In His House

“You must hold tight to your faith in the Lord. Remember what Peter tells us: ‘Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.’ Keep this in mind when--”

The late-night sermon was interrupted as the church's oak doors burst open. An intruder marched into the chapel like a dog of war, driven by a ravenous inquisition. He entered the sacred ground loudly, and the pious audience, startled by his brazen sauntering, gazed at him with wonder, like children waiting for permission to speak. He let the echo of his hard-soled shoes do the talking at first. When he finally spoke, he did so with thunder that rivaled God.

“Please stay seated,” he started. “I want this to be as painless as possible so we can all get on with our lives.”

As he continued down the aisle, the stranger took careful stock of the people before him: a young man in his late twenties wearing a wrinkled gray suit sat alone, two rows up to the right sat a young woman with sun-kissed skin and black hair, her faced half-buried in her smartphone. Several feet to her right sat a burly man with a thick mustache that cast a slight shadow over his mouth. The balding priest with small reading glasses resting on the tip of his nose stood by the altar in curious awe. Lastly, an elderly woman with sullen features and long gray hair sat closest to the priest, glaring at the stranger.

The stranger brushed past the priest, rubbing his tightly closed eyes, and perched on top of the altar before addressing the congregation. “I’ve come a long way to get here and deal with you all so I won’t beat around the bush.”

Before the stranger could continue, the priest spoke up, catching the glasses that finally slipped from his nose. “Who are you, sir?”

"Father!" shouted the elderly woman. “Don’t let this man barge into the Lord’s house and disrespect it!”

“I'm Abraham Ward”, said the intruder ignoring the outburst. “I am here because there is an inhuman spirit among you. A demon, if you will, and I’m here to flush it out.”

A palpable silence came over the room. Ward knew what it meant: skepticism. He thought it laughable, considering the people around him supposedly believed in this sort of thing.

“Get this idiot out of here, Father”, the scornful gray-haired woman piped up again.

“I don’t want to be here anymore than you want me to be here", said Ward. "Thankfully, this problem is nothing I haven’t handled before. It’s a relatively small issue.”

“Small issue?”, said the young man in the wrinkly suit. “You just told us there’s a demon in here!”

“Correction”, said Ward pointedly. “There is a demon within one of you...I should have been clearer on that.”

The burly man rose to his feet and cleared his throat, “Argh-hem, excuse me, Mister Ward. My name is Shawn Mallory and I’m one of the deputy sheriffs in this town. I just came here tonight, like all these folks probably have, looking to ease some of the tension that tries to drown us in our everyday life. Now, you coming in here, with your boisterous ways and talk of demons is, frankly, absurd. So, what do you really want?”

Ward sighed deeply. “I understand this all sounds ridiculous but, fact is, one of you is possessed by a demon. And if I don’t do something about it that person may hurt themselves and definitely others. I’m sure you’re all decent people, to some degree, and don’t want to see anyone, especially yourselves, get hurt."

The stranger’s earnestness managed to reach the heart of the younger woman, and she slowly turned her head up in proposed interest. Mallory said nothing in response nor did he sit back down.

“Excuse me, son”, the reverend said while placing his hand on Ward's shoulder. “I hate to rain on your parade as well but, this is His house. And even if there is a demon on the prowl, it can’t enter His house. Not as long as we faithful stay true to Him and His word.”

“Is that so?”

“Ephesians, chapter six, verses ten through eleven: ‘Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil”, recited the pastor from memory, clutching his crucifix and never breaking eye contact with Ward.

“Amen”, agreed the graying woman with glee.

Ward looked them both over casually with eyes that seemed too old for his face. Finally, he spoke. “My mother was a God-fearing woman too. She went to church regularly enough that she was definitely what I would call pious. She never lost faith. Not when my father left us, not when we were evicted and forced to live in homeless shelters until I could start working. She even held tight to her faith when she was dying from an illness that the insurance couldn’t pay for. She was so sure that God would come through for her, and, if he didn’t, well, then that was all part of his ‘master plan’. God didn’t protect her from any suffering. So, if you think that He’s going to help you all now...He won't. God won’t save you from the monstrosity that sits in our wake but, I will. That’s why I am here. This is my house now.”

