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[Previous Guest Writer]   Regina Mitchell   [Chill Factor Index]

Simon writes:

Now, horror stories come in many different guises. Sometimes they leap out roaring, bellowing and waving bloody talons. And sometimes they just creep up ever so quietly, ever so gently, then detonate in the center of your soul when you least expect it. For me, both approaches work. And lately I've been appreciating more than ever the writing of Shirley Jackson who can tell a tale in such a subtle way that she lulls you into a sense of false security until that final sentence when she unleashes such horror that you catch your breath and shiver head to toe.

So, imagine my delight when I read Regina Mitchell's "Ungloved Hands". Here is someone who doesn't need to shout to tell a powerful story. There is subtlety and depth, and it is in that depth that lurks the real horror. In fact, you are not really aware it's there until...; there I go, saying too much about this darkly potent tale, so with no further delay I leave you in Regina Mitchell's very capable "Ungloved Hands".

She needed gloves and she needed them now.

Rosa walked past bright shop windows letting her thoughts drift here and there as she clasped her hands tightly together, one gloved and one not. It was not fashionable to wear gloves anymore, had not been in more years than she could recall, but she needed them just the same. Somehow, somewhere she had lost one and that just would not do.

If her doctor knew she was this worried about the gloves he probably would have pulled her right back into the place she had called home for many years – St. Joan's. She was sent there after her mother died. Rosa did not remember much about that, was not even sure how she wound up there; the whole thing was hazy. She remembered her mother, more specifically her hands, covered in red gauze, some of it spilling on the floor. Dr. Henry claimed she was obsessive-compulsive and needed to get over it before she could get better. She knew he would never understand the real reason she wore the gloves, so she played along even though it nearly made her crack, not being able to cover her hands. Her mind traveled, sometimes remembering, sometimes imagining, always coming back to the sole purpose for her afternoon walk – going to the store to find gloves.

There it was coming up on the right: Hammond's Department Store. They catered to people with much higher incomes than Rosa, but they also had the best gloves in town (they hardly ever ripped) and were nearly always in stock. She was constantly losing the silly things, but this time she would be smart. She would buy three pair: one to wear, one to carry in her purse and a spare pair to keep at home. And all black, of course, to match any outfit she might wear. She wondered why she had not thought of it before. She made her way into the store, shoes squeaking slightly from the leftover autumn rain.

Ignoring the stares, she was used to them by now, Rosa moved inelegantly across the store, immersed in her own thoughts, not minding anyone else. Intent on reaching the handbag department where the gloves were sold without touching anything in her path, Rosa moved as quickly as she could. She turned past a rack of designer scarves and immediately knocked into a sales clerk who had stopped to admire herself in the small mirror above the rack. Rosa fell to the side, her ample body pulling her down hard, black clothes fluttering up around her like curtains in an unseen breeze. The clerk reached down to help her and Rosa shied away gesturing "no," trying to roll up by herself, but the clerk either did not understand or did not care. With a deep sigh the girl bent down and reached. Roughly she grasped Rosa's ungloved fingers.

The instant the clerk's hand touched her, Rosa fell back to the floor smacking her head hard on the carpet, eyes rolling up so that only the whites gleamed sickly under the fluorescent lights. Inside her head the blackness swirled, engulfing her, removing her from the store and placing her inside

A dingy gray apartment, walls yellowed from years of cigarette smoke build-up and greasy cooking. It was uncomfortably warm in the room; she felt sweat pooling in the crack where her arm bent at the elbow. She sat on a sofa, once plaid, now worn and full of burn holes. It rested beneath a window tacked over with cardboard. Across the room, on another window, miniblinds hung askew, separated at the top, allowing a sliver of dim light to poke through. The rest of the slats hung haphazardly, doing their best to keep the sunlight and fresh air outside where they belonged. Nothing belonged in here. Filth clung to every available surface. It was unimaginable to Rosa that a human could live in such conditions. Grime covered the walls, their only decoration. No pictures hung, not even a poster, but holes were peckered in spots as if someone used the wall for a dartboard. Cracks were abundant on the ceiling, and the floor creaked and shifted precariously when she finally felt herself move. She left the sofa and walked to what passed for an end table. She grabbed a cigarette from the battered pack lying on top of a two-year-old issue of Cosmopolitan. She lit the slender tube, inhaling deeply. Rosa did not smoke.

A shabby rug covered part of the scratched and scored wood floor and an old knob-style television set tottered on a stack of milkcrates. Each one was stamped "PROPERTY OF FISHMAN'S DAIRY: DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW." Rosa, who was not herself any more, smelled several things, each trying to outdo the other. Old smoke met with remnants of rotted hamburgers and burnt French fries while the sickly sweet odor of turned milk wafted in from the kitchen. The most overwhelming smell, however, she did not recognize. It was familiar yet beyond her reach. She struggled to place it. It was so familiar!

Uselessly Rosa tried to move, to see what else was in this apartment but, of course, she could not. Instead she stood in place, watching the smoke curl up from her cigarette until it melded with a urine colored patch on the ceiling.

A mewling sound began from deeper within the apartment. A cat, Rosa thought. That explained the elusive smell. She felt her body move, stepping on squashed soda and beer cans, cigarette butts and moldy food. Everything yielded softly beneath her feet, making her stomach roll.

It was unnerving being propelled, unable to move oneself. She should have been used to it by now. This type of thing had happened to her ever since she was a little girl; it was the reason she wore the gloves. She would rather be considered a fashion victim than to fall into what waited for her touch. Her experiences were never the same. It was like being trapped in some kind of alien tour bus. She could never control where she went or what she did or saw. She was a passenger, merely along for the ride, although she rarely enjoyed it.

