Beneath the Dressing
After a seemingly helpful stranger tears the skin from her palm outside a pharmacy, Helen retreats to the apartment she shares with her skeptical older sister, Connie—only for the threat to follow, borrowing familiar faces and voices. Dismissed by others and unable to trust offers of comfort, the sisters must overcome their own conflict to force the mutilating presence outside. But as they tend each other’s wounds and call for help, a polite voice speaks from beneath Helen’s bandage, revealing that the locked door offers no safety.
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Helen pushed the savings tin beneath the sink with her shoe and deleted the message she had begun to Ray.
Connie stopped scraping her cafeteria shoes against the kitchen trash can. "Another night like Sunday, I change that lock."
"I came home. I woke you up. Those are different things."
"You said somebody followed you upstairs."
Helen counted her keys against her thumb. At twenty-eight, she still counted them whenever her older sister threatened the door. Connie, thirty-four and up before daylight for the school cafeteria, considered sleep part of the rent.
Last light reached their second-floor kitchen above the closed laundromat. Late October meant Helen would finish the pharmacy close in darkness, then cross its rear lot to her sedan. She had left the car there that afternoon and walked home during her split shift. Now she needed to walk the few blocks back through east Allentown, off Union Street, without another argument.
One lost shift would take money out of the tin. Another frightening account might cost her the room.
Helen put her phone away. "I have the back key. I'll come in quietly."
Connie returned to her shoes. She wanted that promise to cover more than noise.
By the time Helen reached the pharmacy, Walt had started breaking down cartons. He pointed her toward the remaining shelves. The work carried her through the evening until shortly after eleven, when he left her to finish the rear aisle.
Ray sometimes stopped there after his late parts runs. Helen recognized his truck by its loose belt before she saw him; tonight she had kept listening for it.
Instead, somebody spoke from the empty aisle.
"Excuse me. You dropped your keys."
Helen closed her right hand around them.
Beyond the shelves, the pharmacy's rear door stood ajar. She had locked it after the last delivery. A gray cloth glove lay beside the register, although both her stocking gloves remained on her hands.
She touched each fingertip. Ten. Two gloves. Keys.
Her phone could still reach Connie. Helen opened the contact, pictured her sister standing in the kitchen with the lock key, and put it away.
She left the extra glove where it lay. Before going outside, she stripped off her own gloves and stuffed them into her coat pocket.
Past the dumpster, her sedan waited beneath the rear lamp. Footsteps followed her first three steps, then stopped when she stopped.
A figure came around the dumpster holding something gray.
"Here. This belongs to you."
The voice approached Ray's without settling into it. Under the lamp, the figure wore a kindly expression, but its mouth extended beyond the places where its cheeks should have begun.
Helen reached before checking her pocket.
"Thank—"
The glove flattened into wet skin.
A strip lifted from the center of her left palm, still attached beside her thumb. Beneath it, red flesh opened in a narrow trench. The figure held the far end between two careful fingers.
Helen pulled.
"Shit. No. Let go."
The strip peeled farther. Pain drove her elbow against her ribs, and blood ran over her wrist. The figure's expression remained solicitous.
She stumbled backward until the skin tore free. Its fingers opened.
Her keys stayed in her right fist. She found the car button by touch, ran the last steps, and slammed herself inside. Blood crossed the wheel when she braced her injured hand against it.
Through the glass, the figure raised its empty fingers.
Helen kept paper towels beneath the passenger seat. She wrapped her palm, gathered the loose strip into another towel, and started the engine with her right hand.
The emergency department lay in the other direction. She knew the wound needed more than paper. She drove home anyway, frightened that stopping anywhere would mean stepping out again.
At the laundromat curb, she took the towels and climbed the back stair. Her apartment key scraped the lock twice before entering. She let herself in and secured the bolt.
Connie met her beside the sink.
"What did you catch it on?"
"Nothing. Somebody offered me a glove. It wasn't a glove. Here. Look."
She unfolded the towel containing the ribbon of skin.
Connie reached for a clean dishcloth. An accident could be washed and wrapped. She needed Helen to have suffered an accident.
"The dumpster has sharp metal."
"I never touched the dumpster."
"We did this all Mom's last winter. Every noise outside her window—"
"Mom is dead. This is my hand. It happened."
Connie led her into the bathroom and perched on the closed toilet to wrap the palm. She used the good tape, pulling too tightly, the way she had secured Helen's childhood skates. Helen asked her to loosen it. Connie unwound one turn, then held her sister's wrist between both hands until Helen stopped shaking.
Blood darkened the fresh dressing before they returned to the kitchen.
Helen called Walt and put him on speaker.
"Go back. There's a glove beside the register. I need you to see it."
Walt answered over his television. "I'm home. If you cut yourself, get it treated. Don't drag the store into whatever this is."
"You won't even go inside. You don't get to tell me what happened there."
He ended the call.
From beyond the kitchen wall, Joyce raised her voice.
