The Picture

The wrought iron gate creaked open, revealing the huge mansions in the distance. Ominous dark clouds hovered over the house and cypress trees lived the lane like a sentinel protecting the property from outside.

There was something very eerie about this. I was desperate in my attempts to get the possession of that property at such a rate which was like loot in the market. Between the Posh houses and villas, the house lay ideal and was really very strange how no one ever thought of buying the property at such as bargained rate.

Anyhow, the deal was set and I was ready with the cheque and the papers. Everything was done but dubious thought was running in my mind related to the isolation of the house. I was about to interrogate the manager but was intervened by his assistant then he left the room.

It grew my suspicion even further that why was he dodging my questions? With more questions than answers I left, the day was finally here and I along with my wife shifted to the newly renovated house. The first day was usual and mundane, there was nothing new to so we unpacked and placed all our goods.

There was a drastic turn of events when a few days later a mysterious letter was dropped at my house. It was appalling that the sender’s name was not mentioned and it really got my attention, I instantly read through the letter and it said-

“To the very unwanted neighbor who just moved in- It is more of a warning than a threat letter. Vacate this house as soon as possible or the consequences will be dire and you will meet a perfidious fate”

Your well-wisher.

I was petrified and a farrago of questions ran through my mind. ‘who could it be?’. ‘What is the motive behind it?’ ‘why am I treated so abhorrently... etc. Amidst the thoughts, I was interfered by my wife( for dinner) I acted as if everything was fine, but deep down the negative thoughts kept rocking my head.

Four days passed but nothing suspicious happened so pessimism plummeted and I became casual. Moreover, I thought my neighbours were playing a prank on me as they were jealous of such a colossal mansion which I owned now. 

One night while I was asleep, there was a huge thud instantly waking me up from a siesta. Chills ran through my spine as my worst nightmare was about to come true. All those suspicious thoughts came rushing back as I was getting paranoid. I gathered myself and went to look for the mysterious source of the sound. My wife didn’t give a second thought about this as she wasn’t aware of the suspicious letter.

As I went down to the first floor the silence of the room made my blood as cold as autumnal air that crept through an open window. There was no whispering noise as if nature conspired to keep that sound in the dark. I was swept by the horripilation due to this.

Suddenly I heard my wife howling from my bedroom, immediately I sprinted towards my room and I saw my wife tremulous crouching against the wall behaving very weird. When I looked carefully, her eyes were dilated and it was clear that she was under some kind of drug.

I rushed my wife to the hospital and called the police they ransacked but they didn’t find anything. When my wife was recovering in the hospital, I came back and wanted to sort things out.

For the next few days, these muffled thumps continued and I didn’t have the nerve to go out and check. This is when I decided I need help from an expert. I called one of the best detectives in the city “Bruce William”.

I gave him a call and I told him to meet me the next morning. The next morning when he was there, He was tall aged 30-35, well-built man with blue eyes and flaxen hair wearing an overcoat, hat and a pair of shiny shoes.

I explained to him my condition and he was carefully listening to each and every word. He enquired, ‘when did you receive the letter? And can I have a look at it?’ I nodded and gave him the letter he scrutinised the letter and read the letter multiple times, searching for clues. He then folded the paper and kept it in his pocket. He exclaimed ‘interesting!’ and enquired that who had sent this letter. I Answered and told him no. He asked me to accompany him to his office. 

After we reached, he did a database search and found out that the handwriting was matching Mr Smith Smock. It was interesting to see that he was the former guard I lived in. We tracked his address and paid him a visit.

After reaching, the detective rang the bell many times but there wasn’t a response. We decided that we had to break in and so we did. We kicked in and saw Smith there, Bruce pointed the gun towards him just to threaten him, when I saw him; he had a very broad and pulpy face and had a stern expression. He had grey hair and a beard all over his face.

In a very deep and hoarse voice, the detective asserted ‘Tell me about the letter you wrote and what do you want?’. He replied ‘I wrote this letter to save Mr. and Mrs. Lee’s life’. He continued the housed is jinxed and there is a hidden cursed picture. There is a myth that whoever finds the picture dies a brutal death. Whoever till now have lived in the house and have been brutally killed. Before being killed all of these people were winning about some strange scenarios. All of these scenarios tempted all these people to look up this and forcing them to find the picture. The detective who helped them were also killed. No one alive knows where the picture is. All the people living next to the house avoided the residents' picture because they were afraid of dying (that’s the reason for the house being so cheap). This is all I know about the house. 

We left Smith’s house and right before we entered the car, Smith yelled ‘I warn you don’t investigate this case. Leave the house immediately or you two will Perish’.

We immediately left for the house and Bruce took a Sledgehammer. When we reached he led a scrutinized investigation. Using the hammer, he broke parts of the wall, checking if there was any secret room. He checked all the walls and found nothing, he was angry and hit the hammer hard on the floor, a piece of it came out and a huge empty void was seen. 

We picked a rope and went down it was approximately 20m deep. As soon as we got down we both caught glimpse of the gigantic picture it contained 4 people standing in a maroon room and it looked that all them were giving a look of death stares at us. Their eyes were partially red.

I was horrified by looking at that picture. I felt a bit comforted knowing Bruce was there. Bruce being fearless went towards the picture and pushed the picture in certain angles. He squinted his eyes and found out that there was a hidden door behind the enormous picture which he forcefully opened and there was no one but a series of computers.

The computer was showing a live feed of the whole house, to my shock there were secret cameras around the house and I was always being watched, I felt violated but that was not the time, we further looked and suddenly saw a man who was about to enter the room. Bruce hid behind the door, I panicked and couldn’t hide which made the person see me. He immediately pulled a gun and told fiercely, “you're dead!”. Before he could pull the trigger Bruce banged his head, incapacitating him.

The man was later interrogated and it was found out that his name was Jonathan Clayton and the picture was of his family. He was the first person to have lived in this house and he brutally killed his family because of his sadist nature. The police couldn’t find him as he covered his tracks well and he was hiding under the house. After killing all the people in the house, he left the note next to them stating “curse of the picture”. This is how the myth grew. It was serendipitous that Jonathan wasn’t there in there in the hidden room otherwise he would have killed us too. I decided to leave the house for a different one as it was too depressing for me to think about the suffering of the previous owners. We live peacefully after.