by Cat Knight
Eventually a grey car with a yellow and blue taxi bar pulled into the parking lot. A headache was beginning to form but she slowly made her way over toward the car. The driver saw her and pulled closer, jumping out and opening her door. “Marks Alley West.” The driver didn’t attempt any small talk on the way home. Keira sat quietly by, wondering what her welcome, once she got inside the flat, would be like. The ride passed too quickly, and as soon as she had scrounged around in her wallet for the fee, she was left to stand alone on the lawn in front of her apartment block.
There was no one outside, or loitering in the entryway like there normally was.
The walk through the entryway and hallway filled her with dread. She navigated the building on instinct, feeling like a zombie. A red and brown patterned carpet stretched before her, and flashes of white and red sheets flirted around the edges of her mind as she walked, reminding her of death. The scent of old cigarette smoke and greasy food was stuck in the corridor walls and it clogged her nostrils, almost as thick as the feelings of guilt, shame, and self-hatred that plagued her.
A flight of stairs later, she stopped just shy of opening her door, the brass coloured apartment numbers glinting dully from the hallway light. Her hand, which was reaching for the doorknob, shook. And once more she remembered what she had done. Now she would be alone with James and he would torture her all the more. Tears pooled at the corner of her eyes once again. The hallway was silent, but there was a dull ringing in her ears. She didn’t feel safe at home; if she went inside she was sure something would happen to her.
But Noah is busy, and I can’t call Aileen after what I did. How can I face anyone, ever again? Suck it up Keira.
Fiddling with her key to unlock her door, she took a deep, jagged breath, and then stepped into her apartment, looking around wildly for any hint of paranormal activity. Where are you James?
Her flat was quiet, and exactly how she left it. Wall hangings she’d expected to see knocked askew were still straight. Books and folders were left untouched, and her laptop was where she last left it, it’s blue light fading in and out. The open wine bottle sat on the cluttered counter, half-full and forgotten, and most importantly, there was no oppressive atmosphere from James, and no shadows followed her.
Throwing one of the codeine in to her mouth she grabbed the bottle and washed it down well, then walked over to her bedroom and flopped onto her unmade bed rolling to her back. Her thoughts quieted, and the silence in her flat seemed almost deafening. Feeling dead inside, she stared up at the ceiling with glazed eyes. Slowly, her blinks grew longer, until her eyes finally shut for the night and her breathing evened out.
Unseen by her, a shape slipped out of her body and settling down at her desk to watch her sleep.
Chapter Sixteen
The church looked different at night.
In the daytime, the graveyard looked quaint; the church grounds tidy and picturesque. In the evening, however, the church was closed and all lights were shut off. The air was unbearably cold for a midsummer evening, and the fence, hemming in the church grounds took on more of a foreboding air then a welcoming one.
He tried the low gate to see if it could be opened, and his fumbling resulted in him finding a latch on the other side. He flipped it up and it swung outwards, hinges creaking ominously. Everything in Noah wanted to give the gravestones a wide berth, but the brick path that led up to the church cut right through a small corner of graves.
Steeling himself, he strode up the path and up the stairs to the entrance. He stretched his arm out to knock on the giant wooden doors.
“Hello there!” A friendly voice called. Noah’s arm jerked back to his side as he turned to the direction of the voice.
It was too dark to make out the person’s features, but Noah could see a man who was probably in his mid-thirties waving at him. “Noah, I presume?” It took Noah a second to reply.
“That’s me,” he finally said, watching as the other man drew closer. “And you are?”
“My name’s Alexander, but my friends call me Al.” He grinned and stuck out his hand. Noah grasped it, noting how calloused it was, and Al shook vigorously. They were close enough now for Noah to make out his crooked smile, along with a sizeable scar running down his lower cheek and neck. “Pastor Gilchrist said you’d be stopping by.” Despite how rough the man’s appearance was, he gave off an extremely friendly demeanour that set Noah at ease.
“He said he wanted me to see something?”
