Psyched (12 page)

“Bad time?” Zinnia asked nervously. She walked in just in time to see her bestie blow chunks into the bin, and she hurried over to keep Aisi’s spiraling curls from falling into the mess as she retched some more. “What happened? You okay?” she asked gently. “Do I need to take you home?”

Father J shook his head. “Sometimes the truth is hard to stomach even when you want to know it.”

Vance and Colby walked in behind Zinnia a few moments later. Colby stopped when he saw Aisi finishing her puke fest. He reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a miniature bottle of mouthwash. He thrust it toward Aisi. “Happens to me all the time. I always come prepared.”

Aisi accepted the bottle with a shaking hand and a rueful smile. “I don’t even want to know why you blow chunks all the time,” she muttered. She turned to Father J. “Where’s the bathroom?”

Father J pointed to a small door just off the living room. She closed it behind her once she crammed herself into the tiny room, which had barely enough room for a toilet, sink, and shower, and the walls sported some of the most hideous wallpaper she’d ever seen. The giant orange and blue flowers made her nauseous again, so she closed her eyes as she swished the mouth rinse as she leaned over the blue, scalloped sink. Over the sound of the faucet’s rushing water she could hear Zinnia teasing Colby about throwing up, and Colby going into detail about his great love of strawberry milkshakes despite his fierce lactose intolerance.

Aisi felt incredibly tired all of a sudden. The sound of water falling into the sink soothed her, but images from the pond kept returning. She realized she wasn’t angry anymore at her father for hiding the truth. She was mad that she couldn’t escape from the awful images leftover from the vision. She closed her eyes and focused hard on the laughter in the next room, clearly heard through the trailer’s thin walls. She discovered that she could actually see them, or she thought she did. She focused more intently on the sound of Zinnia’s voice. When she did, the image in her mind grew sharp and clear.

“Aisi, are you okay?”

Aisi felt a thrill. She could hear the voice through the wall, and in her mind she could see Zinnia saying them at the same time.
Cool
. “I’m good,” she called back. She took another deep swig of mouthwash, emptying the bottle. She swished a few more times, spat into the sink, and then rinsed her face. She patted it dry with a threadbare towel, and then opened the door and tossed the empty bottle back at Colby. He caught it with a free hand and grinned.

“Thanks,” she said as she rejoined the group. She glanced at Vance, who looked weird all of a sudden. He looked at Colby and Zinnia very uncomfortably, as though any display of affection seemed painful to him. The two were snuggled up together on Father J’s couch, holding hands and smiling at her.

“So are you okay?” Zinnia repeated, a concerned look on her face.

“All is well,” Aisi assured her.

“Great!” she said excitedly. “Colby and I were thinking of heading over to that creepy house across the street and playing with Vance’s equipment.”

Colby burst out laughing. “That just sounds so wrong!” Vance shook his head, and Zinnia giggled. Vance winced.

“Gutter brain,” she teased. “Anyway, I always heard that place was haunted but I’m too chicken to check it out alone. With real ghost hunters, I might not be so scared.”

“Should I stay close, just in case?” Colby asked. “To protect you?”

“Totally.”

Aisi rolled her eyes. “I have a feeling he would stay close no matter what, Zin. Looks like you guys are already…you know. Together.”

Zinnia blushed, something Aisi had never seen her do, and she looked questioningly at Colby. He smiled and pulled her closer. Zinnia looked up at her bestie, flustered but smiling. “So are we gonna go check this place out or what?”

Aisi pulled a face. “I don’t think so. I don’t like it over there.”

Zinnia looked disappointed. “Why? What’s the matter? Scared of a little haunted house?”

Aisi sighed. Zinnia moved into the big house on the hill on the other side of town when they were in fifth grade. She didn’t know. “Zin, you know how my twin vanished when I was younger?”

Zinnia looked confused. “Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“That house is where we lived when she disappeared,” Aisi explained. “I don’t like the place. It’s been empty since we left it, and I’d be totally and completely happy if it stayed that way. I wouldn’t care if it burned down, actually.”

Zinnia immediately looked at her apologetically. “I’m sorry, Aisi. I had no idea…” Then a look of indignant outrage crossed her face. “But why would you not tell me something like that? I tell you everything! You can’t even tell me the most interesting thing about this town is the same place your sister got taken?”

