by J. Thorn
“We shouldn’t be seen together,” she replied.
“There’s a Turkish restaurant at exit seventeen off the interstate. I know they’re open, and they have high booths. I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes.”
Molly snapped her phone shut and tossed it onto the passenger seat. She started the engine and jumped at the radio as it came alive at the previous volume. She put the car in drive and pulled out of the parking lot, heading east toward the interstate.
Brian arrived first. Molly parked next to the green Jeep Wrangler and ran through the rain to the front door of the restaurant. She pulled the brass handle and released the aroma of basil and butter, an arresting combination. She had to wait for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. Heavy, velvet drapes covered the windows except for a tall, thin V of space that allowed the dingy gray of early spring inside. A rectangular bar sat in the middle with an arc of tables beyond it and booths lining the walls. A middle-aged man with dark skin and dark hair stood behind the bar with a wine glass. He twisted a towel inside before holding it up to the light of the bar and placing it on a shelf next to the alcohol.
“May I help you?”
Molly jumped. A petite woman with long, flowing, black hair looked up at her through olive eyes. Her squat nose sat on a round face.
“I didn’t see you,” she replied.
The woman smiled as her hand lifted a menu from the container hung on the wall inside the door. “Is okay. One?”
Molly’s face turned red.
“No. I’m meeting someone.”
The woman nodded and smiled as if she had gone through this same conversation many, many times. A white arm shot from behind the booth in the far corner of the restaurant.
“Yes. Your husband.”
Before Molly could correct the hostess, she began walking toward the corner. Molly followed her through the maze of empty chairs. The woman placed a menu on the table opposite Brian, who sat with a glass of water with lime.
“Drink?” the woman asked.
“Seltzer water, no ice,” Molly replied.
Brian smiled at Molly and retracted it when the hostess looked at him.
“Order?”
“We’ll need a few minutes, thanks,” replied Brian.
Molly set her purse on the booth but did not remove her coat. “This is not a good idea.”
“Drew’s in trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think the police are coming for him.”
Molly laughed, her eye twitching as she grasped the front of her coat with white knuckles. “Why?”
“I think they want to question him about the Crooked Tail River murders.”
“Oh my God.”
Brian reached over and placed his hand on top of Molly’s. She withdrew it, almost knocking his water from the table.
“Please don’t,” she said.
His hand hovered in midair for a moment before he pulled it back and placed it on his lap, under the table.
“How do you know?”
“It’s all over the news.”
“Drew?”
“They didn’t name him, but who else could it be? It wouldn’t take long to figure out he’s got a history with Vivian, and Johnson was his boss.”
Molly fell back against the high cushion of the booth and looked up. Her eyes followed the ornate, metal ceiling. She grabbed her purse and rummaged through it for a tissue.
“He didn’t do anything,” she said.
“I know. We both know that, but the police don’t. I’m worried in his current state that he might be, you know, a bit unstable.”
“What do you know about his current state?” she asked with an edge in her voice that crept through like smoke seeping under a door.
Brian sat back and held both hands in the air. He drank from his glass and looked back at the menu. The exotic hostess reappeared, smiling as if she had been let in on a secret, one that was difficult to keep.
“We’re going to need more time,” he said.
The hostess smiled and bowed before turning back for the kitchen.
“Don’t pretend you understand,” she said, dropping her voice low.
“Listen. Drew is my best friend. I’m trying to look out for him. And for you.”
“We can take care of ourselves, Brian.”
He sat back and watched Molly twirl the wedding band on her finger.
***
Drew crawled into the corner between a tall, plastic shelving unit and the cinder-block wall of the garage. He heard the door leading from the house to the garage open, followed by a cacophony of cascading metal being dumped into a recycle bin. The odor of stale beer and soured milk filled the garage. The woman—clearly a woman by the sound of her whistling—shook the bin until Drew could hear the last of the cans tumble from it. She coughed and then walked around the pile of boxes on the floor, coming into his view.
She stood almost six feet tall with the build of a long-distance runner. Drew stared at her calves, following the long legs up to a pair of boxer shorts with “lady” written on the rump. She had turned the elastic waistband down over the outside, revealing the small of her back up to the muscle shirt she wore without a bra. A fire-breathing-dragon tattoo curled up from underneath the boxers and climbed around her side and over a hip. The woman wore long, blonde hair in a high ponytail that swayed when she moved. Drew sat transfixed by her, the perfume she wore slowly overtaking the smell of the recycle bin.
“Turn around,” he whispered.
As if on cue, the woman turned toward Drew, staring at a shelf littered with blue, plastic bags. He watched her reach up to grab a new recycle bag. She stood on her toes, forcing her breasts up.
His hand dropped and reached around a growing erection, pulling and nudging it into an upright position. As the woman pushed the box of blue bags back on the shelf, she heard the door to the house close.
“Oh shit,” she said.
Drew saw the woman pulling on the doorknob. After two or three unsuccessful tugs, she walked to the garage door. The damp chill brought her nipples stiff against the light fabric of the shirt. She hit the garage-door button, but nothing happened.
“Damn it. What the fuck is up with this door?”
