by Joe Hart
“Mramdal fu tunal kasu,” Catherine said, and something inside of me moved.
It was a painful uncoiling, like a portion of my stomach was being rearranged. “What are you doing?” I whispered through the pain before doubling over.
“Suto von presa. Dune vago coom.” My spine tightened and I straightened back up, feeling like a ventriloquist’s dummy under the care of a violent master. A pressure started to build in my chest and I thought for a brief moment I was going to vomit. Instead my jaw was pressed downward from something inside my throat and I gagged.
Sara fell back into her father’s arms, her hands pressed over her mouth. Mrs. Shawler cursed and made the sign of the cross over her chest. My father moaned my name, and I gagged again as something extended from between my lips.
The fingers were black and glossy with moisture. They were tipped with ragged nails caked with filth. And as they extended from inside me, I saw that they were very long and bent either way on their joints.
My jaw broke. There were two pops like knots in a fire and agony erupted throughout my face. I thought I would fall, knowing my legs couldn’t hold me up through the pain, but I didn’t. Instead Mr. Shawler moved enough to one side so that I could look directly into the mirror mounted over Sara’s desk.
A shriveled face peered out of my gaping mouth between the fingers. It was humanesque in the sense that it had a nose and two eyes as well as a mouth, but that was where the similarity stopped. It appeared burnt and shriveled, the skin cracked and flaking in places. Needle-like teeth shone between its dark lips, and it snickered at the sight of my eyes widening while it peeked out of my mouth.
Mrs. Tandy fainted, falling against the wall and sliding down without someone to catch her. Sara whimpered into her father’s chest.
“Asag, you are unwelcome here. This boy is not yours,” Catherine said, approaching me slowly from the side. The thing in my mouth tilted its head and hissed.
“He is mine until I need him no longer.” The thing spoke in a croaking whisper and I felt it readjust itself inside me.
“I know your name and bind you to the ancient law of Drindal. You cannot disavow the words. I bind you and curse you.”
“I have many names, hag. Leave this place or I will tear him apart from the inside out.” The fingers tightened and the corners of my mouth began to tear. If I could have screamed I would have then, but the thing inside me was in complete control. I couldn’t move or make a sound it didn’t wish me to. I was a puppet.
“You’ll do no such thing in my presence,” Catherine said, peeling off her gloves. The skin of her hands was covered in designs. They were drawn in dark, thick ink that swirled and curved over every inch of her fingers and palms. There seemed to be strange letters written amongst the intricate patterns, but none that I’d ever seen before.
I had a moment to realize the thing inside me was scrambling back down and then Catherine plunged her arm up to the elbow into my mouth.
I fell back onto the bed and Catherine came with me, her knees driving into my stomach and chest. A scream unlike anything I’d ever heard echoed through the room and everyone watching dumbly covered their ears and cried out in unison. Blood gouted from my nose and splashed the front of Catherine’s shirt and pants. I tried to fight her off me because now the pressure of her and the tearing of the thing inside me was too much. I was going to die, flayed apart as they fought over my flesh.
“Release him and you can go back beneath the earth,” Catherine said, shoving her arm farther down my throat. A muffled growl came from inside my chest and Catherine screamed, her face so close to mine some sweat fell from her brow onto my face.
I was burning inside. I was dying. There was nothing left of my resolve to live and I just wanted it to be over. The door to the room was open and I saw a flash as Arthur Nimble ran out. The walls were vibrating, pictures falling from them in showers of glass as the window locks exploded and the panes raced upward. Rain blasted into the room directly sideways as if it were falling that way. It collected on the wall and ran outward toward the floor and ceiling.
Catherine grunted something and I flailed my arms, finally regaining movement in them. “David! Help me hold him! It’s slipping!” Catherine yelled. Then my father was beside her, grasping my arms and pinning them to the bed as I swallowed blood and tried to scream. Spikes of pain ripped through my stomach and my legs spasmed in short kicks.
“Release him or I will destroy you,” Catherine growled. She pivoted to one side and her elbow slid past my jaws. There was a drumming sound on the wood floor and I realized it was my heels hammering out a machinegun rhythm. The thing inside me crawled deeper, boring into and through me, violating every inch of my being and I cried out in my mind for God to kill me. I looked at my father and spoke the same message with my eyes. He sobbed my name and turned his head away, still holding me down tight to the bed.
Then she was there.
Sara was beside me, her hand brushing my cheek, eyes finding my own, and even though she was afraid, I could hear her voice above the cacophony of the room.
“You’re the one, Lane. You’re the one I always loved. Hold on for me.” To this day I don’t know if she spoke aloud or if the words were in my head. She’s told me herself that she doesn’t remember if she said anything or not and it’s very possible that I imagined them entirely, but regardless the effect was instantaneous.
Catherine’s arm recoiled from inside me and the slender, burnt thing sprung from my mouth.
It slid out in an ebony ribbon of long arms and legs with hooked flippers where its toes should’ve been, and it stuck to the ceiling above the bed, the horizontal rain running over its body.