The priest slowly removed his hand from Ward’s shoulder and backed away. The congregation, too, was stunned. Whether it was because they still didn’t fully understand what was going on, or if it was because they couldn’t believe what the stranger just uttered, or some mixture of the two, no one could say.

Ward pointed to the young man in the wrinkled suit. "What brings you here tonight? What’s so important you had to come here at night? A rainy night, no less. Why couldn’t your issues wait until the daytime?”

The timid young man, startled by the sudden inquisition, wiped away the welling tears before meeting Ward’s eyes. The stoic expression of the strange interrogator caused the young man’s already faint heart to beat faster. He knew he did not have a choice but to answer.

“I, uh, was, well, I-”, the young man stumbled across his words like a toddler taking his first steps. He swallowed hard, deciding to start with the basics and go from there. “Hi, I'm Thomas and I came here tonight because my mother just passed away. She was born and raised in this town and her funeral is tomorrow morning. It's been pretty hard coping with it and I couldn’t sleep so I guess I came down here looking for, I don’t know, some kind of peace or something.”

Ward couldn’t help the slight twinge of heartache at the vague kinship he seemed to have with this young man. “I assume that you’re not very religious yourself”, he said, and Thomas nodded in agreement. “What about your mother?”, he continued. “What was her opinion on the topic?”

“She couldn’t have cared less, I suppose”, Thomas responded. “Mom was a very matter of fact person. And she taught me to be the same. ‘Believe what you can see, not what others tell you to see’ she’d say.”

Ward nodded. He understood that sentiment very well.

“What about you, Father?”, he said, turning around on the altar to meet the priest’s gaze. “What brought you here this fine Friday morning that you couldn’t save for Sunday service?”

Before the priest could attempt a response, officer Mallory got up and made his way out of the pews in a huff. “I’ll be damned if I sit here and let some stranger interrogate my preacher in front of me!” he proclaimed, stomping towards the only exit. “Out of respect for you and the Lord, Father, I won’t start anything with this man but, if he’s still here when I get back, I hope you’ll forgive what I might do.”

Everyone watched as officer Mallory marched towards the doorway. It was cracked open, allowing the plutonian darkness outside to seep in. The younger woman whipped around, aiming her smartphone camera just in time to catch Mallory colliding with an invisible barrier and nearly falling off his feet. A dim shimmer danced up and out in every direction across the interior of the chapel before fading.

“Yeah,” piped up Ward, loud enough so his voice could reach Mallory’s ears. “That's the thing: We’re all stuck in here together until I figure out who’s possessed and deal with them.”

Ward punctuated his words with an apathetic shrug. He was stuck in here just like they were. The first of the shouting came from Mallory, joined shortly by the elderly woman. Their remarks and insults worked in tandem to berate Ward. The priest did his best to calm his congregation, but their frustrations outweighed his meek pleas. The younger woman was doing her best to keep her camera on the action for later viewing and mockery while Thomas stayed out of it, unsure of what to make of the chaos.

“SILENCE!”, Ward bellowed. His voice reverberated through the room and the skulls of the people sitting before him. They weren’t sure why, but they found themselves impelled to speechlessness despite the agitation poised on the tips of their tongues. Ward took a deep breath; small beads of sweat dripped down his brow.

“Father Avery”, said Mallory with a stern yet even tone. “Please do something about this guy.”

“Outwardly challenging authority tends to be a common symptom of demonic possession”, said Ward as he stepped off the altar and started walking down the aisle towards Mallory. “Albeit, it isn’t always the most reliable indicator, but, in your case, I’m willing to make an exception. Tell me, what brings you here tonight, officer?”

“I’m not scared of you or any supposed demon that you claim is here,” Mallory drawled, “I don’t have to tell you anything but, you’ve already shown that not cooperating will get us nowhere fast. So, if you have to know, I was feeling restless after my shift today and I didn’t want to go to the bar, or home for that matter, so I came here.”

“Do you often use the church as a means of decompressing after a long day?”, questioned Ward.

