"Evil Dead: The Series" Episode 18
"Hands Across America"
By: OmarSnake
Newton Fisk stared at the e-mail message on his computer screen.
It was the news he'd been waiting for a long time, but news he wasn't sure what to do with.
So, as Newton Fisk often did in his life, he decided not to think about it himself, but simply inform his boss and wait for orders.
He printed it out and jogged down the hall, into the offices of Lajos Szabo.
In the darkness, Szabo was not alone. Something else was there with him, but Fisk couldn't make it out in near-pitch black.
Szabo snapped a finger, and there was a sound --- footsteps? maybe, maybe not... --- as the 'something' retreated. Then, the sound of a door at the far end of the chamber shutting.
Then, a light came on at Szabo's desk. Not much, barely penetrating the oppressive darkness, but a change from the total black of moments earlier.
"Well?" Szabo asked.
Fisk offered the print-out, and Szabo's thin hand snatched it from his grip.
Fisk waited quietly as his employer read over the print-out.
"Beaumont County, Kentucky, eh?" Szabo asked.
"Yes, sir," Fisk said. "Ever since that stupid little Hand escaped from the lab, I've had a trace set up for anyone accessing the fingerprint records on Williams. I figured it would show up before too long."
"It's been awhile," Szabo said.
"But we know where it is, now."
"We know where it was, then," Szabo corrected him. "It has, most likely, moved on. And the longer you wait here, the colder the trail gets."
"I'll get right on it, sir," Fisk said.
"You do that," Szabo said coldly. "And ask Oracle for her take on where it's going and what it was doing killing people."
"Yes, sir," Fisk said, starting to turn to leave. Then, he looked back. "Do you happen to know where she is today?"
"Working with our new recruit, in the gymnasium on level six," Szabo said.
Fisk nodded briskly and departed.
It was a Hand with a mission.
When it first escaped, it had wanted to find Ash Williams, but had not been able to, so it settled for killing anyone it could.
The Hand had fun doing that, but found it strangely unfulfilling. At truck stops and isolated gas stations, it would traumatize, torture and mutilate anyone it could. But none of them were Ash, and that bothered the Hand, bothered it a lot.
Then, one day, the Hand had a... well, "vision" isn't the right word, since it didn't have eyes. And "thought" isn't either, since it didn't have a brain. But something happened.
Imagine, if you will, a telephone conversation. The Hand receives a call.
"Hello?" the Hand asks.
"Hello, Hand," the voice on the phone says. "This is Deadite Central."
"Oh, good to hear from you," the Hand replies.
"Now, listen, you've got to kill Ash."
"But that's what I'm trying to do!"
"No you're not, you're just wandering around like a five-fingered Charlie Starkweather. That's good, in that it's evil, but it's not good enough, in that it's not evil enough."
"Well, what DO you want me to do?"
"Get Ash. Get him now. Get him out of the picture. We need him dead. Deader than dead."
"Well, that's what I want to do anyhow!" the Hand cries.
"Yes, but you need to get to where he is."
"You know where he lives?" the Hand asks, feverish with anticipation.
"Of course," the voice replies, then reads out the directions.
Got that? Good. Now take out the telephone, Deadite Central, and for that matter the conversation. And leave just the Hand suddenly knowing where Ash was, because the forces of darkness wanted it to know, and heading that direction.
It didn't know why it was so important that Ash die. The Hand wanted to kill him because that was simply what the Hand wanted to do. But now, it knew that it was vital that Ash die, that without his death, the forces of darkness were in trouble.
And knowing how important it was, and knowing where Ash was, the Hand decided to act decisively. It mutilated a diner full of people... best way to get its blood flowing in the morning... and decided to wait for some sap it could take hostage, and make him or her drive it to Detroit.
But before that happened, the Hand got distracted by the beautiful fingers of one of its victims. They were so long and elegant, with their hot-pink press-on nails, it was instantly smitten. It had already killed the woman, a waitress in the diner, so it was simply a matter of hacking the hand at the wrist to free it from the shackles of the body it had been attached to.
