My husband is a painter.

Well… that’s a stretch. He does very modern, Jackson Pollock-style art. I’ve seen him in the studio, and he’s not so much painting as he is flinging paint at the canvas with his bare hands.

Strangely, though, people pay real money for his work. His most recent one, gray and blue splatters on a gray canvas entitled Ocean Dawn, fetched us a cool $3,000. He makes a full salary off his work, and then some.

I don’t get it. Maybe the people who buy his work are smarter or more “cultured” than me. They all fit a very specific type—well-dressed men with distinguished salt-and-pepper hair, petite blonde wives that look like they’ve never eaten a slice of cake in their lives. Money to burn, put on the dog types.

Although, if it’s a choice between one of my husband’s paintings and a Louis Vuitton purse… well, his paintings are (marginally) less ugly than those purses. Man, what is it with rich people and ugly stuff?

Anyway. I’m getting off on a tangent here. The reason why I’m writing this is because my husband has been away for the past two weeks visiting family. While he’s been gone, I’ve been running the business by myself, and I’ve noticed some… odd… things.

His studio is a really nice space downtown. Large and full of light. Filled ceiling to floor with his paintings. And even though they’re individually ugly, there’s something sort of beautiful about them being all together. The different colors and splattering types all match and coordinate with each other—it’s obvious they’re all done by the same artist.

Maybe that’s why he makes money off them. They have a distinct style. You can point to one and say, with certainty, that’s a Theodore Waters painting. The thick globs of paint, the colors that don’t really go with each other—that’s a Waters right there.

I could put on a smock and throw paint at a canvas while listening to Gregorian chants, too, but I wouldn’t be able to produce paintings that consistently resembled each other in style.

The first few days went well. We had a minor hiccup—I almost gave the woman buying Evening Tranquility the wrong painting (they looked identical to me!). But I was enjoying it. After work, I’d head to the studio for a few hours and binge dramas on Hulu, waiting for the next client to come by.

Things took a turn for the worse, however, on Wednesday night.

My iPad ran out of battery twenty minutes before the last client was supposed to show up. So I just… sat there, staring at the paintings. I got up and rearranged them a little. I pulled out the piece that was supposed to be sold tonight—Midnight Dream.

It was one of the less ugly ones, if only for its color scheme. Black canvas, or possibly navy blue, splattered with purple, mauve, indigo, and white. And just a few dots of ocean blue, drizzling across the front. I leaned it against the other paintings and sat back at the desk, taking off my glasses and rubbing my eyes. Damn allergies.

When I looked back up, however, I froze.

With my glasses off, Midnight Dream was now blurry. And with all the random splatters blurred now, I could see a clear shape. How there were less splatters, more darkness, in the center of the canvas.

That looked exactly like the silhouette of a person.

A person leaned over the viewer, staring down at them.

What the…

I put my glasses back on. But with all the clear dots and drizzles and specks, I could only barely make out the image.

Was that why people were buying Theodore’s paintings?

Because there was a second, hidden image?

It didn’t make sense, though. I’d seen Theodore making some of these paintings. He was randomly flinging paint on a canvas, listening to those calming Gregorian chants or whatever they were. There was no way he could plan where the paint fell, to create a second image.

Unless he was somehow going back and painting over some of the paint splatters later. Though I didn’t see any brush strokes to imply that.

I got up and pulled out another one of Theodore’s paintings. Entitled Pink Marble—splatters of pink and red and white. I leaned it against Midnight Dream, stepped back, and took off my glasses.

It was a hand.

A hand covered in splatters of blood.

My stomach did a little flip. I felt nauseous. It’s just art, I told myself. People do extreme art all the time. What about that one where that giant guy is eating a man? That’s like, in an art museum and everything, right?

Nothing wrong with painting a bloody hand.

Nothing wrong with painting a shadow person glaring down at you.

And maybe I was wrong. There wasn’t much detail in these images, just the suggestion of forms. It could be pareidolia, my brain assigning familiar shapes to the paintings. Like a Rorschach test. Maybe these were random blobs and it was just my imagination.

I took out another painting.

This one was pretty ugly: muddy shades of brown and green around the edges, a big pink blob in the middle. Spring Blooms was the title.

I leaned it against Pink Marble and stepped back. Closed my eyes, let out a breath. Took off my glasses.

I opened my eyes.

Oh, no…

The pinkish blob, now blurred and at a distance, was clearly the shape of a woman’s body. Laying on the ground. Splattered with blood.

Why would he paint this?

And who would buy this?

Who would want a painting of a dead body in their home?

I swallowed, my throat dry. I put on my glasses and slid the painting back in with the others stacked up. Was this the reason Theodore was actually making money? He was selling these paintings to sickos, that were camouflaged well enough to stay hung up through dinner parties and visits from the in-laws?

I texted the client who was supposed to pick up Midnight Dream and told them I wasn’t feeling well. Then I drove home, stomach twisting, and locked myself inside.

But I didn’t exactly feel safe in the house, either. Because Theodore had a few of his own paintings hanging on our walls. I realized now, as I viewed them from a distance, that the painting in our living room depicted a close-up of a woman’s face—but something black was oozing out of her mouth. Vomit? A spider? Not enough detail to tell. And the huge one in our bedroom, hanging above our bed, looked like two lovers embracing—except they appeared dead, from the ashen-gray tint of their bodies.

This was sick.

And it didn’t even make sense. I remembered when Theodore painted this one, the one of the lovers. I had watched him for more than an hour. He was just flinging paint randomly as he listened to the weird chanting music he always played. Yet the blobby shapes clearly suggested two people embracing.

I decided to sleep in the guest room that night.

But before I did, I made the mistake of walking into Theodore’s home studio.

I’d left the lights on, somehow, so I stepped into the studio, my heart pounding. It was a lot more cramped than the one downtown—only about 100 square feet, with a huge stack of paintings in the corner.

As I reached for the light switch, I noticed the unfinished piece on the easel.

I’d seen it several times over the last few weeks. But now, I saw it differently. I took off my glasses and took a few steps back, out into the darkened foyer.

It was a woman, lying on a dark wooden floor, splattered in blood.

Except that woman… was me.

Of course I couldn’t be sure. There wasn’t enough detail. But from the colors, that looked like my favorite gray sweater, my hair splayed out on the floor.

I backed away.

Then I ran out of the house.

I drove all night until I got to a friend’s place. That’s where I am now. Theodore has tried to call me, but I’ve let all his calls go to voicemail.

Every time I close my eyes, I see the painting.

The splatters of paint that look just like my dead body.