The Accidental Exorcist Read Online Free PDF Page A

wild beast in Salton Sea Women’s
Penitentiary ? The
one who almost tore you to pieces?
    Not taking her eyes off Cheryl—who
still seemed herself, just terrified and pointing at Father McGhee
with one hand and with the other covering her mouth—Abby knelt and
pulled the priest up to a seated position.
    Alive, thank God, but trembling. His
eyes darted back and forth between Abby and Cheryl in the chair
above him. He was a frail man, who couldn’t have been much heavier
than Abby herself. White hair covered his head completely. His pale
eyebrows arched with trepidation.
    “ You must leave!” He
whispered, and tried to stand.
    “ Leave?”
    A low-pitched growl filled the room.
Abby didn’t want to look up, because something inside
her—definitely not her rational mind—told her she wouldn’t find
Cheryl there anymore.
    “ Get up, Father.
Hurry.”
    “ I can’t.”
    “ Why not?”
    He tried to lift his finger to point,
but it shot back down. As if someone grabbed it and yanked it down.
“They won’t let me.”
    At first, she thought the priest was
delirious and was referring to the dead policeman and EMT. But when
she looked up, there was Cheryl—or what once had been—glaring down
monstrously, thick saliva rolling from her teeth and lower jaw. Her
face was a web of veins, her eyes bulging to the point of popping
out.
    When she spoke, it sounded
like a hundred vulgar men, their words guttural and wet with
mucous. “ Get out of here, you
whore !”
    Nothing would have made Abby happier
than to comply. But when she tried to take Father McGhee’s hand,
the creature that had been Cheryl roared and struck her across the
face.
    Abby fell back on her rear and watched
in horror as Cheryl stood up slowly off her haunches, snarled at
the priest and pointed her open hand at him. To her Abby’s utter
astonishment, Father McGhee, now straining to breathe and clutching
his throat, floated into the air. The little dog in the kennel
crate barked nervously.
    Cheryl flung her hand toward the wall
and the Priest went flying into it. His back hit the wall. His feet
dangled three feet off the ground but he did not fall or slide
down. Instead, he hung there like black beetle pinned to a wood
block—only, his limbs were still moving and his mouth opened and
shut, opened and shut, like a dying fish on the hot surface of a
dock.
    From within his robe he pulled out a
crucifix and tried to wave it at Cheryl.
    She only laughed.
    The crucifix fell to the ground, right
on top of a set of rosary beads and a Bible.
    “ THEY ONLY WORK IF YOU
HAVE FAITH… FATHER! ”
    Gasping, Father McGhee tried to answer
through his choked breath. “I…am…not afraid…of you!”
    The Cheryl creature turned to Abby,
causing her to back away. Abby’s hands found the Bible. She grabbed
it, foolishly thinking she could use it like a shield. With a
sickly jaundiced eye, Cheryl glared at Abby, then turned back to
the priest. Once again, in manifold voices, Cheryl said to Father
McGhee, “I KNOW ALL YOUR SINS.” Then she turned to Abby and smiled
with teeth stained with blood from her gums. “AND YOUR’S TOO,
ABIGAIL LEE.”
    “ Doctor Lee…” the priest
muttered. “I don’t think…I…have enough—”
    “ SHUT UP, TIRESOME OLD
FOOL!” Cheryl lifted both of her hands towards him. His body came
forward from the wall, then floated towards the curtains facing the
backyard. “YOU NO LONGER AMUSE ME!”
    A thunderous sound shook the room. The
walls began to creak and splinter. The entire house began to shake.
Cheryl threw one hand forward causing Father McGhee to crash
through the glass, tearing the curtains out with him.
    That’s when Abby saw a pair of legs
dangling outside the window.
    Ted Morgan, Cheryl’s
husband.
    “ Oh my God!”
    “ DON’T BOTHER CALLING FOR
GOD, SWEETIE. HE’S DEAD!” Cheryl—or the creature that controlled
her—regarded Abby and licked her dripping lips like a wild hyena
about feast on the entrails of a leftover