Torments of the Damned!!

TORMENTS OF THE DAMNED!!  BY JUSTIN BARWICK

Dear Reverend Hawthorne.

My name is Eleanor Sykes i am sevun years old!  My mummy dusn’t know, but sumtimes when she is bizzy wurkin upstairs with one of her many speshul man frends.  I have a sneaky peek at her laptop wot she snatched off of a larj orange skip across the road from us.  We keep moving all over the place, because, of the fukked up distrubances that keep on happenin to us both.  I wus lookin on the intranet when I found your website Reverend  Hawthorne.  We are despret for a solutshun to our strange problems.  Sumthink invisibull keeps on pinchin me blak and blue at night while I sleep, not knowin a thing about it!  We have both seen objeckts go flyin across the room to land up on the floor as gentle as a featha!  Once I saw sum words written in blud suddenly materializin on my mummy’s forehead, they said in capitul letters: GO FUCK YOURSELF!  We are both feelin terrifyed of this orrible monster that keeps on followin us all over Lundon.  It says on your website that you claim to be a top class exocist!  If you came right now you would find us stayin in bedsit number nine on the top floor of a tenyment block at number 96 Jackson Terrace, Muswell Hill.  Please hurry, I never know where my mummy will take me before we get there.  So carnt give you a forwardin address.  Please come Reverend Hawthorne we are despret!!

Yours sincrereley,

Eleanor Sykes

(aged 7)

Reverend Hawthorne heaved a deep sigh as he finished reading the e-mail which he had just opened on his computer.  This sounded like a tough one.  A severe poltergeist infestation.  He knew that he probably didn’t have long before Eleanor and her prostitute mother moved on to yet another dingy bedsit.  He decided to shelve all of his other cases in favour of this particularly nasty conundrum.

After telling his moody secretary Doreen to take any messages the Reverend Hawthorne jumped in his lime green mini cooper and sped off towards Muswell Hill.  He came armed with a three small phials of holy water, a book of common prayer and some rosary beads.  After struggling to find a parking space, the Reverend Hawthorne eventually found his way to number 96 Jackson Terrace.  There was a row of ragged labels beside a row of buttons numbered 1 - 9.  The Reverend Hawthorne pressed the button that lay beside the word: SYKES which was written in scratchy red biro.  A brusque female voice spoke to him through the intercom: ‘If you want sex, don’t bother, I’m shagged out after last night!’
‘I have come about something quite separate from your seedy profession Mrs Sykes.  Your poor tormented daughter Eleanor sent me an e-mail today.  Can I come up?’

‘Oh don’t tell me, you must be another bleedin’ exorcist!  You’re the fourth one she’s got hold of in the past two months!  Well don’t bloody bother!  There is absolutely nothing wrong with her, it’s just her bleedin’ overactive imagination that’s to bloody well blame!  Now go away!’
‘Mrs Sykes, I am completely genuine and there must be-’ Just then he heard a loud noise through the intercom.  It sounded like a wine glass had been shattered by agents unknown.  ‘What was that?’ He asked sharply.
‘I dropped me glass of rum!  Another sodding mess to clear up.  I won’t say this again, bloody well go away and make sure that you never come back!’
‘I won’t go away Mrs Sykes, not, until, I have fully investigated your case.  Your daughter claimed that words were written in blood on your forehead, how much worse do you want it to get?  Believe me I can help you both, if you’ll only let me-’ The Reverend Hawthorne heard a heavy sigh followed by the magic words: ‘Alright you cam come up, but don’t expect any fireworks.  I tell you ghosts do not exist, and that is my final bloody word on the matter!’  There was a loud buzzing noise and the Reverend Hawthorne opened the heavy front door before proceeding to climb several flights of narrow uncarpeted stairs.  Some steps creaked alarmingly, at one point he felt quite certain that he was about to put his foot straight through the woodworm ravaged timbers.  At last he reached the door of flat number nine on the very top floor.  Reverend Hawthorne almost fell through it as the belligerent Mrs Sykes yanked it open and dragged him inside.  ‘Now then let’s get down to business Mr?’
‘Hawthorne.’
‘I can’t afford to pay you in cash, so it’ll have to be in kind.  Just get yourself up those stairs and under a hot shower, the bathroom’s on your left, just as you get up there Mr Hawthorne.  Now then I can only do you a handjob, you can catch aids from doing blowjobs.  Leastways that’s what Sharon Spencer told me, and she should bloody well know!’
‘Mrs Sykes as I told you before, I am not prepared to enter into any seedy sexual shenanigans with you.  All I require is your plain simple gratitude for ridding you of your spectral oppressor.  By the way, where is your daughter Eleanor?’
‘She’s at bloody school of course, it is bleeding Thursday after all.  Don;t you worry your tiny mind about that little goblin.  I’ll be round the school at three o’ clock sharp to.’  Just then there was a loud grating noise, like something heavy being moved in the bedroom overhead.  The Reverend Hawthorne ran up the short flight of stairs and burst into a tiny attic bedroom.  He discovered a double bed lying on one side and blocking the tiny dirt encrusted window.  A small bedside cabinet lay on its back beside a broken bedside lamp.  This was a classic scene of poltergeist type behaviour.  The Reverend Hawthorne liberally sprinkled holy water over the upturned items of furniture, simultaneously reciting the lord’s prayer in solemn tones.  Suddenly he heard a disembodied voice cynically copying him word for word.  -give us our daily bread and lord forgive our trespassers as they may trespass-’ The voice paused before breaking down into hysterical cackling laughter.  The Reverend felt a sharp pain across his chest, like deep scratches being gouged out by a malevolent and unseen hand. 


