Rebekka Franck - 03 - Five, Six ... Grab Your Crucifix (6 page)

 Sune grabbed a glass of wine of his own and when he was done chopping onions he approached me. He sat on the chair in front of me.

“So are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked while sipping his wine.

My eyes left the paper and locked with his. “My dad is right there!?” I whispered surprised.

Sune shook his head. “No, that wasn’t what I meant.” He paused to laugh. “I meant the autopsy. Aren’t you curious as to what killed him?”

“The Priest?”

“You know anyone else that died within the last twenty-four hours?” he asked grinning.

I paused and stared at him ignoring his remark. “Is the internet connection good enough for that up here?”

“I should think so,” he said. “Otherwise I have ways to make it better.”

“The police said they hadn’t received it yet. But I would love to read the statements made by the other church members. I would like to read their explanation to why they didn’t call for help.”

“That’s easy to find,” Sune said and sipped some wine. “I bet they don’t protect their systems very well out here in the country. Don’t think they get many cyber-attacks.”

“Then by all means go ahead,” I said.

Chapter 10

Hans Christian was tired of meetings and discussions. All day long they had been talking about how they should proceed without the Priest. Even when Isabella left the camp for three hours to go whoever knows where, they continued the meetings, discussing how they could keep it all up. In his honor, they kept saying. They treated him like had he been the messiah himself.

Hans Christian had at one point believed that he was Jesus who had come back to get all of them. Maybe the Priest had even believed it himself. But then he started telling people that he was the reincarnation of the prophet Isaiah. Hans Christian had never cared what he thought he was; to him he was a god. He was the most beautiful human being to have set his foot on this forsaken earth. Back when it had only been Hans Christian and him, Hans Christian had adored everything about him. Every word he spoke, every gesture, everything he did could only come straight from God.

Hans Christian had worshipped the Priest. He had kissed his hand, he had let him drive out demons by beating him, he had let him tell him how he was supposed to live right, to be righteous. The Priest had explained to Hans Christian that he was and always would be a sinner and that he deserved to be punished for that. He had told him that he was evil, that within all humans lived evil demons that made us sin towards God. He had also explained to him how they needed to be driven, commanded out before anyone could be truly set free. Even if it was painful to the flesh, even if it meant suffering for hours on the cold stone floor while repenting for your sin, bleeding from the wounds the whip left on your back. Jesus had bled for us; it was only fair that we bled for him.

All that Hans Christian had accepted but when it came to the youngsters in the camp he disagreed with the Priest on many things. He didn’t think they were evil, when Hans Christian looked into their eyes he saw no malice like the Priest did. He saw young people barely out of childhood who had been hurt, some of them gruesomely. Some of them had been misled, they had done stuff they never should have done, but they were not evil in Hans Christian’s eyes. They needed guidance and direction and they needed all the love the disciples could give them. They needed someone who understood them for once in their lives. These were troubled kids with many problems; they didn’t need to be told that they had evil living inside of them. On that subject Hans Christian had disagreed with the Priest and he had protested when he thought the Priest went too far with them. He had told him straight up that it was not right to punish them like that. But the Priest didn’t want to listen. He had a new apprentice now, Isabella, and she had new ideas, that the Priest wanted to try out. She was the one who had led the cleansing ceremony that night in 1998 when … Well after that it was like everything went in the wrong direction.

Hans Christian sighed and sat heavily on his bed. It had gotten dark outside of his room. He wanted desperately to sleep but he felt bad inside. He felt bad because his best friend and great love had died the night before and he had watched it happen without doing anything. He felt a huge load of guilt. What if they had called for that ambulance? What if they, for once, had asked for help from the world outside? Could he have been saved?

