“I’m not sure, but it ain’t pretty,” Walker replied.
On cue, a gruesome shouting escaped from the house. This was shortly followed by a devilish bellow. Walker made a point of shivering.
“See?” he said.
“I’m curious,” Stephanie said. “C’mon, Walker. Please?”
I noticed for the first time, probably because I was still coming down from my two-beer drunkenness, that Stephanie was wearing civilian clothes. Jeans, a dark blouse, and a leather jacket. I wondered if this was a date. If it was, then this was possibly one of the weirdest dates ever.
“Fine,” Walker said.
We walked past them toward the front door. Zack slapped Walker on the shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said, “the Fright Squad is here.”
So in we walked to this two story brownstone. The door was unlocked and when I stepped in, I was hit with a sickening wave of some foul stench, worse than how my apartment was smelling right about then (and that was saying something). The foyer was dark, but a darker shape crossed my path, almost made me trip and send my Bible and holy water all over the hallway. The dark figure meowed and disappeared into a room on my right that held a grand piano.
“A black cat just walked in front of us,” I said. That was not a good omen.
“No,” Maddie said behind me. “It walked in front of you.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“It smells like a Taco Bell bathroom in here,” Zack said. Maddie elbowed him. I heard the thud of her bone connecting with his ribs and Zack saying “Ouch!”
“Be polite,” Maddie said.
In a whisper, Zack replied, “Well, if you’re inviting people over for an exorcism, the polite thing to do would be to light a few scented candles or spray some Febreeze, you know?”
Maddie didn’t reply.
The low growling came from up a stairwell at the end of the hallway.
It was a bad sound, one I’d heard before.
Behind us, Walker and Stephanie came in, eased the door closed. The latch caught with a snick.
“What’s the pay for this job?” Zack asked him.
“Lady said whatever you wanted,” Walker replied. “I woulda taken it myself, but, you know…ghosts and stuff.”
Whatever we wanted. That meant they were desperate. That meant they’d say anything to get some professionals. That meant we’d probably get paid zilch.
We all knew that, but none of us were backing out. We were here and we smelled the sickness in the air and heard the possessed grumblings of some poor soul. It was our job to help when we could and we were all right with that. Some things were bigger than money.
From the steps, as I got closer, I heard a soft sniffling.
“Hello?” I asked, running my hand along the hallway’s wall since it was so dark. My fingers brushed picture frames and dried paint on canvases.
“Is this them?” the voice said. It was a woman. She sounded distraught, her voice shaky and wet with tears.
“Yes, ma’am,” Walker said. “The Fright Squad.”
She flipped a light switch, the light damn near blinding us.
The woman was standing. Probably in her sixties, African-American, with hair the color of snow braided into long dreadlocks. One wrinkled hand wet with her tears reached out and took mine. Her flesh was cold, but not as cold as the air around the steps. From the upstairs, an arctic breeze drifted downward. I knew that cold breeze, too. Dark spirits suck out all of the happiness and warmth from a place. Just like this particular dark spirit was doing now.
This woman didn’t shake my hand. She just took it in her own and looked into my eyes and said, “It’s my husband. Something bad has gotten into him. Something real bad. Please help him.”
“We will, ma’am,” I said, though I hadn’t seen him yet and couldn’t know for sure if we could.
“Something got in him,” Zack said softly. “That would explain the smell.”
Maddie and Walker simultaneously smacked him upside the back of his head.
The woman hadn’t heard. I hoped.
“Take us,” I said, still holding the woman’s hand.
So far, it had been one hell of a Thursday night.
Upstairs, the source of the smell and the cold leaked out from a closed bedroom door.
Zack coughed, said, “I’m glad I threw up before we got here.”
“Me, too,” Maddie said, surprising both of us. The old woman’s name was Angelina Morrison. Her husband’s name was Marcus. Well, it used to be. Now, according to her, he wouldn’t answer to anything besides Xaluney (with an X and not a Z), the evil spirit’s name.
“Like, does he know that’s not a scary name?” Zack had asked Angelina.
