Abby knelt beside the mattress. Gretchen opened one bloodshot eye.
“Let him do it,” she whispered.
“He’s killing you,” Abby said.
Gretchen shook her head violently.
“It has to come out of me,” she said. “Cut it out, burn it out, drown it out. I can’t live like this.”
Abby took her hand. It was icy and stiff.
“I’ll talk to him,” she said. “We can do something else. I can’t keep hurting you.”
“Andras showed me what I did,” Gretchen said. “To you, to Margaret. To Glee. To Father Morgan. To Max . . .”
Her voice cracked on the last one.
“That wasn’t you,” Abby said.
“It was!” Gretchen said. “It was all me! Me and this—this thing inside of me. It has to come out. Before it destroys everything.”
Far off in the house, a teakettle whistled.
“I won’t let him hurt you,” Abby said. “We can still fix this.”
The door swung open and Abby turned to see Brother Lemon approaching the bed. In one hand was a steaming teakettle. In the other was the funnel.
That’s when Abby realized that no one was going to stop him. No parent, no teacher, no friend, no cop. There was no one here who could make him listen. It was the most terrifying feeling in the world. She had uncaged a monster that she couldn’t control.
“Ready for more?” Brother Lemon said, striding into the room. “We’re going to DEFCON 2. Know what this is?”
He raised the kettle over the bed, steam roiling out the spout, and Gretchen’s eyes widened with fear. Then she set her jaw.
“Do it,” she said. “Get it out of me . . .” Her voice dropped back into its hoarse rasp. “I dare you.”
“Get out of the way, Abby,” Brother Lemon said. “Feel the word of God, like a hammer of righteousness, blasting you out.”
“Stop!” Abby screamed. She stood up between Brother Lemon and Gretchen, arms spread to either side, shielding Gretchen from the exorcist. “You’ll kill her!”
“No!” Gretchen shrieked. “Do it!”
“I have to kill the demon,” Brother Lemon said, stepping forward.
Abby felt the heat from the kettle warming the left side of her face, starting to cook it. She grabbed at the funnel.
“Look at her,” she begged. “Look at what you’re doing.”
Brother Lemon held the funnel out of reach, hands shaking.
“The Enemy seeks to humiliate me,” he said. “The Enemy wants to make me small.”
“She’s just a girl,” Abby said, backing away from him. The bed caught the backs of her knees, forcing her to sit on Gretchen’s arm. “You can’t take this back!”
“I will mortify her flesh until she gives up the demon,” Brother Lemon shouted. “I’m not screwing up again!”
He was a wall of muscle squeezing Abby between himself and Gretchen, looming over her, blocking the light. He shoved Abby to one side and she slid off the bed, knees cracking against the floor. He forced the funnel between Gretchen’s teeth as she nodded feverishly.
“Yes! Yes! Yeth!” she moaned in ecstasy as the funnel entered her mouth.
Brother Lemon lifted the kettle and started to pour. Abby threw herself toward it, arms outstretched, feeling nothing at first but then her hands burned where they hit the kettle. Boiling water splattered the length of her arms, and Brother Lemon roared and yanked back. The water burned him, too, and he lost his grip and the kettle clanged to the ground, spinning into the corner, disgorging gouts of steaming water across the floor.
Behind her, Gretchen shrieked in disappointment as Brother Lemon drew himself to his full height. He grabbed Abby by the neck, his face contorted with rage. She was so terrified, she wasn’t scared anymore.
“When do you stop?” she shouted. “When she’s dead?”
Brother Lemon froze. He looked down at this girl, crying in front of him, arms livid from the boiling water; then he looked behind her at the other girl, tied to the bed, soaking wet, covered with salt and urine, lying in her own vomit. Weakly she turned her head from side to side, chanting, “Kill me, kill me, kill me, kill me . . .”
The light in the room changed. A film dropped from Brother Lemon’s eyes.
“I can’t see it anymore,” he said. “I can’t see the demon.”