Hans Christian sighed again and put his head on the pillow. He closed his eyes gently and soon pictures of the Priest flickered before him. So many wonderful years they had had together building this church. Hans Christian had thought about leaving many times throughout the years and now he was thinking about it again. But where would he go? This was his home and had been for almost thirty years. He had helped built this camp, it was his and the thought of leaving it all in the hands of that woman was appalling to him. But without the Priest then what was the point? Leaving the church wasn’t an easy thing to do. Hans Christian would lose everything. His only friends and family, he wouldn’t have a job anymore and he would certainly miss the youngsters with whom he had worked for many, many years. A lot of the grown-ups in the camp making the decisions today were someone that he had recruited and taken care of when they were just young teenagers in trouble. Now they were like his family.

No one ever left “The Way” once they came here. Neither would he. It was his family and he had to take the good with the bad. Just like a regular family. Plus he was an old man by now. There wasn’t anything for him out there in the world. He would only be miserable.

Hans Christian exhaled deeply thinking how he would try and improve the conditions for the youngsters from now on. He would fight Isabella who obviously didn’t care much about them. They were scared to death now the Priest was gone. They knew how Isabella looked upon them. 

Hans Christian looked at the starry sky outside his window one last time before he finally dozed off.

Chapter 11

After dinner Sune started working on the computer while I helped the kids get to bed. When I returned downstairs Dad was slowly dozing off on the couch in front of the TV. Sune had poured the rest of the red wine into our glasses and his magical fingers were working on the keyboard.

I grabbed a chair next to his and took my glass from the table. He was concentrating and I had worked with him long enough to know that I had to keep quiet. He would speak once he was ready.

“Ha!” he exclaimed not long after.

“That was fast,” I said and leaned forward. I looked at the screen and had to admit that I understood absolutely nothing of all the letters and numbers in front of me.

Sune grabbed his wine and sipped it. “It was almost too easy,” he said. After putting the glass down his fingers danced yet again across the keyboard and soon after he turned the screen for me to look at.

I grabbed the laptop and pulled it closer. He had found the police report made this morning with all the statements taken from the church members present when the Priest died. I scrolled while skimming them. All stated they had been asleep when the screaming woke them up. I stopped at Isabella Dubois’ statement.

“If you click here you can hear the recorded audio from the interview,” Sune said and moved the mouse over an icon. Then he pushed the button and a voice filled the room. The voice of an officer telling us the date, case number and who he was interviewing. First he asked her a couple of questions about her name and status and so on. Then he asked her to describe what happened.

“I was petrified. I remember the screams penetrating my dreams and waking me up with a start. My heart was pounding. At first I thought it had been nothing but a dream, but soon I realized that the screams were still there and now they were even worse. They were coming from the building across from mine. I put on a bathrobe and ran across the courtyard thinking that it might have been one of the youngsters who had hurt himself somehow or maybe he was having a bad dream. But I knew deep inside that this kind of screaming don’t come from just an ordinary nightmare.”

“How do you know that?” the officer questioning her asked.

“You just know. These were screams of deep pain. These weren’t screams of this earth.”

“What do you mean by that?” the officer asked.

“I have heard my share of people whose souls were screaming from beyond the grave.”

“Like dead people?”

“No. Yes. People who are possessed. These were screams like that. Coming from a devil trying to take over a poor soul,” Isabella said.

“So what you’re telling me is you thought Anders Granlund might have been possessed by a devil, is that it?”

“Not might have been. He was. I have seen it so many times before and this was the strongest one I have yet met. That was why we couldn’t drive it out of him. We weren’t powerful enough. It took him with it to the pit of hell. And you know what happens when you can’t expel a demon?”

“No, I don’t,” the officer said.

“It comes back to get you. If you let it win it will come back after you. It happened to the Priest once before in ‘98. There was a demon he couldn’t drive out and it came back to get him. Bigger and stronger than ever. The Priest knew it would. He has told us for years that this was bound to happen. We all thought we would be able to drive it out once that happened though. But I guess we aren’t as strong as we thought.”

