“Why?”
“We don’t know, Eddie, we don’t normally see this in a man in his early 20s. There is little we can do.”
Eddie didn’t quite comprehend it. He knew what was going on, but it wasn’t completely sinking in. He just stared to his feet, his mind attempting to make sense of it all, darting the doctor’s words around in his head.
“Liver isn’t functioning,” … “same as a ninety-year-old,” … “not strong enough to survive,” … “cancerous lumps.”
“So what does this mean?” he directed into doctor’s eyes. “How long have I got?”
“In my estimation, Eddie, if your body continues to deteriorate at the rate it is, I’d say around two months.”
And in that moment his world froze. Everything he had done and lost: his sister, his imprisoned father, his selfish existence. Everything he had not yet done: fall in love, get married, have kids, beat his alcoholism, cease letting Jenny down. Everything ran through his mind, darting in various directions, filling it with chaos.
He couldn’t hear Jenny saying his name through his tears. It became an inaudible mess in the background that turned into white noise. He felt like he was floating out of his body, away from the scene, into a world of denial, bargaining, and acceptance.
And as Eddie looked to his reflection in the mirror, he could swear he saw the woman looking back.
25
18 September 1995
Eddie lay in the sofa bed, watching an unattractive female Jerry Springer guest shout at some unattractive man on the television. He was bored. He wanted to be out and about and doing stuff, but he was sick of being pushed around in a wheelchair and he was sick of being too weak to even stay awake for a trip into town.
The alarm on his watch started beeping, indicating that it was 3.00 p.m. With an exasperated slap, he switched it off, leaving his arm poised over it. He dragged his hand to the basket of medication, fumbling to find the correct drugs for the correct time. Eventually he found it and, without bothering to read its ridiculously long name to make sure, he stuffed two of them into his mouth and swallowed them down with a chug of water.
Jenny walked in and handed him a cup of herbal tea. He couldn’t stand it, but he had heard that herbal tea is supposed to make people feel better. If anything, it just made him resent people who made herbal tea.
“You know, you really should take our bed and let us sleep on the couch. I know we’d be fine here. You really should –”
“It’s your house. I’m already enough of a burden on you. I’m fine on the sofa bed. Besides,” he continued before she could interject with protest, “I’ve become quite accustomed to it.”
She smiled sympathetically and sat on the arm of the sofa bed beside him, peering at the television as she rubbed his shoulders. The caption read ‘I blame you for making me cheat with your dad.’
“Why on earth do you watch this?”
“Makes me feel so much better about my life,” he joked. “I mean, sure I may be dying, jobless, moneyless, girlfriendless… but at least I didn’t sleep with anyone’s dad.”
Jenny looked at him unsurely, not knowing whether to laugh at his attempt at humour or cry at the morbid nature of his thoughts. She had always been able to read him like a book, but for the first time, he didn’t seem himself. His eyes didn’t look at her like his eyes did, and his smile didn’t feel like his smile.
“I’m going to go make some pancakes, you want some?”
“Go to hell you fucking bitch.”
She froze halfway through the doorway. Had she just heard him right? Turning on her heel, she stared at him, indicating her utter confusion via her astonished face. He looked back at her helplessly, reaching out to her with a pleading expression.
“I’m so sorry,” he pleaded, a look of complete shock taking over him. “I don’t know why I said that, that wasn’t me, I –”
“Maybe it’s the drugs.”
“Maybe…” he said, then became angry. Who was she to say anything about his treatment? Who was she to say anything about what he was doing? Who was she, a homosexual living with another woman, to cast any kind of opinion on anyone else?
“I doubt it, you ugly dyke.”
Jenny leant toward him, her jaw dropped, mouth agape. Had he just called her a dyke? She couldn’t understand it; Eddie was the person who had supported her the most when she came out and announced that she would be living with Lacy. He was the one who stood up to other people for her. And here he was, calling her a dyke?
“What’s gotten into you?”
Eddie rose to his feet. Jenny pressed herself away from him against the wall; he literally rose from vertical to horizontal without any help from his arms. His torso lifted into the air with his legs remaining straight, turning to her and shaking his head.
“Why would I support a filthy little faggot like you?”
Before Jenny could muster any more shock or disgust, before she could even convey how hurt and offended she was, she was struck in the face by a photo frame that had previously been on the fireplace.
She looked to the fireplace, which was across the room from Eddie. There was no way Eddie could have thrown that. Where did it come from?
“Eddie?” she whimpered, tears filling her eyes. All in a sudden moment, she felt unsafe, like she never had before.
“Eddie’s not here right now.”
The ornaments around the room: chairs, tables, photo frames, the television, the locks in the windows – all of it shook, vibrating with chaotic ferocity. Jenny huddled into a ball in the corner of the room, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her arms shook, fear consuming her, dread taking control.
“Eddie?”
“I don’t know what’s happening…” he softly cried. “Please help me, Jenny, please help me…”
Before Eddie could say another word he rose into the air. His head was forced backwards until his neck was bent at discomforting, unnatural, obtuse angles. In an abrupt, unexpected movement, he was flung across the room and into the wall, falling flat out on his back. He cried and begged for it to stop.
