Dark Winter: Last Rites

by Hennessy, John

  “I bless you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. May all your days be blessed, Beth.”

  Beth smiled, but then felt instant unease. The windows lost their colour, and darkness shrouded the building.

  “I really should leave, Father. Thank you for the blessing, I mean it.”

  “You don’t have to go straight away Beth. Stay awhile.”

  But Beth was distracted, unnerved. She was sure that the image of the statue bleeding from her eyes was a real one, because she was also certain she could see a figure standing on the altar. A figure in white. A figure known to her. She didn’t look the same as before. Her neck was twisted, forcing her head to lull forward on one side. Her right eye socket had been punctured, with yellow and black pus flowing from it. But her weapon was plain to see, a knife, about eight inches long, with a serrated edge.

  Can’t you see? Can’t you see her?

  Beth wanted to say the words, but they would not come out. The priest looked at her with concern rather than worry.

  “A girl with – with a knife….on the altar, Father. Can’t you see her?”

  Father Collins looked around, then turned back to Beth, before shaking his head.

  “I can’t, Beth. I really don’t see anyone there. What is she doing?”

  Dana pointed the knife to her own throat and cut it. Blood poured effortlessly, spoiling her white dress. Dana smiled the entire time, keeping her wicked stare firmly in the direction of Beth.

  “She’s – she’s doing…what she does. Killing is what she does. I-”

  Beth stopped talking as the nightmare in front of her faded.

  “Yes, Beth? What is it?” Father Collins shook Beth by her shoulders. “Look, this is a church, and you’ve been blessed. It’s safe here. Where is she now?”

  “She’s…gone.” It was true. Beth could no longer see her.

  “Beth, listen to me. What needs to be performed, is the Roman Rite. The last rites must be given to this demon. She has attached herself to you, so no matter where you go or what you do, she will be there, waiting to attack. I know you think you’ve gotten rid of her, but you haven’t.”

  Beth and the priest heard the noise at the same time. Beth looked around, but could see nothing. She looked towards Father Collins, and for the first time, he looked truly agitated. Something was approaching them from the vestry, and it was leaving footprints on the wooden floor, the sound of hooves connecting with the ground only muffled when connecting with the narrow strips of carpet that lay in front of the altar.

  Each time they hit, the sound rang terrible in their ears. It was getting louder as it approached them, but the demon still hid itself from view. The priest stood up and grabbed a crucifix from the wall, but if he really had performed exorcisms in the past, a wooden cross was going to be of little help. The Roman Rite was performed with at least two priests, in case one of them was attacked and killed. If the demonic entity was being forced to leave, it would tend to go into the body of the priest himself. What chance would they have then?

  Out of nowhere the demon appeared. It looked beastly, with dark skin, large nostrils, and huge horns on top of its head. It snarled at the priest, and no sooner was it there, that it had disappeared.

  He blessed himself and asked Beth was she alright. She was visibly shaken, but was otherwise composed.

  “It’s a warning,” he said. “Beth, you’re having a nosebleed.”

  “Oh! Oh, sorry,” she answered, reaching for a napkin in her pocket. “Must have been the shock. I saw what you saw.”

  Beth had gotten so used to apologising, her sorry would come out rather too easily. The young priest asked her if she would be comfortable with him calling out the demon.

  “Comfortable? Of course not, Father. I think it has gone.”

  “No, you don’t. Not really. Something that has attached itself to you for so long would not go willingly. The Rite is the only true way,” stated Father Collins.

  Beth thought about it for a moment. Toril had done her best, and before that, Tori-Suzanne had done her best. Both were competent witches and Beth would agree that Toril’s powers had improved a lot, just not enough to remove Dana forever. Perhaps there were none who could. And she would normally only trust this sort of thing to Father McArdle.

  “Beth, I can do this. Please, let me do this.”

  I knew Beth well enough to know what she was thinking. Ordinarily, she would want to hand the decision over to someone else. Toril, certainly. Jacinta, perhaps – if she were still alive. Myself? Only when the previous options had exhausted themselves.

  “You do want to be rid of this thing, don’t you?”

  “Alright,” Beth said, but was shaking her head at the same time. In the past I would have acted the same if the doctor wanted a sample of blood from me. “What must I do?”

  “You’ve got to trust in me and God. That’s all.”

  Christ. If that’s all Beth had to do, this would be easy.

  “I have to restrain you in this chair. I’m going to ask one of the lay helpers to assist me, and maybe one of the organisers of the choir practise.”

  Beth wanted to go, with all her heart she wanted to leave and deal with it in her own way, but the priest was right. It was an unhappy conceit that I would have reluctantly agreed with. To her credit, she stayed. Perhaps Toril would be angry that Beth had not displayed the fullest of confidence in her to get rid of the demon. But Toril had conducted the exorcism according to Wiccan standards, and as Beth was a Christian, maybe it could not work. Not entirely.

