by Wood, Rick
Nancy peered up at him from her kneeling position beside her daughter, eyes full of confusion.
“What are you doing with the toaster?” she asked innocently.
He held it above his head.
“Henry?”
With all the force that this body had, with all the muscles available, he brought the toaster soaring downwards and thrust it into her forehead with lethal force.
Kaylee jumped, her beans on toast flinging off her lap, cowering against the wall.
Nancy crawled along the floor. Dizzy. Shocked.
She dabbed her forehead and looked up.
“What are you doing?” she feebly uttered.
Her entire face was covered in trickling blood, accompanied by a beautifully grey bruise.
Lovely.
He lunged the toaster back down, sinking it into her head with excessive force and relative ease.
“Henry!” she wept, struggling to her knees.
He struck her with the toaster again.
This time she didn’t move.
He brought it back down and slammed it into her head. Again. Again and again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
He threw the toaster to the side, discarding it like a finished chocolate wrapper. He took hold of a clump of her hair in his sweaty fist and lifted her head up.
Her eyes hazed over with a groggy absence. She gurgled an oozing of blood that went trickling down her chin. Her nose bent to the side, teeth fell past her cracked lip, and most of her pale skin was covered in dark-grey bruising.
He dragged her across the room by the hair, reaching a wooden television stand.
He launched her head into the television, sending her cranium flying into a cracked, sparking mess. Keeping hold of her hair, he lifted her head once more and drove her skull down into the solidity of the wooden surface.
He kept going until her face was elegantly unrecognisable.
He threw her on the floor.
She did not move.
He climbed on top of her and slid his hands around her neck, tightening his grip.
But he didn’t need to.
He already felt no pulse.
He dropped her body to the floor like a discarded piece of waste.
With a triumphant smirk, he slowly turned his head to the other side of the room.
Kaylee cowered in the corner. Too scared to move. Her eyes wide in terror.
It was just the two of them.
Alone at last.
32
Oscar gagged over the bushes, spewing a stringy but thick mouthful of gunk. This vision was not any more tolerable than the last.
But he needed to get over it.
There was more on the line than his weak stomach.
He limped down the garden path and into the home of April and Julian. Being only minutes from the motorway, they had rushed Oscar into the back seat and sped back as fast as they could.
As he returned to the house, Julian’s frantic voice hit Oscar like a bombardment on his ear-drums. He made his way to the kitchen, where April sat at the table. She had dissolved some disprin into a small glass of water that she passed to Oscar, and he gratefully drank.
Julian burst into the kitchen, slamming his mobile phone down on the table.
“There’s no answer,” he declared, turning around, nervously fidgeting. He paced back and forth, covering every tile of the kitchen floor.
“Shouldn’t we go back?” Oscar asked, trying to look away from Julian, as the pacing was making his fuzzy head even dizzier.
Julian ignored him, stuck between various thoughts, none of which seemed to be offering a solution.
“It’s a two-hour drive,” April replied, placing a comforting hand on Oscar’s. “We won’t get there in time.”
“Surely we need to try? I mean, we can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
Julian pulled a laptop out of the drawer and slammed it on the table, hurriedly loading it.
“We will,” he assured Oscar. “But we need to get in contact with Nancy first and tell her to get her and Kaylee out of the house. I’m going to have to go online, see if there’s any other number or way of contacting her.”
“I don’t get it,” Oscar said, a face full of torturous guilt. “How come I’m only getting this vision now, when I touched his shoulder before we left?”
Julian was too absorbed in his futile attempts at finding more contact information, so April took it upon herself to answer.
“Sometimes really powerful demons can block glimpses about themselves,” April took over. “It could be that the block dropped once you got far enough away, or that the demon stopped.”
“What I still don’t get,” Julian venomously announced as he clicked harshly on the mouse, “is who the fuck this demon is.”
Oscar let a moment pass before answering. He was new, and didn’t want to upset anyone – but he was fairly sure he had the answer.
“Didn’t you say Kaylee’s demon was part of a pair?”
Julian looked up, irritated. “Yes.”
“Maybe the girl was possessed by the lower demon. And Henry was taken by the one in charge, and now we are dealing with something all the more powerful, who has been leading the whole thing all along.”
Julian and April shared an embarrassed glance.
“I mean,” Oscar continued, “that would explain why the girl dropped the accusation, and the dad went free. That could have been when… you know…”
Oscar’s voice faded, feeling a little disconcerted by the humiliated look the other two were sharing. Had he overstepped?
“That was…” April began, looking once more at Julian. “…brilliant, Oscar. I don’t know why we didn’t think of that…”
She looked to Julian once more, who nodded vaguely, the only admittance Oscar knew he would get from him.
April nodded at him, at first shocked at his progression, then with a playful smile that revealed a new admiration.
