyes are sunken, with purple eyebags to accompany them. His long salt and pepper brown hair hangs down into his wet face. Disgust sends a chill through his body. 

He dries his face before leaving the bathroom and making his way to the living room. The ceiling stretches high. The smell of fall candles and waxed tile fills his nose. Nothing in the room looks disturbed. His glass sits full on the wooden coffee table. Next to it is the baby monitor and Helena’s pacifier. He takes off his slippers and sits them next to Rebecca’s.

Rebecca types steadily with her computer in her lap. She barely looks up at Jeremiah as his footsteps approach the couch. 

“How is she?” 

Jeremiah softly rubs his temples as a headache begins to build.

 “She’s fine. But the mobile didn’t play right away when I turned it on, and I just changed the batteries. I think I need to buy a new one.” Jeremiah says, taking his glass off the table and taking a sip while sitting down.

Rebecca hesitates before responding. “She likes that one though. It should be-” 

“And the lights keep turning on and off. Were you messing with the breaker or something?” His voice becomes slightly louder. Angrier. 

“No? I’ve just been responding to Janet about the Martinem Display.” Rebecca retorts. Jeremiah leans over and rubs a hand over his face.

“Shit. I forgot I had to do that. Did Janet say what stage my display was on?” 

“Stage B. Next to Brooks.” She looks down at his glass she just filled, which is now half gone. She looks back up at him and closes her computer. “Are you okay?” 

Jeremiah takes another, longer sip. 

“I’m fine, really. The display just slipped my mind. I thought it was next Saturday, not tomorrow.” 

She places her left hand against his thigh. Her wedding ring brushes against his glass. “I could email Janet again. Tell her that you aren’t feeling up to it. You could sleep in a bit and spend some time with the baby. It’s one display, it's no big deal if you don’t want to go.” Jeremiah scoffs and stands abruptly. 

“It is a big deal Bec. It starts with one display, then another and another. And I’ll never do it again. Trust me, you have no idea how close I’ve come to quitting.” 

He takes a shaky breath. 

“But I can’t. I’ll lose all of this. I’ll lose you.” 

Rebecca tosses her computer next to her and it hits the couch with a thud. “You won’t lose me. Stop saying that. You can’t lose me. Don’t you see that I’ve been with you? Gallery after gallery. You haven’t slowed down for years.” She shifts towards the edge of the couch and her voice becomes stern.

“I could deal with all of it. No problems and no questions asked. But we have Helena now and she needs her dad. Why can’t you show her how afraid you are of losing her?” 

Jeremiah flinches at the comment. Tears well up in his eyes before responding.

“You just-you don’t get it.” He turns and spills some of his drink as he starts to head towards the basement. 

She grabs the baby monitor which she reads for Helena’s heart rate, respiration rate, and temperature. She looks at it before following Jeremiah.

“Just talk to me. Please. Why can’t you do that?”

They both walk past the kitchen and guest room before hitting the door to the basement.

Jeremiah looks at Rebecca, and Rebecca looks back at him. 

“It’s hard for me to explain.”

Rebecca looks at the door of the basement. The one place in her own house that she has to be cautious around.

“But… I want to try.” 

She looks back at him. Into his eyes. Studying him for a moment.

“Okay.” She nods softly and he opens the door. They walk down two flights of stairs before hitting the frigid bottom floor.

“It was right before I met you. Before all of this.” He gestures to the original copies of his artwork. Bright neon colors splashed with precision on white canvases. She nods. Cold, damp air settles over the off-white tile.

“I had just gotten out of Redd’s. That one dive bar we went to after Christmas last year?” 

“Yeah, I remember. The one with the-” 

“Broken pool table.”

“-broken pool table.”

They both let out a soft smile at the exchange. 

“Yeah. The good luck charm.” He looks around at his work. Choking up a bit before continuing. 

“No gallery would accept me. I wasn’t getting any commission. I had an art degree and no one had ever once asked my name. I couldn’t tell if I was untalented or invisible. I don’t know. I was living off what my father sent me and I would just rot away in a shitty apartment at the end of town with art no one wanted. Redd’s was what I looked forward to every single day.” He stops for a moment to look over at the room at the back end of the basement. His gaze lingering on the biometric lock. His lip trembles at the thought of opening it. 

“Anyway. I was walking out of Redd’s and I saw it… this thing.” The silence presses in. Rebecca perks up, waiting for his response. His lip starts to tremble again and he starts to stutter. 

“...I can’t-”

“What kind of thing?” 

“I can’t explain it, I just have to show you.” Jeremiah grabs Rebecca firmly by the arm and practically drags her to the door in the back.  He hesitates before putting his thumb down on the lock. It processes his thumb for a long moment. Longer than usual. 

“ACCESS DENIED.” A loud, computerized voice cuts through the silence of the basement. Making Jeremiah jump. 

