You might remember, a few weeks ago, we told you during these winter days, in the past
it was traditional to tell scary stories in the light of the moon, and specially during
the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.
So we are on it again - this time, we have chosen one of the stories by Guy de Maupassant,
a french writer from the second half of the 19th century, who had an ending as tragic
as his stories.
He died when he was only 42 years old, inside a cell of a psychiatric, sick of dementia.
This is a free adaptation of one of his most famous stories: “The Hand”.
So… let’s start reading:
In all my years as a police inspector in this little town, I have never seen a case like
this.
I dont believe in the existence of any creatures or anything supernatural, but I do admit that
what happened made me doubt myself.
It all started that day the foreigner arrived in town.
He was a solitary man who bought an abandoned house in the outskirts and settled there.
Soon, people started talking and everybody was interested in knowing the identity of
this strange man who didnt talk to anyone, never went in town, and would go out alone
every morning to hunt out in the countryside.
Being myself the person in charge of keeping order, I felt obliged to find out more about
him, and I planned a cásual encounter, pretending to be another hunter.
He was an English man with a weird accent, called Sir John Rowell.
His appearance stood out, he was very tall and broad, his hair and beard, red.
I gained his trust, and one day, he invited me to have a beer at his place.
He welcomed me with courtesy, and I took advantage of the situation and asked him about himself
and his life.
He told me that he had spent his life travelling around exotic regions in Africa, America and
the Indies, practising his favorite hobby - hunting.
The walls in his house were full of wild and grotesque trophies of animals he had hunted,
and he talked about them with passion.
I showed myself interested, as I was intrígued by his personality and his stories.
But suddenly, I saw something on the shelf over the fireplace that sent a chill down
my spine.
It was the hand of a man.
Not the clean white hand of a skeleton, no.
A dried black hand, with yellow nails, the muscles exposed and traces of old blood on
the bones, which were cut off clean.
The Englishman talked about it with pride.
He said it was his from best enemy, and explained how he himself had cut it off with a saber
and dried it out in the sun for 8 days.
I got close to examine it, and despite the damage, you could tell it had belonged to
a real giant.
But the most strange thing was how, around the wrist, there was this huge iron chain
holding it tied to the wall with a big ring.
I tried to hide my disgust making a comment about how strong that man might have been,
and he said that was the reason why it was chained to the wall, so it couldn’t scape.
I didn’t know if he was joking or if he was actually crazy, so I changed the subject
and we talked about his collection of weapons.
Something that called my attention was seeing several hand guns on the furniture, loaded
and ready to be used, as if he was ready for a surprise attack.
That visit troubled me a lot, so I watched him for a while, closely, but he kept on with
his routine, with no further incidents.
I put the whole thing aside in my mind, until, some time later, his servant came to me, frightened,
asking for help.
His master had been acting weird for a month.
He would go to bed very late at night, locking himself up carefully.
He always had guns close at hand, and usually, at night, he would talk out loud, as if he
was arguing with somebody.
I decided to go near his house one of those nights, and I what I saw through the window
was a grotesque scene.
The man, controlled by rage, was hitting with a whip the dried hand tied to the wall.
The following morning, I got the terrible news.
Sir John Rowell had been found dead at his place.
No door or window had been forced, and nothing had been stolen.
When I went to investigate what had happened, I found that it HAD been a murder.
The body had signs of a terrible fight and the clothes were torn.
The neck showed signs of choking, his face showed terrible terror, and he was holding
something between his teeth.
After examining the body, the medical examiner was shocked.
It has 5 marks with the shape of a sharp end in the neck, as if he had been strangled by
a skeleton.
A chill went down my body and I looked at the shelf over the fireplace.
The chain was broken and the hand had disappeared.
The medical examiner took one of its fingers out of the victim’s mouth.
A meticulous investigation took place, but nothing came out of it.
For several nights, I had terrible nightmares.
I saw that hand running around my room like an scorpion or a spider, moving its fingers
as if they were legs.
It crawled up to my bed and it watched me, threatening me.
One of those nights, I woke up and found the window in my room open.
When I looked out, I saw a human figure running away in the fog, and tho scared, I decided
to follow the figure.
Its trace took me to the cemetery, especifically on the grave of Sir John Rowell.
There, on his grave, lied the hand that had been tormenting me for days.
It was lacking its index finger, motionless, but still grotesque and threatening.
I looked in the distance and I saw the shape of a man running away.
In the faint light of the moon, I couldnt tell whether he was missing a hand or not.