“No. No, we normally only come here on Sundays.”

Raising an eyebrow Ward asked, “Who’s ‘we’?”

“Me and my family”, Mallory replied with an exasperated exhale.

“A family man”, Ward paused, turning his back to Mallory and started slowly back to the altar. “So, you didn’t want to go to the bar, either because it’s closed or you really didn’t want to. The more likely reason is because the people you choose to associate with in your most debaucherous states won’t be there until Friday or Saturday night. As for why you won’t go home, I can only imagine there must be some trouble at home. Lousy kids? Cheating wife? Divorce?”. Mallory didn’t verbally confirm or deny any of these claims, but the expression on his face suggested that Ward was on track.

“Jesus, emasculate him some more why don’tcha”, said the young woman with the sun-kissed skin.

“She speaks!”, exclaimed Ward as he stopped and turned to face the young woman. “What’s your name?”

She aimed her phone camera up as she met the gaze of the man towering over her. “Nora”, she replied. “And before you even ask, I don’t know why I’m here tonight.”

Ward frowned. “Onset confusion is another, somewhat less common, symptom of demonic possession.”

“I’m not possessed”, she retorted, “I just have nowhere else better to be.” Nora glanced down at her phone’s screen and froze, suddenly filled with dread. Instead of Ward, the phone screen displayed a distorted and misshapen silhouette, like someone had tried drawing a portrait but left out all color and light.

“Come on, Nora”, Ward continued, “you’re telling me a beautiful girl like you has nothing better to do on, frankly, any given night of the week, than sit in a church listening to an evangelist sermon? That’s really hard to believe. Are you a pious woman, Nora?”

Nora scoffed. “Hardly. Can’t get behind all that these are the rules because a two-thousand-year-old book says so and the ‘we’re too close-minded to think for ourselves’ crap. But, some members of my family tried to shoehorn it in me and my cousins when we were growing up. It stuck with some of us, but not with me.”

“I wonder why that is”, Ward said curiously.

“I will tell you why”, said the gray-haired woman craning her head around. “It’s because she wasn’t reigned in enough as a child. Given too much freedom to shirk from the path the Lord has laid out for us. All of us! And now in her hour of need she wants our help and our coddling.”

“Shut up, Dorothy”, replied Nora sharply. “No one was talking to you.”

“You know, Dorothy, verbal abuse is another telltale side effect of demonic possession, but it’s even more common in foul people. What do you have against Nora?”, Ward questioned.

“She knows what she’s done”, the words left Dorothy lips dripping with hate. “And she’s confused about how to handle it so she comes crawling back to us!”

“You don’t know anything about me!”, Nora yelled back.

“Oh, I do. This town isn’t so big that news doesn’t travel and reach the ears of those of us who know where to listen. Your secret, your indecision, is known by more than you think.”

“What is she talking about?”, Ward interjected.

Thomas spoke up sheepishly, “Nora’s pregnant.”

A hush fell over the room for a brief eternity.

“How do you know that?”, Ward asked, breaking the silence. “Are you the father?”

“God, no! I don’t even know who that guy is”, Nora said with her eyes locked on to Dorothy with deadly precision.

Ward walked over to Thomas and sat in the pew beside him. “Small town. Small enough that two people a generation apart know the same network of people. But, Nora, someone in your age group, doesn’t know you. Weird, don’t you think?”

“I was born here and lived here for the first few years of my life until my parents split and I went to live with my dad. I only came back on occasion to see my mother. Birthdays, holidays, stuff like that.”

“You’re an outsider. You have no ties to this town anymore since the last thing tethering you to it just died”, Ward replied coldly.

“You’re an outsider too, Ward”, Officer Mallory said, standing over Ward, one row behind him. “Nobody knows you, and you know nobody. You said you came here from far away to deal with this issue. How do we know you’re not the issue? How do we know you didn’t bring the demon in with you!”