Angelina looked at Zack with a fear-tightened expression on her face. “You will know fear when you lay your eyes upon the thing that was once my husband.”
A chill rippled through my spine. The way she spoke, the way her skin had lost some of its color, made me realize she wasn’t messing around.
The door opened.
There, strapped to the bed with leather belts, was a heavy black man. He was shirtless. Pale abrasions had popped up all over his chest. They were inverted crosses.
“Oh, great,” Marcus (Xaluney) said when he saw us standing there in the doorway, “the fucknuts have arrived.”
The evil spirit’s voice was a mix between a screaming person whose finger had been caught in the garbage disposal and a braying donkey.
His eyes were hazed with a milky white film. Beneath this film, they were red, as red as the devil’s flesh. His lips were cracked, dried blood had settled within these cracks. The teeth in his mouth were not the teeth of a normal human being. They belonged to something else. Sharp and carnivorous.
Really, it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. As far as possessions went, I’d seen scarier ones in the Academy. So I let the spirit know. That was the only way to fight these things. You had to show them who was boss.
“Why don’t you just shut up,?” I said, stepping closer.
The demon grinned, then did what any demon would do in this instance. It hacked up a glop of bloody mucus, which slapped my chest wetly. I shuddered. Thought I was about to throw up. If I did I was making damn sure it was going in the direction of the evil spirit.
“All right,” Zack said, looking down at the gross spot on me, “if that’s the way you want it to be.” He then reached up one nostril and pulled a nose hair out. It departed with a twang. No less than three or so seconds later, a sneezing fit overtook him. He made sure to get as close to the possessed body as possible, and he sneezed right in his face.
Sorry, Marcus.
“Oh, my,” Angelina gasped.
“Geez, Zack,” Walker said. Him and Stephanie were standing in the doorway.
The spirit wasn’t fazed, however.
I turned to Angelina and said, “It’s probably for the best if you’re not here during this.”
“If she’s alone, I’ll tear her heart out,” Xaluney spat, spraying blood and spittle all over. The mist came down on his bare chest, made the inverted crosses glisten. “I’ll tear it out and make her slob of a husband eat it raw.”
Angelina looked as if she were going to faint.
“Maddie?” I said. She nodded and took Angelina by the elbow and led her out.
“I’ll stay with her,” Walker said. “Make sure nothing happens.”
This was Walker’s way of politely excusing himself.
Stephanie, thank goodness, decided it was best if she let us be, too. It was risky enough having her and Walker in the house anyway.
Maddie came back.
Zack found an outlet, plugged the boombox in (because those D batteries were way too expensive on our budget), and sat on the right edge of the bed.
Above the headboard was a painting, something that was once galloping horses on a dusty plain but now looked like an abstract expressionists’ nightmare thanks to the mucus-spouting volcano on the mattress.
I went to the other side of the bed. Maddie stood at the foot.
“Good luck,” Xaluney said. “You’re going to need it. This body is mine. Mine!”
“If you’re in there, Marcus,” I said, “fight back!”
“Marcus isn’t here. Marcus is gone. I ate his soul. He ceases to exist now, my friends,” Xaluney said.
I glared at those rheumy eyes. “I don’t believe you.”
“Shall I prove it to you?” Xaluney asked and began moaning.
I motioned with my hand. “Be my guest.”
The first step in a successful exorcism was learning exactly what type of entity one was dealing with. Was it the Linda Blair type, the kind that will turn its head around like an owl and walk up the stairs like a demented hell-spider? Or was it the type of demon that would physically change whoever it inhabited, like a shape-shifter of sorts? Or was it the kind of terrible dimensional thing like those that had been summoned by Doctor Blood in Perdition Cemetery?
So far, it seemed like Xaluney was really shooting for The Exorcist type. Which was good. Which meant we could defeat it.
Xaluney closed Marcus’s eyes. His face screwed up in immense concentration.
From Marcus’s brown skin popped up more inverted crosses. A crop of them had come very close together, almost like a pound sign.
