The Package

The package arrived on a Thursday. December 2^nd. Natalie spotted the thing as she pulled into her drive that evening. It was squat and brown and all taped up. It had been placed neatly on the top step before the front door. She frowned.

She hadn’t ordered anything.

Natalie was smart, you see. She’d gotten her Christmas shopping out of the way in November. Had she ordered something and forgotten about it when it didn’t arrive? Late shipping? She was thinking this as she got out of the car. She watched the package warily as she climbed the steps, as though it might bite. It was perfectly square, tea-coloured cardboard. There was no dispatch label. Her name and address had been scrawled on the side in black marker. There was also a date: 20/02/2021. Today’s date.

Oh God. Maybe it was from Mike. A familiar knot twisted itself into being in her stomach. If it was from Mike, what was it? Some unpleasant revenge gift? Or a genuine one? Along with a seven page handwritten letter professing his love and begging her to come back. She wanted none of it. She wished the guy would just piss off already.

Hard enough to forget the bastard when she’d had his name tattooed on the back of her hand. She was booked in to have it fixed on Sunday. She wanted to change it to “Fuck Mike”.

She stepped over the box and fumbled with her keys, unlocking the door. Rocky greeted her, bounding his way to her and wagging his stubby little tail as fast as he could muster. After the appropriate amount of scratches and apologies for leaving him all day, the terrier squirmed through her legs and ran out to the package still on her step. He circled it, tail frantic, ears perked, whining.

Natalie dumped her keys on the counter and retrieved the package. It was about the size of a football and wasn’t heavy, but it was cold. Cold even for December.

She placed it on the coffee table, which Rocky circled expectantly, then put on the kettle. She ignored the package and went to her room, stripping out of her work clothes and into sweatpants and a hoodie.

She heard the click of the kettle. Rocky was sitting at the coffee table now, staring at the brown box. Natalie made herself a tea, refilled Rocky’s water bowl, and sat down on the sofa, scissors primed.

“Right,” she said, Rocky glancing at her. “Let’s see what this is, shall we?”

The moment she sliced through the tape the smell hit her. She gagged. The knot in her stomach thickened and spread to her chest. What?

Rocky whined. Dread began eating at her. She held her breath, and peeled the box lid open.

Details imprinted themselves on her brain in an instant. A severed hand was nestled within, palm up and fingers curled like a dead spider. Curled around a crumbled piece of paper. Ice packs were bunched together to prevent decomposition. They hadn’t been entirely successful.

Natalie stood, shaking, knocking over her tea. She stumbled to the sink, throwing up. “What the fuck? What the actual fuck!”

She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe. The smell was nauseating. She sank to the ground, curling up. She screamed at Rocky to get away from the package. He sat on the floor, still whining.

Natalie fumbled for her phone, gasping in what little air she could. Through her tears she found her sister’s number in her contacts. She dialled. It rang once.

She stood, trying to keep a rein on her breathing and the pounding in her chest. What the fuck? The phone rang again. What was keeping Sara? She opened the window, letting in the chill December air, doing everything she could to not look at the package. A third ring.

Why was—?

“Nat?” Sara’s voice said.

“Get over here now!”

*

“It looks old,” Sara said, staring into the open box.

Natalie sat on the opposite sofa, watching. She had Rocky on her lap, the terrier fixing his sad little eyes on the package. “What? Like… its been there a while?”

“No,” Sara said. “Like it’s an old person’s hand. A woman’s by the look of it.” She had a mask over her nose, as did Natalie. Sara was also wearing gloves. She had come over immediately after Natalie called. Took her all of twenty minutes so she must have driven fast. She was calm. So much calmer than Natalie was. She’d always been like that. Never panicking. Maybe she was used to it. Half the reason Natalie had called her over was that Sara used to work in a morgue. She’d seen dead people before. Maybe a piece of a dead person wasn’t so different.

Natalie took a deep breath. “So, if it’s an old person… Maybe they were dead before…”

Sara shrugged, not looking up. She poked into the box with a pen, frowning. “Possibly,” she said. “Then again, what’s to say the person whose hand it is is dead at all?”

Natalie shivered.

Sara looked up at her, winged eyeliner flaring under her frown. “Why didn’t you call the police, Nat?”

“I don’t know, I…” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You should have.”

“I fucking know I should have, Sa! I guess I just wasn’t thinking straight since some fucking lunatic just sent me a severed fucking hand in a box!” She leant back, drawing in a shaky breath. Rocky was staring at her. He didn’t like shouting.

Sara looked back at the box. “Have you read the note?”

She shook her head. This wasn’t real. This kind of shit only happened in films. Why the fuck was this happening to her?

“Do you want me to read it?” Sara asked.

Natalie shook her head again.

“Put gloves on, then.”

She pulled on a pair from the box of disposables on the table.

Sara reached into the package, extracting the crumpled piece of paper from the severed hand’s fingers. She passed it over to Natalie, who carefully pulled it open. Words were scrawled in pen.

“What have I ever done?” Natalie whispered. She began to read:

It’s not what you have done, Natalie Davies, it’s what you’re going to do.

She stopped. What the fuck?

Sara read her expression. “What?”

Natalie kept reading.

Don’t call the police. Right now, it’s not important that you know who we are, only what we are capable of. Tell your sister to turn over the hand in the box.

What the actual fucking fuck?

She began to shake. “It… they… they can…”

“Nat, stop blathering. Calm down, breathe. In, out. That’s it. What does it say?”

