Coco: A Portrait of Vengeance

A Small & Scary Story

May 27, 2025

Blurb: A husband's dark secret comes back to haunt him when his wife commissions a portrait of their deceased dog. A bone-chilling tale of revenge and sins that refuse to stay buried.

The following story is Perfect for fans of psychological horror, ghost stories, and tales of karmic justice. It is rated H for horror.

It is intended for a mature audience.

Reader discretion is advised.

Coco: A Portrait of Vengeance

"What the hell is that?" Tom asked his wife as she did the final adjustments for the abomination she'd hung on their bedroom wall.

"Isn't it precious?" Sasha said, stepping back to check its level.

It was a large oil portrait of a crusty white dog sitting in an antique bassinet stroller. The kind of dog that everyone's grandmother seemed to have, born from a primordial pit of pure evil, and seemingly immortal. Just like the one Sasha had until a month ago. Its eyes bore into him, following him around the room, with intense hate.

"It reminds me of Coco," Tom said, lip and nose curling.

"It is," Sasha said, placing a hand on the vial of cremated ashes that she wore around her neck. "I had it commissioned. I had them mix the ashes I didn't use for my necklace into the paint. Now, it's like she's still here with us. Don't you love it?"

Tom gave a grunt that he hoped she took for stoic male agreement.

He, in fact, did not love it. On the day it died, he breathed a sigh of relief. He’d abhored the creature as much as he loved his wife—deeply, eternally, and with unbridled passion.

Sasha had had the thing since she was a girl, and they were a package deal. An unwanted passenger in his marriage. It had hated him from the beginning, and he it, but he didn't dare make her choose between them. He knew he wouldn’t of liked the outcome. So he'd put up with the piss stains in the carpet, the chewed-up shoes, and the way it would attack him any time he got intimate with Sasha.

"How much was this?"

"Originally seven grand."

"What?" Tom's eyes bugged out.

"Oh, relax. It ended up being free. I wasn't supposed to get it until next week, but the artist called today and demanded I come and pick it up. When I tried to pay them, they refused. Can you believe that?"

"No." And he couldn't. He was a strong proponent of the saying, "Nothing in this world is free."

"Yeah. They were real weird about it. Going on about some nonsense that the dog was moving, cold spots, exorcists, and so much nonsense I can’t even remember it all. But you know what I think? Drugs. It's always drugs with those creative types. But we got a beautiful portrait out of it," she said, as she wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her head against him.

A cold chill danced down his spine, drawing gooseflesh across his skin. He rubbed his hand down Sasha’s arm. “Does it feel cold in here to you?”

She shook her head, “I’ve been working on hanging this, though. That’s got me sweating.”

The TV they kept in the corner of the room snapped to life.

Tom’s heart jumped to his throat, and Sasha let out a gasp. The television hissed static – the distinct buzz sounded eerily like the snarling warnings Coco would issue when they’d touched.

For just a breath of a second, he could swear that he saw Coco’s face in the chaotic black and white screen.

Sasha turned it off and met his eyes.

“You don’t think,” she started, wrapping her hand around her necklace, “That’s her, do you? Her little way of saying she’s still with us? That she likes the painting?”

He gave her a placating smile. Holding his arms wide for her to come back into them.

Tom didn’t believe in ghosts. Especially, animal ghosts. What he did believe was that he couldn’t deal with this painting in his bedroom. He'd just been freed—was starting to feel like he could breathe in his own home, and now the horrible little beast was back.

"Do you think it looks best here? In the bedroom? Maybe downstairs would be better? Maybe in the laundry room?" Maybe the garbage, he thought but was smart enough to keep to himself.

Sasha's head tilted, contemplating before shaking. "No. I think I like it here on the opposite wall from the bed. It's like Coco is watching us sleep. Protecting us."

She headed for the door. "I'm hungry. I think a cucumber sandwich sounds good. Would you like one?"

"A burger sounds better," he said, half joking, half hoping her good mood would lead to a little indulgence.

Sasha laughed and shook her head. "I bet it does. You know that's against doctor's orders. It's bad for your heart. And Coco and I want you around for a lot longer yet."