The Hand didn't know what to call his newfound lady love... Lady Hand? Miss Hand? Ms. Hand? And she wasn't much of a conversationalist, not that the Hand could talk anyhow.
But if the Hand did a good job slaughtering Ash, perhaps it could convince the dark powers that dwelled at the edge of man's domain to imbue its new girlfriend with unlife, so they could venture out together happily, hand in hand.
So the Hand hijacked a truck, driven by a redneck named Jerry who tried to reason with it, and make chit-chat, and buddy up to the Hand.
The Hand didn't mind that... in fact, Jerry's sweaty attempts to save his own hide had been kind of amusing. And if it hadn't been for that roadkill the truck hit while driving, the Hand might have even spared his life.
Nah, not really. Jerry was a dead man the second the Hand had met him. But it hadn't planned to kill him so soon, its finger accidentally pulling the trigger of the gun it held aimed at Jerry's head.
When Jerry's brains spattered against the side of the cabin, the Hand instinctively grabbed hold of Lady Hand. The tractor-trailer swerved and crashed into a guard rail, shattering the windows before it flipped over and rolled down an embankment.
The Hand barely got itself and Lady Hand away before the rig exploded, sending shrapnel everywhere.
Fortunately, it wasn't long before the police arrived.
It was just a matter of waiting for one of the officers to head back to his squad car so he could call in a report and ask for assistance.
Ashley Williams couldn't keep his mind on his work.
Twice already, he had found himself pricing items he had already priced... if Bud, the manager, ever noticed the wasted stickers, he would probably dock Ash's pay. Granted, it would only be a few cents, but Bud was just the sort of skinflint to do that.
Ash's mind kept drifting back to the interrogation.
He had been hauled in by the police, who were looking for a killer... a killer whose fingerprints matched Ash's, only on the hand that Ash no longer possessed. The hand that had been possessed. The hand he had fought, repeatedly, in that cabin, all those years ago, but never saw afterwards.
Ash knew it was too much to hope that the evil that dwelled in those woods would ever leave him alone, but he thought at least THAT part of it was gone.
But had the hand killed the people in that diner?
There was another possibility, of course. Bad Ash.
Their pigheaded determination to get Ash was something the Hand and Bad Ash had in common. For that matter, it was something every Deadite he had ever faced had in common. They enjoyed killing, sure, but for some reason they really wanted Ash dead. And for some reason, they never quite succeeded. Ash had survived more abuse than your average football team could be expected to survive, and came up fighting. He was damned good at it. Maybe the only thing he WAS good at.
Ash decided to consult with Eldridge Stone the next time he got a chance. Sure, the old man was a certifiable kook, but he occasionally knew what he was talking about. And he might have an idea what was going on here, and whether it might mean the Hand or Bad Ash... or, for that matter, Ash's brother Rhett, who was supposed to be out of the country on business.
Nah, Rhett had turned into a kleptomaniac in the past few years, since he underwent past life regression and started babbling about ancient Greece, but he was no killer.
Ash decided to ignore the problem and get back to work. And he stopped himself just as he started to label the same packages a fourth time.
If Oracle had not known instinctively to dodge to the left, she might have suffered a severely bruised chin.
But she did know, and so she did dodge, and so the kicking attack missed her.barely.
Gretchen Halspont pulled back and resumed battle-ready stance, puffing slightly from the exertion she had already gone through.
They were in the midst of their workout, and Oracle was impressed with what she had seen, as she knew she would be.
The two women were clad in leotards... Oracle's black, in contrast with her platinum blonde hair, and Gretchen's dark blue with white leggings.
Gretchen's jet-black hair was pulled back in a short ponytail, and she was looking remarkably fit after just a few weeks here. She had put on about ten pounds, and lost the sullen, near-cadaverous expression she carried with her during her time at the Wellness Institute. She was focused, almost to the point of anger, as she tried to attack Oracle again.
Once again, it was easy to dodge. They were just practicing, but Oracle had given Gretchen explicit orders not to hold back. She had to know what the girl was capable of.
They looked back as the doors of the gymnasium swung open, and Fisk strolled in.