He turned and left the room. Abby followed and found him in the living room, sitting in the big wicker chair, clutching his head.
“I saw the demon,” he said to his lap. “I swear I saw it.”
“We can fix this,” Abby said.
He looked up at her.
“What have I done?” he said. Tears ran down his face.
Abby didn’t know how to comfort him. He picked up his Bible and threw himself onto his knees, praying, pressing it to his lips. From the bedroom, Abby could hear Gretchen chanting over and over, “Kill me, kill me, kill me.”
Finally, Brother Lemon raised his eyes.
“I need to get my daddy,” he said. Then he repeated it, more sure of himself. “I need to go get my daddy.”
He got up and started hunting for his keys.
“Why?” Abby asked. “What’s he going to do?”
“This is just a trial,” Brother Lemon said, convincing himself. “It’s a test of our faith. I’m in over my head, but my daddy will know what to do. He deals with worse demons than this all the time. He’ll fix this. He’ll make it right.”
“You can’t leave me,” Abby said.
Brother Lemon snatched his keys off the coffee table and then turned to Abby. She didn’t like the way he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“I’m not leaving you,” Brother Lemon said. “I’m going to go get my daddy, and then I’ll come back and we’ll beat that thing. You wait. I’ll be right back. I promise.”
And then he was out the door, banging down the stairs underneath the house. She heard a car door slam, an engine spark, and she watched from the front window as he reversed into the street, put the van in drive, and took off.
It was late afternoon, and the world was already getting dark. The house was quiet. Abby walked into the guest bedroom to check on Gretchen. She was lying on the bed, completely still. Abby leaned over to check on her.
“Please . . .” Gretchen moaned. “Make it stop . . .”
“It’s going to be okay,” Abby said. “He’s getting someone who can help.”
“Make it stop . . . make it stop . . . make it stop . . .” Gretchen moaned.
Abby went to hug her and Gretchen suddenly burst out laughing.
“It’s so easy,” she said, smiling cruelly, and Abby felt a rock sinking slowly from her chest to her gut. “Did you think Gretchen was still here? She’s been gone for a long time, and you two stand there and pompously intone prayers to a God you don’t even believe in and—what? You expected my head to spin around? You have the imagination of children. I barely had to reveal one-tenth of my majesty to dispense with that poser. Some silly voices here, a push there, a nudge, a wiggle, and now it’s just you and me. As it was in the beginning, so it shall be in the end.”
Gretchen smiled up at Abby, humming a little tune.
“I think we’re alone now,” she sang softly, eyes locked on Abby’s. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone aroun-ound. I think we’re alone now, the beating of our hearts is the only sou-ound . . .”
I Would Die 4 U
“You know what’s going to happen,” Gretchen said. “My parents are already looking for me. Can you imagine the choice tantrum my mom threw when she came home from the game, all full of crab dip and fried chicken, only to find her precious perfect baby girl missing? Beloved family pet dead? Blood all over her clean white carpets? I mean, those will definitely have to be replaced. They’re going to call the police and the first person they’re
going to wonder about is that girl—what’s her name?”
Abby crouched down and pressed the heels of her hands against her temples. This isn’t Gretchen, she told herself. Gretchen is someplace else.
“That girl,” Gretchen continued. “You know, the one dealing drugs? The one who almost got expelled? The one who stole the dead baby from the hospital for some kind of sick sex orgy? Oh, right, Abigail Rivers. Is she home? Ring-ring! Hello, Mrs. Rivers, at some point in the last twenty-four hours while you were being total white trash, did you notice anything different about your daughter? She’s gone? Now, I know we’re only the Mount Pleasant Police Department and we don’t have two brain cells to rub together, but this might be a clue. Hey, Cletus? Do you think the crazy pizza-faced girl might have something to do with the abduction and possible murder of this nice, sweet, upstanding, and—dare I say—smoking-hot girl? Well, Retus, I think it’s worth a look.”
