The Deliverer

FEATURED in The Writing.Com Newsletter - Horror/Scary: THE FOUR MAGIC WORDS: And Then What Happened? - Editor's Picks, by billwilcox, August 24, 2011

He lived in the tropical wetlands of the Pantanal, in mid-west Brazil. He was known all over the region as the Pântano Exorcist. People traveled by boat down the rivers for days in a row or took chances in the dangerous swamps on foot or on donkeys just to see him, seek his miracles; he cured almost anything which was evil, demonic and unearthly. He was a master exorcist, who performed elaborate rituals to evict demons. He never used set formulas, symbols or amulets; he simply used his hands and his voice, which was long, guttural and terrifying to hear in the darkness of silent, rainy nights.

Pomeranos didn’t know how it all started or when the first person arrived to his doorstep – he just knew of his abilities and powers and they were extraordinary. Both his parents were simple, poor people from the Pantanal. They worked hard to earn a living by fishing Tucunaré and other fish from the region, and selling them in the street markets together with manioc roots and molasses. Together, they learned how to administer drugs with poisonous roots, sacrifices, the powers of the elements and secret prayers. Pomeranos didn't believe in God and that tortured him sometimes. There was a void in his heart he couldn't explain. As for casting demonic possessions, it all started when he once placed his right hand on a little boy’s head, that was shaking and twisting by the river's bank. After he did that, the little boy immediately stood up and spat a black, swollen, forked tongue on the red earth. He coughed again then, he ran happily away to play soccer with his friends as if nothing had happened. Pomeranos was twelve years old. He became the town's hero.

On a dark, rainy night he heard the cries from his house, coming deep from the swamps. They came for him. A woman was possessed. The Devil was deep inside of her. She had been found by the Rio das Cobras, naked and dirty, her mouth full of blood and earth, and her eyes wide open. She mumbled many words and one of them was… Diabo! She screamed, laughed and cursed. She spoke in tongues. She was tied up to her bed. She spat and cried, begging for freedom to wander the swamps alone. They found fish bones and a small bird’s head in her mouth. She was sore and cut as if she had mutilated her body. They noticed the red enamel on her nails and the expensive ring on her finger.

The moment he entered her room the woman started to contort. When he looked at her he somehow... recognized her but... from where? He had never seen her before! The familiarity was there, soaring in the air but he cast this thought aside and focus on the situation. Her hands closed in a tight fist and her legs stretched outright. Her body arched up and then she stiffened. Her eyes were yellowish-brown, evil looking and full of hatred. Did those Devil eyes think the same things he did? He thought about God. In whose name would he expel this evil? He had never used God’s name, not even once. How could there be God if there was... that, he thought with disgust. The woman's eyes grew intense as the skin stretched tight across the prominent bones of her face. As her eyebrows pulled down low, her lips twitched several times and low grunts came out in quick breaths. He walked towards the bed, impatient. He detected the multiple personalities and the use of multiple voices. There were 7 voices inside her body and they were so many: Diabolos, Belial, Beelzebub, Hitler, Nero, Cain and Satanás; he saw their names appear from under her skin, on her chest and belly. These voices came in quantities that were, humanly speaking, impossible to lodge in a normal human being.

The woman, Lavinia, was dehydrated but abnormally strong.  She shook uncontrollably. She couldn’t stand his presence and she was angry - then vagueness and mental confusion. These symptoms were proof of the demons at work when one was possessed. The moment she cast her eyes on him she threw up all over the bed. It was a dark, gooey liquid full of the most obnoxious stench. They told him that she had been vomiting 10 to 20 times a day even though she had only had a teaspoon of water. She was speaking in different languages and in different voices and named the most terrifying sins that the people in the room had committed, screaming in rage and fury.

The room was damp, filled with a heavy mist. It was hot and sticky and he was already sweating. He feared for the woman’s life. It was the first time he saw such a vision of terror coming from these wretched creatures in someone’s frail body. He stretched out his right hand. The creatures screamed voices of horror, commanding him to stop. They howled and swore. He barely touched her head. He felt the coldness of the voices - hatred from the beginning of times. He was pushed back violently and felt glued to the room’s frail wall by the malevolent supernatural beings, unable to move. He looked at Lavinia. She was pale, with dark rings under her eyes and sudden appearances of bite marks, lesions and scratches on her limbs. She was a young and beautiful woman but she looked old, wasted and diseased. She was hardly breathing but her chest was moving heavily. They were in total control. He got up, came forward and touched her head again.

“Come out of her!”

“Never!"

“What’s your name?”

“We are… so many and, you, you… are but one. Leave!”

“Never!”

“So we will win. We will destroy her… and you!”

“We’ll see!"

