The Stalker, Part 5

Deader immediately manifested in the only place she knew where to find answers. Well, second to her friendly neighborhood watering hole, where she has an extra large chair engraved, in blood, of course, in her name and a cold beer always in front of it, despite the fact that she’s there once a week at best.

Trailing behind her as she appeared in the Library of Death (located underneath what mortals know as the Library of Congress in Washington, DC), were Death and a host of Deader’s minions. All were confused initially, as none had ever been in this place before. Indeed, they had only heard whispers of the existence of such a place and even then dismissed it as being improbable. And way too expensive, as the netherworld had seen escalating costs in recent years and were cutting back everywhere. So even if they believed that such a place once existed, they assumed that its contents, both physical and metaphysical, had long ago been sold off to the lowest bidder and or taken up residence in the homes/chalets/palaces of those who make the netherworld go down. Not that they wanted to know too much about those folks. But that was what they figured would happen IF the library of Death had ever actually existed.

But it does and here they are. The only sound in the chamber was the sound of running water. On closer inspection, it wasn’t water. The floors were rivers of liquid gold flowing beneath their feet. As they were dead and didn’t have physical bodies, this wasn’t a problem for them. But it was difficult to tear their eyes away from the molten gold passing beneath them to look around. They were in the narrow galley with two opposing walls, as you might expect from a portrait gallery, and the walls went on for as far as they could see in both directions. The walls were lined with incredible tapestries, with yet more liquid gold running from floor to ceiling. And vice versa. And across the ceiling. The subterranean room was lit entirely by the flowing gold, though Death couldn’t begin to explain the physics of this phenomenon.

Death was awed. Never had he seen such splendor. Even when retrieving from the Palace of Versailles—those out of shape tourists who are sure they can climb all the stairs—he had not seen such breathtaking beauty. He would probably be considered a cynic by you and I, considering what he does for a (non) living, and his jaw hit the floor as he absorbed what was around him. Eventually, Death was able to focus on the portraits snuggled in amongst the gilt.
The enormous portraits of Deadom’s greats wedged about the walls made it evident that this chamber was the Portrait Gallery of the Dead. Who knew there was such a thing? Deader was swearing loudly about finding a map so she could get to the Library itself, oblivious to the marvels of the chamber.

While Deader was trying to find a way out, Death was looking closely at the portrait nearest him. It appeared to be an oil painting of Benjamin Franklin. But he was, well, clearly dead in the painting. And a very old man. A very dead, and, a very old man.

The artistry made it clear that the subjects were dead when the portrait was done—that would take a lot of pressure off the artist—no hurry as long as they didn’t actually paint the wriggling maggots. In many cases, they also made it clear how they died, he concluded after studying a few.

Death had no idea who the victims in many of the portraits were, however, each bore a plaque listing their name, and the date they entered the state of Death, though the dates didn’t all make sense to him, they weren’t even always numbers. On the wall nearest him, next to Ben, was “Lucy”. The rest of the tag was gibberish, but he recognized her from schoolbooks as the Australopithecus afarensis bones found in the 70s in Ethiopia. She looked like a bit more apelike than he’d ever realized. Yikes. He couldn’t tell how she died. She had a lot of fur that could cover a lot of wounds. He looked closer….an arrowhead was lying beside her. Hmmmm.

There was Anne Boleyn, and while her head was (mostly) attached in her portrait, the artist included a gash across her neck along with a few drops of blood. Lest anyone question how she died. Ohh, a portrait of Julius Caesar. The artist made sure you could see the hilt of the knife sticking out over his shoulder. Nice touch.

Joan of Arc’s portrait was stunning. She was beautiful and young and also charred all around the edges, with some, but not all, melted hair around her head. Death had never seen a portrait quite like it (despite perusing portraits of the dead for several minutes). Her eyes were open and she looked angry.

There was Benito Mussolini. His artist had painted bullet wounds all over his chest and added rope burns to his ankles for effect.

Holy crap, was that Ted Bundy? The plaque said it was. He looked like he had been singed all over. I guess the electric chair would do that to you. There’s John Denver. With a piece of the plane sticking out of his chest. Sonny Bono, with a tree branch stuck to his head. Alexander Hamilton—minus Aaron Burr’s bullet, but with the trace of the bullet wound evident.

And then that one—she looked familiar, but he couldn’t place her. The name, Jane Doe didn’t help either. She was bruised all over, and the date was 1595, which made it unlikely that he and she was compadres, as he entered the realm only ten short years ago, in 1996. But he had definitely seen that face before.

William Wallace, that Scots Braveheart guy from the movie. He did not look good, as he was covered in bruises. He also had a scar running the length of his neck and he had several seams noted along his body, apparently identifying his quarters. That’s when men were men, that’s for sure. Even Death, who killed people for a living, was disturbed by the brutality alluded to in the Portrait Gallery of the Dead.

He was still making his way down the hallway. Which had a horizon line—he could not see the end of the hallway, nor of the room. As far as he could tell, the Portrait Gallery went on forever. He has many questions about this place, but his reverie was interrupted by Deader.
“Let’s go. I found the way to the Library.” She said.

Death followed her, and the rest of the minions gathered together and they all floated across the floor to the door in the floor that led somewhere else. One by one they descended through the floor into the halls below.

Deader was getting cranky, it had now been several hours since she had her last beer and she still had no answers as to why April was immune to her “charms.” This was NOT how she planned to spend her week and in her tizzy, she hadn’t noticed anything about the Portrait Gallery, the liquid gold, the eerie and disturbing portraits themselves. She was on a mission, and, as Deader was not used to losing, she wasn’t about to start now.


Copyright 2008 Antigone Lett. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.