Dark Winter: Last Rites

by Hennessy, John

  As she spoke, she realised she was falling into Curie’s trap. To a mind like his, these were insignificant questions.

  “The fly was her enemy, which made it my enemy. But it was trying to distract both of us, and it was succeeding. I shouldn’t have worried about what was happening by my face. I should have checked the rest of my body.

  When I didn’t respond to my mother, she ran over towards me, shaking me by my shoulders. I looked at her, as if to say You’re hurting me, wondering if I could ever get through to her. After all, this was not normal behaviour for her. She was rather gentle, as I recall.

  Almost instantly, she stopped shaking me, and held me close instead. As she pulled me towards her, my legs dangled out of the tiny bed, and it was then that she saw them.”

  ‘What are those?’ she asked me, but I was confused – I didn’t know what she meant. Then, without saying a word, she pulled my night clothes down, exposing my bare legs.

  ‘Jesus!’ she screamed. ‘What are those? Who did that to you?’

  Again, I didn’t really understand the question. But my legs were hurting, and as I looked down, I could see what she was on about.

  My legs had been cut, several hundred times. Some of the cuts were small, and in a straight line. Others were curved. Others still, had a design to them.”

  Annelise was still listening, but she didn’t quite believe it. She asked him if he had done it to himself.

  “You know, I’ve thought about that over the years. But I don’t believe I could have done that to myself.”

  “If you were possessed, you could have done it to yourself.”

  “Ah, like the man at Gerasenes,” stated Curie. “A man so possessed by the Devil, that the village chained him up and sent him out of the area, so he could do no harm to others. But the chains that man built, the Devil could break free. This was a man so possessed, he would beat his own body with jagged rocks and stones. What I would give to be possessed, so that I too could be free. Do you read the Bible, Annelise?”

  She found herself ashamed to admit that she had not read it in a long time. But she found it even more remarkable that a patient of St Margaret’s Hospital would read the Bible, much less quote excerpts from it.

  “You should read it,” he said. “You really should. My story is a bit different to that man’s, of course. I can’t break free of these restraints, and no-one is coming to cast out the demons from me either, despite the fact that several of my er…colleagues here claim to be the Son of God.”

  “Do you talk to them?” asked Annelise. “Your colleagues?”

  Curie tilted his head, and raised his bound hands. “There are some questions that do not require a verbal answer. Mine, however, does. Do you read the Bible?”

  “No,” she replied. “No I don’t. I have to read my textbooks. I have to do extensive research for my job. I don’t have time to read other books.”

  “The Bible isn’t just any other book, Annelise. It’s the book. I make sure I read it every day now.”

  Annelise wanted to get Curie back on track. He loved to talk, that much was obvious. It was also true that many people who had their freedom restricted found God all of a sudden. That was pure textbook stuff. She tried to forget his look of disgust when she mentioned her law and psychology books. If she tried to win him over using dry research, she was in no doubt that he would clam up on her.

  “I’ll make time for it,” she offered.

  “I rather doubt that you will, but I am sure He above will be grateful one of the lost sheep has returned to the flock.”

  The line was laced with menace. On its own, it didn’t seem so threatening. But if anyone had been listening to the full conversation, perhaps they would have forgiven Annelise for standing up and leaving.

  Annelise made her first real mistake since meeting Curie. She attacked him back with a barb of her own.

  “Like you’ve returned to the flock? You believe that reading the Bible absolves you from what you did?”

  She fully expected him to rage at her, but he remained unflappably calm.

  “If only you stopped interrupting. If only you stopped trying to demonstrate how smart you are, you might just learn something. I never claimed to have found God; the Devil found me. That’s the reason I am in here.”

  Annelise decided to remain silent for a while. It had already been two hours since the door had slammed shut. Yes, there were guards outside, but still, she had to know the truth. Why had this man killed his mother and brother?

  “After my father left, or was made to leave the family home, my mother took many lovers. It wasn’t a surprise to me. Eloisa Curie was a very attractive woman, fortunate amongst her kind that she became more beautiful as she aged. There was no shortage of men looking to provide her with sexual gratification. After my father left, she had no reason to bind herself.

  One of her boyfriends, and I do use that term in its loosest context, hit me one time when my mother was in another part of the house. He smiled at me, but it was not a friendly smile. It was the kind of expression that stated I would be in trouble if I ever told anyone he had struck me. What a hero he was; striking a defenceless child, don’t you think so, Annelise?

  Another time, he grabbed a hold of me by my head, and forced it onto his crotch. I couldn’t see a thing, and yet I could hear him getting excited. I tried to pull my head away, but he was too strong.

  I was about four years old when that happened. Two years after the first cuts appeared. That man had been the cause of some of my cuts and bruises, but demons on Earth I could deal with. The problem was, my demons were coming from Hell.

