Uncollected Blood (8 page)

And because of that I’m here in this card shop with blood streaming down my arm. I must’ve cut it coming through the glass door I shattered. I didn’t want to wipe it clean. It felt nice and warm. My nose and fingertips ached with the cold, but my arm just felt like a sleeping in on a warm Sunday morning wrapped up in a big soft blanket.

I had met a guy who claimed the epileptic stuff was possession. The comas were failed possessions. As I stared at the game now, it couldn’t be anything more evil than a commercial success. It couldn’t be evil. But somehow it felt evil. It had always had this aura around it. Like it was dirty.

Maybe it was all the stories I heard, and the religious upbringing that combined to create my sense of worry, that maybe it wasn’t something to be meddled with.

I had opened the package now. I had opened the lid and I found myself laying out the board, the cards. I shuffled them of course, as if it mattered. I pulled out the piece you flipped on every square that had a black obelisk on it. It looked just like it was out of
2001: A Space Odyssey
. Everything looked so gimmicky. How could it be evil?

But it doesn’t require you to believe in it, because it believes in you.

That’s what they say about the devil. They say the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he did not exist.

It has been done.

And for all it’s worth I make myself a game piece and I sit down to play. The wind has left me alone, and I can feel the day finally starting to begin. The sun peaks out from the clouds. I deserve to be with the others. It’s not fair that my second-guessing be my salvation. I should’ve believed whole-heartedly, right?

Maybe those that did have faith met the rapture so oft spoke of, and they are gone. Hell claimed everyone else and I am left here all alone. Maybe God just wants me to play, damn myself completely. There can be no purgatory perhaps.

I picked up the dice and I swear the world burst a rolling thunder so loud it paralyzed my heart. I choked, I cried. I had to shake my head to regain focus and escape the hold that was placed on my heart by the sound.

It was sunny outside, but there seemed to be some horrible darkness all around. Chills tiptoed up my legs, combed their way down my spine, and scraped me along my arms.

A violent rush of cold air ripped up through my nose and filled my lungs. I didn’t want to play. But it was my only option, wasn’t it? That or eternity wandering cold empty streets.

Alone.

I waited for more thunder, but nothing. No lightning, no more sound. No more wind. It was quieter than it had been earlier this morning.

I could give in and play the game, and go away like everyone else. Or what? Was there an answer? Is there a home for the half-hearted?

I still couldn’t play the game. I left it in the card shop and walked down to Madison Avenue. I thought of climbing the skyscrapers and I thought of heading south for warmer weather.  I’m not much for waiting there is no one to talk to, and no one to give me answers.

That day I had to hunt for a copy of
The Black Hole.
Now it seems to follow me. I see it in the backs of cars, storefronts, and the kitchens that I pillage.  But I believe in the devil. And he believes he can trick me. I just wished God believed in me when I say I believe in Him now.

THE END.

August 31
st
, 1998

Father John Crosby always had trouble with his Roman collar. The white collar rubbed his Adam’s apple every time he swallowed. He drank his sweet tea and thanked Jessica Milton again. The South always had dominance over how they brew their tea. He was thankful for the appointment to the Diocese of Richmond for this reason among only a handful of others. One he counted was God’s will. But despite much prayer the appointment didn’t seem right.  Having been born and raised in Chicago, Father Crosby always viewed the south as a little off kilter.

“Do you find she has a hard time relating with others?” Father Crosby asked. He held back another instinctual sip and rubbed his throat.

“She used to be such a happy child. But look at her.” Jessica’s daughter looked like a long buried corpse. Her flesh wasn’t pale but near translucent, eyes sunken into darkness.  She sat in a large winged chair, slouched to keep her feet on the ground and her shoulders against the chair.  

“You are possessed.” Jessica suffered her daughter, couldn’t not say what was on her mind.  She turned back to the priest, “I’ve said wicked things to her and she does nothing. I am to blame, aren’t I?”

The first thing Father Crosby was told about the Miltons came from his predecessor. “Avoid them, but politely.”  The words echoed in his mind. He had felt so righteous when he came. He would lend them an ear and perhaps instill upon them discretion in their bold claims. But the words echoed and he wished he had taken things slower, had not entered their home without research.

“Blame is a strong emotion, Jesus would not want us to be unhappy, would not want us to give into unhappiness.” He spoke to the mother but intended the daughter to take it to heart. “I’m sure your daughter loves you, Mrs. Milton, but she will continue this display, it is her choice. Quite beyond you.”

“You don’t understand, that is not my daughter!” Jessica Milton flung her finger at the girl in the chair. “My daughter is happy.” She was cracking.

