The Banishing (22 page)

She didn’t trust him. Couldn’t. She would still go. Had to, really. She knew that.

She checked herself over in the mirror and froze. What Sharon and Josh had said was true. Who was that woman staring back at her?

Her dark, once full, bouncy hair looked limp and lifeless, hanging loosely around her face. Damp from rain, it looked greasy, unkempt. Her face was bare of makeup, her skin pale. The skin beneath her eyes was saggy and dark. Though, her body was what shocked her the most. She looked thin. Beyond thin. Frail. Bones jutted from her shoulders and her hips. Her clothes hung looser on her than ever before.

Who am I? What is this thing doing to me?

She stared at herself, the full-length mirror mocking and malicious. She felt ugly.

Josh wants me like this?

Suddenly, in the mirror, a flash of black scampered across the room behind her, and she spun around, her eyes wild with fright.

Nobody, nothing, was behind her, but she
knew
. The black thing. The shadow man. He’d been there, as always, enjoying the view. Enjoying the destruction he was causing.

“You look lovely,” Mark said, staring up at her as she descended the stairs.

“I don’t feel lovely,” she answered honestly, then regretted saying anything at all. She quickly added, “Shall we see a movie, then? Get something to eat afterwards?”

Mark nodded. “That’s fine with me.”

Melissa stepped down, following him out to the car. The night was black, thick with an impenetrable darkness.

They climbed into the car—she into the passenger seat, Mark into the driver’s side. He pulled out in silence, turning onto the main road, which was almost empty.

“So what’s this in aid of?” Melissa asked at last. She suddenly—unsettlingly—felt awkward around this new man. The normality, banality of it all. How things were before….
just
how they were before.

“I had it in my head all day. I think that way a lot, when I’m on the road, you know? I spend all day thinking about you and us and the things I want us to do together, and then by the time I get home, I’m exhausted and don’t end up doing anything.”

Except the way you hurt me. Hit me. Rape me.
Melissa pushed away the wounded thoughts, trying to ignore them. She tried to enter the spirit of the night with Mark, to enjoy the rarity of what normal couples took pleasure in every week. “Well, it’s nice,” she answered truthfully, looking over at him. “I’m glad you suggested it.”

They reached the cinema complex just after 7:30 PM and found a parking space by the main entrance. Melissa was glad of it, since the rain continued to fall steadily and hard.

They stepped out, and she stole a glance at Mark as he pulled on his coat. He looked different, somehow. Different than the last few days, few weeks, perhaps. He looked younger, more relaxed. Melissa melted into familiar, warm memories of their early dates as a couple and couldn’t help but smile to herself. They were good together. It had been good. Once. It could be, again. Watching him now, his eyes falling over her and his smile brightening up the dark night, she believed anything was possible. She even dared to believe things could switch back to the way they were overnight.

Miracles could happen, couldn’t they?

They walked together into the main entrance, and Melissa felt his body close to hers, and his hand stretched outward to meet hers, their fingers intertwining. She looked over and smiled at him, asking him how this could be with her eyes, and his silent answer was…it just was the way it was. Enjoy it while it lasts.

The complex was busy, crowded with teenagers, couples, and gangs of kids pushing their way to the Pick ‘N Mix stall. The smell of popcorn and ice cream permeated the air around them, sickeningly sweet.

They went over to the large listings board to look at the films showing that night.

“What do you fancy?” Mark asked, his eyes searching the board in front of them. His hand still melded with hers.

“I don’t care. It’s just nice to be here with you,” Melissa said.

Mark smiled, leaned over, and kissed her on the cheek. “You pick. I always pick bad ones,” he said.

“That new romantic comedy?
Broken Hearted
?”

“Sounds cheesy as hell, but it‘s your choice,” Mark answered, pulling out his wallet.

He walked over to get in line. “I’ll buy. You want to get something to drink?” he called.

Melissa shook her head. “I’m going to run to the toilet.”

She walked, weaving her way through the crowds pressing around her, feeling light-headed, almost giddy with…how normal things seemed…how good it felt to be here with her husband. Could things really change so easily? Inside, she didn’t believe it could, but she found the strength inside herself to at least indulge in the possibility that it could be okay from now on…that things could just somehow turn out right.

How normal this all seemed
, she thought, walking toward the TOILET sign that hung from the ceiling in neon letters. How normal. People here, doing normal things. Buying food. Watching movies. Making noise. Talking. The normality. No ghosts here, no shadows, no haunted home. Possessions. Priests.

She was here. Alive. It was so good.

She found her way to the red door of the women’s restroom and entered.

It was empty. All of the doors were open.

She entered the last cubicle on the right, locked it, and lifted her skirt.

Then, she froze when she heard a noise. A noise that didn’t belong in an empty toilet. It was laughter. Giggling. It echoed and bounced around the empty toilet, sending the hair on her arms straight, creating a carpet of goosebumps along her back. She straightened up and waited there, her ear pressed to the cubicle door.

“Hell-hello? Is somebody out there?” she called.

Again, a small giggle from somewhere in the room.

Melissa felt her legs turn to fluid, her chest tighten in fear.

“Who is that?” she called.

A small voice, neither male nor female, replied, “I am the one.”

Melissa felt the blood drain from her face. She pulled herself out of her paralysis, unlocked the cubicle door, and stepped out into the main toilet. She looked around her—all of the toilet doors were open, except one.

One door at the end was shut. She knew it had been open when she entered, and she hadn’t heard anyone come in behind her.

Melissa tried to steady herself, to steady the onslaught of frightened, panicked thoughts that somersaulted wildly through her head, and walked over to the closed door.