He placed his right hand softly on her dry, wrinkled forehead and shouted commands. His voice was sound and his throat became sore. He saw smoke coming out of her mouth and ears and her eyes weren’t hers anymore neither was her body which became darker and the veins on her face and throat were popping out from under her skin. Her throat grew in size and he saw, right there, pressing its face through her skin --- the red enemy’s face, looking at him - menacing, laughing.

“You are going "down" soon, you are fresh… meat.”

“And you, you are going down and never to come "up" again.”

“There is always a maybe for everything - you know.”

“Not for me. You aren’t supposed to be here, Demons. Your Legion belongs in the dark. Why are you here in the light? Why do you insist?”

“We have a purpose: make people come with us to the eternal flames. We gather many. We will gather more and more until there are more of us and less of you. We will win somehow, someday. It is written in the Bible. Why insist?”

“Demons stay in hell. Your place isn’t here. Go!”

“No! Where would we collect the condemned but here? Here is like hell and you know that! Some aren’t even supposed to be here, like… you!”

“I command --- come out of her!”

“No! We need more of us – and she was “open” to us. We’ll collect her first.”

“ Your underworld awaits you. You are interfering and you know that. There are rules. Come out of her --- now!”

They sent him their powerful message. He immediately felt the Inferno surround him --- sticky winds and heat; stench and smoke; screams and moans and millions of bodies rolling and twisting in the mud and swamps that smelled like sulfur and vomit. He was breathless, gasping for air. He saw more than a million of devils – only in one tiny pit, punishing and cursing their eternal, feeble prisoners.

He "knew" what to do. He tried to find her amidst the sulfuric smoke. His eyes, in horror, searched for Lavinia’s soul, lost in one of the pits, down in those horrible caves, hidden by one of the red twisted creatures, forced to do disgusting things. If he found her he could take her back and they would lose this battle but for how long could he stay there? How long would his soul be unseen, unprotected by the evil forces and become sucked by the madness and the dark? He worried. He stiffened. He bit his lower lip to feel stronger and it bled. The monsters smelled the scent and turned their heads, searching.

He managed to walk by a bigger pit, dirty, sticky and full of wild, lost souls - unable to detect rational thoughts, prisoners of the dark, filthy, shark-looking eyes, uncontrolled swearing. He felt their intense loneliness.

He saw her amidst the flames. Lavinia was levitating, catatonic, terrified, scratching her arms, welts and chest nervously. She looked but didn’t see, she simply “existed”, plain and simple; total blackout. Cries of pain; eternal agony around her.

And so it happened. He heard a growl coming from behind him. It was deep, guttural and terrifying. He turned around and gasped for air because the vision was maddening. He saw himself but it was a different him, a red him - that was not really him… but he recognized his features, his broad shoulders, his tall, darker figure, his large back and the familiar red hair and cutting, cold green eyes, shark eyes - his eyes. There were long gnarled horns protruding from empty, bald spaces from the creature’s sinister forehead, his hooves were dripping with blood. Red hot skin, evil. His forehead started to throb. Anguish.

“Who are you, dybbuk?”

“I am you, can’t you see? You are a fallen angel from hell --- you are my brother. I am Ynma and I despise you. You are scum. I am the dark. You are the light. I am bad and you… you are the... good son. Go away. Come out from here, come out from the caverns of hell!”

“No. You lie. Not without her!”

“You are what you left behind, Noigel. Go now, before it’s too late or the cavernous Abyss will keep you here forever, come hell or high water. Father doesn‘t know... you're here yet. He is too busy “upstairs.”

“Such lies, such deceit. Stop. You don’t fool me. I’m taking her with me. Lavinia, wake up!”

"There will be consequences and you know that."

He touched her head and his arm became cold and numb. He fell on the putrid ground. His speech was confused, his mind, chaos, his heart, racing. He lost his coordination, his speech. He managed to crawl towards her, smelling the smoke, coughing. He touched her head again and she… she was miraculously gone but Pomeranos was violently pulled away to nothing and soon disappearing in thin air, only feeling warmth, comfort, peace and silence. He lost his consciousness.

After what seemed like days or months, he woke up with the noises coming from a long tunnel. He felt so small, so vulnerable, he seemed to be in a dark bubble or... was it the swamps? He managed to move slightly and opened his eyes. He saw her twisted face, upside down, looking down at him, crying and tired, perspiring. He saw her from under her own skin - his skin now. He was little but so powerful. He was capable of almost anything - yet he was a prisoner inside a possessed woman's body - inside Lavinia's body. He knew he had horns, hooves and a long forked tail. He knew he was different. He knew things that he didn't know before. He "knew" what was behind the moon and beyond the stars. He knew that hell was a fact and that heaven was a trap. What happened to him? Where had he been? What was he doing there? What was his mission? Before he understood his own fate a man grabbed his small body inside the darkness, enveloped his red legs with his big hands, pulled him out and away from his dark shelter and shouted:

"Come out of her, Diabo!"



Words: 1977