In 1998, I really wanted to become a specialist in demonic history. My university had a religious studies department and one professor was an expert on cults and witchcraft in particular. Yet, she never seemed to be in her office or run any classes.
I won’t give you her name because she wouldn’t want it shared, but she saved my life, and maybe more.
So while I’m obviously forever grateful to her now, before I finally met her, I was not a fan. In fact, her unavailability frustrated me to no end. I was only an undergrad in third year, but I wanted to do what she did. Namely, I wanted to study everything dark about religions throughout the world and history.
But she wasn’t around to speak with and her book I found terribly confusing - my own poor reading comprehension was the culprit behind that difficulty.
So I sought out other texts and met with other professors. All were interesting but didn’t possess the specific knowledge I craved, which I started to doubt even existed.
A little desperate, I sought help from the Divinity College on campus. The receptionist couldn’t understand exactly what I wanted and I was vague on purpose. It’s not easy to tell people you want to learn about demons, especially in a religious setting.
The Divinity School is Baptist and not affiliated at all with the religious studies program I was enrolled in. They approached the content as believers in God. We were just students with an academic interest and were often, in my experience, atheists.
A pastor eventually agreed to a brief meeting in his office. I won’t give you his real name either because he’s a nice guy. Let’s call him Noah because it’s biblical and he’ll get the joke if he reads this.
“You want what?” He looked concerned.
“This is not a topic to be treated lightly. There are real forces of darkness…” He took off his glasses, and leaned forward on his desk. I think I must have made a face or rolled my eyes maybe. “Look, you might not believe in them but-“
“They believe in me?” God, I was a little shit.
He sighed. “Something like that.”
“So,” I said, “Can you help me? Is there a text you’d recommend?”
The pastor chuckled, probably at the entitlement of youth. “Okay, listen, let’s make a deal. I’ll try to give you some direction, on the condition that you check in with me regularly.”
“I… uh, why?” I honestly didn’t understand why he couldn’t just give me his knowledge on the spot.
“Because you’re not the first to have a disrespectful interest in evil.” Noah grinned but the expression soon turned to regret. “Malachi Martin wrote about it.”
“Malachi Martin?” It sounded like a name one might find in a Marvel comic.
“He’s not a Baptist.”
“Oh.” Why did that matter? Noah’s gaze became distant, like he wasn’t in the room at all. “Uh, father?”
He blinked a few times and finally seemed to recall the kid in his office asking about demons. “I’m not a priest. That’s Catholics.”
“Sorry?”
“I’m not Father Noah. I’m just Noah.”
“Oh. Okay. So you were saying something about Malachi Martin?”
“I need to think about it.”
“Oh, for real?”
“I suggest you do the same,” he said. “Come back after the weekend, and we’ll talk some more, okay?”
I was disappointed. “Okay.” But it was better than outright rejection or a prof that skipped her office hours. Noah came around his desk when I stood up, and gave the impression he was going for a hug. He stopped short and extended a hand awkwardly. I shook it but it got weirder because he held on too long.
“Be careful. If you can wait, that would be best.” He looked seriously concerned, which I thought was kind of funny. Like oooooo the forces of evil are gonna get me.
He was nice though, so I humored him. “I’ll be careful.” Noah walked behind me to the foyer of the Divinity College and stood in the doorway as I walked across the field to my dorm building. As I fished for my keycard in my backpack, I noticed, in the distance, he was still lingering, watching.
Maybe it’d been a mistake to go there. The pastor was starting to freak me out a little. I acknowledged later that maybe that’s what I wanted: To be frightened. I hadn’t grown up rich but neither had my family been poor, and my parents worked incredibly hard to keep their children sheltered and protected. Was I just looking for a way to feel vulnerable on my own terms? Like a kid that reads a scary story for an excuse to hide under a blanket?
