Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - The Damned Spirits Dance A Collector's Descent into the Madness of HG Bittaker’s Art #60

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales #hauntedart #possessedpaintings #descentintomadness #artcurse #paranormalhorror  When an art collector acquires a series of bizarre, disturbing paintings by the reclusive artist HG Bittaker, he believes he’s found forgotten genius. But with each new piece, his life begins to unravel—plagued by hallucinations, whispers in the dark, and visions of the damned dancing in the canvas. As the line between art and nightmare blurs, the collector realizes too late that some creations weren’t meant to be admired—but feared. A gothic descent into madness through cursed imagery and haunted history.  horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales, hauntedart, cursedpaintings, artcollectorhorror, madnessandart, hgbittaker, descentintomadness, possessedobjects, evilartifacts, psychologicalhaunting, gothicterror, visualnightmare, cursedcollection, obsessionhorror, darknesswithin

I had always liked collecting rare books and paintings with the extra money I made trading stock options on the side. My small, two-bedroom house was cluttered with them. I had bookshelves filled with original signed copies of works by Stephen King, Philip K., Dick and Hunter S. Thompson that I had saved for years. I also tried to find ascending painters in the local art scene and buy up some of their works for very low prices before they got discovered. Sometimes it worked out, and sometimes it didn't, but as a whole, I had made far more money than I had lost over the decades. All of the works I liked most, though, I refused to sell at any price. And these included the paintings of H.G. Bittaker. After his mysterious death a few years ago, they had gotten the same kind of reputation as paintings done by serial killers like John Wayne Gacey that were sold openly, sometimes for tens of thousands of dollars, on the internet.

And like Gacy's strange portraits of Snow White or The Seven Dwarves or Grinning Clowns, Bittacker's paintings all had a sinister and otherworldly pull. I had kept them locked up in a storage unit, but when the storage company told me they would be doubling their rates, I decided to close the unit and take everything in it back to my house. I set up the macabre paintings around my room and the hallways, remembering the strange conversation I had with the artist just days before his untimely death. People like to say that life is art and meaningless platitudes like that, H. G. Bittaker had said as he stood in front of a painting of a victim of murder made to look like Shiva dancing the Tandava. The black, eyeless sockets of the victim stared straight out at the viewer. His mouth was open, showing a spiraling galaxy of shining stars hidden within. For emaciated, pale arms jutted out from the sides of the starving body, bent in the same posture as Shiva's eternal cosmic dance. the arms showed signs of torture patches of burnt and melted flesh eaten into the body like a cancer one mutilated leg was lifted into the air in a half-kicking motion deep gashes were sliced into its skin and muscle revealing the white bone gleaming underneath the emaciated dancer stood on a mountain of hundreds of skulls many of them with fragments of hair and pieces of gore still clinging to the bone feeling slightly sickened i turned away chugging the entire bottom of beer I held in a few long swallows. But you know what I think? I think death is the true art, H. G. Bittaker continued, his gray eyes flashing over me. They looked flat and lifeless,

as if all the hope had long ago been sucked out of this young artist. His face was narrow and serious with high cheekbones and clothescropped black hair. It is the gateway to eternity, after all. The best art comes not from love of life, but from love of death and annihilation. I nodded as if I understood, though in reality, I didn't know what he was getting at. I figured he was just another eccentric artist rambling about philosophies he barely understood. So what inspired you to paint this piece, for example? I said, glancing at the Macawb Murder Victim piece. It had a small white placard next to it that red.

The Dan Spirits Dance the Tandava H. G. Bittaker 2022 Oil, marker, hair, blood. I recognized immediately that the placard showed the name of the piece, the artist, the year it was created and the materials used to create the piece. But it had to be a joke. I squinted at the last line, reading it over again.

