Chapter Thirty-Three
Melissa was in the bedroom, staring at her reflection. Naked, she let her eyes roam every inch of her body, every mark and blemish on her skin, and winced at the sight.
The ugliness. The bones that jutted out. A hideous reminder of the last few months. With every day that she was losing Mark, she was also losing herself. Dying a little, each day.
That’s why I have to do what I have to do. After she hung up the phone, she vomited in the toilet, barely reaching the bathroom in time before her stomach lurched violently contracting. Eventually, her body had succumbed, and she ended up on her knees, her head tilted forward, bringing up nothing but liquid and bile.
It was what she had done—to Sharon—and what she was about to do that had made her sick. Sick with guilt, and she knew it.
Father Owens’s words rang in her mind, like an omen. A warning. A price to pay for what she was doing, and she knew it was true. Melissa knew what she was doing was wrong, but one look at Mark, one more night of being hurt, punched, kicked, humiliated, raped…she couldn’t take it. If her memory didn’t carry the man she loved so strongly, she couldn’t have done any of it. Mark lived there, and she saw the good soul he was—the man he was—and wanted him back. She knew then and there she would have done anything.
What lived in the house, the rooms that caged something so dark, so malevolent, had pushed her to this. Melissa tried to balance out the act. Settle the bill in her mind. The banishing ritual was the only real answer she had found. It was her only chance at getting back the normal, happy life that she craved. Getting her love back.
The phone rang, cracking in the silence. Melissa ran to the phone. “Hi, Sharon?”
A laugh down the line confirmed what she needed to know. Without having to ask, Melissa simply said, “When are you moving in?”
Sharon shrieked and shouted, “Any day you want! Jonathon says he’ll come with!”
It felt wrong—disgusting, even—but it had to be this way. Wouldn’t anyone else do the same for the one they love?
She promised to call Sharon tomorrow, then hung up. There was nothing to do now but wait until Mark returned.
Then, the banishing would begin.
* * * *
She pulled on a black sweater and jeans, brushed through her hair, went downstairs, and sat in the lounge.
Waiting, waiting.
Waiting.
The clock on the fireplace ticked slowly, each second agonizingly slow. Time had reached a plateau and begrudgingly moved forward in tiny, infinitesimal steps.
When she heard the van pull up outside, she leapt to her feet, ran to the front door, and opened it, stepping aside so Mark could enter.
She smiled at him—at the hope she now had—and moved forward to kiss him as he entered, but he raised his hand and pushed her away. His eyes were shadowy and black and his body hunched forward, as if he was carrying the weight of the world.
Melissa shut the door behind him and followed him into the kitchen. “How was your day?” she asked, watching as he poured himself a glass of water from the tap.
“Fine.” His voice was low, almost a growl.
“Things will be okay, you know?” she said.
He turned to her, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve and smirked.
“What’s funny?” she asked, suddenly scared of the look passing over him.
“Nothing.”
He threw the glass in the sink and turned back to her. “Actually, you are,” he rasped.
“What?” Shit. Not now. Melissa took a step back and leaned against the kitchen doorframe.
“You’re funny!” he repeated. “Your funny little life with your funny little shit-fucking job, and your funny little body that even an animal wouldn’t want to fuck—”
“Stop it!” Melissa shrieked, surprised at the power in her own voice.
Mark, silent for a moment, smirked again. Something dark slivered beneath his eyes, and she saw it for what it was; the thing living beneath him, enjoying its taunts, its wicked, ugly ways. “Stop it,” she repeated, but now her voice was barely a whisper.
Mark walked slowly over to her, his eyes steadying on hers. When he was standing in front of her, he leaned forward so that his mouth was to her ear and whispered, “I want to fuck you, tonight.”
