A Helping Hand (originally: What do gas stations, hands, shotguns, fire, and bowties have in common?)
[Now, this story was featured on the NoSleep podcast recently, but the version I'm posting here is a new edit with a redone ending. I like it better this way, and I hope reader, that you dig it too.]
It was a long trip to nowhere. Mindlessly flipping radio stations, catching snippets and static:
“Breaking news: in Delaware, it appears more hands continue to…”
“Whoa, oh, oh, I’m on fire…”
“Hey you. Yes, you! Feeling like you’re in a rut latel-” Off.
The sky had finished its usual shift into speckled ink just as I finally found a gas station. Rural Pennsylvania is a beautiful wasteland at night. Not a single soul around unless you counted the old man on the tractor I had nearly sideswiped 20 minutes prior to discovering this gas mecca. The stars burned lonely holes into my eyes, letting me know in their crowdedness just how isolated I was. But fuck’m. They’re stars; what do they know? I was driving for the exact reason the cosmos mocked me: I needed to escape.
My relationship with a girl I assumed was my one and only blew up in my face when I discovered her infidelity...with my best friend. Of course, I learned about their tryst from someone I met once at a work function in Florida on a Tuesday or something, something, they just kept fucking talking. I wanted to vomit, and they insensitively wanted to reminisce after a cursory, “I thought you knew.” It doesn’t help that I’m a recovering alcoholic, so the shock nearly relapsed me after two good months. I still wish I would let myself slip a little, but the drinking is the reason I’ve alienated my family. So yeah, you could say things have been pleasant.
But anyway, I pulled my pickup into one of two pumps, looking around for an attendant. The New Jersey in me never fully left. I still feel entitled to a gas slave. The one attendant was a man of obscure ethnicity, sitting in an office bathed in harsh fluorescent vibrance; he stared at me with disdain from behind plate glass coated in dirty neglect. I chose to pay at the pump.
I don’t think I need to describe the act of pumping gas, but immediately after picking my grade, as I stood against my truck, a man appeared. I guess appeared isn’t the correct term. He didn’t just materialize, but this station was bright enough that the surrounding area turned to opaque darkness. Since the man was dressed in a black duster, black loafers, black wide-brimmed hat, black slacks, and a black waistcoat over a white blouse and red bowtie, he blended in decently well. He was also walking, with no car in sight…
The stranger approached the second pump ten feet from mine, giving me a slight wave before breaking awkward eye contact to insert nothing into the machine. This man literally inserted nothing, while holding his fingers to appear he was using a card. He removed the pump, and it inexplicably began spewing gas onto the pavement. I gave a desperate glance to the attendant in his base some yards away. He was busy with a TV small enough to wrap my hand around.
When I glanced back at my weird station neighbor, he was looking at me with eyes that wrapped too-bright whites around deep, black irises. He wasn’t staring; it was a nice look with the kind of cordial smile one adopts for small talk, positioned within a meticulously managed, grey handlebar mustache.
“Nice night, huh?” Completely normal tone from the man chaotic spraying fuel.
“I...umm...you’re not filling anythi-”
“You won’t survive it.” He cut me off with a cheerful tone. I noticed behind the friendly voice was a sound I may have imagined. It was like the horn section of an an orchestra trying to play a piece in E minor while they are all brutally murdered. I couldn’t hear this as much as feel it in my spine.
“Excuse me?”
“The night. You won’t survive it. But hey, at least there’s a lovely breeze.” With those words the man replaced the pump, turned around with a wink, and began to stride away. Two steps and he stopped short, producing a match from his pocket. He lit it. He threw it over his shoulder.
“Take care now,” the gas burst into flames. Simultaneously, all the lights in the station went out, and the man was nowhere to be seen on the other side of the blaze. The attendant, whose office light was unaffected, charged out of his office shouting in an accent I couldn’t place.
“You son of a bitch, you’re destroying my business!” It took me a second to realize he was directing his rage at me. The heat distorted my view of this angry little man, but he I could tell he was holding a shotgun.
“Holy fuck!” I sprinted to my truck, pump still feeding into the tank. Luckily, the flames hadn’t jumped the gap to my side. I heard a burst of gunfire and the sound of ripping metal. This asshole shot my truck. It didn’t register that it could’ve just as easily been the sound of ripping flesh. Regardless, I made it inside and floored it, ripping the gas line out, which swung out into the puddle and ignited.