“Follow me.” Al made his way off of the low brick platform and hopped onto the wet grass below, turning left to walk alongside a wall of the church.
Noah followed quickly before he left his line of sight. After a few seconds of passing graves they stopped in front of a small door he hadn’t noticed during his previous visits. Al searched around for a key in his pocket and unlocked it. As it swung open a soft light shone out causing Noah to squint.
Darkness lay around it. Al ushered him through, then followed and locked the door behind them. Still blinking and attempting to adjust to the new influx of light, Noah took stock of his surroundings.
The air was warmer in the tiny room they’d stepped into, but it was small and cramped.
He could see a small staircase at the back of the room that led down, deeper underground. Al made for the stairway, and Noah followed. When they made it to the bottom, Noah stopped. A horrified gasp escaped his mouth and he blinked in shock.
They were in an empty room that was approximately the same length as the church. The air down here felt oppressive, the familiar feeling reminding him of his experience in the house with Keira and Aileen at Rathcoole.
There was lighting by way of dim bulbs hanging from the ceiling, and at the very centre of the room sat a young woman. Noah gauged her to be not even twenty. She was in a chair, tied up, gagged, and her eyes were closed.
The steady rising and falling of her chest indicated she was at least alive but the sight before him made him grab the wall to steady himself. The atmosphere was strange and uncomfortable, and made Noah extremely concerned for the woman’s wellbeing.
He peered suspiciously at Al who seemed to be waiting for him to speak.
“Pastor Gilchrist wanted me to see a tied-up woman?”
Al made a so-so motion with his hand. “He wanted you to see an exorcism.”
Noah’s eyes grew wide, surprise and a hint of trepidation beaming out from them. He looked back over at the woman in a new light. She peered out at them through squinted eyes, and shifted, straining against the rope that held her.
The two of them moved closer to a small table against the wall with different items; a bible, what Noah assumed was a glass container of holy water, a drawstring bag, and a folded metal chair leaning against it. Noah hung back as Al grabbed the chair and unfolded it, setting it down near the woman, the back of it facing her direction.
Al turned away from her to make eye contact with Noah.
“He said you needed a crash course in this stuff. Something about your girlfriend?”
“She’s being haunted by someone she knew in passing,” Noah said. “He latched onto her for some reason. She burned his bones but he’s still sticking around.”
“Poor lass,” Al shook his head and scratched his cheek. Noah looked at his feet and shrugged.
“Yeah. The spirit’s been around for a while,”
“How long?”
“Over seventeen years”
Al as he let out a long whistle. “That’s a pretty strong poltergeist,” Noah’s heart sank at the words, “but it must be getting worn out by now.” Noah, breathed a sigh of relief. There was still hope after-all.
The man gave a harsh clap, causing Noah and Grace to jump in unison. “Sorry to startle you, just getting Grace’s attention. Something you should keep in mind is that as the living, you and your girlfriend have the upper hand in this situation. It’s one of the most important things to remember about possession and oppression cases.”
&n
bsp; “Yeah, Pastor Gilchrist said something similar.”
They’ll do their best to make their target vulnerable with anxiety, fear and shame. That gives them an inroad to possession. They essentially trick someone into giving up, but that someone can fight back and retake their body. Now if you’re girlfriend fights hard, and with a bit of help from the almighty that ghost will have to leave.”
He took out the woman’s gag and settled into the chair, facing her, legs spread and arms resting on the top of the backrest. The woman flexed her jaw and swallowed, adjusting to the loss of the gag, and Noah watched as her features moved into and held a mutinous expression.
“Noah, meet Grace. Grace, Noah.” Grace spat at Al, but he was too far away for it to hit him. “Grace is possessed by her step-mother. She and a bunch of her friends decided to act like dumb kids and use a Ouija board. She started acting erratic, and a relative called the pastor for help last night, who then in turn called me.”
“How did you get her here?” Noah looked at Al with confusion.
