“The Medicine Cabinet” - A Halloween Special Treat

A trip back into the vault with my first published short story, a spooky season tale of a night out gone very, very wrong

STEVE FOUND THE FINGER in the bathroom medicine cabinet, wrapped in tissue and hidden behind a bottle of mouthwash. He didn’t gasp or yelp or make any of the other noises he would have expected himself to make. He just stood there thinking, That’s a real finger. There’s a finger in the medicine cabinet.

The finger was white, both racially and from the lack of blood. A few dark specks stained the tissue paper he had pulled away, mostly around the base of the finger where a small bit of bone protruded.

No, it’s fake, he thought. It’s just a rubber finger he keeps in here to scare anyone who looks through his stuff.

Steve had run into such practical jokes in other quests through medicine cabinets: chattering teeth and the like. He also knew that some men used their bathrooms as self-promotion vehicles, leaving extra-large condoms conspicuously around or stocking up a few high-priced toiletries before throwing a big party. Steve knew the real stuff – the stuff that actually gets used – would…