Then Gretchen began to gabble, began to scream.
“The power of Christ compels you!” Abby attempted.
“Stop!” Gretchen cried over the wind. “Abby, he won’t stop until you stop. Please!”
“The power of Christ compels you, Andras!” Abby shouted. “Leave this girl alone!”
Gretchen’s screams were cut off as fingertips emerged from her mouth, crowned with dirty nails. The hand pushed out of Gretchen’s mouth, slick with spit, her lips working helplessly against its knuckles.
“I command you, unclean spirit,” Abby shrieked into the wind. “The power of Christ compels you!”
Gretchen’s face was stretched tight. A hairy wrist followed the hand, then a thick forearm. Gretchen’s shoulders heaved as, inch by inch, the hairy arm forced its way out, stretching her lips wider and wider. Gretchen’s jaws locked at their maximum width, and still it pushed on.
“Leave this girl!” Abby screamed. “The power of Christ compels you!”
The arm kept coming, and now the skin around Gretchen’s mouth was splitting. Gretchen sobbed and gagged. The arm was almost exposed to its elbow, and now it bent and placed its palm flat against Gretchen’s chest and it began to push itself out, tearing Gretchen’s face in half.
“I can’t!” Abby shouted, and she felt all the strength drain from her legs. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Gretchen, I can’t . . . I quit, I quit, I promise, I quit.”
She collapsed onto her butt, and the second she hit the floor the wind stopped, the light quit flickering and the arm retreated inside Gretchen. And Gretchen finally, mercifully, lay still. It was quiet. The room was a room again, with bare walls again, a wooden floor again, a wicker headboard and wicker dresser again, and Abby dragged her broken body against the wall and slumped there.
Defeated.
They lay like that for a long time. Gretchen’s breath rasping, Abby’s shoulders shaking as she cried. She had failed. She had failed, and soon they would come for her and there were no more chances. It was over.
After a while she was aware of breathing in her left ear, very close, wet and thick, and with it came a guttural whispering that only she could hear. It was the greedy sound of triumph and victory, and the words polluted her brain and covered her skin in filth, and they pushed out her own thoughts until her mind was swimming in pus.
Invisible hands touched her, running possessively over her body—strong, bony hands, plucking at her hair, picking at the scabs on her face. Humiliated, she lifted her head and saw Gretchen’s limp body on the bed; the invisible hands were fondling her, too. Gretchen’s clothing moved as the hands ran over her breasts and between her legs, pulled at her shorts, and the breathing in Abby’s ear grew hungry.
Abby wanted to fight, she wanted to resist, but the spark inside her was dead. They both belonged to Andras now. Abby gave up and let the hands do what they wanted. The whispering in her ear got greedier. She had failed. There was no more Abby, only a body that was pinched, and squeezed, and mashed, and violated.
That’s when the drums started, deep down inside Abby’s head. Deep, deep down—so deep that at first she couldn’t hear them over the obscene whispers. But then they were there, faintly, and something in Abby’s heart kicked over. Inside her skull, a piano and a guitar were banging, and her heart began to beat with the sound of hundreds of roller skates.
“. . . freedom people . . .” she whispered through her cracked lips.
The hissing voices grew louder, angry and vile in her ear. Something slithered across her lips. The hands squeezed her breasts so hard they left bruises.
“. . . marching on their feet . . .” Abby mumbled. “. . . Stallone time . . . just walking down the street . . .”
The voices paused, just for a second, and the drums got louder.
“. . . we got the beat . . .” Abby whispered, then louder. “. . . we got the beat . . . we got the beat . . .”
The voices stopped. The touching stopped, but then it resumed with a vengeance, more painful than before, twisting and punishing her flesh.
Abby slapped one hand up on the wall, higher than her head, and she pushed off the floor with all her strength. The entire planet was holding her down, something heavier than the universe forced her back, and she felt a bone snap in her left shoulder. But still she rose until she was standing, swaying, on her feet. And in her head, the whispering voices were drowned out by the same four words again and again, the same nonsense chorus:
“. . . we got the beat . . . we got the beat . . . we got the beat . . .”
She took a step toward the bed and a wind blew, slashing her to ribbons, pain exploding inside her broken shoulder. Abby bent her head down and walked toward the bed, one foot in front of the other. The hands twisted and tore at her flesh, and an invisible spike hammered between her eyes, but still she walked on.
“Tommy Cox,” Abby said. “Tommy Cox, defend me in battle. Be my protection against the wickedness and snares of this world. May Tommy Cox and his holy can of Coca-Cola rebuke you, Satan, and all your works, I pray in his name.”
She reached the foot of the bed and now the wind was howling, forcing her backward so violently that she grabbed the sheets holding Gretchen’s feet and clung to them. She looked down at Gretchen’s broken, ragged, bloody body, and she saw the invisible hands scratching and befouling her friend. She spoke in a loud clear voice.
“By the power of Phil Collins, I rebuke you!” she said. “By the power of Phil Collins, who knows that you coming back to me is against all odds, in his name I command you to leave this servant of Genesis alone.”
The wind was screaming and the house shook as the wicker chest flew into the far wall. She held on to Gretchen’s feet with one hand and kept reciting.
“By the power of The Thorn Birds,” she cried, “by the sacred strength of My Sweet Audrina and Forever . . . I deny and rebuke you, Andras. By the power of lost retainers and Jamaica and bad cornrows and fireflies and Madonna, by all these things I rebuke you.”
The wicker headboard was snatched by the wind and flew at Abby, glancing off the side of her head before hitting the wall. Blood poured from her torn ear. The wind was screaming now.
“By the mysteries and the power of Good Dog Max, and E.T. the Extra-terrible, and Geraldine Ferraro the first lady vice president ever, by the Eye of the Tiger, the Love Cry of the Koala Bear, by the passion and redemption of Bad Mama Jama, who will always have supper in the oven. In the name of Glee and Margaret and Lanie Ott, I command you to depart. By the power of the Dust Bunny and in the name of the Go-Go’s I compel you, begone!”
The wind was shaking the room and the walls were rattling, the floor was heaving, the bed was vibrating. Gretchen lay limp, shaking bonelessly.
“I love you,” Abby shouted into the storm. “I love you, Gretchen Lang. You are my reflection and my shadow and I will not let you go. We are bound together forever and ever! Until Halley’s Comet comes around again. I love you dearly and I love you queerly and no demon is bigger than this! I throw my pebble and its name is Gretchen Lang and in the name of our love, BEGONE!!!”