Stone Mattress

Jack Dace is the author of The Dead Hand Loves You, a horror novel he wrote when he was a college student. Instead of evicting Jack when he couldn’t pay the rent, his roommates request equal shares of the profits from Jack’s first novel. At the time, Jack hadn’t published or even written a novel, so he has no problem signing the contract drawn up by his roommates:

Would Jack have signed such a contract if he hadn’t been so hungover? Probably. He didn’t want to be evicted. He didn’t. He didn’t want to land on the street, or, worse, back in his parents’ rec room in Don Mills, besieged by hand-wringing and pot roasts from his mother and tut-tutting lectures from his dad. So he’d agreed to every term (184).

Jack writes a novel basing the characters on his roommates. The main character Violet is similar to Irena, the roommate Jack wants to sleep with. The plot of the story revolves around a dead hand separated from its body. Violet dates William, a gentleman, but leaves him for Alf, who was “as rich as stink” (185). Before William kills himself with his revolver, he asks for his hand to be cut off after his death and buried by the park bench where he and Violet fell in love. The dead hand then comes to life to haunt Violent and Alf.

Jack’s novel is a success, and through the years there are two film adaptations. When Jack is offered a television and video game deal based on the book, he starts to resent having to share his profits with his roommates. He looks up his old friends with plans to get out of the contract, even if means he will have to kill them.