“Whew,” she said. “Thirsty work.”
She chugged the rest of her Diet Coke, gulping it down, her throat moving as she drained the glass. Abby stared at her. Half of Gretchen’s face was misted in blood, and in one hand she held the gun. Blood dripped from the raincoat and pattered to the floor. Gretchen finished the Coke and set down the glass, then she leaned back through the bathroom door and checked on her work. She looked back at Abby, whose eyes were swimming in tears.
“Don’t cry, Abby,” Gretchen said. “Dogs are like cars. They’re cheap in the country.”
She grinned. And at that moment Abby knew something was broken that could never be fixed.
“Now, here’s what you’re going to do,” Gretchen said. “We have to toss this mutt over Dr. Bennett’s fence, because can you imagine what kind of drama is going to break out when Pony Lang discovers the remains of his beloved family pet in the next door neighbor’s yard. I wouldn’t be surprised if some seriously gratuitous violence broke out. I mean, they both own guns.”
She set the pistol on her desk and picked up the knife.
“But that’s a whole lot of dog,” Gretchen said. “So I want you to take this knife and give me—oh, I don’t know?—just his head? Don’t give me that look, Abby. You and I both know you’ll do it. You always do what you’re told, especially when I’m the one telling you.”
Abby couldn’t face what was in the bathroom: that lifeless bag of wet fur slung in the corner of the tub. She started to panic. Gretchen picked up the knife and stepped toward Abby. Her leg buckled and Gretchen caught herself against the wall. She leaned there for a moment, breathing hard, her hand gripping the doorframe. She swayed again. Then she raised her head and looked at Abby with hatred.
“Oh,” she said. “You bitch . . .”
Then someone unplugged Gretchen and she hit the floor in a boneless heap. Abby didn’t move for a few minutes, not until she heard deep, regular breathing coming from Gretchen. She went to the phone in the Langs’ bedroom and dialed.
“Hurry,” Abby said when Chris Lemon answered. “It’s number eight. The modern one.”
She hung up and, careful not to look in the bathroom, dragged Gretchen downstairs in her bloody raincoat, not caring as Gretchen’s head bumped hard against each carpeted step. She left her slumped in the hall while she went to the living room and grabbed two woolly throw blankets off the sofa; she pulled off Gretchen’s raincoat and rolled her in the blankets.
Then she waited.
The grandfather clock tocked next to her. The cooling system blew soft air through the vents. The house was cold. The house was quiet.
Something flashed outside the window and Abby leapt to her feet. She heard thrashing and movement, and then a barn owl was standing on the limb of a live oak, staring in at Abby as if it knew her name.
Headlights lit the downstairs hall, then went dark. A car door slammed and Brother Lemon was there. Abby opened the front door and let him inside.
“Holy cow,” he said. “What did you do to her?”
“It’s not her blood,” Abby said. “She killed her dog.”
“She what?” he said.
Abby thought about Good Dog Max, so sweet and stupid, sticking his head in every trash can he could find, and she almost cried. Then she dug her fingernails into her wrist until the pain made the image go away.
“Forget it,” Abby said. “Let’s hurry.”
Brother Lemon tied nylon straps around Gretchen’s blankets so she couldn’t move, and together they carried her out of the house and laid her in the back of his van and drove away. The owl watched them the entire time.
Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough
“Promise me she won’t get hurt,” Abby begged.
Brother Lemon leaned back in the wicker chair he’d commandeered from the living room of the Langs’ beach house. He spread his legs wide, cracked his knuckles, and rested his elbows on his knees.
“That’s up to her,” he said. Even seated, he was taller than Abby. “An exorcism is a contest of wills between the demon and the exorcist. Now, I’m a pretty strong guy, but I’m going up against the forces of darkness, so there’re no guarantees. As Jesus Christ once said: by any means necessary.”
Brother Lemon paused and looked around the dark living room.
“You sure her parents don’t have a video camera? I’d love to get this on tape.”
All the way over, Abby imagined blue lights flickering silently in the rearview mirror. Some cop at the base of the Ben Sawyer Bridge was going to stop them for going seven miles over the speed limit, and when he gave them the ticket he’d hear Gretchen struggling in the back. Were her parents already looking for her? Had the Langs come home and called the police? Abby’s guts were so full of stomach acid, her burps could etch steel.
Her stomach kept twisting as they drove over the short bridge from Sullivan’s Island to the Isle of Palms, headed north on Palm Boulevard, and pulled up outside the empty beach house. Why hadn’t anyone stopped them? Why were they being allowed to do this?
“Here we are,” Brother Lemon said, putting the van in park. “Now what?”
The Langs’ beach house sat high on stilts, a wooden trellis enclosing the unpaved first floor and a long flight of steps leading up to the front porch on the second. Abby forced herself out of her seat, walked across the crushed oyster-shell driveway, unlatched the gates that led to the parking space beneath the house, and swung them wide. Brother Lemon cut the headlights and slowly rolled forward until he was under the house, then the pilings flared red and he cut the engine. There was no sound but a wall of crickets and the ocean.
