The Exorcist (13 page)

Chris returned to the kitchen and added the chore to the list from which Sharon sat working, gave Willie the dinner menu, and returned a call from her agent.

"What about the script?" he wanted to know.

"Yeah, it's great, Ed; let's do it," she told him. "When's it go?"

"Well, your segment's in July, so you'll have to start preparing right away."

"You mean now?"

"I mean now. This isn't acting, Chris. You're involved in a lot of the preproduction. You've got to work with the set designer, the costume designer, the makeup artist, the producer. And you'll have to pick a cameraman and a cutter and block out your shots. C'mon, Chris, you know the drill."

"Oh, shit."

"You've got a problem?"

"Yeah, I do; I've got a problem."

"What's the problem?"

"Well, Regan's pretty sick."

"Oh, I'm Sony. What's wrong?"

"They don't know yet. I'm waiting for some tests. Listen, Ed, I can't leave her."

"So who says to leave her?"

"No, you don't understand, Ed. I need to be at home with her. She needs my attention. Look, I just can't explain it, Ed, it's too complicated, so why don't we just hold off for a while?"

"We can't. They want to try for the Music Hall over Christmas, Chris, and I think that they're pushing it now."

"Oh, for chrissakes, Ed, they can wait two weeks. Now come on!"

"Look, you've bugged me that you want to direct and now all of a---"

"Right, Ed, I know," she interrupted. "Look, I want it; I really want it bad, but you'll just have to tell 'em that I need some more time!"

"And if I do, we're going to blow it. Now that's my opinion. Look, they don't want you anyway, that's not news. They're just doing this for Moore, and I think if they go back to him now and say she isn't too sure she wants to do it yet, he'll have an out. Now come on, Chris, talk sense. Look, You do what you want. I don't care. There's no money in this thing unless it hits. But if you want it, I'm telling you: I ask for a delay and I think we're going to blow it. Now then, what should I tell them?"

"Ahh, boy," sighed Chris.

"It's not easy. I know."

"No, it isn't. Well, listen..."

She thought. Then shook her head. "Ed, they'll just have to wait," she said wearily.

"Your decision."

"Okay, Ed. Let me know."

"I will. I'll be calling. Take it easy."

"You too, Ed. Good-bye."

She hang up the phone in a state of depression and lit up a cigarette. "I talked to Howard, by the way, did I tell you?" she said to Sharon.

"Oh, when? Did you tell him what's happening with Rags?"

"I told him. I told him he ought to come see her."

"Is he coming?"

"I don't know. I don't think so," Chris answered.

"You'd think he'd make the effort."

"Yeah, I know." Chris sighed. "But you've got to understand his hang-up, Shar. That's it. I know that's it."

"What's it?"

"Oh, the whole 'Mr. Chris MacNeil' thing. Rags was a part of it. She was in and he was out. Always me and Rags together on the magazine covers; me and Rags in the layouts; mother and daughter, pixie twins." She tipped ash from her cigarette with a moody forger. "Ah, nuts, who knows. It's all mixed up. But it's hard to get hacked with him, Spar; I Just can't."

She reached out for a book by Sharon's elbow. "So what are you reading?"

"What do you mean? Oh, that. That's for you. I forgot. Mrs. Perrin dropped it by."

"She was here?"

"Yes, this morning. Said she's sorry she missed you and she's going out of town, but she'll call you as soon as she's back."

Chris nodded and glanced at the title of the book: A Study of Devil Worship and Related Occult Phenomena. She opened it and found a penned note from Mary Jo Perrin:

Dear Chris:

I happened by the Georgetown University Library and picked this up for you. It has some chapters about Black Mass. You should read it all, however; I think you'll find the other sections particularly interesting. See you soon.

Mary Jo

"Sweet lady," said Chris.

"Yes, she is," agreed Sharon.

Chris riffled through the pages of the back, "What's the scoop on Black Mass? Pretty hairy?"

"I don't know," answered Sharon. "I haven't read it."

"No good for serenity?"

Sharon stretched and yawned. "Oh, that stuff tuns me off."

"What happened to your Jesus complex?"

"Oh, come on."

Chris slid the book across the table to Sharon. "Here, read it and tell me what happens."

"And get nightmares?"

"What do you think you get paid for?"

"Throwing up."

"I can do that myself," Chris muttered as she pick up the evening paper. "All you have to do is stick your business manager's advice down your throat and you're vomiting blood for a week." Irritably, she put the paper aside. "Would you turn on the radio, Shar? Get the news."

Sharon had dinner at the house with Chris, and then left for a date. She forgot the book. Chris saw it on the table and thought about reading it, but finally she felt too weary. She left it on the table and walked upstairs.

She looked in on Regan, who still seemed to be asleep under the covers, and apparently sleeping through. She checked the window again. Leaving the room, Chris made sure to leave the door wide open and then did the same with her own before getting into bed. She watched part of a movie on television. Then slept.

The following morning, the book about devil worship had vanished from the table.

No one noticed.

CHAPTER THREE

The consulting neurologist pinned up the X-rays again and searched for indentations that would look as if the skull had been pounded like copper with a tiny hammer. Dr. Klein stood behind him with folded arms. They had both looked for lesions and collections of fluid; for a possible shifting of the pineal gland. Now they probed for Lückenshadl Skull, the telltale depressions that would indicate chronic intracranial pressure.

They did not find it. The date was Thursday, April 28.

The consulting neurologist removed his glasses and carefully tucked them into the left breast poet of his jacket. "There's just nothing there, Sam, Nothing I can see."

Klein frowned at the floor with a shake of the head. "Doesn't figure."

"Want to run another series?"

"I don't think so. I'll try an LP."