Al waved the question off. “Not important. What is important is learning what you need to help your girlfriend.” Al looked at him apologetically.
“I’d offer to help, but I’m needed to help with a demon extraction, and Pastor’s out of town until Thursday.”
“Okay,” Noah said hollowly. He’d hoped that Al would help him with Keira.
“Hey, chin up. I have confidence you’ll be able to handle it just fine. You seem like a capable lad,” Al’s confidence in him was reassuring, but Noah didn’t feel so certain. Al sensing his reticence, said “You’ll see, you can help me with this one.”
“Shut up,” Grace’s step mother snarled. The men jerked their heads towards her. Her voice sounded much older than the young woman before him, and it grated on Noah’s ears. “Just shut up, you-” her speech devolved into curses and personal insults.
“Besides, handling a possession is easier than you’d think. Grace is still in there,” Al said, talking over the step mother’s diatribe. “She’s conscious and seeing everything that’s going on.”
“So how do we separate them?”
Al smiled sheepishly, not really like the movies do it, often it’s a lot less traumatic than that. “Mostly? We talk Grace to the forefront and help her to suppress her step mother.
“That’s…” Noah paused. Grace was still muttering. “Rather anticlimactic.”
Al shrugged. “Then we banish the spirit. Doing so can involve burning the bones, but there’s another way I’ll show you tonight. Not every real-life possession case can be a Hollywood movie.” He turned back to Grace and motioned Noah closer. “Shall we?” Al began commanding Grace to come forward, reminding her she had the control, she just needed to take it.
“Noah. Throw that holy water onto her.” Noah complied from a safe distance.
Time and again Al commanded and Noah threw holy water, gingerly, each time gaining confidence and coming closer.
He wasn’t sure how long the exorcism lasted, exactly. The step mother screamed and thrashed and did what she could to stay, but through Al’s steady coaxing and Noah’s increasingly bold application of holy water, Grace started pushing back, and the spirit lost its patience. Grace’s eyes rolled into the back of her head and she screamed.
“Ahhh good, good” Al was muttering.
There was a vast drop in temperature and the atmosphere of the cellar grew heavy and ominous. A wind picked up from nowhere, blowing Noah’s hair away from his face.
Suddenly, Grace’s body went fuzzy at the edges, and a transparent figure seemed to peel itself away from her skin. Soon it completely detached, and Grace slumped over, still bound as she listed to the side. The spirit darted out and upwards through the ceiling, taking the oppressive energy with it.
Noah looked, wide-eyed to Al, who appeared quite satisfied with himself. His smile was very pleased.
“And that’s an exorcism. Any questions?”
Noah slowly shook his head.
“You did a pretty good job, you know.” Al casually suggested as he stood, and patted a heavy hand on Noah’s skinny shoulder. “You’d do really well in this line of work, Noah.”
Noah let out a breath, watching Grace as she slowly began to come around. “You really think so?” Noah didn’t know if to be pleased or appalled.
Al gave a hearty nod. “I know so. Pastor said you’d been given a gift. Most people don’t have the stomach for all of this. They faint, or freak out, or pretend it doesn’t exist because of fear. You kept your head and followed my directions, though.”
A small smile slipped across Noah’s face as Al said “In fact, if you ever want to do more of this sort of thing, talk to Pastor Gilchrist. We could really use more people like you. Shame to waste a free gift.”
“I… might just do that, actually.”
“So, about your girlfriend… Do you have rope?”
“Uh. No?”
“You’re gonna need some sort of restraints, then.” Al walked over to the table and messed with the drawstring bag, then pulled a pair of handcuffs out. “Even though the spirit you’re trying to get is probably worn out by trying to hang on at this point, he sounds like a fighter. Wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to go out with a bang. Don’t want you to get kicked and booted by your girlfriend.” He let Grace free, and she looked around with frightened eyes.
Noah didn’t want to still be standing there when she started asking questions, so he made his way towards the stairs. “I’m gonna go.”
