The Soul Healer

by B. Groves

  “Is this dog going to attack my daughter?” Miguel asked.

  “Hold it,” Alison ordered.

  Miguel took the leash and Alison reached into her bag and pulled out a muzzle.

  She called Simon over to her. The dog was still whining and barking at Olivia when he answered Alison. His eyes never leaving the little girl on the bed.

  The dog’s restraint amazed Kyle. He remembered when Miguel brought Olivia to him, and Miguel commented that a neighbor’s dog—who loved Olivia in the past—growled and bared his teeth at her when he was carrying her to the car.

  “I put the muzzle on him for protection, but if there’s any danger, he will intervene,” Alison explained. “Hold on to him tight unless she attacks us. He won’t hurt her. He’ll subdue her.”

  Alison patted Simon’s head when she finished buckling his muzzle. Kyle could tell the dog hated it.

  “Alison...”

  Alison ignored Olivia.

  “Help me hold her down.”

  She approached Miguel again and asked, “Are you sure you want to see this? It won’t be pretty.”

  Miguel puffed his chest. “I am not leaving my daughter.”

  “Suit yourself,” Alison said.

  “Alison…” The demon taunted. “Alison… why don’t you tell them about Heather?”

  Alison’s facial expressions never changed.

  Kyle couldn’t contain his curiosity. Who was this Heather person the demon was referring to? She must have been someone important for the demon to taunt Alison with her name.

  “Who’s Heather?” Kyle asked.

  “Never mind,” Alison answered.

  Kyle knew he wouldn’t get an answer out of Alison. This demon had been mocking him about his tour in Iraq and his divorce from his wife, two main events in his life, and it had to be the same with her.

  Alison reached into her bag and pulled out some kind of band. She twisted and tied her hair into a tight bun on the back of her head.

  Alison turned around and her eyes scanned the basement. “Open the doors,” she ordered.

  “Why?”

  Alison lowered her arms and stared at Kyle. “You wanted my help, right?”

  “What if someone hears us?” Kyle asked.

  Instead of answering she turned back to Olivia, who glared at Alison.

  “You can’t rid the world of us, Alison,” Olivia said in a deep male voice.

  “Maybe not, but I’ll send as many of you as I can back into the darkness,” Alison answered.

  Olivia laughed, and Alison walked over to the basement doors. She flipped the latch and pushed them open.

  Kyle flinched as the wood creaked and groaned. It was early evening, but there was still enough daylight to flood the dark basement with the sunset.

  Alison moved out of the way of the light and the daylight shone on Olivia who screamed and hissed.

  “They don’t like the light when they first merge,” Alison explained. “It’s time.”

  Olivia struggled to free herself of the bonds holding her to the bed.

  Alison walked over to the foot of the bed. Kyle didn’t know what else to do except grab his cross and Bible.

  He walked over to Alison offered her the items in his hand.

  She shook her head and said, “I don’t need those.”

  “How will you get it out?” Kyle asked.

  Alison smirked and answered, “Drop them and hold her down.”

  Kyle did what Alison said. He dropped the cross and the Bible back on the table and walked over to Olivia who was writhing on the bed.

  The dog went crazy behind him while Miguel prayed.

  “Grab her arms,” Alison ordered.

  Kyle bent over and stifled a gag as Olivia’s rank breath hit him squarely in the face. He placed his hands over both her arms and struggled to hold her down.

  The little girl was as strong as an ox. Kyle tried to force her arms against the bed, but she fought him and ripped his glasses off his face. Olivia squeezed his glasses in her hand. The metal bent and the glass shattered. He had extra pairs because this happened before.

  “Are you going to do this?” Kyle asked. “She’s overpowering me.”

  Kyle looked up to see Alison reaching her out and placed her hands on each side of Olivia’s head.

  “That’s it, baby girl,” Alison whispered. “I see you in there. I’m coming.”

  The little girl screamed and turned her head to spit at Alison, but Alison pulled far enough away to not get hit by saliva.

  What happened next, Kyle would spend the rest of his life questioning if it was real or his imagination.

  Alison gripped the girl’s head, holding it in place with a strength he’d never seen before. The sickening smell of sulfur entered his nostrils and he looked down to see smoke coming from beneath Alison’s hands. He turned back to her to say something, but what he saw made the words die on his lips.

  Alison’s vivid green eyes glowed in the darkened room. All Kyle could do to describe it was a Christmas bulb coming to life on a Christmas tree.

  Her lips never moved, her hands stayed steady on Olivia’s struggling body.

  Kyle couldn’t turn away from Alison’s eyes. They would turn bright and then dim, and turn bright again, lighting up the wall opposite of them.