Pretty sure I shrugged off this train of thought. I wanted what I wanted, and could quit anytime, so I figured my next move was the library. The weekend had arrived. Fridays were usually quiet around the school and neighborhood because most kids made the trek home. My parents were a bit too far for weekly visits, so I stayed on campus to catch up on work and read unless it was a holiday or birthday or something.
I’d been through the library several times, combing it for books and journal articles of interest. The internet was still being figured out in ‘98. I didn’t quite understand what it was yet, and I suspect neither did a lot of people. As a result, the transition from paper to digital was clumsy and made things difficult to find. Often, it was easier to just look on the shelf and hope you found something relevant you could use.
The top floor, the sixth, was dedicated to philosophy and religious studies. Students often took naps in the aisles because it was usually deserted and quiet. On a Friday, however, absolutely nobody but me and a skeleton crew of shelvers, giving reminders about the library closing in less than an hour, roamed the huge building.
It felt like I had the books all to myself, and that I owned the library. I took the stairs instead of the elevator because they were made of stone and the railings were carved wood and from when the university had been built a few hundred years ago. Ascending the winding square steps reminded me of a wizard going to his keep. Yes, I am a nerd.
In keeping with the medieval-fantasy theme, I skipped the dusty desktop humming away in the dark corner, and searched for anything by Malachi Martin. I didn’t change that name. I figure he wouldn’t mind because he died the next July in ‘99.
While he’d written and published a ton of books on the demonic and the Catholic Church, they were mostly from the 70s and not being reprinted. I managed to find a battered copy of Hostage to the Devil, one of his bestsellers, a book William Peter Blatty called an attempt to cash in on the success of The Exorcist movie, which it probably was. From what I eventually learned about Martin, he sounded like a conman.
However, that doesn’t mean his books didn’t have real impacts and negative consequences, especially on believers and those, like me, athiests pursuing a thrill.
I went to my napping spot by the large window overlooking the parking lot and the campus bar, which didn’t bother opening on Fridays because there were so few students around. The barren tarmac held in portrait a distant figure deep in his hoodie, bearing the wind with hands in his pockets and his face hidden. I watched them briefly and wondered if they were watching me back.
I sat against the wall and stretched out my legs, and started reading. The plan was to read a few pages of Martin’s book and see if it was worth borrowing. In less than ten minutes the library would officially be closed. A shelver would then begin the tedious process of ensuring everyone had left. So really I probably had more like thirty minutes before being discovered and asked to leave. It’s a big library.
The book was interesting and I found I didn’t want to stop reading, not even to go and borrow it. The shelver would be mad if I asked to borrow it after closing, so I got up and then they were there: The figure I’d seen in the parking lot. Their face and hands were still hidden and beneath the humming inconsistency of bluish track light, I found their sudden presence disturbing.
“Excuse me,” I said, deepening my voice in an attempt to sound stern. They moved aside to let me pass and I went quickly, noting
the liberal amount of an unfamiliar, cloying cologne raiding my nostrils. It made my eyes water.
“Malachi Martin,” they said. It was like dealing with a ringwraith out of Tolkien. No, I don’t mean their voice was raspy; they spoke from within their hood, being careful, it seemed, to keep their face hidden.
“Yes,” I concurred, continuing to move towards the elevator. Big mistake. I should have taken the stairs because now the ringwraith had an excuse to follow me and wait.
“You want his other books? His unpublished papers?”
I stepped away because they were too close and the scent overpowering. His last question, nevertheless, caught my attention.
“Unpublished papers?”
The wraith guy chuckled softly. I don’t know why I didn’t run. “Yes, he wrote a lot. Would you be interested?”
“Yes,” I admitted. It was the kind of conversation you couldn’t be certain had occurred after the fact.
He finally removed his hood and I felt my knees wobble and my face tremble. What I saw wasn’t possible: A face of stitched together pieces, skin of dozens, maybe hundreds of people.
Before I could scream, he removed his mask, which really was made from human skin. He placed it carefully inside a plastic, foam lined case. The guy underneath the mask was a student of a rare type: A double major in science and art.