While Abby found the key hanging from a nail on the back of the stairs, Brother Lemon pulled the tube of blankets containing Gretchen out of the van and slung her over one massive shoulder. Then they clomped upstairs.
Standing in the living room, breathing hard, Brother Lemon decided on the extra guest bedroom for the exorcism because it didn’t have any windows. They went into the room and switched on the single overhead light. The walls were bare wood paneling, the plank floor was covered with a rag carpet. The only furnishings were a plain metal bed frame with a bare mattress and a flimsy white wicker headboard. A matching white wicker dresser stood in the corner.
Brother Lemon went downstairs and bounded back up, panting, carrying his two surf bags and a cooler; he dumped them in the living room. Then he went into the guest bedroom, unwrapped Gretchen, laid her on the bed, and pulled out a wide selection of black nylon straps and handcuffs. All of them were too short.
“Are you sure you’ve done this before?” Abby asked.
“Get me an old sheet,” he said.
Abby came back from the linen closet with two sheets, which Brother Lemon tore into strips and used to tie Gretchen’s wrists and ankles to the bed frame. He left her hands down by her sides.
“It’s less pornographic this way,” he explained.
Leaving the door open, he and Abby went into the living room and waited for Gretchen to wake up. It was winter on the Isle of Palms, so no tourists were renting houses, only year-round people. Even so, Abby made Brother Lemon turn out the guest room light, and she wouldn’t let him turn on any others, so the two of them sat in the dark and went over the plan.
“Mostly we’re going to wing it,” Brother Lemon said.
“Wing it?” Abby repeated.
“Expertise, plans, strategies,” Brother Lemon said. “None of those are any use in an intense exorcism-type situation. You have to enter the arena of diabolic battle armed only with faith, love, and the power of Jesus Christ. Oh, shoot, I can’t believe I didn’t ask this before. You are baptized, aren’t you?”
“Sure,” Abby said, who actually wasn’t very sure at all.
“It’ll be dangerous in there for an unbaptized soul,” Brother Lemon said. “I’ll be doing som
e serious blasting of prayer and if you’re not girded with the full Armor of God, you might not make it through with your soul intact.”
Beach houses on the Isle of Palms weren’t supposed to be occupied in the winter. None of them had insulation, and none of them had heat. It was so cold that Abby’s fingernails ached. Wind whistled through the cracks around the windows and pressed hard against the walls.
“I want you to know what we’re walking into,” Brother Lemon said. “I need you in the room as my auxiliary, but you’re cherry, so I need you to follow my lead. Do exactly what I tell you to do, nothing more or less. Can you handle that?”
Abby nodded.
“There are four stages of an exorcism,” Brother Lemon said. “Although we’re not doing this the Catholic way, so technically it’s a deliverance. The first stage is Pretense. The demon hiding inside your friend wants us to give up. It wants us to doubt ourselves. So it’s going to pretend it isn’t there. I can see it, but you can’t, so you’re going to think I’m crazy. But you have to trust me. I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve, but it might take some time. Check?”
Abby felt ridiculous saying the word.
“Check,” she said.
“Once I get the demon to reveal itself,” Brother Lemon continued, “we move to the second stage. That’s the Breakpoint. That’s when things might get a little weird. The demon will stop pretending to be your friend, and it will begin conversing with us directly. No matter what happens, do not converse with the demon, do not engage with the demon, do not speak to the demon. It’ll try to trick us and draw us deeper into its traps and snares. Check?”
“Check,” Abby said.
“Then comes the Clash,” Brother Lemon said. “This is like the Breakpoint, only much, much worse. It’ll be full-on spiritual battle. Demons command the powers of darkness, so all kinds of funky stuff might happen. My daddy once saw a glass of water boil. I’ll do everything I can to protect you, but you have to follow my lead without question, check?”
“Check,” Abby said.
“Finally,” Brother Lemon said, “comes the Expulsion. This is when I’ll banish the demon and drive it from your friend’s body. When that happens, be ready for anything. It might attempt to enter one of us, it might take out this whole house. Who knows what it’s capable of, so stay frosty. You got all that?”
Abby nodded.
“How long do you think it’ll take?” she asked. Even in the dark, she could see her breath puff out of her mouth.
Brother Lemon blew into his hands and rubbed his palms.
“Deliverance can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to, oh, about an hour,” he said. “Maybe four or five, but that’s rare.”
It didn’t sound too bad, Abby thought. Maybe they could even return Gretchen before her parents came home.
“Abby?” a voice called in the dark. “Where am I?”
Brother Lemon and Abby looked at each other, eyes gleaming in the shadows, and then he stood up. Rummaging in one of his duffel bags, he pulled out an athletic cup and slid it down the front of his pants. He caught Abby staring.
“First place they go for,” he explained. Then he adjusted himself and picked up a well-worn Bible. “Let’s do the Lord’s work,” he said and headed for the bedroom, walking slightly bow-legged.
Inside, he snapped on the overhead light. The glare blinded Abby for a moment, but then her eyes adjusted and she saw Gretchen squirming on the bed, turning her head away from the light, pulling on the strips of sheet holding her down.
“This isn’t funny,” she said.
