The Hand

As I look back on it now I should have known something was amiss. The warning signs were all around me. I just didn’t want to believe anything like this could be happening to me. I mean really, I’m just a normal boring guy with what I thought was a normal boring life.
I guess where it all started was when I went to that haunted house everyone had been raving about. You know the one, the house that sits up on that ridge. The one that seems to have eyes watching you no matter where you are in the valley below. The big windows showed what sometimes looked like shadows moving about.
The day before Halloween my friend Joe and I were dared to go in that stupid house! I knew I had a bad feeling about it but we were dared. What else could we do? We had to go or be labeled weenies for life.
Everything seemed fine until we walked up and opened the creaky old front door. The door was a brown, unpainted, wood door, with some moss growing outof it. That’s when I felt something tapping my shoulder. Phew, it was only Joe. I took a deep breath and we walked inside. We could hear people screaming from somewhere in the house. Screaming like some girl who had just seen a spider. Wait… maybe they did see a spider. There seemed to be plenty of cobwebs hanging from everything. The musky smell was enough to make us almost run out of the house.
We moved on through the house like a couple of rats in a maze. So far, it wasn’t all that scary. We had moved upstairs and Joe and I saw a door that said, “DO NOT ENTER”. Joe and I looked at each other and without saying a word we knew what the other was thinking. We had to go in. So Joe opened the door a crack and peaked inside while I made sure no one was looking. “Looks kind of boring”, whispered Joe, “all there is in there is some big mirror”. “Let’s check it out anyway Joe, the rest of this place is dull so it couldn’t be any worse”, I replied.
We carefully opened the door just enough so we could both slip inside. In the mirror we could see our own reflections. I felt that tapping on my shoulder again. This time I could see it wasn’t Joe at all. His hands were hanging down his sides looking like a monkey.
Just then the door started to creak shut. Then I saw it. Right there in the corner of the mirror. The thing that had been tapping my shoulder. It was a hand. Just a hand, no arm. It seemed to be coming out of the mirror that was hanging on the wall. This hand, this HUMAN hand, with long grimy fingers, seemed to reach out to us. Joe let out a yelp and we bolted out of the door. The floating hand seemed to follow us. As we ran to the front door, the hand was slowly floating down the stairs. I flung open the door, sprinted outside, slammed the door behind us, and screamed in terror. We ran all the way to my house and slammed my bedroom door. We plopped down on my bed. Joe’s face was a ghostly white.
“WHAT WAS THAT!” I managed to get out.
“I d d don’t kn know” Joe retorted
DING-DONG!
We looked at each other with fear in our eyes. “Joe, it’s your parents”, we heard my mom yell up the stairs. We both breathed again. “Did you think…”, I said as Joe nodded. “See you tomorrow”, he spit out as he walked downstairs to greet his parents.


“Good Night”, mom said as she turned off the light and closed my bedroom door.
“Night mom”, I muttered.
What a night it had been. I had just started to drift off to sleep when I felt it. That tapping on my shoulder! This time I knew it couldn’t be Joe. He had left hours ago. I flew out of bed and turned on the light. I searched all the corners of my bedroom and there was nothing. Once I regained my composure and was able to relax I crawled back in bed and went to sleep.


