I do not remember the last time I slept. I've forgotten what it is like not to live in fear. I know it will not stop. Sometimes it fades enough that I begin to believe it is going to go away, then, quite suddenly it gets louder. It's horrible.

His words..

Words..

Somehow I've got..

to make them..

STOP.

It took years to realize I should never ask others if they hear them. They lie, and say, "No" with a feigned look of surprise. How can they say they do not hear it when the words are powerful enough to shake my limbs and rattle silverware out of my hands?

As best I can remember it began the second evening of summer camp in 1979. The second night of the camp my counselor invited Bob, the toothless dirt covered groundskeeper, to tell a story to us as we were about to fall asleep. I hear the lisping words of the old man's story now...

"Years ago, before this was a summer camp, the Federal Government used these very forests as the testing ground for secret military technology. At the dawn of World War I General Patton desperately needed a method of defoliating the vast forests in Europe. In Fort Polk, only an hours drive from here a local farmer had trained his prize hog to eat up to four times its mass in leaves each day. General Patton killed this farmer and took his prize hog and forced it to breed with the animals that wandered through the military base. To hide the body from forensic investigators Patton rolled over it several times with a tank, then fed the ground up remains to the hogs. Patton did not know that the farmer's hand was intact, lost somewhere in the mud underneath the mulching tread of the tank.

Here, in this campground, General Patton raised thousands of giant foliant eating hogs. Some grew large as a small dog. Others, hideous cross breeds never intended by nature, were somewhat taller than a normal hog if you consider the excessively long bristling hair on their backs.
HAND
They kept the hogs and their barely describeable offspring in ten cages of triple-layered barbed wire. The cages sat precisely where each of the cabins in the camp are today.
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Over time the animals become more and more difficult to control. They behaved strangely and grunted simultaneaously in a chorus, that if you or I heard it today we would say resembled the sound of an angry man yelling into a telephone 'I will get my revenge General Patton, mark my words, I will get my revenge'. The troops stationed here to gaurd the animals went mad. The animals began to behave like the farmer that Patton murdered. They even arranged themselves in the cages to spell out 'MURDERED FARMER'. Isolated as they were, the soldiers slowly killed one another because the hogs controlled their very thoughts with their noises. The last soldier gaurding the camp and the ten wire cages meant to keep the animals from wreaking havoc on civilization scribbled into a journal as he died. The last line of his journal reads 'hogs... command.. must.. release.. the farmer from the cage.. evillllll.' And that, boys, is why at night you can see the evil hogs rooting through the underbrush, digging to find the farmer's...

LOST HAND!!!"
HAND !!!!
The other children fell asleep before the story was finished, so they missed seeing Bob pull his hand out of a crumpled paper bag full of fresh earth and throw dirt around the room before he bolted out the door.
HAND !!!!
After the groundskeeper finished his tale I knew that I would forever be haunted by his words. No, no one but me stayed awake the remainder of the camp session afraid of the evil hogs searching for the dead farmer's hand.
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Camp ended. I went home and fell asleep, regaining the lost hours of rest stolen from me by that terrible story. I thought the problem was solved.
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But all was not well.
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A few weeks later, while spending the night at a friend's home, I heard the same story. My friend's father, Mr. Richards, took it upon himself to frighten us. He walked into the room and started to tell us the same story I heard at camp! Only this time there was something strange. I became more frightened with each word. A sense of dread krept over me. I knew what horrors were to be committed by Patton's herd of viscious swine and precisely in the story were the severed hand would appear.
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Or did I?
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Just as I settled into my sleeping bag, comfortable with the knowledge of the story's outcome, the story changed. The familiar became foreign. Things, as they should have been, were not. The words began to twist, the plot transformed. The soldiers were not driven to murder each other while under the mesmeric control of the genetically misengineered hog-beasts. I was confused.. lost.. frightened. "Reality," I asked myself, "what is it, really?" What I thought was impossible became true.
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The evil hogs mind-controlled the farmer's disembodied hand! The hand was recovered somehow and crawled out of its previous location in the story! How could this be! How could it have made its way a few sentences over in the story when it had no brain to guide it, no blood to fuel its muscles and no eyes to see? Mr. Richards continued talking. I became more and more frightened.
HAND !!!!
Since that day I've heard the story 665 times. Each time it is told by a different person. Each time the teller assures me he is telling the story exactly as he heard it. And each time . . .
HAND !!!!
THE HANDHANDISHANDIN A DIFFERENT PARTHANDOF THE STORY !!!!!
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And now, I regret that I have told you, dear reader. With my last ounce of strength I am writing so that this evil will be transfered to you and I can finally escape the terrifying grip of . . .
HAND !!!!
The Haunted Ghost Story

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HAUNTED HAND GRENADE HAND !!!!

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HAND !!!!

HAND !!!!

HAND !!!!