“No problem. Praying your exorcism goes well!” Al exclaimed with a wave.
“Thanks for everything,” Noah said, returning the wave. His hand found the stairwell and he carefully made his way to the surface.
Chapter Seventeen
Keira had returned to work the very next day and every day since. True, she shouldn’t have, but the need to keep busy was pressing in on her. The events of the car crash weighed heavily in her dreams. Often she took her pain meds to help her sleep. Her eyes seemed to have sunken in, and her cheeks hollowed out that she looked gaunt and haggard.
Often she would think of the woman. So young, so, so, young. Did she move on, or is she somewhere here with me in the back-ground? Keira didn’t think so. Not really. With the help of the pain meds, no dark figures came to steal her sleep. No shadows tormented her. What crushed her most was the weight of her own guilt. Keira couldn’t stand herself anymore.
Even if it was James who had jerked the wheel, it wasn’t Keira who had died. A miracle had saved her, but she couldn’t escape the suffocating guilt. Every day the sound of screaming brakes and the terrified wail would find her, even when she tried to busy her mind.
The words the ghost said, ‘You have to learn to forgive yourself,’ would sometimes pop into her head and Keira held those words in her mind and pulled them out in the darkness, going over and over them.
This morning she had tormented herself relentlessly as she got ready for work.
Self-loathing and Why Me’s? dragged her to the pits and she was in a deep funk by the time she arrived. For a couple of hours now she had been the only one in front of a register at the tiny Lidl. Her boss had put her on light duties, which meant standing around mostly. There were only a few people milling about, doing slow, shambling shopping. Once they got to the checkout point, they did a double take when they looked at her bruising. One man that morning had visibly stepped back and looked horrified at the black and blues on her face.
But it wasn’t the looking at her injuries that bothered her. It was the look in their eyes about something else, the knowing of a crash that took a woman’s life. Even if they didn’t say it – they knew all about her and what she had done. She knew it. Resentment bubbled in her. Feckin’ shitty job.
She hated working at this tiny grocery store anyway and always had, but today was it shaping up to be an especially bad day. A migraine was coming on. Thanks to these god-awful lights and putting up with arseholes with nothin
g better to do than gape.
She clenched her jaw, her teeth started to grind. They were all so stupid. She was tired of asking stupid people how their meaningless lives were doing; tired of every answer being the same again and again.
It was all so monotonous and aggravating Keira felt her face grow hot, she clenched her fists, and ground her teeth harder staring around at them.
How did these people live with their own stupidity? How could anyone live their life like this? Nothing but one sheep in a herd of billions, unaware of its own insignificance.
A woman walked up to the register, dumping her items on the belt. She was disgusting; caked on blush and clumped mascara were the most noticeable features, competing with a beak of a nose and a wobbly neck that gave away her age. Unnatural red curls were like bright spirals that flowed down to her shoulders. She had a smug face, one that gazed down at Keira from her nose and regarded her with the same disgust Keira felt.
Keira did not scan her groceries, she just let produce pile on top of meat and cleaning items. The woman stared at her, Keira stared back until she noticed her nose was tingling. She rubbed at it. Something hot and wet began dripping, Keira wiped it with the back of her hand, not even registering the blood on her hand. The woman looked in distain.
“You’ve got blood all over your hands. Aren’t you even going to wipe them. I would appreciate it if you didn’t ring me up with all this blood on your hands….” All this blood on my hands.
Keira didn’t give her a chance to finish. She drew back and slapped the woman across the face, full force with an open palm. The sound of Keira’s palm smacking against the woman’s skin was followed by collective gasps from those around. Keira felt satisfaction at the red mark forming on the woman’s skin.
The woman staggered and screamed. Keira wiped her bloody nose and laughed. It was a horrible, sick sound, raspy and delirious with excitement. Keira glared. “You feckin’ shite, you had that coming.” The manager ran up to the register his eyes bulged and hopped around for a moment in panic darting back and forth between Keira and the customer.