He extended his hand, which I reasonably ignored. “I’m Rory Sallow.” Yes, that is his name; apparently, his surname is endangered. Less than twenty people in Canada possessed it at the time of our first introduction. Maybe fewer now.
Sallow is the word people - old people probably- sometimes use to describe an unhealthy complexion. Rory told me, on our ride down the elevator, how his last name had created his fascination with skin. He wanted to eventually become a dermatologist, but also an artist whose primary medium was epidermis.
“It took me almost ten years to create my mask,” he said proudly. We stepped off the elevator, and a shelver confronted us immediately.
“The library is closed.”
Neither of us responded, and walked right by to the exit. Outside the library, in the open plaza, he lit up a cigarette and offered me one, which I declined.
“I can get a lot of stuff off the internet,” he said.
“Like books?”
He nodded and exhaled a plume of smoke into the cold night air. “People don’t know it yet, but the internet is going to change everything. It already has. The only thing left is to increase the speed and ease of its use for common folk.” The way he referred to people as “common” was just my kind of arrogance. We, the academics, were not common. Rory was weird, but all great people were regarded as such until everyone recognized their brilliance.
It’s ironic when “geniuses” want the admiration of the “common folk” they resent.
“So you said-“
“Right, you want books by Malachi?”
“Malachi Martin,” I gently corrected.
“Right. I can get it. But… there is a price…” He grinned and drummed his fingers on the plastic case containing his mask.
I tried to keep an open mind. “What exactly are you asking for?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He dropped his butt and stepped on it.
“Explain it anyway.” I could feel the urge to end the discussion growing. There was danger here but I told myself I wanted to run back to my sheltered life and that, if I kept retreating from the unknown, I would never achieve anything of note. Also, I really wanted the writing he said he could get.
“It’s not as gruesome as most imagine.” He rolled his eyes as if the following procedure could not be simpler. He would use a biopsy tool to remove a tiny section of skin. “About the size of a pencil eraser.”
“Sounds fun.”
He laughed and I smiled. I was starting to like this weird guy. “It’s painless. I’ll numb the area with an anesthetic and patch it up after.” Rory became more animated as he described what he’d do with the skin. “I flatten it out and glue it to leather of a similar colour. Then I use a sealant to keep it preserved, let it dry and then add it to my mask.”
‘It’s not really all a skin mask then? It’s mostly leather?”
“Sadly, yes. Nobody seems to like the idea of giving up that much skin.” He winked like a goof and I laughed. “So what do you say? Wanna contribute to an art project destined to be famous?” He held out his hand for me to shake, and this time, I took it.
As we firmly shook hands, I thought of geniuses in history that you’d never think were friends: Tesla and Twain. I’m not sure which one I was, or why I’d thought of them specifically. The moment felt important and, unbelievably, I consented.
What I didn’t understand was that the operation would occur on the spot. Rory had a kit in the satchel on his waist. We sat on the wide plaza stairs while he set up. I rolled up my sleeve and flinched when he brought out the first needle.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “This is anesthetic. My tools are clean and the needles are never reused. You won’t feel anything other than some minor soreness in the fleshy part of your arm.”
Before I could think about this stupid rash decision, Rory held down my forearm and jabbed me, which hurt. The needle had entered my upper arm, near the left tricep muscle.
“Sorry,” he said, “probably should have mentioned the needle might feel like a pinch.” He smiled apologetically. “That’s for real the only discomfort. Thanks for doing this.” Next, he took out a tool, a small punch, he explained.
“That’s why you said it’d be the size of a pencil eraser,” I said.
“Exactly. Same shape too.” He waited another moment to ensure the anesthetic had taken effect and then applied the tool. Despite the cold air and the wind gusts, I began to sweat. I hoped nobody was watching us for some reason. Maybe because allowing a stranger to perform minor surgery on you is a dumb idea.
