'The Only Escape'

As I lay in bed I feel someone watching me.
I look around the room, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone.
I close my eyes and pull my covers up tight.
And for a moment, everything is still.
Suddenly, I feel something grabbing at my stomach; something intangible, something unseen.
I feel like I am being choked; then I realize that I am.
I can’t breathe.
My covers fly off and I think I hear a voice whispering. I’m not even afraid of it; I just hope that it didn’t say what I think it said.
“Get her.”
I feel like I am being swallowed into a pitch black hole. It takes too much energy to resist.
I let go and let myself fall into the darkness.

Jasmine Duncan woke up to a sharp sound. She grabbed her covers and waited, wondering if she maybe had just imagined it.
But it came again.
It was a crash from somewhere in the house. It sounded like breaking glass.
Jasmine jumped out of bed and ran out of the room just quiet enough not to wake her husband up.
She ran down the hall, her feet tiptoeing against the cold tile floor.
She was about to run into the kitchen when a piece of jagged glass swept across the ground, landing inches away from her foot.
She hesitated, then flicked on the light and peeked through the doorway. It took a moment for her mind to accept what she saw.
Allison, her daughter, was standing in a pool of shattered glass. Allison rummaged through the cupboards and came up with a wine glass, which she raised above her head and dropped. Then, delighted, she jumped into it, screaming. Blood smeared the otherwise white floor.
Jasmine shrieked and ran back to her bedroom.
“Jacob! Jacob!”
Her husband slept on, as if he were a hibernating bear in the dead of winter.
“JACOB!”
He groaned, rolled around, took a look at the clock, and rolled back around.
“Jacob! Wake up! It’s Allison!”
“Allison… Allison what?”
“Allison! Our daughter! You’ve got to see what’s going on!”
Jasmine yanked Jacob up and led him to the kitchen. When he saw what Allison was doing, he froze, his eyes locked forward, forcing him to stare at what he did not want to see.
Jacob lunged forward to stop her. Jasmine grabbed his arm and held him back.
“No, Jacob, you can’t go in there,” Jasmine commanded, her voice rising in fear. “Something’s wrong. Something’s terribly wrong, can’t you see it?”
Jacob’s jaw quivered and his arm began to tremble. Jasmine let go.
“Phone. Phone. GET THE PHONE!” he yelled, running from the kitchen. Jasmine took off after him.
A figure came into the light.
“Mom?”
Aaron.
“Don’t go any further, Aaron, sweetie. Something’s wrong with Allison.”
“Mom, I’m sixteen, I think I can handle seeing whatever my thirteen-year-old sister is going through.”
“No. No, Aaron, you can’t. Go back to bed. Just go.”
Aaron met Jasmine with a stare.
“GO!” Jasmine pointed to the door, sending Aaron away. Then, after thinking, she added in a quieter voice, “You can come out when I get you. Just not now.”
Just then, Jacob entered the room with his phone.
“Doctor. Get a doctor. Now.”
Jasmine took the phone and searched through the contacts until she came to Doctor Stevens. She hit ‘Talk’ harder than she had to.
The phone rang. And rang. And rang.
Jasmine rolled her eyes.
He’s got to pick up! she thought.
“Hello, this is Doctor Stevens. I am not available…”
Jasmine pressed ‘End’ and looked over at Jacob.
“Try again,” he said.
This time, Doctor Stevens picked up.
“Hello? Doctor Stevens here,” he answered in a sleepy voice.
“Doctor? Allison needs help.”
“Excuse me? Who is this?”
“Oh, right, sorry. This is Jasmine Duncan. Out daughter, Allison seems to be going crazy. We don’t know what’s happening to her, doctor. We’re really scared and we don’t know what to do…”
“I’ll be over soon. Give me ten minutes.”
Exactly ten minutes later, an old, rusty gray car pulled up into the Duncan’s driveway. Doctor Stevens, a tall, bearded man, stepped out.
“Lead me to where Allison is,” he ordered.
Silently, he followed Jasmine and Jacob inside. He shuddered when he heard glass breaking and a high-pitched cross between a scream and laughter.
Jasmine stopped in front of the door, not bearing to look inside.
Doctor Stevens peeked in. His reaction was similar to Jacob’s.
“Mr. and Mrs. Duncan, are you religious, by any chance?”
Jasmine and Jacob exchanged glances.
“No, not particularly,” Jasmine answered.
“That explains many things,” he responded, half to himself.
“What?” Jacob spoke up. “What is it, Doctor?”
“Now, I may be wrong, but if I’m right… Well, it’s pretty hard to take. Maybe I’m not right—“
“Just tell us!”
“All right. Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“Well, if we don’t, then how are we going to help her?”
“You will never be able to help her in this circumstance.”
“Then who will?”
“Only an exorcist.”
“What?” Jasmine gasped.
“I have heard of cases like this before. And I think the only explanation to Allison’s unusual actions is that she is… is possessed.”
Jasmine grabbed her stomach and fainted.
Doctor Stevens sighed.
“She is shocked. That’s a natural reaction. Help me bring her to her bed.”
“And, what, leave Allison here?”
“Well, you left her here when you went outside to wait for me, didn’t you?”
A crash of glass broke the silence. They froze, as if listening for the devil himself walking out the door.
Jacob nodded. He took his wife’s shoulders while Doctor Stevens took her legs. Together, they carried her down the hall and set her on the bed.
In the darkness, they resumed their conversation.
“So about this… exorcist… where are we going to find one?”
“Well, I do know a friend who is a preacher. He has experience.”
“But how? Didn’t these things only happen a long time ago?”
Doctor Stevens shook his head.
“Evil is still on the planet, Mr. Duncan.”
Jacob looked down at his bare feet. He sighed heavily.
“This isn’t happening because we haven’t brought the kids to church, is it?”
“No, I don’t think so. I really can’t explain why. All we can do it get it out of her.”
“Get what out?” Jacob stared at Doctor Stevens, daring him to explain.
Doctor Stevens met Jacob’s eyes and shook his head.
“You know full well what I mean.” Then he took a wrinkled, old notepad and a pen out of his pocket. On it he wrote a phone number. He handed it to Jacob. “Call this number.”
“Now?”
“How soon do you want Allison back?”
Jacob whipped out his phone and dialed the number.

