Текст книги "The Exorcist"

Автор книги: William Peter Blatty

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    "Of course."

    "Of course."

    "Strange things," the detective brooded. "Strange.– Listen, Father," he began on a reticent tack. "Listen, doctor.... Am I crazy, or could there be maybe a witch coven here in the District right now? Right today?"

    "Oh, come on," said Karras.

    "Then there could."

    "Didn't get that."

    "Now I'll be the doctor," the detective announced to him, punching at the air with an index finger. "You didn't say no, but instead you were smart-ass again. That's defensive, good Father, defensive. You're afraid you'll look gullible, maybe; a superstitious priest in front of Kinderman the mastermind, the rationalist'

    ' –he was tapping the finger at his temple–"the genius beside you, here, the walking Age of Reason. Right? Am I right?"

    The Jesuit stared at him now with mounting surmise and respect. "Why, that's very astute," he remarked.

    "Well, all right, then," Kinderman grunted. "So I'll ask you again: could there maybe be witch covens here in the District?"

    "Well, I really wouldn't know," answered Karras thoughtfully, arms folded across his chest. "But in parts of Europe they say Black Mass."

    "Today?"

    "Today."

    "You mean just like the old days, Father? Look, I read about those things, incidentally, with the sex and the statues and who knows whatever. Not meaning to disgust you, by the way, but they did all those things? It's for real?"

    "I don't know."

    "Your opinion, then, Father Defensive."

    The Jesuit chuckled. "All right, then; I think it's for real. Or at least I suspect so. But most of my reasoning's based on pathology. Sure, Black Mass. But anyone doing those things is a very disturbed human being, and disturbed in a very special way. There's a clinical name for that kind of disturbance, in fact; it's called Satanism–means people who can't have any sexual pleasure unless it's connected to a blasphemous action. Well, it's not that uncommon, not even today, and Black Mass was just used as the justification."

    "Again, please forgive me, but the things with the statues of Jesus and Mary?"

    "What about them?"

    "They're true?"

    "Well, I think this might interest you as a policeman." His scholarly interest aroused and stirring, Karras' manner grew quietly animated. "The records of the Paris police still carry the case of a couple of monks from a nearby monastery–let's see..." He scratched his head as he tried to recall. "Yes, the one at Crépy, I believe. Well, whatever." He shrugged. "Close by. At any rate, the monks came into an inn and got rather belligerent about wanting a bed for three. Well, the third they were carrying: a life-size statue of the Blessed Mother."

    "Ah, boy, that's shocking," breathed the detective. "Shocking."

    "But true. And a fair indication that what you've been reading is based on fact."

    "Well, the sex, maybe so, maybe so. I can see. That's a whole other story altogether. Never mind. But the ritual murders now, Father? That's true? Now come on! Using blood from the newborn babies?" The detective was alluding to something else he had read in the book on witchcraft, describing how the unfrocked priest at Black Mass would at times slit the wrist of a newborn infant so that the blood poured into a chalice and later was consecrated and consumed in the form of communion. "That's just like the stories they used to tell about the Jews," the detective continued. "How they stole Christian babies and drank their blood. Look, forgive me, but your people told all those stories."

    "If we did, forgive me."

    "You're absolved, you're absolved."

    Something dark, something sad; passed across the priest's eyes, like the shadow of pain briefly remembered. He quickly fixed his eyes on the path just ahead.

    "Well, I really don't know about ritual murder," said Karras. "I don't. But a midwife in Switzerland once confessed to the murder of thirty or forty babies for use at Black Mass. Oh, well, maybe she was tortured," he amended. "Who knows? But she certainly told a convincing story. She said she'd hide a long, thin needle up her sleeve, so that when she was delivering tire baby, she'd slip out the needle and stick it through the crown of the baby's head, and then hide the needle again. No marks," he said, glancing at Kinderman. "The baby looked stillborn. You've heard of the prejudice European Catholics used to have against midwives?

    Well, that's how it started."

    "That's frightening."

    "This century hasn't got the lock on insanity. Anyway– "Wait a minute, wait now, forgive me. These stories–they were told by some people who were tortured, correct? So they're basically not so reliable. They signed the confessions and later, the machers, they filled in the blanks. I mean, then there was nothing like habeas corpus, no writs of 'Let My People Go,' so to speak. Am I right? Am I right?"

    "Yes, you're right, but then too, many of the confessions were voluntary."

    "So who would volunteer such things?"