She stopped outside it.

“Who is it?” Melissa repeated, flushed with anger. “Who the fuck are you, and what do you want?”

Another giggle sounded from within the locked cubicle. The sound was ugly, cold, inhuman. Unnatural there, in the cold, sterile toilet.

Melissa slowly, cautiously, lowered herself to look beneath the toilet door. A flash of black fleeted across the floor, and suddenly, the whole room was plunged into darkness.

Melissa screamed and scrambled toward the main doorway, falling and stumbling along the way.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Mark drove in silence. The air between them was stifled with unspoken words. She could tell, she could see, Mark didn’t get it. Didn’t understand. He had watched her as she scrambled out of the dark toilet, her eyes wild with fright and her screams echoing, bouncing along the walls of the complex. He had been embarrassed, and he didn’t understand it. People around them had stopped, staring at her, and some even laughed. Staff approached, one even asking Mark if he needed security called as if Melissa was insane, a threat to anybody.
They didn’t know, they couldn’t know
, Melissa had thought, feeling trapped and petrified from the experience.

So, Mark wasn’t talking. He was still mad. He didn’t understand
her?
After everything that she had put up with…his anger, his tantrums, the way he was acting, the way he had changed so suddenly. At one point, as he grabbed her arm and pulled her from the cinema, he had asked her if she was going mad. Whether she was seeing ghosts, again.

The truth was she might well be going mad, she had answered. Something struck her, though. Mark genuinely seemed surprised, shocked at the way she had acted. He had seemed scared of
her
behavior. So maybe—and she wasn’t sure she even believed it herself, but the thought persisted—maybe it was only when they were together in the house that the power, whatever it was, did things to Mark. Changed him. Influenced him. Perhaps, when they were away from the house, things were normal, he was normal, again. He
had
seemed himself again once he stepped out with her, driving away from home.

Maybe everything he had said and done was bound to the building they lived in. The thing that ruined Richard Danvers’s mind. The thing that sent Grace to her death. It was all tied to the house. Melissa knew, when they returned home that night, that Mark might turn on her again…the way he had been. While they had been out together, the entity had no hold on him.
Could it be?
, Melissa thought.

The idea seemed to fit. It felt true.

Whatever it was, whatever it all meant, Mark had walked out of the cinema and refused to go back inside. He had said he wanted to go home, that going out had been a mistake.

He was right, but at least Melissa had learned something she didn’t know before: when Mark was away from their home, he was not the monster he had become. Bad things only happened inside. Something like happiness seeped through her mind when she digested the thought, realizing that perhaps the whole matter would dissolve to nothing if she could convince Mark to move with her, to find a new place. Something cheap. Even if it meant losing out on the money they’d put down on their current mortgage, it would be more than worth it.

If she could convince him. Mark would never believe her. He already thought
she
was the crazy one. When he was in that house, whatever the thing was that took control of him made sure he didn’t remember, didn’t know what it was making him do. So, why would he want to move at all?

It’s likely that he wouldn’t
, Melissa thought, staring out of the car window as more rain tapped against the glass. Now was not the time to approach the subject, not while he was still annoyed—embarrassed by her—but she would have to talk to him about moving…and soon. Before things could get worse.

Mark pulled the car into the driveway and the engine shuddered, dying to a low rumble before falling into complete silence. Mark looked over at her before opening the door, muttering something about taking a bath, and then he stepped inside the house, leaving the front door open behind him.

Melissa waited a few moments, saw the lights flick on from inside the house, then climbed out herself. Inside, she waited until she heard the bath running and heard the click of the bathroom door locking, then she ran upstairs, fumbled around in her drawer, and pulled out the brown paper bag. She slid the book out, quickly kicked the bedroom door closed behind her, and sat on the bed, opening the handwritten diary to the first page.

Richard got angry again, today. I didn’t do a single thing this time. Last time he had an excuse—I burned his meal—and this time there was no reason at all, but he was still mad, madder than I’ve ever seen anybody in my entire life.

I never saw such rage in anybody, before. I waited until he left the house to go into town before looking at what he’d done, and I couldn’t believe it. There are bruises and cuts all down my stomach, arms, and legs. I even found a bite mark! A bite mark! Can you believe that? I didn’t even realize he’d done that, but then again, he was all over me like a monster. Out of control. I had to call in sick to work—it wasn’t even that they would see my injuries, but I have been aching and hurting so badly, I couldn’t go in. I just couldn’t do it.

Melissa re-read the first page, feeling a pang of anger for this woman she didn’t know. That she too had suffered the way Melissa was, that she had been abused in such a dehumanizing and humiliating way…it hurt her to see the words across the page, as if each sentence was opening her own wounds. She listened for Mark, hearing him from the bathroom, the sounds of water and slaps of the washcloth echoing down the hallway. She had some more time. Melissa returned to the diary.

I’m scared of Richard. It’s not him anymore. He forced me to have sex with him last night while we were in bed together, and he hurt me. I’ve been bleeding all day, today. It’s like he ripped something inside of me. I know it sounds stupid. He laughed when I asked him to stop, and then I knew it wasn’t him. I looked into his eyes, at his face, and I saw someone I didn’t recognize. There was a black void of darkness to his eyes. It just wasn’t him. I know people would really think I was crazy, and they’d probably end up locking me away, but I swear to God it was not and I mean not my husband. It wasn’t Richard. Not the man I love
.

Melissa wiped tears that had begun falling steadily down her cheeks, trying to stifle the sobs burning within her. She didn’t want Mark to hear. “I know it all, Grace,” she whispered, staring down at the paper. “I really know what you went through.”