Chapter Thirteen

Hastings Mills, NY, July 16th, one year ago

Bang!

Ken Webb huddled under one of the consoles inside the van, his hands over his ears.

He’d been about to start unpacking the new equipment when the old man had toppled over in the yard, the back of his head exploding in a spray of blood and bone. Ken hadn’t needed to hear Del and Stone shouting for everyone to take cover. He dove into the van, his arms curled over his head, as more rocks fell from the sky. He’d pulled the doors shut, but not before a rock the size of a peach pit smashed into the back of his head and another caught his shoulder. Stars filled his vision but he managed to lock the doors right before something much larger hit the metal with a resounding clang!

He’d fallen into one of the chairs, his bruises and cuts melding into a body-wide agony that left him gasping as the gravel hail battered the van’s roof with deafening force. Dents appeared in the ceiling, evidence of the storm’s destructive power. His phone rang and Del shouted at him to stay inside. He tried to answer but the hammering of rock on metal drowned him out. Glass shattered as stones came through the windshield and that’s when he’d scooted under the workbench, terrified the larger stones might pierce the steel of the roof.

The barrage seemed to go on forever. He screamed but couldn’t hear his own voice. There was only the thunderous drumming of stones bombarding metal.

Time lost all meaning, but eventually the onslaught diminished, tapering off until only the echo of the tumult remained.

After waiting a few minutes to be sure the deluge had ended, he was about to get up when furious laughter erupted all around him and the van shook so hard it sent boxes and tools tumbling to the floor. A freezing wind swept through, ripe with the odors of putrescent flesh and raw sewage. Ken gagged and vomited up his breakfast. The reek of death grew worse despite the rising wind, causing his eyes to water and forcing him to take shallow breaths. The foul air crawled down his throat and coated his lungs, overpowering the taste of puke in his mouth. All the while, the insane laughter continued to vibrate everything until he felt sure it came from inside his skull.

Ken cried out for God to have mercy on him and curled into a ball, knees tucked to his chest.

And then something touched his neck.

Something hot.

“How long has he been this way?”

Reverend Gregory Socha stood in the hallway outside Pete Telles’ bedroom. Pierre and Dorothy were with him, both of them wearing identical hollow-eyed, pallid masks of exhaustion.

“A week,” Pierre said. Long enough for the lump on his skull to fade away, but not for the memory of that night to disappear. A year wouldn’t be long enough. Maybe not even a lifetime.

Socha nodded and continued watching the boy. Pete sat naked on his bed, superhero coloring books and crayons spread out in front of him. According to the parents, he’d spent the whole morning using the black and red crayons to turn each person on each page into a demon. Red eyes, black horns, scowling, fanged faces. Some had clawed hands, others coiling tentacles. Then he’d use the orange crayon to cover the page in simple but realistic flames.

“The doctor said he’s fine physically. A brain scan showed no tumors and his blood work came back completely normal. He also ran some psychological tests.”

“And what were his thoughts?” Socha asked.

“He couldn’t find anything wrong either. Pete answered all his questions exactly how you’d expect a first grader to. Nothing out of the ordinary. Of course, that was before this started.” Pierre motioned at his son. “So he recommended we see a child psychologist, and we thought rather than see some stranger, maybe you could help.”

Although he’d closed his practice several years earlier to focus more on youth and family counseling, his former occupation was no secret in the parish. “Yes. Well, let me see if he’ll talk to me. Why don’t you give me a few minutes alone with him?”

“Sure, Father. C’mon, hon.” Pierre took his wife by the elbow and led her down the hall.

Socha watched the boy for another minute, mentally deciding on how to initiate a conversation. Although he knew the Telleses as parishioners at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, he’d hardly spoken more than a few words with them over the years. He also hadn’t worked a child as young as Pete in longer than he cared to admit.

Time to get back on the horse.

He cleared his throat and stepped into the room.

“Hello, Pete. Can I sit down?”

The boy looked up, his brown eyes clear and focused. “Hello, Reverend Socha.”

Socha paused in pulling over the small chair from the corner. How had the boy known his name? Then he remembered the Telleses had been bringing the boy to church for a year now.

He sat down. “So, what are you drawing today?”

