Hands

Hands



         “Do what I say and you won’t get hurt,” the man said, loudly and with authority.
Ted grimaced. That rang untrue, in his opinion. If life was similar to one big film, then that comment did not bode well at all for Ted. In fact, quite the opposite.
“Just keep your head on, son,” Ted muttered, angry.
He was just as angry at himself as he was at this young man. He knew he should never have stopped on the side of the road to pick him up. But something about the guy had convinced him it would be alright. He didn’t look too threatening. Long hair, tied back in a pony tail, scarf wrapped around his neck. Ted hadn’t sensed any danger. Then again, clearly he knew nothing about sensing danger.
“I don’t think you should be telling me what to do there, old man. I’ll goddamn well tell you what’s going to be happening. I’m calling the shots around here. Including the gun shots,” the guy replied, laughing at his own joke, somewhat hysterically.
Again, Ted grimaced. But he kept his eyes on the road, concentrating on driving. But he could feel the blade of the knife on his belly, through the shirt he was wearing. He remained silent.
“I’m glad you agree there, old man,” the guy said.
Ted remained silent. He had been held at gun-point, so to speak, for nearly twenty minutes now. The hitchhiker didn’t really seem to have any particular destination in mind. He had just been saying directions almost randomly, it seemed. But they were in a pretty deserted area now. Trees lined both sides of the road. They seemed to be in some sort of a back road. Deserted. Isolated.
“I could end you right now, old man,” the young hiker said, mocking Ted.
Ted continued to frown straight ahead. But then glanced at the other man, who was staring intently at the gun. As if it had some strange control over him.
Power.
That’s what amazed the young guy about the gun. The control over Ted, that was gifted to the man by using the gun. Ted figured him to be a coward. Needed a weapon to assert control. Pathetic. No better than attacking someone from behind, Ted figured.
“Do you want me to?” the man asked.
“No,” Ted grunted, restraining from making a comment about how stupid that question really was.
“Can’t hearrrr you,” the man said, raising his voice, still taunting.
“No,” Ted snapped, angry now.
“Don’t get grumpy now, old man. I’m the one with the…” He trailed off.
Ted glanced over to see why. The man’s eyes were on the road up ahead now. Ted glanced, saw what he was looking at.
“Woooooowheee,” the young hiker said, whistling afterwards.
A woman. Up ahead. About forty feet.
“Would ya look at that?” the hiker asked.
Ted did. But he kept quiet. Driving on.
Then he heard what he had feared.
“Pull over, old man.”
He didn’t want to. He really didn’t. But he had little, if any choice here. Maybe he could disarm the man while he was distracted anyway. So he slowed the car. Then stopped.
The young man swung open his door, and climbed out, leaving the door open, tucking the gun down the back of his trousers. The woman had been walking in the same direction as the car, so her back was still to the man, now about twenty feet away.
The young hiker whistled to her, and she turned, frowned for a moment, then grinned at them She started to jog towards them. The young hiker slammed the door shut, leaving Ted inside, to think of how best to go about this situation. The young woman was an added complication that he really did not need right now.
Ted watched the young man walk around to the front of the car. He looked over his shoulder and grinned at Ted. Ted scowled back at him, but the young hiker didn’t seem to care. His attention was back on the girl. She slowed as she got nearer the car, and then walked to stand in front of the man. She looked past him for a second, grinned and waved at Ted, then turned her attention back to the hiker.
         Ted watched. The conversation continued for a couple of minutes. And then seemed to get more heated. Ted watched as the young hiker became visibly more agitated. He started moving towards the woman, looming over. Ted grimace again. This couldn’t be good. He started to open his door and climb out. However, the younger man heard the door, swivelled on his heels and shot any icy glance at Ted.
“Back in the car, old man,” he said, voice rising once again.
Ted slowly got back in the car, closing the door gently behind him. He had a bad feeling about this.
While the hiker’s back had been turned to her, the woman had started to walk away, apparently having hear enough. The young hiker grabbed her arm, roughly, and growled something that Ted could not make out.
She spun around and smacked the young hiker across the face, and began to walk away again.  He had let go of her arm immediately, raising his hand to his face to cover the area he had been hit. He staggered back a few feet in shock. Then he seemed to regain his calm.
Ted saw him look over his shoulder. At first he thought he was looking at Ted, but he looked past the car. Ted realised he was checking the road was clear. No witnesses. Ted knew what was coming.
He looked away as the young hiker shot the woman in the back.






         Ted continued to drive looking straight ahead.
“Was a good shot there wasn’t it?” the hiker asked.
Ted could almost hear the glee in his voice. It disgusted Ted. Never attack from behind, it’s cowardly. That’s how Ted saw it.
“I asked you a question there, old man. You should goddamn well answer me. Or I might loser my temper like I did with that woman.”
Ted grunted. That was his only response.
“You really should start talking to me, old man. Be nice to me now,” the hiker said, almost challenging Ted.
“What exactly do you expect me to say?” Ted asked, slowly, trying his best to remain calm.
“Nothing much. Figure you ain’t got much interesting you could say anyway, old man.”
Once again, Ted wanted to mock the hiker, criticise him for generally being stupid, an idiot. But the feeling of the gun pressed into his belly suggested that wasn’t the best idea.
“Say, I’m hungry. There must be somewhere to get food around here. Then again, we are in the middle of goddamn nowhere,” he said laughing.
Ted continued to stare ahead, gritting his teeth.
“You don’t happen to have any food on you, do you, old man?” the hiker asked, once again challenging him.
Ted hesitated.
The gun pressed harder against his belly.
“Sure. There’s something in the glove compartment, I think,” Ted mumbled, disgruntled.
He slowed the car, hoping to pounce while the hiker was distracted. He managed to slow the car down a lot while the hiker was distracted.
And he figured the end was near. For someone.




         The hiker was damn hungry.
“Sure. There’s something in the glove compartment, I think,” the old idiot had said.
So the hiker reached out, keeping the gun pressed to the old man, and reached for the handle of the glove compartment. He pulled it open.
And there was something, alright.
Or two things.
Two severed, human hands. Cut off at the wrists, caked in dried blood.
The hiker gasped in shock. If he was not sitting, he might well have fallen over.
“What the…” he started, looking towards Ted.
While he had been distracted the car had slowed to almost a stop. And when he saw Ted, he realised his mistake of getting distracted, getting cocky.
He didn’t know where the knife came from. But he didn’t have time to pull the trigger of his gun before the knife was lodged in his neck.
Shocked, he released his grip on the gun, and used his other hand to reach up to the knife. He felt the old man grab the hand with the gun in, and wrench it free from the his grasp. Then he watched the old man turn the gun on him.
And that’s all he saw.




         Never attack from behind. Ted laughed as he drove. Always do it face to face, he figured, smiling. It was always better that way. You saw the fear. It was a disgusting waste attacking from behind.
He drove on, smiling. He looked over at the passenger seat. He had made a good job cleaning the car of blood.
And now he had four hands in the glove compartment.
The next hiker would get a real scare.
Ted grinned.