A surge of anger swelled in Aisi’s chest. “I was too busy taking care of the mother who went all whack-a-doodle when Nakia vanished, and raising the little brother she’s too crazy to raise herself to bother telling you the whole story. My bad, sorry,” she snapped. Through the corner of her eye, she could see Vance smiling, looking pleased. Something about him was not right.

“If you want to go to the house, I will take you,” a voice said from the corner. Vance reached toward his own throat as he spoke. He hummed, feeling the vibrations made by his own voice box with a look of wonder, like speaking was a new sensation for him. The voice clearly came from Vance, yet it sounded so wrong.

Wrong, but familiar.

He stretched and fidgeted, looking at his hands and feet as if he had never seen anything so interesting. He wrenched his neck back and forth, feeling it as he rolled his shoulders. “You have to promise me, however, that if I take you, you are prepared for what is to come. Are you ready for that, Zinnia?”

A chill ran down Aisi’s spine. She turned to look fully at Vance for the first time since she’d seen the vision, and she realized that something with him was very, very wrong. He turned to them and looked at Aisi. His eyes met hers, and a gleam of red behind them glared out at her.

“Aw, crap!” she moaned.

Aisi and Father J realized at the same moment that Vance was possessed. He grabbed the Bible from his coffee table, clutching it firmly and reciting the words of the exorcism without bothering to open any pages. Aisi reached her hand toward the gilded cross on the wall. It flew obediently into her hands, and she held it toward him as she too began yelling at him in Latin. Zinnia, looking confused, crawled up the back side of the couch as she backed away in terror.

Vance stood in the middle of the room, arms thrust wide and legs spread. His head rolled back in fiendish laughter. “Colby, Zinnia, grab him and hold him!” Aisi cried. She cast her eyes on a small arm chair in the corner, and it zoomed across the floor and hit Vance in the back of the knees. He fell back into the chair, still laughing maniacally.

“Grab him!” she ordered. Zinnia and Colby complied. They seemed confused and frightened, but they held Vance firmly as he thrashed wildly in the chair, still laughing. He threw his head back and his face turned red and then purple as he grunted and strained against them. Zinnia quaked, looking lost and scared but determined to help her friend.

“Let the snare which he knoweth not come upon him, and let the net which he hath hidden, catch him, and into that very snare let him fall!” Father J thundered. “Let the mercies of the Lord come to our aid. Seize the dragon, the ancient serpent! Cast him into the bottomless pit, so that he may no more seduce the nations!”

“What is going on?” Colby cried as Vance suddenly stopped laughing and started to snarl and snap at his captors, looking more like a caged animal than a human. His body writhed and jerked as if in pain, and he scratched anything he could reach. His eyes rolled back in his head. Zinnia started to sit back and release her grip, and Vance jerked to life and lunged at her. He drew blood as he clawed at her thigh, looking up at her with red eyes. “
Succorus! Facio!
”

The demon possessing Vance was calling for help. Aisi felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, and as she looked up a sinking feeling hit her. Her heart sank. “There are more, Father J.”

He nodded grimly. “I have this one. You get rid of the audience,” he instructed, never taking his eyes from the thrashing figure before him. Colby and Zinnia hung onto Vance, keeping him in the chair. The blood from the gash on Zinnia’s leg ran down and dripped onto the carpet.

Aisi nodded back, resolute. “I can do this,” she said, mostly to herself.
“Revertamur ad infernum, spiritus obscurus. Abi in malam rem!”
The black shadows near the ceiling grunted and glared, but they sank through the floor at her command.

“Deliver this spirit enslaved by the evil one,” Father J beseeched, powerful and fearsome. “Return to your pit of despair, evil one, with the vanquished and damned! Free this innocent soul from malefice, evil, despair, and make him whole. Be with me, all that is good, and unite with this heart to expel the evil one!”

With a shudder, Vance slipped from out of Colby’s and Zinnia’s grasp and slumped to the floor. His eyes, partially open, showed only the whites. Zinnia bent and clutched his arms until her knuckles were white. “Is he gonna lash out again?”

