THAT WHICH DOES NOT KILL ME

By Meriades Rai

“How could you do nothing and say, ‘I’m doing my best’?
How could you take almost everything, and then come back for the rest?
How could you beg me to stay, reach out your hands and plead,
And then pack up your eyes and run away, as soon as I agreed?”
Ani DiFranco, ‘Done Wrong’

October 31st – The Last Day

Ever been camping? Chances are you have, especially if you were born in Dalton, Massachusetts where there’s nothing much else to do in the late Summer to early Fall, save sacrifice chickarees to whatever deity happens to be listening in and pray that you’ll be transcendentally deposited someplace else entirely. The experience was always better in a pack; camping, that is, not praying. Remember? Sitting round the fire in the dead of night being gnawed to the bone by mosquitoes, roasting marshmallows and weenies, taking furtive glances at some guy you really like but who doesn’t know you exist… ah, the nostalgia. When I was twelve years old, my father took a group of the neighbourhood kids up to the woods, near Lake Jaffrey, just for the weekend. There were seven of us, five girls including me. We saw deer, I had my first taste of beer and hated it, and I watched Matthew Glenn kiss Terri Arwick and wished it was me. And my father told us ghost stories.

I can’t pretend that my father was wonderful at many things, but he certainly had a flair for the dramatic. That night he held us all spellbound. It’s one my fondest memories, though I don’t recall any particular story with special clarity. I just know we were laughing and scared by turns, and that we all loved every minute of it, and I was so proud I almost cried. Hell, maybe I did.

My father was the greatest storyteller. He always spoke slowly, quietly, describing every last detail. He made it all come alive for us; the dark, lonely forests stretching away in all directions, the chill of the wind and rain, the silence of an autumn night broken only by the haunting call of an owl, or the nervous click of some woman’s heels on wet tarmac and the sudden heavy breathing at her shoulder, giving away to strangled screams.

Twelve years old, out in middle of nowhere, my father telling us tales of fear and murder and blood. And people wonder why I turned out the way I did? But, I digress.

Man, I loved those stories. No one wanted to be alone afterwards, not even to go pee. Matthew Glenn and Terri Arwick, they cuddled up together, at least until my father nudged them apart with a stick like he was poking rattlesnakes. I like to think he did it because he knew the situation and realised why I was so unhappy, but how could he? I wouldn’t dare tell him stuff like that. I guess he was just being a parent. He ruffled my hair though, and gave me a hug, right out of the blue, so maybe he was aware of more than I gave him credit for. I remember shooting him a baleful look, to show him I wasn’t a kid anymore and I that I wasn’t in the market for spontaneous shows of affection, but I was glad of it all the same. When you’re lonely and the world is full of things you don’t understand, like Terri Arwick’s impossibly blonde hair and her sweet, come-get-me laugh and her young breasts, it’s nice to have something familiar to cling to. Hot chocolate and marshmallows. Ghost stories around the fire.

Next summer, my father died. We’d been due to go on another camping trip in a couple of weeks. I’d been bitching and sulking because I didn’t think it was something I should be doing at thirteen. Not wanted to be doing but should be doing, because for every thirteen-year-old girl everything is about appearances. I’d obviously grown up so much in the space of a year. Obviously. The world is full of people who say they have no regrets in life. I think they’re talking bull. I think they’re the ones who secretly hurt most of all. I know I do. It’s why every time I think of my father, the wonderful man that he was, full of hugs and smiles and ghost stories, it leaves me bitterly, unbearably sad.

Which brings me here. That last night in the House of Roses I spoke to my father for the first time in fourteen years — and, in doing so I was forced to confront a truth I’d previously managed to avoid.

It was the beginning of the end.

And some things, when broken, just can’t be mended.

