“I cant stop it,” he screams in a panic, “it has a mind of its own. What it wants it wants.”

“O ya, but it doesn’t have to get everything it wants.” She has returned with the axe. One swift strike and the possessed appendage is off.

With a thud it falls to the ground spurting a crimson shower.

We stand there, staring, sweat dripping down our bodies. Pills lie cluttered all around. Rheumatoid arthritis had been the consensus. That’s what was causing the excruciating pain and deformation. But then it started. The uncontrollable urge. Until she woke up with a thumb attempting to gouge her eye out. Gouge… pop… devour…

Well, it’s finally over.

And then suddenly…

Suddenly the mutilated appendage starts quivering, turning towards us, crawling, leaving in its wake a trail of blood and slime.

“Run,” I scream. Our feet skid on my blood, but we don’t stop. We wont stop.

Down the stairs, out of the house. We bang the door shut wondering what to do next. Shit, the car keys are still inside.

That’s when we hear it – The door knob turning.

In response to the Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writer’s 131st challenge based on a photo by artycaptures.wordpress.com

19 thoughts on “A mind of its own”

  4. There was a British B-horror film from 1960 (remade in 1981) called “The Hand” which was, as you might imagine, about a severed hand with a mind of its own. There were also films from the 1940s about someone, maybe a concert pianist, who received a hand transplant, only the donor was a murderer and the hands could not stop from killing.

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      1. The 1960 version starred Robert Alda, Alan Alda’s father. I remember being creeped out by it as a kid, but it would probably seem very tame now. The 1981 version started Michael Caine, and as I recall, he played a rather unpleasant fellow.

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      2. Michael Cane probably aced it. But I’m still not adding it to my watch list. Way back I saw a movie called The Entity and for the next few nights after that I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed to even go to the restroom. I decided then that I am definitely not a ‘horror’ person.

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  6. Very creepy, and intense. I can only imagine how bad it must have been before we tuned into the situation, if the reasonable course of action seemed to be to cut off the hand!

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