Le Horla

The Skinned Hand (Part 2)

I dress up hastily and run to Pierre's home. The house was full of people, we were discussing, fidgeting, it was an unceasing movement. Everyone was parroting, telling and commenting the event in all ways. I manage by great trouble to reach the bedroom, which was guarded, I name myself and I was granted access. Four police agents were standing in the middle of the room, a notebook in hand, they were examining. Two doctors were talking close to the bed, where Pierre was laying down unconscious. He wasn't dead, but he had a terrifying aspect. His eyes inordinately open, his dilated pupils seemed to look at something fixedly with an unspeakable terror, a horrible and unknown thing. His fingers were tensed, his body, from the chin, was covered by a cloth, that I lift. His neck was marked by five fingers who had deeply sunk into his flesh, a few drops of blood spattered his shirt. At this moment something hit me. I looked at the bell of his recess, the skinned hand wasn't there anymore. The doctors probably took it down to not scare the people when they enter the room, that hand was really horrid. I didn't ask about what became of it. I now cut out the newspaper article about the crime, revealing all the details the police gathered. This is what we read:
"A horrible murder attempt was committed yesterday on a young man named M. Pierre B..., a law student that is from one of the richest family in Normandy. This young man came back home around 10 P.M., he sent his butler, Sir Bouvin, telling him that he felt tired and he was going to sleep. Around midnight, this man was woken up suddenly by the bell of his master's room that was violently shaking. He got scared, opened the light then waited. The bell remained silent for a minute, then started again with such force the butler was taken with terror and ran out of his bedroom and woke up the janitor. Thereof ran to the police station, he came back after 15 minutes with two officers who proceeded to break down the door. A gruesome image was presented to them, the furniture was all knocked over, everything showed a terrible fight took place between the victim and the criminal. In the middle of the room, on his back with stiff limbs, a livid face, and his eyes frighteningly dilated. The young Pierre B... was lying motionless, on his neck displayed deep wounds made by 5 fingers. From doctor Bourdeau's report, immediately called, he says the wrongdoer must have an incredible strength and a hand extraordinarily thin and wiry. The wounds left on the young man's neck, look like 5 bullet holes that almost reached through the flesh. Nothing seem to suspect the mobile of this crime, nor who could be the perpetrator. -The informing justice-."
The next day, we could read in the same newspaper: 
"M. Pierre B..., the victim of the dreadful murder attempt we published yesterday, regained consciousness after two hours of intense care given by doctor Bourdeau. His life is no longer in danger, but they fear for his mental stability: there is still no clue about the attacker."

Indeed, my poor friend has gone mad: for seven months I went to see him everyday at the asylum where we placed him, but he failed to regain an ounce of sanity. In his delusion, sometimes he was saying strange things, and as every other nutcase, he had a fixated idea, he believed he was pursued by a ghost. One day, someone came to me to take me there because his condition got worst, as I arrived, I found him in agony. For two hours, he stayed very calm, then suddenly he rose on his bed despite our efforts. He was screaming while agitating his arms in every direction like a prey taken by an appalling terror: "Take it! Take it! It is strangling me, help me, help me!" He ran two laps around the room while screaming then abruptly dropped dead, face against the floor. Since he was an orphan, I was designated in charge to take his corpse to the small town of P... in Normandy, where his parents were buried. He was coming back from this same small town the night when he came to Louis R's house and introduced us to the skinned hand. His body was sealed in a lead coffin. Four days later, I was walking sadly with the old priest who gave him his first few lessons, in the cemetery where his grave was. The weather was beautiful, the blue sky was streaming with light, the birds were singing in the bramble, where on a few occasions as kids, we came to eat wild blackberries. It's almost as if I still can see him sneaking along the hedge and slide through the small hole downfield where we bury the unfortunate, then we would come back home with black and purple stained lips from the fruits. I could hear the old priest reciting quietly his prayers and from the end of the hallway, the gravediggers currently digging the hole for his coffin. All of a sudden, they called us over, the priest closed his book and we went to see what the matter was. They found a coffin and with one single pickaxe blow, they opened the lid and there was an abnormally long skeleton laying on the back, and from these deep and empty eye socket who seemed to still be glaring and wanting to defy us. I felt an uneasiness, I don't know why I was almost scared.
"There! Exclaimed one of the men, look like this villain has a chopped wrist, here is the hand."
Then he picked up, next to the corpse, a long and dried up hand that he proceeds to show us.
"Hey, said the other while laughing, it looks like he is looking at you ready to jump at your throat to get his hand back.
- There my friends, said the priest, leave the dead in peace and close this coffin, we will dig the grave of the poor Pierre somewhere else."
The next day everything was finished and I took the Paris road after leaving 50 € to the old priest for saying the prayers to help the soul of the man we disturbed to rest in peace.

The End