All around us, people chattered softly as they sipped wine and sodas, moving slowly around the The entire exhibit showed dozens of H. G. Bittaker paintings, all of them extremely disturbing. I saw a painting of mass graves under a cold, black sky with rings like those of Saturn extending far out into the void. Next to it stood one of a monk burning himself alive while sitting in complete peace. This piece was inspired from a dream I had, or maybe, I should call it a nightmare. Do you know what the Tandava is? H. G. Bittaker asked me, his gray eyes flashing with excitement for the first time that night. I shook my head, but I leaned close, interested. The Hindus believe that we exist in an

eternal multiverse where countless universes are constantly being created and destroyed. The multiverse exists as the body of Vishnu the maintainer, which stretches out forever outside of time. His maintenance is really just the ultimate reality from which all universes constantly spring. They say that the individual creator God for each universe arises out of Vishnu's naval. The Creator is only a finite God with limited power, a being who they call Brahma. Brahma eventually ages and dies, just like the universe itself. For, you see, Brahma the Creator is by far the weakest of the three. The eternal presence of the multiverse and the omnipresent power of death and destruction are much more powerful. When a universe has grown and

ancient, when it has started to turn gray and fade towards death, one far more powerful than the creator appears, Shiva the destroyer. At that point, he begins his final dance for that universe, the Tandava, it is called. After Shiva starts to dance the Tandava, it cannot be stopped until everything in the universe is destroyed. He dances faster and faster until all the remaining matter and energy is annihilated, released back into consciousness. He does this not out of hatred or spite, you understand, but out of love for all beings. In the destruction of the universe, Enlightenment shines through, and the pure consciousness released can be used to start the process of creation again. So you asked about what inspired this particular piece? Well, in one

recurring nightmare I had, I saw this man, this pale victim of some death camp, I guess. His eyes have been cut out. His still body lay on top of a mass grave of rotting bodies with maggots writhing in his skin and hair. He showed clear signs of torture before the merciful release of death took him away. The many arms of the hundreds of other victims lying beneath him started to slither up like snakes, as if the dead were slowly coming back to life. It was like they were trying to reach upwards, trying to reach towards freedom from the rotting pit of horrors they found themselves in. The man on top, the one you see in this painting here, lifted his head and looked straight at me. His blue lips

twitched and he abruptly inhaled again, but it sounded like his throat was filled with blood and dirt. Finally, he opened his mouth and, with a gurgling wail that seemed to come straight from hell itself, he spoke. Everything is growing old and sick here, he hissed at me. The dance will begin again soon, and then the sky went black and a burning cold descended on the world. A freezing wind blew. I looked up into the sky and felt something dreadful and powerful hidden within those swirling currents of darkness. Through the black mist, I could see the barest silhouette of something massive, something whose entire body stretched across the sky and I saw it was dancing. After the art show, I had gone home and thought deeply about the words the tortured

artist had said. His gray, lifeless eyes kept flashing through my mind. That night, I drank myself into a blackout, until the merciful release of sleep took away the cycle of thoughts that seemed to repeat in my mind like a skipping record. It was three days later, after I had gotten home from work late, that I saw the news. I remember walking into my house and turning on the flat screen TV as I poured myself a full glass of whiskey. Within minutes, I had chugged the entire thing. I knew that I drank too much, that I couldn't stop, and that, eventually, my addiction would probably kill me. I figure that, in the end, I would follow millions of other alcoholics off that dark cliff of fatal addiction into eternity. Breaking news suddenly flashed across the screen as a TV reporter stood in front of an expensive apartment building under a dark, cloudless sky.

It was a ritsy, expensive part of town near the art gallery. Police cars filled the street behind her as she smoothed a long lock of hair behind her ear. She blinked fast at the camera, seeming to finally. realize she was live. I'm here with Channel 5 News in front of the Angel Trace apartment building where police are investigating multiple bodies found inside one of the residences. We have heard reports from police that the body of the locally renowned artist H. G. Bittacker was also recovered at the crime scene. Police refused to say what connection, if any, Mr. Bittaker may have had with, I rose from my chair, frantically shutting off the TV. The strange conversation I had with the artist a few

