A fucking thumb.

A motherfucking severed human thumb.

We stood in my kitchen in silence. Leaning against the countertop, we stared incredulously at that grey- pink stump sitting on the cold linoleum. Lili chewed her thumbnail as I examined the appendage on my floor. The nails were blue tinged and smooth, the corners of the nail digging into the corners of a fleshy, calloused pad. The skin was puckered and twisted just behind the knuckle, and the bone pushed through the tissue like a yellowed, cracked piano key.

Vghhhhhhhhhhhhkkkkk
jvbbbbbbbbb

This was not going to be a good day.

I looked Lili dead in the eyes; trying my best to look like I wasn’t freaking out. I could feel every cell in my body vibrating at a rapid velocity, and only then did I realize I was holding my breath for at least 45 seconds.

Okay.
I took the joint from my lips and placed it in the ash tray, doing my best impression of a man who was somehow not immensely affected by the current situation. More accurately, the impression of a man whose had any sort of legitimate experience with ersatz appendages and disembodied thumbs.

“What is this?” I asked her.
“It’s a thumb.” She replied. Her voice was shaky. Broken. Nervous.

-but still, she spoke in a tone I could not decode as either sarcastic or earnest.

“Well congratulations, I think you’re right about that.” I reached over to the sink and found the red paper towel dispenser. I grabbed hold of the little rooster that sat atop the cylindrical roll, and with my other hand, ripped a piece of paper towel off. I squatted down, picking the thumb up and placing it back in its original container, a small cardstock box.

The box was an pleasant shade of purple, a lavender that, ironically enough, in any other circumstance may even be considered soothing. The box had one of those lids that slid over the lower portion of the box, and inside the cardstock receptacle was a pad of gauze, crusted and rust-tinged by its macabre contents.

Where did I put those rubber gloves?

“So why did you bring this thumb to me Lil? Do I look like I need an extra thumb? Do you think I need extra people parts in my life? Do I give off the ‘vibe’ of some sick motherfucker who wants people to bring him goddamn body parts? We hardly met a week ago!”

“What the fuck?” She snapped back at me- “Slow your fucking roll. I’m coming to you for help, and if you’re going to treat me like shit, if you’re going to act like an asshole instead of like a friend” she leaned on the word, shooting it through her teeth while looking through me, as if she could shoot lasers through the back of my corneas- “I’ll just leave. But I’m worried, and you said before that you’re into investigating things, and you’re in medical school… I thought you could help out, but I see now you don’t want to get involved.”

“It’s not like that.” I stopped and pinched the bridge of my nose;

“Look, I’m sorry. Just- Just give me a second to process this shit.”

I closed my eyes and sighed. Do the right thing, right? “I have a lot to lose. I don’t want to lose my student visa, or even worse get myself in over my head with something I don’t understand.”

“I know,” Lilli put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m not asking you to do anything crazy, I just thought you’d want to help.” She smiled mournfully, as if she knew something I didn’t, and it was breaking her heart.

“Okay.” I placed my hand on hers briefly, before removing it from my shoulder. Hers was freezing, and clammy. Mine was too in some strange

form of consolation. “So, could you just explain exactly what you think is going on?”

“Well,” she sighed, collecting herself. “That’s the hard part.” She paused, staring through the appendage that sat upon the counter. “A lot of what goes on in that house across the street is… it’s less than legal.”

“-and would you mind…

uhhh… clarifying that for me?”

I asked as I turned around in the cramped kitchen, lurching into the bathroom to retrieve a box of latex gloves out of the medicine cabinet.

Lilli looked me with a deadpan expression that could only be interpreted as a silent and ominous confession. “We’ve taken a lot of money from a lot of people. We never hurt anyone, but you saw what kind of business Zsombor runs down by the docks.”

“Runs?” I interjected-

Lilli continued, as if to imply that the details to that situation weren’t something I was entitled to.

“Sometimes when we’ve moved packages around, things have gotten lost and some of Zsombors clients have gotten extremely anxious. So anxious that we think they might not be above trying to get information from him from, well”- she twitched her head towards the thumb. It looked like a cold, gory baby carrot that sat inside its purple cardstock box.

I pulled on the rubber gloves, and closed the box before picking it up, holding it the flat of my gloved hand.