  Kyle turned back when Olivia’s back arched and she screamed expletives that would make any normal person cringe. She was cursing Alison, calling her all kinds of names, and threatening a brutal death on her.

  Kyle turned back to Olivia who struggled to free herself from Alison’s grip. He felt movement beneath his hands.

  Olivia’s body jerked upwards in the air. Kyle wondered if he should let her go, or try to keep holding her down.

  “Keep holding her,” Alison ordered as if she read his mind.

  The little girl was about three feet off the bed still convulsing beneath Kyle’s grip. She opened her mouth and let out a scream so loud and so primal, Kyle thought his eardrums would pop.

  Kyle felt himself being pulled away. He realized that Alison had let go of Olivia and ran around to his side of the bed. She gripped his shoulders and pulled him back.

  He watched in shock and awe as the girl went limp in the air. Her mouth opened wide and a black tar substance came bubbling out of her mouth.

  He heard Olivia choke on the substance before it flew into the air and hit the ceiling.

  Olivia spit out the rest of the substance and fell back onto the bed with a thud. Kyle looked up to see the black substance moving around on the ceiling. It swirled and formed a funnel before it flew off the ceiling and out of the basement doors only to disappear into the air outside.

  Kyle couldn’t move from the shock of what he witnessed.

  He watched as Alison lifted the girl’s head into her arms and whispered her name.

  “Olivia,” Alison said, smoothing the girl’s black hair away from her face. “You’re free.”

  Kyle looked down at Olivia, her eyes were staring at the ceiling. Kyle came out of his trance and couldn’t find the words to ask.

  “Olivia,” he heard Miquel mutter from behind him. The man had dropped the dog’s leash and was behind Kyle in a flash.

  Kyle thought he would pass out from relief when he heard Olivia inhale a shaky breath and blink several times.

  Her eyes stared at Alison in confusion. She looked around and her eyes settled on her father.

  “Daddy?” Her voice was raspy like she had the flu.

  Miquel pushed Kyle out of the way and took Olivia out of Alison’s arms.

  He held his daughter and sobbed.

  Chapter 8

  Alison’s facial features never changed as she watched the reunion between father and daughter.

  Kyle struggled to keep his own emotions under control like Alison but Miguel’s sobbing stirred him just the same.

  Kyle stood there while Alison stepped back over to Simon, who waited for his owner in a corner.

  Alison kne
eled and removed the muzzle. She rubbed his head and told him what a wonderful dog he was.

  She reached for her bag and pulled an IV bag and some needles wrapped in plastic and a small glass bottle.

  Kyle—coming around from his initial shock at the events he witnessed—walked over to Alison and asked, “What’s that?”

  “She needs fluids and rest. I want to observe her for a few hours,” Alison explained. “Do you have anything I can hang the IV on?”

  Kyle swallowed and thought about it. “I don’t know. I— ”

  Alison shrugged. “I can hold it.”

  Kyle tried to think of something to hold up the IV bag, but nothing came to him. Instead, he had a thousand questions jumping around in his mind.

  He placed a hand over Alison’s arm to get her attention. She looked down at his hand and then up at him with an eyebrow raised, but Kyle ignored it.

  “How did you do that?” He asked.

  Kyle needed an answer. He had to know what kind of power Alison possessed that she could dispatch demons with only her hands.

  “What are you?” He asked, his thoughts racing.

  Alison turned to face Kyle, her green eyes never leaving his. “I’m sure you read about us. Didn’t you? That’s how you found me, right?”

  “I didn’t think those stories were true,” Kyle admitted.

  Kyle remembered searching for some answers when Miguel first came to him after his wife’s death and when he first laid eyes on Olivia. He contacted a priest in Philadelphia who pointed him to a dark part of the web. The priest had called it The Network. He read on what these special exorcists could do before he found Mark and Jessica McKenzie’s contact information.

  He didn’t believe the stories, but he was desperate to give Miguel his daughter back since his own exorcisms had failed. Kyle thought about the other problem Markus had pointed him too, but he didn’t want to bring that up now.

  Alison Stark made Kyle a believer.

  “They are all true,” Alison answered.

  Alison walked over to Miguel and explained what she would do without another word to Kyle. Instead, he was left with a dog staring curiously up at him and wagging his tail lightly.

  “Will he bite?” Kyle asked, interrupting Alison.

  Alison shook her head. “No.” She turned back to Miguel who wasn’t too keen on the sedative that Alison wanted to give Olivia but after she explained it all, Miguel nodded his head in defeat.

  Kyle bent down in front of Simon and put out his hand for Simon to sniff it. The dog did so and licked Kyle’s hand.

  Kyle put his hand on the dog’s head and smiled while he petted him. “You are a brave guy.”