days ago flashed through my mind over and over. But now, the conversation seemed more sinister. Later that night, I went over to the computer and started doing some research. On various internet forums, I found strange things floating around. Those investigating the case said the victims were found chained inside H.G. Bittaker's apartment and that the police believed he had died from suicide. A lot of this was still speculation and rumor. While much of it was unconfirmed at first, within a couple days, it would all be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. As I would find out over time, the bodies of eight women were laid around H.G. Bittaker in a shape like a lotus petal. They showed signs of extensive, prolonged torture before their inevitable

deaths from strangulation. Like the painting I had seen in the gallery, these victims had their eyes cut out from their sockets. They had their arms and legs burned or doused in some corrosive acid, and strange occult symbols had been carved into the chests and stomachs of their naked, mutilated bodies. They had suffered greatly before the merciful release of oblivion. In the center of the circle of death, the police had found the body of H. G. Bittaker himself. He had burned himself alive while sitting in the full lotus position. The neighbors had noticed the choking clouds of black smoke that reeked of searing meat and gasoline. They kicked the door down only to find a den of horrors waiting beyond. H. G. Bittaker had still been alive at that point, they said,

and he had shown no signs of pain at all as he sat there, burning. Fat sizzled off his body in drops as his skin blackened and cooked. The neighbors extinguished the fire before it could spread, but by then, H. G. Bittaker was dead. Apparently, H. G. Bittacker had his own personal library with countless leather-bound tomes on the occult and practices of human sacrifice. Books about the thuggies and ancient devotional practices to both Kali and Shiva were also found scattered all over the apartment. After hearing this, I did some research about the thuggies, a group of cultists in India who were estimated to have murdered up to two million people and where the word thug came from. They were cultists who would waylay travelers on the road, strangling them or breaking their necks with special nooses or silk handkerchiefs. The thuggies were devoted followers of the goddess of death and destruction, Callie.

They believed they were saving the world by murdering innocent travelers in cold blood, for they offered these victims to the goddess Callie. They hoped their sacrifices would keep Callie sati satiated, so that she would not descend and destroy the entire world in a dancing inferno of death and destruction. As I sat in front of the computer with a glass of scotch in my hand, my head started to feel like it was spinning from all the strangeness of the case. It seemed like I had many breadcrumbs here that must connect in some way, but for the life of me, I could not figure out how. Before the night was over, however, I would understand everything. I glanced behind me at the painting

I had bought from H. G. Bittaker after the arts how, the one showing the emaciated death camp victim dancing the cosmic Tendava. The eyeless sockets of that pale face seemed to stare directly into my soul. I shuddered, turning away and back to my empty glass. I ended up refilling my glass to the brim with some expensive scotch while I did my research. I leaned back in the computer chair with a long sigh before sipping the burning liquid that loosened the knots of anxiety and dread in my heart. As I sat alone in that dark room, only the glare of the monitor sent the skittering shadows away. Behind me, the painting continuously stared at me from the wall, grinning like a skull. I must have passed out at some point.

The anesthetizing fog of the alcohol descended slowly over my mind. I don't remember falling asleep, but I certainly remember waking up. The room was totally dark now, the monitor having shut off. I blinked slowly, my head feeling hazy. The room seemed to spin around me. I couldn't see the spin. but I could feel it thrumming through my whole body. My stomach was churning. My throat felt dry, as if I had been sipping hydrochloric acid. But why had I woken up suddenly? I didn't know.

I felt confused, and everything seemed slow. I was still drunk, I knew, though some of the fog seemed to have cleared as I slept. I heard a floorboard groaned behind me. There was a sudden ragged inhalation of breath, a slow, pain gurgling, as if someone were choking on their own blood. The diseased inhalation and exhalation rang out through the silence. I heard a skittering of light footsteps and the slamming of a door. I fumbled in my pocket for my cigarette lighter, pulling it out and flicking it. I stumbled out of the chair, holding the small, flickering light in front of me like a shield. It barely drove the shadows back.

They seemed to press in all around me like the spikes of an iron maiden. I got to the light and tried flicking it, but the power had gone off for some reason. Sweating and nervous, I stopped and listened. I heard the stairs creak. Off in the distance, that gurgling breathing continued. I swore under my breath. It must be a robber, I thought. Someone probably broke in while I passed out and cut the circuit breaker.

