He’d imagined such hands could only be imagined.
“Yes, Kate, my sister. Do you want to meet her?”
Sam could see the shades of sisterhood on their faces. Kate was at ease amid the depictions of flayed flesh and dismembered limbs. She was an elongated, elegant version of her sibling. Undeniably the better looking of the two, but with paler hair and skin. A less vivid version of Beth.
“I thought introductions were in order. Sam, Kate. Kate, Sam.”
“Hi.”
“Nice to meet you.”
Sam searched her smile, this Madonna of the Hands, but all that it revealed was her teeth.
“Sam loves the picture. I thought you two should meet.”
Kate’s hands were partially covered by the cuffs of her jumper. The fine rib clung to her wrists. Her tapered fingers ended in short nails, painted with a dark polish. It should have tantalised him.
Sam thrust out a hand, desperate to connect. As she took it, Sam waited for the jolt of hormones. Instead of a spark, there was just a seeping disappointment as her perfect hand lay in his.
“It’s a good job you liked it.” Kate thrust her hands back into her pockets. “Beth’s promised me a modelling fee.”
The trio laughed in unison.
“I’m going to get another drink.” Beth glanced at him. “Coffee all round?”
She went, closing the door behind her with a careful click.
“Beth says the drawing’s for a job interview. What’s it for?”
“A hand cream campaign. I’m in advertising. What do you do?”
“I’ve just finished my degree. I’m a dietitian.”
“Your place is great.”
“I wish it were mine. I’m just staying here until I can get somewhere.”
Sam nodded. Of course it was Beth’s.
“Beth’s a diamond. She’s always looked out for me.”
It was Beth that Sam was thinking of. There wasn’t enough of Kate, pleasant as she was, to fill the room. Her hands, though fabulous, couldn’t compensate for Beth’s absence.
Hands though, they were absolutes.
Sam and Beth were bare beneath the sheets. It was her turn to be taught.
“Life,” Sam explained, “is laid out in lines: life, heart, and head. The lines of destiny, affection, and the sun.” Each one was traced out. Then there was the significance of fingers. The predictions of nails.
Imogen had been exorcised.
Scaphoid, lunate, triquetral, pisiform, trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, hamate.
The words Beth had taught him lingered in his mouth. He tried to pass them back to her, tongue to tongue. She was too weak to twist away.
Desire drove Sam. He didn’t stop to consider the outrageousness of his demands. The flat was upended by his passions. The kitchen had become an impromptu theatre. The surgical instruments lay on the floor. Kate had been easily overcome. She lay where she’d fallen, in Beth’s studio. Beth, though he’d surprised her, put up a greater fight. Sam kissed the bruise on her face, from the blow that had finally subdued her.
It was dirty work. Sam was glad that he’d been right that it was only his own blood that made him feel faint. The cuts he’d made with the amputation knife were ragged. The petit tourniquets were sound and stemmed Beth’s bleeding. He’d not used them on Kate, not from unkindness but because there wasn’t time.
Cautery was a more tricky matter. He’d improvised with a knife, heated on the hob until the blade glowed. He touched it to the places on Beth’s bloody stumps that leaked.
Sam covered his clumsy suture work with wrappings of scarves. Kate’s hands cooled quickly, despite their new attachment to Beth. It was a fleeting few hours that Sam couldn’t hold onto for long enough. It left him hungry.
He put his lips to the perfect palms, to Beth’s mouth. Her lips were pale. She shivered as he covered her body with his.
Beth whimpered, limp in the hands of fate.
THE MONSTER MAKERS
Steve Rasnic Tem
This is all I can bear of love.
Robert is calling the children in, practically screaming it, how we all need to go, now. But I’m too busy gazing at the couple as they talk to the park ranger, the way their ears melt, noses droop, elongating into something else as their hair warps and shifts color, their spines bend and expand, arms and legs crooked impossibly, and their eye sockets migrating across their faces so rapidly they threaten to evict the eye balls.
“Grandpa! Please!” little Evie cries out, but now I look at the park ranger, who has fallen to his knees, his face pale and limbs trembling, mouth struggling to form a word that does not yet exist. Because it isn’t the way it is in the movies; human beings cannot accept such change so easily — at some point the mind must shut down and the body lose itself with no one left to tell it what to do. “Please, Grandpa, now,” Evie wails, and the intensity of her distress finally gets to me, so that I hobble over to the battered old station wagon as fast as I can, which isn’t very fast. Because Evie is that special grandchild, you see. Evie has my heart.
The car bucks once as Robert gives it gas too quickly. It rattles, then corrects itself. Alicia is safely in the backseat beside me, but I’m not sure if she ever left. She doesn’t move as much as she used to. But it’s amazing how young she looks — her long hair is still mostly blonde, even though she’s about my age, whatever that might be. We agreed long ago not to keep track anymore. I’ve loved her as long as I’ve known her. The trouble is, these days I can’t remember how long.
The grandkids are both on the other side of Alicia. They’re small, so I can’t see all of them, just four skinny legs which barely reach beyond the front edge of the seat, and the occasional equally skinny arm. They kick and wave, thrilled. Despite their fear — they have no understanding of what they’ve caused, or why — they’re quite excited about what’s happening to them. I suspect this is the way some addicts or athletes feel — something takes over you, as if it were a spirit or a god, seizing your blood and bones, your muscles — and it makes you run around or die. From this angle, there’s no discernible difference between Evie and Tom, but they are not twins, except in spirit. They sing softly as they often do, so softly I can’t make out the words, but I’ve come to believe that their singing is the background music to all my thoughts.
As we leave the park, I can hear the long howls behind me, the humanity disintegrating from those poor people’s voices. My grandchildren laugh out loud, giddy from the experience. These changes always seem to happen around certain members of my family, although none of us have precisely understood the relationship or the mechanism. Why did the couple change but not the ranger? I have no idea. Perhaps it is some tendency in the mind, some proclivity of the imagination, or some random, genetic bullet. My grandchildren possess a prodigious talent, but it’s not a talent anyone would want to see in action.
Up in the front passenger seat, Jackie pats Robert’s shoulder. I don’t know if this is meant as encouragement, or if he even needs it. My son has always been sane to a fault. His wife’s face looks worried, the skin so tight across her cheeks and chin it’s as if she wears a latex mask. But then Jackie always was the nervous sort. She’s not of this family; she simply married into it.
“Dad, I thought I asked you not to tell them any more stories.” Robert’s voice is barely under control.
They’re both angry with me, furious. They blame me for all of this. But they try not to show it. I don’t think it’s because they’re careful with my feelings. I think it’s because they’re somewhat frightened of me. “Telling stories, that’s what grandfathers do,” I say. “It’s how I can communicate with them. The stories of our lives and deaths are secrets even from ourselves. All we are able to share are these substandard approximations. But we still have to try, unless we want to arm ourselves with loneliness. I just tell the children fairy tales, Robert. That’s all. Stories about monsters. Something they already know about. Monster stories won’t turn you into a monster, son. Fairy tales simply tell you something you already knew in a somewhat clever way.”