Portrait Unfinished

A short horror fiction entry for the Top in Fiction 'Eye See You' contest/event in which two girls visit a pop up gallery for unfinished portraits and find that artistry is in the eye of the beholder.

Photo by Karen Maes on Unsplash

“Oh my god, Andrea, look at this one,” I turned toward her voice and found Crystal performing some sort of interpretive dance in front of a portrait. “The eyes, like, totally follow you when you move.”

She moved in a slow arc around the painting, her head tilted at different angles, studying the eyes from every position.

It looked exactly like what you’d expect from a gallery titled Unfinished Portraits: the sketch of a head was faintly outlined on the canvas, but only the eyes, piercing and brown, were fully painted. The ghosts of the other features were there, only half formed. As I stepped closer, I swore, too, that the eyes followed me. A chill crept up my spine.

“I’m not a fan of that at all.”

Crystal gave up trying to escape the portrait’s stare and leaned in to me to whisper dramatically.

“I’ll tell you what I’m not a fan of, being in this place sober.” She was already taking slow steps backwards before she finished the sentence, “Drinks?”

I glanced around and caught the gaze of another unfinished portrait, only this one had no features at all, save for a meticulously painted set of male genitals.

“I’ll forgive you if you get me two,” I called after her.

Crystal clasped her hands in mock gratitude, spun expertly on her heel and vanished into the crowded lobby. I waited until I saw her green dress disappear before I began to wander.

This was a typical Friday night in our friendship. Crystal would meet someone interesting, either through work, spin class, I swear she could make a friend in a fire drill, and find out about some local nightlife. That’s when I’d get a text with a dress code and time to be ready.

Tonight, I was already in sweats when my phone lit up. I spent so long digging through my closet for a half-decent dress that I barely had time for mascara.

The portrait I stood in front of was unfinished like everything else in the gallery, but not in a literal sense. It just hadn’t come alive yet. All the facial features were present, but the face sat squarely in the uncanny valley. I could probably pick the person painted out of a line up, but they would never recognize that the painting was meant to be them. Something was missing.

I only had a moment to study the art before someone touched the back of my arm. I jumped and turned to find Crystal holding a stemless glass of wine out to me.

“Jesus, jumpy,” she remarked, handing it over. I took it gladly.

“Isn’t this one weird?” I gestured to the painting in front of me. “It’s like, one final step away from being complete. Something just looks off.”

Crystal gave a half-hearted nod, clearly eager to shift topics.

“I’ll tell you what’s weird. This guy at the bar—total creep—just hounding me to see my eyes. He boxed me in while I was waiting on the drinks, and he just wouldn’t shut up about the color of them.”

“That is pretty weird.” I took a sip of the wine.

“And the eye contact! He was intense, like,” she widened her amber brown eyes cartoonishly, staring at me like an owl. I laughed and smacked her arm until she stopped.

“He said he has a piece in the gallery tonight. I asked him where it was, just so he would finally talk about something besides my eyes, and he was all like,” she put on a deep voice for added effect, “‘You’ll know it when you see it,’ like, cryptic much?”

I scanned the gallery. For the most part, every piece was as creepy as you’d expect. There was something deeply upsetting about seeing a human face mid-construction. It was like peeking behind the curtain of creation. Faint outlines of facial features, erased and redrawn, like we were standing in the workshop of a god.

We wandered through more portraits, chatting more about weekend plans than the art, until Crystal tugged my arm and led me to a large sculpture in the center of the gallery.

It was unlike anything else on display. The clay twisted in swirling, organic shapes like a cartoon cloud. Embedded throughout the form were hyper-realistic eyes, each one a different color, shape, and size. They seemed to grow out of the sculpture naturally, like part of some awful evolutionary mistake.

Even stranger, the clay was unfired. It still had the dull sheen of clay that had recently been wet, which, I supposed, wasn’t actually the weirdest thing for a gallery of works still in progress.

“Do you think this is his?” I asked, but got no answer.

Crystal was bend down, staring at one of the eyes. She was completely still, and her brow furrowed. She hadn’t blinked. A ripple of discomfort ran up my spine.

“Earth to Crystal,” I said, snapping my fingers, “I don’t think you’ll win the staring contest, this guy has an unfair advantage.”

She blinked, finally, and clicked her teeth at me before continuing to round the sculpture.