“Friends of mine.”

“Uh-huh.” A shiver ran down Socha’s back. He wondered what questions the child psychologist had asked that he couldn’t determine the boy was obviously troubled in some way.

Don’t forget, he wasn’t drawing demons then. Just having bouts of angry behavior.

“Do your friends have names?”

“Of course. Mammon. Belphegor. Lucifer.” Pete flipped through the pages, tapping on pictures. As he spoke, his voice grew lower, rougher. “Leviathan. Berith.”

Socha’s blood went cold. Demons! He’s naming demons.

“Beelzebub. Astaroth.” Pete growled the words, the vowels drawn out and phlegmy, the consonants sharp, each ‘s’ stretched into a hiss.

“Stop it.” Socha didn’t want to hear any more.

“But, Reverend, you asked, and my friends so want to meet you. Verrine, Gressil, Soneillon.” The pages flew by and Socha saw the boy’s fingers didn’t even touch them.

“Enough!”

“Satan!” Pete’s shout shook the walls, his voice deeper and louder than Socha’s. The reverend jumped away as Pete stood and stared at him. Red welts covered the boy’s torso and legs, the angular shapes of ancient letters and symbols. A putrid stench filled the air.

“Go home, Reverend Socha. Go back to your house and pray to your god, the god of the weak. Kneel before your Christ and lick his ass like a dog.”

The coloring book flew up and struck Socha in the chest. Smoke rose where the pages touched cloth and Socha cried out, beating at the smoldering areas while the names he’d heard whirled around in his brain.

Lucifer, Mammon, Leviathan, Beelzebub, Satan, Belphegor. Six of the seven princes of Hell, representing Pride, Greed, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, Sloth. The only one missing was Asmodeus, the demon of Lust. He didn’t recognize many of the other names, but he had no doubt they were just as evil.

Someone pounded on the door and rattled the knob. “Reverend! What’s going on? Reverend Socha!”

The door swung open and Pierre Telles stumbled into the room, his wife a step behind. Socha turned to point at their son, to tell them the awful truth, that he’d been possessed by a demon.

Pete lay on his stomach, his skin pale but unmarked, scribbling in his coloring book as if nothing had happened.

Pierre frowned and looked at the deceptively innocent scene. “I thought I heard shouting.”

Socha glanced from father to son and back again. Anything he said would sound like the ravings of a madman, even after what the Telleses had witnessed on their own. It was a big leap from mental illness to demonic possession, and the Telleses had called him for a medical diagnosis, not because they suspected a supernatural presence.

“Let me do some research,” he said, his mind already making a list of what to bring the next time. Holy water, Bible, Eucharist wafers. “I’ll come back tomorrow to see how he’s doing and let you know what I find.”

“Thank you, Reverend.” Pierre shook his hand.

Socha said his goodbyes, guilt threatening to force him into blurting out what he’d experienced. How could he leave the Telleses in the house with that…thing? Fear kept him silent. The fear of being thought crazy. The fear of facing the demon without any preparation. And a new worry was already creeping in. What if he’d hallucinated the entire episode? Experienced some sort of breakdown after seeing the child’s blasphemous drawings. Possibly even suffered a stroke of some kind.

By the time he pulled into his driveway, Socha found himself wondering if he should make an appointment with his doctor, or see a psychologist himself. He’d never taken the whole idea of demons, of possession, seriously. Why now? Because a child exhibited antisocial tendencies?

It seemed ridiculous when you really thought about it.

As a psychologist himself, he knew better than anyone how the mind could play tricks.

His thoughts still in a whirl, he opened the door and hung his keys on the hook. The empty house gave its usual sterile, cold greeting. Maybe that’s the problem. A delayed reaction to Julie and the kids moving out. God knew he’d been under a lot of stress the last two months because of the separation. Not to mention trying to pay the bills and child support with his lousy salary.

“I don’t need a shrink. I need a beer and a good fuck.”

He couldn’t do anything about the fuck – Hastings Mills was a small town and the local pastor certainly couldn’t go around picking up women in bars, not if he wanted to keep his flock – but he definitely could do something about the beer.