"Some of us work. Pipes bang, people walk. Tell your strange sister to stop shouting."
Connie struck the wall once with her flat hand. "You haven't seen her. Leave her alone."
Helen set the folded paper towel beside the sink and contacted Ray.
He arrived carrying a gray glove.
Helen stopped inside the doorway. "Where did you get that?"
Ray held it by the cuff. "Passenger seat. Thought it was yours."
"I haven't been in your truck this week."
He examined it, then put it beside the paper towel. "Then I don't know. Let me drive you in. That dressing's wet."
Helen wanted his ordinary hands and his unhurried voice. Wanting him frightened her less than wanting someone to explain.
At her bedroom doorway, she took his wrist with her good hand.
"Stay with me. I want you here. I want to sleep with you, Ray."
"I want that too. You're sure?"
"Yes."
She drew him inside and closed the door.
Twenty minutes later, after they had made love and dressed again, Helen returned to the kitchen. Her palm still throbbed beneath the stained tape. She had given the wound twenty more minutes without proper care.
Connie sat awake with her shoes on.
The back bolt stood retracted.
Helen pressed her good thumb against it. "I locked this."
Ray joined her and tested the handle. "I'll check the frame. Stay inside."
The door opened outward onto the landing. He stepped through it, then moved beyond the door's narrow window. His boots descended several stairs.
Connie spoke from the stairwell.
"Helen. Don't let her touch you."
Inside the kitchen, Connie pushed back her chair.
"Who said that?"
Helen turned toward her sister. While she turned, something entered the space between the sink and the open door.
Wet gray fibers clung to a body too narrow beneath its coat. Its face approached Ray's, then the sisters' mother's, without becoming either. Beneath the kindly mouth, the jaw continued down into the collar.
Attention passed between the sisters' hands.
The shape held out its own.
"That wrapping hurts. Let me close it."
Helen's injured fingers had swollen against the tape. At the promise of release, she moved half a step.
Connie caught her wrist and hauled backward.
A gray finger slipped beneath Connie's sleeve.
The cloth opened first. Then a split traveled down her forearm, separating skin and fat until a pale length of bone showed. Blood struck the linoleum. Connie's grip failed, and she fell against the refrigerator.
Her scream broke into words.
"Get it off. Helen, get it fucking off me."
Helen caught Connie beneath the elbow. The shape's finger lifted from the wound with the same care it had shown in the lot.
From the stair came Connie's voice again.
"Come out here. I'll help you."
Connie pressed her torn arm against her shirt. "That's not me. I'm right here."
"You said it was the dumpster. You said all that shit, and now—"
"I know. Move. Get away from its hand."
The shape reached between them.
"You are pulling the injuries open."
Helen's keys dug into her right fingers. Door key, car key, small brass key. She knew what each opened and could no longer remember which way the apartment bolt turned.
"Ray. Connie—Connie, take the keys."
Connie tried. Her bloody fingers slid off Helen's fist.
"Keep them. Just fucking keep them. Push it back."
The shape's palm waited inches from Helen's dressing. She wanted the pain stopped so badly that thanks formed in her mouth.
Then Connie's knees folded.
Helen stepped between them.
The gray hand caught her shoulder. Four grooves opened through her shirt and skin; the deepest exposed yellow fat before blood filled it. She drove forward anyway, using her hip and chest against the wet coat.
"Away from her. Get away."
Connie shoved from behind with her good arm. Together they forced the narrow body backward toward the landing.
Its feet dragged over the sill. Helen's left hand struck the frame, sending pain up to her teeth, but she kept pushing until the coat folded outside.
She seized the handle with her right hand and pulled.
The reaching sleeve caught in the closing door. Helen planted her foot against the lower panel and hauled harder. Cloth slid through the gap. The shoulder wound stretched as the fingers dragged free.
The door shut.
Connie collapsed beside the refrigerator. Helen backed into the sink, leaving a red smear along its rim.
Nothing touched them.
The back bolt remained open.
Helen tore a towel from the oven handle and pressed it to Connie's forearm. Connie took over with her good hand, then pushed another towel against Helen's shoulder.
Beside them, the gray glove rested near the folded paper towel. The skin ribbon showed through its soaked corners.
Connie reached for her phone and requested an ambulance. Her voice shook over the address. She kept pressure on Helen's shoulder while she spoke.
When she ended the call, Helen tried to count.
"Keys. Phone. You. The door. Was that you the first time?"
Connie swallowed. "I heard you outside too."
"I never went outside."
Connie opened her mouth, then tightened the towel instead.
Beneath the sink, the savings tin remained where Helen had pushed it. She stepped past it toward the back door.
Keeping her ruined left hand against the wood, she worked the bolt with her right. Once. Then she tested it, unsure whether the resistance came from the lock or from her shaking fingers.
A small, polite voice spoke.
"Excuse me. You dropped this."
Connie raised her head toward the door.
Helen kept her damaged hand perfectly still.
The voice had come from beneath the tape.