    "Well, possibly people who were mentally disturbed."

    "Aha! Another reliable source!"

    "Well, of course you're quite right, Lieutenant. I'm just playing devil's advocate. But one thing that sometimes we tend to forget is that people psychotic enough to confess to such things might conceivably be psychotic enough to have done them. For example, the myths about werewolves. So, fine, they're ridiculous: no one can turn himself into a wolf. But what if a man were so disturbed that he not only thought that he was a werewolf, but also acted like one?"

    "Terrible. What is this–theory now, Father, or fact?

    "Well, there's William Stumpf, for example. Or Peter I can't remember. Anyway, a German in the sixteenth century who thought he was a werewolf. He murdered perhaps twenty or thirty young children"

    "You mean, he confessed it?"

    "Well, yes, but I think the confession was valid."

    "How so?"

    "When they caught him, he was eating the brains of his two young daughters-in-law."

    From the practice field, crisp in the thin, clear April sunlight, came echoes of chatter and ball against bat. "C'mon, Mullins, let's shag it, let's go, get the lead out!"

    They had come to the parking lot, priest and detective. They walked now in silence.

    When they came to the squad car, Kinderman absently reached out toward the handle of the door. For a moment he paused, then lifted a moody look to Karras.

    "So what am I looking for, Father?" he asked him.

    "A madman," said Damien Karras softly "Perhaps someone on drugs."

    The detective thought it over, then silently nodded. He turned to the priest. "Want a ride?" he asked, opening the door of the squad car "Oh, thanks, but it's just a short walk."

    "Never mind that; enjoy!" Kinderman gestured impatiently, motioning Karras to get into the car. "You can tell all your friends you went riding in a police car."

    The Jesuit grinned and slipped into the back.

    "Very good, very good," the detective breathed hoarsely, then squirmed in beside him and closed the door. "No walk is short," he commented. "None."

    With Karras guiding, they drove toward the modern Jesuit residence hall on Prospect Street, where the priest had taken new quarters. To remain in the cottage, he'd felt, might encourage the men he had counseled to continue to seek his professional help.

    "You like movies, Father Karras?"

    'Very much."

    "You saw Lear?'"

    "Can't afford it."

    "I saw it. I get passes."

    'That's nice."'

    "I get passes for the very best shows. Mrs. K., she gets tired, though; never likes to go."

    "That's too bad."

    "It's too bad, yes, I hate to go alone. You know, I love to talk film, to discuss, to critique' He was staring out the window, gaze averted to the side and away from the priest.

    Karras nodded silently, looking down at his large and very powerful hands. They were clasped between his legs. A moment passed. Then Kinderman hesitantly turned with a wistful look. "Would you like to see a film with me sometime, Father? It's free... I get passes," he added quickly.

    The priest looked at him, grinning. "As Elwood P. Dowd used to say in Harvey, Lieutenant. When?"

    "Oh, I'll call you, I'll call you!" The detective beam eagerly.

    They'd come to the residence hall and parked. Karras put a hand on the door and clicked it open "Please do. Look, I'm sorry that I wasn't much help."

    "Never mind, you were help." Kinderman waved limply. Karras was climbing out of the car. "In fact, for a Jew who's trying to pass, you're a very nice man."

    Karras turned, closed the door and leaned into the window with a faint, warm smile "Do people ever tell you look like Paul Newman?"

    "Always. And believe me, inside this body, Mr. Newman is struggling to get out. Too crowded. Inside," he said, "is also Clark Gable."

    Karras waved with a grin and started away.

    "Father, wait!"

    Karras turned. The detective was squeezing out of the car.

    "Listen, Father, I forgot," he puffed, approaching "Slipped my mind. You know, that card with the dirty writing on it? The one that was found in the church?"

    "You mean the altar card?"

    "Whatever. It's still around?"

    "Yes, I've got it in my room. I was checking the Latin. You want it?"

    "Yes, maybe it shows something. Maybe."

    "Just a second, I'll get it."

    While Kinderman waited outside by the squad car, the Jesuit went to his ground-floor room facing out on Prospect Street and found the card. He came outside again and gave it to Kinderman.

    "Maybe some fingerprints," Kinderman wheezed as he looked it over. Then, "No, wait, you've been handling it," he seemed to realize quickly. "Good thinking. Before you, the Jewish Mr. Moto." He was fumbling at the card's clear plastic sheath. "Ah, no, wait, it comes out, it comes out, it comes out!" Then he glanced up at Karras with incipient dismay. "You've been handling the inside as well, Kirk Douglas?"