By some miracle, or the sheer acceleration, the nozzle was flung from my tank before I became a douchebag flambe. I had heard the attendant’s muffled shouting even as the gas station turned to a spot of light in my rearview.
I was still an hour from home. The drive was tense and silent. The radio wasn’t about to interfere while I processed everything that had just happened. I was shot at and almost blew up in a gas fire. But none of that really mattered to me since it wasn’t what he meant. I know it wasn’t what he meant.
“You won’t survive the night.” I paraphrased the stranger in my head, somehow expecting there to be some hidden meaning in five words. What if it was a car crash? Was this man clairvoyant? Did he really just disappear or did the fire obscure him?
I continued this mental interrogation long into my drive, eventually making it to my driveway, barely registering that a UPS truck was also sitting there. It was 3am, but here was Mr. Brown Shorts, jumping down from his seat with a grimace that indicated the graveyard shift.
“Here’s your package. Thanks for putting a rush on it. Next time wait like everyone else.” Before I could retort, this slightly overweight, slouch-shouldered courier was wearily flipping me off as he backed out of my drive. I could’ve fired something back. However, my mind was once again blank. This time, I couldn’t comprehend the package I was holding.
It was a simple cardboard box. I ran into the house and flung it onto the couch like it contained a plague. Sitting on the floor on the other side of the room, I surveyed the box. It was medium-sized, cardboard, and had a logo emblazoned on the side: Resting Rock Industries. I knew that name, so before I even opened the box, my laptop was out and ready to Google.
The results jogged my memory: 48 died in Resting Rock Industries fire. Massive headstone business closes as the three Healy brothers, owners of the company, are found dead of smoke inhalation in the basement. The three were missing their hands. Weeks earlier, the brothers had come under suspicion of laundering company money to front a cocaine ring, but officials decided the disaster was not linked to the drug trade or organized crime.
The whole investigation lasted four months. One man was the prime arson suspect: Eli Mull. He was the former janitor, having been fired a month prior to the incident.
I remembered live news footage of the cops busting into Eli’s house, only to find him dying in the bathroom. He was surrounded by heroin-filled syringes, his body badly burned. The cops released one thing he said as he died:
“I’m a failure.” It was ruled suicide by self-immolation.
There was a big thing later about his hands being removed from his body while he was in the morgue. Nothing showed up on security tapes. It was written off as another case of “necrophiliac creep gets a job as a coroner.”
I’m not an idiot. I put the pieces together in my head as best I could. Not being someone who discounts the supernatural, the feeling of “I’m fucked either way” descended on my tightening chest as I chose to open the box.
It was a bottle of The Macallan 30-year, a $2,000 bottle of Scotch. Two fine crystal glasses accompanied the bottle, as did a folded up piece of paper. Obviously I read that shit: “This is probably poison. I can test it for you. Just let me in the house.”
Knock.
One single knock on the door followed by ten very long seconds. Then a flurry of vicious pounding on all parts of the door. Snarling. Muffled shrieks. Complete silence. Incredibly thick silence.
“Naaaaaaathan. Hey, Nathan. I know you’re in there. You should let me in to test the bottle. Otherwise, you may not survive.” Fake, saccharine words from a voice I knew was the man from the gas station. The only problem was he was using my own voice through the door. “I mean, you could certainly try it yourself, but you’ve come so far without it. Let me prove that it’s dangerous….
...JUST LET ME THE FUCK IN.” The pounding began again, and I sat frozen on the floor, curled in a ball for half an hour before the TV blinked on by itself. The video was of my best friend Travis with Melanie, the love of my life.
No, perverts, this was not a video of them fucking. This was worse. This was them in a diner discussing my faults. Discussing why they needed to be together and edge me out of the social circle I helped bring together.
“He’s such a downer lately. I understand he’s at a dead end, but it isn’t like he’s ever going to come out of it. He was always the party guy. The party guy ends up sad and alone. I know it’s harsh, but Mel, you need to let him go.” My best fucking friend was grinning smugly as he manipulated the rock in my storm of a life.
