Chapter 8
Hellfire and Brimstone
Felix looked grimly out his bedroom window at the sunset. The sun itself had just slipped beyond the horizon. The rays that remained visible painted the thin layer of clouds a beautiful range of yellows, oranges, and pinks. The view he had was very nice, but he really didn't see it. The natural beauty failed to reach him. He was trapped in his own dark little world of fear and foreboding. Today was October 8th, a Sunday. Most other years this date was meaningless, just another day in October. But this year this particular date took on a dark significance to him. Today was the date set for his exorcism.
In one hour both Father Hermann and Father Drachen would come to his home. They would perform all sorts of blessings on his house and the people in it. Then they would go through the mysterious rituals of exorcism and hope that his problem would be cleared up. If everything went well nothing would happen and Felix would be free to go on with his life. With every fiber of his being he prayed that that was the outcome of tonight's religious ritual. But deep down inside he feared that the worst would happen. That during the exorcism that he would suffer another attack and something bad would happen. Anna's grim warning of painful life-altering change made him shudder.
With a sigh he stiffly rose up off his stool and hobbled away from his window. Very slowly and stiffly he limped down the stairs and took a seat on the couch in the living room. While he had recovered some strength since the camping trip, but he still was in constant pain so he hadn't been able to attend school all week. Because of his pain his mother had wanted to bring in a doctor to look at him, but his father had refused her. He seemed to have latched onto the idea that his son was possessed by a demon and that an exorcism would fix everything. Just this once Felix wished that his mother would stick up for herself and call a doctor over. At least that way he might get a prescription for some strong pain medication.
He could hear his mother bustling about in the kitchen. She was probably making snacks and tea for the visiting priests like the perfect home-maker that she was. Felix peered at the grandfather clock just outside the living room and saw that he still had a half an hour left until his exorcism. Now that he was ready and waiting time would crawl by slower than a frozen snail. So what should he do? Should he just sit on the couch and wait? Or should he hobble around his house to try and waste some time? It was a difficult decision for him to make. If he sat sit he would waster precious energy and cause his poor battered body unnecessary pain. If he went for a walk his slow limping gait would waste time and distract him from worry.
Then quite suddenly his internal debate became pointless as both priest walked through the door. Felix glanced at the tall wooden clock to see that he had been so absorbed in his thoughts that the half hour was almost completely past. Slightly embarrassed by his inattention Felix stiffened up in his seat and waited for everything to be settled. His mother welcomed the two priests into the house while his father emerged from his basement workshop. Felix watched passively from his seat as the four adults greeted each other and spoke in hushed tones. And when that was through it was time for Winzeldorf's first ever exorcism.
From that point on things went more or less as he had predicted that they would. Father Hermann went to every room, door, and window in the house and blessed them. He said prayers and dabbed signs of the cross in holy water on anything in reach. Then the old man held a sort of private Mass complete with Bible readings and Communion. During all of this Father Drachen played the role of assistant and his parents were the witnesses. Felix didn't both moving from his seat unless Father Hermann told him to. He simply sat and awaited his fate, whatever it might turn out to be. And he didn't have long to wait.
Father Hermann concluded the mini Mass and moved onto the second phase. The elderly priest began the long arduous process of blessing Felix directly. He performed several different blessings with holy water and blessed oil that was normally reserved for christenings. He prayed the entire rosary while keeping one hand on Felix's shoulder. He read verses from several different books of the Bible. Then he moved his withered bony hand to hold the top of Felix's head and began to call on the Almighty God and His angels to cast out the malign influence that afflicted Felix. At first this was just fine by Felix. While Father Hermann's grip was a bit tight he felt no other additional discomfort. But then the bottom dropped out so to speak.
Somewhere deep inside his skull there was a tiny thread. Before his first headache it used to be a wall and with each successive migraine and weak spell it was worn down, made smaller. Now as Father Hermann continued to loudly appeal to God and His heavenly servants he squeezed Felix's head tighter and tighter. This fed his stress and it sent the pressure in his head ratcheting up bit by bit. Felix tried to force it back; he couldn't afford to fall into convulsions like he had before now. Despite the rising pain Felix tried to remain still and stoic, but it did him no good. The pressure hit a critical level and that tiny thread snapped under the strain.