Melissa almost gagged at the smell emanating from her husband. It was a deep, musky, dirty, decomposing odor that seemed to seep from his body, from his every pore. She tried to back away, but he leaned forward and grabbed her by the wrist. “If you don’t,” he continued, his voice barely a whisper of air, “you will die, and I will do it. I will enjoy it. I will love it. I will love seeing you breathe your last breath, and—”
“You want to do me?” she exploded, her face reddened with anger, with a rage she didn’t know she was capable of feeling. “Me? Funny, little me? I thought even an animal didn’t want to fuck me? What does that make you?” she roared.
Mark’s face rippled, as if something shifted beneath his skin, and he lifted his hand to her face and punched her hard. She felt her lip split, the skin torn open, in the same place he had hurt her before. She reached up, touched her face, and when she looked at her fingertips, she saw that they were covered in thick, red blood.
Mark smiled, broadly. “Blood, more blood….more of it,” he said, his voice flat and monotone, and he turned, leaving the kitchen. The only sounds around her were the ticking of the clock and the drops of crimson liquid as they fell from her broken lips.
* * * *
She didn’t know if he would take it, but it was the only chance she had. Melissa pulled the wine down from the cupboard and poured a glass of Rosé into the tall wineglass. It came from a set he bought when they went to Italy last year.
She filled the glass, and lifting the packet of sleeping tablets from her jean pocket, she began crushing the tablets beneath one of the coffee mugs. They crunched and splintered, until they were eventually ground down into a fine, dusty powder. Then, Melissa poured the contents into his drink.
She lifted the drink and went over to the lounge, where she knew Mark had been sitting since he had gotten home from work. He was still in his work clothes, his dead, unseeing eyes staring at the blank TV screen.
A trance, she thought. Again.
“Here,” she said, walking over to him slowly, cautiously. She was scared that he might break out of his thoughts, turn on her, and attack her.
He didn’t move, didn’t look up, but simply—like a mechanical robot—lifted his arm and took the drink.
“For you,” she said, forcing a smile. “Your favorite.”
Mark, his face frozen in an unreadable mask, tilted the glass forward and began drinking. “Go,” he whispered, without looking at her.
“That’s fine,” she said, heading back to the kitchen.
Nothing to do but wait. Again.
Wait.
By the time the doorbell rang, cracking the silence into shards like broken glass, Melissa was in the lounge, watching Mark. He looked gone. Dissolved into somewhere...not there. After drinking the wine with the sleeping pills, it hadn’t taken him long to go…and he had simply shut his eyes, slumped over, and remained there, lifeless like a dead body.
She ran to the front door and was relieved to see Josh standing there. Still wearing his suit from work, he looked smart—a symbolism of someone together, normal. She wanted that, then, and felt a new wave of desperation that the banishing would work. No matter the cost. She was past weighing the cost. It all felt like something she had to do.
She smiled weakly. “Come in. I’m so glad you’re here.”
“What’s going on, Melissa?” Josh stepped inside, his shoulders and hair wet from the falling rain outside, and looked her up and down. “You’re still not eating,
are you? You look…”
“Yes, I look a mess. I am a mess. I know. I need your help, and I need it quick. I have no idea how long this will work. The tablets won’t last all night, and I don’t have much time before—”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Melissa shut the front door and stood in front of Josh in the hallway. Her arms were folded defensively across her chest. She took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes. “I need your help. Mark is in there. He is asleep, because I gave him some sleeping pills,” Melissa said.
She saw the look of disbelief slide across Josh’s face.
“You’re serious? You’ve knocked him out?”
Melissa nodded. “All I need you to do is take him in my car or yours, and take him somewhere. Anywhere. A hotel. Your place. Whatever. I don’t care where. I’ll pay the fee and everything, but I need you to take him with you. He is vulnerable in this house.”
Josh remained expressionless. “You need help.”
“Yes, yes I do! Not the kind you think, though. I am onto something here, I am. I need you to do as I ask.”
“You’re crazy,” Josh said, turning to the front door to leave.
Melissa pulled his arm, stopped him. “Please! Please!” she shrieked, her voice hard and sharp. “Please, Josh. I can’t move him on my own. If you care about me like you said you did, if you have feelings for me like you said you did…you’ll help.”