October 23rd – The Fourth Day

It’s weird, when you think about it. God? Golden and glowing, bearded, kind eyes, wrapped in white robes and compassion; a tad on the smug side, but then who wouldn’t be, with almighty power and grace on their side? The thing is, there’s such little variation in the representation, be it through art or sermon. I mean, I know Christianity stole the imagery from Greek mythology in the first place, and that God is basically Zeus with a few twirls, but it’s interesting that a singular depiction endures. The Devil? Well, he’s another matter entirely. Sometimes he’s a red beast with horns, sometimes he’s animalistic with more than a passing resemblance to a goat; if you believe Hollywood and comic books, he’s a handsome fellow in a suit with beautiful eyes and a taste for the fineries of life. Which, obviously, is the version I’ve always gravitated towards, being a lonely woman with a frankly pathetic yearning for dark romance whom hasn’t actually had a real date in two years. Perhaps there’s a Devil for every sin, and there’s a Hell of a lot of sins, so to speak. Perhaps none of these is the real deal — he is the Prince of Lies, after all. And that’s another thing; he doesn’t even stick to one name. You’ve got your Satan, your Lucifer, your Abaddon, your Baal…

And, apparently, there’s Mephisto.

Who isn’t charming and debonair, or comes over like Al Pacino, but who is actually a living nightmare of blood and fire and flayed flesh. Not that I look much better, given that good old Rebecca Lockwood — pretty enough, in a sad, smoky, late night jazz bar kinda way — isn’t currently in evidence, and has been replaced by a leather-clad biker with spiked gauntlets and a flaming skull for a head, known as the Ghost Rider. Guess old Mephisto and I were made for each other. Don’t let anyone ever tell you life doesn’t suck.

“I AM HERE FOR EVE,” I snarl, brandishing a length of scorched chain. “STAND ASIDE.”

Stand aside? Excuse me?

When the Ghost Rider speaks, it’s more often than not with the words of Zarathos, the demon who currently dwells inside me. Rebecca still exists; I am me more than him, I know that, my consciousness still dominant in many ways. I just allow Zarathos free rein when there is violence — and vengeance — to be wrought. That’s what he seems to be best at, after all. However, this is the first time I’ve heard him in any way unsure — and the first time I’ve felt a tremble of fear deep within, in the darkness where he lurks.Stand aside is a long way from I’m going to rip out your heart or just lunging in, fists flailing.

The hideous apparition before me is evidently aware of the cause of my hesitation; he cocks his head and grins, his mouth a cluster of misshapen teeth about which curls a thin, forked tongue the colour of ten-day-old corpses.

“It’s been a while, old friend,” Mephisto sighs, his black eyes sparkling in their fleshless cavities. “You always did know how to hide yourself from me — but, like reckless lovers addicted to deviant, fetishistic sex their ordinary spouses could never accommodate or understand, we always end up together, panting and desperate.”

I feel Zarathos recoil. I can’t blame him. I feel like I want to shed my skin and run screaming from this fiend’s squalid presence — if the Ghost Rider had any skin, of course.

“Do you understand what this place represents?” Mephisto asks, in that same insidious whisper. “The House of Roses, as Eve might call it… this is the lair of a cult of worshippers who have devoted themselves to me. They have sacrificed so many in my honour over the years — animals, children abducted from their homes, even members of their own sect — but Eve is to be their crowning glory. She was birthed for this very purpose, you see. She has been conditioned. And the culmination of all their hard work is drawing near…”

I have little interest in what this scum has to say. Zarathos has even less. I feel the swelling rage of the demon inside me, a better-late-than-never gathering of courage, and I exhale a snarl of delight. Now that’s more like it. I lurch forward, lashing out with my chain with all my strength…

…but Mephisto simply smiles and hisses. He snatches the chain from the air with impossible swiftness — I swear, I don’t even see him move — and rips it from my grasp, shredding the leather palm of my gauntlet in the process. I falter, and for a moment I can’t help but stare down, numbly, at the newly exposed bone glimmering with a breath of Hellfire. Then I feel long claws curl about my throat, and fear floods every inch of me. I react like a cornered animal, bucking and arching and raining blows down against my enemy. Studded fists impact into withered skin — but I may as well be raging against stone. Mephisto doesn’t even flinch. Instead, his grip tightens, accompanied by the echo of splintering bone, and I choke.

