Wall Of Hands Part 2 [A Horror Story]

Part 2 written by Vander of Lifebly (All references and descriptions are fictional.)

“Mom, Dad!!!” I shouted at the top of my lungs as I noticed their full figures appearing in the distance, soon fading into the smoky horizon. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I couldn’t hold in the longing within me. I heard Mom’s voice saying as she sauntered away with Dad, “Baby, listen to your heart and your fears will go.” What fears? How did she know I was afraid? I was getting confused at her words. Then a beep in my head followed, and I awake to white light, blinding track lights that casted shadows at a direction. I looked at the cool daylight bulb on the ceiling lights. Taking in the macro view around, I found myself back in my bedroom. Prompt to retracing my prior steps and situation when I was at the library, I raised a palm over my forehead to check if I was running a fever. Right, I’m neither too hot nor cold to warrant a fever. So why was I lightheaded and tripped out? Suddenly, my stepmother (not the first of my concerns) peered into my door and hollered “You weren't eating at all, were you? School gave me a call, alerted on your knockout. Doc had you checked and you’re fine though.”

As if nothing happened, stepmom disappeared from the doorway, leaving her trail of steps heard going down the stairs. Ain’t surprising, considering I wasn’t really her child. Like always, I got up and changed into my old pajamas to rest in bed. My body still felt weak and dehydrated, so I took a long chug of water from the bottle at my nightstand. There at once, feeling grave and unnerving, it was there. In the water bottle. Several dead white tiny hands swirled around the water, clocking a sudden few spins of water spirals with intricate fingers lifting off every hand. In sync with every other pair of hands, basked in a trance ritual. About seven pairs of these little hands, possibly a centimetre each moving in synchronisation to the circulating water coil in reactive state. Blinking and looking at it again, this time holding it up to my huge eyes up-close, they were quickly gone. Have I gone batshit nuts? Please, allow me to retreat. I dipped back to bed and retired into a nap.

I knew the taste of hurt. Hurt is heavy, drowning your hopes out as it tucks away mind reasoning, body ready to consume more soul. Hurt had an unwelcoming familiarity begetting demise to bare ends. After getting called to dinner, in a huge sweat, I hurried out of bed and turned off the room lights. As the air got cooler, I’ve changed into a pair of fresh jumper and joggers, scuttling along and heading downstairs. I hated dinnertime at home. It was always the same routine of discussing bad news in town on modest Chinese meals. Today, like days before, the main talk at the table was still the coronavirus out up to speed spreading to cities worldwide, and life was not so normal with panic buys, frantic hoarders, and business closures. People were anxious about a pandemic, which the WHO has yet to admit. Stepmom and dad were speaking at disbelief, trying to rationalise the decisions of the authorities and sympathising by folks’ intentions. In between, they reached for the plates in front to grab a piece of chicken and broccoli, distraught at the occurrence of the sweeping health catastrophe. Visualising those hands again in the water glass on the dinner table, I course to remember the water spirals mediated by their cryptic movements. For reasons I know not of, I’m not spooked as I should be. My exhaustion might have nullified the sensing creeps. Hands, what are those hands?

The next day after school, I swung by the ice cream store for work. The new manager, a friendly, burly potbelly middle-aged guy was happy to see me. Being polite, I smile wryly, not so much to be liked but to reciprocate in return. Above the register on the wall attached the arranged schedule for this week, spotting my name on specific days after school hours for duty. Mr. Manager (I’ve nicknamed him Pots) instructed a tour downstairs to a basement where stocks and supplies were kept for the store, so I would be informed of inventory and store administration. At the end, there is a silver door opened, leading to a generously empty cellar set in white bricks on all four walls. Now this got to be a pretty excuse to keep an excellent stash of wines, smooth thinking, in my head. Cursory, my eyes glanced over the spacious cellar and something at the back ensnared my eye. On one side of the walls, rested several pairs of white hands hooked on securely to the brick. Porcelain-coated, some with minor chips and cracks but in the entirety retained its pristine. Not so midget in the water bottle, this time now. Pots intervened at once saying, “Oh those. Decorative indeed. Owner left behind. Quite the taste actually, a bit the sinister. Props for a show probably?” Those hands however, appeared like they had once, twice or more, moved. As I continue staring on as though struck to the ground by lightning at the multiple sets of white hands hanging almost camouflaged to the walls, Pots gave a smack on my shoulder in an abrupt mention, “Get over here and help me with these boxes!” shutting the cellar door behind us. God forbid, certainly, that one of the hands were jiggling on the brick as we ascended the basement.

Disclaimer: All poetry and fiction here are original material written by Vander. Please note that all text references, descriptions and indications are purely fictional (make-believe if you didn’t know what fiction is!) and is in no relation to any actual entities.