In a new sudden burst of anger, Julian slammed the lid.
“Nothing,” he declared. “Let’s just pray there is no late-night traffic to stand in our way.”
33
Henry’s coarse foot kicked Nancy’s head further into the cupboard beneath the stairs. A cluttered assortment of useless crap fell on her, remnants of pointless possessions hidden away and never used.
Soon it would all be divided up in a will or thrown into a skip.
Nancy’s head would not get inside, so in the end, he resorted to having to lift the corpse by the hair, and push it inside with his foot and shut the door quickly before her dead weight fell back upon it.
She was heavier than she looked.
How could Henry have ever fucked that? She was so… human.
He glanced at the time. The police needed to hurry up. It had been at least half an hour since he had called.
He didn’t have much time.
The blocking would have worn off. That scrawny little rag-boy would have had a vision by now. Some kind of glimpse that showed the truth about who was inside Henry’s body.
Why did the little shit have to touch him on the shoulder?
The kid was almost gone. Leaving. The deed had been done. He was going to be left to it, nothing to stop what he was about to do with this family.
Then the fucking prick touched his shoulder.
A loud, authoritative knock resounded three times against the front door.
Right.
Time to be Henry the father.
I’m upset.
He forced tears out of this mortal, weak body. He bounced on the spot, getting red to his cheeks, forcing himself to be out of breath.
Fucking humans.
He flung open the door.
“Oh, thank God you’re here!” he declared through Henry’s subordinate mouth, ushering the police officer in.
“My name is Detective Inspector Jason Lyle,” the man told him, showing a badge. “I was a
t your daughter’s interrogation.”
“Yes, yes, I remember you!” Henry declared, weeping eyes and distraught frown displaying a manner of distress that clearly irritated Jason.
Good.
That would mean it was convincing.
“You told me someone abused your daughter,” Jason prompted.
“Yes, yes I did. They came here claiming they were going to help her do all this voodoo stuff. We thought they were good people. At first…”
Henry’s hand quickly withdrew his phone and held it out to Jason, a video ready to play.
Lilu watched, surveying the reaction of the officer. He didn’t need to see the video to know what images accompanied the vile sounds. So, instead, he studied the detective’s reactions. Making sure the shocking images recorded were having their effect.
He watched as Jason Lyle viewed the video of Julian performing an exorcism on Kaylee.
A video that, out of context, looked very bad.
A girl being pinned down on a bed, where she lay in restraints. Jason flinging holy water on her, crosses pressed against her, doing nothing to avert the agonising screams of the poor little girl.
“Once I saw what they were doing,” he whimpered, “I tried to stop them. But they just wouldn’t. They said they had to make her pure again, then they just kept saying it over and over.”
The video ended, and Jason lifted his perturbed visage to Henry.
“And this happened tonight?” Jason asked.
“Yes, it did.”
“Have you got a name for this man?”
“Yes. His name is Julian Barth. He claims to be part of some paranormal investigation team from Gloucestershire, calling themselves Sensitives, or something.”
“That’s the people your lawyers called, was it not?”
“Yes, yes it was, and that was why we trusted them! Oh, we trusted them!”
He considered for a moment whether the last “oh, we trusted them” was too much, but Jason seemed to buy it.
“I’m going to need you and your family to come down to the station and give a statement.”
“Kaylee has just gone to sleep; can it wait until the morning?”
“Not really. If we are to arrest this man, we are going to need to take a statement as quickly as we can – time is important, you see.”
“I know, but it’s been such an ordeal. We’ll wake her up in an hour, please, just give us that.”
Jason peered peculiarly at Henry.
“In an hour, then, I really must insist.”
“We will be there.”
“In the meantime, I will contact Gloucestershire about this man. I will need to take this phone, Mr. Kemple.”
“Oh, please do.”
A creak echoed in the hallway.
Jason peered past Henry at the door to the cupboard under the stairs that had opened very slightly.
“Is everything else okay, Mr. Kemple?” he asked.
“Oh yes, fine, yes.”
“I will see you in an hour then.”
With another glance down the corridor, Jason turned and walked away, closing the door behind him.
He watched through the window as the police car drove away.
Then he turned. Walked upstairs. Into the little girl’s room.
There, Kaylee sat helplessly bound to a chair, duct tape wrapped multiple times around her mouth and body. Her wide, terrified eyes peered up at the face of her loving father, so vastly changed from the man she knew.
“You let them take my Lilith from me,” he declared
He bent over, placing his hands on his knees in a way that was so patronising it became mortifyingly sadistic.
“She was what they call a succubus. Do you remember?”
Her eyes flinched.
“I’m not sure if you do. Do you know what succubus means?”
He placed a gentle hand on the side of her face.