“Shit.” Jeremiah wipes his thumb on his stained black shirt a few times before trying again. Rebecca just watches him go through the process.

The door opens with a hiss of compressed air, making Rebecca’s jet black curls flow behind her. The baby monitor begins to crackle with static before turning off completely.

Jeremiah turns around and looks down at the baby monitor in Rebecca’s hand.

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure. You’re sure she was asleep, right?”

“Yeah I’m pretty sure when I left her she was asleep.” 

She caresses his arm slightly, sensing his nervousness. “She’ll be fine.” 

He nods and opens the door. He waves his hand to trigger the light. It’s dim at first but lights the entire room fully as a few seconds go by. It reeks of dried paint and spilled liquor, a gallery of small betrayals. 

They enter the room and it is filled to the brim with Jeremiah’s art.

“They’re…darker than your other gallery pieces.” Jeremiah ignores the comment.

 “Are these new?” She asks as she looks around the room. Some canvases are piled without care on top of one another. Some with bent frames and warped corners. 

Jeremiah takes a sip from his glass. He doesn’t answer her and looks around at a few of them. Self-portraits where the eyes are painted in a dark vertical line. Portraits of body parts that bleed into the background. 

Rebecca goes up to a particular painting. It looks like a baby curled in the womb. Warm reds and oranges cloud the outer brim of the painting. It’s the only one that Jeremiah signed and under his signature is just a name. Helena. Dated two years before she was born. 

“What did you want to show me?” Rebecca asks nervously. 

“It’s over here.”

They walk over to the back of the room where a black sheet lies over one painting that’s bigger than all the others. 

“It followed me. I saw it outside Redd’s and I wish I didn’t see it again. But it kept appearing. In alleyways. In reflections. It kept telling me never to tell anyone.” Rebecca starts rubbing her arms. She maintains the silence well. 

“Then things changed. Everything changed. My work changed. I actually started selling.” Jeremiah looks over at Rebecca.

“Bec… I even met you.” His voice is soft, like his words are afraid to leave his mouth.

“But I didn’t get better. I swear. Nothing about me changed. It’s like something was painting through me.” He’s speaking to the floor now. Even through the alcohol, his tone sounds rehearsed. 

His fingers hesitate, fighting against his own will. He pulls the black sheet off the painting. Dust flies off the sheet, which causes Rebecca to go into a coughing fit. Jeremiah fans the air around them, waiting for the dust to settle before looking at it. 

They stare at a portrait of a park. A version of Jeremiah is at the bottom while this thing sits behind him. A park’s streetlight stands beside it and it towers over the light. This thing’s face wasn’t misplaced. It was simply where a face should not be. Its wings sprawl out and fold in a way that makes it look out of place or broken. It just stands there. A grey mass residing in Jeremiah’s shadow. 

Jeremiah can’t take his eyes off the painting. He notices that Rebecca is doing the same. He clears his throat. 

“...Sometimes the fear isn’t mine. It’s like it stands behind me and I feel what it feels. Like it’s holding its breath. Just waiting.” 

She finally turns to look at him and he looks back at her. “So why didn’t you throw it away? Burn it?” 

The light above them projects their shadows against the walls harshly. For a second, it almost looks like Rebecca’s shadow has a pair of wings. Jeremiah blinks. Once. Twice. 

“What?” Rebecca asks while checking over her shoulder. That part of the shadow disappears. Jeremiah drags his eyes away from Rebecca and to the ground.

Jeremiah swallows harshly. “...I couldn’t. I don’t know, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.” He takes a moment in silence. 

“People started saying my name.” Jeremiah whispers. 

Rebecca doesn’t hesitate. “Was it worth it?” She doesn’t speak louder or softer than him. She meets his voice where it is. All while looking back at the painting. At this thing. 

Jeremiah stares at her. Looking for sarcasm, anger, denial, anything. There is none.

She steps closer to the painting. Her breath bounces off the careful brush strokes. 

“You wouldn’t have trusted it if it hadn’t cost you something.” The baby monitor crackles in her hand. Helena’s heartbeat appears on the screen. Rapid. Scared. 

Rebecca finally turns toward him. 

“You wanted more than you had.” 

She continues to look at him. Waiting for him to look back at her before continuing.

“So you were given more.”

“At what cost?” His voice fractures.

Jeremiah feels that pressure in the air again. It’s even worse than before. It isn’t behind him. The pressure mounds in front of him as it claims the space between them. The baby monitor crackles again before the light flickers. He can faintly hear Helena screaming from upstairs. An awful scream. His eyes remain on Rebecca as her shadow sprawls out into a black mass against the wall. A single tear manages to fall from his eye and Rebecca swipes it away with her thumb.  

“Jeremiah. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

The End