  Kyle turned back to listen to Alison’s soothing words to Olivia as she set up the IV. Alison said a lot without giving much away and Kyle had to admire how Alison seemed to care about the frightened girl.

  “You will take a short nap, but remember, don’t be afraid, and your father is here if you need him,” Alison explained.

  Kyle stood up and watched as Alison took Olivia’s arm and plunged the needle into the vein. Olivia never flinched from the pain. Her expertise impressed Kyle.

  Alison held up the bag to make sure the saline solution was coming from the bag and down the tube before she handed it over to Miguel to hold so she could give Olivia the sedative.

  She then filled the syringe with the sedative and the medicine would soon put Olivia to sleep.

  She took the bag back from Miguel and stood over Olivia and monitored her while the little girl’s eyelids drooped and then closed.

  Miguel rubbed his eyes. The man was exhausted emotionally and physically. Kyle only met him six months before this nightmare, but the man looked like he aged twenty years over the course of the last three weeks. His black curly hair now had flecks of gray sprouting from his head, his eyes were bloodshot and the crow’s feet deepened around the corners. His whiskers had turned almost all gray since Kyle had met him, and his body hunched from exhaustion.

  “How long before I can take her home?” Miguel asked.

  “Just a few more hours until she is re-hydrated and rested.”

  Kyle gave one final pet to Simon’s head and walked over to Alison. She turned and gave him a short smile while she held up the bag.

  That was the first time her features had softened since he met her.

  “I might have an old coat hanger in the church. Would that do for holding up the bag?”

  Alison looked relieved and said, “That would be great. Do you have chairs too?”

  “I do,” Kyle answered, eager to collect his thoughts and process what he’d witnessed.

  Kyle turned and ascended the open basement stairs and into the twilight. The air was wet from the humidity, but it was welcome after smelling the decay inside the basement.

  Dark gray clouds formed overhead and thunder rumbled in the distance.

  It was only fitting that the forecast called for severe thunderstorms after what he’d been through tonight.

  Before he went searching for the chairs and the old coat hanger, for which he was certain was in the storage closet in the church, he reached into his pocket and brought out his pack of smokes.

  He lit the cigarette and inhaled the smoke into his lungs as the nicotine entered his bloodstream.

  His smiled from the calming feeling of the cigarette and felt much better now that his frazzled nerves were calming down inside of him.

  Kyle walked over to the small pond on his property not caring about the weather turning or listening to the cicadas emerging from their nests to play their loud drum-like tunes.

  He took another whiff of his cigarette and reached for his phone and found his dad had sent him a text asking if he resolved the problem.

  Gary—also a minister in the Dallas/Fort Worth area— had been the one who pointed Kyle to the priest in Philadelphia.

  “Problem solved,” he typed in the text. “I will call you after service tomorrow.”

  Kyle was ready to put his phone away when the response came. “Good job, son.”

  Kyle only half-smiled. He didn’t want to tell his dad too much about what happened tonight. He didn’t want to hear his father go off on one of his evangelical tangents about the evils that lurk in the darkness.

  Kyle already knew about it, he witnessed it on his own. He also witnessed a human savior travel from out of town to release the demon from Olivia without the help of a cross, a Bible, or even Holy Water.

  She used her hands. Only her hands to expel the entity inside the child. Her eyes glowed as if she’d come straight out of Heaven’s gates to save Olivia from a lifetime of hell, and Kyle struggled to process it all.

  Taking one last drag, he flicked the cigarette somewhere into the small pond and didn’t care about pollution at the moment, although he preached about keeping the Earth clean once a month because God wouldn’t approve of pollution.

  He marched into his small church. It was dark and he flicked on the lights inside the building.

  Kyle stared at the pulpit and the mahogany cross that hung above all else inside the church. He’d cleaned the place this morning like he did every weekend before his parishioners came back for their Sunday visits to pray to a God Kyle thought didn’t exist until tonight.

  He made his way past the wooden pews with this Sunday’s program schedule and the Bibles sitting neatly inside the pockets behind each of the seats.

  The smell of wood cleaner was strong tonight because of the humidity hanging in the air, but Kyle only had one purpose. He needed to converse with the God who’d been elusive to him for so long and ask Him why he answered now.

  He stopped in front of the pulpit and stared at the cross with lights casting shine over the stained wood.

  “Why now?” He asked. “Why are you trying to pull me back in?”

  Kyle only heard the air conditioning click on.

  Kyle realized he needed to grab his spare pair of glasses when he returned to the house because h
e was basically walking around blind. He would analyze all this later when he had a moment alone with Alison. He wanted to pick her brain and ask lots of questions, but she didn’t seem like she wanted to answer many of them.

  Kyle read so much about these kinds of people in The Network, but seeing one work blew his mind, and the curiosity was overwhelming his thoughts.