28 Mar Garden of Statues

Posted at 11:00h in Strange and Unexplained by CreepypastaStories.com 0 Comments

📅 Published on March 28, 2023

“ Garden of Statues”

Written by Eli Pope
Edited by Craig Groshek
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

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🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available

⏰ ESTIMATED READING TIME — 12 minutes

Rating: 10.00/10. From 1 vote.

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She stared at the detail of the concrete work. Reaching out, her fingers lightly touched the surface and found it to be very smooth. Every imperfection of the model’s body was detailed as if the sculptor knew her intimately. From the dimple in her chin to what must have been a scar on her neck. It was there. Her stance open and inviting, yet she also bore a wisp of uneasiness. The statues facial expression was hard to explain. It evoked emotions like none Brinley was used to feeling. As her eyes worked their way up the non-porous glazed texture of the statue’s eyes, her skin quickly bristled sharply. Small goosebumps instantly poked from the surface of her neck and arms like tiny prairie dogs popping their heads above the ground’s earthen surface. She stepped closer to explore, but as she moved forward, Brinley scanned her vision over the rest of the gardens large area. There must be at least forty to fifty of these beautiful creations, she thought to herself. It was in that instant; she wasn’t sure how this realization made her feel.

Brinley always loved to read about places far away in areas most people didn’t usually travel. Places which took specific planning and acts of specific effort to find them and then of course go through the plans of traveling to them. Views such as this one were worth the work of bringing their experiencing to fruition. Anyone can drive to the Grand Canyon, and while it’s breathtaking every time one peers out across its magnitude, there are so many unspoken sights to see that take hiking, climbing, and actually bonding with the world’s many challenges to earn the gift of seeing and experiencing them. Brinley was appreciative of all the adventures she had accomplished so far in her young life. After all, she’d imagined them and then managed to succeed in successfully completing all of them on her own. Details of each trip were neatly catalogued in a small 6” by 9” tan bound journal. She kept it with her always. She saw it as her most valuable possession. It was her complete catalogue of her young adult life. It was almost like the paycheck for her deeds done. Visual proof she had earned for each entry scribed onto its pages of the efforts put forth. The journal was her bank account of memories, saving them to enjoy when age or health forced retiring from such activities. But that was far from now, almost unimaginable.

Brinley Magnolia Willum is a gorgeous young woman. Her name is as beautiful as her smile. She being constantly told and reminded by almost everyone she announced it to when asked. What Brinley wanted to answer when people offered up such a beautiful compliment was that her life started out the farthest thing from the beauty of her given name. She wanted to say she never understood why her mother who walked away and left her, would spend the effort of naming her such a lovely name. Brinley always held wonder of how any mother could just stop loving their child one day and the fact that is what her mother had done to her led Brinley to never speak out about her. She didn’t complain a single iota, but instead kept every hurt feeling tightly locked up deep inside, the key kept hidden from everyone. She told herself she didn’t need a mother who could do such a thing. But inside she kept a secret place she never invited anyone into. She held this special place in her heart that would always love her, or at least miss her. She tried not to visit that internal place often, but it called out loudly when she was alone and feeling helpless. She kept that last mental memory of her mother’s image, frozen in the moment, just before she turned and walked down Grandma’s sidewalk for the last time.

Brinley was fortunate to have been left with her grandparents. They attempted to teach her what love truly was. What caring deeply for another meant and how to do such. She learned quickly by observing others that visited the house. The way they held each other and gave goodbye kisses. She learned the how-to’s, but she never really knew the true feelings one was supposed to experience. After all, she never received a goodbye kiss from mother the day she left, so she merely mimicked the act, never completely realizing what the closeness of two entangled together really meant. She was raised knowing one should always try and help others, and she told herself it was correct, and she attempted to live her life in their umbrella of practicing such things. She supposed the question of why people did these silly things was what gave her the desire to adventure off to places less traveled. She felt more at home viewing others from a distance. Human touch felt uncomfortable. Visual stimulation was what held beauty beyond amazement to her. Destinations like this place, The Garden of Souls. A treasure hidden in plain sight if one did only minimal research, could find. The garden was nestled in the woods in a part of the Appalachian Mountains that rose above the Tobique River in New Brunswick, Canada. Getting here hadn’t been the most difficult trek she’d ever made, but as she scanned the grayish concrete creations which were spread around, this was the place that felt most comforting to her. There were likenesses of people coyly peeking from behind trees, while others lay spread out as if basking on the rocks near the river. It was possibly the most unique and breathtaking place of all Brinley had traveled. They didn’t speak or attempt to touch. No pulling you inside their arms and showering you with kisses and hugs you didn’t ask for or felt comfortable with. It was all visual.

