Read Ebook: The Hand by Sohl Jerry

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Ebook has 116 lines and 7522 words, and 3 pages

She had got out her writing board, had settled herself comfortably with pen in hand in Mac's big chair and had even put the date on the letter to her mother who lived in Canada when she heard Dobie's excited bark.

She picked up a shawl on the way to the kitchen, turned on the big light on the windmill and looked out the window. Dobie was in the middle of the yard barking at something she couldn't see. She went out.

"Dobie," she called. "What is it?"

The dog whined and moved about nervously, looking first at her and then at the darkness between the big barn and the machine shed. As she sought to pierce the blackness there, a shape moved out from between the buildings and the sudden move caused her to step back. Dobie at once set up loud and ferocious barking.

"Good evening, Mrs. McNearby," it said in a not unpleasant, whistling voice and Alice wondered how it could talk so well to her.

"I come from the crashed ship. You know of it, of course. You were there this afternoon."

Alice was on the point of asking how he knew she had been at the wreck site when he started in again.

"We have traced the severed hand of one of our crew to your place here. We came down at considerable velocity when our ship went out of control. We were lucky to escape with our lives. But one of us was thrown from the ship with such force that his hand was cut off by an obstruction on the ship. Your dog happened on the scene before we could find the hand."

The chill of the November night air was beginning to penetrate her shawl and Alice could feel a stirring of air on her legs. Dobie moved restlessly at her side but she did not let go of his neck hair for fear of what he might do.

"We need that hand, Mrs. McNearby. Without it the man who lost it will be at a tragic disadvantage among us. That is why we were looking so hard for it this morning after the crash. If we can return the hand to him in time it can, through proper treatment, be made as good as new. Would you be so good as to return it to me, now, please?"

The eyes, though tiny, seemed not unkind, and the alien stood silent. She was moved by his pleas.

"Mac--that's my husband--has it," Alice said. "I saw Dobie here with it and put it under a milk pail and when Mac saw it he said he'd take care of it." She hoped she was making sense.

"Do you know where it is?"

"I don't know where Mac put it."

"Would you find it for me, please? I'll wait."

Alice agreed and, wondering what Mac would say if he came home and found the hand gone, started looking for it. But surely Mac would understand about the hand, she thought. I'll explain to him the urgency of it, that one of the aliens needs it to live and be useful.

She looked in the obvious places, in the storeroom just off the kitchen, in the cellar, then in the house itself, in Mac's room and through his things, and even in the attic, though she knew it couldn't be there. She became frantic then, paced by the alien's necessity for his hand, and did not bother to straighten things up after she looked. It simply couldn't be in the house. But where else? She went out and told the alien she could not find it but that she would look in the barn.

In the end she could find it nowhere and when she told the alien he seemed as disappointed as she.

"I have seen you searching," he said. "I want to thank you for your trouble."

"I'm awfully sorry," she said. "I don't know where Mac could have hid it. When he comes home I'll ask him."

"I'll wait for him," the alien said. "It's imperative we have the hand. It is the only thing standing in the way of our leaving your planet. Your husband will know where it is and return it to us."

"I'm sure he will," she said, hoping she was right but knowing how stubborn Mac could be. Then she got to worrying about what would happen if he would refuse and as she went back to the house with Dobie at her side she was overcome with the shakes.

She did not get her composure back until she had drunk a cup of steaming hot coffee. Then she looked at the clock, saw it was eleven and that she had spent nearly two hours looking for the hand. She saw, too, that the figure was still in the yard, standing there motionless, like something carved out of stone.

Her husband drove in at mid-night and it seemed an eternity between the time the engine stopped and he entered the house.

From the way he looked at her he was surprised to find her still in the kitchen.

"You still up?" His face was flushed, his tongue thick.

"Mac," she said, not knowing how to begin. "Where is that hand?"

"You still worried about that?" He took off his coat and threw it on the table.

"But Mac! They've come after it."

He looked at her dully. "Who's come after it?"

"The aliens--from the ship. There's one of them in the yard. Look out the window."

He turned around and saw the stationary figure in the yard. He took a deep breath. "So that's one of 'em, eh?" He laughed in a way that chilled her, then went to the cupboard and reached for his shotgun on the wall next to it.

Alice put her hand on his shoulders and he stopped before he touched the gun.

"Listen, Mac. They need that hand. It belongs to one of their men and they need it because they're going to put it back on and it will be as good as new. Then they're going to leave."

He looked down at her with bloodshot, narrow eyes and she could see where tobacco had run out of the corner of his mouth and the only thing she could think of was what it would look like on the overalls when she'd wash them.

"That thing out there," Mac said, "ain't got no business 'round here scarin' the pigs and chickens. And I aim to get it."

"I wish you had told me where the hand is," Alice said, her eyes scalded with tears. "I tried to find it. I looked everywhere. If I had found it I would have given it to him and now they'd be gone."

He shoved her from him rudely. "Jest like a woman to do a thing like that. And without even askin' me." He was breathing hard and he moved to the window to look at the alien again. "You, out there. You want that hand, eh?" He laughed again, then turned to her. "You looked for it. That's what you said. Well, you jest looked in the wrong place. I hid it good." He went over to his coat and withdrew a newspaper-wrapped package from one of the pockets. He unfolded it on the table. It was the hand.

"Please take it out to him, Mac," Alice said. "He's waiting for it."

His face was sour and his lips a sneer. "Give it to him, hell," he said. "Dobie brought it here, didn't he? I've a mind to let Dobie have it."

"No, No!"

Mac put his hands on the table, stared down at the hand and shook his head. "But Dobie don't deserve it."

He picked up the hand and a queasiness prevented Alice from looking directly at it.

"It's a matter of time," she pleaded. "Please take it to them. They've got to have it right away or they can't use it. She heard the clink of one of the stove lids and watched in horror as Mac dropped the hand through the hole into the fire beneath. She was suddenly sick. During it all she could hear was Mac's laughter.

"Git on upstairs," he said a few minutes later. "Git on up to bed."

Alice looked at him, knowing her face was pale and her eyes wet and hating him for what he had done to her and what he had done to the aliens. But she felt fear, too, because she had never seen him quite like this.

"What are you going to do?"

He went over, took down a box of shells from the cupboard. "What d'you suppose? I'm goin' to run that thing off my place."

"You can't do that!"

"You wait and see."

"But he's done nothing to you!"

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