by Wood, Rick
Taken aback by his request for her approval, she nodded vaguely.
“Right, if you will, Kelly, lay down and put your wrists and ankles through the restraints. Know that these are just for our safety if you lash out at any time – they will not be tightened, and if you wish to remove yourself from them at any point, you simply slide out of them.”
As she laid down and placed her wrists and ankles in the restraints, she took them out and put them back in a few times. She felt a lot better knowing that she wasn’t being fastened to the table, that she could still have free movement if she wished.
“Now, Kelly, listen to me, as this is important.” He looked her dead in the eye. “If you at any point wish to stop, or don’t feel safe, or feel that this is getting too much for you, you say the word and we stop. But know that the more we prod you and the more we try, the more we will be able to be certain as to whether or not this problem you are having is of the demonic persuasion. Understood?”
Again, she nodded loosely. She realized her jaw was open and she closed her mouth. She let her head drift back and stared at the ceiling above her. It was very high up and had a plain pattern over plain ceiling tiles upon it.
“Eddie, I will let you stand back and see what you will, and I will measure the data. Okay?”
Eddie nodded. He backed up a few paces, closed his eyes and bowed his head.
Derek looked to him to check he was ready and took his concentration as indication to start. He backed up to the door, locked it, and turned off the lights.
Above her to the left, Kelly could see the multiple lights they had set up shining over her. One was red, the other green, orange, blue, then red again. Directly behind her head was a white strip light.
“Kelly, are you ready?” Derek requested. She nodded.
“Eddie, we may begin,” he whispered, taking a few steps back.
Kelly lifted her head, only able to see the top of Eddie from where he stood. She saw him keep his head down and lift his hands. He spread his palms out and commenced moving them in slow, circular motions.
She dropped her head down for a few moments to rest her neck, which was hurting as she strained to see him.
When she looked up again, he was moving his hand in a circular motion, but he had gotten faster, and he was going faster and faster still.
Kelly felt herself jolt. Her head flew back as if pulled back by an abrupt bolt of electricity.
The camera at the end of the bed flashed.
The heart rate monitor bleeped quicker.
Her fists clenched, her legs tightened, and she wasn’t sure why.
The camera flashed again. And again.
She scrunched her face as she felt something move, a bumpy pain travelling from her toes and up her body until it reached her head.
Her mouth dropped.
Her head wilted to the side as she spewed up vomit all over the floor.
The camera flashed. And again. And again. And again.
The red light flickered.
The beep on the heart rate monitor got faster still. Be-beep, be-beep, be-beep, be-beep.
Camera flashed.
Red light flickered.
Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep.
She screamed out, but it wasn’t her voice emulating from her. It was someone else’s.
She slipped away, like she wasn’t really there, like it was her body but she was just a passenger watching it take a ride.
The red light flickered fast, so fast it almost blinded her, and the orange light joined in. The camera flashed like it was in a race with the heart-rate monitor.
She screamed once more, then it all went blank.
A peaceful moment of darkness ensued.
When she opened her eyes, she was in the foetal position upon the floor.
“Kelly, are you okay? Can you hear me?”
She looked up and Derek was knelt over her. The guy who had introduced himself as Eddie was sat in the corner of the room, dabbing blood from his face, breathing heavily.
She looked over her shoulder at the rest of the room. The bed was overturned, smoke was rising from the camera and the lights lay on top of each other, smashed. The restraints were still around her wrists and her ankles, but they were ripped, as if they had been removed by force.
She peered up at Derek, who had his hand on her shoulder. He offered her a towel. She took it and dabbed her forehead. She hadn’t realized how drenched in sweat she was, but when she looked down she saw her clothes sticking to her.
“What happened?” she weakly asked, finding that her throat was sore.
“Kelly, I think we need to have a conversation,” Derek told her.
*
Kelly sat in the office with a towel around her and a hot chocolate in her hands, kindly delivered to her by Eddie. Derek was sat beside her and Eddie was sat opposite her, both gawking at her with perplexed wonder.
“Guys, you’re both staring at me…”
“We do apologise,” Derek insisted. “It’s just, once you hear what we have to say, you may understand why.”
“You’re starting to freak me out a bit.”
“Well, Kelly, you are going to need to prepare yourself for what you’re about to hear.”
She sipped on her hot chocolate again and looked to and from them.
“What’s going on?”
Derek sighed and looked around, as if he was trying to pluck a clear and concise explanation from thin air. He went to say something, but couldn’t, and in his despondence turned to Eddie, who bowed his head and looked to Kelly.
“Kelly, I have a gift,” he told her. “I am able to manipulate the paranormal, to command demons. I am able to pick up on when someone else is dealing with a presence, an entity… that is not of the natural world. And I was able to pick up something quite strongly in you.”
“So I’m not insane? Something is haunting me?”
Eddie lifted his head back with an awkward sigh. He looked torn, unable to answer, so she looked to Derek, who too was darting his eyes around the room just as uncomfortably.
“Guys, please, just tell me.”
