by Tony Martin
Christine stepped through the door, and consciously not proceeding according to dramatic convention, she turned on the lights in the hall. None of this creeping around in the dark stuff for me, she thought. She looked both ways, as though she was crossing a street, and saw nothing.
“Well, I’m up now,” Christine said to the emptiness, and went down the hall to the landing encircling the great hall downstairs. She turned on lights as she went around the landing and down the stairs. She noted that her fear had ebbed, save for a little thrill that pricked the hairs at the nape of her neck.
Christine wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for. Perhaps she was looking for the source of the female voice, but she had no idea what she’d do if she actually found anything. Down in the great hall, she looked through the windows framing the front door. There was just enough ambient light for her to see the front verandah and the drive beyond. Nothing.
She paused at the door, still looking out, and then looked back toward the stairs. With the lights fully illuminating the great hall, it was decidedly non-spooky. “Huh,” Christine grunted, and went back up the stairs toward Meredith’s room.
Christine left the lights on as she walked down the hall, and then paused at Meredith’s door. Unexpectedly, the fear that had lain dormant enveloped her. She couldn’t rationalize why, but she didn’t want to open Meredith’s door. Absurdly, she almost expected to go in the room to find Meredith with her head turning around a full three-sixty degrees, or find her barking like a dog. Really, Christine told herself, really, Christine. You’ve seen way too many movies.
Bottling up her unreasoning panic, Christine opened the bedroom door. Yellow light from the hallway fell across the bed. There lay Meredith, still sound asleep. Christine heard her rhythmic breathing.
Relieved, Christine reached outside the bedroom door to turn off the hall light. Just as her fingers brushed the switch, Meredith stirred. “Crud,” Christine said under her breath. She hadn’t intended to wake her friend.
Meredith sat up, her eyes still closed. “Sis, you OK?” asked Christine.
For a moment, Meredith’s head nodded, as though she was about to fall asleep sitting up. Then she raised her head and opened her eyes.
Christine felt her throat close as though in a vise. She tried to speak. For Meredith’s eyes were not the tranquil green others found so captivating, but were instead soulless, bulging black orbs.
Christine made a tiny choking sound as she tried to find her voice. She backed away from the bed, her hands behind her, feeling for the door. Meredith sat completely still, looking, in a fashion, toward Christine.
Grasping the doorframe for support, Christine backed into the hall, pivoted on her heel, and ran a few steps before finally gasping explosively for breath. She paused in the hall, uncertain as to which way to turn, and then abandoning all reason headed for the staircase.
At the top of the stairs, Christine had the presence of mind to turn on the lights. She ran heedlessly down the stairs, taking two steps at a time, before reaching the first floor landing in the great hall. She paused, and when after a moment was able to construct a rational thought, rushed toward the kitchen to call her father.
Christine paused at the kitchen door. Part of her mind was engaged to the extent that she knew what she had seen was not Meredith. What she saw gave off waves of elemental terror. That’s the worst scare I’ve ever had, she thought, even as she reached for the phone. Her hand froze as a voice behind her spoke:
“C-C-Christine? What’s happening?”
Christine knew it was Meredith, and overcoming a surge of panic – and an unwillingness to turn (don’t look at it, her mind screamed) – she looked back at her friend.
Meredith stood right outside the kitchen door. She was barefoot, fully dressed, and chalk-white. Perspiration glistened on her forehead. Her chin quivered. Her eyes, swimming in tears, were wide and green.
“Stay back,” Christine whispered.
“What?” Meredith flinched.
“Meredith – wait. Did you – are you OK?” Christine struggled to keep her bearings.
Meredith looked at Christine, and then looked around the kitchen, bewildered. “H-how did I get here?”
“Lord, God,” said Christine. “Meredith –do you remember anything?” She realized she was gripping the phone receiver, and eased it back into its cradle.
Meredith moved unsteadily toward the breakfast table and sank carefully into a chair. Christine, still eyeing Meredith warily, sat opposite.