Abby began to rock back and forth. This isn’t Gretchen, she told herself over and over. This isn’t Gretchen.
“They’re going to come for you,” Gretchen said, and she didn’t look cold anymore. In fact, she looked like she was exactly where she’d wanted to be all along. “They’re going to find you here with me tied to the bed, and they’re going to put you in a facility. Your parents will be the most hated people in Charleston. You’re such a schizo it’s going to be legendary. People are going to remember the dead-baby-stealing, kidnapping druggie from Albemarle Academy forever. Even after they finally let you out, even after you’re old and dried up and thirty—even then, you’ll never get to be anyone else. You’re always going to be the same tainted, pathetic spaz you are today.”
Abby leapt to her feet and ran for the living room. The thing using Gretchen’s voice had wormed its way into her head and squeezed Abby’s brain, making it pulse blood. She needed quiet. She went to the front window and watched the street grow dark. A man in a red raincoat passed by, walking his dog. A plane left contrails in the violet sky. Time passed. Eventually the streetlights blinked on and that’s when Abby had to face facts: the exorcist wasn’t coming back. She was all alone. A demon was waiting in the next room, and no one was going to help her.
“Abby,” the Gretchen-Thing called out. “Can you hear me, Abby?”
Abby rested her forehead against the glass. There was no way out. She had ruined everything.
“What if I let you go?” she called desperately. “I’ll let you go, and we’ll just leave. We’ll go to a neighbor and call the cops and you promise to tell them you took the baby. And then we’ll go our separate ways, and you won’t hear from me ever again.”
“Oh, we’re way beyond that now, Abby,” Andras said. “You know why? Because you’ve truly pissed me off. I’m tied to this Christing bed, but you’re the one who’s trapped.”
Abby shook her head, trying to wish everything back the way it was before she screwed it all up so badly.
“They’re going to be here soon,” Andras continued. “Are you ready to go far, far away? I think you’re way past Southern Pines now. And once you’re gone, I’m going to have so much fun. I think Margaret might become another teen tragedy. I’ve barely even started on Wallace Stoney. Maybe Nikki Bull can be the first girl at your school to get AIDS.”
Abby looked down at the coffee table. Sitting on a pile of out-of-date National Geographics was Brother Lemon’s Bible. She picked it up. His cheat sheet was shoved into its pages. She pulled it out.
It was the exorcism. All the prayers, all the rituals, all the rites, all written down, with directions. Abby took out the pages and looked at these useless prayers and incantations. She was going to jail, she knew she was going to jail, but Andras would keep going and going and going. There was no end to it.
“Do you know what I think, Abby?” Andras called. “I think it’s time that Dereck White got tired of the way those football players treat him. I think maybe it’s time he brought his gun to school. Can’t you see it? He’s walking down the hall, going from room to room, and for once no one can tell him to shut up. After you’re gone, I’m going to have so much fun.”
There was no more Margaret. No more Glee. No more Wallace Stoney. No more Father Morgan. Soon there would be no more Brother Lemon. When did it stop? How much misery did there have to be? Abby knew the suffering would be infinite. It would spread from person to person to person and go on and on until there was nothing else. Until everyone felt the way she did right now.
It had to stop. It didn’t matter what happened to her anymore: this had to stop.
Abby turned out the lights in the living room and checked all the doors to make sure they were locked. She got a glass of water and walked into the guest bedroom, carrying Brother Lemon’s Bible and instructions.
“Saint Michael the Archangel, defend me in battle,” Abby read off the sheet. “Be my protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, I humbly pray. Amen.”
The paper trembled in her hands, but she told herself it was because of the cold. Abby stood at the foot of the bed and her voice sounded too loud, too theatrical, too much like she was pretending. The overhead fixture made everything look cheap and shoddy.
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” she prayed. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done . . .”
“Seriously?” Andras asked, raising Gretchen’s head. “You’re seriously doing this?”
“. . . as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation . . .”
