Harness (Death’s own pale horses) and scholarly plough the sands, 7/?
Florence is one part of CO that could still, legitimately, be called rural. The ‘Welcome to’ sign boasts a population of 3000. Several shops are boarded up. There’s a gas station, the Super 8 and a doctor’s surgery on the main drag. Not much else.
It’s May, and the engine is heating up with the day as the sun climbs. Bobby took the truck. The motel parking lot has four other vehicles in it, including Rufus’s shitty Arrow, miraculously still juddering along. Bobby gains a little respect for it.
“Luther…Vandross?” he asks the clerk, feeling vaguely ridiculous.
“At your service,” says Rufus from behind him, and he jumps, nearly drops his pack before Rufus grabs him up in a rough hug, which he awkwardly returns. There’s a new scar on Rufus’s chin, which he rubs theatrically as he catches Bobby looking.
“’s what you get for shaving with a straight edge,” he says, and winks.
“Right,” says Bobby.
“You checkin in?” asks the clerk.
“He’ll room with me,” says Rufus.
The clerk shrugs like, ‘your funeral’, and goes back to reading the paper.
“So?” Bobby asks once the door’s shut behind them. “Fill me in.”
“Thing’s possessed four people in eight weeks. Kids,” Rufus shakes his head. “Gets its jollies possessing children and using them to kill the parents. All the children have some kind of exceptional talent: this last kid was an art prodigy.
“I heard about this,” Bobby scans the newspaper Rufus tosses him. “Weren’t they blaming those new hand held game things the kids are playing?”
“Yeah,” Rufus snorts. “Nothing like a video game to build you up to first degree murder.”
Child murder spree reaches CO blares the headline. The piece is a grimly sensationalist account of a fourteen year old, unnamed for legal reasons, who shot both her parents at point-blank range with her daddy’s old service pistol. The kid was institutionalized, unsurprisingly, tentatively diagnosed with acute schizophrenia.
“Now the thing is, it’s hard to talk to kid witnesses. Hard to get access to them. They’re gonna be keeping this one under lock and key. I figure posing as some big wig psychiatrist specializing in child violence is our best bet. You gotta do that one.”
“Why me?”
Rufus stares at him. Oh. Yeah. He supposes this is one of those times being White gives you the silent leg-up. Huh.
“I got a few names. From journals and stuff. Pick one and we’ll make you up an ID.”
This is how Bobby Singer finds himself clean-shaven, in a rented suit, introducing himself as Dr. Walter J. Zimmermann, leading expert in violent pathologies in adolescence to the staff at the state’s secure unit.
“Dr. Zimmermann,” says the chief psychiatrist, shaking his hand. “It’s a pleasure. I must say, I’ve been wanting to meet you for some time.”
“Well,” says Bobby.
“I must say, the methodology of your latest article on familial and hereditary co-pathologies preceding psychotic breaks strikes me as flawed. Have you seen Jamison’s perspective on the potentials of electrocorticography? Might substantiate some of your more impressionistic findings.”
Bobby hears ‘electro’ and ‘cortico’ is something to do with brains. He wagers: “Jamison is unethical.”
“Well, I can see why you’d think that. The definition of informed consent and all,” The psychiatrist nods.
“Exactly,” Bobby says. “So, the patient?”
“This way,” the doctor leads him down a corridor to private room. It’s locked from the outside. Inside it’s the notorious white walls, one painting of a bland seascape. A single bed and a bedside cabinet. There’s something oppressive about the room which Bobby can’t put his finger on for a second and then it hits him: no windows.
On the bed is a mousy-haired girl, small and immature, looking more like ten than fourteen. She sits with her knees drawn up, despondent and staring at nothing. He would have trouble imagining her killing a spider, if he hadn’t seen what the thing did to Karen.
“Rosaline, this is Dr. Zimmermann. He’s going to talk to you for a while if you don’t mind.”
The girl raises brown eyes, shrugs.