For a long moment, the two girls looked at each other. Christine’s expression vacillated between fear, relief, and dread. Meredith kept looking around the room as though she recognized nothing. Finally, Meredith spoke:
“I called you but no sound came out.” Then, with a force that startled Christine, Meredith sobbed and continued weeping with great, shuddering heaves.
Christine stood to comfort her friend, but stopped just shy of touching her. It was Meredith sitting before her, crying, but there was a whiff of something repellant and unwholesome about her. Then Christine dropped to her knees and embraced Meredith, rocking her gently as she shook uncontrollably.
“What’s happening?” Meredith asked breathlessly, between sobs. “What’s going on?”
Christine didn’t reply. She looked past her Meredith, over her shoulder, to the door into the great hall. Her mind felt scalded, pained, and unable to reconstruct what had happened over the last few minutes. Whatever doubts she might have had about the reality of what Meredith was experiencing, they were gone now.
For a long time the two stayed clinched together. Neither spoke. Gradually Meredith’s sobs subsided, and she released Christine from her embrace. She leaned back in her chair, her face red and swollen.
Christine studied her friend for a moment, looking steadily in her eyes. Finally, she said, “Sis … tell me what just happened.”
Meredith drew a deep breath. Her eyes clouded. “I don’t think this is going to make any sense.”
“None of this makes sense,” said Christine. She paused, waiting.
“OK,” said Meredith after a moment. “I remember you getting up out of the bed. I was sort of halfway awake. I figured you must have been going to the bathroom or something. I’m not sure. I do remember you walking out into the hall.
“Then, as I was drifting back off to sleep, I heard someone talking. It wasn’t you. Whoever it was was in the room. It was a lady, and she was whispering. I wasn’t really afraid, but I couldn’t get my eyes open.”
Meredith paused, struggling to string words together to communicate what happened next.
“The whispering stopped,” she said. “I was just about to get up to see where you were when I felt what seemed like someone grabbing the back of my neck. My eyes - it was like I still couldn’t get them open. And Christine - I had this sense of just frigid cold start where the hand was on my neck and spread through my body. The closest I can describe it is like going under anesthesia and you can actually feel yourself going to sleep. It was like I was aware I was drifting off but there wasn’t anything I could do. I was paralyzed. I opened my eyes, and I could see, but I couldn’t do anything else. I tried to call you, but nothing happened.
“I heard you come back in the room,” said Meredith, then her eyes teared up again. “And I sat up. Except - except it wasn’t me that was sitting up. I knew what my body was doing, but it was doing it involuntarily. I felt like a puppet, like someone else was making me do things. I could see you, and I saw you run out of my room, but I couldn’t do a thing.
“All at once it was over. I could hear you running downstairs, and I guess I got up and followed you here to the kitchen.” Abruptly, Meredith’s head drooped, and she pressed both hands to her temples. Her shoulders shook as the sobs began afresh.
Christine had listened to this narrative in astonishment. “That’s it,” she told Meredith. “You’re going home with me. Now.”
Meredith nodded. She stood, uns
teadily, and Christine threw her arm around Meredith’s shoulders. “I need to get some things,” Meredith began.
“Nope. We’re leaving. We’ll find enough stuff at my house to get you through tomorrow.”
Christine grabbed her purse, which she had tossed on the kitchen table earlier, and found her car keys. Together, the two badly shaken girls climbed in Christine’s car and started down the driveway. At the end of the drive, Meredith grabbed Christine’s arm, causing the car to swerve.
“Stop a minute,” said Meredith. Christine stopped the car.
Meredith looked back at her home. The Dubose mansion gleamed whitely in the ambient evening light. The grounds and distant wood were shrouded in darkness.
“That’s where I live,” said Meredith icily. “I’m not going to be put out of my own house.”
“And you’re not gonna,” said Christine, following Meredith’s gaze. “We’ll figure out something.”
Christine had no idea what that “something” would be. She drove back toward town; Meredith leaned against the door, closing her eyes. Neither girl spoke.
The next morning, Joshua got a call from Jimmy Tracy soon after he arrived at the church. Joshua felt his stomach tighten as Jimmy related what Christine had told him.