  Beth would have had the same concern as me. A quiet demon was in effect a contained demon. Any action to remove it would have grave consequences. Look at me with the Mirror. It didn’t work. It only made the demon angrier.

  My red-haired friend possessed something that I did not, belief in another entity, one she had never seen. One which she wagered Father Collins had not seen either, yet his belief was absolute and unshakeable.

  Beth sat into a chair in the vestry, a crucifix in front of her and the emergence of one of the lay people the priest had been on about. She strapped Beth’s ankles tightly before doing the same to her wrists. Father Collins had gone to get more help.

  “Are the restraints absolutely necessary?” she asked the woman.

  “If Father thinks so, then yes. Don’t worry, I’ll be here the entire time. We’ll get this thing out of you.”

  Beth remained to be convinced, and had she known what Father Collins was dealing with, her lack of faith would have multiplied. The choir head had propped himself up against the wall, a low moan followed by sniggering emitted from him. He bit at his fingers, drawing lots of blood. Father Collins went to speak when the entity within spoke to him. Not a male voice, nor a female one.

  “You’re going to fail, Father. You’re going to be the death of that poor girl. You are all going to die.”

  Father Collins raised a jug of holy water which was close by in the demon’s direction.

  “Who are you? Who are you?”

  “I am Beelzebub. No, wait, I am Lucifer. No! I am Belial!”

  The laughing followed by the moaning scared the unflappable priest, but he remained resolute enough to hurl the holy water into the body of the man.

  “No. No!” it huffed and puffed. “We claim this body. And hers. And yours, Father.”

  “You claim nothing in the House of God. Begone, demon. I don’t care what your name is. Begone.”

  The holy water plus the priest’s commands finally appeared to have worked. The Choir head would be in no condition to help, and it would not assist Beth’s cause to inform her what had happened. He knelt down next to the man and blessed him. The fingers drawn across his forehead appeared to burn him at first, but then a great peace came over him.

  When he went through to where Beth and the lay lady were staying, the woman could not help but ask him was he all right. He asserted that he was, and on checking Beth’s restraints, he spoke calmly to h
er.

  “Beth, listen to me. The demon will try to hurt you, worse than it has ever hurt you before. You must hold on, trust in the Lord, and believe that you will come through this. The Devil feeds on negative energy. Yes, you saw what I saw. This is only the beginning, the very start of what he will do. Your torment has gone on for far too long, and I believe there is a good reason that you came to the church today. When this is all over, you will breathe the good clean air once more, I promise you.”

  “Alright Father, let’s do this,” said Beth. Her heart was beating fast, and her chest was rising up and down. She took deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself. The lay lady placed one hand on her shoulder and the other hand underneath Beth’s chin. “Why are you doing that?”

  “Because the demon will try to move you, we must restrain all movement until Father is done.”

  “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, I command you to leave this woman, return to the Hell from which you came, and never return.”

  Beth’s head tilted forward, the heat on her neck gave off steam and her neck became drenched in sweat. Then her wrists began to tremor violently, with the restraints struggling to keep her arms in place.

  “Demon. Deceiver. Wicked one who has hurt this woman. Give me your name, then leave.”

  Beth’s head snapped back, her green eyes replaced by the blackness of Dana’s. Blood pooled at her eyelids, then trickled down her cheeks.

  “You know my name, priest. She already told you.”

  “I want to hear it from you!” he shouted, sprinkling her with holy water. This only made Dana hurt Beth more.

  “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit-”

  “Three. Three. Always three. Always the same three. From Hell we curse you, on Earth we burn you. She is ours. Go fuck yourself, priest.”

  It sounded like Beth, but she would have never said anything like this to a priest. If I had been there, I would have said that Dana appeared to have been rattled.

  “-I command you, leave this woman’s body!”

  “You can’t command me!” Beth screamed again and again as the holy water hit her. The woman behind struggled to keep hold of her. She looked towards the priest, who appeared to have things under control. She feared for Beth’s life but knew she could not say anything whilst he was conducting the Rite.

  “You are a liar and a deceiver. You want to hurt this girl, but she has resisted you, just as Jesus resisted you.”

  Beth’s heart rate was off the scale, and the demon was hurting her, forcing her to prise her arms from the restraints. Beth’s skin reddened and eventually drew blood.

  “You are the AntiChrist, the heretic God! You have no power over her!”

  “AntiChrist! AntiChrist! Names, so many names!” Beth foamed at the mouth, and bit her bottom lip. Her eyes had blackened from the trauma, and her body looked on the verge of giving up.

  The priest grabbed the crucifix off the wall and brandished it in front of her.”

  “Do you see this, demon?”