  At nursery, Mother made me wear long shorts. I looked stupid, and felt stupid. Other school children picked up on this. So you see, Annelise; I was being attacked at school, brutalised at home, and terrorised while I slept. You’ll think I want pity from you, but that’s the last thing I want. I don’t need the pity of others.”

  All the talk was finally having an effect on him. His words had gone from relative calm to being spat out with anger. He lay back on the bed, the exertion must have exhausted his energy. Annelise thought he was sleeping.

  When he didn’t move, and she was unsure if his chest was rising or not, she stood up. Had he suffered a heart attack or something? Her father had experienced that – the doctors called it a thunderclap heart attack. One minute he was fine and talking. The next minute, he was gone.

  She walked forward to where he was lying. If he is dead, there is nothing to fear. If he is still alive, he had better be dying, she thought. This just wasn’t funny.

  He lay completely still on the bed. Against her better judgement, she decided to take a look. No. That would be a very bad idea. Instead, she turned towards the door where hopefully, two guards were waiting outside.

  She thought Curie might take the opportunity to jump at her, but then she remembered the shackles he was in. Unless he actually could break the binds. He would really have to be possessed by a demon for that to work.

  She turned back to look at Curie, uncertain what had made her do so. Annelise soon realised what it was – Curie’s clothing was turning blood-red, as the red liquid leaked out from the cuts on his legs.

  “Guards! Guards!” she screamed as she yanked open the door. They weren’t there, which added to Annelise’s discomfort.

  There were some hospital workers around, and Annelise shouted to them what had happened. Two of them stepped up to the door but would not go inside.

  “He’s right over there!” Annelise exclaimed with frustration. “Won’t you help him?”

  “We can see where he is,” they said. “There’s a reason why he’s here in Section D. He’s up to his old tricks again.”

  “For God’s sake, come inside and help him.”

  “We’re fine here, thank you. But you should leave while you can. You all think everyone can be saved. They can’t. He can’t.”

  Annelise understood she was in a mental hospital, but it was real
ly something when the hospital workers acted all out of kilter too.

  “Where are the guards that were posted outside here?”

  “My guess is, he made them go away,” said one of them, before turning to his co-worker. “Would that be your thought too?”

  “Yep,” came the answer. “He made them go away. Just glad he didn’t hurt you.”

  “We were just talking.”

  All this time, Curie had remained still. Annelise thought she saw his chest rise, just the once, but with the madness all around her, she was probably mistaken. He was chained up. He couldn’t hurt her. The story from the Bible had been meant to unsettle her, that’s all.

  “Yeah, you were talking, he was scheming,” they said. “That’s what he does. Do you really think you were in charge of the conversation? He makes people go away. The media blames the man, the man blames the Devil. Vicious circle, you know? But we know the truth.”

  She took another glance at Curie.

  “I don’t think he is in any condition to make people go away.”

  “You don’t see any guards here, do you?”

  “Please,” her voice sounded uncharacteristically desperate. “Please help him.”

  One of them sighed.

  “You don’t know Miss, but he’s done this kind of thing before. He used to have someone share with him, back in the days when he was in Section A. One day, they were sitting down to eat spaghetti, when his comrade said the food looked like intestines. When Curie challenged him to describe what intestines looked like, the man – only twenty years old at the time, took a knife and plunged it into his own stomach. As he lay there dying, Curie was dragged away, laughing hysterically. Through the mumbling and raving words, the guards could make out at least he knows what they look like now.”

  She looked back at the man on the bed, who lay completely still, then turned to the men who appeared not to want to help him.

  “Some people can’t be helped. In this kind of place, some of them find God when they’re lost. Others welcome the Devil with open arms.”

  She knew the drill. She knew better than to get close to Curie. Her inner voice, which had to be completely different to the voices Curie heard in his head, told her You read the file, didn’t you? You know what he did. Smothered his brother until he turned purple, and stabbed his own mother in her throat. Do you want to be next?

  Of course she didn’t. No-one ever volunteered for that. But Curie seemed to be blessed, or maybe he was cursed to just bide his time, do another kill, and get away with it. Incarceration didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. It was later reported that Ted Bundy drew inspiration from his escapes.

  When Curie said he was going to escape, he actually meant it. Everyone else were just deluding themselves.

  The white on his trouser leg began to turn red. The first time it had happened, that’s where he said the demon had cut him. The devil is supposed to be able to enter a human body via an orifice, or in this case, a cut. That first cut seemed innocuous, a one-inch laceration, and when it happened, he told no-one. Eloisa wouldn’t have listened anyway. Curie’s body was covered in cuts, some of them old, others that he or the demons picked at. But there were always new ones appearing.