Xaluney cackled. Its eyes opened and its mouth grinned.
“See? See what I can do?” its voice boomed.
I ignored the spirit, wasn’t impressed.
Zack asked me. “Hey man, do you have a pen or something?”
I patted my pockets.
“Will a Sharpie do?” I asked. Why I had a Sharpie in my pockets, I didn’t know, but I did.
“Sure thing,” I answered and held out my hands. I threw the Sharpie. It was black. He caught it, opened the marker by biting down on its cap and pulling.
“What are you doing?” Xaluney asked. “I demand you tell me what is going on!”
I leaned over his bared torso to see. So much cold emanated from poor Marcus’s flesh that I thought the Ohio winter had followed us inside.
Now, looking at the fresh crop of inverted crosses, at the few that were close enough to form the pound sign (like so: #), Zack took the Sharpie and scrawled an X in the top right corner of the leftmost cross, then passed the marker back to me.
“You’re Os,” he said, grinning.
I normally wouldn’t be for this type of behavior, but like I said earlier, you have to show the entity who’s boss. What better way of showing it than by embarrassing it?
So I scrawled an O in the middle of the pound sign.
“Stop this!” Xaluney bellowed. “Stop this right now! It tickles!”
Zack glared at the demon. “I’m sorry,” he said, “the game’s not over yet.”
Xaluney bucked Marcus’s body up and down. The leather belts tied around Marcus’s wrists and ankles stretched, tore slightly. The bed rocked on its legs, making Maddie take a step back. I also stepped back, but not as far. I wasn’t really scared anymore. Tic-Tac-Toe has a way of mellowing out any situation.
“We better get on with this,” Maddie said.
“Okay, I’ll start the music,” Zack said then made his X.
“No,” Maddie said. “No music.” She held her Bible in hand and looked in Marcus’s eyes. “We do this the old fashioned way.”
In other words: We would read from the Bible and splash holy water on this bastard until our tongues fell out and our wrists ached.
Sometimes that worked. Sometimes it didn’t.
We were about to find out.
2
We’re All Just Barbie Girls
So this is how it went down. Xaluney just laughed at the Bible verses. Maddie read them with gusto and sincerity while Zack and I echoed her “Amens” and he added in a couple “Hallelujahs!” for good measure.
While Xaluney laughed, he popped a few more of those upside down crosses. They were on the old man’s poor face now. One right in the middle of his forehead like Charles Manson’s swastika.
Zack said, “Do you really want us to play tic-tac-toe on your face?”
He spat at us. This time, I was quick enough to dodge it. It hit the lampshade on the nightstand.
Maddie continued reading, each word pronounced more firmly than the last. A couple of times, Xaluney screamed out, “It burns! It burns!” but we knew he wasn’t serious.
Zack pulled out the holy water, smelled it, and said, “That’s the stuff. You thirsty?”
Xaluney spat again. Zack didn’t dodge it, but it was a good thing that he was wearing sunglasses otherwise he was liable to go blind with all that gunk in his eyes. He took the bottle and threw some water on Xaluney’s face. His skin sizzled and the spirit inside cried out in anguish, the voice dropping a few octaves.
“Have you ever thought of trying out for American Idol?” Zack asked.
“Fuck you,” Xaluney said through the pain.
Holy water is a simple invention.
Once Maddie’s voice was raw, she paused and Walker stuck his head into the room and said, “You guys good? Need any snacks or anything like that?”
I pointed at the dripping lampshade. “I don’t think I’ll ever eat again.”
Walker grimaced. Left.
Zack looked at Maddie. “Can I try now?”
She sighed and looked at me. I just shrugged.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” he asked.
“Uh, our eardrums could burst?” Maddie answered.
“Pshh,” Zack said, “I’m doing it.”
Xaluney cackled. “Good luck. You will need it, won’t he, Abraham Crowley?”
A little surprised, I arched my eyebrow.