As she moved, Rosa noticed the body felt different from her own, both lighter and dirtier. The mewling sound began again, louder now, and the hands, which were not Rosa's, moved up and covered her ears. She felt herself yelling. "NONONO ... NOT AGAIN! WHY DON'T YOU JUST SHUT UP?" Her head turned back and forth, back and forth, faster and faster, until Rosa thought it would fall off and roll underneath the sagging sofa, never to be seen again.

The fingers pressed into the ears Rosa wore digging ragged nails into the lobes. She felt blood pool in the foreign ears, felt it trickle down the side of someone else's neck. Hands clawed the sides of that neck, smearing sticky fluid, then began pulling at the hair on her head. The heel of her hand hit against the sides of it over and over. She heard herself chanting softly, "stopitstopitstopitstopit" as she paced across the floor. The chant turned into low moans and then screams of rage.

Finally her feet stamped the floor once, twice, and then began moving again. They took her down a squat hallway that branched into two rooms. She found herself entering the room on the right not knowing what would happen next, unable to stop. The room was cold, an icebox compared to the other room she had been in. The room with the sofa greedily kept too much heat leaving this one without even a memory. Then the stench hit her, like a fist. Fecal build up and rotted food, a sickly sweet odor like dried vomit assaulted her senses and Rosa wondered how this person could stand it.

A baby lay on a scratchy olive Army blanket in a pile on the floor. Old diapers, some in plastic bags, some merely wadded together, lay along one wall. Some of the diapers were on the blanket and by the looks of it the baby had gotten into them. Shit covered everything, was even smeared on the walls like some kind of sick finger-paint. The baby itself was not in a diaper. It lay there naked, face bluish from cold, skin red from chafing on the blanket, crusted feces on its thighs and stomach. It vainly struggled to turn over, to move, something, but just stayed there helpless. Rosa wanted to help the poor creature, but was stuck inside this cold, unfeeling body that simply squatted down and stared at the infant.

"You'd like to crawl away, wouldn't you?" She paused as if waiting for an answer. "Well, go ahead. See if someone wants to take care of your ugly ass. You ruined my life, you little fucker." The words came out softly, lovingly. If one only took in the tone, she could be any caring mother. The words gave her truth, seeping out like poison. She watched the baby struggle and cry for an eternity before she felt and saw the hands on this body move toward it. Thank heavens, she's going to pick it up, she thought. Even as she thought this the idea of the filth encrusted body repulsed her. But perhaps this person would clean it, care for it. The hands came up and pressed down hard on the infant, covering the entire lower portion of its face. Rosa saw nails bitten down to the quick and one silver ring, a plain band, on the third finger of the right hand. Screaming inside, but helpless to stop, she watched the hands as they pressed down fast on the child, felt them sink into the soft skin. She struggled as hard as she could to come out of the body, to make it stop, to no avail. The baby flailed around desperately at first, kicking and crying, fists pounding in air, but soon weakened. Even after its face turned gray and it had stopped struggling, those hands pressed down ever harder as if to keep it from getting back up. Rosa felt the wetness that had leaked out of the baby's mouth and nose throughout the struggle, and nausea overwhelmed her. She thought she might faint or throw up, wished that she could, but it was not to be. She was trapped here, in this murderer's body. Time passed slowly, too slowly, before the hands lifted off of the still, pale figure, reached into a pocket and pulled out a cigarette. Flame shot up from a jade green lighter. The hand brought it up toward her face. She fought desperately to get out of this hideous body and back into her own. She fought and clawed mentally until

slowly, ever so slowly, Rosa came back to herself. Disoriented she struggled to sit up and was assisted by the shop girl. "Lady, are you okay?"

The girl, a blond about nineteen or twenty, looked at another woman, apparently the manager, who stood above them disapprovingly. Rosa managed to move herself into a sitting position. "She knocked into me, fell down, and just freaked out," the girl said. "I thought she was dead or something."

"Ma'am, are you all right?" the manager asked. She looked concerned and angry at the same time. This sort of thing was not supposed to happen in her department.

Rosa tried to clear her dizzy head so she could answer, but everything spun and the lights glared brightly down, causing her to forget what she was going to say. She was scared, wanted to go home, but all she could think of was hands and gloves and the baby.

The manager looked sharply at the clerk. "Well, help her up!"

Rolling her eyes skyward the girl turned back toward Rosa. She reached a hand out to her, the silver band on it a little more tarnished, still on the third finger, nails now grown out and groomed neatly, covered in burgundy polish. Something clicked inside Rosa.

"Not again!" she screamed. "I don't want to see what you did!" This drew a look of anger from the manager. Rosa could not bear to have those hands near her or, even worse, on her. She struggled to think of what to do. Dr. Henry was right; she was not ready yet.

The asylum loomed in her thoughts, radiating warmth and comfort. She pictured her old room with the plain bed, the lock on the door, mesh over the windows. She wanted very badly to be home. The girl's hand had just about reached her when Rosa made a decision.

She leapt quickly for a woman of her girth. Her gloved hand grabbed the salesgirl's face and slammed it hard on the counter behind her. Again and again she heard the wet thud. Droplets splashed Rosa's face like tears as she looked down and saw the clerk's hands flailing, like her baby's had, but stuck in a thick pool of red.

Regina Mitchell is a mother, a wife, student, technical coordinator and part-time writer, amongst other things. Her fiction has appeared in serveral small-press publications including the chapbook, A Darker Dawning, and she has stories forthcoming in at least three anthologies. You can visit her on the web at http://members.tripod.com/media_noche/.