CREEP

When I was about 4, I was sitting alone in the living room playing with marbles. One of them rolled under the couch, and I stuck my hand as far under as I could to find it. I couldn't find it, so I withdrew my hand... and a black, withered, feminine hand reached out from under the couch after me. I remember it clearly. I sat there, too young to really know how batshit insane this was, but I remember thinking to myself "this is not right." I sat there dumbfounded and watched it; it groped around, then withdrew. Then it emerged again, pushing some plastic wrappers at me, as if it was trying to give them to me. When I didn't take them, it withdrew again, taking the trash with it, and was gone.

I got up very calmly and walked to my mother in the kitchen, at the other side of the house, and told her, "Mommy, a hand just reached out from under the couch." She got an odd look on her face, of course, but I was a very quiet, obedient kid who did not tell stories. She told me that was impossible and walked back to the living room with me, and even reached her hands under the couch to show me there was nothing there. Later, my dad came home and lifted the couch, and all that was under there was my marbles, and some random trash.

For years, I discounted this as just a vivid dream I had had when I was a child; obviously I didn't believe it really happened. But years later, when I was like 18, I mentioned it to my mother in recollection. She surprised me by saying that, no, it actually happened; she remembered me coming to her that afternoon and telling her about the hand under the couch. She said it had disturbed her greatly, and was the reason they had thrown the couch out soon after, because she had bought the couch second hand, and the seller told her that an elderly black lady had died on it.

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