All heads turned towards Ward. No one until now had thought to even entertain the notion that the arrogant inquisitor could in fact be the very perpetrator they were wary of this whole time. Whether it was out of fear or some sliver of reciprocated manners, no one made a move on Ward. Ward himself did not seem to exhibit any worry at all. He rose to his feet slowly and met Mallory’s eyes with a sneer before moving back into the aisle.

Ward adjusted his coat before speaking, “Yes. I’m an outsider as well. I never claimed not to be nor did I try to hide it. Accuse me if you want but I’d ask you to look inward before you try to make a suspect out of me, because there’s one key thing that demon’s look for in hosts that all of you exhibit tonight, and that is emotional distress. It throws off your equilibrium in more ways than you may think.”

The confidence in their accusation faded as quickly as it had come. Ward started to move back towards the altar while the group pondered his words. Everyone looked as if a fog had lifted, revealing a modicum of peace where previously only pain had been. Everyone, except Thomas. He’d been periodically checking his wristwatch since the questioning began, but now he was checking far more fervently, growing ever more agitated.

“Are you alright, Thomas?”, asked Father Avery. “You seem a little on edge. Even more so than the circumstance may suggest. Something on your mind?”

Thomas checked his watch again before saying, “Only thirty minutes until sunrise. Then your barrier drops.”

The words hit Ward's ears like a freight train charging forward with nefarious intent. He turned his head just enough to appraise a nervous and sweaty Thomas. The boy’s fingers were interlaced so tightly that the last digits of his fingers were white with tension. Ward spun around, took three nearly imperceptible steps towards the shivering boy, and placed his hands on either side of his face, leaning in close.

"What did you just say?", Ward said under his breath, loud enough only for Thomas to hear.

"What?" he replied softly through the tight grip on his jaw.

"You're in there, aren't you?"

Ward was no longer speaking to Thomas. He was speaking through him, into him, to something beneath the skin and between the soul. At that moment, Thomas was pierced by a sudden clarity, for the first time acknowledging an insidious intruder that transformed his body into its own blackened home, pushing him out, forcing him to wither away.

“How could you know that?” Ward’s eyes bored holes through the whimpering boy. “That’s not knowledge someone like you would know without the proper studying. Or without something telling you.”

Unfortunately, the fiend was right. Dawn was fast approaching, and Ward could no longer afford to beat around the bush. Ward had to draw the monstrosity out of its victim before it could jump hosts or before dawn came and it could escape with Thomas.

Ward released Thomas’s face and chuckled deeply before saying, “Of course it’s you. I mean, I don’t know how I couldn’t see it sooner.”

“What do you mean?” asked Thomas timidly.

“Look at yourself. You’re wearing a dingy suit that clearly doesn’t fit you right. The pants are too tight and the blazer is too big. But they say clothes don’t make the man. Well, I wish they did because you definitely got a lot of manning up to do and you aren’t even remotely close so you need all the help you can get.”

“Damn, that’s harsh, Ward,” Nora said.

“Better he hears the truth from me than from someone who actually cares about him. They might lie to him to spare his feelings. Thankfully there aren’t a lot of people around who give a damn about you Thomas. Well, not anymore.”

“Stop it”, Thomas said through a quivering lip.

“That is uncalled for Ward and you know it”, said Father Avery stepping close to Ward.

Ward raised his hands in a slight shrug, “I’m just calling it like I see it. And it’s not like I’m lying. His mother is dead. He came all this way to see her on her deathbed so he definitely cares about her just as much as she cares for him...Or did she?”

“What did you just say?” Thomas's voice shifted from timid to foreboding.

“You said it yourself, Thomas. You only really ever came to visit her for birthdays, holidays, and the like. I’m sure those occasions have waned heavily as you’ve gotten older. So much that you’ve resorted to phone calls. Not video calls because you couldn’t find the time to teach your dear old mother how to do them.” Thomas’s hands were shaking much more violently now. Ward pressed on, smirking, “You’re pathetic, weak, and your mother deserved a son who cared enough to get a suit that actually fits."

Ward’s tirade was suddenly interrupted as Mallory’s fist collided with his face. It felt harder than Mallory had expected, and, immediately, a bruise began to form on his knuckles. The officer shook away the pain and turned to Thomas, intending to offer some measure of consolation, but what Mallory saw painted him white with fear.