She laid a gentle hand on the painting and gave it a soft smile before leaving.

Tom turned to the portrait and locked eyes on his worst enemy. He had to get rid of this thing.

Fire was his first thought, but he didn't want to burn his home down if he could help it. He'd call that plan B. Maybe a burglary. He could maybe swing that. Though he didn't think there were any criminals stupid enough to take something this tacky, his wife would likely believe it. After all, she believed the last lie.

"You coming?" Sasha's voice rang from downstairs.

"Yes, dear!" He started toward the door.

But then—wait.

Did the dog's head turn to follow him?

He leaned closer to the painting, inspecting it. It looked so lifelike. He could swear that he even smelled her rotten dog breath. Could hear her growls growing closer.

He shook his head and stepped back. "Having traumatic hallucinations about that damned dog."

"What's that, hun?" Sasha's distant voice came from downstairs.

"Oh, nothing. Just admiring the brushwork!" He yelled back as he grabbed a light sweater from the closet. The cold was getting worse. He needed to check on the thermostat. It had to be set to freezing. “Coming!”

That night, he couldn't sleep. Every time he would doze off, he would dream of that Coco chasing him, its high-pitched barks chasing him around the house, in his office, or his old high school, and jerk awake.

In the dark, he couldn't see the painting on the opposite side of the wall, but could feel it there like a radiant heat. Could feel loathing black eyes watching him. Whether it was the painting or Coco watching from hell, he didn't know. Either way, he knew he wasn't sleeping in this room tonight.

Quiet as a shadow, he slipped from the bed to head downstairs, phone turned to walk by its dim light. Sasha's new medication made her sleep like the dead, and if his tossing, turning, and screaming hadn't woken her, he didn't think him leaving would. Though if it did, he thought, she deserved it for bringing this nightmare fuel into his house.

Like prey, he held his breath as he walked by the painting, stepping heel to toe. When he noticed he was doing it, his face burned with shame. He wasn't some child afraid of the dark. He was a grown man. One who shouldn't be afraid of inanimate objects. He turned to the painting and whisper-hissed, "I'm not scared of you, you little shit."

The stroller he was speaking to was empty.

He darted the light across the painting.

She had to be here.

She can't just move.

There!

He gasped, stumbling back into the bed when he found her in the foreground of the painting.

Had the dog really moved? Wasn’t that what the painter said?

No—No, that was impossible.

He was just misremembering.

But why would the artist paint the dog in the foreground and leave so much space for a meaningless landscape?

No. He was just wrong about where it was before. Sasha was right. The artist was just on drugs. That would explain it all.

Downstairs, he made a makeshift bed on the couch using the pillow and blanket that Sasha had set aside for any guests that stayed over. Though Sasha would disapprove, he thought a midnight snack seemed like the perfect thing to get his mind off the latest bullshit life had thrown his way. Like a thief, he crept to the kitchen and pulled a bag of chips from its hiding spot, and pried them open.

Tick, tick, tick, tick.

He froze. Sweat beading on his brow. He knew that sound well. The sound of little clawed paws against the hardwood floor, summoned by the distinct crinkle of the chips in his hand.

But it couldn’t be.

He turned his head to the side, straining his hearing.

A second passed.

A dozen more.

Nothing.

He must be losing his wits from lack of sleep. He popped a chip in his mouth and went to work making a sandwich. To his delight, he'd finished his chips before starting his sandwich, which meant, by the laws of food science, that he had to open another bag.

He knelt down to the lower cabinet where he kept his stash, behind the Crockpot they only used for the holidays, and pulled out another bag. That was when he smelled it.

He could never forget that smell—the stink of Coco. Wet and musty, even if she hadn't been in the rain. Mildew hidden in matted fur. Baths and brushing did no good and seemed to somehow make it worse. It was as if the dog stank out of pure spite of him. Sasha never noticed. The only scent she cared about was "its delicious popcorn feet." But he could never eat with the dog around; the smell of the thing would cling to his tongue and taint the flavor of anything he put on it.

He slowly turned, eyes scrying the dark for her. The logical part of him, the part that knew she couldn’t be here, shut down, while his lizard brain screamed in mindless terror.

