Watch Your Step

The Locked Desk

"Hi everyone. I am Dr. Blockton, and I will be your professor for CVA100."

Jonathan sat in the art room, wondering what Blockton was going to teach. The course was called "Contemporary Art" and he already thought that the course was going to be boring. He was not interested in contemporary art, whatever that was. He was more into the digital. Making movies, editing photos, and drawing vector drawings was what he thought was cool. Especially special effects.

Of course, Jonathan had to take the course. It was mandatory for him to graduate.

To make it all worse, the classroom was located in the basement of the college. It was one of the older parts of the building, and was sort of spooky. The lighting was fairly dim, and the architecture looked outdated. It almost felt like a castle to him, like the dungeon in the basement that you would see in those Saturday morning cartoons.

A couple of days had passed, and Jonathan knew one thing for sure. The course was crap. The prof was horrible, and the course was all over the place. But the room itself was intriguing. There was this rustic looking wooden desk at the corner of the room. Every so often, the prof would glance at the desk, with a hint of worry in his eyes.

A couple of days later, he pondered with his friends on what was inside that desk. One of his friends told him that the rumour was it was a set of paintbrushes. He could not believe it.

"How lame is that," he mentioned.

Either the rumours that came about had breeched the point of ridiculous imagination, or it was, in fact, a set of paint brushes.

As the days progressed, Jonathan's curiosity got the better of him. Between classes, he tried to convince his friends to sneak in with him, to find out what was really inside the thing. He told them that he was desperate to know what was inside of it.

Two of his friends, David and Robert, were against it. They claimed that the basement was spooky enough as it was during the daylight, no way were they going when it was dark out. Especially if there was the risk of some sort of penalty for sneaking in.

But there was something about the expression in Dr. Blockton's eyes that made him want to do it. He wanted the glory of telling everyone what was really inside the desk. It couldn't be paint brushes. That made no sense. He asked them if they were curious about what was really in that drawer. It could be gold, or even a dead person's body, for all they knew. His friends jumped the bandwagon, since they knew his point was exactly what they were all thinking anyway. It just did not make any sense. Paintbrushes?

That day, they decided to meet up at 9:30PM. It made the perfect sense. It was late enough that there were no classes, but early enough that the college did not close, since it would increase the risk of them getting kicked out.

All of them went their separate ways, at they all met at 9:30 promptly, right out of the door of the classroom. Jonathan had passed by every class in the basement, to make sure no classes were going on. He told them all that it was all clear.

He picked the lock, and used his phone as a flashlight. It would have been a bad idea to turn the lights on in the room, as it made it obvious from a distance that they were breaking in.

All of them had a tinge of regret the minute they entered the room. It just felt like there was something eerie about it. It was impossible to place, but yet it still lingered there.

"Quick, quick, quick!", whispered David while Jonathan was trying to pick the lock. His focus on breaking the desk lock kept him from noticing how eerie the situation really was. 

Jonathan opened drawer after drawer, in disbelief. They were all empty, except for the black pouch sitting in the bottom drawer. Jonathan quickly grabbed it, and stuffed it into his bag. He locked up the desk, and hurried out of the classroom. They quickly left the campus and stood out front, eager to find out what was in the bag.

They looked inside, and to their disbelief, that was what was really in there. A set of paintbrushes. After standing there for at least ten seconds, he felt almost a hint of anger. He could not believe that they had gone through all this trouble, just to find out that the drawer had paint brushes. He could not believe that the prof had made such a big deal out of nothing. Why was the prof so worried? He decided to take them home with him, because at least then the effort taken was ever so slightly worthwhile.

By the time he got home, he quickly went upstairs into his room. He sat down on the ground, and took the paint brushes out of the bag. He did not get a good look at them, and was curious about what the fuss was all about.

He grabbed the black pouch and dumped the contents onto his bedroom floor. He still could not imagine why the prof made such a big deal over a bunch of paint brushes.

As he examined each brush, he noticed that there was something eerie about all of them. It seemed that all the brushes had these large, rubbery tips. Maybe it was just him, the tips looked like eyes. "Calm down," he thought to himself. He was just freaking out. "I guess it's just a special set of paint brushes", he said to himself, just trying to get himself to stop.

He hid the brushes in his closet. He was uncomfortable being so close to the brushes, but he had nowhere else to put them. He decided that he was going to sneak back into the classroom the next day, and return the paintbrushes. It was time to put everything behind him, and pretend that it just never happened.

As he laid in his bed, his eyes seemed attracted to the closet. He could not sleep, and the fact that he was wide awake made him freak out more. He opened up his closet, hoping that a look inside would help him realize that there was nothing wrong. He reached his hand into the pouch, and grabbed one of the brushes. He had to look at it, to be able to convince himself that nothing was wrong. While he held that one brush, its desire consumed his mind. He could feel the thoughts of the souls, the souls trapped inside the paintbrush, watching him through that white circle on the black rubber tip. The souls in the brush wanted his soul, they wanted his blood. He grabbed a pair of scissors from his dresser, and slit his left wrist. Holding the tip of the brush to it, he could feel that satisfaction from the souls inside. The strange thing was that he himself seemed satisfied as well. He realized that he was getting sucked into the brush, becoming a zombie that was thirsty for blood, for life.

The next day, Jonathan was found dead, with the closet of his door opened. His left wrist had been slit, and it was reported he had died from blood loss. It was determined to be a suicide. 

When Dr. Blockton heard about the news from the dean, he became worried. He stopped by Jonathan's house, and asked his parents if they found a set of paintbrushes that were his. He did not explain to them how he knew Jonathan had stolen them, but luckily they did not ask.

A couple of minutes later, Jonathan's mother came down with a black pouch.

"Are these yours?" she asked him.

"Yes. I think so," he replied, after looking inside.

On his walk back to his house, Dr. Blockton grabbed one of the paintbrushes from the pouch, knowing that something was wrong. He took one of the brushes out, and realized that it was just an ordinary brush, with horse hair at the tip. He knew that the souls in the brush had the energy now to venture out, and see the world in all its beauty.

Dr. Blockton knew that one day they would come back into the brush, turning yet again into zombies thirsty for new life.  But there was nothing he could do. For he could not live for all of eternity, if he ever decided to give up ownership of the brushes.