Danto had said:
It gets much worse than this
.
He could hear the cop speaking into his radio: “I’ve got three people here, all of them suspects in the Ritchie murder. The
Haviland
girl, the priest, and the rock star,
Mathers
. Yep, will do. Out.”
“What is it?” Rebecca asked the cop.
“I need you all to take a seat on the couch.”
“Are we under arrest?”
“Not yet.”
Bev’s focus began to return, the swirling colors coalescing into clear-cut images. He tilted his head upwards, toward the cop, despite the sudden pain. An intense numbing sensation rained down on his body: pins and needles picking at the tips of his nerves, unearthing them like roots, causing his body to jerk in crazy spasms.
“Shit…is he having a seizure?” the cop asked loudly, taking a step forward.
Danto stood up. Faced the cop defiantly, searching his tired mind for an excuse. Arms spread, he said, “I…I need to bring him to a friend. He mentioned something about…about medication that he needs.”
Rebecca was gently rubbing Bev’s face, her touch cool upon his hot wet skin. “Bev,” she whispered. “Please, take control of your body, please.”
My mind…the scratching is gone. Yet, there’s something else in here. No fingers, no voice. It’s an…an embodiment. An entire entity. I…I can’t take control because I am no longer in command of my body. I’m leaving and I’m not coming back…
Another claw, reaching out from the hole in my skull
…
Bev closed his eyes. Felt his conscious mind sinking down into the bowels of his stomach. His body was instantly overcome with vertigo, waxing and waning as though he were on some crazy free-falling ride. He fell, fell, fell, until his consciousness hit bottom, splashing up in a pool of stinging acids. He lay there breathing heavily, sweating in the intemperate heat, helplessly lost in a strange world that was dark, flat, wet, and vacant. In a few moments, when the dizziness passed, he sat up. His hands sunk wrist-deep in churning acids. He looked around, saw himself bounded by deep darkness and squealing echoes, as though he were in some monstrous cavern.
This is my stomach. I’m inside my body. Oh God, this is worse. Much, much worse
…
He waited, hearing only the distant echoes of voices leaching in from beyond the walls of the cavern—from outside the constricting confines of his body: Rebecca, calling his name, gently tapping his face; Danto, arguing with the cop, pleading for their release; the cop, a doomed stranger, calling for an ambulance.
Bev felt a sudden sense of dread piercing his recoiling mind. He attempted a few deep breaths, felt them come, and soon thereafter, perceived an impression of budding strength, and the power to carry on.
He struggled to his ethereal feet, looking out into the infinite darkness of his inner body. From far away, he heard a thunderous sound, like an approaching army of horse-driven soldiers. A storm rolled in the distance, menacing black clouds stirring evilly, hauling in with them the flaming lava, flowing rapidly towards him like a crashing tide, covering everything in their hostile wake. The boiling surge hit him hard, crashed over his head. Filled his lungs as he fell helplessly back. He felt himself drowning in the sudden depths, arms and legs flailing, barely able to wade through the wide-ranging tide.
Then, as quickly as the tide came, it thinned, and he pulled himself up above its searing surface. The storm seemed to have vanished, the lava now calm and
unflowing
. Bev stood waist-deep in the char-blackened muck, coughing up smatterings of the hot flow.
He remained motionless, gasping for air, looking out over the endless panorama of waste and scorching filth. A coagulation of bubbles fired up, and from amidst the turmoil emerged the black-scaled horned creature he
visioned
earlier. Nine feet tall, muscular arms raised high, reaching for the charcoal sky before a massive span of tenebrous wings. The Devil roared in a pitch previously unheard by human ears, a
wail
of a thousand burning souls firmed into a single, agonizing wail.
With green reptilian eyes, the Devil—Satan—stared at Bev.
It grinned, acid pooling on its broad lips. A thick forked tongue flickered out from between them.
And then, it leapt at him.
Again the lights flickered. This time they went out.
Darkness filled the room like a tangible force, Bev’s body jerking uncontrollably in response, waist arching, limbs thrashing, the hot stench of burning sulfur seeping from his pores. His teeth clenched, lips whitening from the pressure, dampened screams attempting to sift their way out from behind his compressed mouth.
Deep in his bowels, Satan hurtled toward him, pouncing in a seeming attempt to crush his weakened soul. Bev recoiled, fell back into the lava, the monstrous thing upon him like a lizard’s tongue. Scales flaring. Reptilian claws grasping. Muscles swelling. Lungs blowing out its malevolence in hot stinking currents. The Devil grinned down at him, jowls rife with straight-razors jutting bloodily from shredded jaws, green-glowing eyes fixed intently on Bev. Despite its colossal form, its hideous scowl, the Devil exhibited a visage of child-like amusement, an outward response to its encounter with the soul of the body it now inhabited. But soon, the wicked smile disappeared from its repulsive face, and it roared deafeningly, an awesome span of bat-like wings expanding from its back, quivering as its body prepared for flight. The wings beat against the sweltering air, producing a fierce gale of wind that knocked Bev back down into the lava. Bev gazed up at the creature as it soared up and away like a rocket toward the upper reaches of his vacated mind.
Bev writhed in immediate agony, Satan thrusting his might upon his physical body. He could feel every painful sensation inflicted upon him as the Devil commenced with the possession: fingers and hands cramping; burning coals peppering his face and chest; reptilian claws cleaving into his brain, wrenching into his organs, twisting, shredding, threatening to disembowel him as his soul wallowed powerlessly along.