Father J shook his head. “The evil one has gone,” he replied, kneeling down next to Vance and carefully placing two fingers on the artery in his neck, feeling for a pulse.

Zinnia let him go and sat back abruptly, holding her hands in front of herself protectively. “Is he dead?” she shrieked.

“Sometimes the exorcism kills them,” he answered grimly, “but Vance is still alive.”

Colby scooted away until his back rested against the wall. He pulled his knees toward his chest and rested his chin on them, looking pensively at his cousin. “Will he be okay?”

Father J nodded. “He should be. His body is incredibly weakened, but he’ll be back, and he won’t remember anything.”

Colby smiled weakly. “He won’t like that at all. He’ll make me give him the play by play for weeks.”

Aisi managed a feeble smile too. “He’ll probably be mad he can’t use himself in one of his term projects, won’t he?”

Colby nodded, running his hands shakily through his blond hair. “Something like that, yeah.” He looked squarely at Aisi and Father J. “So are either of you going to tell me what just happened?”

Aisi looked to Father J for help. “Honestly? I have no idea, other than your cousin just got possessed.”

Zinnia stood and grabbed a few tissues from the bathroom to mop the blood from her zebra print pants. “The rip is cool, but this blood probably won’t wash out,” she grumbled. “I love these pants.”

Father J wiped the sweat from his own brow. “Help me move him to the sofa.” When Vance was settled, still unconscious with an ice pack resting on his forehead, Father J sat back in the small chair where the possessed man struggled only moments before. He looked at them thoughtfully for a moment. His childlike exuberance was gone.

“What you need to understand…all of you, but especially Aisi, is that there is real good and real evil in this world. The potential for both lies within all of us. Being one or the other is always a choice. Some spirits are so evil, so determined to hurt people, that they’ve been banished to the depths of the earth. A few manage to escape occasionally, and I usually hear about it eventually and try to help the best I can. For the most part these are small potatoes in the world of evil, a few renegade troublemakers who can do very little damage alone. A few, as Aisi has seen,” he continued, looking at her, “are much more powerful. They have bigger plans and will do all they can to bring about the destruction of mankind.”

“Wait, for real? Why?” Zinnia wailed from the bathroom. “What’s their deal?”

“They’re jealous,” Father J answered simply. “They have no real bodies of their own, and they never will. Aisi has seen that they do come close to one when they amass certain power, which they collect by scaring and feeding off human prey.” Aisi reached again for the pocket with the scratch marks, playing with its frayed edges absentmindedly as the priest spoke. “They can leave marks on us, but they can’t do much damage until they take control of a willing partner. Someone who is too frightened or weak to refuse.” He glanced at Vance, who shifted restlessly on the sofa, and added, “…or too stupid.”

“You mean Vance really let him in?” Colby asked incredulously.

Father J nodded. “He must have. I think before you came here, Aisi, your father warned you not to leave each other alone?”

Aisi nodded mutely, feeling suddenly guilty for letting him out of her sight.

Colby sighed knowingly. “The guy is nuts with all this paranormal stuff. He was probably curious and said something lame like, ‘hey, want to take a test drive?’ just so he could document the experience. Seriously!”

“So…you said they can mark you?” Zinnia asked, limping to join the others, holding the wad of tissues to her thigh. When Father J nodded, she pulled back the towel and the torn flap of her pants. “What do you think this means?” At first glance, the wound looked like nothing more than a deep, messy scrape. As Aisi peered more closely, however, she saw a distinct design emerge. Despite the crusting blood and raw, scabbing flesh, she could clearly see the image of an inverted star sitting on top of globe roughly scratched into her flesh.

“I think it symbolizes this powerful demon’s desire for evil to reign over all the earth,” Father J said sadly.

“I think it means my parents are going to see this and think I just joined a cult of devil worshippers,” Zinnia replied. “That’ll freak out my mom. Awesome, right?” She glanced over at Aisi, a mischievous glint in her eye. In spite of everything that just happened, Aisi managed a real smile. Her best friend was kind of crazy, and she loved it.

Chapter 13: Confessional

Vance’s eyelids fluttered for a moment, and he groaned. Everyone in the room looked at him, their worried eyes darting nervously around when he tried look at them.