A pleasurably sordid grin spread wide across his face, pushing his cheeks into an unsettling leer.
“How about I show you?”
34
The house bustled with haste. Julian’s exorcism essentials were restocked and flung back into his leather-bound bag. April clutched the car keys tight and had her trainers back on before Oscar even acknowledged they were moving.
Oscar tried to keep up. Tried to maintain the urgency set by the other two.
A family’s lives were at stake.
A mother. A daughter. Both who could already be dead.
As April nodded in confirmation that she was ready and Julian turned his expectant stare to Oscar – the doorbell rang.
They looked at each other, confused.
Julian opened the door and cast his eyes upon two tall, muscular police officers.
“Julian Barth?” one of them prompted in a thick country accent.
“Yes…” he answered, glancing back at April, a look of hesitant terror on his face. “Can I help you?”
“We are going to need you to come with us.”
“Is this really necessary? As we have somewhere to be quite urgently.”
The two police officers shot each other a look as if they were confirming something, making a silent decision.
“Julian Barth, you are under arrest on suspicion of causing significant harm to an underage child under the Children Act 1989,” one of them stated matter-of-factly.
“For what?”
“You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
The officer went to take hold of Julian’s arm, but he flinched it away.
“Listen, lad,” the officer began, “it’s up to you whether you come with us willingly, or whether you come in the handcuffs.”
Julian froze, the conundrum of his perilous decision of whether to submit or defy these officers presented clearly upon his face.
But what was he going to do?
He had no way out of this. No way to get to the Kemples without the police interfering and halting the whole process.
He turned to April and whispered a sudden thought of stark realisation.
“It’s the dad,” he gasped. “He knows we know.”
“Come on, son,” the policeman demanded, grabbing hold of Julian’s arm and dragging him out.
April and Oscar stood helplessly watching, faces like a child saying goodbye to their parents on the first day of school.
“What are we going to do?” Oscar asked April.
April had no answer.
She simply bowed her head and shook it.
“What can we do? He’s the exorcist. He’s the one who knows how to do this stuff.”
“But we can’t just let–”
“We can’t do anything about it!” she snapped.
After she watched the police car disappear down the street and turn the corner, she shut the door with a ferocious, agitated slam.
Oscar searched for an answer, but he didn’t have one.
“They are on their own,” April declared.
35
This is what you get when you try to do something great in a world that people don’t understand.
You get burnt at the stake for it.
And it’s infuriating.
And April was so, so fed up.
Just because the world hadn’t seen what they’d seen. Because the world wasn’t open-minded enough to believe what they must. Because the world was infantile and cruel and pathetic and–
“Fuck,” April muttered within a sickened sigh.
She sat on the stairs, her head rested against the wall, vacantly watching the door that Julian had departed through not too long ago.
These ignorant people had no idea what they were doing.
But what was she meant to do without Julian?
Julian was the one who’d taken her off the streets. Given her a home. Shown her what to do. Led her.
Without
his skill set, she was useless.
She was a conduit and a glimpser – not an exorcist.
“Hey,” came Oscar’s soft voice.
April moved only her eyes, choosing to remain slumped miserably against the wall. She looked at Oscar edging into view, leaning against the wall of the hallway.
Now really wasn’t the time.
She didn’t have the patience for his inexperience and ridiculously low self-esteem.
She wished he would go away.
“How you doing?” he asked, a face full of concern.
“How do you think I’m doing?” she snapped.
She knew she should be nicer to him. He was trying to make sure she was okay. But she didn’t care.
She wanted to be alone.
“There was nothing you could have done,” he reassured her.
“Piss off, Oscar,” April instructed. “Not in the mood.”
Oscar’s head dropped. His hands went into his pockets and his whole body slouched into a hunched posture, curling over into his easily intimidated, withdrawn stance.
He retracted back into the other room.
He looked downbeat and downtrodden, but April didn’t care.
April didn’t care about anything.
An innocent family was likely about to die.
Without Julian, she was nothing. She couldn’t attempt an exorcism. God knows Oscar couldn’t.
It was useless.
April jumped as a bag was thrown to the ground before her. Scowling irritably at the leather-bound bag that contained all of Julian’s items, she turned her anger to Oscar who had re-entered the hallway, and now stood over it.
“What are you doing?” April demanded through clenched teeth and stiffened jaw.
“I’m going to Loughborough,” he announced. “Are you coming with me?”
April shook her head.
Pathetic.
“You’re not going to Loughborough,” she replied.
“Oh yes, I am!” Oscar declared, grinning wildly. “I’m going to go do everything I can to save that family.”
“We are nothing without Julian, don’t be ridiculous.”
“Yes,” Oscar confirmed, nodding as he took a moment to think about his choice of words. “But I’m still going to try.”
