My Best Friend's Exorcism(77)

“Lesson learned,” Gretchen said. “Don’t talk shit.”

Then Gretchen was standing, and she kicked Abby in the stomach. Watery spit flooded Abby’s mouth. Through blurry eyes she saw Gretchen standing at the side of the tub, and Good Dog Max’s feet were thundering on the hollow fiberglass.

Unable to catch her breath, Abby crawled into the bedroom and dragged herself to the far wall by the door. A moment later the air cracked in half and slapped her in both ears as a flash lit the room. In the silence that followed, gunsmoke and the stink of cordite wafted from the bathroom door. Through the ringing in her ears, Abby heard something moving, thumping against the tub, and then Gretchen came out.

“Whew,” she said. “Thirsty work.”

She chugged the rest of her Diet Coke, gulping it down, her throat moving as she drained the glass. Abby stared at her. Half of Gretchen’s face was misted in blood, and in one hand she held the gun. Blood dripped from the raincoat and pattered to the floor. Gretchen finished the Coke and set down the glass, then she leaned back through the bathroom door and checked on her work. She looked back at Abby, whose eyes were swimming in tears.

“Don’t cry, Abby,” Gretchen said. “Dogs are like cars. They’re cheap in the country.”

She grinned. And at that moment Abby knew something was broken that could never be fixed.

“Now, here’s what you’re going to do,” Gretchen said. “We have to toss this mutt over Dr. Bennett’s fence, because can you imagine what kind of drama is going to break out when Pony Lang discovers the remains of his beloved family pet in the next door neighbor’s yard. I wouldn’t be surprised if some seriously gratuitous violence broke out. I mean, they both own guns.”

She set the pistol on her desk and picked up the knife.

“But that’s a whole lot of dog,” Gretchen said. “So I want you to take this knife and give me—oh, I don’t know?—just his head? Don’t give me that look, Abby. You and I both know you’ll do it. You always do what you’re told, especially when I’m the one telling you.”

Abby couldn’t face what was in the bathroom: that lifeless bag of wet fur slung in the corner of the tub. She started to panic. Gretchen picked up the knife and stepped toward Abby. Her leg buckled and Gretchen caught herself against the wall. She leaned there for a moment, breathing hard, her hand gripping the doorframe. She swayed again. Then she raised her head and looked at Abby with hatred.

“Oh,” she said. “You bitch . . .”

Then someone unplugged Gretchen and she hit the floor in a boneless heap. Abby didn’t move for a few minutes, not until she heard deep, regular breathing coming from Gretchen. She went to the phone in the Langs’ bedroom and dialed.

“Hurry,” Abby said when Chris Lemon answered. “It’s number eight. The modern one.”

She hung up and, careful not to look in the bathroom, dragged Gretchen downstairs in her bloody raincoat, not caring as Gretchen’s head bumped hard against each carpeted step. She left her slumped in the hall while she went to the living room and grabbed two woolly throw blankets off the sofa; she pulled off Gretchen’s raincoat and rolled her in the blankets.

Then she waited.

The grandfather clock tocked next to her. The cooling system blew soft air through the vents. The house was cold. The house was quiet.

Something flashed outside the window and Abby leapt to her feet. She heard thrashing and movement, and then a barn owl was standing on the limb of a live oak, staring in at Abby as if it knew her name.

Headlights lit the downstairs hall, then went dark. A car door slammed and Brother Lemon was there. Abby opened the front door and let him inside.

“Holy cow,” he said. “What did you do to her?”

“It’s not her blood,” Abby said. “She killed her dog.”

“She what?” he said.

Abby thought about Good Dog Max, so sweet and stupid, sticking his head in every trash can he could find, and she almost cried. Then she dug her fingernails into her wrist until the pain made the image go away.

“Forget it,” Abby said. “Let’s hurry.”

Brother Lemon tied nylon straps around Gretchen’s blankets so she couldn’t move, and together they carried her out of the house and laid her in the back of his van and drove away. The owl watched them the entire time.





Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough


“Promise me she won’t get hurt,” Abby begged.

Brother Lemon leaned back in the wicker chair he’d commandeered from the living room of the Langs’ beach house. He spread his legs wide, cracked his knuckles, and rested his elbows on his knees.

“That’s up to her,” he said. Even seated, he was taller than Abby. “An exorcism is a contest of wills between the demon and the exorcist. Now, I’m a pretty strong guy, but I’m going up against the forces of darkness, so there’re no guarantees. As Jesus Christ once said: by any means necessary.”

Brother Lemon paused and looked around the dark living room.

“You sure her parents don’t have a video camera? I’d love to get this on tape.”

All the way over, Abby imagined blue lights flickering silently in the rearview mirror. Some cop at the base of the Ben Sawyer Bridge was going to stop them for going seven miles over the speed limit, and when he gave them the ticket he’d hear Gretchen struggling in the back. Were her parents already looking for her? Had the Langs come home and called the police? Abby’s guts were so full of stomach acid, her burps could etch steel.