Several days had gone by. Joe and I had had a successful night of trick or treating. We made a real haul. We each must have gotten at least 30 delectable pounds of candy. Then one day, out of the blue, I felt that tapping again. This time I was sitting in class. I thought it must be that annoying Penny who sits behind me. I turned quickly to see if I could catch her. But she was on the other side of the room sharpening her pencil.
“Ok”, I thought to myself, “pull it together, that hand thing could NOT have followed you out of that house. You shut the door and it couldn’t have been able to get out the door. Stop being such a weenie”.
At lunch I asked Joe if anything weird had been happening to him since the “incident”.
“Nope, that hand thing was freaky though huh. I wonder how they did that!”
Well of course I couldn’t tell Joe, that twice I had felt that tapping on my shoulder again. He’d think I was stark raving mad. So I tried to put it out of my mind. “Yeah, Joe’s right”, I kept telling myself over and over again like a broken record. Hoping to convince myself it was just my imagination. There was no way a hand could just appear out of no where, not attached to a body. That was just ridiculous. After all, Joe was there too and he wasn’t experiencing the things I kept imagining. But then, he hadn’t felt the tapping when we were in that room that night either. No, stop, it’s just your imagination running wild.
That night as I was getting ready for bed I kept having this strange feeling someone, or something, was watching me. Obviously I was acting crazy again, I was alone in the room. “Why did mom have to put that big mirror on the back of my door” I thought to myself. “I’m a guy, I don’t need a full size mirror in my room!” Besides, I kept thinking I saw things moving in it. Heaven knows my imagination has been quite, well, active lately, I didn’t need anything to add to it’s creativity. “Relax, don’t be stupid”, I pondered, “just shut your eyes and go to sleep!” Finally, after what seemed hours, I dozed off to sleep.
BDRGINGGGGGG
YAAAWN
SMACK
“I hate that stupid alarm”, I groaned to myself out loud.
I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was the mirror. My eyes must have still been blurry from a long night of sleep because I could have sworn I saw a hand moving. This was really starting to get out of hand! Why was I still thinking about that stupid hand at that stupid haunted house! Why did Joe and I have to take that dare anyway? I tried to push that whole hand episode out of mind. “Think about the party we are having in Mr. Wortley’s class today. Stop thinking about your psychotic hallucinations. Think happy thoughts!”
Somehow, I snapped out of it and got myself ready for school. I decided that before I left for school I had to do something about that mirror so I wouldn’t have to deal with it after school.
“Hmm, what can I do to get it out of my room? Ahhh, I know, I’ll tell mom that I think my sister should have it in her room. After all she’s a girl, she needs all the help she can get in the morning!”
I made it sound like such a selfless act it was to give up the mirror. It almost made my mom cry she thought it was soooooooo touching that I cared soooooooo much for my sister that I would want her to have it. Pwwt, yeah right! I just wanted that thing out of my room! Care sooo much about my sister? Who does mom think I am?
The party in Mr. Wortley’s class was awesome. I didn’t think about the hand the whole time. Mr. Wortley really knows how to throw a party, there was food galore and he told us some hilarious stories about the outrageous things he did with his friends when he was our age. I really started feeling normal again. Too bad that feeling didn’t last too long.
When I went to my next class there was Penny, sitting at her desk with mascara in one hand and…. Oh no! A mirror in the other. When class started she put the mirror down on her desk. I felt like it was watching me. Then… tap, tap… I turned quickly back at her and glared. She looked at me like I had lost my mind. I went back to reading my book. A few minutes past and again… tap, tap.
This time I turned around and blurted, “Penny! Stop tapping my shoulder!”
She snapped back, “What are you talking about. I am sitting here minding my own business reading my book. Why would I want to tap YOU on the back anyway!”
Ok great. Now not only was she annoying she now thought I was some kind of paranoid freak!
When the bell rang I rushed out of the room to meet Joe. We were going to go get some hot chocolate at the diner on the corner for the chilly walk home.
“Let’s go wash our hands”, Joe suggested.
“OK”, I agreed.
As soon as we walked in the door there it was. Right there in the mirror. The hand. It was as if it was starring right at me, stalking me or something.
I gasped, “Do you see it? Do you see it!”
“See what?”, Joe questioned.
“Right there!”, I said, pointing to the mirror. “Right there. In the mirror. That hand!”
“Are you still freaked out about that stupid hand trick from that haunted house?”, teased Joe.
“Er, uh, no! No, I was trying to scare you! Don’t be crazy. Still thinking about that hand. No way! That was a lame prank. I can’t believe we were even scared by it that night!”
I went on, trying to convince myself more than trying to convince Joe.
Just then it hit me. Everytime I “think” I see that hand or “feel” the tapping there is a mirror somewhere near by. The mirror in the room at that house. The mirror in my room. Penny’s mirror. The mirror in this bathroom. Could it be this hand can follow me by teleporting through mirrors? OK, I must be reading too much science fiction. Time to find a new genre to read. Maybe I should start reading romance novels. No way! That would be an even worse nightmare! I might start thinking Penny actually wasn’t annoying. BLECH!
Joe and I got our hot chocolate and headed home. When I walked in the front door I heard mom calling from upstairs
“Sam, is that you?”
I called back, “Yes mom.”
“Come up to your room I have a surprise for you. I went to this yard sale up on the hill this morning and found something very special for you!” she continued as I ran up the stairs.
“Cool”, I thought. I wonder what it is!
I walked in my room and mom said, “Close your eyes.”
I closed my eyes and she walked me into the room and closed the door.
“OK Sam, open your eyes!” she said excitedly.
“AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
There on the door hung a mirror. Not just any mirror, mind you. THE mirror. The mirror from the haunted house. The mirror of … THE HAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!