“I look forward to your findings,” says the doctor to Bobby. “I must admit we haven’t gotten far. She doesn’t identify with the other personality in any way.”
‘That’s because it wasn’t her, you arrogant dick,’ Bobby wants to say, but he just nods and the doctor leaves.
“Hi Rosaline,” says Bobby. “Can I-”
“What’s the point?” She cuts him off. “You won’t believe me either.”
Determination renewed. Damn, he’s angry. He sits down on the floor, meets her eyes and says,
“Try me.”
*
The demon described its kills to Rosaline, showed her what it had done to others before it killed her parents. it showed her how it would carry on, and at Bobby’s request, she produces a series of stunningly detailed sketches. Through glimpses of local landmarks, Bobby and Rufus locate its next victim in the west of the state: the founder’s statue in the town square tips them off. They know what the boy looks like, but they don’t have a name. He’s too young for high school, and there’s only one middle school in Red Ridge, but hanging around the school gates scoping kids seems like a one-way ticket to jail for either of them. They know he’s a chess prodigy, though, and it only takes a few back issues of the local paper before they find mention of Derek MacFarlane winning the state junior championship by some astounding margin, and the grainy black and white photo matches Rosaline’s sketch. Derek is the son of Russell and Kathy, owners of MacFarlane’s butchers. From there, it’s just a matter of the phone book.
So they know who and where the next possession will be, and they know from Rosaline’s sketches it will be at night. What they don’t know is which night. Typically, the possessions have been a couple of weeks apart, but Rosaline warned that the demon was getting more powerful, that it was angry and vicious and ‘ripping through us faster and faster every time’.
Bobby hits the table in anger. Rufus raises an eyebrow.
“All this,” Bobby says, “and we still can’t stop it possessing the kid.”
A second eyebrow joins the first. “Stop it?”
Bobby stares at Rufus and a dark inkling trickles down the back of his mind. “We are trying to stop it.”
“Well sure. Permanently.”
“And to do that you mean to let it possess the kid.”
“You got a better idea? We got to trap it. Only way to trap a demon is to catch it in a host so far as I know. You got anything else from those books of yours, I’m all ears.”
Bobby closes his eyes. No, he as nothing else. “We’re gonna at least try to save the kid, right?”
“Naturally. Parents too. But sending the demon back to hell is our number one priority.”
“You can exorcise it. Without - without hurting the host.”
Rufus holds his gaze: “Probably.”
They start going into Macfarlane’s twice a day - Bobby in the morning, Rufus at closing
time, buying the smallest amount of meat they can get away with each time without looking suspicious. the family live in the apartment upstairs, and the wife or an older girl are usually at the counter while the dad works in back with the bigger carcasses. knowing what’s coming to this family, Bobby’s a little queasy with the smell of the shop, the matter-of-fact way the family handle meat, feeding bloody chunks through the grinder with gloved hands or cleaving the heavy bone-in slabs to customer specifications. He catches glimpses of Derek, passing between the counter and store room, relating the baseball scores to his dad and carrying a backpack. When he catches sight of Bobby, nods, and calls, “Mom, customer,” before heading out to school. There is absolutely no reason to think he’s possessed.
Until there is.
What changes? Bobby can’t describe it. Something in the air around him, a kind of static, a mask falling over his eyes, a shuttering effect to his features, a sterner posture? A little of all, but not quite any - its less corporeal than that? He just knows.
“Yep,” Rufus confirms when he gets back that evening: “We got to move.”
Why hadn’t he known with his own wife?
“Look,” Rufus says, that intermittent mind-reading thing, “Back then you had no frame of reference. What were you supposed to think? My wife is acting a little off: hmm, could be a demon possession. Now you know, so now we can do something about it.”
“What, kidnap the kid?” Bobby snaps.
“I was thinking more of a stake-out,” Rufus says smoothly, “Jack and Reggie style?”
Bobby looks blank. Rufus huffs: “48 Hours? I’m Eddie Murphy, you’re Nick Nolte?”
