‘It's hardly something new in all of Art,' Keith said,

‘Although I've tried.' He looked resigned, and took her by the hand, led

Her down into his basement studio.

She wasn't too reluctant, no,

She thought Keith was a real artiste,

A budding oils-on-canvas man, the new Matisse,

Until she saw the horror: Cubism of the Flesh,

The dripping, fused remains of Allison and Beth.

And then she panicked, shot Keith with her pepper spray

And somehow managed it, a frantic get-away.

The stairs she climbed, the hall she crossed,

Expecting every moment to be tossed

Back into Keith's most hellish dungeon,

Where she'd be cut and stretched and bludgeoned,

Become a terrifying form for human beings to take

Unless you loved what nature couldn't ever make.

Already opening his thick front door,

She heard it, from the basement, this otherworldly roar:

A sound to wake the dead, to scatter all the ghosts

That crowded in her mind and make her focus on the most

Important choice of her entire boring life.

Because she knew she'd never get away, this town was rife

With evil, always had been underneath its veil.

So there, she turned, and saw the phone, and made the call,

Long-distance, said his name and set it off the hook

And waited for the monster down below to write his own doomed book.