by Sasha Pruett
*****
Wendy threw the book, her notes, and her pocketbook into the passenger seat, buckled her seat belt, and squealed tires out of the drive. Swerving and speeding the entire way, she ran red lights and stops signs down the deserted streets to Scenic Point only a few short miles from their home. The tires on her SUV dug into the gravel as she slammed on the brakes and thrust the vehicle in park. She fumbled for a flashlight, grabbed the book and her notes, then headed to the caves and what awaited her there.
The cries of her demon filled child led her straight through the pouring rain and over the rocks. With skinned knees and shaking hands she arrived to see her precious gift from God lying on the sandy ground, writhing in agony, mutated beyond her recognition and gasped.
“Wendy, Wendy the reversal.”
Jonathan looked over to see her moving towards Jeremy and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her away from the beast that was her son.
“Jeremy...” She fought against his grip, she wanted to comfort her child no matter what he looked like, but her husband’s words reached her.
“Wendy, if you want to save our son you need to do the reversal. Only you can do it.” Aaron went to her and took her in his arms, giving her all the strength he could until she was ready.
Her body trembled inside and out and her hands shook so violently that she had trouble reading her own notes. Her voice quivered as she began to speak; terrified that she would fumble so severely she’d lose her son forever. Yet she pressed on, reciting the words penned ages ago by a murderous madman bent on destruction.
The disabled creature thrashed wildly wailing so loudly, the residents of Epson shuddered in the night and outside the storm intensified. Lightning flashed and thunder clashed continuously, shaking the very ground as the drizzle grew into torrents of fat, cold, drops, blinding any would be drivers, all continuing long past Wendy’s final resonance.
A blinding light, a sudden silence, anything... anything, but nothing, nothing is what they got.
“Is that it?” Everyone was thinking it, but Gary said it.
“What’s going on? What’s supposed to happen?”
“I don’t understand, Aaron? I translated the spell three times just to be sure. This has to be it!”
“Try it again, Hun.”
Again they tried. Wendy raised her voice as loud as she dared, with more confidence and power,... still nothing. Again and again they tried, in English and in the strange Latin dialect of a lunatic, each time bringing no great force, no change, no reaction at all, they had failed.
Wendy, exhausted and empty, broke down in her husband’s arms, unable to go on and even he could not stanch the flow of tears. Gary, Jonathan, and Michael could only stand in the dim light looking at each other, and the ground. No one knowing what to say or do to ease the Kinsingtons’ pain.
“What’s that?” Michael’s voice, though small and weak, still resounded loudly within the confines of the rocky walls, “Do you hear that? Shh... listen... there, there it is again.”
The grieving couple was too distraught to notice what both Jonathan and Gary now heard too.
“Get... get...”
“There it is again. Where’s that coming from?” Gary had ruptured the parents’ reverie of sadness, halting Wendy’s forlorn sobs, hope welling within her as she recognized her son’s gruff and mangled voice.
“Geettt... ittt... ouuttt....”
This time Aaron heard his boy’s tortured voice too, but he couldn’t understand it, “What’s he saying?”
“I think he said, ‘Get out’.”
“No, Jonathan, it sounded like he said ‘it. Get it out’.”
“Of course Gary, you’re right that’s it! Don’t you see? Don’t you get it?” Jonathan’s excited outburst startled and confused the group; all they could do was stare with bewilderment.
“That guy, what was his name... Saul. He used Satanism, witchcraft, black magic, whatever you call it; it’s all the same thing no matter who says it’s not, to curse that boy in the past and the same thing happened to your son. It’s not that he’s really cursed or hexed or anything, it’s like you said at the house... he’s possessed. You can’t use Satanism for this; a demon won’t cast out another demon. Like Susanne’s grandmother said in her journal, ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right.’ You have to cast the unclean spirit out of him.”
“Well how do we do that?”
“We can’t, Aaron, but a pastor can.”
“Why can’t we do it?”
“It takes someone in the spirit of God to be able to cast out a demon. We can’t even be here when he’s praying.”
“I’m not leaving my son!”
“If you don’t Wendy, you run the risk of that thing possessing you, or it failing all together. Now is that what you really want? I can’t even be here. I’m too young in my faith to be effective and would most likely end up causing more harm than good. If you want to save your son, get on that phone and call Pastor Garrison, he’s still here isn’t he?”
Wendy and Aaron stared deep into each other’s eyes, trying desperately to communicate, this was their boy, their only child, but what choice did they have? Without shifting his gaze, Aaron, reached into his khaki shorts and handed his wife the phone.
“Make the call.”