Jenny crawled over to him. She took his hand in hers and kissed it.
“Eddie, please,” she begged.
With that, the shaking stopped. The room became still until there was nothing but quiet. Nothing but the sound of Eddie sobbing with Jenny.
Had she seen what she had seen? The whole room shaking, a photograph flying on its own accord – then Eddie levitating, without any control, flung across the room, knocking into the wall?
She didn’t believe in the paranormal. She didn’t believe in what you couldn’t see; but she had seen it. She had watched it with her eyes. This wasn’t some kind of shared hallucination; Eddie was in pain, crying, terrified.
“Eddie…” she spoke, stroking back his hair and dabbing gently at a cut that had begun to bleed on his forehead.
“Jenny?” he replied just as helplessly, his eyes groggily blinking.
“I think we need to call back those paranormal friends of yours,” she told him with a mixture of fear and reluctance. “I think we need help.”
26
19 September 1995
Eddie sat at the table in front of a steaming cup of coffee, huddling a blanket around himself. Even though the heating was cranked up and everyone else was having to remove their jackets, he was freezing, shaking, out of both coldness and fear. He couldn’t see himself in the mirror because every time he looked he saw her. But he didn’t need to see his reflection. He knew he looked awful, because everyone stared.
He was pale. The bags under his eyes were grey. His skin was clung to his bones and his body had grown unhealthily thin. He looked and felt terrible; not just ill from his terminal weakness, but from the energy sucked out of himself by whatever it was that was plaguing him.
Derek and Levi sat across from him at the table, leant forward, concerned, watching Eddie, who was sat between Lacy and Jenny, b
oth of their arms rubbing his back. Derek was still wearing his smart attire; waistcoat, tie, top button done up. Levi was next to him in t-shirt and jeans, playing with what looked like a microphone connected to a tape recorder.
“We appreciate you calling us.” Derek spoke, as professionally as he could. “I understand why you rejected our ideas, and I’m sorry if we didn’t come across as you would have liked.”
“It’s our fault,” Eddie managed, his nose blocked and his voice coming out faintly. “We are the ones who didn’t listen.”
“Before we resume, I need to ask you some questions to see how far along we are in the process. Eddie, have you looked in the mirror today, or yesterday, or –”
“She’s there.” Eddie knew what he was getting at before he needed to finish the question. “Every time I look in the mirror I don’t see me, I see her.”
Derek bowed his head. His face clenched up, as did his fists, and his leg began wobbling. This news clearly distressed him. He shook his head to himself with frustration.
“I fear it may be too late,” Derek reluctantly announced.
“What?”
“The entity is no longer fighting for your place in this earth – it has taken your place and it is waiting for you to die. Eddie, this entity is now inside you. You are sharing your body with it.”
Eddie was weak, fragile, and helpless, but this was the last kick in the teeth. He was speechless, hopeless, lost. How could he be sharing his body with something else?
“Have you said anything nasty? Anything that you perhaps didn’t know you were saying?”
“Yes,” Jenny answered for him, still wounded from the words that he had unknowingly said to her.
“Okay.” Derek looked to the floor then back to Eddie. “This is going to be tough and it may not work. You need to understand, Eddie, that you may not survive this, not in your state, not when it’s this late in the game…”
“What are you suggesting?”
“An exorcism. We are going to have to perform an exorcism on you.”
Eddie looked to Jenny, then to Lacy, hoping for some help or indication as to how he should react. They both looked back at him with equally empty faces.
“Like I said before, we have no promises Balam will lose his interest in you. This will not get your sister back. maybe in the future, but… right now, our priority is getting this thing out of you. And it may already be too late.”
Eddie hesitated, despondently sighing.
“Fine. When?”
“We have no time to lose. We will set up now then we will start during the night. At 3.00 a.m.”
“Why 3.00 a.m.?”
“Because that, my boy, is the witching hour. That is when this demon will be at its most present. As will your gift.”
“My gift?”
“You are paranormally vulnerable, Eddie. I stand by what I said. You perhaps don’t realise it now, but you could potentially have the ability to take on hell itself.”
27
1 January 2000
Eddie looks at his watch. It’s 2.59 a.m. He has been going all night and he is getting tired; but he is so close. This is the point of the night he has been waiting for. This is the witching hour.
The first thing Derek taught him in mastering his abilities was the advantage he had between the hours of 3.00 a.m. and 4.00 a.m. It is the time the demons came out to play, yes; but it is also the time his powers would match them with the full power he is able to yield. And he feels it. As soon as 3.00 a.m. comes, it’s like a surge of electricity fleeting through his body. It’s like his vision has an additional layer of infrared over it, like he is the master of all that is malevolent and wicked in this world.
He takes out his cross and stands over the demon lying on the floor in the girl’s body. He puts a leg either side of the girl’s torso and holds the cross out.
“Enough!” he declares. “Enough, you piece of hell-tainted shit. Leave this girl alone!”