“Done.” He cleaned the area and put a bandaid on it. Then he gave me a small bottle of ibuprofen. “Thanks.” He repacked his kit and lit up another cigarette. “I’ll have the books and stuff in a week.”
“Okay. Do you have a number-“
He shook his head and rummaged in his satchel, producing a pad of paper and a pen. With his cigarette clenched between his teeth, he wrote down his Hotmail and had me give him mine. “I can send all the documents if I get them early but I’ll also print them up for you, if you want.”
At the time, I couldn’t imagine reading anything on a computer for long periods. Paper was king. “Paper would be preferred but it’d also be a good backup if you emailed them as well.”
He nodded. “Okay, see you next Friday. Same spot on the sixth floor, cool?” We shook hands again and he started walking toward the corridor leading around the library, back to the parking lot where I’m sure he was the figure I’d seen from the window. I forgot to ask if he’d seen me too. But he must have. What other explanation could there be for him to come up to my hidey spot?
I went back to my dorm room and finally realized I’d borrowed Hostage to the Devil without checking it out. It didn’t set off the sensors at the library exit; maybe nobody cared if it got stolen.
I read it more until I noticed the ache in my arm and took out Rory’s ibuprofen. The bottle ended up being expired, so I thought twice about using the pills inside. Instead, I went down to the campus pharmacy, which was thankfully 24-7.
The student centre contained a cafeteria and a Tim Hortons but everything was closed up and dark. Only the neon pharmacy light offered scant illumination. Even inside the store the track lights were dull and clinical. I didn’t see a cashier.
I found the painkillers and glanced toward the cafeteria where a figure appeared to be standing amidst the tables and put-up chairs. It was too dark to see them clearly and, at first, I assumed, my eyes were misinterpreting an object as a person. Like maybe a coat had been left on a mop in a bucket. But then I thought I saw it move slightly, a body shifting weight from one foot to the other.
“What the hell?” I said to myself quietly. Hiding seemed like a wise choice because a person standing in the dark could only have bad intentions. But I didn’t want to look away either and lose track of them.
“Hello?”
I recoiled from the cashier, another student, suddenly at my elbow.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” she said, sounding pretty indifferent about it to be honest. “Can I help you find something?”
“There’s someone out there,” I told her. “By the tables. Just standing there.” The figure, of course, was no longer there.
“Really?” She appeared slightly more concerned and went to the counter and called campus security without hesitation. “I keep telling my manager the school needs to keep the lights on out there,” she said, while we waited together. “It’s like a freaking horror movie in here.”
Within minutes, three campus security guards appeared with their flashlights in the student centre. They asked a few questions but when I admitted I wasn’t certain what I’d seen they acted as if I’d certainly seen nothing. I bought some extra strength ibuprofen and left.
I felt belittled by the security guards and my arm ached more than Rory indicated it would. The evening had started with so much promise. I began to regret having a punch of my skin taken, and also felt like an idiot for regretting it. Of course, I regretted it. Any normal person with average intelligence would regret such a stupid choice.
I walked past the ivy covered buildings right out of an ad for post-secondary education without my usual pride and wonderment. The truth was that my years at the school were coming to an end faster than expected. I had less than two years to go and no plans for afterward except a vague idea about a masters degree and a PhD.
I didn’t know what those endeavors involved and had no strong desire to find out. I didn’t know what to do with my life. I wanted to know, to have some direction or passion, but simply didn’t. Looking up demons and learning about the occult was fun. It wasn’t a career.
In the midst of these depressing thoughts came the wraith. The tarmac path winds around the forest as both descend and rise from a shallow bowl in the earth that floods when it rains. I looked back at the furthest edge of the earthen bowl and on the other side stood the hooded figure I’d seen in the parking lot, the one I thought must be Rory when he appeared on the sixth floor.
“Rory?”
No answer but the wind tugging at the edges of his black hoodie, which he lowered slowly to reveal his ridiculous art project. With deliberate slowness, he touched his index finger to the square near the small of his throat.
