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Pearl

“Pearl!”

I jolted as the door to the Brush Masters’ office banged open. The windows rattled and a stack of paint catalogs skidded across the floor like startled birds. My dad, Bert Richardson, stood in the doorway with a grin on his face, a half-eaten jelly donut in one hand and a crumpled sheet of paper in the other.

It was barely ten a.m., and already the old box fan behind my desk was doing nothing but pushing warm air in circles. The overhead light buzzed faintly and cast a yellow sheen across the piles of invoices and paint samples cluttered on every available surface.

“We got a job!”

he said and stepped inside, powdered sugar trailing behind him like confetti.

I set down the estimate I’d been reworking for the third time that morning and leaned back in my chair.

“Is it the lake house in Delmore? Because Mrs. Garvey still hasn’t confirmed her budget.”

“Nope. Bigger. Better. We’re going to Skull Island.”

That woke me up.

“Skull Island?”

He grinned wider and dropped the paper onto my desk.

“The haunted house. Full repaint, inside and out. It’s a big one. They want it fast, and they want it custom.”

I blinked.

“Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. You ever paint a torture chamber before?”

“Not unless you count that foreclosure in Baraton with the mildew walls.”

He chuckled and brushed powdered sugar off his faded polo.

“These guys run a tight schedule. The haunted house stays open to the public, so we’ll have to work around them. That means early mornings and full daylight hours—no night shifts. They won’t be shutting it down.”

I picked up the sheet. It was a rough scope of work: exterior facade, multiple rooms, custom mural options. Two to three weeks. Multiple-story building. Specialized finishes. Weathered textures. Faux rust and aging. That sort of thing was right up my alley. I was the artsy one in the family; Dad was logistics. I made things look good. He made sure they stuck to the wall.

“Who contacted us?”

“A guy named Push. Works for the Kings of Anarchy. He said they saw our work on the high school gym and liked the way you handled the mural.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“The Kings of Anarchy? As in, the motorcycle club?”

He nodded.

“They own the island. Run the tours, haunted house, all of it.”

Everyone knew the Kings. Their name carried weight in the region, and not just in the scary-biker-rumor-mill kind of way. They ran Skull Island with eerie efficiency, and while no one talked much about what happened behind the scenes, they weren’t known for screwing around.

I leaned back in my chair.

“So let me get this straight. We’re painting a haunted house owned by a motorcycle club with a reputation for keeping secrets and breaking bones. While it’s open for business. During daylight hours.”

“Yup.”

“Cool. No pressure,”

I scoffed.

Dad smirked.

“You’re going. Monday morning. You’ll do the walk-through with their guy.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’ve got the creative eye, kid. They want texture. Illusions. Visual storytelling. They want more than a coat of paint slapped on old walls. They want an experience. That’s your thing.”

He wasn’t wrong. I’d always gravitated toward artistic work: murals, faux finishes, layered effects that told a story. I loved the details. The challenge.

But still.

“You think they’re legit?”

“They paid a fifty percent deposit already. That’s more than legit. It’s a lifeline.”

He wasn’t wrong there either. Work had been slow. Slower than usual. We’d scraped through spring on a mix of residential repaints and commercial touch-ups, but we were down two contracts, and our last power washer had died a dramatic, watery death. This job could carry us through the dry spell.

“Alright,”

I said and flipped through the packet.

“I’ll prep a list. We’ll need matte finishes, textured paints, maybe some metallics for light tricks. I’ll pull reference samples for weathering, burn effects, aged stonework, that kind of thing.”

“That’s my girl,”

Dad said with a satisfied nod.

“Oh, and they want us to repaint the exterior facade too. Full Gothic refresh.”

I groaned.

“That’s going to take scaffolding. And hours of detail work. I’ll have to sketch it all out first.”

“They’ll give you a tour of the place. Get a feel for the layout. And you know you’ve got the crew to help you.”

He clapped me on the shoulder and turned toward the door.

“You’ll kill it, Pearl. You always do.”

By early afternoon, I was elbows-deep in prep. I’d commandeered the back table in the workshop, dragged out my old project binders, and flipped through folders of faux finish references. The air smelled like paint thinner and coffee. The steady hum of the box fan buzzed in the background while I laid out paint chips like tarot cards.

I labeled folders: EXTERIOR - FAUX STONEWORK. INTERIOR - DUNGEON ROOM TEXTURES. MAZE - OPTICAL ILLUSIONS. I pulled samples from our storage room: grit-infused wall coatings, crackle glazes, smoke-ash finishes. Anything that could sell the illusion of decay without actually damaging the building’s structure.

The interior rooms, based on the notes Dad had given me, included themed chambers like an execution room, a twisted nursery, a fire-damaged parlor, and crypt tunnels. All designed to creep people out, and all needed repainting and enhancements.

We’d need daylight-only scheduling. That meant early starts, probably 4 or 5 a.m. to beat the tourist crowd that would be piling in after dinner time.

I chewed the end of a pen while I scrolled through online references. Flame wash textures. Faux scorch marks. Peeling lead-effect latex. It was going to be a monster job. But it would also be fun.

Later that evening, I sat on my front porch with a glass of lemonade and my sketchpad in my lap. My knees were sore from crouching, and my fingertips were stained with charcoal and graphite.

I’d already sketched out two mural concepts. One was an illusion for the staircase wall, a hallway that stretched into impossible darkness. The other was a grotesque gallery of stretched faces, meant for a room labele.

“The Collector.”

My mind kept drifting, though.

Skull Island.

I’d never been. Never wanted to. The stories alone were enough to make me steer clear. I was not into being scared intentionally. No, thank you.

Still. This was just a job. Paint was paint.

Right?

I exhaled and glanced down at my sketchpad. My latest drawing was a half-finished mural, a woman surrounded by shadows, her eyes wide, her mouth slightly open, as if she were about to scream or confess.

I figured whoever I would be meeting with on Monday would have more details on what they would want, but I wanted to go in with examples of what I could do. My weekend was going to be nothing but drawing and daydreaming until I saw the island with my own eyes.

Monday couldn’t come soon enough.