She punched the button again. The door did not move.
Drew watched her pat down the front of her jockey shorts and come up empty. Her phone was sitting on the kitchen counter. The woman sat on the steps and put her head in her hands. He could see the inside of her thighs. Drew’s pulse quickened and he cared less about being discovered the longer he sat there.
A low, grumbling sound came from the opposite end of the garage. At first Drew thought it might be noise made by the pipes or the furnace, but it increased in intensity. The woman sat up.
“Who’s there?” she asked. She stood and crossed her arms over her chest and backed into the door that locked her out of the house.
Drew felt the panic in her voice, and then the creature stepped from the shadows of the garage. The same fear crept into his blood, dropping his erection to a harmless, flaccid appendage. He felt breath escape from his lungs, and dark circles crept into his field of vision until the darkness pulled him under.
***
He woke to the sound of dripping water. His head ached and his muscles were cramped in the tight corner of the garage. The space had taken on a musty, damp smell unlike the petroleum-based odors from before. Drew opened his eyes and the filtering light from the garage-door windows seared his face. He put a hand to his forehead and tried to stand. More cramps seized his calf muscles, dropping his naked form back to the cement floor. He lay there breathing and kneading the meaty flesh on his legs.
“Cannot stop it.”
Drew stood hunched over, looking to the corner and the source of the voice. He knew the voice.
“I’m dreaming. I’m asleep in the corner of the garage.”
The creature laughed, chortling through wet lungs and tight lips.
> “Not anymore. Come. See your work.”
Drew shook his head.
“There, in the other corner.”
Drew turned his head as his eyes adjusted to the low light of the garage. He saw the drain and a dark swath of liquid oozing into the broken holes of the clay cover. Farther back in the shadows he saw strands of hair, clumped together and now sticking to the floor.
“You withdrew the pain, feeding on it.”
A lump caught in his throat. The stark, white flesh of the woman contrasted with the dark floor. He saw trails of blood on a thigh, leading inward.
“I passed out.”
Gaki laughed again.
“I didn’t touch her,” Brian yelled.
“Look down,” Gaki replied, spitting the words like venom.
Drew looked at his hands. He turned them around and saw the dried blood caked under each fingernail, felt the sticky, cloying pinch of dried blood in his pubic hair.
“You did this,” Drew cried. He felt the tears burning his cheeks. “Why are you trying to ruin me?”
“Release you. I’m releasing you.”
Drew walked toward the drain and the sprawled body of the woman. She laid facedown, spread eagle on the floor. Her wrists and ankles gripped the rag shackles tied to shelving units on the walls. A flimsy, blood-soaked tank top and boxer shorts sat in a pile on top of a red gas can. The woman’s ponytail had come undone, her long hair now reaching down to the middle of her back. Drew felt a flutter in his chest and his sore penis pulsed and bobbed with excitement.
“You want her again.”
Drew shook and threw himself into the wall. He tasted the coppery blood in his mouth.
“You will take her again, through your own self-inflicted misery.”
Drew shook his head back and forth.
“Look,” Gaki said.
A hazy film covered Drew’s vision as if he had put on a pair of dark sunglasses. He saw the woman, alive and gasping through a gag. He noticed the soles of her feet were black from the garage floor, and he caught a tantalizing glimpse of her most private areas, even in the darkness. Drew felt his body pulled to the floor and on top of the woman, mounting her from behind amidst her cries. He saw his hands grip her shoulders as he thrust. Drew felt his release deep inside and knew he had to have more. He tasted her flesh, running his tongue on her back and around to her breasts. Drew yanked her body to the side and bit into the soft flesh of her breast. A force yanked his head backwards and he rose over her body as if pulled by an invisible harness. A violent thrust knocked his head down between her legs, splitting his chin open on the cold floor. Drew smelled her. A pressure on the back of his head pushed his face into her, his tongue lashing at each orifice.
A force slapped his face and Drew blinked. The hazy covering disappeared and he sat again, staring at the defiled corpse of a young woman he had known as a neighbor hours before.
“You,” said Gaki.
Drew shook his head, tears streaming down his face.
Chapter 12
Ravna sat at his usual table, papers spread and cascading to the floor. He took a sip from his cup and flinched when the hot liquid hit his tongue. He typed “Gaki” into the search engine, bypassing the first few results that he had already read. His eyes stopped midway down the page, where the search string returned an entry along with the word “exorcism.”
“Exorcism, from Latin exorcismus—to adjure. Evicting demons or evil, spiritual entities. Ancient practice but still part of many religions. Exorcist is often a priest thought to have special powers. The possessed are not regarded as evil themselves, and are not entirely responsible for their actions. In recent times, exorcisms have diminished as the study of mental illness has become more common.”
He rubbed his eyes and put his hands behind his back. The cursor at the end of the sentence blinked. Ravna skimmed down the page until the heading of “Buddhism” caught his eye.
“Buddhism absorbed and reinforced shamanism. Many Buddhist exorcists work in Japan. They use a sutra and incense to scare evil spirits away.”