“Do you realize the kind of trouble I could get into? What are you asking me to do? Kidnapping? Move a man you knocked out with God-knows-what drugs, leave him in a hotel room…are you serious? He could call the police on me!”
“No! He’s out of it. Probably will be for hours. When he wakes, you’ll be long gone. I’ll say I did it. It was all me, if it comes to it. It won’t, though. Trust me!”
Josh watched her, looking into her eyes. “He hit you again, today. Didn’t he?”
Melissa reached for her lip, looked down, and saw fresh blood on her fingers. She nodded silently.
“Call the police.” His voice was strong, demanding.
“No.”
“I will, then.”
“We’ve been here before,” she shouted. “I need you to just take him. There’s a hotel called the Drowned Inn, just up the road. That’ll do. All you need to do is book a room for him, say he’s had a bit too much to drink, and leave him there.”
“If I don’t?”
“I’ll find someone else. Or I’ll have to do it on my own. It’s not like I haven’t been on my own in this hell.” Melissa felt fresh tears rise to the surface of her eyes, and she dabbed them. “I need your help. I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t need to, Josh. You know that.”
“So, you want me to take him in my car?”
Melissa nodded. “Strap him in. Go into reception yourself, book a room under Mark’s name or mine—whatever. If anyone see’s him, he’s drunk. Simple as that. Nobody has to know anything. Leave him sleeping in your fucking car by your own house if you need to, Josh, but please get him out of here.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“If I’m going to do something highly crazy, unethical, and illegal, I want to know why.”
“If you don’t, I will end up dead. I can’t cope for much longer. I will die, Josh. It happened before with Grace, and it will happen with me. There’s only so much I can take—only so much anyone can take. You don’t have to believe me, but please. Be a friend. If you really care, do this for me. Please. If I’m wrong, then I promise I’ll call the police, myself. Just help me at least try!”
Melissa let the tears fall as she watched Josh walk into the lounge.
Within ten minutes, he had left. Mark was strapped into the back seat behind him, heading for the hotel.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Alone now. Except, she knew that she wasn’t. She could feel it somewhere, somehow, charging the air around her, sliding against her skin, insinuating itself around her thoughts.
She couldn’t tell, or know with any certainty, but Melissa knew that she had angered the demon. The thing. That when Mark was away, or asleep, the demon resented it, didn’t like it, was enraged by its host’s incapacity. By his absence.
She had drawn all of the curtains in the lounge so that the room was dark. On the coffee table—she had thrown off all of the magazines and books that had begun to pile up on there recently—she had placed six candles in the center, in a small circle.
“This better work!” Melissa rasped as she reached for the lighter in her pocket and began lighting each candle. “Six candles for you,” she spat into the room, her voice dissolving into the thick darkness around her. “Six candles. That’s what I need, isn’t it?” she said, her voice shaking—a thin, rattling sound. She saw how her hand trembled as she reached for each candle, pressing the flame to each wick.
“When I do this,” she said, her eyes fixed to the table in front of her, “you will make this deal with me. Okay? I know you hear me. I know you’re here. You have done enough. You have been ruining Mark. Ruining me. Our marriage. Enough,” she cried, as she sat back, staring at the ring of fire glowing in the dark room. “It’s enough. You’d had your fun with us,” she said. “You have done all you can with us, and I won’t let you. I do not permit you to do it to us anymore. This banishing ritual, whatever it is, it’s going to mark the end of this, okay?”
Melissa sat back, watching as the glow of tiny flames sent waves of moving shadows across the room, and she suddenly felt a crushing sense of fear. She was alone with it, now. This was it. The realization hit her like a flood, and she felt sick with the truth of it.