  When he had been subjected to the first of several examinations, which he had to be sedated for, the doctors said his body looked like barely better than one examined during a post mortem. One of the doctors even called in a pathologist for a second opinion. He had told him that maybe that’s why the drugs didn’t work.

  During examinations, blood would seep out of Curie, and the doctors could not explain why.

  Back when he was in low-security Section A, the authorities had even tried to get priests to see him, but he would hurl abuse at them, using curses that could have only come from Hell itself. One of the priests who had been to see him, had his own pockets picked.

  It had been the very same Bible Curie had been reading from the day Annelise Lister came to see him.

  “I’ll come back tomorrow then, but you promise me you’ll send someone to help him.”

  They smiled, and she instantly understood. They would be sending nobody.

  ***

  Annelise lived on her own. She had her fair share of men coming on to her, but she dismissed their advances. She wasn’t so much the maternal type, as the career type. She wanted to advance and have her own practise. She had even readied some personal business cards because she believed a breakthrough would come soon.

  Annelise knew that getting clients would be much easier once she had some success stories – real ones that she could put on her literature. She knew the game, that people from all walks of life massaged the truth a little, even to the point that her boss at the therapy centre suggested she add some more testimonials for the corporation’s media packs.

  She didn’t like doing it. But it was either that, or lose her job.

  If only she could win over someone like Donald J Curie, that would be significant.

  She knew what the J stood for, though he wouldn’t give it up, would he?

  Job. He had received the name of the man who had suffered at the hands of the Devil, only for God to return all his things to him at the end. Annelise wasn’t exactly an atheist; she did have a faith of sorts, but when she read things like this, it was no wonder to her that the term bible basher was bandied around as often as it was.

  She could have sworn the J stood for jackass, or jerk. Curie certainly fitted into those categories, but that would be to downplay what she had seen and experienced that day.

  Maybe he had cut his own legs somehow. It had to be a trick. That’s why the men wouldn’t help him. She could see it so clearly now – why couldn’t she see it then? How did Curie get to her so easily?

  The way he gets to everyone, the men had told her. He makes people go away.

  Whilst she couldn’t explain everything, she refused to believe Curie possessed that kind of power.

  11.22pm. She gulped down a few glasses of Baileys, washed her face, and fell onto her bed.

  Outside her bedroom window, it was quiet. Too quiet. Then, as she lay on the bed, one eye half open, the other, fully closed, Annelise was sure she could make out a scratching sound against the window.

  She tried to ignore it, but the sound became louder. Convinced it was a bird, a woodpecker perhaps, hopping around on the bay outside, she pulled a pillow over her head, and tried to force herself to sleep.

  The sounds stopped for a while, but she was awoken with a start; as there was the sound of something being carved, and this time, the sound was definitely inside of her room. This was one of those times Annelise wished she had a man in the house. Even if she was allowed to keep a gun in her home, she wouldn’t want to do that, and she was terrible at self-defence.

  Something told her that hitting whatever was making that carving sound would not help her.

  Through bleary eyes, she glanced at the clock. The scraping sounds in the floor became a crescendo. Her heart raced, and her clothes clung to her body, such was her fear.

  “Whoever is making that sound – cut it out! I mean it!”

  There was only one thing more unsettling than the sound of someone or something in the house, because at least you could point to where they might be. When the sound instantly stopped, Annelise had no way of knowing where they were, and even if she did, she had no way to subdue them.

  She regretted having a wooden floor in her bedroom. She rolled over on the bed, and extended her arm outside the relative safety of the bedclothes. Annelise half expected someone or something to grab her arm, pull her under the bed, and kill her.

  That scraping sound had been awfully close. Yes, it had been a long day, but no-one could have gotten in straight after her – she had checked the door.

  Unless they had been waiting inside for her.

  Her fingers trembled as she traced the floor. Still, the horror she was imagining failed to materialise. Nothing grabbed at her, but her fingers fou
nd something. Part of the floor was shaped into some form. As her fingers ran over it, it seemed to be circular in nature, but with sharp points.

  Whatever it was, it was not supposed to be there.

  You should have gotten married, Annelise. Now look what’s going to happen to you.

  Her mother’s words were well meant, but their relationship was like the Irish Republicans and Unionists – completely incompatible with each other.

  Her mother was only a phone call away, and the woman claimed to be a light sleeper. But at 3:24am, she would have forgiven the lady for not answering the phone.

  So she phoned a man, not knowing how he would react. The light from her mobile phone illuminated the room, so if there really was something there, they would have to show themselves, wouldn’t they?

  Annelise was 27. It wasn’t impossible that she could have a heart attack. She had told Curie earlier in the day that she wasn’t scared.