She looked upward and back to the sculpture’s feminine face. Her smooth nose, soft chin and full lips captured in a moment Brinley couldn’t quite decipher. Was the expression like hers or was it like all the others. And then her gaze moved again to the statues eyes. They glistened. How was that possible? Cement or mortar shouldn’t be able to cast such a glimmer. Brinley stepped closer and reached up brushing her soft finger over the surface.

She sharply flinched and jumped backwards. She swore she’d seen a flicker of the pupil’s movement the second the tip of her finger brushed over the statues soft slick eye. She backed up against a nearby tree trunk in momentary shock. Her breathing quickened while she weighed what she surely just imagined. Wanting to look back at the concrete woman frozen in time but unable to bring herself to lift her head. Her mind battling with reason what possibly just happened. It was surely just a shadow on the stone from a bird in flight or some other simple explanation. She told herself. Possibly a butterfly or insect of some sort. She slowly broke her will to keep her head tucked down in the false safety of her collar as she slowly raised her head allowing her eyes to explore the statue once again.

The air she breathed in was hard, her lungs forcing a deep inhale as her heart pounded from a fear that was likely silly. That’s what she told herself as she forced her muscles to unclench. She concentrated on reacclimating her senses to her surroundings. Listening closely for anything that didn’t match the normal sounds of the forest. She heard the river water against the rocks at first, then the faint buzzing of insects and small critters scampering across the ground’s fallen leaves. All sounds one would expect to hear in a place like this. Birds chirping, and of course, the quiet breath a breeze whistling through the trees There wasn’t a sound of any humankind except for the rushing of air being forced in and out of her own lungs. She was alone. She felt assured she was quite alone. A tension began to release from her tightened muscles as she assured herself, she’d just been spooked for some unknown reason. She nervously smiled.

The eyes flickered left to right repeating quickly. It was all part of the process. The very practiced process.

Frederick Holt Taylor was a recluse. He always was, even as a child. Quiet and reserved, never playing with other children at recess. He excelled at creating art. Painting, drawing, and later forming sculptures in clay—he had an eye for artistic beauty. As Frederick grew older, he grew quieter in his ways, withdrawing even deeper into himself. His parents were wealthy and spent fortunes with therapists, doctors, and anyone with any psychiatric background. The money spent never changed anything but brewing resentment with Frederick, making him feel broken and without value. He turned to his only love, expressing himself in mixed colors on canvas with twisted human forms in both paints and clay figures. He was really quite genius and collectors soon flocked to make purchases once word had gotten out of his brilliance. His father never understood and soon refused to allow such nonsense in his home.

Frederick left his parents’ home as soon as he turned eighteen. His mother busily squirreled money away for just such a day. She knew Frederick would need help and that his father would refuse giving any. She loved her son but couldn’t force herself stand up to her husband after the last time she’d tried. “But Albert, he’s a good boy. He just needs your love.”

“The goddamned boy is broken, Margarete! He’s a macabre little man who couldn’t possibly have come from my blood. Who did you lie with all those years ago?” Albert had raised his hand and brought it down hard across her face when she denied any kind of an affair. “The day that bastard turns eighteen—he’s banished from our family. I won’t put a helpless child out on the street to suffer, but I’ll by God be shed of the tarnish he’s caused this family when he is a man!”

