Chapter 286: Posthumous Work (5)
Everly’s suspicion was quickly confirmed.
She hadn’t walked very far along the debris-strewn road before a collapsed building came into view.
A young woman knelt before the ruins, cradling a blood-soaked swaddled infant in her arms. Her head was bowed as she wept in grief.
In a deserted city, suddenly spotting another person was terrifying.
Everly froze mid-step. She immediately slipped behind a nearby car, using its frame as cover while cautiously observing the crying mother holding the baby.
The woman looked exactly like the central figure from Shelly’s painting Scar.
It wasn’t just her face. Her expression, clothing, the swaddled infant in her arms, and even the ruined building behind her all matched the painting perfectly. From the right angle, the entire scene overlapped almost exactly with Shelly’s artwork.
If that was the case, then there was a ninety-percent chance she had fallen into one of Shelly’s paintings.
The next question was: How was she supposed to get out?
Everly had never seriously considered such a scenario before, but she had seen plenty of anime and films with similar premises.
Generally speaking, if someone was accidentally trapped inside another dimension, there were two ways to escape. One was to break the dimensional barrier—in Everly’s case, that would mean destroying Shelly’s painting. The other was to locate the doorway connecting the alternate world to reality and leave through it. In some cases, finding the key to open that door was also necessary.
Even destroying the painting could be divided into two possibilities. One was for the trapped person to destroy it from the inside. The other was for someone in the outside world to destroy it from the outside.
However, the second method required extreme caution. In some horror stories, tearing apart a painting that had trapped a living person could also “tear apart” the person inside along with the painting. Unless there was absolutely no other choice, it was best to avoid resorting to that approach.
The tentacle crisis had erupted far too suddenly, leaving Everly with no opportunity to contact the outside world. For the moment, she had no one to rely on but herself.
She remained crouched behind the car, observing for a while.
Throughout that time, the mother never moved from her original position. She didn’t shift an inch—not even her eyes blinked.
She wasn’t making a sound as she cried, either.
The behavior was so unnatural that Everly began to wonder whether it was really a person at all, or merely an incredibly lifelike statue.
Waiting around indefinitely wasn’t a realistic option. If this painted world was anything like the cabin in the woods she’d encountered before—where the longer one stayed, the more their strength was drained—then every moment of delay only put her in greater danger.
After watching for a while, Everly cautiously called out toward the woman.
“Hello—!”
It was only a soft call, but in the deathly silence around her, it sounded startlingly loud. The drawn-out echo bounced off the surrounding buildings, and when it returned to her ears, it somehow sounded unfamiliar—as if someone else nearby were imitating her voice.
There was no response.
The woman remained exactly as she had been, utterly motionless.
After trying once more and still receiving no reply, Everly decided to act.
She pried half of a broken engine hood off a nearby wrecked car, held it in front of her chest like a shield, and slowly advanced toward the woman while keeping a wary eye on her surroundings.
The closer she got, the stronger the woman’s eerie, inhuman quality became.
She possessed an appearance almost indistinguishable from that of a real human. The texture of her skin was clearly defined, the anguish on her face was vivid and lifelike, and even the pink conjunctiva at the corners of her eyes could be seen in fine detail.
Yet a closer inspection revealed something deeply unsettling.
The woman never blinked.
Nor did her chest ever rise or fall with breathing.
No living person could remain in such a state forever.
The moment she realized that, the woman’s almost perfectly human appearance stopped feeling reassuring and instead plunged straight into the uncanny valley. As Everly drew closer, the angle shifted until the woman’s hollow, glassy eyes were fixed directly on her. Her pitch-black pupils resembled warped mirrors, reflecting Everly’s figure in grotesquely distorted shapes.
A cold breeze swept past, and the hairs on the back of Everly’s neck stood on end.
The city was chilly, with the temperature feeling somewhere around 15°C (59°F). Everly was wearing nothing more than a women’s business suit, and after staying outside for a while, she could already feel the cold.
What was strange was that the crying woman was dressed in a floral spaghetti-strap summer dress.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
Stopping a short distance away, Everly made one last attempt to speak to the woman.
The result was the same as before.
The woman didn’t move at all.
Giving up on courtesy, Everly held her makeshift shield—a broken car hood—in one hand and gripped a steel pipe she’d picked up in the other. Every muscle in her body tensed, prepared to turn and run the instant anything looked wrong.
She edged forward little by little.
Once she was close enough, she stretched out her arm and gently poked the woman’s shoulder with the steel pipe.
To her surprise, it didn’t feel hard.
Instead, it was soft, with a solid framework beneath the surface—remarkably similar to a human body.
So… what exactly was this thing?
Everly was just about to move the pipe and poke somewhere else when she noticed something moving beneath the spot she’d touched.
She focused her gaze.
It was like the scene that had played out earlier in the gallery’s side room all over again.
The woman’s smooth skin suddenly bulged outward into irregular lumps, as though a writhing mass of insects were crawling beneath it.
…Seriously?
The instant Everly saw that, she decisively began backing away.
Horror Movie Survival Rule #28: Never turn your back on the enemy.
Worried that the monster might attack from behind, Everly was careful not to take her eyes off the woman, even as she retreated.
Because of that, she witnessed the bulge on the woman’s shoulder swell from the size of a ping-pong ball to that of a human head.
