Life after Death

The following is an extract from my completed yet unpublished manuscript Life After Death. Please respect my copyright and do not copy anything on this page! If however you’d like to read more email me – vix@vegemitevix.com

Eight years after they separated. One phone call out of the blue. Four days later he’s dead. When Auckland mum-to-be Tracey’s first boyfriend rings her out of the blue, and then mysteriously dies, she struggles to come to terms with the hurt of their shared experience back in their university days. Crippled by guilt she recalls love and loss and their terrifying ordeal ensonced in a Christian cult in the South Island of New Zealand.

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Chapter Nine

The day had been building to this moment. Pastor Stewart had talked the group through the theory in the morning session and had made sure to visit everyone. Even during ‘free time’ later in the afternoon people sat around and talked about the healing of memories and Pastor Stewart’s blessed ministry. There was no respite. No time for private thought. Now as the last of the dinner dishes were put away the group assembled in the hall for the evening ministry.

Paster looked up from his bible and through small eyes peered furtively over the congregation.

‘Hmmmmmmmmph’ Shaking his head. A bull ready for the charge.
Even from her safe position, looking through the kitchen servery window, Tracey could taste the adrenalin. She bit her lip.

Bull, look out for the bull!
Pastor threw back his silver head, revealing a strong thick neck and a red bulging jugular. His head high to heaven, clenched fists at his side.

‘Oh yes, thank you lawd Jee-sus!!
Tracey saw James Allen at the end of the back row, his head bowed. Praying? Keeping his head down? Pastor Stewart started to pace, search-light eyes sweeping the brethren, stretching his hands to heaven, raising them high.

‘O Lord lift me up!’
And then he started to shout, emphatically twisting the words out. Spitting them out, his tone accusatory. Who was he speaking to? Who?

He worked his way through the chairs, placing his hands on heads, praying loudly, from time to time closing his eyes to block out the distraction of the sinful world. Heads automatically submitted to his touch – dropping under the strong thick fingers pushing down. Someone started to cry. Others prayed loudly, fervently! Chaotic sounds. Fever pitch.

And then from the back row, the blood-curdling sound of an animal in the slaughter-house.

Tracey edged away from the window, walked back to the stove, picked up a gingham tea towel and started to dry the clean pot. The screaming filled the hall with sound, washing over the servery counter stalking her back into the safe corner of the kitchen.

‘Go away. Get off. Get him away! Get him away, get him away…’

Over and over and over…

A girl’s voice screaming, shrill, piercing and desperate. Then Pastor’s voice -

‘Get behind me Satan. You will not have power in this child’s life. She is a child of the lawd Jeesus Christ. I am here Satan to cast you out. Yea I will reclaim this soul for God himself! Be gone Satan, you have no place here.’

‘Get away, get him awayyy. Arrghh.’ The body fell heavily to the floor. The room erupted into cacophony. Men’s voice’s pleading with God, shrieks, screams and then a hissing sound.

Tracey was sweating. She rubbed the tea towel harder over the pot. No one else was left in the kitchen. She could see Karen standing at the back of the hall, with her hands held high and her sweet voice singing praise to a deaf God. Her voice was a ridiculous harmony to the hissing, screeching, swearing refrain emanating from underneath the men’s forceful hands.

The men’s voices were violent.
Beads of sweat rolled down Tracey’s back.When would she be able to breathe again?
Underneath the crowd of men gathered round to pray over the possessed one, came a man’s gutteral voice.

‘Fuck off. Just fuck off’
It was unnatural.

She peered over to the group of elders. A girl she knew from varsity was sitting behind it, all colour drained from her face. Her eyes lowered in terror. Two children, about ten or eleven were sitting up straight to the right.
One of the elders sat on the possessed’s legs, as they writhed beneath him. Three elders were pushing the head down, and another was pressing the shoulders into the floor. The demon’s putting up a good fight, they were saying. Underneath the tangle of bodies, Tracey could make out a woman bearing down as if in labour. She was grunting loudly, pushing down with all her force, as if a baby would appear from her birthing passage. Screaming loudly, her legs apart showing all who dared to look, the pale blue cotton with a chaste ribbon and bow.

Tracey couldn’t remember seeing a pregnant woman. She watched from the kitchen window as Pastor launched into another hectoring prayer.

‘Be gone Satan! I say be gone and leave this child’s soul for The Father’
And just to make sure, Pastor’s right leg delivered a strong hard kick into her side. The woman screamed loudly. Raw. Hysterical. The strong guttural swearing gone now, replaced by the broken sounds of a woman sobbing. One of the elders removed his hands from her face and Tracey could see it was her flatmate Kay.

‘She is done! She is saved. Thanks be to God’
One of the elders slapped Pastor on the back.

Kay lay on the floor, her eyes closed, her arms lying limply at her side. Her legs apart for all to see.

Tomorrow there would purple bruises on her legs, as testament to her deliverance, her re-birthing into the Alive! Family. Tomorrow she would rub a shaking hand over the tight muscles in her neck, feeling the strong pain of a ripped ligament. Tomorrow she would cry privately at the huge shame she felt, her bruises deep inside, the wounds that would callus over, that no one would see.

The hall fell quiet. Only murmurings of thanks for the wondrous thing that had happened. One of the women put down her hands and walked into the kitchen to turn on the urn for tea. Tracey deliberately – still in shock – picked up the pot she had been drying an hour before and started to rub, rub, rub it clean.