The girl got out of the chair and passed between the priest and the woman, rounded the banister and went up the stairs. Her footsteps didn’t carry any sound. Father Crosby had expected stomping but found the girl was reserved. Perhaps, thought the priest, it was the mother to blame. He had seen this often. Overbearing and devoted to the faith but without any good understanding of how the teachings should be passed on.

“In the garden we were given a choice, we’ve always had choice, and we’ve always needed to make our own. That is humanity, that is why God grants us forgiveness for all our deeds, He is well aware that we must make our own choices. Does Catherine Ann make her own choices?”

“I told you she is not Catherine Ann, father. She is evil.”

“Pardon, I don’t understand.”

Mrs. Milton took a moment, frustrated and urgent to find the words.

“She touches herself.”

Father Crosby found a distant echo of laughter in the back of his mind, and it was drowned out by his thought, ‘So that’s it!’

“She is a young girl, discovering one’s body is a part of growing up. I would be happy to talk with her if you feel uncomfortable with the subject, but I’m not certain I would make her comfortable.”

Jessica shook her head, “She has brought sin into this house and it’s killing me. Why does she try to hurt me?”

Father Crosby took it that she meant her daughter’s disobedience and not any kind of physical harm. He always imagined the pain of disobedience as the anger that erupts within him when something didn’t go his way. A child is the extension of a parent’s way. He could imagine the frustration. But he had control. Jessica did not. He could see that in her highly emotional state she had probably delved into a darker vocabulary when a man of the cloth was not sitting in her living room.

Father Crosby decided not to say anything more for the moment. He finally met the mother’s gaze and said he needed to pray, needed to ask for God’s assistance and she should do that same. He started the Lord’s Prayer, his voice soon drowned out by Jessica’s. He thanked her for the sweet tea and said he’d be happy to have Catherine Ann visit him.  He doubted the girl ever would.

“You can’t just leave. Now that I have you here.” Jessica looked poised to block his path to the front door, “Perhaps you could bless her room?”

His predecessor’s words returned.

He thought it would make the mother feel better so he agreed and followed her upstairs. His steps made the whole house shake and he wondered how the young girl had managed the climb so quietly. The mother’s feet were more audible as if she stepped to let her daughter know she was coming up. Each step was accented to allow let her daughter count each one.  Why were these dark theories forming, Father Crosby wondered. He examined the typical smiling family photographs along the wall.

“You never told me what your husband does for a living?”

“Oh, well he works for the Ukrops. In purchasing.”

“I’ve heard much about them. They sound like quite the people to work for.”

“Well for Protestants.” Jessica sneered. The priest was disappointed in her and everyone who couldn’t understand a good Christian was a good Christian. She had even had the gall to say it as if it would please Father Crosby.

The second floor was laid out like a cross. A long hall shot out of the stairway down to an open door leading to a bathroom. On the left there was the slightly closed door to the master bedroom down a short hall, then directly across another short hall to the closed door of Catherine Ann’s room. Sun shone in from the bathroom and illuminated the pictures of Saints and the Crucifixes decorating the doors.

“Catherine Ann, we are coming in.” She said it to mean ‘be decent’. She didn’t hesitate to fling the door open.

“Your mother has asked me to bless your room, you don’t mind do you?”

The daughter shrugged. She was wrapped in a blanket upon a desk chair reading a children’s book she was a bit grown for. Father Crosby examined the mother looking for any evidence to still his fears that she was the problem, not the daughter. Children were easier to reason with, adults had made their choice long ago on who to listen to, whether they knew it or not. A child just needed to find that person.

Catherine Ann’s nose touched the pages as she returned to her book. Jessica swatted it away. “You will participate!”

Father Crosby let his displeasure show. He gave Mrs. Jessica Milton a hard stare. The mother just smiled back at him and told him to continue.

“I think we have a problem here.” Father Crosby felt the collar chafing his throat. “Catherine Ann, is there a telephone number where I can reach your father.” The girl nodded then stopped and stared at the back of her mother’s head, expecting her to do something. “Could you go call him for me, and when you get him ask him to hold, and I’ll be right downstairs, Go on.” He gestured her past them. She did, ducking as close to the wall as she could, she walked out and then her steps disappeared down the stairs. “I’m sorry what was your husband’s name again?”

“No stomping!” Jessica yelled. There was no reason; the girl was quieter than a mouse.

“Mrs. Milton, what was your husband’s name?”

“William.” She threw her arms across her chest and pouted.

“If your daughter is being standoffish you have to ask yourself as I’m asking you now, is she afraid of you?”