A gunshot ripped through the room and the thing flew from the ceiling in a spray of ichor. Arthur Nimble stood in the doorway clutching a rifle, its barrel smoking. Catherine yelled something and was gathering herself up from the floor where she’d landed when the thing sprung like an enormous frog up and onto Nimble’s chest.
Arthur slammed into the nearest wall and rebounded, falling face first to the floor. The thing was under him, grasping and worming in his grip as he rolled over. In that brief second I saw it had its head in his mouth and was chewing his tongue to ribbons.
Then Catherine was there, her painted hands gripping it around its thin waist. She pried it from Nimble and smoke or steam began to erupt from the places where her hands touched it. The thing screamed again and this time blood erupted from everyone’s ears except Catherine’s and my own. One by one everyone in the room fell to their knees and slumped over as if they’d been shot.
My own vision wavered and became a deep shade of gray as I tried to sit all the way up. Catherine had pinned the long arms to its sides and was staring it full in the face with her strange eyes. Its body whipsawed again and it mewled out something that sounded like a plea.
But then Catherine uttered a word I couldn’t make out and the mist that was gathering in my eyes turned black, and I fell into nothing.
18
That was over seventy years ago this spring, but I still remember it with complete and utter clarity.
I spent four weeks in a hospital in northern Minneapolis getting my jaw re-hinged and my mouth stitched shut. I know if Jones would’ve been there he would’ve made some crack about how the doctors could’ve done everyone a favor and kept stitching until I couldn’t talk at all. I miss him now as much as the day he was taken.
Catherine stopped by to see me one afternoon when I was able to speak and we talked for some time. There were many things she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell me, but for the most part she answered my questions.
She said that the thing that had tried to be born from inside me was an ancient spirit that had probably been lurking in our area for quite some time. Whether it was a spirit of the ground or water or wind, she couldn’t say. I told her about the murder of John Whiterock and she said that the possession of Justin Feller was probably Asag’s doing as well. When Whitero
ck was murdered it appeased the spirit and loosened its hold on the young boy. I asked her if it would have worked again, the murder of someone to release me from its grip and she didn’t answer me, only looked out the window onto the city streets below.
She left when I fell asleep and to this day, even after searching for the last fifty odd years, I haven’t been able to find a trace of Catherine Abercrombie anywhere.
When asked later about the events that happened in Sara May’s bedroom, most who were present couldn’t recall exactly what they’d seen, but one thing was unanimously agreed upon: almost every word Catherine had uttered after the thing had revealed itself had been in that strange language, even though I understood her clearly.
Other than my jaw and mouth, I had no other injuries, internal or otherwise, and was able to come home at the end of June. Much of life in Rath had returned to normal in the wake of my exorcism, but some things weren’t able to heal as most know who’ve gone through trying times.
Arthur Nimble shot himself three weeks to the day after the events at the Tandy farm. Someone passing by his store heard the gunshot and swore up and down that they heard him talking clearly to someone even though his tongue had been torn out by the root.
I stayed on the farm with my mother and father until I turned eighteen and was drafted into the marines. I asked Sara May to marry me before I left and she said she would on the condition that I come home alive to her.
I’m happy to say I kept that promise and it resulted in three beautiful children of our own along with a house I built on my parents’ property after they’d passed away. We just celebrated our sixty-first wedding anniversary and the love that blossomed so many years ago continues to flourish.
I firmly believe that love is what saved me that night from the clutches of something unholy. I don’t know if it was a demon, or a spirit, or a being from another planet, but I do know that it couldn’t stand the power that love exudes.
So many years have passed since the depression ended. People fought, loved, lost, and moved on to other places, different lives. I think about that a lot sometimes when I can’t sleep late at night. It gives me comfort to know the virility of the human spirit and how much we can overcome if we decide to.
But on other nights, when the wind is cutting its teeth against the side of our house, and Sara is asleep beside me, I can’t help but remember those last few seconds before I lost consciousness on that night all those years ago. I can’t unsee what Catherine did with the thing writhing in her hands. How she straightened its body out and how her own mouth widened enough to shove it, fighting and shrieking down into her own body.
I remember how her eyes changed from that placid gray to completely white. And sometimes in those darkest nights, I’m very thankful I never was able to find her again.
Other works by Joe Hart
Novels
Lineage
Singularity
EverFall
The River Is Dark
The Waiting
Widow Town
Cruel World
The Last Girl (2016)
Novellas
Leave The Living
Collections
Midnight Paths
Short Stories
And The Sea Called Her Name
The Edge of Life
Outpost
The Line Unseen
About The Author
Joe Hart is the author of eight novels that include The River Is Dark, Lineage, and The Last Girl. When not writing, he enjoys reading, exercising, exploring the great outdoors, and watching movies with his family. He lives in northern Minnesota with his wife and two children. For more information on his upcoming novels and access to his blog, visit http://www.joehartbooks.com.