“When we do these tests, you see,” Derek took over, “we expect minimal results as an indication. If the camera flickers say, once or twice, we assume there is something there. If the other lights show something moving before it, or if Eddie can see something that he provokes out of you, we take that as an indication and pursue with further tests that may lead us to an exorcism.”
“So you saw these things with me?”
“My dear, the camera didn’t just flash once or twice as we occasionally see. It flickered continuously for the duration until it burnt out. The lights that normally pick up some unusual movement in the air, they smashed and rose from the ground. Eddie himself was taken over and overpowered by something that sent him across the room and beat him to a pulp, and he has never been unable to command a demon so long as I’ve known him.”
Kelly stared at Derek, not quite knowing what to make of it all. This was clearly a bad omen. Either that, or these were two nuts taking part in her delusion. Whatever their reasons, at least this was an explanation that made sense to her, however bizarre it seemed.
“So you think I’m being haunted?”
“Kelly, you are more than being haunted,” Eddie told her assertively. “You are being possessed. By something far more powerful than our everyday demon.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, I’m afraid. Maybe a king of demons, a commander of hell – Jesus, it may even be the devil himself.”
That’s when Derek became alert. He looked wide-eyed to Eddie. Eddie was unable to command this demon. The prophecy. He remembered what it had said.
Come the new millennium, the world will hail the arrival of the first coming of hell. The son of the devil. He will embrace the world and his powers will control all demons that stand in his way.
In this time, the devil will rise, taking the body of a human. Fa
te will align the son of the devil with its God and it will give way to his true fate.
“What the hell is going on in here?” came an angry, authoritarian voice.
Derek opened his office door and bestowed his eyes upon the livid dean of the university.
“We were just doing some tests, it will be cleaned up soon. I will replace it.”
“You certainly will not,” he replied. That was when Derek noticed a few other members of the university board, along with security and Jason Aslan.
“What is going on?” demanded Derek.
“We have been given footage of you and Edward King tormenting a young boy.”
Eddie emerged from the office with an inquisitive look.
“My files have already been taken away by the police, thanks to this man.” Derek gestured toward Jason Aslan, who stood with his arms folded. “What more is there to say?”
“I am afraid, Professor,” the dean spat, pronouncing each syllable with venom through gritted teeth. “That the university will be suspending both you and Edward, pending our own investigation. I would appreciate it if you could remove yourself from the university’s property so we can carry out the enquiry without interference.”
Derek looked over his shoulder at Eddie, and they exchanged looks of concern. Before they could stop them, security had found Kelly and taken her away for medical help, leaving Eddie and Derek to have to explain why a young, female student was in their office with injuries and a shocked expression on her face.
They found themselves leaving the university without objection.
20
Kelly wasn’t sure what to make of everything as she walked home. She wasn’t entirely sure what had happened to her, but every part of her ached, from the muscles in her legs to the thumping in her head. It was a night off for her and Doug tonight, but she considered calling him, feeling like she really needed him.
She paused at the pedestrian crossing but no cars decided to stop for her. She went to go a few times, but each time a car would turn the corner and zoom past her.
“Dick!” she shouted at one of them as they sped into the distance, the loud rev of the sports car engine lingering long after they had gone.
Enough was enough. She stepped onto the crossing, so fed up she didn’t care if someone chose to run her down.
She made her way through the courtyard of the halls of residence and fumbled in her bag for her keys. She grew even more agitated as she struggled to find them. Then, once she had found them with her hand, every attempt to grab them just fumbled them further away.
Sighing, she leant her forehead against the door. When your keys are running away from you, you know it’s time to take a nap. She was growing tired of pure bad luck.
Finally, she grabbed hold of her keys and withdrew them. They were attached to her headphones and she had to yank them away a few times to get them free. She slid the key into the door and opened it, making her way up the stairs.
Possessed by a demon? That’s what they had told her, right? And not just any demon, but a powerful king or commander in hell. It just seemed so farfetched; but they had their own department in the university, so someone must have enough faith in them to fund them.
Although, they did seem to be in a spot of bother as she left. The university were clearly unhappy with what they had been doing with people they were supposedly helping. Maybe they were into something sinister, and they were trying to convince her that she was possessed so they could be even more invasive with her. Maybe it was a pure exploitation ploy.
Or maybe they were the ones who were nuts.
The simple explanation is that I have mental health issues, she told herself. And it was true. She had always believed in the simplest answer being the likeliest. She had learnt about the theory in one of her lectures about the psychology of logic – it was called Occam’s razor. The theory that a scientist must accept the simplest answer as most often correct.
But there was something about what they said that made sense. A niggling thought at the back of her head, and it wouldn’t go away.
She made her way along her corridor to her room and could hear noises coming from Mindy’s room next to hers. She strained herself to try to listen to what it was.
“Uh! Uh! Yeah, come on!”
Oh my God she’s having sex!
She glanced at her watch. It was 11.00 a.m. Yes, she would normally be in lectures right now, that she had avoided for these tests, but still – it is oddly early to be having sex.