“Is that mine? You work fast,” I said. “How’d you know which dorm I was in?” I wasn’t angry yet, but the shadows pouring from the sockets and orifices of his patchwork mask were unsettling. Probably because he also didn’t answer my question or say anything for that matter.
He continued to stare.
“I’m gonna go, Rory,” I said. I turned away for a second. “Is this part of…” He was gone before I could ask if this stunt was part of the project. “Whoa. Batman. Good one, Rory.” Nothing but the wind replied. I was tired and achy and had had enough fringe art crap for the night. I left and entered the dorm building, intending to drop into bed the second after I finally took those painkillers.
I went to close the curtains, however, and there he was, standing on the grass beneath the barren branches of a tree. The hood was back on, and, like last time, he lowered it slowly to show the skin mask. He touched the new patch again too. Then those hollow cavities where his eyes, nostrils, and open mouth took control, pulling my attention beyond the human skin mixed with leather.
I opened the window to yell through the screen. “What the hell, Rory?!”
Silence. Only staring.
“Look man, this is really not cool. Just email me those documents. I don’t want to meet you next week. Or leave them at the desk when you get them. For real, you’re taking the joke too far.” I slid closed the window and closed the curtains, figuring I’d check again in a minute to see if he was still there.
When he was, with the hood up, and starting to lower it again to repeat the whole thing, I closed the curtains and went to my computer. It took a few minutes to connect to the internet and fire off an email.
Rory. What the fuck man? You seemed like an interesting person but I am not okay with whatever drama you’re playing at here. I don’t even know how you know where I live and it’s creepy.
I didn’t know how to end it, so I sent it without further information. The email notification sound came while I resumed looking down at him. He lowered his hood. He touched the new patch. He stared.
The new mail came from Rory.
I don’t know what you mean. I don’t know where you live. What’s going on?
I checked the window again. Still there. Hood back on. Going through the process: He lowered it. Touched the patch. Stared.
I’m no idiot. He had a friend in on his prank. Either Rory stood below or an accomplice. Whatever the case, I’d had enough and called campus security.
“There’s someone outside my dorm,” I told them, “and they’re wearing a mask and staring at me.” They instructed me to stay on the line and continue to look out the window. Rory, or his friend, must have heard the approaching car. I did. He walked slowly down the path, toward the woods, and finally out of sight.
“He’s gone into the forest,” I told the dispatcher. One of four security guards below received that information on his walkie. They went down the path and out of sight too. Minutes went by, and the dispatcher asked for more details about the masked person, which I was reluctant to give because it somehow felt self-incriminating: Yes, ma’am, he’s wearing a mask made out of human skin, including some of mine. I told her I didn’t get a good look.
“He’s gone,” the dispatcher said. “We’ll keep patrolling the area and put some extra guards outside your dorm. Get some sleep, honey.” She could have been my mom.
I did try to follow her advice. Deep, restful sleep eluded me, however. I kept waking up from stupid dreams. Nothing to do with Rory or the mask. Not even nightmares. Of them, I can only recall one clearly, a conversation with a long-winded high-school teacher of mine, lecturing me about the first girl I ever loved. We didn’t date, and only held hands once. She dated a friend of mine, who didn’t give a crap about her, and when they broke up and she was ready to be with me, I found only resentment in my heart. I should have been first. Not some consolation prize.
“You should have hugged her,” my old teacher said, “and never let go.”
“I know,” I said miserably. She walked away, and I never saw her again. Recent internet searches still yield nothing because I assume she moved on, got married, and changed her name.
Before the sun could rise I awoke in a panic. “I know,” I announced loudly on a Saturday morning to an empty dorm building. Outside the window, beneath the tree, no one and nothing remained to freak me out.
Another email from Rory had arrived during the night. Attached were several documents of Malachi Martin’s. None appeared to be unpublished works but it was still cool to have more of his writing. My arm hurt less today, and I was starting to feel optimistic once more.