“These circumstances are not of my design,” the fiend murmurs, leaning in close. “However, I’ll admit to a frisson of delight in appreciation of the planning and dedication shown by those committing such atrocities for my benefit. These humans, they take their rituals so seriously, have you noticed? It means nothing to me, of course — evil is as evil does, and the sinners all find their way to Hell eventually. I care nothing for their symbolism. But the cult of the House of Roses believe in allegory; in the power of the three sixes most of all. Six-six-six.”

Mephisto’s other hand moves across my face, and his fingers hook. He then impales me through the burning sockets of my skull, and I scream at the agony that results. My Hellfire flares and smokes, engulfing his entire arm — but he seems to gain pleasure from this. Why wouldn’t he? This is the creature that belched the first Hellfire and who has stoked the black flames of his furnace ever since.

I feel him begin to pull. I feel my skull begin to detach. And, all the while, he continues to whisper.

“Eve was just over three years old when the cult snatched her from a tumbledown backyard in a nowhere town in Tennessee,” he says. “Every Sunday morning thereafter — as others attended their churches and prayed to their own Gods — they immersed Eve in the darkness of their own religion. They brutalised her; they beat her, they burned her, they raped her, they ruined her. They have purposefully got her pregnant on four separate occasions, then bludgeoned her with lead pipes as she entered her second term, each time forcing her to eat the bloodied remains of her own miscarriages. They have opened up wounds in her abdomen and inserted starlings and rats, then sewn up the flesh once more so that the creatures died and festered inside her. They have buried her alive, forcing her to share a coffin with their own decaying dead, and disinterred her only when her air began to grow fetid. They have taught her such pain, and fear and despair. Every Sunday. And now, she is sixteen.

“Twelve and a half years. Twelve and a half years of Sunday mornings. Yesterday was Eve’s six hundredth and sixty-fifth descent into misery. That makes next Sunday number six hundred and sixty-six — six-six-six. Oh, the wonder of human rituals. You’ve happened along just before the day the cult has been anticipating for over a decade, my dear. And they have something very special planned…”

I’m struggling — not once do I stop struggling — but he’s so strong. So much stronger than I am, even as the Ghost Rider. He keeps pulling at me, pulling, pulling…

And then, finally, he gives a grunt of satisfaction and wrenches off my head.

I fall backwards, my body convulsing in anguish. My eyes flicker, my jaw slack. I can taste blood. And I can hear screaming — but, just for once, it’s not my own. It’s Zarathos. My hands move instinctively to my neck, but they don’t encounter a bloodied stump — the decapitation I’ve just experienced was purely metaphysical. I’m me again. Rebecca Lockwood. Unharmed. When Mephisto removed the skull from my shoulders he was actually removing the demon from inside me — he was removing the Ghost Rider.

I sit up, breathing deeply, my heart skipping in my chest. Mephisto stares down at me, his face still split with that livid grin. He holds the flaming skull in his hands, his fingers curled into the eye sockets as if he’s cradling a particularly macabre bowling ball. The skeletal mouth is wide and twisted — it’s from here that the scream is erupting. Zarathos is contained within the skull.

“You’re free,” Mephisto says to me, his black eyes glinting. “Leave this place, and never return.”

At first I can’t speak, my words snaring in my throat. The fiend glares at me, his smile beginning to fade.

“Leave,” he hisses, and the shadows seem to seethe and tremble about him.

“Eve,” I croak. “Where…?”

“She is no longer any of your concern.”

I shake my head, almost involuntarily. “I’m an FBI agent,” I hear myself say. “I track missing persons. I stop bad things happening to good people. That’s what I do. I’m not leaving without her.”