Gretchen used the momentary distraction to kick Oracle's legs out from under her, sending her dropping to the mats. Oracle shook her head in impressed disbelief, and accepted Gretchen's hand as the girl offered to help her up. Gretchen smiled apologetically.
"Go get some juice," Oracle said, patting Gretchen on the shoulder, "And get me some too."
Gretchen nodded and headed off for a cooler at the far end of the gym.
"You distracted me," Oracle said, wiping her brow with a towel as she strolled up to Fisk.
Fisk shrugged apologetically. "Looks like she's quite a spitfire."
"She took karate classes a few years ago, it turns out," Oracle replied. "That, combined with her natural reflexes, makes for an impressive combination. I'm beginning to see exactly how she survived a whole night out in the woods with the deadites all around her."
"Well, that's why the boss wants her," Fisk said.
"I know all about Lajos's plans involving the girl," Oracle said. "More than you know, even. But you're here to talk about the Hand, not about her."
"Yeah," Fisk said, matter-of-factly. In the old days, that would have spooked him, but he was used to it by now. "Mr. Z wants to know what you can find out about it. Why it was where it was, why it was killing people, yadda yadda."
Oracle concentrated for a moment, and her pale eye began to glow. "It's had to tell, when its motivations are so primal and inscrutable... it's not as if I could read its mind, of course."
"Of course."
"But I think it was where it was because its trip back home to the woodlands of Tennessee proved fruitless... it went in search of the cabin."
"Which is no longer there, natch." Fisk replied.
"We should call the caretaker at the estate Lajos had built on that site, to make sure he's okay," Oracle said. "My readings are a bit fuzzy there. But from what I can gather, the hand found out his cabin was no more, then went wandering in search of Ashley Williams."
"Ah, crud," Fisk said. "You think it knows?"
"It doesn't know anything, it doesn't have a brain," Oracle replied evenly. "But it has been on its killing spree simply because it was frustrated about not finding Ash."
"If it can't know anything, how can it be frustrated?" Fisk wondered aloud.
"I think it's still searching for him," Oracle said, ignoring the side comment. "But it's hard to tell if it will be able to find him."
Fisk stroked his chin, contemplating. "Maybe we better call the Detroit office and have them keep an eye out for it."
"For a hand-sized object?" Oracle asked skeptically. "They can barely keep track of the movements of all 180 pounds of Ash himself."
Gretchen approached, handing Oracle a bottle of orange juice. She then handed Fisk a Miller Lite, taken from the same cooler.
"Aw, thanks, kid," Fisk replied.
"No problem," Gretchen said with a smile. "You guys have been so nice to me."
"That's what we're here for," Fisk said with a grin as he popped the top of the can.
The rest of the day went uneventfully, and Ash headed to the gym to get some exercise and release some tension. He had called his old pal Scotty to see if he wanted to play some racquetball, but of course Scotty had declined, suggesting a trip to a nearby bar instead, and pointed out that picking up some 'hot chicks' would be a great way to relieve tension. Never mind that Scotty used the worst pick-up lines in history, and the 'chicks' in that particular bar tended to run the gamut from sleazy to seedy.
Then, Ash decided to call Scotty's ex-wife Shelly, who Ash had known since college. But she was too busy getting her kids ready for a trip to Chuck E. Cheese's, and asked for a raincheck.
Ash knew that Tyrone was out of town, and that Chuck was working double- shifts down at the auto plant, and Jesinia was studying for mid-terms, and... and that was about it. Other than his co-workers, not a lot of whom he particularly liked, Ash didn't know anyone else to call. So he decided to just head to the gym and hope he could round up an opponent there.
As he drove down the streets of suburban Detroit, Ash noticed the headlights of a police car following him.
He cinched up, the way he always did when he saw the cops, and his mind went through all the possibilities. He had his registration, he hadn't been speeding, he hadn't done any illegal road turns that he could think of, and his inspection sticker wasn't out of date for another couple of weeks. He had no reason to fear.
Then, he thought about the interrogation he had gone under from the police, when they thought he might be responsible for the murders down south. Detectives Lewis and Murphy had been fair, and even apologetic when they realized that he had no right hand. But what if there was something else, some new twist that caused them to decide to haul him in again.
