The Hand

A Hand On the loose

Tim Buckley

©2013

 

THE HAND

 

            Sleep was a faraway dream long after Mom yelled for me to put the horror book away and go lights out. I can’t sleep because, after reading the Hag, my eyes have no lids. They are jolted open by my blood’s replacement--liquid terror. I try to stop my brain from transforming the ghoul’s image into a movie, but can't, and frame by frightful frame I view living viciousness finish off her last gasping, grasping, faceless, voiceless victim.

              The Hag starts by allowing her next man kill ( a man must have been late for a date once, as always it's a man kill) to smell her rotting, putrid flesh. Next, when the prey senses this hunter’s presence, his breath vaporizes, turns to ice and falls to the floor with a tinkle as it hit’s, the only sound heard. It’s then the monster silently glides to his bed.  Her eyes glow red from a worm eaten, green face; her claw-like hand reaches with experienced precision to his throat, and…

            "Ahhh!  Jeff, you jerk!"  I yell at my older brother who had just flicked on the light.  "Do you have to be so quiet when you come into a room?"

            "Aw, shut up," Jeff replied in his sensitive big brother way, "I thought you were asleep. You had just better stop reading those stupid ghost stories before bed is all."  With that, he jumped into the bunk under mine.

          Darkness restored, only minutes pass before my mind again paints pictures from printed page and I view the same scene with unasked detail.  My body tightens as if at my last dentist's visit; instinctively, one hand protects my neck, the other my stomach, in case I have to deflect the Hag's fingernails,   sharp enough to clean fish.  I also sniff the air for putrid flesh. I smell it! The sickest, most vile odor! Man could not invent such stench, so it must be the man killer!

            "Got a cold Tim?" Asks the real monster below me. 

            "Why no, Jeff.  I'm just sniffing the night air.”

            “Good,” he replied, “I farted.”

            “I hope you marry a nose-less girl, Jeff. Hey, what movie did you see tonight. Was it good?"  I really didn't care if his movie was worth a quarter or not; I was just hoping a conversation about cars, girls or war would dissolve my fears.

            "I saw The Hand." Jeff said, in a low, moaning voice.

            The Hand! Knowing I had better be quiet before Jeff launch into a  repetition twice as scary as the movie, I said goodnight and rolled over. Too late. Jeff sensed my mood, and, like the Hag closing in on yet another poor slob,  began to weave The Hand story to me with “punished when Dad gets home” suspense and “spider on my blanket” tension.

            "And after they killed the guy, his Hand would not die until it got revenge!" Jeff finished with a scrape-thud of The Hand crawling to its next Adam's apple.

            "So they finally killed the Hand, didn't they?  And the lady promised the hero she would never wear Playtex Living Gloves again, right?"

            "NO!" Jeff moaned. "It still lives this very day, looking for its final kill. Moohahahaaa."  Then he burped and rolled over, signifying conversation's end.

            Now distrusting even my hands covering vital areas, my eyes collect dust while staring for dread in the dark. All I see are night molecules. But I did hear my heart pump while listening for approaching death. That was cool.  An hour passed and then I perceive a passive sound.

            Scrape-thud.

            "Jeff, you awake?"

            Scrape-thud!  Closer. Louder.

            "C'mon Jeff, I know you're awake!" But my imagination saw The Hand kill him already, and I was next on its five-fingered hit list.

            Scrape-thud!!

            "Ahhhh!" Turning to the window--my only escape--and forgetting it was three stories up, I dove out.

            Dad and Mom were surprised to hear the doorbell ring so late, and dumbfounded to find their 10-year old son on the porch. Especially when I showed them the dented frying pan I had landed on with my head. I guess I was crying over some murderous Hand.  Until the full story unfolded: then, there was one other scream in the night.  It came from Jeff, as Dad proved with a spanking that his was THE hand to fear.

 

Reviews

[Marie]

I started laughing halfway through. oor tim--i'm guessing that's you. I've seen several versions of "The Hand"...all really silly...

I'm glad to see some work from you.