“Yes. I know you, Abraham. I know you better than you know yourself. I can see into your past, your present, your future. I can see all the bad things you’ve done. All the people you’ve overlooked in your life. I know you, Abe. I know you!”
“Wow, that’s really good,” I said. “Maybe you should skip American Idol and go out for America’s Got Talent.”
“Maybe you should suck my balls,” Xaluney retorted.
“I’d really rather not,” I said.
“Whatever you say, Abraham Crowley of the Exchange Street Apartments, number 68 on the sixth floor. Six feet and two inches, one hundred and seventy pounds, eyes brown, hair brown, organ donor,” Xaluney continued.
“Whoa,” Zack said. “Is all that accurate? You definitely don’t seem like you’re six-foot, two.”
“Thanks,” I said to him. I’ll admit, I was a little shocked at Xaluney’s guessing games, but then I realized my wallet had fallen out of my pocket and was lying in plain sight. Probably when I tried dodging one of the spirit’s loogies. What really gave it away was Xaluney’s straining eyes. I picked up the wallet with my ID visible and said, “Very clever, my friend.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Xaluney said.
“The least you could’ve done was not list off Abe’s features in the order they’re written on his ID,” Maddie said.
Xaluney offered us a grin. He let Marcus’s tongue out between his sharp teeth, let it wiggle like a snake’s. “You are quite pretty,” he said to Maddie.
“Back off,” Zack growled. “She’s mine.”
“Oh, gross,” Maddie said. “You can’t actually feel threatened by that, can you, Zack?”
Zack looked a little embarrassed, busied himself by picking the boombox up. He slid the CD out of his inside pocket, and put it inside the disc tray.
“What is the meaning of this?” Xaluney asked.
“Exorcisms are so drab,” Zack said. “I like to spice them up a little, you know?”
“You think music will drive me out of this man’s body? You are stupider than you look,” Xaluney said.
“Thanks,” he said.
He hit the play button, cranked the volume up to maximum.
The first song that burst forth from the
speakers was “Who Let the Dogs Out?” by the Baha Men. Xaluney bobbed his head with the tune, but right around when the singers started woofing like the canines they so lovingly sang about, I saw Xaluney’s calm demeanor change to that of annoyance.
Maddie, on the other hand, plugged her ears.
Then the next track played. I couldn’t imagine what was going through the heads of Walker, Stephanie, and Angelina downstairs. It’s not often an exorcism plays party music.
The next track was “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls.
I didn’t mind this song, I’ll admit.
Marcus’s skin, which Xaluney was wearing, had begun sweating. Those milky eyes wavered. Deep within them, I saw Marcus’s true eyes. They were filled with pain and anguish.
“You’ll have to try harder than that!” Xaluney said. The spirit’s voice wasn’t his own. Not anymore. Beneath it, like the eyes, I heard Marcus’s voice. It was a gentle voice despite the pain and anguish laced within it.
“We’re just getting started!” Zack shouted back.
Right around the time the next song began, Xaluney was shaking. The air in the room had grown warmer and the smell was almost nonexistent. Then again, I could’ve just been used to the stench.
Then—track 3 played. Track 3 was the track to end all tracks.
The intro kicked on and the singers, pretending to be certain plastic dolls manufactured by the toy company Mattel, said hi to one another. The chorus began and Xaluney screamed.
No—screamed isn’t the right word.
The right word would be howled, but not a howl like is common in werewolves, but howl like a person who’d just dropped a bowling ball on one of their toes…or who’d been listening to “Barbie Girl” by Aqua. Which we were.
Just like Zack had planned, the vessel in which Xaluney inhabited started having a seizure. Greenish froth poured from his opened mouth and nostrils. Bubbling. Those rheumy eyes rolled back and exposed their bloodshot whites.
Xaluney yelled out in pain, a twisted sound that was mixed with Marcus’s own homely voice.
The bed lifted off of the floor about a foot and a half and those inverted crosses started glowing red like the dying embers of a campfire.
“This doesn’t look good!” Maddie shouted over the thump of the song’s bass.
The Monster Games Page 2