Wall Of Hands Part 1 [A Horror Story]

Part 1  written by Vander of Lifebly (All references and descriptions are fictional.)

At 4 am, I saw a ghost of the past on a chair. It had the slightest grey tint of a shadow with white hands resting on the armrest. Completely still, it bore an air of ill displacement and sad misfortune. It’s frayed old attire suggested someone from the 1930s or 40s period, but I couldn’t even tell for what decade the dress code was as a person dropping out and having flung history lessons. I narrowed my eyes, fixated but drew it back as I got tired identifying the clothing’s era on that apparition. Learning and remembering history was mundane pain in class even as a college freshman who bothered to pen notes on paper on the side. Yes, call me dumb in my head, but truthfully honest and innocent at heart. You may perceive me as pure, I don’t know. And oh, by the way. I hate ghosts. Not because I fear them, but I see them all the time. Most days, they just have a little unfinished business and keep a distance. This one though, had a grieving darkness I could not quite grapple and understand. Something like a thicker fog, which never clears the path but grows heavier till it wolfs down everything. It had an overwhelming tenacious weight that could suck you in instantly, like a magnet being pulled into the unknown which likely kills in a second without warning, if one may imagine. 

Now, you may ask me. Why the hell am I looking at this ghost right now? Well, I was, working on my term assignment. It was homework at the ungodly hour, burning the midnight oil away. I had troubles sleeping so I got up to work on it two days before the deadline was due. I needed to get it done now, so I could use the extra time for a new part-time job at the ice cream store that just opened two weeks ago. I’ve nailed the interview for that, and it starts tomorrow, after class. Jolly great. Saving more money to move out of my step-parents’ home. Right, my current mom and dad are not my real parents. Just my parents’ friends who had indulged in collective sympathy, adopting me home into their household one day after the car accident that left everyone in my family dead, including my baby brother, here I solely survived. I was not at the scene, and I wasn’t really crying my balls out even then. Staring at the ceiling for almost a year and remaining practically mute throughout wherever I went was all I did, basically, for mourning. 

Gawd, this ghost looked a gruesome dead. It reeked of a peculiar sour stench, like a decayed dumpster of overexpired carcasses and all foul things in a morose. As I sniffed and unassumingly let out a leaky outlet of nasal sounding, the ghostly figure turned its face at me as though it heard. That thing revealed its eyes in a split second, parts of its eyelids exposed in convulsing flesh while registering my presence. Stunned to the bone in sobriety, I let out a scream. Bolting across the living area, tripping over my sleeping dog (this one’s absolutely too stoney for it’s own good) albeit balancing my fall with sturdy arms aligned to a pivot crawl up the stairs, I darted straight to my room, ducking right away into the covers of my bed. Trembling and fumbling at any pillow to hide my head properly well, to brace contact if it arises. That…….that, that, tttthhhh, that…that was a hideous, Machiavellian face of resentment and rancorous destruction which lost the whole damn darn way, possibly a hell’s league from anything quite remotely good. Or should I say already tarnished the sacred? I panicked, heart racing in action for a fight or flight. The whole night I quivered in fear and did not shut either eye for an hour. By morning, my drained energy drove me quite insane but I picked myself up for school anyway. Shit, I’ve actually hustled to school on time. On both numb, jellied feet.

The event of a ghastly encounter last night kept me awake all the way till lunch. It made me irrationally pacing back and forth, destabilised and frightened than ever at the mere thought of it where our eyes met, discharging a repulsive terror none the least anticipated or preferred. My lunch tray which was a sandwich and a milk carton was left untouched as I huddled alone in a corner at the noisy canteen. That memory of a creepy insidious face compelled my turtle-shell life to end ruptured in chaos to confront and vouch if whatever that entity was in any, anyyy bit normal. Sure didn’t look like Halloween rehearsal! Hours later, when classes ended, I rang up the ice cream store with the best excuse of being sick in period pains, scoring the day’s off successfully, the smartsy bailed part-timer. I must investigate that nightmare of a figure I saw. Now, my curiosity is leading the madness in my head. Going towards the school hallway and into the library doors, I removed my laptop from my tote swiftly turning it on and sweatily start looking up on that evil with monstrous white hands. Mentally hungry for clues, I banged in the keywords that came to my mind and a pool of related search results appeared. A linked article caught my eye instinctively at interest, insinuating me to select a news headline which said, “Scientist, dead in hill’s house found with collection of murdered hands”. As I begin to read on hastily, an intense wave of fatigue caught on, snapped me off and before long, my body caved in as I collapsed on the floor of the library.

Disclaimer: All poetry and fiction here are original material written by Vander. Please note that all text references, descriptions and indications are purely fictional (make-believe if you didn’t know what fiction is!) and is in no relation to any actual entities.