F.E.A.R: Origins
By Genoscythe
Chapter 5: Healthy Exorcising
"You mentioned an exorcism," the reporter reminded Betters, eager to change topics. An exorcism sounded like it could make good copy, but half an hour ago, so did a piece on an elite paranormal investigation team.
"Yeah, that was when things started to pick up again. It was only a few weeks ago, if I remember."
"Did you get rid of Oscar?" Betters Jr. asked.
"No way. An exorcism wouldn't do shit to Oscar. It was a teenage girl in some weird state like Virginia or Maine or something. She got possessed by a family heirloom, and the padre working on her needed a replacement."
"Replacement for who?"
"The young priest. Jankowski knows – knew – the details."
The cameraman on Betters Jr.'s right, the one who had been so fidgety the whole time, finally gripped the reporter on the shoulder.
"Can I talk to you outside?" The crewmember whispered forcefully. The reporter excused himself and the cameraman as they left the room. Betters Sr. now focused on the last remaining cameraman, who felt terrified facing the Commissioner alone.
"Say, what's your name?" Betters asked in an off-set voice.
"Uh…uh…"
"Uh-uh, huh? What's your favorite color, Uh-uh?"
"Blreen," the cameraman designated Uh-uh quipped as the life drained from his face.
"What kind of sports do you like?"
"Socc – base – football basket."
"Got a girlfriend, Uh-uh?"
"Essir."
"Are you well hung?"
Just outside the door, reporter and crewmember were engaged in a two-man huddle.
"Okay, is it like 'bring your kid to work' day, or something?" The cameraman asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, there's this little girl that keeps screwing up my shots. You know, making weird faces and stuff."
The reporter's eyes narrowed. "I didn't see a little girl."
"Seriously? She was wearing a red – kind of a blood red – dress. It was really distracting."
"That doesn't make sense," Betters Jr. muttered. "There was no little girl in a red dress in there. It's a small office, I would have seen her."
"Well, let me show you." As the cameraman reached for the door, it swung back and knocked him on the head. The other cameraman was already halfway down the hall by the time Betters Jr. knew what was happening.
"What the hell did you do to him?" The reporter demanded once they were back inside the office.
"You'll thank me later," Betters said smugly. "He wasn't cut out for journalism. Now, can we keep going? I'd like to check up on my two surviving agents soon."
"Wait…" The one surviving cameraman hissed. "She's gone."
"Who's gone?" Betters grunted.
"The little girl." The cameraman pointed to a small red mark on the wall, and the reporter examined it.
"It says 'o…m…g…bloodstain'?"
"Was it a ghost?" The cameraman asked mutely. "Maybe that trash compactor thing psychoprojected itself in here."
Betters chuckled. "Not a chance. Oscar's butch. Ain't that right, Oscar?"
"Feed me, Betters!" A deep echo reverberated through the walls.
"Okay, now shut the fuck up. I'm doing an interview."
"Hello mom!"
"Forget it. Just get to the story," the reporter barked. He turned to the cameraman. "How much memory do we have, Rob?"
"Still got a gig, but I'm running low on battery. We'll just have to switch to audio when it runs out and loop the earlier shots."
"Fine. I don't care if he looks like a freakin' Japanese cartoon, we're getting all of this interview."
"Uh…why?" Rob whispered confidentially.
"Because there may be something good yet," the reporter quipped, not too quietly. There's gotta be.
"Well, you're gonna like this," Betters said, reaching in his desk for a snack but coming back empty. "Get me a Snickers first. Vending machine's down the hall."
Much like Jin had, Jankowski adapted well to his new job. He learned to forsake all his military training in favor of the quick and easy way, though he still liked to bring an oversized weapon or two on the few missions he had undertaken. Every now and then, he tried to get himself reassigned, but his attempts were always half-hearted, and he never actually went through the proper channels to request a proper military job. Betters believed it was because he had a crush on Jin, and he often reflected on the inter-office pool they could have had if the bet wasn't on the only other employees at the office. There was talk of adding a new member to the team (effectively replacing their pilot) but Jankowski couldn't figure out why.
There wasn't enough work to share between two members.
Twang. Jin stepped carefully into the shooting gallery, eyeing Jankowski and making sure she kept an object between the two of them. You never knew where an experimental weapon's bullet would go, and sometimes even an object wasn't enough.
Twang. "Fuck, look out!" Jin dove behind a counter, and part of a sword spun over her head. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Jin affirmed. "Stop shooting for a second." She warily traversed the shooting gallery, occasionally tripping over sword bits or gouges in the floor. Jankowski turned to greet her, waving around a bulkier and more refined version of the Highlander.