"Good idea."

"In the meantime, I'd like you to see her."

"How's today?"

"Well, I'm---" Telephone buzzer. "Excuse me." He picked up the telephone. "Yes?"

"Mrs. MacNeil on the phone. Says it's urgent."

"What line?"

"She's on twelve."

He punched the extension button. "Dr. Klein, Mrs. MacNeil. What's the trouble?"

Her voice was distraught and on the brim of hysteria. "Oh, God, doc, it's Regan! Can you come right away?"

'Well, what's wrong?"

"I don't know, doc, I just can't describe it! Oh, for God's sake, come over! Come now!"

"Right away!"

He disconnected and buzzed his receptionist. "Susan, tell Dresner to take my appointments." He hung up the phone and started taking off his jacket. "That's her. You want to come? It's only just across the bridge."

"I've got an hour."

"Let's go."

**********

They were there within minutes, and at the door, where Sharon greeted them, they heard moans and screams of terror from Regan's bedroom. She looked frightened. "I'm Sharon Spencer," she said. "Come on. She's upstairs."

She led them to the door of Regan's bedroom, where she cracked it open and called in, "Doctors,
 
Chris!"

Chris immediately came to the door, her face contorted in a vise of fear. "Oh, my God, come in!" she quavered. "Come on in and take a look at what she's doing!"

"This is Dr.---"

In the middle of the introduction, Klein broke off as he stared at Regan. Shrieking hysterically, she was flailing her arms as her body seemed to fling itself up horizontally into the air above her bed and then slammed dawn savagely onto the mattress. It was happening rapidly and repeated.

"Oh, Mother, make him stop!" she was screeching "Stop him. He's trying to kill me! Stop him Stooopppppp hiiiiiimmmmmmmm, Motherrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

"Oh, my baby!" Chris whimpered as she jerked up a fist to her mouth and bit it. She turned a beseeching look to Klein. "Doc, what is it? What's happening?"

He shook his head, his gaze fixed on Regan as the odd phenomenon continued. She would lift about a foot each time and then fall with a wrenching of her breath, as if unseen hands had picked her up and thrown her down.

Chris shaded her eyes with a trembling hand. "Oh, Jesus, Jesus!" she said hoarsely. "Doc, what is it?"

The up and down movements ceased abruptly and the girl twisted feverishly from side to side with her eyes rolled upward into their sockets so that only the whites were exposed.

"Oh, he's burning me... burning me!" Regan was moaning. "Oh, I'm burning! I'm burning!..."

Her legs began rapidly crossing and uncrossing.

The doctors moved closer, one on either side of the bed. Still twisting and jerking, Regan arched her head back, disclosing a swollen, bulging throat. She began to mutter something incomprehensible in an oddly guttural tone.

"...nowonmai... nowonmai..."

Klein reached down to check her pulse.

"Now, let's see what the trouble is, dear," he said gently.

And abruptly was reeling, stunned and staggering, across the room from the force of a vicious backward swing of Regan's arm as the girl sat up, her face contorted with a hideous rage.

"The sow is mine!" she bellowed in a coarse and powerful voice. "She is mine! Keep away from her! She is mine!"

A yelping laugh gushed up from her throat, and then she fell on her back as if someone had pushed her. She pulled up her nightgown, exposing her genitals. "Fuck me! Fuck me!" she screamed at the doctors, and with both her hands began masturbating frantically.

Moments later, Chris ran from the room with a stifled sob when Regan put her fingers to her mouth and licked them.

As Klein approached the bedside, Regan seemed to hug herself, her hands caressing her arms.

"Ah, yes, my pearl..." she crooned in that strangely coarsened voice. Her eyes were closed as if in ecstasy. "My child... my flower... my pearl..."

Then again she was twisting from side to side, moaning meaningless syllables over and over. And abruptly sat up with eyes staring wide with helpless terror.

She mewed like a cat.

Then barked.

Then neighed.

And then, bending at the waist, started whirling her torso around in rapid strenuous circles. She gasped for breath. "Oh, stop him!" she wept. stop him! It hurts! Make him stop! Make him stop! I can't breathe!"

Klein had seen enough. He fetched his medical bag to the window and quickly began to prepare an injection.

The neurologist remained beside the bed and saw Regan fall backward as if from a shove. Her eyes rolled upward into their sockets again, and rolling from side to side, she began to mutter rapidly in guttural tones. The neurologist leaned closer and tried to make it out. Then he saw Klein gently beckoning. He moved to him.

"I'm giving her Librium," Klein told him guardedly, holding the syringe to the light of the window. "But you're going to have to hold her."

The neurologist nodded. He seemed preoccupied. He inclined his head to the side as if listening to the muttering from the bed.

"What's she saying?" Klein whispered.

"I don't know. Just gibberish. Nonsense syllables." Yet his own explanation seemed to leave him unsatisfied. "She says it as if it means something, though. it's got cadence."

Klein nodded toward the bed and they approached quietly from either side. As they come, she went rigid, as if in the stiffening grip of tetany, and the doctors looked at each other significantly. Then looked again to Regan as she started to arch her body upward into an impossible position, bending it backward like a bow until the brow of her head had touched her feet. She was screaming in pain.

The doctors eyed each her with questioning surmise. Then Klein gave a signal to the neurologist. But before the consultant could seize her, Regan fell limp in a faint and wet the bed.

Klein leaned over and rolled up her eyelid. Checked her pulse. "She'll be out for a while," he murmured. "I think she convulsed. Don't you?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Well, let's take some insurance," said Klein.

Deftly he administered the injection.

"Well, what do you think?" Klein asked the consultant as he pressed a circle of sterile tape against the puncture.