Damn, he wanted that police car to turn down some side street and quit following him.
But it did keep following.
So Ash decided to ignore it, and hope it had nothing do with him, and drive just a wee bit under the speed limit.
By the time he pulled into the parking lot of the gym, Ash didn't see the police car anymore. He shrugged it off, and headed in.
A few seconds later, the aforementioned police car pulled up, coming to a quiet halt in front of the fitness center.
The first noticably odd feature of the car was the decal on the door, identifying it not as a Detroit squad car but as one belonging to the police force of a small city called Pahanassey, Indiana.
The second noticably odd feature of the car was the dead police officer in the driver's seat, his head flopped over to one side, his eyes rolled back in his head and his tongue hanging lazily from his mouth.
The third noticably odd feature: the blood-stained hand that had climbed up on the dashboard and, despite the lack of eyes, seemed to be examining its surroundings.
The fourth: the mottled female hand that lay against the passenger seat, safely buckled in but motionless.
Up on the dashboard, the Hand continued to wiggle its fingers at the surrounding area, until the head of Ashley Williams passed by in a window. It then snapped its fingers, and hopped down into the dead officer's lap.
It had found its target. Ash. He was in there. It was so happy it could have danced.
But instead, it decided to go ahead with the new trick it had learned while experimenting with the police officer's body, after snapping his neck back before they crossed the Indiana/Michigan state line.
It tiptoed (well, tipfingertipped) over to the officer's midriff, pulling back the blood-stained dark blue shirt to reveal a hole in the man's belly. The hand then burrowed into the hole, vanishing from sight.
A moment later, the officer jerked up, as if waking from a deep sleep.
He shifted his broken neck around so he could stare at the gymnasium.
And the officer grinned maniacally, fondling his billyclub as he stepped out of the police car and staggered onto the sidewalk, moving like a puppet whose strings were being tugged on a bit too jerkily.
And he whistled a happy tune as he approached the front doors of the gym....
To be continued…..
"Hands Across America"
By: OmarSnake
Newton Fisk stared at the e-mail message on his computer screen.
It was the news he'd been waiting for a long time, but news he wasn't sure what to do with.
So, as Newton Fisk often did in his life, he decided not to think about it himself, but simply inform his boss and wait for orders.
He printed it out and jogged down the hall, into the offices of Lajos Szabo.
In the darkness, Szabo was not alone. Something else was there with him, but Fisk couldn't make it out in near-pitch black.
Szabo snapped a finger, and there was a sound --- footsteps? maybe, maybe not... --- as the 'something' retreated. Then, the sound of a door at the far end of the chamber shutting.
Then, a light came on at Szabo's desk. Not much, barely penetrating the oppressive darkness, but a change from the total black of moments earlier.
"Well?" Szabo asked.
Fisk offered the print-out, and Szabo's thin hand snatched it from his grip.
Fisk waited quietly as his employer read over the print-out.
"Beaumont County, Kentucky, eh?" Szabo asked.
"Yes, sir," Fisk said. "Ever since that stupid little Hand escaped from the lab, I've had a trace set up for anyone accessing the fingerprint records on Williams. I figured it would show up before too long."
"It's been awhile," Szabo said.
"But we know where it is, now."
"We know where it was, then," Szabo corrected him. "It has, most likely, moved on. And the longer you wait here, the colder the trail gets."
"I'll get right on it, sir," Fisk said.
"You do that," Szabo said coldly. "And ask Oracle for her take on where it's going and what it was doing killing people."
"Yes, sir," Fisk said, starting to turn to leave. Then, he looked back. "Do you happen to know where she is today?"
"Working with our new recruit, in the gymnasium on level six," Szabo said.
Fisk nodded briskly and departed.
It was a Hand with a mission.
When it first escaped, it had wanted to find Ash Williams, but had not been able to, so it settled for killing anyone it could.
The Hand had fun doing that, but found it strangely unfulfilling. At truck stops and isolated gas stations, it would traumatize, torture and mutilate anyone it could. But none of them were Ash, and that bothered the Hand, bothered it a lot.