Not sure what happened last night, but hope you’re okay. I found some of Malachi Martin’s books right away, and here they are. I’ll get the rest soon.
One thing I didn’t notice until that moment was how Rory had said Malachi Martin had unpublished works that he could get, but then didn’t accurately recall the author’s name outside the library. How could he know Martin had unpublished works if he didn’t know who the author was?
The guy was obviously full of shit, and it was time for breakfast. I went through the student centre on my way to the only cafeteria open on the weekend at the far edge of campus. A new cashier and a pharmacist stared at me as I passed and didn’t wave when I waved to them.
In the caf, as I ate my eggs and hash browns, a custodian stopped at my table and pointed to her neck. I nearly choked. The gesture was too close to Rory’s.
“You… you’re bleeding.”
“What?”
“On your neck, right there. There’s blood.”
I touched the spot and my fingertip came back red. Careful to swallow, I retreated to the bathroom to check it out in the mirror. A square set of scratches had been made in the small of my neck, deep enough to draw blood.
With some wet paper towels, I cleaned up the spot and tried to make sense of the injury. Clearly, I must have done it to myself while I slept. Weird dreams had visited during the night. Perhaps one of them had involved the disturbing skin mask and the neck gesture. Yes, that’s what it must be. Unless someone had broken into my room and done it without waking me somehow.
I lifted the bandaid on my shoulder too and found the biopsy spot looking fine. I’d taken a risk and there’d been some consequences the following morning. I didn’t drink but sort of assumed this was something like a hangover. Conflating neck scratches and inebriation seemed like an irrational stretch toward calm.
There was nothing to be done anyway. I finished breakfast and returned to my dorm to start reading the files Rory had sent. Martin’s words were interesting and dramatic. However, I couldn’t read from a screen for long and opted to waste the rest of the day on video games.
Before bed, I stared out the window and the grass beneath the tree. Nobody to freak me out tonight, which was good news. I’d had enough excitement, and had a good story to tell. I had begun to relax into slumber when the phone on the nightstand rang.
It wasn’t supposed to make a sound. Landlines were permitted in rooms only if they could be muted. Otherwise, there’d be constant ringing at all hours through paper-thin walls. I picked up the phone.
“Do you have salt? Do you have sage?” The voice sounded weird. Feminine but robotic. “Pack the wounds with salt. Burn the sage and bathe in smoke.”
“Hello? Who is this?” I asked.
“Salt and sage.” A long pause followed. “He is there. The window.” The call ended. I threw the blankets off and crept to the curtain, opening a slit to peek. The attempt to observe from hiding proved futile. Rory Sallow lowered his hood, revealing his grotesque mask once more, and touched his neck.
Through the window, in the dark, I didn’t notice he’d touched a spot next to the first, another new patch, on his collarbone. I called security and they were as useful as before. He walked away into the night, and they stood guard. The actual police arrived to take a statement. A constable came in and asked if I knew the person in question. I gave up Rory Sallow without regret. He’d gone way too far with this stalker shit.
“You’re bleeding,” the constable said, tapping the top of his pen to his neck.
“Oh, yeah, I know,” I said, “I scratched myself in my sleep.”
He crouched a little to take a closer look. “You said you weren’t asleep yet when you got that call.”
“Yeah, I meant last night.”
“Looks pretty fresh, kid.”
I went to the mirror by my desk. There on my collarbone a new squared section of flesh had been rented. That’s how I knew Rory hadn’t touched the original spot. Suddenly, I gasped and found it impossible to take a deep breath. The constable sat me down and talked me through my first panic attack.
When my breathing had resumed normal efficiency, he asked if there was anything else I wanted to tell him. I did and I told him everything, showing the biopsy spot and describing my interest in demons.