Something about him changes then, just for a moment, but long enough for certain truths to imprint upon my mind. The Devil takes whatever form we believe in; that’s why there are so many conflicting representations. Although I’m not religious I subscribe to accepted Western ideals, and thus he appears to me as a beast with claws and fiery skin. Perhaps those who attribute evil to society, specifically businessmen, or industrial and technological advancement, perceive the man in the suit, whilst underdeveloped nations witness a more primeval force, of flies and famine and storms. In this instant, however, I glimpse a hint of the reality; I see the fallen, the outcast, the broken ruin, and the eternal festering of body and soul that came after. I see the beast for what he is, and I scream.

“Go,” he says, his voice crackling in my ears like maggots feasting on roasting skin. “Or stay. For now, I do not care. But know this, girl… attempt to reach out once again for the demon you cosseted to your breast, and my punishment shall be absolute.”

I shiver as I feel him sweep over me, engulfing me in a tide of fire and shadow and misery…

…but then he is gone, leaving behind little more than a whisper of warm air and sulphur in his passing. Cowering, it takes me a few minutes to gather my wits to as much as raise my head. When I do, I see that the inferno caused by the Ghost Rider before Mephisto’s appearance has been quashed, likely by the demon’s hand — the walls and window frames are buckled and blackened, smouldering; the marble floor is awash with ash; the sunlight streaming in through the ruined foundations catches in a trail of lazy smoke. But the flames are gone.

Lying in the debris some ten feet away is the motorcycle, chrome and midnight blue. Beside it is a white skull, no longer burning, its eye sockets cracked and vacant, its jaw misshapen. Remnants.

I hear nothing but the faint crack of weeping wood to disturb the uneasy silence that has settled. I’m surrounded by the corpses of the cultists I slaughtered earlier, but no more are rushing forth to take their place. Perhaps they’ve already made good their escape. Perhaps they’re waiting for me to leave, as I was bidden. Whatever, they still have Eve. And, as I told Mephisto, I can’t allow that.

To be free of the Ghost Rider is bittersweet. If I remain here as Rebecca Lockwood I will die, of that I have no doubt; similarly, if I attempt a rescue in human form, the result will be no different. Being dead is no good to the girl. Therefore, as much as I despise myself for this, I have no choice. I stand, slowly, then step towards the bike.

In that moment, pain consumes me.

I thought that the transformation into the Ghost Rider had been the worst agony a human body could endure, but evidently I was mistaken. This is far worse, because it is the dissection of the soul. Invisible blades slice through my inner being like knives through flesh, separating slivers of me with hot precision. My soul bleeds, and screams. I fall back, shrieking and writhing, convinced of my own death — but, again, just as when the skull was wrenched from my shoulders, I’ve been spared. This time, however, it takes me longer to recover.

I slip in and out of consciousness. I’m aware of a darkening outside, and then dawn, seemingly with nothing in-between. The corpses around me are beginning to stiffen, and stink. Darkness again. Until, eventually, I find myself able to move. And, when I sit up, I’m looking into the eyes of two children, both smiling, and holding hands. At first, I don’t recognise them. At least, that’s what I tell myself. But I don’t have the time to be deliberately coy.

“Matthew Glenn and Terri Arwick,” I whisper, not through any sense of reverence but because my mouth is as dry as the desert. “Doesn’t this just make my day complete?”

“We laughed about it, you know,” says Matthew. He’s not as good-looking as I remember. Possibly to do with the fact that I’m not twelve any longer. I can’t help but smile.

“Laughed about what?” I say.

Terri cocks her head, all twinkling eyes and very, very blonde hair. “About you, silly,” she breathes. And then comes that wonderful, silky laugh that everyone used to fall in love with, not just Matt. Hell, Matt and her didn’t last more than a couple of months before she was off with someone else. Connor, I think. Connor what? Connor Michaels? Michael Connor? Something like that. Who cares? She was just a slut. A slut at twelve. I know I shouldn’t say it, female solidarity and the rest, but, you know, she was.

“We laughed about the fact you thought you had a chance with me,” Matthew smirks, a poisonous glint in his eyes. “When you were such a dirty nobody skank I wouldn’t have been caught dead with.”

“Skank,” says Terri. “Utterly.”

