Chapter 12, A case of demonic possession
"What the Hell is that?" Dr. Ira Rosenfeld asked the man to his right, in a tired and all together fed-up tone.
“It’s the schizophrenic, Doctor ….. Tried to calm her before, but the Demerol isn’t working.”
“Screams like a bloody banshee.” Rosenfeld muttered to himself before continuing with his reading. The blasphemous screams continued for more than an hour before being cut short. The men were too far away from the room to hear whatever happened afterward. Neither had any peace since Shirley Cohen’s arrival two nights ago, so they welcomed the quiet, without even considering why she had finally stopped her ranting and screaming...
“Do we have a diagnosis, yet, Doctor?” Rosenfeld shot a look at Dr Caspar Gavorkian then put his head down. In all the years he had known Gavorkian, he had never liked being looked at and Rosenfeld was too afraid of him to ask why.
“She has been here two days and you’re asking for a diagnosis?” I’ve barely even had time to look at her, what with all the screaming she’s been doing. I’d kill for a next of kin.” Gavorkian commented.
“And we don’t have one yet?” Rosenfeld queried.
"No." He said bluntly. Feeling Rosenfeld’s eyes stray to study him, he began to explain. “She’s not from Montana, and we have no definite ID, only that she calls herself Shirley Cohen. The local police found her walking naked, covered in blood, speaking some strange language, and chanting, she’d stop and draw Hexagrams, octagons, and pentagrams, looked like a satanic ritual, if you must know though the witnesses, yes there were a few, said they saw no one else. I would say it was attempted suicide. Still quite possibly sacrifice to the dark lords of hell, but I doubt if she hurt anyone….”
“….So she might be a Satanist” Gavorkian continued. He had been a psychiatrist for just over four years, after spending years practicing as a geriatric physician, and it had been the ritual killing of his first wife that had spurred him into it. She had been a practicing member of the OTO.
“They found her with the pentagram on her stomach painted in her own blood. She said she was known throughout the Badlands as the ‘fair’ maiden. She was appearing in Black Masses everywhere, claiming to have the second sight. She claimed to be able to converse with demons, and even might have said that she was carrying something of Lucifer’s, perhaps she’s pregnant with his child. If you ask me……” Their words were once again cut off at the sound of Shirley’s blood curdling screams.
Eastmont for the mentally disabled had opened in 1967 as a peaceful place of sanctuary for those with mental disabilities. But now it was a training center, and medical students came here to get their first taste of an asylum; or, less tastefully, a Nut House. Dr. Rosenfeld had been in charge for just over ten years, and had given it a better name than most other Asylums in the country. It was very rarely half full, but could hold up to twenty patients at a time. At this time, there were only ten. However, most of these were in lock down for security purposes. This number included Shirley Cohen.
“She calm yet?” Rosenfeld asked the guard sitting in front of the monitor by the locked doors of the security ward.
“Shirley? Quiet as a lamb, Doctor… been talkin a bit, casually, though. You know, bout er, wandering the road, since Lucifer set her free.” He nodded politely as Rosenfeld passed through the steel doors.
The corridor he found himself in was dark chrome from wall to wall; the only break in this was the steel rimmed windows on each of the five doors. The doctor strode down to the end of the long corridor; she was in the last room. He peered through the small glass window on the door. The girl was sitting quietly on her bed and staring blankly at the walls of her cell. He was careful not to disturb her meditation for that was what he thought she was doing, Rosenfeld fumbled with the keys in the lock, slid the bar-lock over to the right and opened the door.
Shirley was sitting quietly on her cot, her back facing toward the door. In a patient, quiet voice, the doctor spoke. “My name is Dr. Rosenfeld. You can call me Ira.”
“Ira.” She repeated, and Rosenfeld immediately knew he was talking to Shirley, herself. No alternate personalities; no haunted Doppelgangers. This was Shirley.
“I’ve got to ask you a few questions, Shirley. Is that OK?” He asked in the kindest voice a heartbroken man could manage.
“Everyone wants to ask questions so many questions. Why ask questions when I can already answer them. I’m feeling okay. I don’t have many childhood memories, but I remember watching lots of television. The usual reality TV they have nowadays, doesn’t interest me. I never indulged in too many sweets, never used food to assuage my anxieties. My father’s a Rabbi, Who is my father? He’s a great man, a leader, not the divine Lord but almost… thereabouts. And yes, the weather is good today. I can see the sun through that little window up there, through that steeple, strange place for a steeple, but I can see it through the ceiling...” As her bony finger trembled upwards to point to the thick brick wall above her, Rosenfeld felt a chill run up his spine. She had answered every question he had thought of; she had simply plucked them from his mind.