Abby closed the door behind them. Brother Lemon stood at the foot of the bed while Abby stayed near the door. Gretchen studied Brother Lemon.
“Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle,” Brother Lemon prayed. “Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by God’s power, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander the world seeking the ruin of souls. Ay-men.”
“What the hell is this?” Gretchen asked. She turned wide eyes to Abby. “What’re you doing with this guy? You’re scaring me.”
Brother Lemon began to recite the Lord’s Prayer.
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name . . .”
“Why are you doing this to me?” Gretchen asked. “I want to go home. Please, my parents will do anything. Abby, why are you doing this?”
“. . . Give us this day our daily bread, and deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Ay-men.”
He repeated the prayer a second time, and then a third. It was so cold, Abby was shivering. She watched Gretchen, waiting for her to smoke, or scream, or vomit, or something. But Gretchen just kept talking.
“Are you mad at me, Abby?” she asked. “Is that why you’re doing this? I know I’ve been weird lately, and I’m so, so sorry. There’s a lot going on at home. Things are . . . really bad. I think my parents are getting divorced and you’ve seen how my mom treats me. But that’s no excuse. I’ve been a bad friend. I’ve been shitty to you and Glee and Margaret. I just got so angry at them, and I probably overreacted, but you know how it is, right? I’m sorry. I screwed up, and I’m not good to you, and I know that. I’m really sorry. But you have to let me out. Look at this, it’s not right. You know it’s not right.”
Brother Lemon braced his legs and squared off against the bed, as if he was getting ready for a fistfight.
“I command you, unclean spirit!” he boomed. “Along with all your minions now attacking this servant of God, by the mysteries of the incarnation, passion, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, reveal to me your name. Tell me your name!”
Gretchen kept talking to Abby.
“This is crazy,” she said. “You can’t keep me tied up like this.”
“I command you, unclean spirit,” Brother Lemon repeated. “Along with all your minions now attacking this servant of God, by the mysteries of the incarnation, passion, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you reveal to me your name. Tell me your name!”
“Please, Abby,” Gretchen said. “Let’s get out of here. I won’t tell anyone what happened. I promise.”
“I command you, unclean spirit,” Brother Lemon started for a third time, even louder. “Reveal to me your name!”
Gretchen turned her head on the bare mattress to look at him.
“Gretchen Lang,” she said. “That’s my name, okay? You could have asked Abby.”
“That’s not your real name,” Brother Lemon said. “Once more, by the power of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I command you to tell me your name!”
“I just told you my name!” Gretchen said.
“Your true name, demon!” Brother Lemon said.
There was a long pause. Gretchen started to laugh.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just realized what you think you’re doing. The two of you standing there like it’s The Exorcist, asking me my name over and over. You think I’m possessed. Oh my God! Abby, this is bizarre.”
She kept giggling, eyes closed, rolling her head from side to side, grinning.
“Demon,” Brother Lemon said. “I command you to tell me your name!”
“Andras,” Abby said quietly.
“What?” Brother Lemon looked at her, startled.
“Andras,” Abby said, embarrassed. “His name is Andras. You said so before.”
There was a long silence. The air pressure dropped and the walls and ceiling in the beach house gave off a crack.
“Ander Ass?” Gretchen asked from the bed, still giggling. “Is he in Menudo?”
“Come here,” Brother Lemon said, grabbing Abby and leading her out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
They stood in th
e darkness and Abby could feel anger vibrating off Brother Lemon’s body. Then he lit his face with a squeeze flashlight he had on his keychain.
“What did I tell you?” he asked. “What is the one thing I told you not to do?”
“She’s laughing at us,” Abby said.
“I said ‘Do not talk to the demon.’ I said, ‘Do not engage with the demon.’ And what’s the first thing you do? We haven’t even been there an hour.”
“It’s taking a long time,” Abby said.
“Longer than I anticipated,” Brother Lemon admitted. “But it is vitally important that I show this demon who’s king of the ring. It has to understand that I’m top dog. By forcing it to reveal its name, I bend it to my will. This is called harnessing the demon and it’s very, very important. Now if I let you back in there, do you promise not to talk?”
Abby nodded.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” Brother Lemon said, and then he softened. “I’m only trying to protect your immortal soul.”
He let the flashlight go out and together they reentered the room. Gretchen was watching the door.
“Is your exorcism still okay?” she asked. “I don’t want to mess up your hot date.”
Brother Lemon took up his position at the foot of the bed, and Abby stayed by the door.
“I command you once more,” he began. “I command you, unclean spirit . . .”
“I command yew onthce more, I co-co-command you un-un-uncwean spiwit,” Gretchen repeated, doing Porky Pig.
“Whoever you are, along with all your minions now attacking this servant of God,” Brother Lemon continued.
“Who-who-uh-whoever yew are, awong wit all yer minyunth now athwacking thwis serwant of Gawd,” Gretchen Porky Pigged.
It threw Brother Lemon off his script.
“By the, uh, the mysteries of the passion, and uh, the passion and the resurrection of Jesus Savior,” he stumbled.
“Enh, what’s up, Doc?” Gretchen said, doing a perfect Bugs Bunny.
My Best Friend's Exorcism Page 24