Ravna scribbled a few notes onto a fraying, stained legal pad before slapping his laptop shut and packing up his bag. He thumbed through the contacts on his phone until he found the one he was looking for. It had been a long time.
***
“Ravna!”
Father William wrapped his arms around Ravna, who lost his breath, smelling the powerful incense on the priest’s clothes.
“Must be Lent, Father.”
“Of course! Are you coming to mass this Sunday? I have a sermon that will really make you think.”
Ravna shook his head and smiled. He would have to play the game. “I’ve been really busy, Father.”
“The Lord will welcome you back whenever you decide to return to Him. Please, sit down.”
Father William motioned to the plastic-cushioned armchair in the lobby of the rectory. The television mounted in the corner cast its electric haze on the room. It had projected Kennedy’s assassination, Vietnam, 9/11, and Katrina. The cramped desk sat against the back wall, complete with a black, corded phone purchased in 1982. A squat woman with purple-tinged hair shuffled through the lobby toward the coffee machine on the counter. Ravna looked at the priest. The man’s hair had whitened considerably, and Ravna thought he detected a growing paunch underneath his black coat and jacket. Liver spots darkened on William’s face and his eyes were creased with uneven wrinkles like an old paper that had been folded too many times. His glasses hung precipitously on the end of a bulging, red nose.
Sully had deserved it. The husky Irish boy called Ravna “an asshole,” which, in second grade, is quite obscene. In return, he picked up a handful of rocks and launched them at Sully. Most fell amongst the trees of the woods behind their houses, but one landed square on his forehead. He remembered seeing that thin line of blood racing down his nose and he could still hear him yell. Ravna ran back to his house and hid in the basement until the phone rang. His father lumbered down the steps like a gorilla and Ravna’s ass hurt even before his father took a belt to it.
Father William called Ravna into his office the next day and he was terrified. His father had made him pay for the rock-throwing incident the previous evening, and Sully was in school with a bandage on his head. He remembered the noises the plastic chair made as he squirmed on it, waiting for Father William. His sore rump could not take another paddling. He would own up to whatever his accusers threw at him.
Much to Ravna’s surprise, the conversation was about Sully, not him. He was in trouble and Ravna could not believe it. Father William asked Ravna the usual questions about homework, first-communion studies and, of course, sports. After commencing the second-grade icebreaker, William asked Ravna difficult questions about Sully and Mr. Rankin.
“Has Sully ever mentioned Mr. Rankin, or another adult, touching him? Have other kids said anything strange about Mr. Rankin?”
Without understanding the nature of the questioning, Ravna answered honestly. He never saw Mr. Rankin near Sully, and none of the kids said anything strange about the teacher, even though they knew what was happening. He didn’t feel comfortable talking about the times Mr. Rankin kept Sully in the classroom during recess, alone. Eventually, the accusations and whispers died away and Ravna steered clear of Sully.
However, Ravna and Father remained close over the years. Father made many attempts to bring Ravna back to his congregation, most notably after Ravna graduated from first high school, and then college. Once he began to write for the horror movie mags, William gave up the fight, happy to be his friend instead of his priest. At times he lamented the fact that Ravna was going to Hell, but many of his friends and acquaintances would. Ravna always politely spurned Father William, careful not to hurt his feelings. Even during his exploration of atheism in graduate school, he visited Father on a regular basis. William settled for a compromise when Ravna declared himself to be an agnostic, which in William’s opinion was far better than convert
ing to Judaism or Islam. Ravna knew he was never coming back to the Church, and so did William, but it didn’t stop him from socializing with the priest. William would have to wait until the First Cleansing of the Holy Covenant to become reacquainted with Sully.
“Thanks, Father,” Ravna said, waiting for William to take a seat behind the desk. “I’m here on serious business.”
The priest took his old glasses off, pulled a tissue from the box, and began to clean them. He nodded at Ravna to continue.
“Father, what do you know about exorcism?”
William stopped and set the glasses down on the desk. His mouth shriveled as if biting into a lemon.
“The church does not publish a—”
“Not the church,” interrupted Ravna. “You. What do you know about exorcism?”
Father William sat back and let out a deep breath. He looked down the hall of the rectory and saw no sign of Shuffling Purple Hair.
“I know enough about it not to talk about it.”
“It’s not a question of faith. I know the Church acknowledges Satan and that he is a force of evil on this planet, right?”
“True. But many lost souls have claimed to be possessed, letting them off the hook for heinous and violent acts. If it’s not recognized as legitimate except for proven cases, evildoers cannot dispute their crimes and blame them on Satan. What’s this about, Ravna?”
Ravna slid forward on the ancient plastic, putting his elbows on the table. He had to go all in.
“How about Pretas? Gakis?”
Again, William shook his head. “I may recall texts from my earlier days, but nothing I can cite specifically.”
“But you’ve heard those terms. You know what they are?”
“Ravna, you are asking me to speak of demons of other faiths, faiths which I believe to be sacrilegious.”
Ravna reached into his bag and pulled out a handful of papers. The printouts from his research contained margin notes and long lines of yellow highlighter.
“Can you at least look these over and let me know what you think?”
