The Last Customer (2 page)

Now, turning away from the sidewalk, Gardner looked up at the street sign.

Cleveland Street.

He spun his head and peered down the street. His gaze opened to a neat row of small homes that he’d past, oblivious, on his way to the Shaney’s home. There was nothing off-kilter about the aesthetics of the house. It was a standard brick home with a screened-in porch. The brick was a fading cream color in need of a pressure wash. The lawn was bright green, a bit overdue to be mowed. But other than the slight lack of upkeep, the house didn’t stand out. It didn’t reflect the evil burrowed inside.

           
Gardner’s clicked his heels together at a forty-five degree angle before the first cement stair leading up to the porch. Standing with the screen door propped open was an older woman, Silvia Shaney, Donna’s grandmother. As he looked at her he felt a familiar rush of energy course through his system. It was the Holy Spirit, preparing him to fight.

Silvia tried to a smile. The exhaustion and angst beneath her expression wouldn’t allow comfort. It was obvious that she hadn’t slept in days. Her eyes were dark circles. The creases in her skin were unnaturally deep; all the moisture had been depleted. Still, as haggard and tired, as she appeared, the deep love that she held for Donna was unmistakable. It radiated from her sunken glare.

           
“Thank you for being with us, Father Gardner. Please come in,” she said in a pleasant, but shaky voice, yet held a hospitable nature. She stepped aside, her light blue dress fluttered above her ankles as a breeze whisked past. Her silver hair danced across her forehead where it had fallen from her braid. She was a good woman. Her abundance of life exceeded her age.

           
Upon entering the quaint home, Gardner immediately heard shuffling and thunderous stomps from the upstairs bedroom. It was the sound of bouncing bedposts.

Quickly, he shuttled up the hardwood steps and landed on the second floor, ready to face his opponent. Through research, prayer, and the visions that God had shown him, he knew that the entity living within the girl was the demon
Sammael.
Gardner had never been challenged by this particular demon. And, as always, he hoped that today would be their last meeting.

Making the sign of the cross, Gardner looked out the hallway window. The view opened up into the neighbor’s yard. There was an aging wooden fence separating the Shaney’s property from the nearest neighbor. The day was bright with many rays of sunlight bending and refracting through the Elder trees outside. It was pleasant and comforting, if only for a brief moment.

Gardner continued down the hall.

He entered the room.

3

The bedposts ceased slamming against the hardwood floor when Gardner entered the room. The demon spun its head toward Gardner, quick and concise. Their eyes met. Her lips were livery and grey. A large tear had settled in the center of her bottom lip. Crusted dried blood branched downward from the abrasion. The split in her lip broke further when the demon smiled.

The odor permeating the room was horrendous. Gardner tried to get used to it but couldn’t.

Maintaining his composure, he walked to the edge of the bed.
 

Donna sat upright against a soggy pillow with her back arched. Every muscle in her body flexed and strained. Her ashen skin had become so dry that the top layer broke. There were lesions crossing her sunken cheeks. The restraints on her wrists held crusty brown streaks where her skin was rubbed off. Her blonde hair was wiry and matted—caked with sweat, blood and vomit.

She opened her mouth and smiled maliciously while licking her broken, bleeding mouth. “Go away. You haven’t the strength to fight me.”

           
Gardner received a vision. Fairly often, he received visions during the course of exorcism. They didn’t come to him during every exorcism and not every exorcism had been successful. On more than one occasion, Gardner had expelled the demon, but lost the host. A few victims had died during the rites of exorcism. The body could only take so much fight before it quit. It disappointed Gardner when the physical body became so worn-out that its soul couldn’t maintain its ground. Luckily, with Donna, her body wasn’t to the point of terminal exhaustion, y
et.

           
Falling back a step, Gardner’s vision became clear. The blinding light dissipated. He saw
her.
It was Donna and she was beautiful. They stood in the light. She held her arms out, inviting him to cleanse her body of the demon. There was fight within her. Her soul was capable of beating the entity and Gardner was the catalyst needed to lead the evil spirit out.

