Technomancer (Unspeakable Things: Book One)

wonder they looked at me the way they did.”

After I’d talked Jenna into a relative state of calm, she finally came to believe what I was saying—with reservations. At least she’d taken her hand away from the phone. She still had a death grip on her pillow. After a few minutes more, during which I explained how I’d come into possession of this unusual trophy, she was willing to look at the finger again. I noticed, however, that when she followed me toward the bathroom, she didn’t follow closely.
    What finally convinced her I was telling the truth wasn’t the grayish color of the finger’s skin. That seemed normal enough, given that it had been dead for some time. What did it was the pearl-colored spur on the knuckle. Once examined closely, it seemed distinctly inhuman.
    “So, you killed some kind of mutant?” she asked, leaning around the corner of the doorway.
    “I don’t think so. In his world, he was perfectly normal. There were quite a number of these Gray Men in evidence.”
    “How did you walk around all day with that in your pocket and not think about it?” she demanded.
    I thought of alcohol, of Holly, and the resulting long night of distractions. But I decided to leave Holly out of my explanation.
    “I had a few drinks,” I said. “And I was overwhelmed with other things, such as surviving.”
    Jenna was willing to accept that. She peeked at the finger with big eyes. “What are we going to do with it?” she asked, her voice hushed.
    I wasn’t so impressed by it now. I had originally thought I could use it to get McKesson’s attention. Maybe I could threaten to take it to medical people and blow this whole thing into a big news story. After all, he’d said it was his job to cover up details like this. But I realized now that the newspeople weren’t going to be terribly interested. Unsubstantiated sightings of aliens, bigfoot, and the like went on every day. They always turned out to be hoaxes. That indicated to me that they were either being covered up, or they really were hoaxes. In either case, no one was going to take me seriously. Still, I didn’t want to give up on a piece of real evidence. I supposed that part of my personality wanted to investigate the darkest of secrets.
    “Have you got something to keep it in?” I asked Jenna.
    She looked at me and winced. “Do we
have
to keep it? Won’t it start to rot or something?”
    “I don’t know,” I said, “but I’m not dropping it in the hotel room trash.”
    “Maybe you could sneak into a room across the hall and dump it there.”
    “How rude,” I said, laughing. “But seriously, do you have something?”
    In the end, she produced a small plastic bottle filled with shampoo. “Here,” she said. “But I’m not touching it.”
    I dumped the shampoo into the sink. I washed out the bottle and dried it with the hotel hair dryer. Then I used a plastic key card to scoot and nudge the finger into the bottle and screwed on the cap. I could see it through the orange plastic. I shook it, and the spur rattled.
    “That is the most disgusting thing ever,” Jenna said.
    “You should never enroll in medical school.”
    “Don’t worry.”
    I frowned at the finger in the bottle. It did look exactly like it had when I’d found it. There had been no discoloration. Even the bloody end, where it had been severed, looked…fresh.
    Still frowning, I unscrewed the bottle again.
    “What are you doing?” Jenna asked.
    I tipped it upside down over the counter. The finger didn’t fall out right away; I had to shake it. The spur on the back of the knuckle had gotten caught on the opening.
    “I am not going to watch this,” she said, leaving.
    I finally managed to shake it out upon the countertop. I used the plastic key card again, scooting it around so the severed end faced me. I saw the flesh was red and looked like raw meat. Yes, it was disgusting, but it was also bizarre. Why hadn’t the blood dried up? Why did it still look wet and freshly severed? I tapped at it again and examined it, my face inches from the countertop.
    Jenna had returned to the doorway. “You have to tell me why you are playing with that thing, or you have to leave.”
    I glanced at her. “It’s strange,” I said. “But don’t you think it should have dried up by now? I mean, it looks like it was just cut off. So disgusting.”
    “You said it was from some alien. Maybe their blood stays wet longer.”
    I thought about what McKesson had said about