It started out the same way that the all the others had. His head hurt horribly and the pain in his hands, feet, and lower back swiftly intensified. Felix tried valiantly to hold still but his body refused to obey him. Once more he slipped into seizure-like convulsions, but this time he didn't black out. The pain grew so bad that Felix felt himself becoming detached from himself. All his senses grew fuzzy and distant. Sounds seemed muffled, his vision was so blurry that all he saw were blobs of color, and the intense pains seemed to recede. As the pain faded into the background Felix wanted to smile in relief, but his body was too busy screaming.
Then came the changes. First he felt the bones in his hands and lower legs begin to grind and shift against each other. Then it felt like someone had grabbed his tailbone and yanked it out, stretching his spine out as it went. His eyes burned and for a moment he thought he went blind. His teeth hurt and he tasted his own blood in his mouth. Then his skin began to itch and tingle. With all his uncontrollable thrashings he couldn't scratch himself and his detached mind found that vaguely frustrating. Then something strange happened to his very itchy skin. It felt like it was covered in stubble everywhere, and the hair just kept growing. His separated thoughts began to grow dim like he was falling asleep, but his body had one more thing that it had to do.
The panicked screams of his family suddenly became sharp and clear to his previously impaired hearing. It startled his muddled mind and he wanted to be somewhere else, like that one spot out in the woods where this whole mess started. As soon as that image crystallized in his mind some switch was flipped inside his brain and something happened. The floor disappeared beneath him and he was sucked up, around, and inside out. There was a flash of fiery light and a blasting vortex of air and he fell. He hit the ground hard and was overwhelmed by the sulfurous stink of brimstone. As his consciousness drifted away into blackness he thought one final thought. Oh God I've fallen down into Hell…
Somewhere a raven was crying in its raspy voice. It hurt his head a lot. He decided that he didn't like the noisy raven. The large noisy bird must've hopped closer to him because it was getting louder. With his eyes still closed he groped around for something solid and found something hard, prickly, but light, a pinecone. He closed his hand around it and weakly tossed it in the direction that he thought the raven was in. It shrieked and flapped away scolding him from the safety of some high place. He groaned in a mixture of annoyance and pain. The stupid loud raven had woken him up and now he was remembering.
Felix slowly cracked open one eye and looked around. He was in the clearing were he'd had his first migraine. The smell of pine was far stronger than he remembered it being and he smelled more musty faint scents beneath it. The light was very bright so he knew that it was daytime though the shadows didn't seem to be as dark as they should. The edges of the objects were sharper than he'd ever seen them before. It as like he'd had a blinder on his sense of sight and smell and it had just been removed. Therefore this must be some sort of dream. But that theory went right out the window when he tried to move.
A wave of pain crashed over him and destroyed his belief that he was dreaming. Felix never felt pain when he was dreaming. So he was awake in the middle of the woods. Faint memories of last night's exorcism filtered back as he sought an explanation for why he was out here. He recalled feeling really awful, like his body was being reshaped somehow, and then he experienced some sort of motion and he passed out. Beyond that he wasn't certain of anything. Everything was just a jumbled blur of color, pain, and screaming. Just like the final scene from his dream. Only one thing had yet to come to pass. Death…
Felix shuddered and tried to think of something else, anything else to forget that one word. First things first, he had to get up. He clenched his teeth and levered himself up slowly into a sitting position. His eyes were squeezed shut and his arms trembled as he tried to stay upright while his spinning head tried to reorder itself. Everything was stiff, sore, and weak. His legs throbbed beneath him, his arms and hands burned, and his spine felt very strange. As the dizziness passed he gathered his nerve and opened both his eyes.
The first thing that he saw both horrified and fascinated him. Where his hand should've been was a stranger's hand. There were only three digits, a thumb and two fingers, and it was completely covered in fine red fur. Each finger was nearly as thick as two normal fingers and they were definitely longer than normal fingers. Hesitantly he reached out with one hand to touch this other hand and was shocked. The hand that entered his field of vision to touch the foreign hand looked exactly the same. That hand wasn't a stranger's hand, it was his own. Numb with shock and horror Felix slumped back down to the ground. I've become a monster.
A crunching sound reached his ears, but he ignored it. The sound repeated itself over and over in the pattern of footsteps, someone was coming. Still Felix did not move; he was still reeling from what he'd just seen. The raven that had been harassing him fled with a cry of fear and the footsteps drew nearer. He heard a loud gasp and turned his head slowly to see who had found him. There on the edge of the clearing stood Herr Grumman with his hunting rifle looking as shocked and horrified as he felt. Felix simply lay there and watched the frightened hunter creep up to him. And Felix had no reaction when Herr Grumman hefted his rifle over his head and brought it down like a club on Felix's skull.
