Ex Exorcism

The sound of parties filled the air, and as the day cooled off, people moved outside. Several people rented inflatable water slides for their children's Halloween party and the sound of the kids whooping it up echoed off the pine forests south of town. Older folks were having parties too, many of them were being held out in the garages of St. Felix. Phil's firecrackers were barely noticed among the revelry, in fact they invited answering explosions from the other side of town.

Halloween night in the deep, deep south.

The moon was peeking above the horizon as they neared Grandma Noah's cabin. Now the chirp of the frogs and other swamp dwellers filled the air. "What are we doing out here?" asked Phil.

"I think May cast a spell on you, we need to find out."

"How? Are you going to throw me in the swamp and if I sink I'm ok?"

"We need a witch," said Wendy. "She can tell."

"And then what?"

"I don't know, but that bitch sank her claws into you and we need to see if they were poisoned." Wendy lead Phil deeper into the swamp, her small flashlight swept for a path and alligators.

Phil pulled Wendy to a stop and asked, "why are you doing this?"

She looked up into his eyes, her eyes were moist and glittering in the starlight. "I've had you to myself for most of my life. I intend to keep it that way."

"You're going to be stuck with me. You realize that don't you?"

"It's ok with me, you're housebroken. Come on."

She led Phil to a ramshackle cabin at the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp. The porch of the cabin was a museum of fishing equipment. There were rods and reels, oars, stringers, bobbers, crab traps, lobster pots, canoe paddles, flotation cushions, canoes, and a myriad of other things one might use to catch a fish all on display in the amber glow of a bug light.

"We got no treats here, little girl," came a voice from a deep shadow on the porch.

"Someone played a trick on us," said Wendy. "We are hoping you can help us."

Grandma Noah was sitting in the shadow in her rocking chair, watching the couple approach. Once they drew near, she leaned into the light. Grandma Noah was in her nineties and she looked it. Her white hair in a tight afro, dark skin clung to her frame as she eyed Wendy up and down. "Ah know you," said Grandma Noah, "Ah know your family. Is your Uncle Ned still in jail?"

"No," said Wendy, "He's behaving, we think. Last we heard of him; he went to Jacksonville looking for work."

"Probably workin' on marine engines," said Grandma Noah, chuckling to herself. There's clearly a joke there that Wendy wasn't aware of. Then the old woman's attention shifted swiftly. "And you," Grandma Noah said to Phil, "Your cousin Karole, how is she doing?"

'How did Grandma know about Karole?' wondered Phil. She's been gone for ages. "She's in Minnesota, we heard she got married."

"Good," smiled the ancient black woman, "As it should be. Probably found herself a fine hockey playin' man. Now what can I do for you two young'uns?"

Phil bristled at being called a young'un, but he failed to realize that to Grandma Noah, the world is full of nothing but young'uns. Wendy stepped into the light streaming from the screen door on her cabin and said, "I think Phil's soul has been caught by a witch, we... I want it back."

Grandma Noah laughed, then said, "Ah remember you two lovebirds in The Music Man, you were Harold Hill and Marian Paroo. Lordy y'all could sing!"

"If you help us, we'll come back and sing a duet," said Wendy, but the look on her face wasn't playful. She was pleading.

Grandma Noah nodded her head. "Fair 'nuff, I help you with your little problem and I get to hear 'Surrey With The Fringe On Top.' But I also want to hear about your uncle and your cousin, y' hear?" Her voice was as firm as the ruler in the hand of a nun teaching fifth grade math. "And I want your first-born son." Her voice was dark and stern and Wendy almost ran in terror.

"You want our kid?" asked Phil.

"Nah... babies are too much work. Just name him Noah."

"Yes, ma'am." Wendy and Phil both felt like they were five years old and reporting to their babysitting aunt.

Grandma Noah's voice softened as she asked Wendy, "Why do you think this man was bewitched, chil'?"

"It's always been Phil and Wendy, Wendy and Phil. We were a team; we were meant for each other... I knew it in my heart. Then he come home from sea and walked right past me and walked off with a woman he's never seen before and disappeared."

"Is that true young'un?" The gaze from her cloudy right eye fell on Phil.

"Run!" hissed May in Phil's mind. "Get out of there!"

"Yes ma'am, I stepped off of the ship and I couldn't focus on anyone. They were all a blur, then I saw May, she was the only one that was in focus and smiling at me. I walked over to her and..." He shook his head, "she was all I could see. I don't remember what happened, I just remember signing some papers, and I was out of the Navy... I was married... I was working at the Walmart tire center..."

