Read Online The Painting by Ryan Casey - Free Book Online

it was some sort of construction so they could steal our people for experimentation. Until the last gap was closed, people followed his word, but there’s still the occasional scaremongering headline from time to time.”
    Donny shook his head. “But what happened to the ones who were in the camps?”
    Reginald sipped the last of his orange juice. “The last fallout died two years ago. Since then, there have been no concrete reports of new fallout. But I—we kept on believing. You’re just lucky I found you and nobody else did. If the gap had opened in the city centre, you’d be front page news right now, and for all the wrong reasons.” He slipped his sleeve up and revealed a small, metallic square on the inside of his arm. “You’re risking as it is without being chipped. If you’re thinking about running away, don’t bother. You’re in the safest place you can possibly be right now.”
    “Chipped?”
    Reginald tutted as if chipping was common knowledge. “Chips. In the arm.” He pointed again to the tiny grey patch above his wrist. “A way of keeping people safe—or a way of segregating you from our people, depending on your standpoint.”
    Donny’s head spun as the information echoed in his skull. “What do I… what do I do? About getting back?”
    Reginald intertwined his fingers. “What do you remember about the time before you fell through the gap? Any weird happenings? You—you mentioned a house before. You mentioned a woman. What happened?”
    Donny shook his head. The painting, the figures, tap tap tap. “There was a painting. It… and there were six silhouetted figures on it and they were gradually getting closer—bigger—in the painting.’
    “What was in the painting?”
    “Erm, trees. Trees with autumn leaves. And there were boys in the house—boys, tapping the air. There… was a dead mouse, and some weird noises.”
    “What about a woman? Was there a woman?” Reginald was tensing his fist, his jaw muscles sticking out at the sides.
    “I…” He looked at Reginald. His eyes were bloodshot, flicking up to a photograph on the wall. Reginald and a woman, smiling on the top of a hill. “How do you know I came through the gap?”
    Reginald blinked his watery eyes and scoffed. “Well, because you… you said about a house and—and weird events. You said about—”
    “No, I didn’t say anything like that. I could easily have just been a mad person roaming the streets. You… you knew I was from the gap because… Manny Bates. You knew her, didn’t you?”
    Reginald looked around the kitchen, unable to hold eye contact with Donny.
    The tension welled up inside Donny’s chest. “You knew her, didn’t you? And—and when I mentioned her, you didn’t… you didn’t report me to the police because it gave you hope, didn’t it? Didn’t it?”
    Reginald’s silence and shaking chin said it all. He stared over at the wall, over at the photograph.
    “She was your wife, wasn’t she?”
    Reginald reached for his glass and lifted it to his mouth even though there was no orange juice left inside.

    “It was on walking trip eleven months ago,” Reginald said, his arms laid out in front of him. He could barely look Donny in the eye as he spoke. “Me and her, we used to like our walking. We used—we used to go hiking all the time; go exploring the forest. I s’pose you could say it was our pastime.”
    Donny listened attentively as Reginald continued to speak.
    “I went down, down this path and towards the lake. Absolutely beautiful day, it was. Manny was in this little log cabin just up the hill, smiling away like she always was no doubt. I call out to her, ‘Manny, come down here and look at this,’ and she doesn’t reply. I turn round and… and she’s gone. Completely gone.”
    Donny shuffled in his chair. “What made you so sure that it was… a gap?”
    “I went up to the cabin. Obviously I didn’t think much of it at first. I just think she’s gone for a wander, or