“If you say so,” Bobby drawls.
“Man, you gotta get with the 1980s. Come on, we’ll take my car.”
Part Eight
It’s May, and the engine is heating up with the day as the sun climbs. Bobby took the truck. The motel parking lot has four other vehicles in it, including Rufus’s shitty Arrow, miraculously still juddering along. Bobby gains a little respect for it.
“Luther…Vandross?” he asks the clerk, feeling vaguely ridiculous.
“At your service,” says Rufus from behind him, and he jumps, nearly drops his pack before Rufus grabs him up in a rough hug, which he awkwardly returns. There’s a new scar on Rufus’s chin, which he rubs theatrically as he catches Bobby looking.
“’s what you get for shaving with a straight edge,” he says, and winks.
“Right,” says Bobby.
“You checkin in?” asks the clerk.
“He’ll room with me,” says Rufus.
The clerk shrugs like, ‘your funeral’, and goes back to reading the paper.
“So?” Bobby asks once the door’s shut behind them. “Fill me in.”
“Thing’s possessed four people in eight weeks. Kids,” Rufus shakes his head. “Gets its jollies possessing children and using them to kill the parents. All the children have some kind of exceptional talent: this last kid was an art prodigy.
“I heard about this,” Bobby scans the newspaper Rufus tosses him. “Weren’t they blaming those new hand held game things the kids are playing?”
“Yeah,” Rufus snorts. “Nothing like a video game to build you up to first degree murder.”
Child murder spree reaches CO blares the headline. The piece is a grimly sensationalist account of a fourteen year old, unnamed for legal reasons, who shot both her parents at point-blank range with her daddy’s old service pistol. The kid was institutionalized, unsurprisingly, tentatively diagnosed with acute schizophrenia.
“Now the thing is, it’s hard to talk to kid witnesses. Hard to get access to them. They’re gonna be keeping this one under lock and key. I figure posing as some big wig psychiatrist specializing in child violence is our best bet. You gotta do that one.”
“Why me?”
Rufus stares at him. Oh. Yeah. He supposes this is one of those times being White gives you the silent leg-up. Huh.
“I got a few names. From journals and stuff. Pick one and we’ll make you up an ID.”
This is how Bobby Singer finds himself clean-shaven, in a rented suit, introducing himself as Dr. Walter J. Zimmermann, leading expert in violent pathologies in adolescence to the staff at the state’s secure unit.
“Dr. Zimmermann,” says the chief psychiatrist, shaking his hand. “It’s a pleasure. I must say, I’ve been wanting to meet you for some time.”
“Well,” says Bobby.
“I must say, the methodology of your latest article on familial and hereditary co-pathologies preceding psychotic breaks strikes me as flawed. Have you seen Jamison’s perspective on the potentials of electrocorticography? Might substantiate some of your more impressionistic findings.”
Bobby hears ‘electro’ and ‘cortico’ is something to do with brains. He wagers: “Jamison is unethical.”
“Well, I can see why you’d think that. The definition of informed consent and all,” The psychiatrist nods.
“Exactly,” Bobby says. “So, the patient?”
“This way,” the doctor leads him down a corridor to private room. It’s locked from the outside. Inside it’s the notorious white walls, one painting of a bland seascape. A single bed and a bedside cabinet. There’s something oppressive about the room which Bobby can’t put his finger on for a second and then it hits him: no windows.
On the bed is a mousy-haired girl, small and immature, looking more like ten than fourteen. She sits with her knees drawn up, despondent and staring at nothing. He would have trouble imagining her killing a spider, if he hadn’t seen what the thing did to Karen.
“Rosaline, this is Dr. Zimmermann. He’s going to talk to you for a while if you don’t mind.”
The girl raises brown eyes, shrugs.
“I look forward to your findings,” says the doctor to Bobby. “I must admit we haven’t gotten far. She doesn’t identify with the other personality in any way.”