  “I see it,” replied Beth. “Now stick it up your fucking hole. Maybe it will whistle the Our Father for you.”

  “You are evil, demon, but you have no power.”

  “I am evil, I am everywhere. I will cut your balls off and feed them to you.”

  The heavy breathing continued for a few more moments, before Beth’s head fell forward once more. She appeared to have gone into a deep sleep.

  “Father,” asked the lay lady, “is she-”

  He shook his head. “I have never encountered one so vicious. It’s as if this Dana demon is being controlled by Diabhal himself. I will need to work with her again, but if I do any more today, the demon will rip her apart. She’ll just move onto another host. Unbind her.”

  “Father?”

  “Unbind her, there is no more I can do for her today.”

  They waited, fully expecting the irritated demon within Beth to attack them. When the attack failed to materialise, he shook Beth’s shoulders gently. When she slowly opened her eyes, they were back to green again.

  “It didn’t work, did it?” she asked. Beth knew the answer. She just wanted to hear the priest confirm it.

  “I’m afraid not, Beth. But this was only round one. Sometimes it takes more than one attempt to banish a demon.”

  “Round one for you, maybe, but this is my second round. I don’t think I can survive a third. Maybe I’m not meant to. Oh, and Father, I am sorry for what I said. I could hear the words, but I could do nothing to stop saying them.”

  “It’s perfectly alright Beth. Such things are commonplace when dealing with a demon.”

  Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe it was the realisation that there was only one thing Beth could do to get rid of the demon. She wouldn’t burden the priest with it. But as she sat in the chair, she wondered just why she had been forsaken? Why hadn’t the priest been successful? Had her faith in God all these years been just one big joke being played out on her?

  “Thank you for trying, Father.”

  “You will come back again, won’t you Beth?”

  She smiled at him, but didn’t want to tell him a lie. In the end, the demon inside would understand what she was going to do, and where she was going to go. Beth planned to journey to East Gorswood to the place where Dana had died all those years ago. It was a one way mission she would not be coming back from.

  Deep in the forest of Gorswood, Beth planned to kill herself, and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop her.

  Secrets Down Below:

  Chapter 22

  I visited my Nan’s grave as often as I could, which in reality, meant not very often. She would have reminded me that life when you were young was for living, and you couldn’t do that if you were chasing graves.

  I now had to account for three; my Nan’s grave, plus those of my parents. With all my heart, I did not want to do this, but Nan had given me precious few clues in life, so the answers I sought must be in death.

  When she had appeared to me, it was as a kindly spirit; I never once felt in danger and I was extremely happy to see her. How would I feel the next time it occurred? If Lunabelle was telling the truth, Nan and my parents had set me up for this from day one. It seemed I appreciated them now that they were gone; perhaps that is the rebellious teenager in me talking again. I would have to grow up. This situation demanded it.

  I had bought some flowers at the cemetery gates, daffodils, because they were Nan’s favourite. It was something my mum had started, buying daffodils for Nan because they made her happy. For me, Nan bought the white rose. As I look back, I wonder was she trying to protect me or prepare me.

  I recalled what she said about my overly girlish bedroom. ‘Pink on white walls, Milly. About time you updated the look, I think.’

  Back then, I kind of liked the look. I think the décor and colour scheme was my father’s idea. It’s the kind of silly little thing I would have liked to have asked him about now.

  I don’t think I fully realised what Nan was inferring, but I would guess maybe she felt I needed to grow up. Perhaps had she lived a few years longer I may have been given the Mirror later. As things stood, I had it, lost it, got it back and that’s that.

  Well, not exactly. If I followed through and dug my Nan’s grave up, what kind of Pandora’s box would I be opening?

  I decided I could put it off. I could hear Lunabelle screaming in my ears dig up her grave! The answers you need are in there. You know they are! But she also knew I was a process driven kind of girl. So the letter would come first. Depending on its contents, I would decide whether or not to dig her grave up.

  I looked around. There were a few people in the cemetery. The ground was quite hard for the time of year. A few busybodies were chatting to each other wishing a merry Christmas and so on. A cemetery worker in a JCB trundled behind me. When he passed on by a few hundred yards, I decided to make my move.

  I knew the weapon Lunabelle had given me was
anything but a normal knife. I wondered was this the same blade that she had used to cut Toril? It would be sufficient for the task at hand, though I was still in two minds on whether to go ahead.

  If I delayed any longer, more people would come, poke their nose into my business, so I pushed the tip of the blade under Nan’s photo, and it came away with ease. To my shock, a small envelope fell to the ground; when I picked it up, it said

  Romilly

  With my name written in handwriting I did not recognise. It had to have been addressed by Lunabelle. Toril had her book, I had this letter; from beyond the grave, no less. I removed the contents, and this time I found a smaller envelope with my name on it, but I knew Nan had written it.