I look from one to the other, a disbelieving smile on my face. Then, I glance up, into the darkness gathering above my head.

“Skank?” I repeat, incredulously. “Ooh, how nasty. I’m a quivering heap. I mean, come on… Matthew bastard Glenn and Terri sodding Arwick? Are you kidding me? If this is the best you can do, I’m disappointed. Truly. My life is a wreck. It’s full of Matthew Glenns. You want to torture me, you’ll need to try another tack. I already know how worthless and wretched I am, it’s not like it’s any great shock…”

I look back to the two apparitions floating before me, taking delight in the disgust etched upon their faces. “You’re phantoms,” I murmur. “Jackals. Illusions of the mind. And not even very good ones. So get the Hell out of my face and let me pass.”

They vanish in a hiss of sulphur, and I breathe deeply. The motorcycle and the skull remain ahead of me, glimmering in the moonlight. My mouth curls into a snarl. I step forward.

The pain hits me again, twice as violently as before — and yet, conversely, I feel I can cope with it a little better. It’s like putting your hand in an open flame. The agony is still indescribable, but at least you aren’t so surprised the second time around. You also know that the first time didn’t cost you your life — and, to misquote Nietzsche, that which does not kill you makes you stronger. When I recoil on this occasion I am only incoherent for a day and a half, at my estimation.

“We need to have words, little girl.”

The voice rouses me, and I sit bolt upright, my vision swimming. It’s light outside. The air is filled with flies and the stench of rotting flesh. I’m hungry, disorientated. I recognise the man standing in front of me. His name is Arthur Rosewell, and he was the uncle I stayed with in the years after my father died; when I was sixteen he raped me, twice, on a worn rug in front of a television set showing some old black and white movie with Ingrid Bergman. Filthy, evil bastard. The night I received word that he’d died, about six years ago, I ended up in hospital after attempting to kill myself for the second and so far final time in my life. Arthur Rosewell all but destroyed me. So, yeah, after Matt and Terri I was kinda expecting him to show up.

Arthur’s unthreading his belt. He has liver spots on the backs of his hands. He smells of oranges. And sweat. I remember. I’ve never eaten any kind of citrus fruit since. Back then, when he forced himself into me one rainy afternoon whilst his drippy wife, my aunt, was out of town, he kept up a running conversation, as if what he was doing to me was normal. Now he’s quiet. And his eyes are jet black. Somewhere I can hear a heart beating, but it can’t be mine. Mine got broken, back in the day.

I’m surprised how calm I am, looking around for my gun. Desert Eagle Magnum, not standard issue. My father would have loved this gun. When I track it down, in a shady corner, I weigh it in my hand, just like the first time I ever used it. Then I turn and aim at Arthur.

“No more bullets, honey,” he says, rubbing his damp palms on the thighs of his jeans then beginning to fumble excitedly with the zipper. “No Hellfire, neither. So you just lie back and – ”

“The Hellfire is figurative,” I tell him. “Just embellishment. The important thing is the vengeance. That’s what the Ghost Rider delivers. That’s what hurts. That’s what kills.”

And, to show him exactly what I mean, I pull the trigger. Arthur Rosewell’s head explodes. Blood and bone and brain. Almost as if he was real. Then, before his body can collapse in upon itself, he vanishes… and I sink to me knees, cradling the Magnum in my lap.

“The thing is,” I whisper, “That — ultimately — he’s no more significant than a Terri Arwick. Not really. I’ve had eleven years to dwell on what that man did to me — how I never went to the police after he apologised and begged me not to, how he never tried again, how it was never even mentioned. As if it never happened, when we both knew it had. I’ve analysed it from every angle. I relive it every night; I relive it every damn time there’s an old monochrome movie playing on the television. You think that’s what it’ll take to break me? Wrong again.”

I stand. Again. And again I move forward, towards the bike.

This time I can handle the pain. Somehow. This time I almost touch the skull before I black out.

When I regain consciousness, it’s dark outside again. How many days and nights have passed? Mephisto said Eve would be sacrificed on the coming Sunday. What if it’s Sunday already? What if she’s already dead, and all this is for—

“Nothing.”