Grandma Noah looked at Wendy, who was clutching Phil's arm and looking up at Phil as he struggled to hold it together. He told of May's children and May going out all night, not coming back until Phil had to leave for work, sometimes making him late. "Then one day she left, and it was like waking up from a horrible dream. I don't want her... but I don't want anyone or anything 'cept Wendy, but she's blocking that. If I'm with someone, I feel a tug on my soul telling me to find May. I hear her scoldin' me in my head."

"When did she leave you, honey chil'?" asked Grandma Noah.

"New Year's day," he said. "At least I got to watch the football games before they cut off the power."

"Chil! think," demanded Grandma Noah. "What makes you think she put a spell on you and this wasn't just youth and poor decisions?"

"She's in my head right now," said Phil. "She's yelling at me to get away from you."

"The locket," said Wendy. "Show her the locket."

Phil took the locket off and offered it to Grandma Noah, but the ancient black woman recoiled. "Jes' show me dear, Ah don't wanna touch it."

"I got this in a care package, it was an anonymous gift and I thought it was from a little girl." Phil held the locket up so Grandma Noah could inspect it, front and back.

"Uh huh, nothin' special. Go on and open it, young man." Phil opened the locket and Grandma Noah recoiled; she saw something in there that disturbed her greatly. She pulled a toothpick out of her hair and gently prodded the tiny lock of hair and frowned. She tossed the toothpick out toward the swamp and it burst into flame and was consumed before it hit the water. "It's not good," the ancient woman said. "Hang the locket on that nail and let me ponder this some."

Grandma got up slowly and Phil hung the locket on a rusty nail that protruded from the ancient pole that held up the porch roof, but it didn't hang straight down, it hung outwards a bit, hanging toward Phil. Both Wendy and Phil watched wide eyed because it continued to hang toward him as he moved around the porch like it was attracted by a magnet.

"Ah were afraid of that," said Grandma and she slowly went inside the cabin.

Except for the constant drone of insects and chirrup of frogs, it was quiet in the swamp. Once there was the belching roar of a gator followed by a splash, but that was far away. Possibly a poacher jacklighting gators. Finally, footsteps were heard and Grandma Noah returned to the porch and sat down in her chair.

"Here you go chil.' Jes' make sure you're done before sunrise." She handed Wendy a piece of paper with the instructions for the exorcism and an old Yoo-Hoo bottle that was filled with a dark liquid and recapped. "Ah don't know what to call that woman, she ain't rightly a witch an' she ain't rightly a spirit. She drains you of your spirit so she could be a vampire, but you get saddled with her spawn while she goes out and feasts, so ah could call her a cuckoo. But since she does both and still haunts you, ah call her a pearsite."

"Parasite?"

"Zactly!" said Grandma Noah. "Like a tick on a hound dog. She got her fangs set in you. We can't take a pair o' pliers to her, so we'll have to make up our own exorcism. We'll convince her to go."

"Why did she pick Phil?" Wendy looked like she was going to cry. "He was gittin' ready to ask! We were going to be married!"

Grandma Noah's features softened, "she didn't pick Phil honey, she cast out a treble hook an' he got snagged. She sent that locket to a submarine full of lonely men that was heading home where she knew she could catch somebody. It could have been any man on that boat, let's be thankful it wasn't a married man with babies, that would have ruined several lives. Unfortunately for her, she caught a man whose woman knew enough to fight back agin' the evil in the world. Now git! Take your locket and go! Girl, you take that locket. Don't let him touch it no more. Go! Time's a wastin'."

As Wendy and Phil headed back to town from the swamp, they heard Grandma Noah call out, "Don't forget my fee!"

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"Come on, it's just this way," said Wendy as they hiked through the brush. Both Wendy and Phil were wearing a backpack, and each was carrying a sleeping bag under their arm. A quick cut through a thick tree line that sloped downhill and they emerged from the woods close to the banks of the St. Mary's River.

"I haven't been back here since we were kids," gasped Phil, looking around in the moonlight.

"This is where I would come fishing while I waited for you to come home," said Wendy as she unpacked her tent. It was a very lightweight dome tent and with Phil's help, they had it set up quickly and rolled out the sleeping bags. There was plenty of firewood around and soon they had a small fire burning and they sat on the soft sandy ground on either side of the fire, looking at each other.

