The Handprint on My Throat

I was thirteen that summer, two years after we moved to the dusty outskirts of Bakersfield, California. My name is Maya, and I lived with my mother in a small house that always smelled of old wood and burnt coffee. The heat was unbearable, pressing down like a wet blanket, and the only relief came from the swamp cooler that rattled in the window, churning out lukewarm air.

One afternoon at school, during the agony of PE, I felt a stinging sensation on my neck. My friend, Lena, gasped and pointed. ‘Maya, what happened to your neck?’ She dragged me to the mirror in the locker room. There, on the side of my throat, was a bruise, deep purple and black, shaped unmistakably like a hand. Five distinct fingers, a palm, and even the webbing between each digit. I stared, my own hand trembling as I raised it to compare. It fit perfectly, my fingers aligning with the bruised ones, my palm matching the mark exactly. But I knew, with a certainty that made my blood cold, that I had never touched myself like that. The bruise was too large, too deliberate, and it felt like a brand.

I tried to shake it off, telling myself I must have slept on something or bumped into a door. But a cold knot settled in my stomach. That evening, my mother was next door at my grandmother’s, and I was alone in the house, the silence broken only by the hum of the cooler. I heard her voice, clear as day, call from the back room, ‘Maya?’ I yelled back, ‘Yeah, Mom?’ No answer. I called again, louder, ‘Mom?’ Still nothing. A strange curiosity pulled me toward the back room, my bare feet silent on the worn linoleum. I pushed open the door, but the room was empty, the curtains swaying slightly from the cooler’s draft. That’s when I heard it, a voice that didn’t belong to my mother, a voice that sounded like gravel and rot, like something from a nightmare. It whispered my name, stretching it out into a hiss, ‘Mayaaa…’ The sound came from right behind me. I screamed and ran out of the house, not stopping until I reached my grandmother’s porch, panting and shaking.

The next day, I was in my mother’s bedroom, looking for a lost earring. The room was bathed in the afternoon light, dust motes dancing in the air. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw it, a bare foot, thick and pale, the skin mottled like old meat, stepping onto the floor. It was just a foot, severed cleanly at the ankle, and it took a step toward the bed. Then another. Where the foot touched, the wooden floor seemed to darken, as if it were absorbing the light. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. My throat was frozen. The foot took another step, and another, moving with a horrible purpose toward the foot of the bed. I finally found my voice and ran, stumbling out of the room, down the hall, and out the front door, my heart pounding so hard I thought it would burst.

After that, my mother and I moved to my father’s place in Oregon, hoping to escape whatever was haunting that house. I thought the terrors were over, but a week ago, I felt a hand on my shoulder in the middle of the night. I woke with a scream, but there was nothing there. And now, three mornings in a row, I’ve woken up with a faint bruise on my neck, the same shape, the same size. I haven’t told my father. I’m afraid he’ll think I’m crazy. But I know one thing: whatever left that handprint on my throat isn’t finished with me. It followed me here, and it’s waiting for the right moment to take more than just my voice.