Confident of what his duties entailed, he smiled at the face of the demon Sammael.

The vision cleared. Gardner adjusted his tie then stepped forward, extended his arm across the bed and rested his palm upon Donna’s forehead. He pulled out a small silver vile and dribbled holy water down her forehead. The demon hissed. Gardner’s face lowered to the demon. Sammael spit at him. Yellow mucus and brown blood dripped from Gardner’s face. He wiped it away, unfazed.

Looking into the demon’s eyes, he whispered, “I cast you out. The power of good…that which is greater than
you,
casts you out.” The octave of Gardner’s voice heightened. “The Holy Spirit casts you out!”

           
The demon growled. It shook furiously on the mattress, shredding the tangled blankets. The bedposts rose and fell successively on the wood flooring. The demon continued hissing and swearing. It didn’t want to leave the body of this young woman. It wanted to rip her insides to pieces and kill her earthly body. Nothing would satisfy the demon more. It wanted to take her soul to the depths of eternal pain.

Gardner was contended as he took part in the demon’s defeat. As the evil began to separate from Donna’s body, it looked to Gardner and gnashed its teeth. It spoke in a deep harmonic tone that made Donna’s grandmother writhe and back away. It spoke, “I will come back for you. I will tear the skin from your corpse and burn you in the eternal flame. It will hurt more that way.”

The demon closed its eyes. In an instant, color returned to Donna’s face. It was as if she’d awoken from a deep sleep. Her body jolted sprung upward from the bed.

           
Gardner closed his eyes and began to pray. There were no certainties in life—he knew that more than anyone.

With grace, Gardner stepped aside while Donna lurched above the bed. The demon howled as it shed from her body.

Donna landed softly and bounced on the mattress. Her voice rattled and huffed. As if waking from a horrible nightmare, with clear eyes, Donna looked around the bedroom, seemingly confused. This was a normal reaction. Her eyes fell upon Gardner and she asked, “What happened?”

           
Donna shook her head. Her face contorted when the pain struck. She groaned
,
grabbing at her aching back, then fell to the bed. The physical aches had set in. Gardner went to the bedside. He ran his hand down the side of her exhausted face. The demon had stretched and torn her organs. Her body had been twisted, contorted and depleted for weeks. She would have very few recollections of what happened during the short period in which she was possessed. In time, she would be enlightened of the encounter with her evil entity.
Sammael.

           
Silvia went to Donna’s bedside. She didn’t care about the filth soaked bed sheets or the awful scent that her granddaughter gave off. She only saw her beautiful Donna.

The awful parasite that preyed on her had been cast away. Her granddaughter was pure in spirit. She could continue life with a clean slate.

Gardner stood, backing out of the bedroom and into the hallway. He didn’t say goodbye. The longing between these two women—to bond and love one another—was too strong. Gardner refused to interfere. His leaving went unnoticed.

4

Walking down the stairs from the second floor, Gardner glanced to the neatly framed family photos that hung, staggered, across the walls. The captured images were sweet. There weren’t many pictures of Donna and her parents, but there were many of her and Silvia. It was easy to see that Silvia loved her granddaughter like a mother.

           
Gardner left the Shaney’s home. The soft hum of the summer afternoon felt right. From here, Gardner would drive until he found a nice café to stop at. He enjoyed small diners. He could relax with a nice cup of coffee. Small town greasy spoons were a treat.

The screen door creaked as Gardner pulled the latch and swung it open. Stepping down the cement staircase, he looked back to the second story of the brick house. He heard Donna crying...thanking God. He smiled. His joy came from their happiness.

Gardner continued down the stairs toward the base of the sidewalk. A shadow spilled over him. He glanced at the sky, seeing a dark cloud creep over the house.

In that moment, Gardner felt the damning power of Sammael. His presence hovered above and he was angry. Demons became furious after being expelled.

The Demon had been defeated, but not destroyed.

Sammael would find Gardner again.

Their battle was far from finished.

Gardner could feel it.