“Are these glass or something?” I asked, leaning down and studying one of the blue eyes. I didn’t see glass eyes every day, but these seemed more realistic than I could imagine.

“This has to be his. The eye contact that guy gave me makes so much sense if he’s been building this,” there was a beat, “thing.” Crystal glanced at me, fear flickering briefly across her face.

“He must be talented,” I said, trying to be casual. “ These eyes look totally real. It’s like that painting dialed up to eleven. No matter where you stand, it’s watching you.”

I circled the sculpture, taking it in from every side. It was a surveillance system made organic, eyes everywhere, all seeing.

A few patches of bare clay stood out. More eyes were clearly down the pipeline. The flowing sculpt had natural slots where they would sit, someday.

“I think your creep radar was spot on,” I said, voice low. “Can you imagine what kind of person dreams this up?”

A girl in a green dress turned to answer me, but she wasn’t Crystal. I muttered an apology and scanned the crowd for her.

Green dresses were everywhere, but none of them were hers.

I made a full circuit of the gallery, ignoring the art this time. It wasn’t like her to walk away without saying anything. But, maybe she had and I just didn’t hear her.

I checked the Ladies Room. Nothing. At the bar, the bartender remembered her but said she hadn’t been back since she was there earlier.

On my phone, I pulled up the last photo that we had snapped in the Uber and zoomed in until I wasn’t in frame. Screw being polite, I weaved through the crowd asking anyone who’d listen if they had seen her. All I received back were frowns and confused stares.

My heart was pounding, and I felt sweat prickling beneath my makeup. The room suddenly felt warmer, thick with body heat and hot breath.

I imagined Crystal in the same state, disoriented and overwhelmed. She was out of it at the sculpture, maybe she had stepped out to the parking lot for air.

The door was forgotten when the sculpture caught my eye again. Something occupied one of the spots that had been blank earlier. The clay was freshly worked, still soft with fingerprints sunken into the surface. I veered off course to go look at it closer. Just as I drew in close enough to get a proper look, someone blocked my path.

He was tall, at least a foot above me, and dressed like every other cool artist in the room, a blazer over something deliberately casual. He was definitely handsome, but his stare was too long. It made my skin crawl.

He was making far too much eye contact.

My mouth dried out and I suddenly became very aware of my tongue.

“Good evening. Thank you for your interest,” he said smoothly, standing so perfectly in my line of sight that he blocked out the sculpture.

He was grinning. It looked practiced.

I sidestepped him and began to circle the sculpture, like earlier, hoping to flank him for a better view. It couldn’t be what I thought, but I had to know. I kept a careful eye on him as I moved, trying to stay aware of the space between us.

“You’re the artist?” I asked, trying to sound much more casual than I felt. I wanted him to drop his guard.

He started circling the sculpture opposite me, matching my pace. By the time I reached the area that I needed to look at, he would be right behind me.

“I am,” he said. “I was a late addition to the gallery, so I didn’t get a chance to have the placard made like everyone else. But the work is titled Prey.”

My tongue turned to sandpaper in my mouth. I couldn’t swallow.

Then, it hit me: this wasn’t the perfectly evolved guard dog I had imagined it as. Predators evolved with forward-facing eyes to track a kill. Prey animals evolved to see in all directions, to survive. This thing, its body littered with eyes—not just on either side like a rabbit but everywhere. Eyes upon eyes, behind eyes, next to more eyes. It was prepared for an attack from any possible angle, and yet eyes were all it had. It couldn’t do anything but watch.

I was nearing the newest addition, getting closer with every cautious step. The closer I got, the more obvious it was. Crystal was right. These eyes couldn’t have been hand sculpted, they were too perfect. Too human.

“Where do you source your taxidermy?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. I already knew the answer.

Finally, I completed my circuit. He hadn’t caught up yet, and I finally had a clear view of the eye that wasn’t there before.

A single amber eye stared back at me, wide and alert.

A cold hand clamped down on my arm.

Somewhere in the next room over, someone screamed.

The crowds surged and everyone in the gallery moved toward the noise.

I was held in place by his grip. The same unsettling smile stretched across his face, and he still hadn’t blinked. I realized why it looked so forced then, because the smile didn’t reach his—

“Has anyone ever told you, you have beautiful eyes?”