Soft Hands

CRACK.

Charles couldn’t tell if he heard the noise first, or, saw the wrist snapping. It must’ve been the sound because his brain couldn’t register what his eyes were seeing. Charles stood, rooted next to the massage table. The crimson-soaked rag in his hands fell to the floor, giving a tiny splat. He stared at a hand that was facing straight into the air, wrist bent at a ninety-degree angle. Fingers reaching for the sky. Almost quivering from pushing upwards so aggressively.

Charles stumbled back, just a bit The crumpled towel was leaking, not too much because there wasn’t all that much blood from the… procedure. He liked to think of them as operations. They lie down on the table, he warms them up with oils, running his hands up and down their vulnerable bodies, exposing the nape of their necks to him. He would begin applying pressure there, slowly at first, didn’t want to cause alarm. He’d ratchet up the pressure, like a game where he had to balance in that zone of causing pain but not sending his patients into total alarm. It reminded him of balancing an egg on a spoon that you hold with your mouth and try to walk across the room with it without dropping it. Charles remembered doing that at school, was it in class or Field Day or something else? His parents certainly didn’t set it up, they lacked that type of creativity.

But this was post-procedure. All the struggling and excitement was over, this was the meditative portion of the process. He enjoyed the quiet after, as he ran his hands along the body. It felt like they were turning to stone, how they got all cold, and the body slowly stiffened up. Rigor Mortis first begins in the face within the first two hours of death, but then spreads throughout the body after that. It only lasts for 12 hours, but the bodies were long gone by that point. Charles always thought it was strange how Rigor Mortis came and went and how he enjoyed it. Made him think about how he always liked the really crispy fries when he ordered burgers. Not the soggy ones, or even the perfectly made ones. He liked them stiff.

Not this stiff though. He looked over at the hand pointing to the ceiling-CRACK!

The arm snapped upwards at the elbow. Another ninety-degree angle. Made more disturbing by the fact that the body was face down. The body was not only moving but mutilating itself. Charles took another half-step backwards, bumping into the table behind him. All of the candles were snuffed out, the puddles of drying wax wiggled and jiggled, but didn’t tip over. He could hear something fall over. A quick glance backwards revealed that his bottle of massage oil had tipped over. There was a little plastic cap on the nozzle but he still felt that familiar reaction to correct his mistake. His hand reached out to right the bottle, even though his face was still aghast in confusion and horror.

Charles turned quickly back to the body, he didn’t dare turn away for too long. The office was small, the massage table lie in the middle of the room, a table behind him, the exit door to his right, and a small bathroom to his left, a window on the opposite side of the room. Depending on your point of view, the window was perfectly placed. The point of view being that Charles didn’t want people looking in on him, he valued his privacy and the window faced another building that didn’t have windows. Perfect for Charles, not ideal for anyone looking for a view. The ceiling fan above the table spun slowly and rhythmically.

CRACK!

The leg closer to Charles slid off the table, cracking at the knee joint and breaking to get toes on the ground. The body was all misshapen now and Charles had a tough decision in front of him. He started sliding towards the idea when the thought occurred to him. He reached for the doorhandle but stopped just short of it.

This isn’t a room he wants seen. If he runs in a panic, if he tells anyone about this, if anyone finds out… It’s not all they’d find here. There would be questions like:

What’s with all of the black trash bags in the bathroom?

Why do you have virtually no recurring customers?

Why was your last massage punctuated with a trickle of blood leaking out of a customer’s throat?

He didn’t think they’d like the answer, that the man had struggled when Charles applied too much pressure on the neck and Charles had to end things quickly with a nearby screwdriver before too much commotion alerted any nearby neighbors. Sure, he hadn’t done much but Charles didn’t like the struggle, the fight. He’d watch movies where men like him seemed to relish and enjoy the chase, the pursuit, and Charles never understood it. Too Hollywood, he thought.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

The back was bending backwards now (CRACK!) until the body was sitting up. It looked like some demented centaur but instead of a horse body, it had a table for a lower half. Bent at a 90-degree angle at the lower back, broken leg planting a twisted foot against the ground, and a broken arm reaching out in Charles’s direction, the body kept creaking, ready for more movement.

CRACK!

The head started moving back, the coveted back of the neck disappearing under hair. Charles was staring at the man’s bald spot like it was the eye of this beast. It was starting to lean forward, or backwards, or at Charles rather-

CRACK!

The other arm had broken back so they were both reaching for Charles now. He stood rooted to the spot, unsure of what to do. It was like his brain was moving slowly, overloaded with plans and ideas.

Go for the window? But, he’s right at the door so that doesn’t make sense. Try to push this thing out the window? Maybe use the candles to burn it? He could explain that he stabbed this thing in the throat AFTER it attacked him? Would an autopsy prove that? Would that really be their chief concern over an animated corpse? Also, he’d been driving a rental because the stench in his car was too much and had to get cleaned so if something happens here, he can’t-

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

The body lurched at Charles like a scorpion. Charles hopped to his left with a squeal, barely dodging the bald spot slamming into the door handle. The body crashed off the table, into the door and fell into a crumple on the ground. It was on its back now, laying on the head and broken arms and leg.