Then, one day, the Hand had a... well, "vision" isn't the right word, since it didn't have eyes. And "thought" isn't either, since it didn't have a brain. But something happened.
Imagine, if you will, a telephone conversation. The Hand receives a call.
"Hello?" the Hand asks.
"Hello, Hand," the voice on the phone says. "This is Deadite Central."
"Oh, good to hear from you," the Hand replies.
"Now, listen, you've got to kill Ash."
"But that's what I'm trying to do!"
"No you're not, you're just wandering around like a five-fingered Charlie Starkweather. That's good, in that it's evil, but it's not good enough, in that it's not evil enough."
"Well, what DO you want me to do?"
"Get Ash. Get him now. Get him out of the picture. We need him dead. Deader than dead."
"Well, that's what I want to do anyhow!" the Hand cries.
"Yes, but you need to get to where he is."
"You know where he lives?" the Hand asks, feverish with anticipation.
"Of course," the voice replies, then reads out the directions.
Got that? Good. Now take out the telephone, Deadite Central, and for that matter the conversation. And leave just the Hand suddenly knowing where Ash was, because the forces of darkness wanted it to know, and heading that direction.
It didn't know why it was so important that Ash die. The Hand wanted to kill him because that was simply what the Hand wanted to do. But now, it knew that it was vital that Ash die, that without his death, the forces of darkness were in trouble.
And knowing how important it was, and knowing where Ash was, the Hand decided to act decisively. It mutilated a diner full of people... best way to get its blood flowing in the morning... and decided to wait for some sap it could take hostage, and make him or her drive it to Detroit.
But before that happened, the Hand got distracted by the beautiful fingers of one of its victims. They were so long and elegant, with their hot-pink press-on nails, it was instantly smitten. It had already killed the woman, a waitress in the diner, so it was simply a matter of hacking the hand at the wrist to free it from the shackles of the body it had been attached to.
The Hand didn't know what to call his newfound lady love... Lady Hand? Miss Hand? Ms. Hand? And she wasn't much of a conversationalist, not that the Hand could talk anyhow.
But if the Hand did a good job slaughtering Ash, perhaps it could convince the dark powers that dwelled at the edge of man's domain to imbue its new girlfriend with unlife, so they could venture out together happily, hand in hand.
So the Hand hijacked a truck, driven by a redneck named Jerry who tried to reason with it, and make chit-chat, and buddy up to the Hand.
The Hand didn't mind that... in fact, Jerry's sweaty attempts to save his own hide had been kind of amusing. And if it hadn't been for that roadkill the truck hit while driving, the Hand might have even spared his life.
Nah, not really. Jerry was a dead man the second the Hand had met him. But it hadn't planned to kill him so soon, its finger accidentally pulling the trigger of the gun it held aimed at Jerry's head.
When Jerry's brains spattered against the side of the cabin, the Hand instinctively grabbed hold of Lady Hand. The tractor-trailer swerved and crashed into a guard rail, shattering the windows before it flipped over and rolled down an embankment.
The Hand barely got itself and Lady Hand away before the rig exploded, sending shrapnel everywhere.
Fortunately, it wasn't long before the police arrived.
It was just a matter of waiting for one of the officers to head back to his squad car so he could call in a report and ask for assistance.
Ashley Williams couldn't keep his mind on his work.
Twice already, he had found himself pricing items he had already priced... if Bud, the manager, ever noticed the wasted stickers, he would probably dock Ash's pay. Granted, it would only be a few cents, but Bud was just the sort of skinflint to do that.
Ash's mind kept drifting back to the interrogation.
He had been hauled in by the police, who were looking for a killer... a killer whose fingerprints matched Ash's, only on the hand that Ash no longer possessed. The hand that had been possessed. The hand he had fought, repeatedly, in that cabin, all those years ago, but never saw afterwards.
Ash knew it was too much to hope that the evil that dwelled in those woods would ever leave him alone, but he thought at least THAT part of it was gone.
But had the hand killed the people in that diner?