That's not a very safe way to handle a gun, Jin 3 observed.
He could shoot us on accident, or worse! Jin 2 concluded.
Run, Jin, run! Jin 1 commanded.
Physical Jin screamed.
"Uh…what's the problem?" Jankowski asked. Jin ignored him and ran back across the target range.
"You almost shot us!" She cried from the other side of the room.
"No I didn't – the safety's on."
"Jankowski…none of the Highlander prototypes have had safeties."
"Oh. So what the fuck have I been flipping this whole time?" Jankowski turned the rail gun over in his hands, finding what he thought was the safety switch and flipping it in curiosity. "Huh. Straight…" Jankowski flipped the switch down and fired the weapon at the target. He scored his first hit, even though the sword still bounced off the metal target.
"What's the other one say?" Jin asked, curious.
"It says 'decap.' What the hell does…" Jankowski trailed off, flipped the switch back up, and fired it. The blade jumped sideways, bouncing off the floor and then the wall to angle back at the point man's throat. After he recovered, Jankowski looked back at all the broken swords that had been trying to decapitate him the entire time. "No wonder I can never hit anything with this piece of shit."
"Since it doesn't have a safety, just put it down."
"Do I have to?"
"It'll make us feel better."
With a sigh, Jankowski dropped the rail gun on the nearby counter. "What do you want?"
Jin walked slowly back across the target range. "We've got good news."
"You're shitting me."
"Not just good news – the best news."
"I got fired for not washing my hands in the bathroom?" Jankowski asked hopefully.
"No. Eww. We got a real call!"
"A real call?"
"Yes!"
"A real call?"
"We know!"
"A real call?"
"Just one, Jankowski."
"Like…something important is happening?"
"What we were made for," Jin replied. "A serious paranormal threat."
"Hot shit! Gimme the details." Jankowski rushed – unthreateningly – to Jin's side. She jumped anyway.
"Calm down. We'll go over the basics on the way to the briefing room." Jin beckoned the point man out the door and down the hall. Jankowski wondered vaguely if he would finally have a use for the Turbo Lover.
"We're not sure how, but this girl down in Oregon was possessed by some kind of demon," Jin began.
"What kind of demon?" Jankowski interrupted.
Jin flipped through some papers tucked in her arms, most of them blank and simply filling up the stack. Finally, she said "The girl says it's the devil himself."
"Damn, this is good," Jankowski grinned. Jin glared at him.
"She's been doing all kinds of strange things, like crawling on the walls and spitting pea soup."
"Have they been feeding her pea soup?"
"We doubt it."
"Whoah. That is strange."
"Right, but there's a priest performing an exorcism as we speak."
Jankowski's face fell. "Oh. Then what the hell are we supposed to do?"
"The priest's assistant chickened out and ran for it. Incidentally, he fell down the stairs and broke his neck on the way." Jankowski chuckled, but Jin quickly slapped him. "We're sending you in to replace the assistant," she told him edgily, flipping more blank pages and coming upon the priest's profile. "You're ordered to do anything Father Meringue tells you to. If he says pee out some holy water, you'd better do it."
Jankowski sighed. "Will I get to bring any heavy weapons? That's my favorite part."
Jin's thin lips curled into a smile. "It's funny you should say that." They continued in anxious silence to the briefing room. More presents from a bored defense contractor? Jankowski mused. Yes, please.
The two F.E.A.R. operatives entered the briefing room at a casual trot, but only one of them broke out into a full-on sprint at the sight of a crate in the far corner. It stood taller and wider than any human, with numerous warning labels in varying sizes, shapes, colors and languages posted on it. Betters stood beside it with a crowbar in hand, looking puzzled. He turned to Jankowski as the taller man ran up to the mammoth box.
"You open it, it's your fucking toy," Betters snapped, shoving the crowbar into his hands. Jankowski was all too happy to oblige, swinging the metal bar into the front of the crate and yanking the entire cover off.
"It's heavy combat armor from Armacham," Betters explained to the speechless point man. "A little bit on the prototypey side, but what the hell?"
It was a suit of matte tan plates and Kevlar so thick the thing could stand up on its own. Its shoulders were both shaped like shields, as was its chest, gauntlets, knees, hips, and toes. The helmet, set far below the top of the shoulders, had a single camera lens sticking out. Even that had a hi-tech plated lens cap.
"I get…to wear this?" Jankowski stuttered.
"You're supposed to," Betters grumbled, shrugging. "But I dunno how the fuck you're getting in there."
Tentatively, Jankowski reached out and grabbed it by the waist. However, trying to move it out of the box was like trying to lift a tank with a pair of chopsticks. After Jin and Betters amused themselves watching Jankowski struggle with the heavy armor, they decided to step in and pull the rest of the crate apart.
