My Fingers

Charlie King was a decisive person, and damn proud of it. Decision was something he craved. Like a sip of fine wine, each decision he made gave him a shot of pleasure that lingered in his mouth and sizzled somewhere in his soul. He wore his nature on the cuffs of his sleeves, in the form of two polished brass buttons. Each day, he’d shine them—keep them gleaming as a reminder to the world just how well his quick and sharp decisions had paid off.

He’d moved out the second he was legal, dropped out of college the following year, and started his own restaurant chain—all good decisions. The money from the diners kept his schedule lean, and estranging his family had certainly freed up some time of its own. No funerals. No reunions. No more birthdays to remember.

Plenty of time to sit around shining buttons.

But even though the thought of wine and decisions wouldn’t have normally stoked a good mood, Charlie found himself unhappy. He was even sitting in his favorite chair, a plush chintz with an amber brocade on the back.

Still unhappy.

Charlie fished the letter out of his pocket, and read it again, as if, by running his eyes over the words for a third time, he would finally elicit some enlightenment.

No luck.

Yes, Charlie was unhappy because, for the first time in what had to be years, he couldn’t make a decision. The letter before him was from his father’s house keeper, a little woman from one of the southern countries. Her English hadn’t been articulate, and the handwriting a bit too small, but he’d gotten the gist on the first read. His father, a quiet man of 93 years, had finally kicked the bucket.

And that was it. The decision he couldn’t make. After a good afternoon of thinking, Charlie still had no idea how he felt. A part of him wanted to walk right up to the old family home, and defile it with eggs and spray paint, an act he’d considered many times as a child. He’d be free to do it now that his father’s switch was no longer waiting for him. But there was another part—the vocal minority—that wanted to be upset. To maybe shed a tear or two. There’d been some good times, after all, especially when he was little. His mother had been alive then, and though the fights had been loud and late, his father would always enter Charlie’s room after the lights went out to reassure him.

“I love you, Charlie,” his father’s voice would declare, “never forget that.”

Those words were often the last thing Charlie heard before going to sleep—and they made the nightmares that followed easier to bear.

He was conflicted.

Until, the minority presented something else. Something that finally tipped the scales.

If he went to the house, he’d be able to enter his father’s study. And stay there for as long as he liked.
As long
As he liked.

Charlie crumpled the letter and tossed it into a trash bin in the corner of his sitting room. He stood, gathered his coat, and made for the door. Once outside, he slid into his car, backed into the street, and tore away with all the speed of a predator.

There were many things about his father that bugged Charlie; his trend toward violent punishment being the most obvious. But none dug deeper under his skin than his father’s study. Since Charlie’s earliest memories, the room had always been locked. Off limits. Top Secret.

And, while alive, his father had spent 90% of his free time behind that door. He would come home from work, and disappear inside, only to reemerge when it was time for supper.

Now was his chance to finally discover what lay within.

… He reached the house just before the sun set, and had to sit for a minute in the driveway, marveling at just how weird the place still looked.

The house was three tiny stories stacked up poker-straight like the segments of a dead finger. The walls were cloaked in stucco, aged and worn, with the texture of old bones.

Charlie climbed out of his car, and fished for his key. A part of him was thankful he’d kept it all these years. The notches met with the cogs in the lock, and a heavy click rang from inside the door. With a squeak, the old wood swung away, and he was in.

It occurred to him to call for the housekeeper, so as she wouldn’t mistake him for an intruder.

“Sonya?” He called.

He called again.

Wind tousled the trees outside. Thunderheads advanced across the sky. The house shifted in its sleep.

No answer.

He hadn’t seen her car in the driveway. She was out. At the grocery store, perhaps.

And so Charlie went to the study. The door was just as he remembered it. Thick, dark, old. Stoic, he thought, like dad. He wondered what else in the study would remind him of his father. A part of him feared that the room would be a window into something Charlie didn’t want to see. Fighting, drinking—most of his father’s flaws were so obvious. What if he found something worse inside?

Either way, there had to be some reason for keeping it off-limits for all these years.

The knob turned freely in Charlie’s hand; he nudged the door ajar.

A flick of the light switch revealed a chair, a desk, and a massive painting.

It was bigger than any work Charlie had ever seen. The canvas dominated the entire north wall, stretching from the floor all the way to the ceiling. The subject was a single, aging hand, hewn from a muddy assortment of oils.

What struck Charlie was the detail. Every hair, every pore, every tiny imperfection was vitalized by articulate brushwork. The artist had scrawled a signature into the lower right corner, or, at least, what appeared to be one. Charlie got closer, and found not a name, but a sentence.

Fingers made me paint this.

No name. Just five words.

Charlie decided that, while strange, the signature didn’t really merit any more examination. Nor did the painting. He’d never pegged his father for an art buff, but this had been his private space. Maybe his love for paintings had been a well-kept secret.

Charlie moved to the desk. The surface was empty, but the built-in drawers weren’t. Within each he found a stack of papers—they were drawings, sketches in pencil and charcoal.

Of hands.

Page after page, stack after stack—hands. Old hands, young hands, fists, peace-signs.

finger guns, hands mid-clap. They were beautifully drawn, but each gave Charlie a weird feeling. His father had spent all his free time in this room. Had he just been drawing hands all day?

Charlie leafed through the last stack, and was about to shove it back in its drawer, when the last page caught his eye. This stood out from the others in that it sported a few lines of his father’s chicken-scratch shorthand.