He ripped open his shirt and looked down to read the bloody words: GET THEE TO A NUNNERY!  Smaller words appeared upon his ample stomach: HAST THOU NEVER RAVISHED A NUN?  All of the words suddenly faded away, as if they had never been written in the first place.  The Reverend began reciting the hymn: Onward Christian Soldiers.

Suddenly Hawthorne  felt an incredibly powerful force shoving him out of the bedroom and backwards down the stairs, he tried to fight it, but inch by inch he was pushed back down into the tiny living room.  He was appalled to find Mrs Sykes lying spreadeagled on the motheaten sofa with her skirt pushed up around her waist as an unseen creature proceeded to have its way with her.  ‘No!  Oh!  Ah!  Oh!  Please Mr Hawthorne for the love of god!  Help me!’  The Reverend tried to pull the invisible rapist off Mrs Sykes writhing body, but there was nothing to get hold of.  Suddenly her stomach began to swell up enormously, soon she appeared to be nine months pregnant and due to give birth at that very moment.  A daemonic creature emerged from between her legs, it had two razor sharp horns, fiery crimson eyes and appeared to be breathing fire.  The Reverend hurled his phial of holy water at its winged body as it flew up towards the ceiling.  The daemon child hissed in pain as the holy water inflicted hideous burns on its scaly green body.  It fell to the floor moaning and shrieking incoherently.  The Reverend emptied a second phial of holy water over the creature’s head.  The fragile flesh quickly burnt away from the newly formed bone, revealing a gleaming white skull that continued to breath fire for several moments after the monster’s enforced demise.  After helping to straighten the unfortunate Mrs Sykes dishevelled clothes and providing her with a restorative glass of brandy, Mr Hawthorne began to march around the bedsit flat room by room, continuing to recite the hymn: Onward Christian Soldiers.  A blizzard of plates, cups and cutlery flew about the kitchen, two forks gouging parallel scratches across Hawthorne’s balding scalp.  Amazingly none of the plates or cups and saucers were broken, although every single item of cutlery was bent hopelessly out of shape by unseen hands.  As the Reverend began to ascend the stairs once more, a heavy wooden chair floated out of the bedroom and was flung towards him with superhuman force.  It came to an abrupt halt in mid-air, mere milimetres away from his stomach.  A ghostly figure materialised in the chair.  It appeared to be the likeness of a man who must have lived way back in the 13th or 14th century.  For he was dressed in mediaeval clothing.  He shouted in Hawthorne’s face the words: ‘I will never grant this wretched family any peace, for they are the direct descendents of my murderers, a gang of cutthroats who apprehended me on a lonely forest path, slit my fine horse’s throat and ravaged and strangled my poor lady wife, before stabbing me through the heart with a keen and deadly blade!’  The ghostly figure punched the Reverend Hawthorne full in the face before vanishing into thin air.  The chair exploded into a myriad of jagged splinters which flew about the room, before magically reassembling themselves as the original chair, which ended up perched incredibly precariously by one leg on top of Mrs Sykes black and white portable television set.  Clutching his broken and bleeding nose with one hand, the Reverend continued to recite the hymn: Onward Christian Soldiers as he entered the tiny bathroom. 

The shower head suddenly turned in his direction, blasting him with a jet of ice cold water.  As the water became scaldingly hot he beat a hasty retreat, sprinkling holy water from his third and final phial as he went.  Now he was back in the bedroom.  The double bed was floating up close to the ceiling, barely touching a light fitting. Suddenly the lightbulb exploded and the bed’s mattress burst into flames.  The bed fell like a tombstone down onto the bare floorboards.  The flames spread remarkably rapidly, soon the entire room resembled a hellish inferno.

The Reverend staggered back down the stairs and into the living room, continuing to doggedly recite the hymn: Onward Christian Soldiers.  The claustrophobic flat was very quickly filling with toxic black smoke.  Hawthorne grasped Mrs Sykes hand,  guided her out of the front door of flat number nine and down several flights of stairs, to emerge outside on the street.  He hastily dialled 999 on his mobile phone and called for the fire brigade.  They arrived moments later, by which time the other tenants of number 96 Jackson Terrace were gathered outside on the pavement, clutching what few belongings they had had time to grab hold of, before groping their way out onto the street through the dense black smoke of the fire which was proceeding to utterly destroy their humble dwelling places one room at a time. 

The firemen tried their best to get the fire under control, but the water that they sprayed on it seemed to have little or no effect.  Then the Reverend Hawthorne made a suggestion.  ‘I think that if I were to bless your pumps and therefore make the water they produced holy, you might well find the odds turned very much more in your favour.’  The chief fireman grudgingly agreed to Hawthorne’s exceedingly unorthodox suggestion, and they proceeded with his plan.  The results were dramatic.  The seemingly uncontrollable blaze was quickly subdued.  Two of the nine flats would escape unscathed, the rest had unfortunately been reduced to burnt out shells.  As for the mediaeval poltergeist, the Reverend Hawthorne had to admit defeat.  He very much feared that the ghost of the tragically murdered 13th century nobleman would continue to harrass Eleanor Sykes and her loose moralled mother for some considerable time to come.

He wrote Eleanor a final e-mail and hoped that she would get to read it before her mother could find and delete it.  It read:  Dear Eleanor Sykes.

Three days ago I visited your mother at number 96 Jackson Terrace, Muswell Hill.  You were at school at the time, and I am sure that you are wondering exactly why your house burnt down whilst you were away.  The fact is that I fought a noble and savage battle with the poltergeist which has been making your lives an utter misery for the past few months.  I have to tell you that I failed in my attempts at an exorcism.  Although you can rest assured that I did my very best to rid you of this monster.  Unfortunately I very much fear that you will continue to be tormented by this unspeakable daemon for a great many years to come. 

I bid you farewell!  Yours faithfully, the Reverend Hawthorne.  (would be exorcist)