    Karras grinned ruefully, nodding his head.

    "Never mind, maybe still we could find something else. Incidentally, you studied this?"

    "Yes, I did."

    'Your conclusion?"

    Karras shrugged "Doesn't look like the work of a prankster At first, I thought maybe a student But I doubt it. Whoever did that thing is pretty deeply disturbed."

    "As you said."

    "And the Latin..." Karras brooded. "It's not just flawless, Lieutenant, it's–well, it's got a definite style that's very individual. It's as if whoever did it's used to thinking in Latin."

    "Do priests?"

    "Oh, come on, now!"

    "Just answer the question, please, Father Paranoia."

    "Well, yes; at a point in their training, they do. At least, Jesuits and some of the other orders. At Wood-stock Seminary, certain philosophy courses were taught in Latin."

    "How so?"

    "For precision of thought. It's like law."

    "Ah, I see."

    Karras suddenly looked earnest, grave. "Look, Lieutenant, can I tell you who I really think did it?"

    The detective leaned closer. "No, who?"

    "Dominicans. Go pick on them."

    Karras smiled, waved good-bye and walked away.

    "I lied!" the detective called after him sullenly. "You look like Sal Mineo!"

    Kinderman watched as the priest gave another little wave and entered the residence hall, then he turned and got into the squad car. He wheezed, sitting motionless, staring at the floorboard. "He hums, he hums, that man," he murmured. "Just like a tuning fork under the water." For a moment longer he held the look; and then turned and told the driver, "All right, back to headquarters. Hurry. Break laws." They pulled away.

Karras' new room was simply furnished: a single bed, a comfortable chair, a desk and bookshelves built into the wall. On the desk was an early photo of his mother, and in silent rebuke on the wall by his bed hung a metal crucifix.

    The narrow room way world enough for him. He cared little for possessions; only that those he had be clean.

    He showered, scrubbing briskly, then slipped on khaki pants and a T-shirt and ambled to dinner in the priests' refectory, where he spotted pink-cheeked Dyer sitting alone at a table in a corner. He moved to join him.

    "Hi, Damien," said Dyer. The young priest was wearing a faded Snoopy sweatshirt.

    Karras bowed his head as he stood by a chair and murmured a rapid grace. Then he blessed himself, sat and greeted his friend.

    "How's the loafer?" asked Dyer as Karras spread a napkin on his lap.

    "Who's a loafer? I'm working."

    "One lecture a week?"

    "It's the quality that counts," said Karras. "What's dinner?"

    "Can't you smell it?"

    "Oh, shit, is it dog day?" Knackwurst and sauerkraut.

    "It's the quantity that counts," replied Dyer serenely.

    Karras shook his head and reached out for the aluminum pitcher of milk.

    "I wouldn't do that," murmured Dyer without expression as he buttered a slice of whole wheat bread. "See the bubbles? Saltpeter."

    "I need it," said Karras. As he tipped up his glass to fill it with milk, he could hear someone joining them at the table.

    "Well, I finally read that book," said the newcomer brightly.

    Karras glanced up and felt aching dismay, felt the soft crushing weight, press of lead, press of bone, as he recognized the priest who had come to him recently for counseling, the one who could not make friends.

    "Oh, and what did you think of it?" Karras asked. He set down the pitcher as if it were the booklet for a broken novena.

    The young priest talked, and half an hour later, Dyer was table-hopping, spiking the refectory with laughter. Karras checked his watch. "Want to pick up a jacket?" he asked the young priest. "We can go across the street and take a look at the sunset."

    Soon they were leaning against a railing at the top of the steps down to M Street. End of day. The burnished rays of the setting sun flamed glory at the clouds of the western sky and shattered in rippling, crimson dapples on the darkening waters of the river. Once Karras met God in this sight. Long ago. Like a lover forsaken, he still kept the rendezvous.

    "Sure a sight," said the younger man.

    "Yes, it is," agreed Karras. "I try to get out here every night."

    The campus clock boomed out the hour. It was 7: 00 P. M.

    At 7: 23, Lieutenant Kinderman pondered a spectrographic analysis showing that the paint from Regan's sculpture matched a scraping of paint from the desecrated statue of the Virgin Mary.

