Page 97 of Play Nice

Jed fiddled with his equipment.

And Ruth…Ruth started to sweat.

She was pale, pale like Cici had been earlier that day. Sickly looking.

“Ruth,” I said, reaching out for her. We’d been holding hands. I couldn’t remember when I’d let go. “Ruth, are you okay?”

She grunted. Retched, like she was about to vomit.

Cici didn’t flinch. She was busy eyeing Roy.

“Ruth!” I said, standing.

“Okay there, Ruthie?” Jed asked, without taking off his massive earmuff headphones. A rhetorical question.

No one else seemed worried about her. But I had a feeling in my gut. A writhing dread.

I regretted ever calling them. Ever seeking help. I’d doomed them.

The thought was so clear.

I’ve doomed them.

Bells. The sound now incessant. Somehow louder than Father Bernard, than Roy.

Ruth shook. Her eyes rolled over white. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no…”

“Ruth!”

“She’s fine. Leave it alone,” Roy instructed me. “Close your eyes. Pray. Cici, what does it want?”

“Don’t speak to her!” I snapped at him, panicked, completely terrified.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are…” Cici sang, finishing with a grim little laugh.

“Cici,” Roy said.

“Stop!” I shouted at him. “Stop this! Stop all of this. This is ridiculous. Ruth needs help.”

Ruth’s head whipped from side to side, side to side, side to side. Gibberish poured from her lips. I worried she was having a seizure.

“This is normal,” Roy said, calmly. “Ruth.”

She came back to herself immediately.

I remembered the couple from Maine. The woman walking toward me, her tongue out. It was acting. It was all acting.

“I don’t think this was a good idea,” I said, doubting every decision I’d ever made in my life that brought me to that moment. I collapsed onto the floor in sobs, holding my knees to my chest. “What have I done?”

They all ignored me. Roy carried on in Latin, Father Bernard with his prayers. Jed with his equipment, Ruth with her head jerking in every direction. Even Cici with her drawing.

Even the demon. Ringing the bells.

My sobs turned to screams. I couldn’t stand it.

I unleashed the words I’d been holding in for who knows how long. “Get out of my house! Leave me be! Leave me alone! Get the fuck out of my house!” I pounded my fists on the floor, on my chest. I pulled out my own hair.

Still no one looked at me. No one acknowledged me.