Turkey Hand

I'm up in the Panhandle chasing a good one and creeping myself out. I'm staying in this bunkhouse on a private campground where a man went missing seven months ago. Tonight I drove into town, a little place called Ponce De Leon, to get some eats. Saw a barbecue place half lit and pulled up. In the parking lot sat a single muddy pickup with two men inside. I killed the car and climbed out.

"They still serving?" I asked the passenger.

"No," he said. "They closed."

He draped his arm out the window, gently, comfortably, and at the end of his sleeve where his hand should have been was the hand of a turkey. Three tiny blackish-gray fingers — or two and a thumb. I shit you not.

If it was a joke — a mea…