There was another possibility, of course. Bad Ash.
Their pigheaded determination to get Ash was something the Hand and Bad Ash had in common. For that matter, it was something every Deadite he had ever faced had in common. They enjoyed killing, sure, but for some reason they really wanted Ash dead. And for some reason, they never quite succeeded. Ash had survived more abuse than your average football team could be expected to survive, and came up fighting. He was damned good at it. Maybe the only thing he WAS good at.
Ash decided to consult with Eldridge Stone the next time he got a chance. Sure, the old man was a certifiable kook, but he occasionally knew what he was talking about. And he might have an idea what was going on here, and whether it might mean the Hand or Bad Ash... or, for that matter, Ash's brother Rhett, who was supposed to be out of the country on business.
Nah, Rhett had turned into a kleptomaniac in the past few years, since he underwent past life regression and started babbling about ancient Greece, but he was no killer.
Ash decided to ignore the problem and get back to work. And he stopped himself just as he started to label the same packages a fourth time.
If Oracle had not known instinctively to dodge to the left, she might have suffered a severely bruised chin.
But she did know, and so she did dodge, and so the kicking attack missed her.barely.
Gretchen Halspont pulled back and resumed battle-ready stance, puffing slightly from the exertion she had already gone through.
They were in the midst of their workout, and Oracle was impressed with what she had seen, as she knew she would be.
The two women were clad in leotards... Oracle's black, in contrast with her platinum blonde hair, and Gretchen's dark blue with white leggings.
Gretchen's jet-black hair was pulled back in a short ponytail, and she was looking remarkably fit after just a few weeks here. She had put on about ten pounds, and lost the sullen, near-cadaverous expression she carried with her during her time at the Wellness Institute. She was focused, almost to the point of anger, as she tried to attack Oracle again.
Once again, it was easy to dodge. They were just practicing, but Oracle had given Gretchen explicit orders not to hold back. She had to know what the girl was capable of.
They looked back as the doors of the gymnasium swung open, and Fisk strolled in.
Gretchen used the momentary distraction to kick Oracle's legs out from under her, sending her dropping to the mats. Oracle shook her head in impressed disbelief, and accepted Gretchen's hand as the girl offered to help her up. Gretchen smiled apologetically.
"Go get some juice," Oracle said, patting Gretchen on the shoulder, "And get me some too."
Gretchen nodded and headed off for a cooler at the far end of the gym.
"You distracted me," Oracle said, wiping her brow with a towel as she strolled up to Fisk.
Fisk shrugged apologetically. "Looks like she's quite a spitfire."
"She took karate classes a few years ago, it turns out," Oracle replied. "That, combined with her natural reflexes, makes for an impressive combination. I'm beginning to see exactly how she survived a whole night out in the woods with the deadites all around her."
"Well, that's why the boss wants her," Fisk said.
"I know all about Lajos's plans involving the girl," Oracle said. "More than you know, even. But you're here to talk about the Hand, not about her."
"Yeah," Fisk said, matter-of-factly. In the old days, that would have spooked him, but he was used to it by now. "Mr. Z wants to know what you can find out about it. Why it was where it was, why it was killing people, yadda yadda."
Oracle concentrated for a moment, and her pale eye began to glow. "It's had to tell, when its motivations are so primal and inscrutable... it's not as if I could read its mind, of course."
"Of course."
"But I think it was where it was because its trip back home to the woodlands of Tennessee proved fruitless... it went in search of the cabin."
"Which is no longer there, natch." Fisk replied.
"We should call the caretaker at the estate Lajos had built on that site, to make sure he's okay," Oracle said. "My readings are a bit fuzzy there. But from what I can gather, the hand found out his cabin was no more, then went wandering in search of Ashley Williams."
"Ah, crud," Fisk said. "You think it knows?"
"It doesn't know anything, it doesn't have a brain," Oracle replied evenly. "But it has been on its killing spree simply because it was frustrated about not finding Ash."
"If it can't know anything, how can it be frustrated?" Fisk wondered aloud.
"I think it's still searching for him," Oracle said, ignoring the side comment. "But it's hard to tell if it will be able to find him."