“So let me just get this straight. You’re telling me, that you thought Anders Granlund was possessed by some demon that had come back to get revenge?” the officer said.

Isabella Dubois sighed annoyed. “Why am I even trying?” she exclaimed. “No one ever cares to listen anyway. You simply don’t want to understand, you don’t want to see the evil that has taken a stronghold of this land, of this area. It will take over and kill everybody if you don’t stop it. Don’t you understand the importance of spreading the word about this?”

The officer was silent. I imagined that he was shaking his head or maybe just staring at Isabella Dubois in disbelief. I knew I would have.

She exhaled annoyed. “Let’s just get this over with,” she said in a harsh irritated voice. “I can’t help people who don’t want to be helped. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Please explain to me what you saw once you entered the building where the screaming came from,” the officer said. His voice sounded heavily burdened and slightly resigned.

Isabella Dubois sighed. “I saw people standing in the room.”

“Who did you see and where were they at the time you entered?”

“It’s hard to remember. I don’t think I remember everybody who was there. I wasn’t exactly looking at them; the screaming was going right through my bones. My focus was on the person it was coming from.

“Try anyway,” the officer said.

Isabella sighed again. “Alright. I guess I saw Mette Grithfeldt, she was standing on the left next to Soren Sejr, Hans Christian Bille and Mogens Wammen.”

I found my notepad and started scribbling the names down. Sune was drinking his wine. Isabella Dubois continued:

“In the center of the room I saw Peter Hansen standing with Camilla Morsoe.” Isabella paused. “Yes I guess that’s about it. Others came running to the room after I had arrived but I can’t remember who they were. I was focused on helping Anders.”

“Okay,” the officer said. “What were they doing in the room?”

“Well they were paralyzed. They were all staring at Anders who was lying on the floor, curled up in a strange position. He was screaming and throwing up; blood was coming out of his eyes and ears. His hair … he tore it off in huge clumps. It was horrible to watch and there was nothing we could do to help him. Excrement came out of him everywhere and it smelled nasty in the room. The worst part was the pain I sensed he was feeling. It was like something was eating him from the inside. Like the demon was killing him slowly from the inside, shutting down one organ at a time. In his hand he was clutching his crucifix. It was covered in blood coming from his mouth.”

“So what did you do?” the officer asked.

I felt sick to my stomach. Sune stared at me. Our eyes locked and I sensed he felt the same way. What could possible kill a person in that gruesome manner? That fast? A disease? An allergic reaction? It didn’t sound plausible to me.

“I had brought my bible and held it high in the air,” Isabella said. “Then we decided to drive out the demon that had taken possession of the Priest’s body. We all agreed there was no other way.”

“And how do you do that?” the officer asked while exhaling. He didn’t even try to hide that he thought about her and the sect. I guessed he was thinking just what I was. This group was insane, religious fanatics at their worst.

“We command it to leave. We rebuke it. We quote scriptures, chant and sing and praise the Lord till the devil can’t stand it anymore. We tell the Lord to come and be in our midst and help us drive the devil out of this person.”

“And how long does that ceremony usually take?” the officer asked.

Isabella chuckled. “It depends on the demon. It’s size and strength of course.”

“But it would take more than an hour?” the officer asked.

“We keep going until the demon has left the body and the place. It can take hours, sometimes days,” Isabella said. “Sometimes they come back and then we have to do it again with a few months in between. This is powerful stuff it’s not something that will leave you alone just because you tell it to. This takes hours and hours of pain and suffering and listening to the word of God cleansing your body. It’s the only way to be set truly free. If you don’t believe me then read your bible. Jesus and the disciples drove out demons all the time.”

The officer paused. I could almost feel how he was shaking his head in disbelief. As was I. Then finally the question came, the one I had been waiting for:

 “The alarm call came from a neighbor at twelve-thirty in the morning but what you describe for me we know from the other statements happened around midnight. Why didn’t you call for help while your priest was in pain and obviously needed professional help?”