27. decorator

I married my college sweetheart right after we graduated. After about a year, it wasn’t going well, and it seemed like it would be best for me to move out.

My brother, who is a few years older than me, lived on the other side of town, where he has a fairly large house. He is actually planning to move to another city, and staying there in rented accommodation pretty much all the time. He agreed that I can stay in house until I get myself sorted out or until he sells the house, whichever comes first. His house was actually kind of run down. He had been planning to fix it up, but was so busy with his job that he never really got that much done. I had plenty of time on my hands at evenings and weekends, so I volunteered to do some fixing and decorating for him.

Over a few months, I repainted all the rooms, fixed all the wooden floors, and even retiled both the bathrooms, put in a new toilet and shower, etc. My brother paid for all the materials (he gave me a prepaid debit card), but I did all the labor for free of course. The last room that I was doing was a bedroom. It had a built-in wardrobe cupboard, kind of built into the wall. I decided to paint the inside of the cupboard as well as the room itself, since the cupboard is dirty yellow inside with lots of black marks on the walls. I used the last of the white paint to paint the inside, and left the doors open for it to dry. That was my Friday night, then I went to bed.

Next day was a Saturday, and the last thing to do is paint the walls of the room, which include a dark red lower half, and a cream upper half (there’s a rail between them, and it didn’t look as horrible as it sounds). I went to get the red paint from the corridor, where I had been using it too touch up a spot that I had missed. I then went back to the corridor to get the red paint tray with the roller and brush in it. I tripped as I entered the room, the tray and roller fell on the floor (which fortunately was covered), but the brush went into the cupboard and hit the wall. It left a mark that looked like an elongated S with a long line going straight down underneath it. Now I was pissed, because I would have to repaint the inside of the cupboard – at least a couple of coats to cover the dark red – which means I will have to go out and buy more white paint as well.
I picked up the brush, and start to write SHIT using the elongated S for the initial letter. The H however came out looking more like an A, so I write SATAN instead. There was still a long line of paint running vertically under the S, so I made that into the vertical stroke of a K, and wrote KILL.

I thought nothing of it, and then got on with painting the rest of the room. I spent several hours painting the entire room, and by the time I was finished, it was dark and late, and I was aching and really hungry. I decided to go downstairs to get some food and then go to sleep. As I was leaving the room, SATAN KILL caught my eye, and for some reason I decided to write in ORDERS YOU TO after SATAN, making the message SATAN ORDERS YOU TO KILL. It didn’t seem important, as I am planning to paint over it anyway.

First thing Sunday morning, I went out and bought a tub of white paint. When I got back I paint over SATAN ORDERS YOU TO KILL, but you can still read it through the white paint. I then started on the second coat on the room proper. When I finished them room, I redid white roller over SATAN ORDERS YOU TO KILL in the cupboard again, but you can still read it. For the next week, every morning before I leave for work, and when I get back from working in the evening, I rollered another layer of white paint over SATAN ORDERS YOU TO KILL. I was convinced that it was still faintly visible.

The next weekend my brother came over, so I showed him the cupboard, and asked him if he can see any message written inside it. He said that he couldn’t. But I was still convinced that is was faintly visible. I told myself that it is my mind playing tricks with me, and thatI must take his word for it. Nevertheless, just to be sure, I did add a few more layers of paint over the next few days. During this time, there are periodically people who come with the realtor to look at the house. My brother was after all trying to sell it. I do particularly remember one family (mother, father and teenage boy) who spent ages looking over the house one Saturday – I think (not sure) if this is the same family that reappears later in this story.

I soon moved out, and moved away to another town. Got a new job, rented my own place. My brother eventually sold the house. I met a new girl, etc. At Christmas, my brother invited me and my girl over to his large apartment in a major city. We went to visit. When we are talking, he tells me that he is so glad that he is rid of that house, since it always gave him the creeps. Asks me if it ever gave me the creeps. (It didn’t). Then the killer revelation: The family who bought the house – the teenage son killed his parents, and hid their bodies in a cupboard.