"Renwick The Exorcist" III

Bonum Vir stood in front of Cleo’s residence. He was surprised and to be honest, a tiny bit annoyed that his significant other had not yet answered her door. They had plans, as well as extremely hard to get reservations for dinner and he did not want to be late. As Bonum took a few steps back from the door, he looked to the end of the street. As he used his phone to call Cleo again, he noticed smoke near the top of the hill, above the former Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center. Was that lot on fire again? Bonum Vir scrutinized the horizon more carefully but could not further identify anything out of the ordinary, until he observed a police car had come to a full stop, just a few feet from where Bonum Vir was standing, late model phone in his hand, tie around his neck, unaware of the very bad news which was about to be conveyed to him by the officer in the car.

Eyes narrowing, Bonum watched intently as the officer got out of the car, holding a phone. Bonum now had his phone on speaker, and it had been ringing but there had been no reply until that moment when he heard the sound that indicated Cleo’s phone answered his call. No one said anything. 

Carefully, the officer, holding Cleo’s phone, took a step closer towards a confused Bonum, and addressed him: “Who were you trying to reach?”

Bonum Vir glared at the officer, with growing and uncharacteristic umbrage; “My girlfriend. What are you doing with her phone?”

“What is your name, son? You’ll be needing to come with me.”

“I’m Bonum Vir, I’m not your son, and what are you doing with my girlfriend’s phone?”

The officer sighed, mostly to himself, “This phone you’ve been calling was recently recovered at the site of the former Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center, where a fatal accident appears to have occurred this evening.” 

Bonum had gone with the uniformed officer and identified the now late Dr. Cleo Mariniere. The authorities’ best guess was that Cleo had died of unexpected, but completely natural causes. Oddly, her nostrils and mouth had been slightly, faintly blackened with what might be soot; her remains reflected no signs of assault. There was no soot in Dr. Mariniere’s throat and there had been no indications of a large fire at the ruin. There was nothing that could burn there, anyway, all that was left of Pound was stone and dirt. 

Bonum had driven back to Pound after departing the coroner, nearly in the middle of the night, to search for Renwick, and to personally confirm the details that had been relayed to him by the authorities. A portion of the area had been cordoned off. 

Under the cast of the full moon, Bonum incredulously confirmed to himself there had been no large fire there recently. He surveyed the hillside with rancor; still no sign of the dog. 

Several hours later Bonum Vir sat in his home office. The genetic genealogist had been crying into his hands, and now looked out of the floor-to-ceiling windows of his home office over to the full moon glittering above the dawning metropolis. 

As Bonum continued his gaze, his silk tie still around his carefully shaved neck, and what he had intended to be Cleo’s engagement ring still in his hip pocket, his adroit mind desolately recollected to that moment in time, just a few short hours ago, when the biggest problem he had, in this ever expanding world, was that his girlfriend was late for dinner. 

Later that week, Bonum Vir shivered in the well lit mausoleum in continuing disbelief. Dr. Cleo Virginia Mariniere’s funeral had just concluded. Their plans, gone. Their future, vanished. 

“Aren’t you that guy from the parking lot?”

“Bonum Vir. That’s right.” He collected his thoughts, self-consciously touching his face, recalling to that evening, and to the high pitched shriek that had emanated from a distance as he had happily walked hand in hand with Cleo. He studied Nurse Tusadera’s gloved hands. Bonum could see very long, pointy, dark burgundy fingernails beneath the sheerness of her black net and leather gloves; her scent hinted moribund. Involuntarily, Bonum shuddered. 

Renwick ran as fast as he could, picking up improbable speed. As Renwick ran faster and yet even faster, the goldendoodle with kindly eyes, in a wide white collar, began to glitter and glow. His dog parts, to an onlooker, would have seemed to be alternating between disappearing and once again reappearing, and transforming to human parts. Renwick fully rematerialized as human. He stopped running. This was the part he had not yet fully mastered. Renwick now stood, again as a man, his personhood clothed and cloaked, and he found himself again just beyond the lobby of the Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center. Also again, the year was 1753, and it was the night of the fire in which Emily Ann Pound and her hospital playmates had most brutally and cruelly perished. 

Father Renwick ventured only between these two worlds now. In the form of Father Renwick, the kindly and dedicated exorcist who had arrived at Pound versed of the evil with which he would spar, and in the form of a canine.