“-and I will ask you again- what-“I interjected as I held the box at eye level, “lead to you receiving a thumb, and exactly the fuck this has to do with me?”

Lilli sighed, and her shoulders sank. “You mentioned earlier you were in medical school. I was hoping you could, like, test the blood or something? Istvan and Zsombor have both been on a shipping run in Brighton for the last five days, and we haven’t heard a word from either of them since the day they left.”

“Brighton, like England Brighton?” I asked incredulously.

“The one and only.” Lilli continued as she walked through my kitchen and into the living room of my flat, sitting down on the raised corner of the mattress that served as my couch. She reached over to my desk and grabbed the cheap tin ash tray, placing the silver dish on the mattress beside her.

After briefly rummaging through her clutch, she lit a slim, silvery cigarette with a small gold clipper. She didn’t ask first. The scent of tobacco filled the air-

Those skinny little coffin nails were strong.

“Mind if I bum one?” I asked her- She looked up and she tossed her clutch over to me without a word. I retrieved a small blue box, with the silhouette of a woman dancing across the packaging. Gitanes. Go figure. I ripped the filter off and grabbed a small silver herb grinder out of my desk drawer. Lilli looked at me mirthfully and shook her head-

“You’re going to roll a spliff? At a time like this?”

“I mean, the roach was getting a bit short even before you came over with your little buddy- “I shook the purple box- “and anyway, if there’s any time to roll a spliff it might as well be now. This whole ordeal seems to me like it’ll get stressful. Have you tried, I don’t know, calling them, or texting?”

Vyhk,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,l.ihyy…………………………..

I opened the grinder and began twisting the cigarette, sprinkling the dark, flaky tobacco into the fluffy green crumbles which filled the grinders bottom dish.

Lilli chuckled, took a deep inhale off her cigarette, and shook her head again, this time more incredulously. “Unbelievable.”

She continued- “So obviously on these runs, neither of them brings phones. You know, paranoia and all that. They use their hotel phones and landlines, yes? Well, 4 days pass since they get there, and no calls come. Then on day six we get this in our mailbox.” She exhaled a smooth, long plume of smoke and used her cigarette to point at the box.

I looked on as I licked the Zig Zag, carefully closing it along the seam. “I’ll see what I can do”, I said; far in over my head, and blissfully unaware. “-but one thing is for sure; I still don’t get why you think I’m qualified. I’ll help you though. Just this once.”

“So what are you thinking?” She asked.

“Istvan, Zsombor, they got rooms?”

“Of course,” she replied, “why? Looking for prints?”

“You’ve done your homework- “ I replied as I stood up, and took to putting on a latex glove, gripping the box which contained the thumb, and inverted the glove. I then tenderly took to wrapping the lavender parcel in the latex, pulling it tight and knotting the stretchy rubber fingers to keep it shut in an anatomically shocking bow. I gingerly placed the box on the low, particleboard coffee table that stood between me and her. I couldn’t help but think that Lil had secrets. That there were angles being played that I couldn’t see.

“I was thinking we could check the rhesus blood type too.” I said, lighting the spliff. “You know what that is right? A+, B, O and all that?”

Lilli squinted and took another cigarette out of her purse. “Are you aware that the fact you’re even asking me that is incredibly condescending?”

Shit.

She had a point.
What the fuck do I know?

“So, I’ll print the thumb, print some of their shit. If they’ve got police records we could check those too, and we can see

if it matches. Leave the thing with me for the next forty- eight and I’ll see what I can do. “

Lilli looked me over with a smirk and crossed her arms. She got off the creaky bed and stood. Reaching to the ceiling she stretched and arched her back before strolling over to the ash tray and stubbing out her cigarette. “Great,” she grabbed her clutch and shook out her hair. It smelled like eucalyptus.

Maybe it was her shampoo, or an essential oil. I sure as hell couldn’t tell.

She paused, and said “You’re probably expecting something in exchange for all this?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. I honestly didn’t. “What’ve you got?”

She looked me knowingly and said “I’m sure we’ll figure something out.” She lit one more cigarette before collecting herself once more. She looked over to me and walked out through the kitchen doorway. I stayed seated at my desk, looking at the little present that sat, gift-wrapped on my desk.