A man’s voice; solemn, but comforting for that. He says, “There’s nothing left. It’s too late. You need to stop this now, sweetheart. It needs to end.”

My heart seizes, and I smile, sadly. Yeah. I was expecting this too. I look at him, and all the years melt away.

“Hello, daddy.”

He smiles at me in return, warm and blessed. There’s nothing threatening about him, as there was with the other spectres of my past, there’s only love. And that, of course, makes it worse.

“I don’t want to be here,” he says, his words catching in his throat. “I don’t want to have to do this to you.”

“I know. It’s good to see you. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve watched over you. All the way. Could you feel me?”

“Sometimes.”

He looks away, his ghostly eyes filling with tears. “I was always there,” he breathes. “Even when that sick bastard my sister married… when he… oh, God, Becky.”

“I know.”

“I couldn’t…”

“I know, daddy.” My tears are flowing freely now. “Daddy? I have to do this.”

He turns back towards me. “You don’t. There’s another way.”

“No.”

“There is.” He stares into my eyes, suddenly intent. “You tried before. You just…”

“Didn’t cut deep enough? No. No, I didn’t. The first time… I tried, truly I did — I just missed the vein. Second time, that was a cry for help, as the cliché goes. More of a scream than a cry, but same difference. I guess it just wasn’t my time, daddy.”

“It is now. Come to me, sweetheart.”

“No.” I blink back the tears. “There’s a girl. Eve. Same age as I was when… well, she needs my help. But it’s not something I can do as Becky Lockwood. I need the Ghost Rider.”

“I’m the only thing you need.”

His eyes are black, now. Glinting. The smile has fallen away, along with the pretence. This one was good, I’ll give Mephisto that. This one almost had me.

“Go, now,” I say. “Time’s wasting.”

The phantom in the guise of my father shimmers, as if ready to disappear like those before it… but it isn’t quite done. I glimpse a forked tongue flickering between red lips. I hear claws scrabbling on the marble floor. And then, he says it.

“Like father like daughter,” he hisses. “Daddy’s girl. You should have taken notes. When you were sitting there in the bathroom, skin puckering in the steam, tears streaming down your cheeks, the razor in your hand… if only you’d paid attention, daddy could have taught you how to do it properly. He could have shown you. Because he did it right first time. What kind of man abandons his daughter at thirteen and leaves her an orphan, simply because he can’t accept the miserable failure of his own existence any longer? He was never watching over you. Not at all. He’s down below, all the way down with me, where a man can’t see anything but his own blood and sorrow. He was a sinner. You’re all sinners. And, be assured, I’m not finished with you, you obstinate little bitch…”

He vanishes then — now that it’s said, and done. He leaves me in the dark and the silence. Numb.

I don’t know what I’m thinking as I reach out then, one final time, towards the skull on the floor. Perhaps I’m thinking nothing. Perhaps I just don’t want to remember. Whatever, when the pain hits, I barely recognise it; if anything, it spurs me on.

I touch the skull. I touch the bike.

In the back of head, there’s a tingle—and a familiar voice.

“YOU CAME.”

“You doubted me?”

“ORDINARY MORTALS WOULD HAVE RUN. ABANDONED THE GIRL TO HER FATE.”

“Well, never let it be said that I’m ordinary.”

“YOU WANT TO DIE.”

A statement, not a question. I smile. “Everyone has their time.”

“WHEN I MANIFEST THROUGH YOU I WILL HEAL YOUR BODY, AS BEFORE. BUT I CANNOT HEAL YOUR SOUL.”

“Well, that’s the bottom line, isn’t it? No one can. Some things, when broken, just can’t be mended. And I was just a husk a long time before Mephisto got a hold of me — oryou for that matter.”

“ARE YOU PREPARED FOR WHAT MUST BE?”

“I’ve been prepared for years,” I say, quietly. “Now… what do you say we go get that son of a bitch and teach him what pain really means?”