Dear Assistant
I’m disappointed that he escaped, after all we went through to bring him into this world. I’d love to offer a solution, but I can’t. We’ll find him when he wants to be found.

A pair of holes perforated the paper near the bottom of the message, seemingly stabbed through with a pencil. Charlie’s head swam with questions, but he guessed he was looking at a draft of an unsent letter; the text was dated “August 9th, 1973.”

Charlie moved to put the letter back, then noticed something drawn on the other side of the page. This sketch featured a crude stick figure with a round, blank face. The holes from before were enclosed in its circle-face, now a pair of empty eyes.

The hands of the figure were way too big, and way too detailed to fit with the rest. Couple that with the eyes… And you had something seriously disturbing. Charlie put the letter away, and took a step back.

Had his father drawn all these hands? And the painting on the wall—was that his too?

Charlie returned to the massive canvas, and hefted it off its hook, hoping to find a signature on the back that would confirm his suspicions.

Instead, he found a door.

Charlie swallowed. Why…?

Not why was there a door, but why was it boarded up?

Charlie spotted five, no—six boards nailed to the doorframe. Obeying a visceral apart of himself, Charlie pressed an ear to the door. He wasn’t sure what he was trying to find, but he stumbled backward when a noise met him through the wood.

After getting over the shock, Charlie returned, and gave it a closer listen.

It was a sharp creaking sound, the noise a chair made when someone scooted it across a wooden floor.

“Hello?” Charlie called.

No answer. More creaking.

Charlie decided to rehang the painting, and leave the study before anything else weirded him out. Hell, maybe he’d just leave the house all together. He’d had enough of hands, creepy drawings, and everything else.

But he couldn’t do that. Not yet.

There was one more place he needed to see.

… Charlie’s old room was downstairs, nestled between the kitchen and the backyard like a forgotten novella in a row of dictionaries. He’d suspected it to be cleaned out—sold in pieces at various yard sales. However, after stepping inside, he found the room to be completely preserved. His bed, his posters, even his various Lego sets were just as he’d left them.

Though the peach freshener had long since left the atmosphere, leaving the funk of mold and old wood unchallenged. The creaking from upstairs was audible here too, but it quickly faded into the background. Charlie lay on the bed, and shut his eyes. He could almost hear his father’s voice probing the darkness, comforting him as he lay.

He must have fallen asleep, because the next thing Charlie knew, he was awake again. The sun had set, and rain pattered against the roof. The light of the moon threw shadows of the droplets onto the walls and floor, giving Charlie the impression that his room was melting.

All at once, he was a kid again. Lost and alone in a coffin of shadows. A stranger in a strange land. Only this time, he didn’t have his father. No voice to keep close when the cold set in. And boy, was it cold. The hairs on his arms stuck up like quills, and goose bumps had laid claim to his skin. Milky air hissed out of him like a spirit fleeing a tomb. Charlie caught the last ghost of a breath before it could escape. Something seemed particularly off about the room. Something he couldn’t quite… It hit him. The creaking had stopped. The chair—or whatever it was—had stopped.

Charlie wanted to sit up, but his legs refused. His childhood self assured him that death would follow any attempt to leave his bed. Best get under the blankets.

Then the cracking sounded. A harsh splitting sound from beyond the ceiling, the splintering of stubborn wood.

The planks.
A rip came seconds later.
The canvas.
Then footsteps. Fast and hard. Running down the stairs, straight through the hall.
And into his room.
Charlie had shut his eyes; he didn’t dare open them now.
A throaty voice mingled with the rain.
“I know your mother and I don’t always agree. And I know that sometimes, that can be scary.”
Charlie’s blood finally ran cold.
“And I know that I can say some scary things.”
No…
“But I love you, Charlie,” the thing said in his father’s voice, “don’t ever forget that.”

A hand brushed against Charlie’s forehead, and Charlie grabbed it. His eyes flew open, and standing above him, he found a tall shadow. Taller than his father ever was.

“Who are you!?”

Even as he said the words, Charlie knew that what would’ve been more appropriate.

Glowing green eyes sparkled like fire crackers. Huge hands dangled from its arms, painted bone-white by the moon. Charlie didn’t see a mouth open, but seconds later, a scream issued from the depths of the creature louder than anything Charlie had ever heard. The shriek rattled the glass, and Charlie’s teeth. It was all he needed.

In one motion, Charlie sprung out of bed, and slammed his fist into the Creature’s face. It toppled like a bowling pin—a big tangle of dry limbs and darkness. Charlie stormed out the door, and tore through the hallway. His heart pushed blood into his head as he pumped his feet. All the while it was right behind him, screaming like a tortured prisoner. He was mere feet from the door when he felt its fingers on his back, tugging at his jacket. And so he let it go—Buttons and all.

He wriggled free of the jacket, and threw it into the thing’s face. He ripped the door open, and stumbled outside, slamming it behind him. The thing regarded him from beyond the glass of the door. It seemed unable to leave the house—or, at least, it didn’t want to. Charlie wanted to run, to tear away in his car and never look back. But there was one question that still needed answering.

“Why did you do it? Why did you impersonate him for all those years?” The creature took a moment to reply. “Because I wanted to be him,” it cooed in a voice that didn’t belong to anyone. “But I am just fingers.” Charlie was gone. Out of the driveway, out of the neighborhood, then out of the city. The rain still tore through the air, still coated the road. But it was letting up. Charlie took out his phone and combed through his contacts. Not friends, not coworkers. Family. Small group, but it existed.

The decision cheered him up, as they usually did. And this was a big one. He decided to get in touch with some real family.