#strangeperspective

Big Chef runs the Grill while Jr. plays with Scout their golden Lab, and the Mrs.  is in the kitchen smiling while almost burning her hands on the freshly baked apple pie she just pulled out of the oven. Their house has four bedrooms, two baths, and a white picket fence that keeps them perfectly safe at all times. This is the American family from the text books with a last name like Brown,  Jones, or Smith. They are too perfect, picturesque, Sanitary. He works hard at the bank, She is a homemaker, Billy runs track and is captain of the debate team. Their life had seemed so pleasant that  "The Artist", as the papers had taken to calling him, considered not killing them.

He has watched them come and go for so long now he's memorized their routine. He had worked on his other "projects", with this family in mind the entire time. Twisting body parts into unusual shapes, and setting scenes that told about more than murder. In his mind he had been creating narratives of American sin. He thinks of the "Jones" as his Norman Rockwell masterpiece. In his backpack next to his tools and props was a sticker that said "White America" in big red letters and he thinks about which wall he is going to stick it on.

It gets darker.

 "The Artist" watches them eat their food ravenously, the dog laying under the picnic table begging for scraps. They go inside and Marry does the dishes and fixes Andy a gin and tonic. Andy watches the Sunday night football game and reads the newspaper.  "The Artist" watches as Marry silently puts her hands to her temples and violently throws a plate from the bubbly sink onto the and laughs clumsily when Andy rushes in to check on her. It is the third time "The Artist" has watched this charade.

Killing the dog first, he enters the house silently through an unlocked window .

Billy is in his room playing videogames when the artist sneaks ever so quietly down the hallway and aims the tranquilizer gun. He takes out Andy and Marry from the top of the stairs.  "The Artist" doesn’t like his kills messy. He likes to set the bodies up and end them cleanly. To him blood is just an accent color.  Andy's finger twitches as "The Artist" drags his body to its morbid place at the end of the dinner table. Nobodies fingers had ever twitched before but "The Artist" didn’t notice because he is too excited about completing his scene.

Marry meets them at the Threshold of the dining room, her eyes bright and her smile stretching further than any human smile should. Her throat is still cut. The barbwire is still carefully wrapped around  her arms and her waist but she seems to glide when she moves.

"The Artist" loses control of his bowels as she is still moving closer with the same un-shifting smile. Behind her Billy climbs into the family room  on the ceiling like a gecko, with the baseball glove stapled to his face and a baseball shoved halfway down his throat. His limbs broken and twisted backwards. He holds to the ceiling above the man and makes a menacing clicking sound like some sort of angry beetle.

Andy raises his hand and grabs the shivering wrist of his would be assailant. He was starting to change as well even though "The Artist" hadn't even begun to work with his flesh yet, and he had grand plans picked out for the father of the happy home. They all are changing, their skin falling off in bits, with something not-red underneath. The work he had down on Billy and Marry was left in piles of sludge around the living room. They talk, but not in human voices harsh whispers and rough clicking. Somehow they look bigger, as if now that they are exposed to the air they can expand, and they seem to be more excited about being skinless then they are not being dead. If they even can be dead. Andy throws "The Artist" up into the air and left him to float there. 

He has kept his eyes closed for five minutes hoping he could just wake up from reality. But finally he couldn’t stand not looking anymore. They swim in the air around him, a dozen tiny wings fluttering. He finds himself hypnotized by their the fluorescent blue patterns that shift on their underbellies. The sound they make is like laughter. But it really isn't.

They begin chewing at his flesh as if he were a finely cooked pig. His body feels unimaginable pain but they have put his mind elsewhere, tucked it inside a neat little keepsake box somewhere  for them to have for dessert.  They consume him quickly and fly away.

***

The following morning, after Scout was found, the police will bust in to find the bones of "The Artist" hanging from the ceiling. His notebook turned to its last used page which depicted the family around the table chained, butchered, and rearranged.  The father completely de-skinned and grinning. His clothes folded neatly underneath his backpack with the tools cleaned and laid out around him in a circle. There won't be any blood.  Perfectly placed at his feet will be the "White America" sticker.