Still Life

It took her all day, but when she finished, it was perfect.

As it grew dark outside, she went to the closet and took the box down from the top shelf, the one her father had insisted that she take when she moved to this neighborhood. For emergencies, he said. Then she sat, staring at the painting, drinking wine, and waiting.

At midnight, there came a knock on her door. She heard something scraping against the floor outside. As she reached for the knob with one hand, she gripped the gun in the other. The hinges squealed.

"Hello?" she said.

There was a dark shape on the threshold. It stirred. "Christine. You finished it. You called me."

Her heart battered the inside of her chest. "Yes," she said. "I did." She kept the hand with the gun hidden behind the door.

"I knew you would," said the shape. "Now we can be together, forever."

Fear sweat broke out over her body. Her voice quivered when she spoke: "What do you mean?"

"I'll take you away from here, and after you're gone people will find your beautiful painting, and they'll put it on display, and it will be us, we two, together forever, in that perfect scene that you made, just like in our dreams. It'll be like you always wanted."

She took two steps forward, but kept the doorway between them. "Is that what I wanted?"

"Yes. It's why I chose you."

Fresh tears blurred Christine's vision.

"You know," she said, "a man I used to love always told me that I never know what I want."

And then she pointed the gun at the shadows, and pulled the trigger.