"Did the instructions say to go camping?" asked Phil.

"No, they said make a home alone together. Both your folks are home, my mom, my sister and her baby are at my place. We need to be alone and we need a river, so this works."

"We haven't gone camping in ages," said Phil as Wendy unwrapped a sandwich and handed him half. She then took two paper cups and poured the concoction from the Yoo-Hoo bottle into each cup and handed Phil a cup. "Did the instructions call for snack time?"

"It said to drink the liquid with food that I made for us." The drink didn't taste very good, it reminded them of Jägermeister and iced tea. It was a bit on the thick side and, along with the beer they drank earlier, it gave them a considerable buzz. But best of all, it muffled May's commentary and threats.

Town wasn't far away; they could hear the splash parties for the kids and the hard rock music from the adult parties carried in the distance. In town it's pretty warm, but down here in the trees it's stifling, no breeze was coming in off the river. Soon the repetitive strains of Concrete Blonde's Vampire Song came drifting into their campsite and they started laughing just because it felt good to laugh. It was such a campy vampire song, perfect for Halloween, and hardly anyone plays it anymore.

"What do you think?" asked Wendy.

"Of what?"

"Us."

Phil froze, looking across the fire he saw Wendy, the girl he grew up with, his very first love, his only love. He drank the rest of the noxious concoction and looked at Wendy again, and the tug toward May was still there but it wasn't as strong, he didn't feel the guilt and self-loathing as much as he did earlier. It was still there, but now that the locket was gone, he feels freer. "I think that we have a chance."

Wendy was hoping for something more, something she could pin her hopes to. "A chance?"

Phil swallowed and tried; his feelings were not definite things that could easily be put into words. They were images, memories, and desires and centered around Wendy and all the time May was in there fucking everything up. "Years ago we went camping together, I think it was near here." Wendy nodded, and he went on. "I remember waking up and seeing you laying next to me, and I remember being so excited that you were there with me to start the day, you were so beautiful in the morning sun and I wanted to do that over and over and share my days with you, one by one as long as we have days to share."

"And?"

"I want to go back there, but this time man up, tell you I love you, and do it right."

Wendy's breath caught in her chest and she finally fought to say, "are you saying that you love me?"

He felt May in his head trying to convince him he's being tricked, it's Wendy that's the trickster. "Yes," he whispered, but the rest wouldn't come out. "She won't let me say it."

Wendy looked at the sheet that Grandma Noah gave her. The woman had impeccable handwriting, beautiful, fluid cursive.

"Baptize your union in the black water that runs through our blood."

After that, there was only one more step after that and she didn't fully understand it, but she couldn't wait.

"Burn the locket. He'll know how and you'll know when."

Right now, she had to take the lead. She burned the wax paper that she wrapped the sandwiches in and crawled over to Phil and knelt before him, smiling.

"What?"

"Baptism in the black water."

"What?"

"Come on, give me them shoes." She began untying Phil's sneakers and pulled them off, along with his socks. In return, she stuck her feet out and he began untying her tiny sneakers. Somewhere in the distance, May screamed and Phil didn't pay attention, he continued to take Wendy's shoes off. He never realized how small her feet were. "What size shoe do you wear?"

"Four... STOP. That tickles!"

"This little piggy went to market..." but instead of wiggling her toe, he suckled it. The sensation of his tongue tickling her big toe shot straight up her inner thigh.

"This little piggy went home..." now she was laughing more than she ever had with Phil in the past. She didn't realize that May was now threatening him, taunting him, demanding he stop, but this was Wendy who was so much more important to him, he fought off May's demands.

"This little piggy had roast beef..." he took her toe between his teeth and flickered his tongue around and around it. Now Wendy was trying to roll over, she didn't realize how sexually stimulating getting your toes sucked could be. She was begging him to stop, but if he did, she probably would have killed him. It was so good to have the playful Phil back. She didn't realize the fight that was going on.

The locket was hanging from a tent pole and was leaning toward Phil at a forty-five degree angle as May screamed and threatened Phil. The concoction had its effect on him and May's taunts and whispers were subdued, her shouts were still there but their power was diminished. He got Wendy's other shoe and sock off and licked the underside of her foot from heel to toes and she shrieked, unable to tell if this was ticklish or sexy. Either way, it was damn hot, and she never knew that she had the capacity for such feelings.