Margarete had sat on the stone floor petrified of her husband’s angered demeanor. Her nose and lips bleeding, the white blouse she wore stained bright red. Frederick had remained hidden but watched from the shadows of the upstairs balcony. He’d heard every word and even though he was only nine, he’d understood exactly what he’d just witnessed, and he never forgot how his father’s violent aggression towards his mother ceased once she was sat frozen in fear—motionless like a statue.

Brinley pushed herself away from the tree standing straight with a shakiness in her legs but satisfied her heightened apprehensions of the odd surroundings were what spooked her.

She looked around at the scattered whitish-gray forms. Their placements seemed to hold no visible pattern to them but placed where they fit into scenery itself. After standing quietly surveying the lay of the garden, she slowly stepped back towards the female statue that temporarily gave her the uncontrolled panic.

Sounds of crunching leaves under Brinley’s feet overtook any cries of birds or wind blowing through the forest. She stepped back up to the statue formed in the reclined position. Her fingers reached back up to touch its eyes once more to feel the slickness that didn’t match the coarseness of the plaster. They felt like glass. As she pulled her finger back, her hand quickly drew to her mouth in an immediate gasp.

The eyes did move, and she immediately stepped backwards almost tripping. “How can this be?” she screamed. Her heart raced again as her eyes darted around, her body moving in a panicked circle. Air rushed into her lungs as she sucked with frightened intention of catching a deep breath. She had no idea of what to do. She knew she was all alone and for the first time in her life—it scared her. And then it hit her. The realization of it being possible there was a living person encased inside the statue. “Oh, my God! It can’t be!” she gasped. She again forced herself closer to study the figure. That’s when she noticed the darkened crease between the hardened face’s lips. There appeared to be very small holes in the mortar between the lips. There was a woman inside! She thought with a heightened fear beginning to overtake her, robbing her of any ability to make a sound utter from her mouth.

She never saw the arm reaching around holding the chloroform drenched cloth tightly covering her nose and mouth. She struggled briefly to gain freedom but quickly succumbed to a thick black darkness which overtook her.

The sculptor carefully attached Brinley’s limbs and torso to the formed steel rods with thin wire carefully positioned in the form the artist wanted his final statue displayed in. He surveyed his captured prey, touching her soft skin as he twisted the wire to the structure. This one would be seated in a chair and looking into a mirror also wire-tied to the steel where Brinley’s hand was formed in a grip that held it. When he was happy with how the model’s stance worked with the template, he left her still unconscious as he began adding water to his mix of mortar. “I’ll make you, so father won’t hurt you again. We mustn’t anger him. If you’re broken, he won’t love you anymore.” He continued mixing his special recipe of his sculpting compound, the mixture he’d honed to perfection after all of his other creations. “I love you too much to watch him hurt you, Mother. Just stay still, it’ll soon be okay.”

It appeared that Brinley’s untimely travels to the garden of statues could ultimately lead her to a final resting place. No one knew she had traveled there. She’d lived the life of a loner because of being deserted. Her grandparents were long passed away. She was on her own in this world. The perfect victim to become another muse of Frederick’s. Just one more woman sculpted into a monument of remembrance to him. One more human being sacrificed to keep his mother from his father’s cruelty.

Frederick busily began applying the paste on Brinley’s still unconscious body beginning with her feet and meticulously working his way up after being satisfied with his work. He was almost up to her where her torso met her legs when she began to slowly wake and start trying to move. “Easy, mother. You mustn’t try and adjust too much. Father may see you and come cause more harm.”

“Ummm—uhh, what?” Her eyes appeared hazy and confused. “Where… where am… where am… I? I… I… can’t seem to… to move my legs… my… arms….”

Frederick momentarily ceased applying the mixture. He stood up and wiped his messy hands on his smock. “Really, Mother, you mustn’t wiggle around. He’ll hurt you again. Don’t make me use the chloroform again, you know how it gives you a headache, Mother.” But Brinley was like the all the others, she just wouldn’t listen. After several more attempts and seeing the compound on her calves beginning to crack, he left the room to retrieve his calming cloth. It didn’t take but a few seconds until Mother slipped back into a state of quiet slumber, giving him time to complete his process.