He stopped writing at that point. He took off his cap, and ran his hand through his hair. “I’m going to pay Rory Sallow a visit once I know where he is, but this sounds like some satanic stuff you’ve gotten involved in.” I knew better than to tell him the Satanic Panic had ended earlier that decade. “My advice is to go to church, and pray. Do you attend church, kid?”
I was about to tell him I did not, but a thought struck me. Noah had said to come back Monday. I needed his advice as soon as possible, however. A Baptist would be in church on Sunday.
“I’m Baptist,” I lied.
The constable nodded. “Okay. Do you go to Harmony Church?”
I shook my head. “I only attend my church when I go home. I think I’ll go tomorrow though. Know the address?”
He wrote it down, and said he’d be in touch when he’d gotten more information. The security guards stayed all night and I didn’t sleep. I went to Harmony Church as soon as the sun was up, waiting on the edge of a tiny garden and hoping Noah would show up.
He saw me before I saw him. He’d arrived before the parishioners to open up. I just presented my neck and the scratches and started to cry. He hugged me and guided me inside to an office.
Without a word, he got out a first aid kit and began disinfecting the wounds, including the biopsy punch spot. I told him everything.
He was calm when he spoke but his words filled me with terror. “You have drawn the enemy of Man to yourself, and it has claimed you. The entity will consume you slowly until you give yourself to it entirely. Then will you become a passive observer of your life until you free yourself from evil.”
I had trouble breathing again. Panic attack number two had ensued. “Wh-wh-what c-c-can I d-do?”
He grasped my hands tightly. “No Christian can be oppressed by the enemy. Say the name of Jesus, and accept him into your life, and this will stop. Do not despair.”
I trembled. This was all some hypnotic bullshit and the power of suggestion. I pulled my hands away from Noah, and stood up. He reached forward and pleaded with his eyes for me to stay.
As I started to leave, he said, “You’re not alone. When confronted next - and there will be a next - command it to go in the name of Jesus Christ and it will trouble you no more.” I pushed through the glass exit doors angrily, and startled some early service parishioners.
“Sorry.”
“No problem,” Rory said as he mounted the steps in his Sunday best. He went into the church. “Have a good day.” Dumbstruck, I watched as he entered the foyer where Noah received him with a handshake. The pastor held up his hand and beckoned me to return. I ran down the steps, feeling betrayed when I should have been warning Noah about the demon in his church.
I thought about going back. I thought about what Noah had said. By the time I had metaphorically collected my emotions from the sidewalk outside the coffee shop, and found the courage to stand up and go to Harmony, it was late afternoon. Services had ended and the church locked.
I thought he might be at Divinity College. No luck there either. It was dark inside and empty looking. The sky had turned a darker shade of gray, and it looked like rain. The thought of staying on the college steps because they might be like holy ground occurred to me, and I felt annoyed again.
I didn’t want to give in to religion. Academics and reason should be everyone’s guide. It wasn’t until I was much older that I understood the things we learn at school and what we think is rational are just as made up as religious belief. Each requires more faith in an orderly universe than experience and age allow. The best a person can hope for is chaos and indifference from powerful, evil things. You will arrive at these conclusions too. When you’re old enough.
The sky spit down into the streetlights and I wandered to the library. It was open and I went in with my fists clenched, looking for Rory Sallow. He’d followed me everywhere that weekend. It was reasonable for him to show up there too, especially if I could provoke him.
I ran up the steps to the vacant sixth floor and stood at the window. The hooded figure waited in the parking lot as expected. He didn’t wait for me to look away this time before striding swiftly across the tarmac, black and slick like blood from the rain. Let him come, and find out.
The elevator door slid open and soft footsteps shuffled through the aisles to the corner where I waited in ambush. I misjudged where he’d appear, however, and there he stood suddenly in the shadows of the opposite corner, down the opposing aisle.
The hood lowered and the eyes, the nostrils, the mouth drank all my pathetic courage. I started to shake. He took his finger and touched a leather-skin patch on his cheek, and I felt the burn on my own face immediately. The blood ran fast alongside my lips and tasted like hot metal.