Then he heard the growl.

High-pitched and full of boundless rage.

His attention snapped to the island it was coming from and his lungs froze in his chest.

There, peeking around the corner, was a crusty white dog. Face and fangs twisted in a vicious snarl.

"Coco?"

It began to bark. Little furious snaps that sent spittle flying across the floor.

Tom stood and backpedaled against the counter, half climbing it.

"Easy now, easy girl."

What the hell was going on? Was—was it back from the dead? It couldn't be. They had burned it. Burned it to ash and dust. It couldn’t be!

"Whoa, now. Whoa, girl," he said, holding a palm out defensively. "You want a chip? Remember how you love chips?"

He tossed one at her, and it bounced off her face. She didn't even flinch, never taking her eyes off him.

She was getting closer. Each bark bouncing her little body toward him, inch by inch.

He ran.

Behind him, he heard the furious scratch of claws on the floor as she tried to gain traction. Tiny barks going the whole time.

He aimed for the stairs. In her last years she'd had a hard time climbing them, and it had made the upper part of the house a bastion for him. He hoped that proved true now.

It was too dark for him to see. He knocked over side tables and lamps, tossed himself blindly over the sofa, and had a hand on the railing banister when the runner rug slipped out from underneath him. Teeth cut through his lip as his head slammed against the floor. Blood flooded his mouth, and his vision flared white.

When he opened his eyes, Coco was there.

"Listen. I'm sorry. I thought it was your time. You were old and a pain in the ass—"

Coco's growls grew in intensity.

"—Okay, maybe I was, too. I could have tried harder. But it was your time."

He was lying. They both knew it. It hadn't been her time. According to the vet, she’d been in perfect health. Could live another eighteen years, they said. Maybe go on to break the record for oldest dog with the shape she was in, and Tom . . . he couldn't do it.

One day, while Sasha was at work, he'd forced Coco into her carrier and drove her to a vet in the middle of nowhere that would do whatever, for the right payment, and had her put down.

When Sasha came home that evening and found her baby dead, Tom had pretended to be just as shocked and heartbroken as she was. When all he'd felt was relief.

"But you're all better now, yeah? Crawled back from hell, huh? Sounds like you need a treat. Do you want a treat?"

But he knew that look on Coco's furry face. The only treat she wanted was his blood.

She came at him then. A frenzy of claws and teeth tearing into him.

Tom tried to crawl away, tried to pull himself up the stairs, but needle-like fangs sank into the back of his leg and pulled him back down, erasing any progress he'd made. Untrimmed claws sliced through his pajamas, his skin, his meat.

He kicked at her, and she whipped her head, shaking him like she did her old toys, but now she possessed all the strength of the grave. His body whipped back and forth, slamming his head against the wall. His arms hit against the banister, and he felt them snap. He saw stars, and when they faded and his eyes could focus again, he felt her small weight on his stomach and saw her little asshole in his face.

"What—what are you doing?—"

She looked over her shoulder at him. And if a dog felt elation, she did now.

Claws dug into his stomach, sending skin and blood flying between her legs like tufts of dirt. She buried her muzzle in and dragged out intestines and organs. Tearing them apart like cheap chew toys.

"Bad Coco! No! Sasha! Sasha!" Tom yelled. But no matter how much he screamed, Coco wouldn’t stop, and Sasha wouldn’t come.

When Sasha woke the next morning, she felt refreshed in a way she hadn't in a while. In the area where Coco used to sleep, cradled to her belly, it felt warm. She smiled. Coco was still with her, even if just in spirit.

The painting stood stark against the wall as it caught the early morning sun. Red globs were dripping from around the dog’s muzzle and onto the bassinet that she hadn't noticed before.

"Guess the paint hadn't finished drying." She would contact the artist and see if they could clean it up. She didn't like the red around her baby's mouth. It made her look mean.

She left the bedroom and headed downstairs. "Tom? Are you up? I had the most wonderful dream about Coco and—Oh my god! Tom!"

Upstairs on an oil canvas, a tail began to wag.

Haints, Hollers, & Heresy

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