*****

Placing the statue was another part of Frederick’s process. It used to bother him as he’d hear the wisps of sucking air through the tiny holes around the lips. He knew it usually only took a day or two once placed, before she would stop resisting and become quiet and comfortable in her permanent spot. The one he’d spotted this new one at, had taken the longest to become happy. Almost three days later than most, but she hadn’t stirred at all since he’d began working with this one. It seemed about every time he’d get one quiet and permanently relaxed, another would stumble by, and he’d have to help her calm down also. Sculpting was a very tiring form of his expression of art and love for his mother.

After final placement in the garden, a perfect spot by the climbing Mosaic and Citra hops, he knew she would enjoy being surrounded by the green flowering vines. He stood back to admire his work. She looked beautiful holding her mirror up in admiration of her reflection. He leaned in close enough he could hear her tiny breaths being pulled in through the ports. Her loving eyes were wide open in the window of the concrete form. “It’s okay, Mother. You look beautiful! See the lovely hops climbing the trellises all around you? This will be a safe place away from father and I’ll visit you regularly like all the other favorite spots around our home. I’m certain we will have visitors too, we always seem to have them regularly, don’t we?”

Brinley’s eyes filled with tears of fright. She couldn’t speak or move even a finger. The feeling was overwhelming but there was no way to confront it. Her mind raced. The minutes felt like days but as the hours passed, the tensions of fear began to morph into thoughts of her past. She felt deserted a second time. Just like when her momma dropped her off and disappeared. It was so much different this time though. She was all alone yet very kept. No one to comfort her or let her know it wouldn’t last long. She let herself enter that special place she rarely ever went. That place where she hid her love for the mother who left her all those years ago. Brinley had to force her mental thoughts away from where she now was in order to draw from those distant memories of the woman who gave her such a beautiful name. She wondered to herself when this part of her journey was all over, would she meet her mother again? Was there another place she would go to, to witness the unknown or would life just fade into nothingness. What had she done to deserve this finality? Was it because she’d locked her mother’s memory away as if she never existed? Was this the punishment? Truly being alone without choice instead of choosing to be alone.

Her heart began to suddenly palpitate wildly as her mind became flooded with all the questions and possibilities in her final outcome. She tried to speak, to cry out the word “Momma!” but it only came out a muffled hum that echoed inside her head. She was feeling as if she should give up. She swore she heard someone calling out her name but how could she? She could hear nothing but her own speeded heartbeat. Kathump, kathump, kathump.

Brinley’s eyes began to close, her heart slowed, the wisps of air being drawn in and pushed out through the tiny holes became less and less forced. She was defeated, all hope vanished quickly like the warmed snow from the sun’s heated rays as the front passed by.

She wasn’t sure what brought her to open her eyes once more, but in the corner of the reflection from the mirror her hand held with no help from her own muscles—she saw a flicker. Her eyes widened, searching for what could possibly be happening and then she felt it. A loud thump and then an unknown amount of time passed until she began to feel a rhythmic tremble throughout. Her skin felt heated but there was a slight coolness that felt as if it were breaking through. Her eyelids attempting to force closing but her will maintaining to keep them open.

*****

Outside the concrete shell lie Frederick in a pool of blood underneath his head but spreading outward rather quickly. Two men in uniforms were lightly tapping and prying pieces of broken mortar from a seated statue. They worked tirelessly with careful precision and speed as if they knew it were a matter of life and death. Literally death at their feet with Frederick’s cadaver growing colder and stiffening in rigor mortise. But hopefully a life being saved in time to escape from the manmade cocoon created by a sick and twisted psychopath. The two Canadian Mounties continued with extreme perseverance to free the beautiful butterfly before being robbed of her ability to live the life she now fought to keep. The clear windows showing her widened eyes filled with fright, gave them the will to continue. As one carefully lifted a broken chip of the compound away from Brinley’s lips, a sudden gasp of air could be heard just before the word “Momma!” cried out from her lips.

She was alive.