Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board

Alternate Epilogue - Part 5

I closed the door behind me gently so that Mrs. Emory wouldn't observe anything else that might occur during my visit. Truthfully, I wasn't sure if I had the nerve to go through with my task. I pressed my back against the door and rested my left hand on the doorknob, ready to run for my life if necessary. It was seeming like a good idea to slink past Trey's bed and raise the window so that Henry and Mischa might be able to help me, but I couldn't find the courage to take the first step in that direction. "I'd like to talk to Trey," I requested, hating how much my voice shook.

I took a small step toward the window.

"Look at you. You're petrified. If you're so scared, you should leave. Trey doesn't want to talk to you," the voice replied. With bitter sarcasm, it added, "He wants you to go. He's worried about your safety."

I took a few more steps toward the window. "I'm worried about his safety," I replied. I lifted my hands to unlock the window, but when I slid the locks in opposite outward directions, I made the mistake of looking over at the bed. Trey was eerily grinning at me, or rather it—whatever was inside of Trey's body—was grinning at me. He was still lying down, but his head had rotated to a gruesome angle so that it looked as if it were fastened to his body backward. The blankets had fallen to reveal his bare torso so that there was no mistaking the distortion of his body for an optical illusion.

Forgetting about the window, I clapped my hands over my mouth to trap a scream in my windpipe. From where I stood, it seemed as if Trey's neck must have snapped for him to have turned his head at such an angle. Surely no one's spine could twist like that and remain intact. In that moment I was certain that Trey was possessed, and it seemed doubtful that I'd ever get my boyfriend back from this nightmarish creature that had invaded his body.

"You really should go," Trey told me in a taunting, patronizing tone. I heard the slide locks on the window behind me click back into their locked position. "It's what's best for everyone."

Muffled through the glass of the window pane, I heard Henry calling from outside. "Open the window. Why doesn't she open it?"

With numb fingers, I slid the locks open again and used all of my might to heave the window upward. Not caring about what would happen to it, I pushed the screen out of its frame. It drifted to the ground where it settled on the snow. "Is he in there?" Mischa asked. She didn't wait for my reply before she hoisted herself up and climbed in through the window carrying the roll of duct tape she'd bought at Hennessey's.

"Whew. It stinks in..." Mischa trailed off as she took notice of Trey's ghoulish appearance. Henry, too, was at a loss for words once he joined us. In addition to Trey's staggering disfigurement, he was unearthly pale. His face was swollen and his eyes were sunken.

"There's nothing you can do to save Trey," the voice coming from Trey's mouth told us. I fought the urge to cry and vomit at the same time. It was sickening to see the boy I loved leering at me like a monster. "He's surrendered to me. He's tired of this worthless life, and he hates all of you." His voice dropped to a hiss. "He wants you to leave him alone. Especially you," he pointed at me. "You can't save anyone. Your sister is burning in the fires of hell because you couldn't save her!"

My stomach lurched at the vicious words escaping through my boyfriend's chapped, scaly lips. Father Fahey had warned me and Mischa that the demon would resort to cruelty, but I hadn't expected that it would know anything about how my sister had died in a house fire.

Beside me, Henry's muscles tensed. "That's enough," he warned the demon inside Trey. Henry looked at me and then at Mischa. "We've gotta do this thing. On the count of three. Ready? One, two..."

The three of us lunged at Trey in unison. Henry pinned Trey to the mattress, anchoring his legs and shoulders to the bed. With quivering arms, Mischa tore off a strip of duct tape and tried to decide where to place it on Trey's squirming body. While Trey's freakishly backward head thrashed and he snapped his teeth as if trying to bite Henry's hands, Henry shouted, "Cover his mouth!" Trey snarled like a wild animal in a trap, enjoying how disturbed we were by the the guttural noise coming from his body.

Too frightened to be of real assistance, I did nothing but spray the bottle of holy water maniacally in the general direction of the bed. As Mischa slapped tape over Trey's mouth to prevent him from biting anyone and spewing more nonsense, and Henry flipped his body over and bound his wrists and ankles together, I inadvertently soaked all three of them with liquid. Confirming my worst fears, Trey winced as if he were being scalded each time a mist of holy water landed on his skin.

Although we were making quite a racket, Mrs. Emory didn't once knock on the door to intervene.

"Now what?" Mischa asked breathlessly after she and Henry had done their best to subdue Trey's writhing, grunting body.

Henry's eyes drifted from Trey's bedroom door to the open window. Our choice was pretty clear: attempt to carry Trey's wriggling body past his parents and out of the house through the front door, or maneuver him through the open window. Mischa turned to me and said, "I guess we should call Father Fahey and tell him to meet us at Violet's house in twenty minutes."