“You hear me?” she called out. “Do you? I will do this banishing, because I’ve had enough. You’ve fucked with me and my husband enough. I will have a replacement for you. That’s my side of the bargain, do you hear? I will have two people here within the next two days. That’s my promise. Sharon and Jonathon. Sharon…my friend…” Melissa fell silent and began sobbing. “I can’t even call her that anymore...” She doesn’t deserve this, Melissa thought. I know that, but I have to.
Somewhere from beyond the shadows, Melissa heard movement, and a small laugh bounced across the room, sending the hairs on her arms rigid with icy fear. It was listening, then, she knew. It’s here, it’s enjoying.
“Hear me? You have Sharon and Jonathon. That’s how you will be banished from Mark. That is the deal. You give me back my husband, and you have them.”
Again, laughter, and Melissa felt something touch her shoulder, like cold, damp fingers. She flinched and turned but saw nothing against the blanket of black shadows that she was surrounded by.
“I was told I had to write it,” she said, her voice shaking, her body trembling. “So here.” She lifted the piece of paper she had written earlier; in big, black letters she had written the names Sharon and Jonathon. She placed it into the circle of fire and reached for the kitchen knife she had placed on the sofa. When she found the cold, sharp knife, she lifted it and raised her hands.
“My blood,” she called out. “...to seal this pact!”
With one hand outstretched, Melissa pushed the edge of the knife to her arm and pressed it into her flesh. She could see, even through the blackness of the room, the thick, red liquid as it dribbled between the broken crack of skin.
She lifted her arm carefully over each flame, letting a drop of blood fall on each. With every drop that fell, Melissa felt the room turn colder, icier, until she was sure that if she could see, her breath would fog the air around her.
The flames, each baptized with her own blood, continued to flicker and glow, and she watched, desperate to see each candle melt to the wick. Only then, as Father Owen had told her, would she be free from the demon.
Suddenly, a loud noise from the kitchen broke into the q
uiet of the house, and Melissa jolted to her feet and ran to the room.
She stood there, after all she had seen, still unbelieving. Drawers opened and closed, banging with such force, that she felt the vibrations on the ground beneath her feet. Cupboard doors flew open only to swing shut, the chairs surrounding the kitchen table suddenly tipped over onto their sides one by one. The noise was a cacophony of ugly sounds. Melissa pressed her hands to her ears, shying away from the meaningless violence unfolding.
She looked through the shadowy, darkened room and saw, at the kitchen window, the face of a woman. Grace. Her face was pressed to the glass, her eyes wide. The dead woman shook her head, and Melissa read the look. I couldn’t have done the banishing. How could you?
Melissa started to move across to the window. When she felt two stony, cold hands clutch her from behind and pull her backward toward the lounge. She tried to twist free, to break away, but the force was too strong, too powerful. Melissa shrieked and tried to turn to see; but nobody was there. The invisible force, the entity, grabbed at her, clawed at her, pulled at her hair, her skin, scratching against her body. She felt sharp scratches along her arms, her neck, her face. Wincing in pain she fitfully struggled beneath the intruder.
Melissa reached the lounge and felt a weight press against her. She crumbled to the floor beneath the force, trying to call for help, but she was unable to find the air, the energy to do it. To do anything.
Bad smells, ugly, rotting smells filled her nostrils. Her arms were caked in clotting blood.
Stop it, stop it, stop it. You have Sharon, now, and Jonathon. Please. Stop it.
Like a whirlwind spinning through the lounge, pictures flew from the shelves, books spun across the room, slamming into the walls with violent thuds. They spun across the floor, their pages fluttering as if they were being flipped by unseen hands. The sofa shook and the pictures on the walls swung back and forth, hanging at odd angles, many upside down.
Melissa, still pinned to the floor by unseen hands, watched, wide-eyed as the scene unfolded before her.
“I am the one...” A deep, booming voice crackled into the chaos of the room. The voice seemed to emanate from all around her; from below her, above her, from far away and close by, like it was carried on the air she breathed. “Bring me the two you named, or Mark remains mine,” the voice croaked.
The Banishing Page 20