His cloying cologne, covering the smell of decaying flesh, encouraged the tears filling my eyes to run. Rory had lied about the quantity of skin he’d acquired over the years. I knew that with inexplicable certainty because he was there - no, not he, it. It was here for more than I wanted to give.
“Do not be afraid,” it said with Rory’s voice from beneath the mask. “I can give you everything you desire. Direction. Purpose. Academic greatness. You would not be the first we have made perfect. The price is low. Only a few scars.”
The price was too high. I didn’t know how to escape or what I could do. Fists might only harm Rory. Even the creature was the horrible idea of the mask. Not the mask itself. Its presence could dwell in the mind of a victim such as I with similar ease.
Noah had told me what to do. If only I had listened more carefully.
“In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave me alone.” My voice had not been loud or steady.
And it laughed before it said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?”
It laughed more and then it was upon me. It seized Rory’s body and I had no hope of defending myself. I covered my head as punch after punch, kick after kick impacted my body. I woke up on the elevator when the door slid open.
Broken and bloodied, and stripped naked, I walked out before the astonished shelvers and a crowd of students who’d returned for this week’s classes. More students were in the plaza. I walked with no destination in mind, completely separated from the moment, an observer of my body’s actions.
A squat woman in a shawl stood in my path. Smoke surrounded her. “Salt and sage,” she said, tossing a handful of granules over my head before waving smoke around my whole naked body. I felt my focus return somewhat, which only made the embarrassing moment worse. “Go,” she commanded.
I ran back to my dorm room and sat on the floor for an indeterminate amount of hours. I know it was late when I finally got up and went to the window. No one stood beneath that tree. Nobody during that whole night.
I left the university the next morning, and returned home to Bridal Veil Lake. My parents were furious with the school and contemplated legal action. My mental health became their priority. They’d find me often looking out the window in the morning.
With time, I recovered and recognized similarities between the attack at the library and the Bible story in Acts of some young men attempting to use Jesus’s name, without conviction, to exorcize demons. They too were beaten, stripped and humiliated.
A heavy envelope arrived in the mail before Christmas. There was no return address but I knew it contained the printed documents Rory had promised. When my parents were at work, I got a fire going in the hearth, fully intending to burn the whole thing without opening the envelope. For some reason, I didn’t and shoved it in my closet.
When I finally checked my email soon after the envelope incident, there were several messages from Rory. None contained subject lines, and I left them unopened too.
I gradually compartmentalized the trauma and got on with the business of living. Forgetting about academia proved to be easier than expected. I took up a trade, finding a meditative effect in woodworking and building.
Years passed. I got married. I have a couple of kids, and life is good.
My mother found the envelope in my old bedroom closet, and gave it to me. I lied to her about its contents, saying it was an old novel I’d mailed to myself because I thought it’d protect the ideas from thieves. Her expression said she didn’t believe my elaborate story. She didn’t question it though either.
I shoved the envelope and the awful memories accompanying it to the bottom of an old drawer. But the damage had ripped open old wounds. The light scarring on my cheek, and neck, hadn’t faded as much I imagined.
I’d been avoiding mirrors for so long. My wife thought I’d gotten them from a cycling accident because that’s what I’d told her.
I saw AP Cleriot’s flier asking for residents of Bridal Veil Lake to share their unexplained experiences last year and made contact. AP contends there is no God. Only demons. The other stories posted here and here seem to support this idea.
The woman with the salt and sage I thought of as a friendly witch professor, the one who taught nothing and kept no office hours. AP believes she too was or is in league with a demon, and that these beings fight for territory or something. I was merely an unintended benefactor in a conflict between them. She saved me in order to show another of her kind they couldn’t operate on her turf. Sounds like a pretty dumb theory if you ask me, but who knows the truth?
I used the same old Hotmail account to send my story.
Rory’s messages are still there. I’ve thought about opening them finally.
Would you?