The demon roars at him, a roar with multiple voices that makes the foundations of the room shake.
This time Eddie is not afraid. He knows what he needs to do. He is going to defeat this demon. He is going to free this girl and liberate his sister’s soul after all this time.
This demon is strong, but so is he.
Cassy, hold on. I’m coming.
“Adeline, this is it.” He looks into the beast’s eyes. “This is the final push. This is when I need you the most. We are going to fight it.”
His watch beeps, announcing the arrival of 3.00 a.m. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in, his blood heaving like fire through an empty building, consuming everything in its path.
“Help me, God, for I am your servant. Please free this child from this filthy creature.”
“Who you calling filthy?”
The demon rises and pushes Eddie onto his back. Eddie does not stay down for long. He regains his composure and takes a strong posture, holding his cross out forcefully.
“You, you filthy coward!” he bellows, his voice filling the room. “Free this girl, you ugly bastard! Free this girl you disgusting, vile, filth-ridden whore!”
The demon levitates its thieved body a foot off the ground and floats toward Eddie with a sinister swipe. It looks directly into his eyes, no more than inches from his face. They look at each other like two nemesis boxers before a fight, like two lions fighting over territory, two equal armies charging against each other with nuclear power at their fingertips. They look at each other like it is the end.
“Free this girl. In the name of God, I command you, free this girl!”
“I will not yield to your talk of God you foul human.”
“Free this girl! In the name of God!”
“Kiss my filthy cunt you son of a whore!”
He takes a big, deep breath and projects his words into the face of Balam and the face of all that he stands against. He projects his resentment into the face of evil. In the name of god. In the name of Adeline.
In the name of Cassy.
“Free her! Free her! In the name of God, free her!”
With a humungous growl, the room rumbles. The mouth of the girl widens and a cloud of grey flies out. The girl’s body drops to the floor and the scars instantly fade.
But it is not over.
The grey cloud surrounds Eddie, encircles him, entwines him in its rotation, lifting him off the ground.
“Take me!” Eddie sends his voice out into the whirlwind of the room, objects clattering back and forth, a tornado of destruction in the demon’s wake.
And with that, the grey cloud forces itself into Eddie. It enters through his nose, through his mouth, through his ears; everywhere it is able.
On the floor beneath him, Adeline awakens. She lifts her head up and looks around herself. Fear stings her. The room is in a sick commotion. She is tangled in the hurricane of anarchy, trapped with despair inside the circulating objects.
She looks up at the man held off the ground before her. She looks to the man called Eddie, the man she knows has saved her. She looks to him with admiration at first, then terror as she recognises it is him no longer.
His eyes burst red. His fingernails turn into claws and his teeth grow sharp. He comes down to the ground with a shuddering halt, not yielding the spinning of chaos in the room that it has created.
“Silly girl,” speak the words of Balam through the body of Eddie. “Silly, silly girl. Now I get to look you in the eyes as I kill you.”
Eddie’s voice becomes deeper and obscured. He is no longer there. Balam has found a new host; and a stronger, more powerful one at that.
28
20 September 1995
Eddie, Jenny, and Lacy watched on in awe as Derek and Levi set up the living room. They had tape recorders stationed around the room, restraints placed in the corners of the sofa bed and crosses placed on multiple parts of the wall.
As Levi set up a video camera, Der
ek approached Eddie.
“What’s all this for?” Jenny inquisitively enquired.
“The tape recorders are to catch EVP, standing for electronic voice phenomena,” Derek replied with thorough professionalism and authority. “The restraints are to keep Eddie in place when the demon surfaces and the camera – well, the camera partly to capture our findings for the university. But it is also to protect us in a court of law should anything fatal happen.”
“Anything fatal?” Eddie’s eyes widened.
“Yes. In case you die. Shall we start?” Derek turned and prompted them to begin in almost the same breath as the mention of death.
Eddie took a few small steps into the living room, cautiously surveying the gear stationed around the room. His hands fiddled with each other and his head twitched. He could feel his arms shaking with nerves.
“Come on in, Eddie,” Derek encouraged.
Eddie felt Jenny’s hand on his back, affectionately nursing him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, stepping slowly toward the bed, sitting on the edge of it.
“Lay down for me,” Levi casually requested as he approached. Eddie reluctantly and slowly did as he was asked.
Levi fastened Eddie’s wrists to the corner of the sofa bed, firmly tightening them. He made his way to Eddie’s ankles and secured them with the same strength.
Eddie felt more vulnerable than he had throughout the entirety of this process. He lay there, unable to move if he wanted to, staring at the ceiling. A mouthful of sick came to his mouth and he swallowed it back down. He could feel the belt restraining his wrists, the buckles clattering with the terrified shaking of his arms.
He wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.
“Girls, I would like you to stand behind me,” Derek instructed Jenny and Lacy as he stood directly before Eddie, and they obliged.
Derek rolled up his sleeves and produced a book.
“Most glorious prince of the heavenly armies,” Derek whispered faintly, closing his eyes and lifting his head upward toward the heavens. “Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in our battle against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.”