“I’ll say it again, that’s not my daughter, everything is wrong about her. Her father will tell you, if she dares to call him. If you want to speak to him, I will call him for you.” She tried to exit the bedroom but Father Crosby not so casually sidestepped in front of her. “She won’t call him.”

Another strange smile wiggled about the woman’s frantic face.

“And this all started with bad grades?”

“Stopped going out with her friends, stopped paying attention at Mass. You would’ve seen her had you been here. It was obvious then, I hoped it was just a phase. She’s ruining my life, Father.”

This troubled Father Crosby. He examined the room, the hair on his neck crawled, and his hands felt like ice against each other. The girl returned. For how long Father Crosby was uncertain, but she stood in the doorframe with her head lowered.

“He’s on the phone.”

He didn’t dare touch her although he wanted to show some kind of affection, he knew the girl must’ve been starved of it. “Please come downstairs with me.”

“No! Don’t go alone with her.” Jessica trailed them.

“Yes, please come with us.” He invited her downstairs. On the way down he paused, what had bothered him about the photographs was a bit clearer, and he quickly understood what was occurring.  Jessica looked ten years younger in the photographs, but aside from Catherine Ann’s sunnier disposition she looked the same. Whatever was happening was happening to Jessica. His mind went to the most obvious, her husband was abusive, and Jessica was taking it out on her daughter.

In the kitchen the phone sat on the counter. He picked it up.

“Hello?” He heard nothing on the other end.

He cleared his throat and said, “This is Father John Crosby of St. Peter’s.” He waited, and in a moment a voice came over the line, distant and confused. It was Catherine Ann’s father.

“I understand that you may be busy, but I came for a visit at your wife’s request, and I am concerned about your wife and daughter’s relationship.”

He listened as the husband and father admitted there was tension.

“I was wondering if there was a nearby relative which I could place Catherine Ann in the care of briefly, at least while you, your wife, and I can have a talk.”

He immediately mentioned his own mother and father who lived just down Monument Avenue, close to the mall.

“Would you have any concern over me driving her there, or would it be possible to have your parent’s come pick her up?”

They would be there right away he agreed.

Jessica’s eyes never left Catherine Ann the whole time.

“Catherine Ann, do you have any thing you would like to take to your Grandparents’?” The girl nodded. Jessica entered the kitchen and took a seat on a barstool.

“If she harms them, that’s blood on your hands.” Jessica clawed at the counter. The scraping was irritating. “She’s just putting on an act for you. Why can’t you priests see what’s going on here?” She rattled her head trying to shake a sad expression that overwhelmed it.

“More sweet tea?” Father Crosby did his best to remain cordial but was not returned as much.

“Don’t touch my food. You aren’t a servant of God, are you?”

“The best to my abilities. Please, Jessica, I understand what you must be going through.”

“But you must believe in possession and the Devil. Yet you ignore it. She plays this act of innocent just for you. What if I told you who she thinks about when she …is filthy?”

He knew no reply would divert her.

“She thinks of her math teacher, and the UPS delivery guy. She thinks of you Father. She tells me this.”

A couple of miles drive downtown at this time of day could be near a half hour, thought Father Crosby, he considered the grandparents’ age as a factor and knew it could be a very long time.

“What about your husband? What has he seen or heard?”

“Oh she thinks about him, too.”

Catherine Ann returned with a backpack on her shoulder.

“Why don’t you go wait up in your room until they get here?” Father Crosby let the girl retreat back upstairs.

Something in the house fell. It did not come from upstairs.

“She does that on purpose.”

“She does what on purpose?” the priest asked.

“Stomps. The little witch is always stomping.”

Father Crosby looked at her with great disbelief, but he knew something was not right. Then the sound of a doorknob jiggling yanked him around. He stared at the door leading beneath the stairs.

“Is there anyone else here?”

She guffawed. “She’s playing tricks on you. Why won’t you listen to me?”

He left the kitchen and headed towards the door. Now with his own eyes he saw the knob twisting.

“Hello? Who’s there?”

Jessica sat on the stool shaking her head behind the priest.  He called out again, the doorknob stopped turning and clanged back into place. He heard the sound of a weight shifting on steps, steps to the basement. He looked at the handle and asked for God’s protection. A loud breath roared, the air conditioner in the window kicked on and cool air shot against the side of Father Crosby’s face.

“Is there some one down there?” He asked Jessica.

She replied as if it were a punchline, “not yet.”

He turned the knob. “It’s locked.”

“That door doesn’t have a lock, look again.” Sure enough there was no keyhole it was just a handle. But it would not budge. He tried again; it felt as if someone were holding it tight on the other side.

“Hello? If someone is there, answer me.” He laid his ear against the door and listened for breathing. He could hear nothing over the hum of the air conditioner.