    And at 8: 47, in a slum in the northeast section of the city, an impassive Karl Engstrom emerged from a rat-infested tenement house, walked three blocks south to a bus stop, waited alone for a minute, expressionless, then crumpled, sobbing, against a lamppost.

    Lieutenant Kinderman, at the time, was at the movies.

CHAPTER SIX

On Wednesday, May 11, they were back in the house. They put Regan to bed, installed a lock on the shutters and stripped all the mirrors from her bedroom and bathroom.

    "... fewer and fewer lucid moments, and now there's a total blacking out of her consciousness during the fits, I'm afraid. That's new and would seem to eliminate genuine hysteria. In the meantime, a symptom or two in the area of what we call parapsychic phenomena have..."

    Dr. Klein came by, and Chris attended with Sharon as he drilled them in proper procedures for administering Sustagen feedings to Regan during her periods of coma. He inserted the nasogastric tubing. "First..."

    Chris forced herself to watch and yet not see her daughter's face; to grip at the words that the doctor was saying and push away others she'd heard at the clinic. They seeped through her consciousness like fog through the branches of a willow tree.

    "Now you stated 'No religion' here, Mrs. MacNeil. Is that right? No religious education at all?"

    "Oh, well, maybe just 'God.' You know, general. Why?"

    "Well, for one thing, the content of much of her raving–when it isn't that gibberish she's been spouting–is religiously oriented. Now where do you think she might get that?"

    "Well, give me a for instance."

    "Oh, 'Jesus and Mary, sixty-nine,' for ex–"

    Klein had guided the tubing into Regan's stomach. "First you check to see if fluid's gotten into the lung," he instructed, pinching on the tube in order to clamp off the flow of Sustagen. "If it..."

    "... syndrome of a type of disorder that you rarely ever see anymore, except among primitive cultures. We call it somnambuliform possession. Quite frankly, we don't know much about it except that it starts with some conflict or guilt that eventually leads to the patient's delusion that his body's been invaded by an alien intelligence; a spirit, if you will. In times gone by, when belief in the devil was fairly strong, the possessing entity was usually a demon. In relatively modern cases, however, it's mostly the spirit of someone dead, often someone the patient has known or seen and is able unconsciously to mimic, like the voice and the mannerisms, even the features of the face, at times. They..."

    After the gloomy Dr. Klein had left the house, Chris phoned her agent in Beverly Hills and announced to him lifelessly that she wouldn't be directing the segment. Then she called Mrs. Perrin. She was out. Chris hung up the phone with a mounting feeling of desperation. Someone. She would have to have help from...

    "... Cases where it's spirits of the dead are more easy to deal with; you don't find the rages in most of those cases, or the hyperactivity and motor excitement.

    However, in the other main type of somnambuliform possession, the new personality's always malevolent, always hostile toward the first. Its primary aim, in fact, is to damage, torture and sometimes even kill it."

    A set of restraining straps was delivered to the house and Chris stood watching, wan and spent, while Karl affixed them to Regan's bed and then to her wrists. Then as Chris moved a pillow in an effort to center it under Regan's head, the Swiss straightened up and looked pityingly at the child's ravaged face. "She is going to be well?" he asked. A hint of some emotion had tinged his words; they were lightly italicized with concern.

    But Chris could not answer. As Karl was addressing her, she'd picked up an object that had been tucked under Regan's pillow. "Who put this crucifix here?" she demanded.

    "The syndrome is only the manifestation of some conflict, of some guilt, so we try to get at it, find out what it is. Well, the best procedure in a case like this is hypnotherapy; however, we can't seem to put her under. So then we took a shot at narcosynthesis–that's a treatment that uses narcotics–but, frankly, that looks like another dead end."

    "So what's next?'"

    "Mostly time, I'm afraid, mostly time. We'll just have to keep trying, and hope for a change. In the meantime, she's going to have to be hospitalized for a..."

    Chris found Sharon in the kitchen setting up her typewriter on the table. She had just brought it up from the basement playroom. Willie sliced carrots at the sink for a stew.

    "Was it you who put the crucifix under her pillow, Shar?" Chris asked with the strain of tension.

    "What do you mean?" asked Sharon, fuddled.

    "You didn't?"

    "Chris, I don't even know what you're talking about. Look, I told you. I told you on the plane, all I've ever said to Rags is 'God made the world' and maybe things about–"

    "Fine, Sharon, fine; I believe you, but–"

    "Me, I don't put it," growled Willie defensively.