Fisk stroked his chin, contemplating. "Maybe we better call the Detroit office and have them keep an eye out for it."
"For a hand-sized object?" Oracle asked skeptically. "They can barely keep track of the movements of all 180 pounds of Ash himself."
Gretchen approached, handing Oracle a bottle of orange juice. She then handed Fisk a Miller Lite, taken from the same cooler.
"Aw, thanks, kid," Fisk replied.
"No problem," Gretchen said with a smile. "You guys have been so nice to me."
"That's what we're here for," Fisk said with a grin as he popped the top of the can.
The rest of the day went uneventfully, and Ash headed to the gym to get some exercise and release some tension. He had called his old pal Scotty to see if he wanted to play some racquetball, but of course Scotty had declined, suggesting a trip to a nearby bar instead, and pointed out that picking up some 'hot chicks' would be a great way to relieve tension. Never mind that Scotty used the worst pick-up lines in history, and the 'chicks' in that particular bar tended to run the gamut from sleazy to seedy.
Then, Ash decided to call Scotty's ex-wife Shelly, who Ash had known since college. But she was too busy getting her kids ready for a trip to Chuck E. Cheese's, and asked for a raincheck.
Ash knew that Tyrone was out of town, and that Chuck was working double- shifts down at the auto plant, and Jesinia was studying for mid-terms, and... and that was about it. Other than his co-workers, not a lot of whom he particularly liked, Ash didn't know anyone else to call. So he decided to just head to the gym and hope he could round up an opponent there.
As he drove down the streets of suburban Detroit, Ash noticed the headlights of a police car following him.
He cinched up, the way he always did when he saw the cops, and his mind went through all the possibilities. He had his registration, he hadn't been speeding, he hadn't done any illegal road turns that he could think of, and his inspection sticker wasn't out of date for another couple of weeks. He had no reason to fear.
Then, he thought about the interrogation he had gone under from the police, when they thought he might be responsible for the murders down south. Detectives Lewis and Murphy had been fair, and even apologetic when they realized that he had no right hand. But what if there was something else, some new twist that caused them to decide to haul him in again.
Damn, he wanted that police car to turn down some side street and quit following him.
But it did keep following.
So Ash decided to ignore it, and hope it had nothing do with him, and drive just a wee bit under the speed limit.
By the time he pulled into the parking lot of the gym, Ash didn't see the police car anymore. He shrugged it off, and headed in.
A few seconds later, the aforementioned police car pulled up, coming to a quiet halt in front of the fitness center.
The first noticably odd feature of the car was the decal on the door, identifying it not as a Detroit squad car but as one belonging to the police force of a small city called Pahanassey, Indiana.
The second noticably odd feature of the car was the dead police officer in the driver's seat, his head flopped over to one side, his eyes rolled back in his head and his tongue hanging lazily from his mouth.
The third noticably odd feature: the blood-stained hand that had climbed up on the dashboard and, despite the lack of eyes, seemed to be examining its surroundings.
The fourth: the mottled female hand that lay against the passenger seat, safely buckled in but motionless.
Up on the dashboard, the Hand continued to wiggle its fingers at the surrounding area, until the head of Ashley Williams passed by in a window. It then snapped its fingers, and hopped down into the dead officer's lap.
It had found its target. Ash. He was in there. It was so happy it could have danced.
But instead, it decided to go ahead with the new trick it had learned while experimenting with the police officer's body, after snapping his neck back before they crossed the Indiana/Michigan state line.
It tiptoed (well, tipfingertipped) over to the officer's midriff, pulling back the blood-stained dark blue shirt to reveal a hole in the man's belly. The hand then burrowed into the hole, vanishing from sight.
A moment later, the officer jerked up, as if waking from a deep sleep.
He shifted his broken neck around so he could stare at the gymnasium.
And the officer grinned maniacally, fondling his billyclub as he stepped out of the police car and staggered onto the sidewalk, moving like a puppet whose strings were being tugged on a bit too jerkily.
And he whistled a happy tune as he approached the front doors of the gym....
To be continued…..