I’m engulfed in this darkness.
I can’t even see.
I feel like I’m moving—maybe I am. I’m walking.
Where am I going? How do I stop myself? What’s happening?
My feet hit the cold tile of the kitchen. Why can I still feel my feet but not be able to control them?
I feel myself open the cabinet. What am I doing? What’s controlling me?
My fingers touch a glass cup… and I pick it up.
What’s going on? Why am I picking up…
A loud sound shatters the stillness of the night.
My feet stomp onto something sharp.
Only then do I realize that I am breaking glass.
I want to cry out in pain, but I can’t. I hear myself scream, but I know that it’s not me who’s doing it.
What’s happening?
Then, in between the crashing and screeches, I hear something else.
It’s like a soft melody, but they’re only words. But it’s so hard to hear it… What are they saying?
I listen in and focus on their words, soft as a feathery wisp of cotton.
“Allison. Allison. Allison.”
“Come with us. We can put you out of your pain. We can take you out of your misery.”
“We know what’s happening. If you find us, we can tell you.”
“Allison. Allison. Allison…”
I wonder what these voices are. How do I follow them?
“Come and follow us.”
“Just relax… Just relax…”
Relax? Something’s making me break glass and I’m supposed to relax? How am I supposed to relax if I’m fighting hard to—
Wait. That’s it! I’m fighting hard. I’m fighting against whatever’s overcome me. If I just sit back, and relax…
I fall into the arms of the voices.

“Pastor Leonard?”
Jacob’s voice rang through the empty church.
Footsteps echoed behind him.
“I’m right here.”
Pastor Leonard walked into the light. He took a look at the family of four. They seemed fairly normal—average parents, an average teenage boy… and a girl.
The girl writhed in the father’s arms, foaming at the mouth. She let out a scream and flailed her arms in the air mercilessly.
“Possessed,” Pastor Leonard muttered under his breath. “Bring the girl to me.”
Jacob followed Pastor Leonard into the sanctuary. Rows and rows of blue velvet pews serenaded down the aisle.
Pastor Leonard motioned to the front row, where Jacob put Allison down. Surprisingly, she did not start at a screaming attempt to turn herself back on her feet.
Pastor Leonard met Jacob’s eyes with an unveiling stare.
“Now, if you will let me, I will try my best to heal your daughter.”
“Try?”
“I have always succeeded,” he assured Jacob. “But may I ask you and your family to please step out the door?”
Jacob nodded. He herded his wife and son out the door. Outside, they waited.
They listened as Pastor Leonard quickly mumbled words. A moment of silence followed. Then came a shriek, loud and clear. It wasn’t Allison’s voice. It screamed words in a foreign language, and then disappeared.
No one moved. The grandfather clock down the hall ticked meticulously.
Then the door opened. Pastor Leonard stepped out.
“How… how is she?” Jacob asked.
Pastor led the family back into the sanctuary, where Allison lay where they had left her, on the front pew. She looked peaceful.
A little bit too peaceful.
“Pastor?” Jasmine asked in a wavering voice. She grabbed Jacob’s arm. Aaron looked on in silence at his sister.
Pastor Leonard turned to the family.
“Your daughter is no longer possessed,” he announced. “But along the way, she has given up.”
Jasmine cried aloud and began weeping on Jacob’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry about this,” Pastor Leonard whispered. “It’s not your fault.”
No one seemed to be listening, but he continued anyway.
“She just couldn’t handle it any more… I’m so, so sorry…”