I looked around the room for a weapon when I noticed something truly bizarre. My lighter flicked over the painting I kept hanging on the wall, the one called, The Damned Spirits Dance the Tandava. It looked different, and I immediately realized why. The skulls piled on the black earth at the bottom of the painting still gleamed in the dim glare of the lighter's flame, but the dancing, eyeless man in the painting had disappeared. The stars glimmered in the endless void in the background with their cold white light. It had to be a joke, I thought to myself.

But why would someone go to this length? I lived alone and had few friends. Certainly no one would break in and swap a painting as some kind of prank. I spotted a metal letter opener over on the desk. It wasn't much, but it was all I had up here. I grabbed it and left the room, heading downstairs. I no longer heard any movement or breathing down there, but I felt some sort of presence, as if the shadows themselves had eyes that were watching me.

I felt as if I were in some sort of nightmare as I descended the stairs. The wood groaned softly under my weight. My heart pounded as I moved forward. As I reached the bottom step, that diseased gurgling rang out nearby. I spun, seeing the naked, emaciated body with the forearms standing at the window in the dark kitchen, staring blindly out into the world with his black sockets of eyes. The strange man turned to face me. His face split into a grin, revealing the brown,

rotted teeth hidden beneath and the maggot squirming in his putrefying tongue and gums. What do you want? I whispered, terrified. Who are you? The grin seemed to widen further, the decaying flesh splitting along the seams of his lips. Dark, clotted blood dripped down from the torn flaps of skin on his cheeks. Do you not recognize me, John, the dark. the thing spoke in a voice that writhed with sickness and death. But, at the same time, I recognized it.

It was the voice of H. G. Bittacker, the dead artist and serial killer. I mixed my own blood and the blood of those holy ones who gave their lives to me with the paintings. Even strands of their hair are in there, dried between the layers of paint. Strands of their hair and mine. Our essences have mixed, the killer and killed, the strong and weak, the prong, the weak, the perpetrator and the victim, and the deathless self shines through all of it. Now I have gone beyond death. The pale man stepped towards me, his mutilated legs cracking as the stiff limbs twisted and jerked, as if fighting the effects of rigor mortis.

I'm dreaming, I said, backpedling away as he advanced on me. This can't be real. You're dead. You burned yourself alive. It was all over the news, God damn it. With inhuman speed, the mutilated man oozed towards me, grabbing me by the head with his cold, dead hands. The skin felt loose, almost falling off the bone, and the smell of rot and putrefaction emanated from the body in thick clouds. I have made a friend of death, he hissed through his blackened teeth as maggots dripped from his blue lips.

You, too, will find peace in death. He lunged forward suddenly. I felt his sharp splinters of broken teeth sink into my neck. A scream ripped its way out of my throat as I thrashed and kicked. Through the haze of pain, I abruptly remembered the letter opener in my hand. I brought it up into the body of the naked, rotting corpse, slicing deeply across his stomach. The thin skin burst open with a waterfall of clotted blood running out like sludge. The brown intestines of the corpse inside spilled out, writhing with hundreds of large, like pale worms that feasted on the dead flesh. The pale man gave a hissing scream. Black

blood burst from his mouth, covering my face in its sickly spatters. My hands grew slick as my blood mixed with the fetid fluids dripping from the animated corpse. He pulled away with a banshee whale. I collapsed to the floor, holding my spirting neck with both hands as I slowly crawled away. I heard a window shatter behind me. Looking back, I saw a the kitchen empty. The pale man had apparently jumped through the front window, leaving pieces of his decaying flesh hanging from the jagged shards of glass. With the last of my strength, I slowly made my way toward the front door. Feeling weak and sick, stumbling as blood poured from my neck, I made my way to the neighbor's house. I pounded on their door,

collapsing on the mat as they opened it. When I got home from the hospital, I went upstairs to look at the painting. A deep sense of curiosity mixed with an overwhelming dread as I opened the door. I saw the pile of skulls, the stars like fragments of opal, but the pale victim at the center of the painting was gone forever. The end.