Despite the disconnection with his body, Bev could feel his eyelids opening, yet, was unable to look out from behind them. He could feel his muscles expanding, the blood rushing through them. He could feel the burning agony of his skin stretching. Still, he had no control of his body. The Devil had assumed full command, his body no longer weak and feeble, but now, outrageously untamed and strapping. He doubled over as his stomach swelled, the skin splitting across his abdomen, blood trickling out in rivulets. Bev could feel the Devil filling every vessel in his body, assuming every muscle and tendon.
He could feel the beast heave his body to a standing position. Reach his arms forward. Grab the stunned cop by the throat. He could feel his right arm swinging, a powerful fist connecting with the cop’s face, removing his jaw in a horrifying shower of teeth and blood. He could hear Rebecca and Danto screaming in the darkness, Rebecca trying to flee the scene as the cop lay dying before her, Danto unsure of his actions, following Rebecca, yet, wanting to stay…wanting to communicate with the Devil occupying Bev’s body.
All of a sudden, Satan reappeared before Bev, breathing heavily, ribbons of fire and slime dousing his scale-covered body. It grinned, then raised its awesome arms and sank back down into the lava, providing Bev with an opening to rise back up into his mind, to retrieve the body that was once his.
In an instant, Bev found himself looking back out through his unfocused eyes. He could see only darkness and the slight form of the cop who lay jawless and bleeding on the carpet. He fell to his knees, crying from the physical and mental pain that had besieged his mind and body like a swarm of rats finding their sudden release from behind a rotting wall. His body felt illogically heavy and stagnant, as if he’d just been birthed into a treacherous world, one incongruent to the place he’d spent his entire physical life.
In the not-too-far distance, he heard Rebecca sobbing.
Close by, Danto’s voice: “Bev?”
Having no strength to speak, Bev nodded, seeing only shifting shadows in the gloom.
“It was Him. Wasn’t it? Satan.”
Bev nodded again.
“We must go,” the priest said, grabbing Bev gently by the arm.
This time, Bev didn’t have the strength to nod.
The limo pulled into the church parking lot. Stopped. Thornton slid across the seat and got out, palms wet with nervousness.
Tapping on the driver’s side window, he instructed the chauffer to unlock the trunk, then hurried around to the back of the car, raindrops pattering all about him like tiny footsteps. Inside, he retrieved a yellow halogen flashlight and a half-dozen plastic ties which he shoved in his pocket. Gripping the flashlight in his right hand, he paced across the empty parking lot, his long shadow thrown forward by the rain-filled splay of the limo’s headlights. He eyed the church despondently, its steeple aiming darkly toward the heavens, occluded from the billowing storm.
He circled around the side of the church, making his way across the small lot leading to the rectory.
There was a police cruiser parked outside.
He looked toward the six oak doors lining the two-story brick building. One door was wide open, queasy darkness pouring out from within. On the curb, fifteen feet from the open door, stood a woman. She was soaking wet, crying into her hands. He paced quickly toward her, determined footsteps splashing water.
“Where’s Father Danto?” he yelled, grabbing her shoulder roughly. She startled, wrenching away from his sudden grasp. Sobbing, unable or unwilling to speak, she backed away, pointing feebly toward the open door. Thornton tossed her a look of expressionless curiosity, then hurried up the walkway, following the flashlight’s sprawling beam into the rectory.
Within its pallid glare, Thornton made out three figures in the lightless room, two of them moving, one lying motionless on the carpeted floor. The beam wavered from his shaking hand, eventually pinning Thomas Danto. The priest was positioned before another figure curled
fetally
against the sofa’s armrest. The prone man was jerking peculiarly, looking like a target of electrical charges. Danto looked up at Thornton through the tops of his eyes, then at the floor, then back at Thornton. “Don’t look,” he uttered nervously, but Thornton aimed the flashlight down anyway, glimpsing a uniformed police officer, the lower portion of his face gone, a dark glistening puddle spreading three feet out from his injury.
“My God…what’s happening here?” he asked uneasily, his rational mind answering him truthfully:
Bev
Mathers
is wholly possessed by Satan
.
Without answering, Danto instructed, “Help me get
Mathers
out of here.”
Thornton stepped around the dead cop and assisted in pulling Bev up, each man shouldering his dead weight. “There’s a limo out by the church.”
They staggered forward, hauling Bev across the foyer and outside into the pouring rain. Despite Bev’s loss of consciousness, he continued to spasm and flail, making it difficult for Danto and Thornton to maintain a firm hold on him. His skin was boiling hot to the touch; his eyes, partially open and glassed over; his long hair, matted against his face and neck. They carried him down the walkway, knees buckling, Bev’s feet dragging between them. The girl was still outside, although farther away, now twenty steps into the parking lot, and backpedaling.
“Rebecca!” Danto yelled. “Go tell the limo to come here. In the church lot.”
She remained still, weeping, head shaking, palms flat against her cheeks.
”Move!” Danto yelled, and she wailed and staggered away, rain and wind beating against her.
The men waited at the curb, alongside the police car, each struggling to keep Bev standing. A series of groans issued from his blue lips. Gooseflesh riddled his soaked skin. In the distance, the two men saw Rebecca feebly waving the limo over, which at once appeared around the corner of the church, bypassing her, rainwater parting beneath its tires. She kept her position at this distance, head shaking, clearly unsure as to her next move. The car stopped before them, engine humming impatiently, steam
tendriling
from the hood.