The skin over the shoulder stretched to its limit, becoming a translucent, flesh-pink membrane. Through the thin layer of skin, she could see the sphere filled with a semi-transparent, viscous fluid. Countless long, slender shapes writhed inside it, twisting and distorting the swollen sac into grotesque, ever-changing forms.
Rip!
With a sickening tearing sound, the swollen sac on the woman’s shoulder suddenly burst open.
Sticky fluid splashed everywhere as seven or eight bright crimson tentacles shot out from inside. As if they had eyes of their own, they lunged straight toward Everly.
The tentacles were unbelievably fast—more like bullets than living creatures. As they hurtled toward her, Everly could even hear their shrill whistling through the air.
Unfortunately, the area around the woman was a wide-open space with no cover to hide behind.
Left with no other choice, Everly planted her makeshift shield on the ground, crouched behind it, and braced the car hood with both hands and her shoulder.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The next instant, an immense force slammed into it.
The engine hood shuddered violently under the barrage, each impact producing a heavy metallic crash. Even with her hands behind the shield, the vibrations sent sharp pain shooting through her arms.
Fortunately, the hood was sturdily built. The volley of tentacles failed to punch through it, leaving only several deep dents in its once-smooth surface.
Having survived the first attack, and before the tentacles could gather enough momentum for a second, Everly wasted no time. She grabbed the steel pipe and bolted.
She had barely run a short distance when an eerie pat… pat… sound came from beside her feet.
She looked down.
The sight was so revolting that she nearly jumped straight into the air.
Chasing after her at ankle level was a monster wrapped in a swaddling cloth.
The creature was only about the size of a Pomeranian.
Its head was elongated into an oval shape like that of a squid. Its eyes were enormous—two jet-black orbs like oversized light bulbs set on either side of its head. By contrast, its nostrils and mouth were absurdly tiny, squeezed into the narrow gap—barely two finger-widths wide—between the eyes, making it resemble the stereotypical extraterrestrials seen in science fiction.
Below the alien-like head was a flat, oval body supported by countless short, slender legs.
Everly honestly didn’t know how to describe it.
Looking only at its torso, it somewhat resembled a giant isopod—except its head and body seemed to be oriented in completely different directions.
Although its face pointed upward as if it were lying on its back, the upper side of its torso was covered by a smooth, hard, dark brown carapace. Its vulnerable underside was hidden beneath it, from which countless soft, flexible appendages extended. They clustered together in a nauseating mass, making it impossible for Everly to determine what kind of creature she was looking at.
The thin legs glistened with sticky slime. As they scraped against the ground, they dragged long strands of transparent mucus behind them. Yet despite their appearance, they moved astonishingly fast.
The creature reminded Everly of a centipede. Dozens of tiny legs flailed in a chaotic chorus of pat-pat-pat, and she couldn’t begin to understand how they worked, yet somehow they carried it even faster than she could run.
Judging from the bloodstains on the swaddling cloth, it was very likely the baby that the woman had been holding.
Just what on earth had Shelly been painting? Couldn’t he produce something even slightly less horrifying?
Its appearance alone was grotesque enough to give anyone nightmares.
What was even more shocking was that the monster had a second form.
The moment it caught up to Everly, it suddenly arched its rear upward like a praying mantis preparing to strike.
Everly had plenty of combat experience. The instant she saw its posture, she knew an attack was coming.
She reacted instantly, darting sideways to evade.
The next second, with a sharp whoosh, two bright crimson appendages shot out from an organ on the little monster’s rear that appeared to be its anus.
They looked somewhat like the coiling tongue of a frog, yet also resembled the specialized feeding tentacles of a squid. Each fleshy red appendage ended in a suction-cup-like structure. When they lashed out like whips and struck the car beside Everly, a dull thump rang out.
The suction cups clung with tremendous force.
They actually pulled the entire car sideways.
Luckily, Everly had reacted in time.
If those things had struck her instead, she didn’t even want to imagine the consequences.
Her thoughts raced, but her hands never paused.
Taking advantage of the little monster’s missed attack—its suction-cup tentacles still stuck to the car and unable to retract—she gripped one end of the steel pipe with both hands, aimed at the grotesque creature below, and drove the sharpened tip downward with all her strength.
Thud!
The steel pipe pierced straight through its head and wedged itself into the crack between the paving stones beneath, pinning the monster firmly to the ground like a giant nail.
Concerned that the creature’s shell might be too hard to penetrate, Everly had deliberately aimed for its head.
For almost every animal, the head was a vital point. Destroy it, and the animal died.
Clearly, that rule did not apply to supernatural creatures.
Despite having its skull impaled, the little monster remained as lively as ever. It yanked its feeding tentacles free from the car, whipping them wildly through the air in a threatening display. Then it opened its tiny mouth—packed with razor-sharp teeth—and let out a piercing, ear-splitting cry.
“Waaaaaaaahhhhhhh!”
Yes.
Even though its body had mutated beyond any resemblance to a human infant, its voice was that of a perfectly ordinary crying baby.
The jarring contrast instantly sent goosebumps racing across Everly’s skin.
Her hand tightened around the steel pipe. She was just about to follow Horror Movie Survival Rule #15—always finish off a downed monster—when she heard the unmistakable whistle of something slicing through the air behind her.
In that critical instant, she threw herself forward into a diving roll, narrowly avoiding the ambush.
When she scrambled back to her feet and looked behind her…
Well then.
Apparently, the baby’s mother had heard its “complaint” and had come to avenge her child.