Suddenly she cupped her hands and presently brought forth a handful of Lorna Dunes.
“My favorite,” said the Doctor, surprised that she offered him his favorite cookie.
Steady, Ira, he cautioned himself. Don’t start jumping to farfetched conclusions of telepathy or magic. In states of deep concentration, people have been known to conjure up extraordinary skills and lose them just as fast as they get them.
His thoughts were stopped from branching any further when Shirley uttered, “You skinned your knee playing tennis the other day, you must look after it, it is becoming infected with streptococcus.”
Dr. Rosenfeld now gave Shirley his full rapt attention, he looked down at his knee, but there was no discerning the large scab through his dress pants.
Shirley’s face seemed to distort and become a whole new person. Her eyes thinned at the edges, her cheeks grew wider and her mouth became wider. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but Rosenfeld would swear in any court that her hair had momentarily lightened and she had aged at least fifteen years. She looked almost like a different person. Her voice had also changed. It was deeper, but not necessarily more masculine. It was raspy and thick, and seemed to throw out perfumed air with every aspiration. “Hello, Ira. My name is David, would you like to ask me some questions, too?”
“David? “Rosenfeld felt like he had been stabbed in the heart. “Hello David,” He croaked. “And who exactly are you?”
“I’m insulted, Ira! You don’t recognize your own brother! It’s been a few decades, sure, but it’s not like I’ve aged!” It laughed then, and Ira recognized the laughter immediately. It was that of his brother.
“But it can’t be you!”
“Yes, one would think the matter of being dead would get in the way! But the boss is quite lenient when it comes to matters like that.”
“Boss?”
“Oh, you know the head honcho upstairs.”
“I don’t believe you. Tell me something that only we would know.” Ira couldn’t believe it. The voice, the laugh even the eyes belonged to David. But it couldn’t be him. It was impossible. There was no Heaven. There was no Hell… so how could David …an atheist like David, have spoken from the dead?
“Здравствулте!, брат. Rachel здесь слишком, она говорит мне вы украсило ванную комнату потом. Mauve и серый цвет оно? Вы всегда любили цвет серым.” The David-Shirley-thing said and smiled.
Ira stepped away towards the door, his eyes wide, his mouth agape.
“Hello, brother. Rachel is here too, she tells me you decorated the bathroom afterward. Mauve and gray is it? Y
ou always liked the color gray.”
After Rachel, Ira’s wife, had slipped and fallen in their bathtub, she had hit her head on the glass door fell forward, and cracked it open on the marble floors, killing herself instantly. Ira had changed his home’s interior. He had told no one of this, feeling somewhat ashamed of his actions. And, yes, he redecorated in mauve and gray.
David had also been fluent in many languages, one of those being Russian. They had learned it together when Ira was just a teenager. How would Shirley know that they spoke Russian? Feeling too overwhelmed, Ira had told the David/Shirley….whatever…he had been speaking to that he had to go. He left quickly, and soon joined Gavorkian in the study.
“Well?” Gavorkian asked the minute Ira walked into the office.
“Multiple personality disorder” He said with an air of exhaustion before slumping into the burgundy armchair in the corner. “And she’s been meditating. Expect her to be able to read minds for at least another few hours.” Rubbing his temples with his left thumb and forefinger, Ira undid his tie with his free hand and sunk even further into the chair.
“Either its schizophrenia or it’s a case of demonic possession!” Ira quipped. It had been a joke, but Gavorkian took the comment seriously.
“Hey, I read a paper on that once. The symptoms to Schizophrenia and Possession are very similar. I’d like to have a look at her, if it’s okay with you. Not tonight, tomorrow. I need time to re-read all the old text on it.”
Too tired to even laugh at his colleague’s notion of possession, Ira was still an atheist and wasn’t planning to start believing in a demon of some kind, or even that his own brother had possessed the girl in lock down. He sat back in his leather recliner and reached for his pipe in his left pocket….he shortly presented a Lorne Dune cookie and popped it in his mouth. “You can question her all you want.”