Thomas’s face had become distorted, as the bones beneath his skin rearranged. Sweat poured heavily from his brow, and his eyes were locked in unblinking terror on something only he could see. His jaw stretched further than should have been humanly possible as a thick dark shroud of smoke billowed out his mouth and up into the air. The rest of the congregation could do nothing; all were trapped in a silent realization that the stranger out of the night, the only one who could possibly help them, was telling the truth.

The smoke bloomed to the size of a storm cloud, casting a dark shadow throughout the hallowed interior. Father Avery fell backwards onto the floor in shock, and the others, who previously seemed to have little in common with one another, now cowered together under the pews. Thomas's body was finally his own again, his jaw and face no longer contorted. He coughed and gagged in place of screaming as he moved under the pews while the darkness began to take on a form. Multiple copies of what could pass for eyes, a nose, and perhaps even a mouth could be seen twisting in the smoke, accompanied by a monstrous, unnatural groaning.

A pale blue light suddenly broke through the writhing mass as Ward picked himself up from the floor. His face was no longer the picture of a normal man. In its place, glowing in that bluish hue, was a charred skeletal head crowned in ethereal flames. The thing that called itself Ward tilted its skeletal head back and opened its jaw before the dark entity. Almost immediately, the shroud began to stretch and shriek with what could scarcely be interpreted as fear as it was pulled into Ward’s waiting maw. It writhed in the air above them, desperately trying to crawl away from its impending demise, and shook the entire church causing its walls to crack and crumble.

The people beneath the pews could do nothing but watch. Even if one of them managed to summon the courage to move, what could they do? The shroud never ceased its screaming but, also powerless to avert its fate. As the light of the dawn began to peek in through the church windows, Ward’s skeletal mouth swallowed the last of the demonic cloud. The shadows it cast were wiped clean by thin rays of sunlight, and Ward’s face returned to normal as he slowly collapsed to one knee, clutching his chest and hacking.

With the disappearance of the shroud, the veil between the people seemed to lift. Father Avery and Officer Mallory were no longer the bearers of their positions of authority. Thomas and Nora, timid and rebellious respectively, instinctually looked to one, seeking reassurance that each of them was safe for the moment. Dorothy, the most pious and bull-headed of them all, found that the walls of her narrow mind had crumbled with the walls of the church, both shaken by this localized catastrophe. In this moment of terrifying clarity they stopped being individuals, stopped being in a church, stopped searching for answers elsewhere, and became one with themselves and each other. A rare understanding that can only be gained when reality is questioned.

The sunlight warmed Ward’s sweaty face as he slowly stood up, leaning on one of the pews for support. “You should all get out of here now. Nothing will stop you.”

Slowly but surely, the members of the congregation cautiously exited the church; each constantly glancing back at Ward until they were fully out of the chapel. Father Avery gently squeezed Ward’s shoulder as he moved past him. Thomas was the last to make his way to the door, doing his best to avoid eye contact.

“It’s going to be okay, kid,” Ward said. “You made it through a tough experience that most don’t see the other side of.”

Thomas stopped walking and turned to face Ward. “I feel like myself, but I also don’t. Like, I’m beside myself. I didn’t even know that thing was in me until it was out. How did it get to me? How can I stop it from happening again? What is my life going to be now?”

Thomas’s questions rang with a familiarity Ward had not felt in years. The uncertainty weighed on each word like dense, humid air before rain. Ward felt the anxiety pouring off the boy as he stood staring, waiting for answers. Answers are what everyone longs for in life, Ward thought to himself. We search every valley and peak, each nook and cranny, and read between the lines of thousands of books. We believe the words of those we think know better but, in truth, nobody does. All we can ever hope to know is the reality presented to us. There is a cruel simplicity to viewing life this way. Ward wished he could tell Thomas all this but, it is something the boy would have to find out his own way.

Ward sighed, “How about a drink Thomas? I know it’s early but, I think we could both use one.” He gently ushered Thomas out of the church and into the air of a morning that felt fresher than any before.