She shrugged her shoulders and put the key in the lock to her room. To each their own, I guess.
“Uh! Oh! God yeah!”
As she turned the key in her door Mindy grew even louder, getting seemingly closer to her climax. Kelly took this as a good sign, in the hope that she was nearly finished.
“Oh my God you are so good! No wonder she likes you!”
Kelly held her door open mid-air. What did she just say?
“Uh! Oh God, yes, Doug, Doug!”
She froze. Her blood boiled. Her arms shook with fury, a sickening feeling mounting in her gut and rising up to her throat. She flushed.
“Oh, Doug, yes!”
“Mindy!” Kelly screeched at the top of her voice. She was a little taken aback, as she had never known herself to sound so aggressive. She positioned herself in front of Mindy’s door and clenched her fists beside her waist. Her leg was bouncing with angry anticipation, her head shaking with readiness.
“Kel?” came a startled reply from inside the room.
“Open the door.”
“Can you come back later, babe?”
The door before her shook. Just small vibrations, as if it was wobbling back and forth in a slight earthquake, rattling. But there wasn’t an earthquake. And Kelly wasn’t entirely sure why the door was shaking, but it was.
“Open the fucking door!”
Without having any time to reply, Mindy’s door malevolently soared off its hinges and sailed rabidly through the air, smashing through the far window of Mindy’s room.
Kelly crossed the threshold. She hadn’t walked in, in fact she wasn’t sure how she entered, but she somehow found herself inside.
Mindy poked her head up from under the covers.
“Kelly?”
Kelly swiped her right hand through the air and the duvet sprung away, revealing Mindy and Doug’s sweaty, naked bodies pressed up against each other.
Mindy and Doug appeared petrified. Kelly wasn’t fully aware that was because her hands were smoking. She didn’t realise she had risen two feet off the floor and she hadn’t a clue it was because her eyes had turned dark red.
“Kelly, please stop!”
Kelly’s lungs burnt as her voice screamed, except it wasn’t her voice filling the room, but a whole load of voices, from deep wails to high shrieks, all at the same time.
Items glided off the shelf. A group of text books bashed against the opposite wall. One of the shelves snapped in half. The bed rattled to the point Doug and Mindy had to clutch onto the side for dear life.
Doug attempted to scarper; he jumped to his feet and went to sneak past Kelly, but he did not get far. As soon as he reached Kelly’s side, her hands were around his throat and she was holding him mid-air, his feet irately dangling.
“Ke… ly…” he sputtered, choking helplessly, struggling for breath.
“Kelly, stop!” begged Mindy, but the growing wind that spun around the room, taking objects in its wake, silenced her voice.
Doug punched Kelly’s arm, which loosened her grasp for a moment and he dropped to the floor, clutching his throat. It was sore, and he felt every bit of the pain as he traced the red line that had been left there.
Kelly elevated her arms and Doug instantly rose, spiralling across the air to the wall above the bed, which he was flattened against.
Mindy had her mobile phone out, with 9-9-9 dialled in. Kelly noticed and the phone malfunctioned, spitting an electric shock at Mindy’s cheek, who dropped
the phone out of her hand.
Kelly had one hand in the air projecting Doug into place and a snarl upon her face. Mindy tried looking into her eyes, tried to see the person that Kelly was, but that person had left. She did not see Kelly any more. This was something else, something hell-bent on using her fury for its own means.
Kelly lifted her spare arm and slashed it downwards, producing three deep claw marks against Doug’s chest. Blood splattered against the wall, the bed sheets, and Mindy’s face, who covered her face and rubbed her eyes in an attempt to get the blood off her.
Doug squealed in agony, grasping at his gaping wounds with his hands, each touch only making the pain that bit more excruciating.
Mindy got to her knees and crawled toward her. Kelly threw Doug across the room and slammed him into a wall, forcing him to fall onto the floor via his face, where he lay dipping in and out of consciousness. This left Kelly free to deal with Mindy.
She raised her hand and Mindy’s naked flailing body rose, hanging mid-air, directly in front of Kelly.
“Please…” she begged through her blubbering. “Stop…”
Kelly tilted her head slightly, looking at Mindy peculiarly.
“If you like being fucked so much,” came the words out of Kelly’s mouth, through numerous deep, booming voices, very different to a teenage woman, “Then so be it.”
Kelly held her hand out in a claw, pointing upwards. Her nails grew, with a brown, stale tint stained over the protruding claws.
With a glance at Mindy, she abruptly flew her hand upwards and tightened her nails into place.
Mindy screamed in intense agony without stopping for a breath, grabbing onto her crotch, weeping through begs and screams.
She writhed in pain, blood not just trickling, but pouring down her inner thighs. Kelly lifted her hand up even further and Mindy howled in anguish.
Kelly’s feet landed on the ground. She dropped her hands, dropping Mindy to the floor. Mindy rolled around the floor, whimpering mercilessly in sheer torture.