“It won’t work,” Andras said. “An exorcist has to be pure and honest, and that’s the one thing you’ve never been. You’re arrogant, Abby. You think you’re the only person who works hard, you think no one suffers but you . . .”
“. . . forever and ever. Amen,” Abby breathed deeply. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name . . .”
She repeated the Lord’s Prayer three times.
“Ask yourself, Abby,” Andras said, talking over her. “If you’re so wonderful, if you are truly this selfless giving tree, why are you only friends with rich girls? You used to be friends with Lanie Ott and Tradd Huger, but they’re not rich like me and Margaret and Glee. I bet you wouldn’t even talk to your parents if you didn’t have to live with them. They’ve done nothing but sacrifice for you and you’re humiliated by them. You think they’re trash.”
Abby’s hands were shaking harder now, and she raised her voice to drown out Andras.
“I command you, unclean spirit,” she said, her voice quavering. “Along with all your minions now attacking this servant of God, be gone.”
Andras laughed at her.
“Once more, by the power of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I command you to depart this servant of God.”
“You know, Abby,” Andras said in Gretchen’s voice, “this is one of those things that’s broken, and it’s not getting fixed. Some mistakes are forever, and you committed one. Welcome to the rest of your long, lonely life.”
They went on this way for an hour. After a while, Abby couldn’t remember how long she’d been in the room; Gretchen’s body was exhausted, her hair sweaty and matted, wrists and ankles chafed raw by the sheets, the mattress cold and wet.
Abby’s voice was shot, but she took another sip of water and kept reading. Her glass was almost empty, but she knew she couldn’t leave this room.
“Depart, transgressor,” Abby read. “Depart, seducer, full of lies and cunning, foe of virtue, persecutor of the innocent. Give way, you monster, give way to Christ, in whom you found none of your works!”
Andras blew an exhausted raspberry.
“The power of Christ compels you, demon,” Abby said. “Leave this servant of God.”
Andras let out a fake snore.
“I cast you out,” Abby droned. “I cast you out, unclean spirit, along with every satanic power of the enemy, every
specter from hell, and all your fell companions; in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Begone and stay far from this child of God.”
Andras stared up at the ceiling with dead eyes. Abby stopped, and the silence rushed in and crushed her. She was so tired. This was so stupid.
“I cast . . .” Abby began, but her throat was so dry it croaked.
She looked over at the dresser and her heart leapt when she realized that her glass was still half full. She took a long gulp. It tasted sweet. Then she gagged and spat the water onto the floor. The liquid in her glass was cloudy and yellow and it reeked of sulfur. She was drinking urine. Tiny multilegged bugs swam in it, paddling toward the surface. Abby let the glass drop and it bounced and rolled, showering her pants with warm pee.
“Who said there were rules here?” Andras laughed from the bed. “What made you think I would be bound by your expectations?”
Gretchen yawned, and a roach crawled out of her mouth, brushed her nostrils with its antenna, crawled up her cheek, over her temple, and disappeared into her hair. She yawned wider and a swarm of roaches exploded from her mouth, scuttling off in different directions. Some of them ran up the wall, occasionally losing their grip and plopping to the floor; others scurried down the mattress, and still more blanketed her face and body, burrowing into her tank top, crawling into the legs of her shorts.
Abby raced to the bed and swatted them away, sweeping the bugs off her friend’s belly and hips and chest as fast as she could. Andras made Gretchen grin and chew. She crunched roaches, their yellow creamy mash squeezing between her teeth.
“Stop!” Abby said, slapping roaches off Gretchen’s cheeks. “Stop it!”
Then Gretchen’s left eye twitched, and a bloodworm squirmed out of her tear duct, curling itself over the bridge of her nose. Bugs were clittering, chattering, twitching, rustling, hissing, latching onto Abby, seething around her feet, clinging to her fingers and the sides of her palms, swarming up her arms and legs. She jerked backward, screaming, and her back smashed into the wall.
My Best Friend's Exorcism Page 26