Chapter 35

Ferris walked out of the building and headed towards his car. He got in and slammed the door harder than usual. He looked around to make sure there were no prying eyes. The parking space was desolated. Most people went home already except for Craig of course. Ferris looked at his left hand. He was shocked by what he saw. His hand regressed for the worse. The most terrifying thing was that it regressed so much in such a short space of time. It was the worse state he had seen his hand. He took a closer look. There was something new, and it was moving underneath his skin. He could feel it crawling around there. He shuddered when he imagined maggots feeding on his flesh just underneath his skin. Ferris could not stand the repulsiveness. He threw his head back into his car seat, looking at the roof.

'Please God, what is happening to me?' Ferris prayed.

What can I do to make this go away? Ferris thought. He knew, if he told anyone about the boy who cursed him, they would not believe a word he said. He realised he would not be able to conceal his rotting hand much longer. Maybe he could wear gloves, but that would only draw more attention and raise unwanted concerns. He had to go see a doctor. Maybe he was not cursed. Yes, there was a logical explanation for this. Maybe he got bitten by a weird insect. Could have been a spider. He recalled seeing something on the internet once where a spider had laid eggs underneath a person's skin. Eventually, the poor fellow's skin popped open and hundreds of small spiders crawled out and all over his skin. Ferris knew he had to make a doctor's appointment first thing in the morning. For now, he would go home and soak his hand in a tub of warm water as Craig had suggested. Ferris would have to buy disinfectants on his way home, all sorts of chemicals he could get his hands on. Maybe that would kill whatever was crawling underneath his skin.

Ferris worried about a doctor's prognosis. What if there was no explanation for what was happening to his hand? Maybe he should go see a priest. He could even find out about black magic remedies. He would ask his friends from the townships if they maybe knew of a voodoo doctor.

Ferris could not help to think about those boys, the night it all started. Where did they come from and what are they doing here? He had never seen them before. Were they still in school? Some of them looked a little too old for school. He felt anger again when he saw the boy's face in his mind's eye, the one who had cursed him. He should have hit him harder that night, just enough to knock him unconscious. That way the boy would not have been able to curse him.

Ferris looked at his hand again. He was on the brink of losing his grip on reality. He could not believe it was his own flesh and blood rotting and crawling with whatever was underneath his skin. Without thinking he hit the dashboard several times out of frustration. Ferris regained himself and looked at his left hand again. It was worse than it had been moments before. The top skin of his hand between the index and middle knuckle had been cracked open and ran all the way up to his wrist. What he saw inside was far worse than he expected. There were tiny black dots in his flesh. They were moving slowly while eating small tunnels. Ferris knew then where the irresistible sharp itches came from all the time. He wondered why the wound was not bleeding. One would expect blood from a fresh wound a size like the one on his hand. No blood at all. Instead, his flesh seemed a little dried out. A smell of decay caught his nose. A decay of his own flesh while still alive. Ferris was being decomposed while busy dying a slow and horrible death. His skin was only a thin layer of cells, concealing the aggressive flesh-devouring process underneath. Once the skin tore open, it released the trapped odour not meant for the human sense of smell. The smell of his own was worse than anything else, decomposing right in front of his eyes. The anger transformed into the darkest fear Ferris had ever encountered in his forty-five years on the planet.