Natalie pointed to the package. “Turn the… turn it over.”

“What?”

“Just turn it over, Sa.”

Sara stared a moment, then shrugged. She reached into the box, flipping the severed hand on its front. She sat back. “Holy shit.”

Pushing Rocky off her lap, fear and nausea mingling in her stomach, Natalie stood, looking into the box once again. The old hand lay on its front, balancing on the tips of dead fingers. A faded tattoo was inked on the back of the hand.

“Fuck Mike.”

Natalie shakily raised her right hand, staring at the name of her ex in cursive. It was the same lettering, the same size, the same tattoo. Only without the “fuck”.

“How do they know you’re getting that tattoo?” Sara said.

Natalie could only stare at the hand. A strange, disconnected part of her already knew the answer. An answer that was impossible. She picked up the letter again.

That’s right, Mrs Davies, that’s your hand in the box. Albeit much later in life. I’m aware this is very confusing for you, but, putting aside what is and isn’t possible in your current world-view, simply be aware that what I am writing now is the truth. It doesn’t matter what you believe, only that you do exactly as I tell you.

I am writing to you from the year 2054. Time-splicing is still in its developmental stages so we can only send objects of specific size through, which is the reason for all of this.

I have you – or rather, the elderly you – in front of me as I write this. Though she is missing a hand. You should know you’re doing well for your age, and if you want to live out the rest of your natural lifespan in peace, I suggest you do exactly as I say. Medicine nowadays has people going forever, so if that’s something you’re interested in, read on.

2054? Thirty years in the future?

What the fuck?

It couldn’t be. That was impossible. That wasn’t her hand in the box. Was it?

Her fucking hand.

She fought the urge to throw up again. The room was spinning.

“I…”

“Nat? Are you okay?”

She shook her head. She read on.

Now, I’ve neither the inclination nor the need to go into any details about how this is possible or how it works. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you tell your sister to reach under the icepack in the right hand side of the box, and retrieve what’s there.

Natalie, numb and sick and terrified, told Sara to do so.

“Nat, please just tell me what—”

“Do it, Sa.”

When Sara raised her hand again, she was holding a small plastic pill, no bigger than a fingernail. The kind with two colours and powder inside. It looked like a dose of Ibuprofen. Natalie kept reading.

You have a cup of tea in front of you, don’t you, Natalie? You made it just after calling Sara. Stir the powder in the pill into your tea and drink it. It won’t harm you, but we will if you don’t.

She took the pill from Sara, unscrewing the two halves of plastic and pouring the white powder inside into her tea. Rocky whined.

She raised the cup to her lips.

Sara stood. “What are you doing?”

“I have to.”

“Why? No, Nat, don’t take that, you don’t know what’s in it!”

“They say it won’t hurt me.”

“You fucking believe them? They sent you a fucking hand in a box, Nat, they—”

Natalie drank the lukewarm tea, downing it.

Sara stared at her. “You fucking idiot.”

Natalie ignored her, picking up the letter. There was nothing left on this side, so she flipped it over. There was only a couple of lines:

Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs Davies. Feel free to inform the authorities. No will believe you. Trust us.

Natalie stood, handing the letter to Sara, who snatched it from her hand and read the whole thing.

Natalie stared at the tattoo on her skin, then down at the hand in the box. Her hand. That older, wrinkled hand. Liver spots here and there. And a tattoo on the back, just like hers.

“Fucking hell,” Sara said. She met Natalie’s eyes. “What now?”

*

They drove out to the coast that night, burning the box and everything that came with it on the clifftop. Sara held a sobbing Natalie as it all blackened to ashes and small bones. They swept up the remnants into a tote bag and buried it as deep as they could, digging long into the night. It was nearing 3 on Friday morning when Natalie returned home. Sara stayed over, crashing on the sofa, and Natalie cried into Rocky’s fur until dawn.

It was 8 o’clock when Natalie ignored a snoring Sara and opened her door to head to work, trying to forget yesterday.

A letter was on her doorstep. Rectangular, white. Her name and address in the same black marker, same handwriting. No stamp. And today’s date. She snatched it up, and read it there and then:

Mrs Davies, unfortunately for you, we were successful.

I believe an explanation is due. You see, I represent a certain company that will be founded in 2049. We invented – or rather, will invent – time-splicing. It’s all very exciting. But this year, that is 2054, we run into a bit of trouble. Your daughter, Congresswoman (yes, she does very well for herself) Sara Davies – named after your beloved sister – having been raised on the far-left socialistic ideals of her bat-shit liberal mother, sees fit to impose certain restrictions on our manufacturing and monetisation schemes.

With the will of the people behind her, Mrs Davies, she will all but destroy the company. She is, in fact, in the process of doing so. Or she was. I only mildly regret to inform you that you were – until yesterday – unknowingly pregnant. It would seem that your “Fuck Mike” tattoo would become something of an in-joke between the two of you once you got back together, but I digress.

The substance you ingested made certain your darling little Sara will, sadly, never exist. You have my thanks. It was remarkably easy. Your first assumption about the hand was correct – it was of someone already dead. You passed in your sleep this morning, Mrs Davies, in the early hours of 17^th October 2054. It was no issue for a company of this size to get hold of your body.

After all, if we can reach you now, we can reach you anywhere. My thanks again for your cooperation, Mrs Davies.

I’m certain we’ll meet in the future.