Two six-packs waited in the refrigerator. He hadn’t touched them, or any other alcohol, since Julie walked out. Part of his promise to her. No more booze, no more gambling. If he could stay sober for three months, she’d consider coming back.

“Guess what?” he said, opening the bottle. “How’s she gonna know?”

The first sip went down his throat like an icy river. God, he’d forgotten how good a cold beer could taste! The second felt even better. He sighed as his tensions began to melt away. Sometimes you just needed the simple things. A couple of beers, sit in front of the TV, and watch a ballgame. Was that too much to ask?

Apparently, since she made me stop. Sure, I got out of control there for a while, but a man needs a way to relieve the pressure. Especially with what amounted to two jobs on top of having the kids underfoot all the time.

“Screw you, Julie,” he said, toasting the air with a second bottle. “Tonight I cut loose. And you’ll be none the wiser.”

He sat down and turned on the TV. No games, of course. Just his luck. All those damned channels he paid for and never a thing worth watching. Instead, he pulled out the laptop. Might as well look into Pete’s issues.

“Kid’s probably just nuts. All kids are these days. Ten years from now he’ll be shooting up a mall somewhere.” Still, he’d made a promise. And it wasn’t like he had anything better to do.

The laptop woke up and a picture of him and Julie appeared. Dressed in t-shirts and shorts, standing at the edge of Allegany reservoir. The summer after they’d been married, before Marty and Debra came along. Hard to believe it was only five years ago. They’d been so happy. Smiling at the camera. He remembered the day like it just happened. The church picnic. Walking the hiking trails.

What they’d done behind a large outcropping of rocks.

Just thinking about it made him horny. They’d gone at it like rabbits, practically tearing each other’s clothes off. And she’d let him do something that day she’d never allowed again.

Take pictures.

His hand automatically moved the cursor over the file named Sermon Ideas. He’d promised Julie he’d delete the photos. But he’d never intended to. Over the years, he’d returned to them now and then, whenever he needed reminding of how things had been before the twins. When they’d both had perfect bodies and no worries, and she’d shared his lust for life.

Socha clicked the icon and the first of the six images came up. Julie with her t-shirt off, her bra in one hand. Her breasts, perky and firm, milky white in the afternoon sun.

She should be here right now. He slipped one hand into his pants. With his other, he clicked on the next picture. Julie leaning against the rocks, wearing nothing but plain white panties. His hand moved faster.

Click.

Naked, her smile both teasing and embarrassed.

He paused and undid his pants. Slid them down to his ankles.

A piece of paper fell out of his pocket.

He went to kick it away and it unfolded by itself, revealing a picture of Spider-Man covered in red and brown crayon, crude fangs filling multiple mouths and four horns jutting from his head. Below the picture, in orange, was a single word.

Asmodeus.

The laptop tumbled to the floor as Socha leaped up. The page from the coloring book flared brightly, crayon flames igniting, the page browning in their wake. The rotten-egg stink of sulfur and ash brought tears to his eyes and burned his nose.

The paper disappeared. Black flakes floated in the air and settled on the carpet.

All real! It had all been real.

The laptop speaker crackled and he stepped back. On the screen, the topless picture of Julie came alive. She walked closer, still smiling. In the background, the trees waved in the summer breeze.

“You pathetic loser.” Julie’s voice crackled from the speaker. “I knew you couldn’t do it. Couldn’t stop drinking. Not even for the kids. Not even for me. You could have all this.” She ran her hands down her body. Shook her hips. “But you’d rather sit home with your beer and jerk off. I’m never coming home, Gregory. In fact, I’m already fucking someone else.”

A naked man appeared, sporting a giant erection. He put his arms around Julie and pulled her into an embrace that became a long, deep kiss. When it ended, she turned to the camera again.

“Goodbye. Don’t call me.”

The last Socha saw of her was the stranger laying her down on the grass and positioning himself between her legs.

Then the screen went blank.

Socha stared at the laptop for several minutes, a single thought running through his head over and over.

She’s gone. She’s really gone.

It’s my fault.

Eventually he went back into the kitchen. Opened the refrigerator and took out the rest of the six-pack. Poured the bottles out and filled them with bleach. Returned to the living room and sat down.

And began to drink.