As I walked her to the door I felt a pit developing in my stomach. Was I trying to find something, anything to gain by doing something incredibly stupid? Probably.

----

Maybe it was her shampoo, or an essential oil. I sure as hell couldn’t tell.

She paused, and said “You’re probably expecting something in exchange for all this?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. I honestly didn’t. “What’ve you got?”

She looked me knowingly and said “I’m sure we’ll figure something out.” She lit one more cigarette before collecting herself once more. She looked over to me and walked out through the kitchen doorway. I stayed seated at my desk, looking at the little present that sat, gift-wrapped on my desk.

Chemistry class started at seven, and there’s no way Krauss, the sixty-year-old instructor would be late. The bastard old German just might have been a Nazi. It sounded like a joke at first, but he was just old enough for the time frame to fit. He barred the classroom doors at six forty –five sharp and locked them with a pad lock and heavy chain.

He saw students weep at his door and felt no sympathy. Perhaps he derived a sadistic joy from it, watching them through his rimless coke- bottle glasses. Perhaps his heart broke for them, but he simply has had so much experience teaching this very class that he had grown tired; and was forced to enforce his draconian policy out of necessity.

He stood in his white lab coat like a crooked lamppost, visible upon the second story balcony of the medical school’s secondary building; a crumbling orange plaster gallery lined with lecture halls. Like a hawk, he checked off student names as they entered the cramped, unventilated auditorium. Each Wednesday and Friday, Every Wednesday and Friday, at seven,

rain or shine, he could be seen closing the doors sharply behind him.

I was running to the doors at six fifty-nine, as usual.

Sweat dripped down my temples as he looked me over the railing imperiously, and he walked back into the lecture hall.

I might just be fucked.

My feet pedaled the cracked linoleum in a desperate bid for forward momentum- but it wasn’t enough. My hand hit the cold steel of the door handle at seven, and Krauss looked through the glass. He showed no joy on his face, and his eyes expressed a deep and abiding disappointment. Perhaps he wasn’t a bastard after all… but I knew far better than to foolishly attempt to play on his sympathies.

I turned back around and walked to the entrance of the grand hall, a vaulted orange stucco complex, east of the brutalist marble behemoth that was the Budapest Teaching Hospital. It was a barracks in world war two and echoed its past lives through every grain of sand in its concrete.

Sitting on the front stoop of the entrance, I looked over to the hospital. I had two hours to kill- would now be a good time as any to grab a blood typing card?

Of course, they’d be in hematology-

-perhaps-

-if nobody is around.

I took my white coat out of the beat up, canvas messenger bag that held my notebook and other accoutrement. Pulling it over my shoulders, I walked into the rear student entrance of the hospital.

Taking the elevator up to the seventh floor-

• Passing through the reception area-

-Grabbing the blood typing cards off the stand beside the transfusion bags-

It was almost too easy.

Slipping three of the cards into the left pocket of my coat, I felt the cardstock with my thumbnail. The card was a cardboard square with four circles, each coated with a reagent. When you peel back the plastic and apply a blood sample to each circle, they clot in differing patterns. Once you match them up with the diagram, you have your solution. Pretty simple- like an at home pregnancy test.

I headed down the stairs, avoiding the elevators and their ever-present CCTV cameras- departing out the back of the building.

---

I walked home, and after 15 minute of speed walking through Keleti Palyaudvar, I locked the door behind me at my flat. I pulled up a chair to my kitchen table and laid tin foil across the countertop. I stretched a fresh pair of latex gloves over my hands, and laid the cards across the surface. After placing them all precisely, at right angles, I stood back- contemplating just about to go down.

DIY Forensics, who would have thought?

One might as well put the ol’ education to good use.

I retrieved the small, lavender parcel from my desk drawer. The rubber glove was still neatly tied around the box, stretching at the corners, transparent and distended. I tied my hair back and tried to get in the right head space. This is real. This was part of somebody-

The box of gloves was still out on the countertop from Lili’s visit two days ago. I stretched them over my hands and pulled a bandana from the ladder that connected the kitchen to the loft.

I tied it over my face and sucked in a quick lung full of air- Maybe I was short of breath. As I exhaled, I sat down at the countertop and unknotted the glove that held the box closed. The thumb was a darker shade and the blue grip of cyanation was taking hold, - other than that but it didn’t look too worse for wear- all things considering.