Part 2: The Vessels

Chapter 2

1

The sky was clear on that sunny summer day in August 2010. Not a cloud hung in the sky to interrupt the canvas above that was a picture perfect blue. A humid gust of wind blew through Dodge Junction, a small town of eight thousand in the southern region of rural Wisconsin. The humidity hung thick in the air, making the day hazy. The temperature was ninety and rising. With the added humidity it was scorching, almost unbearable.

           
Downtown Dodge Junction was deserted. The line of old stores, diners, repair shops, banks and gas stations were dried up and desolate. Even the industrial area north of town seemed to be lifeless. The generator factory—where the town’s livelihood stemmed from—was shut down for the weekend. The remaining townsfolk had retreated to their air conditioned homes, or at least, fanned living rooms. Sprinklers danced across many of the freshly mowed yards creating a scenic glaze across the suburban neighborhoods. Fresh green lawns popped nicely against mild colored houses. Even the paint laminating the white picket fences seemed to sweat on this particular day. The wetness made everything appear glossy.

It was peaceful.

It was Saturday.

In a town forty miles north of Dodge Junction, the heat held something perverted, dreadful, retched, and nearly unspeakable—

2

Rod Barton and Patty King baked in the summer heat of a posh Midwestern living room. The couch where they sat was comfortable. The covers were made of satin and were stained with sweat. Patty and Rod had access to air conditioning, but didn’t bother. They’d been camped out in this nicely polished Victorian home for three days, not letting the rising temperature affect their plans. The two
deviants
were invested in heinous acts they sought pleasure in committing. They were experiencing too much pleasure to worry about a thing like
heat
.

Patty watched Rod’s eager eyes peer down, intensely, at the glass pipe. The small bulb on the end was smudged with a thin layer of blackened burn marks. The black ash spread as he ran a cheap lighter underneath the round ball at the end of the straw-like tube. He slowly turned the tube between his index finger and thumb. The crystal methamphetamine was melting and creating a ribbon of smoke that tumbled like a miniature tornado within the small glass circle with a tiny hole in the top.

Patty watched attentively as Rod’s full red lips puckered around the base of the straw. As he began to suck, a heavy cloud of the uppity smoke left the bulb and entered Rod’s mouth.

Leaning back in his chair, Rod turned to Patty. His piercing blue eyes met her face. His pupils were dilated—blackened, and his cheeks were sunken in. Pulling the pipe away from his lips, he leaned toward her, extending the pipe to her.

Patty’s heart leapt when his eyes met hers. She felt her affection for him funnel. Her hands began to shake and perspire. She loved him. He understood the hate in her heart and accepted it—loved it. She’d never—in her short life—felt as complete as she did with Rod. They’d been together for four years. She would never, willingly, leave his presence. She couldn’t. The bond they’d created was unbreakable. The things that he’d shown her made the flesh on her arms tingle and the hair on the back of her neck jump. Sex was just part of it. The journey, as Rod called it, was the excitement. It was an intense relationship. Her father would have called it a perversion.
But who cared?
She and Rod took care of
daddy
years ago. Patty had gotten the last words in on him.

The last time that Patty King had seen her father, she was looking directly into his sunken brown eyes. She was swaying back and forth from her right leg to her left. She was excited, unable to sit. Rod held a freshly sharpened straight razor beneath his chin.

Rod was smiling.

“I never loved you, Dad, and I am enjoying this. If you want to make me happy, Dad, then you should scream,” Patty told her father. While she said this, she remembered the beatings that she’d endured at his hand. When Patty was a child, her father locked her in a dog kennel. He’d kept her there for days at a time, starving her, making her go without water until she would faint from dehydration. He’d put her there whether she’d been bad or not. He enjoyed watching her suffer. He even told her that she’d thank him one day, that he was doing this for
her own good
. She’d frozen out there, in the kennel, behind the barn. The fenced-cage was freezing at night and the evening long as time moved slowly. Each minute seemed like an eternity. Her hatred was given plenty of time to develop.