    "Somebody put it there, dammit!" Chris erupted, then wheeled on Karl as he entered the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. "Look, I'll ask you again," she gritted in a tone that verged on shrillness: "Did you put that crucifix under her pillow?"

    "No, madam," he answered levelly. He was folding ice cubes into a face towel. "No. No cross."

    "That fucking cross didn't just walk up there, damn you! One of you is lying!" She was shrieking with a rage that stunned the room. "Now you tell me who put it there, who–"' Abruptly she slumped to a chair and began to sob into trembling hands. "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm doing!" she wept. "Oh, my God, I don't know what I'm doing!"

    Willie and Karl watched silently as Sharon came up beside her and kneaded her neck with a comforting hand. "Hey, okay. It's okay."

    Chris wiped at her face with the back of a sleeve. "yeah, I guess whoever did it"–she sniffled–"was only trying to help."

    "Look, I'm telling you again and you'd better believe it, I'm not about to put her in a goddamn asylum!"

    "It's–"

    "I don't care what you call it! I'm not letting her out of my sight!"

    "Well, I'm sorry."

    "Yeah, sorry! Christ! Eighty-eight doctors and all you can tell me with all of your bullshit is..."

    Chris smoked a cigarette, tamped it out nervously and went upstairs to look in on Regan. She opened the door. In the gloom of the bedroom, she made out a figure by Regan's bedside, sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair. Karl. What was he doing? she wondered.

    As Chris moved closer, he child not look up, but kept his gaze on the child's face. He had his arm outstretched and was touching it. What was in his hand? As Chris reached the bedside, she saw what it was: the improvised ice pack he had fashioned in the kitchen. Karl was cooling Regan's forehead.

    Chris was touched, stood watching with surprise, and when Karl did not move or acknowledge her presence, she turned and quietly left the room.

    She went to the kitchen, drank black coffee and smoked another cigarette. Then on an impulse she went to the study. Maybe... maybe...

    "... an outside chance, since possession is loosely related to hysteria insofar as the origin of the syndrome is almost always autosuggestive. Your daughter must have known about possession, believed in possession, and known about some of its symptoms, so that now her unconscious is producing the syndrome. If that can be established, you might take a stab at a form of cure that's autosuggestive. I think of it as shock treatment in these cases, though most other therapists wouldn't agree, I suppose. Oh, well–as I said, it's a very outside chance, and since you're opposed to your daughter being hospitalized, I'll–"

    "Name it, for Gods sake! What is it?!"

    "Have you ever heard of exorcism, Mrs. MacNeil?"

    The books in the study were part of the furnishings and Chris was unfamiliar with them. Now she was scanning the titles, searching, searching....

    "... stylized ritual now out of date in which rabbis and priests tried to drive out the spirit. It's only the Catholics who haven't discarded it yet, but they keep it pretty much in the closet as sort of an embarrassment, I think. But to someone who thinks that he's really possessed, I would say that the ritual's rather impressive. It used to work, in fact, although not the reason they thought, of course; it was purely the -force of suggestion. The victim's belief in possession helped cause it, or at least the appearance of the a syndrome, and in just the same way his belief in the power of the exorcism can make it disappear. It's–ah, you're frowning. Well, perhaps I should tell you about the Australian aborigines. They're convinced that if some wizard thinks a 'death ray' at them from a distance, why, they're definitely going to die, you see. And the fact is that they do! They just lie down and slowly die! And the only thing that saves them, at times, is a similar form of suggestion: a counteracting 'ray' by another wizard!"

    "Are you telling me to take her to a witch doctor?"

    "Yes, I suppose that I'm saying just that: as a desperate measure, perhaps to a priest. That's a rather bizarre little piece of advice, I know, even dangerous, in fact, unless we can definitely ascertain whether Regan knew anything at all about possession, and particularly exorcism, before this all came on. Do you think she might have read it?"

    "No, l don't."

    "Seen a movie about it sometime? Something on television?"

    "No."

    "Read the gospels, perhaps? The New Testament?"

    "Why?"

    "There are quite a few accounts of possession in them; of exorcisms by Christ. The descriptions of the symptoms, in fact, are the same as in possession today. If you–"

    "Look, it's no good. Never mind, just forget it! That's all I need is to have her father hear that I called in a bunch of..."

    Chris's index fingernail clicked slowly from binding to binding. Nothing. No Bible. No New Testament. Not a– Hold it!