Christine and Meredith awakened Jimmy in the early morning darkness. Christine had told him what had happened and why they felt they had to get out of the Dubose home for the rest of the evening. Jimmy listened, stupefied, as Meredith filled in the gaps in Christine’s account.
“You girls try to get some sleep,” Jimmy told them, then spent the rest of his time before dawn sleepless.
Joshua didn’t interrupt Jimmy as he told the unbelievable tale. Finally, Jimmy said, “You can’t imagine how hard it is for me to accept this. I honestly, genuinely don’t know what to do or think.”
Joshua gathered his thoughts, and then said, “Jimmy, why don’t you bring the girls down here in about an hour? If you don’t mind, I’ll ask Bethany to come down, too. Let’s just get our collective heads together and decide how to best handle this.”
“OK,” said Jimmy. “I can get someone to cover for me at the bank. See you in an hour.”
Joshua said his good-byes, and then sank back into his chair. We sure didn’t learn anything about this in seminary, he thought, and wondered where he might find any sort of counsel.
He called Bethany, sketched in the details of what had happened the night before and asked her to come to the church. She assured him she’d be there. “Is there anything I can do?” she asked.
“Pray real hard,” said Joshua. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t already been praying. In reality, Joshua didn’t know how to pray about this situation. He was convinced that Meredith had been imagining all that had happened prior to today. Now, with Christine experiencing some of the same - manifestations? - the landscape had changed significantly. Not only had what Meredith claimed to have experienced been verified, it was observed first hand by Christine, who, by all accounts, was just as sane and stable as anyone.
Joshua picked up his Bible and flexed its cover. He was tempted to do the old “open the Bible at random, drop your finger on the page, and read what’s there” routine, a superstitious approach to scripture at best. He honestly didn’t know where to find a solution.
Demonic possession? Joshua reflected on Christine’s description of seeing Meredith sitting upright in bed, and in the same riveting moment thought of Bethany’s appearance in his dream of several nights ago. The image of black, soulless eyes sprang unbidden into his consciousness, and he shuddered violently.
“Nope. Not going there,” he mumbled, just as Bethany entered his office.
Bethany looked frayed. “Well, well,” she said. “The plot thickens.”
Joshua managed a grim smile. “We have moved into a dark place,” he said bleakly. “My rational mind is coming up against a brick wall.”
“You haven’t been too rational about any of this,” said Bethany, studying him. “But now, with Christine seeing stuff …” She didn’t complete her thought.
“Let me think aloud for a minute,” said Joshua, thankful to have Bethany as a sounding board. “Here’s the progression: Meredith and Christine attempt a séance. Meredith has a dream – supposedly, but sees a man in her room. Then the voices begin. Next – let’s see – I guess comes our visit. And now – this.” He spread his hands helplessly. “It was all pretty simple, until Christine sees what she saw. I don’t have a clue.”
Bethany waited a moment before speaking. “Are you over your head?”
“Haw,” said Joshua. “Yeah, you betcha. I’ve got to get some help here, but where do I look?”
“Let’s just see what else these girls have to say,” said Bethany. “And then, well, is there a pastor friend you might talk to? An old seminary buddy – maybe even a professor?”
“Bethany.” Joshua was exasperated. “One step at a time, OK? Let’s get some facts here.”
“Facts,” said Bethany. “Facts. Y’know, this doesn’t have the feel of a ‘just the facts, ma’am’ kind of occurrence.”
The two took each other’s measure for a moment, and relaxed. Then Gretchen rang Joshua’s phone. “Jimmy Tracy’s here, with Christine and Meredith.”
“Rock and roll,” muttered Joshua, then, “Show them in.”
He and Bethany rose to greet Jimmy and the two girls. Joshua gasped at the group’s appearance. All three were haggard and hollow-eyed. Meredith, especially, looked pale, with dark circles under her eyes.
After exchanging ritualized greetings, Joshua motioned for everyone to sit. He realized that small talk wasn’t appropriate, so he waded right in.