Wendy lay back on the sand, her feet in Phil's hands as he began a foot massage on her tiny feet, which felt so good and relaxing after all that walking. "Are you going to do this for me when I'm pregnant with Noah and can't even get out of the bathtub?"

"If I can fit in the bathtub with you."

"She's never going to have your child!" shrieked May.

Wendy rocked up onto her knees and tugged Phil's T-shirt. "Come on you," and she pulled Phil's T-shirt over his head and smiled. He was getting buff! Hoisting tires all day long agrees with his figure. She unconsciously reached out and touched his chest and a thrill ran through her, she's finally going to have her Phil!

"PUSH HER AWAY!" shouted May, her hold on Phil was tightening with her desperation.

He took Wendy's hand and kissed her fingers then got up on his knees and pulled her t-shirt up revealing her slightly, softly rounded tummy then up higher revealing her ribcage, then a few more inches and her beautiful round breasts sprung free and bounced into place. He held her T-shirt up over her head, trapping her hands and blinding her, and admired the view.

Her breasts were big and bouncy, almost perfectly round, with large nipples and small areola. Her nipples were crinkly from exposure to the night and her knowing that he's staring. She tried to fight back; she struggled to get an arm free, but suddenly a mouth closed over one nipple and began sucking. The thrill was exquisite and the sense of helplessness magnified the intensity of his suckling. His tongue wrang pleasure from her nipple before moving on to the other tit.

Wendy's whimpers of pleasure clearly angered May. Phil could feel her anger in the back of his mind. May wasn't gone, she was still there, he could feel May's anger. He lifted Wendy's T-shirt off her and they smiled at each other, then slowly came together for a long, long overdue kiss. Lips parted and tongues sought each other out as bare flesh met bare flesh for the first time. Their kiss became electric, they couldn't hold each other close enough, their hands roamed over each other's bare back.

"NOOO!" shrieked May in Phil's mind.

Wendy broke the kiss quickly and looked at Phil in shock. "Was that her?"

"You heard her?" Phil looked at Wendy oddly.

"When we kissed, I heard a woman screaming 'No!' She was really shrill," said Wendy.

"Oh god, she's in your head too?"

"That was her? That's what you have to put up with?" asked Wendy with genuine concern in her voice. Maybe Grandma Noah wasn't the right witch for this job.

Phil nodded, "she's loudest with you," said Phil sadly. "Can you hear her now?"

"Nnnno."

"How about now?" and suddenly his lips were seeking hers, seeking another dream-kiss and as she entered that dizzy, dreamy passion she heard it again, "YOU TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF THAT BITCH!" May was truly angry.

"Oh, God! I'm so sorry!" gasped Wendy. She glanced over at the tent and the locket was hanging straight out, pointing at them. "She wants you that much?"

"She doesn't want me; she doesn't want you to have me."

Anger was building in Wendy's heart. "That fucking witch," she growled. "We gotta get rid of her."

"What's the next step?" asked Phil.

"Baptism in the black water," said Wendy. "Are you ready?"

"What?"

"I thought you were a redneck," she teased. "This is part of our heritage, come on." She stood and unbuttoned her jeans, but Phil stopped her.

"Let me." Kneeling in front of her, he unbuttoned the jeans and slowly lowered them over her hips and round ass, his hands running over her smooth skin, kissing her belly, ignoring the screaming in his head. She stepped out of the cutoff blue jeans and shivered as Phil started sliding her flowered panties down her legs, revealing her clean, shaved pussy. He leaned in and kissed her bare skin, so smooth. "Good shave," he muttered as he began planting kisses on her mound.

"I was expectin' to get lucky tonight," she said with an expectant smile. Then, as she stepped out of her panties, she urged him to stand. His belt buckle popped open under her urging, but the waist button of his jeans was tight. She finally opened the button and eased down the zipper. "Boxers?"

"I don't do tighty whities."

"Just teasing." She pulled down his shorts and his cock sprang out, surprising her. It was long, thick and just what she wanted on a Halloween night, but as she touched it, it went soft. "Are you ok?" she asked as she looked in his eyes and saw that he was wincing. "What's she's doing?"

To answer, Phil pulled Wendy close for their first naked kiss. It should have been a sweet tender moment, two young lovers in the light of a campfire, their fiery bodies pressing close, but when his lips met hers, Wendy's head filled with the shrieks and screams of May, the parasite witch. They broke their kiss and Wendy led Phil to the edge of the river.