"Now, this is a thank-you gift from Armacham for testing out the Type-8 on that La-Z-Boy recliner. Unfortunately, they decided to go back to finishing up the Type-7 and scrapped the whole Type-8 project," Betters told him.
"They didn't like that you never knew what the Type-8 was going to hit," Jin elaborated.
"No, I knew exactly what it was going to hit," Jankowski shot back, slightly miffed. "I just had to stand sideways."
"Whatever. For some reason, they thought you did a good job, so they gave us this. We don't have to field test it, or give it back, or anything."
"But we probably will…" Jin muttered under her breath.
"Did Jin already brief you?" Betters asked.
"We just told him to do whatever Father Meringue wants. That's what it says on the readout, anyway."
"Great. Why the fuck do we even have a briefing room?" Betters spat. "I'm sending you in alone, Jankowski. Since we're dealing with an actual paranormal threat, I don't trust Jin's MPD near a demonic whatsit."
"MPD?" Jankowski gasped. "Like, multiple personality disorder?"
"That's what it stands for, son."
Jankowski leaned in confidentially. "Is that what all the plural shit's about?"
"Yeah, you didn't know?" Betters replied.
"I thought she was British."
Betters sighed. "She – they'll be spotting for you in the helicopter. You need anything, bother them and not me." Betters trudged out of the room, and as he did, he said "Get packed. It's a long way to Montana."
"Oregon," Jin corrected him.
"You're the pilot now, sweetheart."
A shadow lumbered across the dark cobblestones, lurching as if forward movement were a great struggle. It was an hour when nobody walked the streets, and the haze of midnight chased after the mountain of Kevlar and armor plating as if hoping it would be led to something interesting. Which, in fact, it was.
The giant lurched into the haze of a streetlamp, stopping and staring up at the house in front of it. It stayed there, handbag swaying gently. And it stayed there.
What the fuck are you waiting for, movie cameras? A foul-tempered mid-western accent broke the silence.
"I'm so…damn…tired…" The monster gasped. "I feel…like I just carried a buffalo through a marathon."
Well, break time's over. The exorcist is waiting.
Glumly, the behemoth forced its bulk across the courtyard and slammed its head on the door. It was too hard to lift an arm and knock.
Father Meringue had seen exorcisms before. Not fakers, either – although he'd seen those, too. He had seen what one evil spirit could do to a body, and that was what kept him going. He couldn't let these creatures have their way with God's children.
"What an excellent day for an exorcism," the teenager strapped to the bed growled, her voice unnaturally low.
Father Meringue raised an eyebrow. "You would like that?"
"Intensely."
"But wouldn't that drive you out of Linda?" Meringue asked the demon.
"It would bring us together."
"You and Linda?"
"You and us."
Father Meringue straightened, stepping back and bumping into the wall. Only it couldn't be the wall, because the wall was at least two feet away. Thinking it to be one of the demon's tricks, Meringue whipped around with a fistful of holy water.
"THE POWER OF CHRI – oh, I'm sorry." Meringue lowered his hands and his voice as the water ran down his new assistant. He almost looked demonic himself, with his massive armor and cyclopean helmet.
"It's cool. We tested bullets on this thing, and I didn't even feel the recoil."
"That is…interesting. Will you step outside with me for a moment, my son?"
"I can try, but it'll take awhile."
Awhile later, Jankowski and Father Meringue were pacing the hallway outside Linda's room.
"I wanted to explain to you…exactly what we are dealing with," the priest began.
"A demonic possession?"
"So you believe me?" Meringue raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, shit yeah. I've seen all kinds of possessions."
"Really?"
"Appliances, mostly."
Father Meringue's eyes narrowed reproachfully. "Possessions as in worldly goods?"
"No, no. Like, with the ghosts and the ectoplasm and all that. Turns out they're much easier for spirits to possess than people."
The priest shook his head. "I must say, I have never performed an exorcism on an appliance before."
"That's because we do it for you." If Jankowski weren't buried under a mountain of armor plating, Meringue would have seen him grin.
"Still, I must warn you. This is not the same. Linda is not possessed by a mere wandering soul. This is a demon, and he is a cunning enemy. We may ask him what is relevant but anything beyond that is dangerous. He is a liar. The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us."
"You're already confusing me…" Jankowski muttered.
"He will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. The attack is psychological, my son, and powerful. Don't listen to him. Remember that – do not listen."
Jankowski stood motionless.
"Son?"
The hulking armor jerked. "Huh? Wha?"
Father Meringue smiled. "You should perform admirably."
End