    Her eyes darted quickly back to a title on the bottom shelf. The volume on witchcraft that Mary Jo Perrin had sent her. Chris plucked it out from the shelf and turned to the table of contents, running her thumbnail down the...

    There!

    The title of a chapter pulsed like a heartthrob: "States of Possession."

    Chris closed the book and her eyes at the same time, wondering, wondering....

    Maybe... just maybe...

    She opened her eyes and walked slowly to the kitchen. Sharon was typing. Chris held up the book. "Did you read this, Shar?"

    Sharon kept typing, never glancing up. "Read what?" she answered.

    "This book on witchcraft"

    "No."

    "Did you put it in the study?"

    "No. Never touched it."

    "Where's Willie?-"

    "At the market."

    Chris nodded, considering. Then went back upstairs to Regan's bedroom. She showed Karl the book. Did you put this in the study, Karl? On the bookshelf?"

    "No, madam."

    "Maybe Willie," Chris murmured as she stared at the book. Soft thrills of surmise rippled through her. Were the doctors at Barringer Clinic right? Was this it? Had Regan plucked her disorder through autosuggestion from the pages of this book? Would she find her symptoms listed here? Something specific that Regan was doing?

    Chris sat at the table, opened to the chapter on possession and began to search, to search, to read: Immediately derivative of the prevalent belief in demons was the phenomenon known as possession, a state in which many individuals believed that their physical and mental functions had been invaded and were being controlled by either a demon (most common in the period under discussion) or the spirit of someone dead. There is no period of history or quarter of the globe where this phenomenon has not been reported, and in fairly constant terms, and yet it is still to be adequately explained. Since Traugott Oesterreich's definitive study, first published in 1921, very little has been added to the body of knowledge, the advances of psychiatry notwithstanding.

    Not fully explained? Chris frowned. She'd had a different impression from the doctors.

    What is known is the following: that various people, at various times, have undergone massive transformations so complete that those around them feel they are dealing with another person. Not only the voice, the mannerisms, facial expressions and characteristic movements are altered, but the subject himself now thinks of himself as totally distinct from the original person and as having a name–whether human or demonic–and separate history of its own....

    The symptoms. Where were the symptoms? Chris wondered impatiently.

    ... In the Malay Archipelago, where possession is even today an everyday, common occurrence, the possessing spirit of someone dead often causes the possessed to mimic its gestures, voice and mannerisms so strikingly, that relatives of the deceased will burst into tears. But aside from so-called quasi-possession–those cases that are ultimately reducible to fraud, paranoia and hysteria–the problem has always lain with interpreting the phenomena, the oldest interpretation being the spiritist, an impression that is likely to be strengthened by the fact that the intruding personality may have accomplishments quite foreign to the first. In the demoniacal form of possession, for example, the "demon" may sneak in languages unknown to the first personality, or...

    There! Something! Regan's gibberish! An attempt at a language? She read on quickly.

    ... or manifest various parapsychic phenomena, telekinesis for example: the movement of objects without application of material force.

    The rappings? The flinging up and down on the bed?

    ... In cases of possession by the dead, there are manifestations such as Oesterreich's account of a monk who, abruptly, while possessed, became a gifted and brilliant dancer although he had never, before his possession, had occasion to dance so much as a step. So impressive, at times, are these manifestations that Jung, the psychiatrist, after studying a case at first hand, could offer only partial explanation far what he was certain could "not have been fraud"...

    Worrisome. The tone of this was worrisome.

    ... and William James, the greatest psychologist that America has ever produced, resorted to positing "the plausibility of the spiritualist interpretation of the phenomenon" after closely studying the so-called "Watseka Wonder," a teenaged girl in Watseka, Illinois, who became indistinguishable in personality from a girl named Mary Roff who had died in a state insane asylum twelve years prior to the possession...

    Frowning, Chris did not hear the doorbell chime; did not hear Sharon stop typing to rise and go answer it.

    The demoniacal form of possession is usually thought to have had its origin in early Christianity; yet in fact both possession and exorcism pre-date the time of Christ. The ancient Egyptians as well as the earliest civilizations of the Tigris and the Euphrates believed that physical and spiritual disorders were caused by invasion of the body by demons. The following, for example, is the formula for exorcism against maladies of children in ancient Egypt: "Go hence, thou who comest in darkness, whose nose is turned backwards, whose face is upside down. Hast thou come to kiss this child? I will not let the..."

    "Chris?"