Steven Lanchester

It was a rather warm Saturday afternoon when James first noticed the fingertips. He hunched over the backyard flowerbed, sweat pouring off his delicate, tulip-tending hands, when the sight of five skeletal extremities caught his eye. The short, stout, stalks of flesh protruding from the soil stood out like weeds in the dry afternoon sun.

James did not dare draw any closer, instead turning his attention back to the tulips to ease his conscience that he was not a madman. The fingertips sat rotting away in his peripheral vision, charcoal fingernails pointing toward a clear blue sky.

***

It was only on the cool, yet sunny, Sunday morning that James crossed paths with them again. Head banging with a hangover, nearly finished with his morning coffee and cigarette on the veranda, he caught another glimpse of the rotten little nodes. He shook his head. He was to get some more saplings today, get some more saplings and fill out the rest of the garden.

Eyes darting anywhere but the flowerbed, he eventually faltered, and his gaze rested upon the fingers as he gulped down his drink and put out his cigarette in the ashtray. They should have blended in with the flowerbed’s ruddy pinks and dirty greens, but they did not. James found it harder to look away this time.

Rosa, was his initial thought, but he quickly buried that thought. Rosa had been gone a long time now, and was buried six feet further in the ground.

Were those fingers longer today than they were yesterday?

He shook that thought too, and turned back to the door to go inside.

***

It was a dark, overcast Monday night, and whilst James’ gaze laid upon the television, his mind turned to the backyard. Go and check if they’re still there.

But what difference would it make? They’re either there or they’re not, but I’m here now.

If you see them again, it means you’re going insane.

Sick of wrestling with his conscience, he quickly stood up, knocking over two empty bottles of beer from the coffee table.

The rusty backdoor flew open as James simultaneously turned on the backyard lights.

Not there, he thought at first. Good.

Then his eyes adjusted to the dark, and he noticed the palm. Those familiar fingers sat on the empty patch of soil by the tulips, tonight protruding another inch out of the ground, so that a thin layer of palm bloomed through the dirt.

That’s it, I’m going crazy.

Adrenaline coursing through his body, James stormed over to the hand, heaving his leg up and bringing it back down with as mighty a force as he could muster in his drunken state. He heard the crunch of bones beneath his work boots and kicked a mass of turned-over soil to cover up the flesh, patting it down with his foot.

Satisfied with his work, he headed back inside, reminding himself to buy some more flowers at work tomorrow.

***

A soft drizzle of rain tinkered on James’ bedroom window just before sun broke on a misty Tuesday morning. He had awoken with his heart in his throat. He had had a dream about Rosa. In it, she was standing as still as a garden statue amongst the tulips, but was screaming to be let inside. James nearly let her, until he noticed her decaying hand start to reach out to grab him…

It was nearly impossible not to notice it this morning. As he peered out the foggy glass, the hand stood out from the rest of the garden like a diseased, festering wound against soft, perfect skin.

I’m here, it told him, I’m here and you can’t forget me. You can try to bury me but I will dig myself out again and I’m growing and I’m coming…

Impossible, he told himself as he rushed outside in a fit of frustration, I buried you and you are gone.

He stormed through the grass as rain licked the back of his neck and ran down his pyjama shirt.

It was the entire hand now, unearthed from the wrist upwards. James stared at it.

He lied to himself that the dirt must have washed away overnight. Somehow, it was there, but it could not have possibly been growing.

It’s Rosa, the feeling bubbled through him that he desperately tried to suppress. It’s Rosa and she’s coming back to get me for what I did. He must’ve truly been going insane.

James opened up a fresh bag of soil and dumped the entire contents over the hand, laughing as he finally entombed it, telling himself that he would forget about it this time for good.

***

The nonstop rainfall kept pouring down in the early hours of a dark Wednesday as James laid in bed unable to sleep.

While away the hours, think about the flowers.

I can’t think about anything else.

The clouds were growing thicker still, and though he was not asleep, James was dreaming. Rosa woke up from her eternal slumber, her once beautiful, now disfigured corpse slowly emerging from the ground. She was dragging herself, slowly, through the garden, into the house, leaving muddy tracks in her wake…

A thunderbolt clapped and James bolted upright with it. He slowly turned his head to the window. Through the storm, a silhouette of an arm lurked in the garden. Out of its grave, on top of a pile of soil, it stood. It almost looked as if it were waving.

James turned back around and started counting sheep. It was of no use.

Maybe if she had died a normal death, I’d have been alright, he cursed to himself.

Maybe if she had died in one go, I’d at least have more time.

A flash of lightning, and James instinctively turned back to the window. The arm was gone.

His mind was racing, unable to bury the intrusive thoughts of axe cutting through flesh and sprinkling blood all over the tulips. It was the head he went for first, but he had buried the arm last.

As lightning flashed again, he could clearly see the tips of rotten toes protruding from another patch of soil, sticking out about an inch. James laughed as he noticed the dying pot plant sitting on his bedroom windowsill, and heard a knocking on his bedroom door.

---

Born and raised in Sheffield, England, Steven Lanchester now resides in Sydney, Australia, where he is completing a Master of Science in Mathematical Sciences at the University of New South Wales. At 22, he splits his time between mastering latte art, obsessing over Formula One, and indulging in his lifelong fascination with the macabre. This fascination began after his older brother traumatised him with late-night horror screenings at only 7 years old, a cruel act for which he remains oddly grateful. This short story marks Lanchester’s writing debut, and he hopes it leaves you deliciously unsettled.

More bone-chilling stories await you… Return to Issue 4!