CRACK!

The other leg broke at the knee like the other limbs before it stood up in a disturbing crab stance. Charles knew he was in trouble now, he should’ve left when he had the chance but now the corpse crab was between him and the door. Charles was shaking, he was going to have to go with the window plan. It started to slowly shamble towards him.

Charles grabbed at the massage table, flipping it onto its side and using it as a shield. He pushed it towards the corpse but it just kicked at the rectangular piece of plastic and kicked at it, getting a sheet wrapped around a foot. A lot of noise, maybe someone would come and check on him. The walls weren’t too thick. A couple of months ago, he had an incident where mid-procedure, his ‘patient’ began to struggle and kicked the table with enough force that the employees in a mail room one level below heard. One kind lady came to check if anything was wrong but Charles wasn’t a beginner. He explained to her that he warns people to sit up slowly, and that today, his client hadn’t listened to him and sat up too fast, trying to stand and took a tumble. She was alright and had already left, maybe the mailwoman could catch her in the elevator or the parking lot, just in case?

CRA-CRA-CRACK!

The bones started shifting and snapping again, the body stood from it’s crab crawl and began shambling over the table, standing upright like a normal body but the bones all disjointed and limbs pointing in odd directions. Charles tried to scream but all his mouth could do was inhale had. A silent scream was trying to echo out of his mouth but nothing was coming. The hands of the corpse rested on the edge of the table, then squeezed, bones SNAPPING as the gnarled bones clutched. The head started juttering forward and breaking back into place but then going too far, like the being didn’t know how to hold up a human head. It’s chin was resting on the chest now, dead eyes rolling around and looking at nothing. He knew the sight of dead eyes. There was nothing behind them.

Charles tried creeping to his left further now, maybe he could make it to the window and-

CRACK! SLAM! The body flung forward, scorpion-ing again. Its back practically broke in half when the legs came flying over its body while the hands remained locked to the table. It KICKED the wall and held the foot there, keeping Charles pinned into the corner of the room, caught behind his own barricade and now the body was getting closer.

Charles grabbed at a candle on the counter behind him, getting his fingers around it- but the other leg kicked his hand with such force that Charles felt the bones break in his knuckles. Recoiling, he grabbed at his hand, leaving him open to something. Something sinister. The leg that kicked swung over Charles’s shoulder, ball of the foot resting against his chest, it had him hooked. It started pulling him in.

Then, the other leg swooped onto his other shoulder, hooking both and pulling him closer to the shattered corpse creature. It made no noise, other than the bone snapping. No growls, no communication, no hum, nothing. Charles scrambled, trying to kick and push and claw away while cradling his broken hand against his chest but it was impossibly strong. It just kept pulling him closer and now he could feel his heels press against the upturned table, where the thing had clamped to with those broken, dead hands. They were turning blue and purple, the blood was spilling inside the body from broken veins and capillaries, bruising everywhere and hardening, all life had escaped from this flesh prison. Leaving only wrath and a dark reflection.

SNAP!

A hand let go of the table and grabbed Charles around the midriff. It squeezed his stomach so hard that Charles was sure it would break skin, punching right into his doughy flesh, spilling hot blood and organs. Charles was imagining his intestines spilling all over the floor in a clump like the bloody towel he had earlier, he was imagining his blood dripping like the massage oil he’d tipped over earlier. Are these the thoughts of someone in their final moments? What did his patients think of? How they forgot the laundry? How the pressure on their neck reminded them of something? Maybe wrestling with siblings as a kid? Maybe punishments from parents?

The other hand GRABBED hold and Charles could feel the corpse tightening around him like a boa constrictor of broken bones. In one of the legs, a broken bone protruded from the skin and was digging into Charles’s back, breaking skin and causing blood to pool in his white scrub top. He knocked over the table and began to stumble towards the door. If you couldn’t see the corpse wrapped around him, he’d look like a drunk stumbling home from a bar one night. Charles had thought of taking someone like that but he didn’t like the extra work. He preferred when they came to him.

He fell to a knee though, finding it harder to breathe as the corpse kept tightening -CRACK- and tightening, breaking its own bones to prove its point. Charles was done. He could feel the realization ‘I think this might be it’ pop into his head. He couldn’t believe it, really? Like this? Some sick, dark fantasy? No arrest, no gas chamber, no vengeful father or mother, no brawl in a cell block, just silently in his office.

Charles fell over, gasping, trying to let out a scream, reaching for the doorhandle. It was so far out of reach, he rolled around but couldn’t get enough momentum with how the body pulled him against the ground. The hands had reached fully around his body and were pulling on each other to keep tightening, climbing the rungs of its own skin to tighten and constrict further.

Charles vision was going. He couldn’t hear anymore. He couldn’t breathe. All he could wonder was-

CRACK!