‘That’s because it wasn’t her, you arrogant dick,’ Bobby wants to say, but he just nods and the doctor leaves.
“Hi Rosaline,” says Bobby. “Can I-”
“What’s the point?” She cuts him off. “You won’t believe me either.”
Determination renewed. Damn, he’s angry. He sits down on the floor, meets her eyes and says,
“Try me.”
*
The demon described its kills to Rosaline, showed her what it had done to others before it killed her parents. it showed her how it would carry on, and at Bobby’s request, she produces a series of stunningly detailed sketches. Through glimpses of local landmarks, Bobby and Rufus locate its next victim in the west of the state: the founder’s statue in the town square tips them off. They know what the boy looks like, but they don’t have a name. He’s too young for high school, and there’s only one middle school in Red Ridge, but hanging around the school gates scoping kids seems like a one-way ticket to jail for either of them. They know he’s a chess prodigy, though, and it only takes a few back issues of the local paper before they find mention of Derek MacFarlane winning the state junior championship by some astounding margin, and the grainy black and white photo matches Rosaline’s sketch. Derek is the son of Russell and Kathy, owners of MacFarlane’s butchers. From there, it’s just a matter of the phone book.
So they know who and where the next possession will be, and they know from Rosaline’s sketches it will be at night. What they don’t know is which night. Typically, the possessions have been a couple of weeks apart, but Rosaline warned that the demon was getting more powerful, that it was angry and vicious and ‘ripping through us faster and faster every time’.
Bobby hits the table in anger. Rufus raises an eyebrow.
“All this,” Bobby says, “and we still can’t stop it possessing the kid.”
A second eyebrow joins the first. “Stop it?”
Bobby stares at Rufus and a dark inkling trickles down the back of his mind. “We are trying to stop it.”
“Well sure. Permanently.”
“And to do that you mean to let it possess the kid.”
“You got a better idea? We got to trap it. Only way to trap a demon is to catch it in a host so far as I know. You got anything else from those books of yours, I’m all ears.”
Bobby closes his eyes. No, he as nothing else. “We’re gonna at least try to save the kid, right?”
“Naturally. Parents too. But sending the demon back to hell is our number one priority.”
“You can exorcise it. Without - without hurting the host.”
Rufus holds his gaze: “Probably.”
They start going into Macfarlane’s twice a day - Bobby in the morning, Rufus at closing
time, buying the smallest amount of meat they can get away with each time without looking suspicious. the family live in the apartment upstairs, and the wife or an older girl are usually at the counter while the dad works in back with the bigger carcasses. knowing what’s coming to this family, Bobby’s a little queasy with the smell of the shop, the matter-of-fact way the family handle meat, feeding bloody chunks through the grinder with gloved hands or cleaving the heavy bone-in slabs to customer specifications. He catches glimpses of Derek, passing between the counter and store room, relating the baseball scores to his dad and carrying a backpack. When he catches sight of Bobby, nods, and calls, “Mom, customer,” before heading out to school. There is absolutely no reason to think he’s possessed.
Until there is.
What changes? Bobby can’t describe it. Something in the air around him, a kind of static, a mask falling over his eyes, a shuttering effect to his features, a sterner posture? A little of all, but not quite any - its less corporeal than that? He just knows.
“Yep,” Rufus confirms when he gets back that evening: “We got to move.”
Why hadn’t he known with his own wife?
“Look,” Rufus says, that intermittent mind-reading thing, “Back then you had no frame of reference. What were you supposed to think? My wife is acting a little off: hmm, could be a demon possession. Now you know, so now we can do something about it.”
“What, kidnap the kid?” Bobby snaps.
“I was thinking more of a stake-out,” Rufus says smoothly, “Jack and Reggie style?”
Bobby looks blank. Rufus huffs: “48 Hours? I’m Eddie Murphy, you’re Nick Nolte?”
“If you say so,” Bobby drawls.
“Man, you gotta get with the 1980s. Come on, we’ll take my car.”
Part Eight