It was late the next morning when Ira found himself outside Gavorkian’s door. He had to admit, he was increasingly curious about his hypothesis of possession. As an atheist, he couldn’t believe in this, but he had spent a good deal of the night on his laptop searching the Internet for information about the subject. He wasn’t sure if he believed it, but he was now curious. Everything couldn’t have been a coincidence, the synchronicity had reached supernatural proportions….
“A penny for your thoughts…” interrupted Gavorkian.
Out in the hallway, the two men stood and stared longingly down the corridor. Neither knew quite what to do with himself. After an awkward moment or two they finally began to wordlessly stride towards the lock down in the south end of the asylum. Ira was, naturally, leading the way.
“Good morning, Nigel.” Ira nodded to the guard outside the ward. Nigel Sterling had been the guard at Eastmont for 7 years. Nigel kept a journal of all of the patients that had graciously occupied these padded cells.
“Morning, Doctors. Are you here to see Shirley? She was ill last night, or so Bender says. But he makes up stories for attention, sometimes. You know, on the night Shirley arrived here, he said he saw her crawling on the ceiling! I mean, honestly! How gullible does he think I am?”
"That's one of the signs!" Gavorkian muttered to Ira, unable to keep the smirk from his voice.
"Yes, we’re here to see Shirley. Please make sure no one comes in here until we’re done." Ira told Nigel calmly, as if he was just on a routine check, instead of searching for signs of demonic possession.
“We don’t know how long this will take, but that doesn’t matter. NO ONE interrupts. Got it?”
“Aye, aye captain!” Nigel said, and saluted with a boyish glint in his eye.
Ira and Casper strode once again down the chrome hallway. Stopping outside Shirley’s door, they each breathed deeply and hesitantly slid open the door.
“You are late.” Shirley stated the moment Ira had closed the door. “We were expecting you much earlier.”
"We?" Ira asked skeptically.
“Oh, of course, Ira Rosenfeld, resident non-believer, I had forgotten about you, it is we as in me, father, and the great Uktena. Father does speaks your language, but with a slightly different accent, if you cannot understand him, I’m afraid I cannot help that.” Shirley announced.
Ira fingered the Dictaphone in his pocket. Ah, he has arrived. Her face began to distort. Her lips were longer, thinner, and paler. The once blue eyes grayed and became wider. Her feature became masculine, and her body began to give off a dark aura. Even Ira sensed the evil wafting from this body.
“Greeeeetingsssss…” Its voice slithered from its mouth like the snake in the Garden of Eden. It paused and walked over to Gavorkian.
“The great serpent is present.” She said, and her body began to twist and turn, convulsing violently. Her face crumpled in on itself, and stretched outwards again. Her eyes became black and her hair appeared to grow. Her legs stretched upwards, and she became at least a foot taller. When the metamorphosis was complete, just a few moments later, there appeared to be a whole new woman standing in front of them.
And, in both of the men’s eyes, she was the most beautiful woman they had ever seen. She was tall, thin and pale, with high cheekbones and perfect red lips. Her hair curled wildly, but looked so immaculate; it could not be called messy. Even in Shirley’s nightgown, her perfect figure was obvious. And those deep dark eyes that engulfed you, swallowed you, drawing you in, she was what every man fantasized about. And her voice, as beautiful as it was, in fact, made Ira weary of fixing his gaze upon her, for fear she would like the Medusa turn him to stone.
“Good evening, Gentlemen. Welcome to my world.”
The reality of God
I've studied the big
Theory Of Everything,
essence of man's gnosis
missing one sure thing.
Perception is the key
I'm told in many ways
Logic symbols see
'cross universal says.
Material and abstract
are words to make men chew
material thoughts are facts
reactions, standard views.
Abstract cannot return
confirmation, as
imagination burns
one way somewhere, alas.
If I may paraphrase
with words that I have heard,
in truth we know the way
Pure truth speaks God's Own Word.
And all of man's confusion
is only sad illusion
of abstract thought infusion
perception from intrusion.
Imagination's purpose
is to extend Creation
not smear the truthful surface
in ego lust temptation.
The words of man are empty
when ears are grounded in
imagination's fantasy
without God's truth within.
And man's clay heart is evil
in lust and greed he walks
forever empty dreaming, null
the ways of wicked chalks.
And all of science studies
in logic rules of man
is just one side and muddies
refracting light in sand.
And in the truth dimension
no warp of time and space
spirit through ascension
knows loving life-force grace.
I've studied the big
Theory Of Everything,
essence of man's gnosis
misses one sure thing,
the Reality of God.
Birthing the Lucifer star Page 27