“I mean, I know Trav, but I think I can fix him. I want to fix him.” She seemed unsure, like she was justifying the relationship to herself.
“You can’t help someone so flawed. He’s spiraling, and he’ll take you down with you. I won’t allow that to happen to you. I love you, Mel.” He was a bold asshole.
“I….I love you too, Travis.” This wasn’t something she was forced to see. Her voice held some relish in the words. That’s when I noticed I was sitting on the couch clutching the still closed bottle. The plastic seal, however, had been removed around the lid. The TV went out again.
“Hey Nate, that’s such a shame. If you let me in maybe we can share a sip or two.” He was back.
Fuck it, I’m confronting this bastard. Moving towards the door, I was overtaken by thought. My hand touched the handle, but before I turned it, everything flooded into my brain: He knows your name. He knows where you live. He is mimicking your voice. He literally fucking disappeared. Is this someone you want to confront? Regardless of how fucked you think you are, he hasn’t made an attempt to come into the house other than coaxing. Sit down.
I had a point. Back to the couch.
“Buuuuddy, come on, you were so close. We can have a blast together.” He was pleading, but it wasn’t pathetic. There was more malice now than in his yelling. “Fine, do it yourself.”
It was silent again. There I was staring a blank TV screen, with a sealed bottle of one of the best Scotch’s money can buy sitting next to me. Maybe just a sip…
The phone rang. It was 4:36am. I answered anyway, being greeted by my mother with a somber note in her words.
“Hi Nate, I know it’s a terrible time to be calling, but we haven’t talked in so long. You should know that your father and I had our last fight tonight. He just left the house. We’re...getting a divorce.” She croaked the last line. They were married 28 years, and you could feel the love between them. “Now, I’m sure you have a lot you want to ask me-”
“You’re damn sure I do, but it’s about you guys ignoring for the past two ye-”
“It’s natural for a child to feel like it’s his fault.” Something definitely wasn’t right about this call -- ya know, aside from the timing. “So, if you’re afraid it’s your fault just know...it is. Have a good night sweetheart.” That was that. The bottle was opened. I poured a glass.
That marvelous sip. It was like smoky silk. I ran it over my tongue, bathing in the flavor and feel of alcohol. But I snapped back into perspective before I drank again. I think I imagined a distant chuckle somewhere outside that concluded with a sigh as I set the glass back down.
I felt light and relaxed. Far too relaxed for one sip of booze. But the seal wasn’t broken. The bottle had been in its original box with that perfect circle of glue holding the lid closed. I refused to believe I wouldn’t notice if it was tampered with prior.
No, I knew for a fact it wasn’t tampered with since I’ve seen enough bottles of whiskey in my dark years to kill a small village. Still, something didn’t feel right. Oh, again, something didn’t feel right aside from everything else that was feeling wrong.
Sitting in silence after taking the sip was actually somewhat easier. The temptation was gone, strange enough. I even allowed a smile when I saw the first sunbeams of the morning. Looks like I survived the night. Did I understand the night? No, I have no fucking clue what happened. I called my mom that morning, and when my dad answered the phone confused and assuming I was drunk, it was surprisingly comforting. If only the videos of Travis and Mel were false. It was definitely them on my TV; I don’t doubt it for a second. You just can’t have everything, I suppose.
But the night was over, and I wanted nothing more than to go outside, shoving this out of my mind. Opening my front door turned out to be a regret. The lingering scent of smoke hit me first. Then...the hands.
Disembodied hands lay neatly in pairs on the porch. Every pair was burned in some way, and they all lay with fingers spread in my direction, arranged as a semi-circle before me. Right in front of the half-circle was a box of matches with an ornate design of gold leaves and vines. The vines curled around the swooping letters of an unfamiliar language, a prominent, disorienting logo. The box itself sat in the center of a series of burns arranged into a message -- my porch was an old-style Southern, wrapping around the house, made of wood boards and beams. The message had scorched through the porch floor, announcing itself as a permanent fixture:
“Dear Nathan,
Congratulations on your success; I knew you could do it! I know I certainly lent a hand. Get it? No? That’s fine. I can’t promise that if we meet again it’ll be as simple. Next time you may need to lend me a hand.
Sincerely,
Nathan”
NoSleep (Previous ending)