I opened one of the blood typing cards and took out the sterile swab that was contained between the layers of laminated card stock.

Shit. Water.

I reached over, using my pinky finger to open my refrigerator. I took out a bottle of water, cracked it open, and placed the cap on the countertop. I poured the clear, distilled water into the bottle cap, gingerly.

I dipped the cotton swab into the water, and then rolled its tip across the clotted surface of the severed phalange that sat on my sterilized countertop. I dabbed the area until saturating the tip completely- it looked like scarlet sharpie as I swabbed the blood across the four circles on the card- first the control field, and then each reagent.

Anti A…

Anti B…

Anti D…

Not sixteen seconds passed before the anti- B and D patches coagulated… the pale pink circles quickly convoluted into a network of intense, wine dark vines. Thin threads coursed across the fields, stretching themselves across fields of stark white. Whoever owned this thing had B- blood.

That’s something, but the savage reality remained that however the separation between man and thumb occurred-

• It was probably something I had no experience in.

Whatever poor bastard’s appendage was so ominously sitting before me may have been a part of something… stranger. He was probably patched up- right?

- or dead-

-or worse.

Within a desperate instant, the gravity of my actions, and of my involvement in this dark rabbit hole weighed upon me so heavily I nearly felt myself implode.

Everything and everyone in the universe may indeed be interconnected- While that may be the case; was this me? The energy that composed my consciousness was frantic and itched across the inside of my skull. I wanted to help, but at what cost? At what risk?

Maybe we should play these test results close to the vest for now.

Just to be safe.

I picked up the thumb in one gloved hand, and rolled the cold, rigor - stiffened pad across the tinfoil on the countertop. The weight of the severed lump still appalled me. It was far denser than I expected- and colder.

I took a graphite pencil and a post-it note off the shelf that hung crookedly over the kitchen counter. Folding the post-it in half, I rubbed the pencil against the paper until a small mound of powdered pencil lead accumulated in the corner of the note. Then, tenderly, I dumped it over the thumbprint I made on the aluminum foil. I carefully repackaged the thumb after observing the mottled discoloration under its fingernail; and through the lavender box and its grizzly contents into a sandwich bag, which was promptly thrown in the refrigerator.

Thumbs can go bad, can’t they?

I took off my gloves and fanned the mound of graphite that sat upon the counter… and as just enough was blown away, the thumb print became clear. I looked around and found a roll of packing tape under the sink, which preserved the print on the aluminum foil. Carefully, I cut a square around the print. Now it’s just about finding someone- or something to match it to. I put the used blood typing card and the print in a plastic bag, which I then hid in the cabinet above my microwave… or rather the loose panel in the wall above the microwave that had oft been used for storage.

I tripped over the step outside my doorway, lurching through the gateway and bolting it closed behind me.

I looked around the third- story terrace and leaned on the railing over the courtyard. The rusted metal yielded perceptibly, disconcertingly. I walked down the stairs, and towards campus, thinking about what might be at play here.

What did Lilli want? Was this thumb Istvan’s, Balasz’s or someone else’s entirely? There had to be some ulterior motive in motion, there being no abundance of free lunches in this day and age- with words like “favor” and “borrow” having implications that bore as much credence as a lifetime of accrued debt.

What game were they playing?

Why did they involve me?

Was this all cynicism just clouding my ability to genuinely help somebody in need?

My mind was thoroughly swimming by the time I got back to campus and entered the restroom on the first floor of the lecture hall.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to ponder the idea- because as soon as I entered the first stall in the bleach-scented, antiseptic, white-tiled room, I couldn’t breathe.

I began hyperventilating, grabbing at my throat and face; fingertips finding only slick plastic. My throat seized as I tried to tear the obstruction from my face.

My hands scrambled desperately, reaching around and trying to get the bag off my head, tracing a seam from the top of the bag to a canvas strap which I could feel digging into my throat.

I doubled over, screaming, but no sound escaped my lungs.

Something was cutting off my air.

Someone.

-and they had their knee in my fucking back.

TO BE CONTINUED IN:

REDACTED Vol. 3/5

Released by Dead Horse Publishing
2021 ed.

Next Chapter: Chapter Three : Vandals