“OK, ladies,” said Joshua. “I am trying to get what’s happened straight in my own mind. So – Christine – suppose you tell me exactly what happened. And Meredith, feel free to chime in when you feel like it.”
“All right. This is going to make absolutely no sense,” said Christine. With that, she launched into the harrowing tale of the night before, a tale Joshua had heard secondhand from her father. Now, it took on a new immediacy. Beginning with the two of them falling asleep in the parlor watching TV, to Christine’s hearing a woman’s voice in the hall, to the excruciating experience of seeing Meredith and those black, lifeless eyes – Joshua’s mouth went dry – and the subsequent flight from the house, she told her story. Meredith sat there silently, her face pinched. Joshua glanced over at Jimmy Tracy, whose jaws knotted as he clenched his teeth.
Joshua tried to listen and absorb, but he found that he was mentally keeping the story at arm’s length. One detached part of his mind was wishing this were something simple, such as news of cancer or an auto accident. This, however, was something for which he couldn’t have prepared.
He’d apparently let his mind disengage, because, with a start, he realized that Christine was through speaking and the four were staring at him.
“Yeah. Well,” Joshua said. He wanted to stall until just the right words popped into his mind. He turned to Meredith; Christine's narrative transfixed her. “Is there anything you want to add?”
Meredith turned her gaze to him, pleading with her eyes. “This is hard,” she said plaintively.
“That’s an understatement,” Joshua said, trying to defuse some of the tension. “Just share what you’re comfortable with.”
“Can’t say I’m comfortable with any of it,” she said, attempting a smile. “But … here goes.” With that, Meredith shared her perceptions, including the unearthly experience of not having control of her body, but her mind being lucid. As she spoke, she clenched and unclenched her hands in her lap.
“Anything else you need to say about this?” Joshua asked gently. He studied her face – a not entirely unpleasant exercise, he thought obliquely.
“There’s just a couple of other things I need to tell you, I guess,” said Meredith. Her eyes brimmed with unshed tears.
“Go on,” said Joshua.
“I have
seen something else. And felt something, too.” Meredith abruptly rubbed her forehead. “One afternoon, in the rain, I saw a woman in the yard out by the gazebo. I couldn’t make out many details, but she had on a dark gray dress and an old-fashioned hat.”
Meredith paused, because Bethany had startled them all with a quick intake of breath. “What?” said Bethany, her voice strained.
Meredith seemed bewildered. “It was a woman. She was in the rain. She seemed afraid, or upset… I could see just a little of her face, and the way she covered her mouth, and just sort of backed off into the dark … I don’t know, she just carried herself like she was upset.”
Joshua looked at Meredith, and then at Bethany. Bethany shivered, then spoke.
“Folks,” she said, shaking her head slowly, “I saw the same woman the night we visited.”
Then Jimmy spoke up. “So,” he said. “It’s not just these two girls. It’s you too, Bethany.”
“And Bernadine,” said Meredith quietly. “She’s been hearing the voices.”
Jimmy looked stymied. “Joshua,” he said flatly, “what in God’s name is happening here? I could’ve dismissed what the girls have said…”
“Daddy!” said Christine, hurt. “You know we’ve been truthful!”
“Of course. Sorry.” Jimmy dropped his head, regretting his implication. “I know y’all wouldn’t purposefully lie about something like this – at least, I don’t think you would. But now Bethany says she’s seen something, too, and I just can’t accept any of what I’m hearing.”
There was a long, uncomfortable pause. Jimmy sighed.
“I can’t accept it because it’s ridiculous,” he continued.
“Ridiculous, maybe,” said Joshua. “At this point, I’m wide open to interpretation.”
Another pause. Hesitantly, Meredith spoke again.
“I felt someone touch my neck,” she said. “The night y’all came over. I was getting ready to go to bed. I felt a little touch right here -” she gestured – “but it wasn’t really scary, in the sense that I thought something bad was happening. Actually,” she said, swallowing with some difficulty, “it sort of reminded me of how Mamma would give me little caresses sometimes.” A tear rolled down her cheek.