Grim Portraits

What do you see when you look at a painting? The image, the brush strokes, the stippled canvas beneath? What if you looked beyond it? And what do you know about the person who created that picture that's hanging on your wall?

They say art requires a certain acceptable degree of madness. What secrets then lie beyond the pigment in the darkness between depiction and delusion?

Herein you'll find stories about self-destructive lovers on a quest to find themselves while getting lost in each other ("Sometimes They See Me"), meet a man who wakes to find himself bound to a chair in a gallery of nightmarish paintings ("The Binding"), discover how one horrific act converts a child's grief into artistic talent in "The Portrait", witness the unveiling of an art collector's most precious and macabre find in "The Acquisition", visit a comic book store with a pair of thieves intent on robbing a man they don't know is expecting them ("The Barbed Lady Wants for Nothing"), and read a roadie's account of a band's final days after they discover "The Amp."

Inspired by Rod Serling's NIGHT GALLERY, GRIM PORTRAITS features six stories of art, madness, and horror by Bram Stoker Award-winning author Kealan Patrick Burke. Browse at your peril.