Further, as Renwick was about to perish in the fire that brutally incinerated Emily Ann Pound and her hospital playmates, just at the moment the flames were about to render him unconscious, Father Renwick, the he corporeal,  would instead dematerialize, and as quickly reappear, in canine form, a goldendoodle, at the present day grounds of the former Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center, now a heap of ash and dejection. After this transformation Renwick was always exhausted. 

Taking on canine form, in the present day, when he’d wandered to the doorstep of Dr. Mariniere, and allowed her to find him there, Renwick’s otherworldly instincts had led him to a potentially fearsome ally to the children of Pound. 

However he did not have sufficient mastery over his form to have saved Cleo. It was agony for Renwick, who had successfully exorcised so many demons before arriving at Pound, to completely comprehend that he now had to recruit yet another human ally from the present day, in his continuing campaign to defeat The Nanti.

Renwick had not had any luck attempting to conduct his human allies into the past of that fiery evening, which by now he had gruesomely relived several times. Each time ended identically: about to be rendered unconscious by the rapidly engulfing flames, he found himself in the present day, in the form of a goldendoodle, wandering the ruins of the Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center. 

Renwick thought back to the days when his body had been much younger. The higher ranked priests in his order, in lieu of an elevation in rank, had voted and agreed to issue Renwick a commendation, recognition for the strenuous work he had already performed saving the possessed souls of afflicted children near Salem, Masschussets, before his appointment to Pound. He was in no way inclined to suffer Emily Ann Pound and her playmates to fall subject to The Nanti’s demonic assaults and provocations.

Father Renwick had not been completely unsuccessful in his negotiations twixt his two worlds. That autumn evening, the first night Dr.Cleo Virginia Mariniere had fallen through to the afternoon of the fire, Renwick had been able to rescue her, carry her out, and even to take her to the front of her home, where he had  originally allowed her to find him. His old stagecoach had materialized for assistance. Although Renwick had been able to spare Cleo that evening, he wasn’t certain why he’d been able to help her that way. Skies thundering in front of her home that night, he had rather suddenly, and not entirely consciously, taken on the form of the goldendoodle again, and had watched in amazement as the coach dematerialized into the evening. Cleo, with her back to the street, had been focused on opening the door and leading them inside, and thus had not seen it happen. 

Perhaps, Renwick considered, it depended on the human he chose as an ally. Cleo had been particularly open to his suggestions and had on many occasions removed his leash, and otherwise complied with his unspoken requests to her.

As Father Renwick dejectedly considered past failures, he compassionately reminded himself of the many souls he had delivered from demons before he had ever arrived at Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center. 

Renwick could only conclude that instead of trying to take his chosen human ally back to the night of the fire that brutally exterminated Emily Ann Pound and her playmates, he was instead to find some way to stop The Nanti in the present. Perhaps the past could not be changed no matter how much mastery Renwick attained over his shifting forms. 

As night descended upon the Pound Ruins, Renwick as goldendoodle carefully crossed the road to the old neon lit gas station, where Bonum Vir conscientiously, yet dejectedly, filled the tires of his late model car with air. 

“Where did you come from, fella? Been looking all over for you! Thought I’d never see you again, for certain. Why didn’t she chip you, Renwick?”

For the first time in the days since Cleo’s sudden demise, Bonum Vir genuinely smiled as he led the white collared goldendoodle to the back seat of his vehicle and shut the passenger door. Bonum Vir would take the dog home, give him a fragrant bubble bath, and try to sleep, for the first time in weeks.

Indefatiguedly curling up in the backseat of Bonum Vir’s coupe, Renwick’s kindly eyes blazed intensely, like the fires that had failed to consume him. 

Across the road, at Croatoan Cemetery, a fisher watched jealously and howled viciously.

(Editor's note: Renwick The Exorcist is a fictional ghost story.)

🎃🎃🎃 Happy Halloween 

“Renwick The Exorcist” II

The year is almost 2022. Cleo Virginia Mariniere, middle school science teacher extraordinaire was, on this particular weekend evening, browsing the wine selection at the new supermarket mini mall, with her infamous significant other, Bonum Vir. He enchanted her with his dazzling smile, as his arm extended conspiratorially toward a flagon of De Grave on the well lit shelf.

Across the street, an extra large brown fisher agitatedly ran along the perimeter of the former Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center. A chilling howl emanated from the fisher, shattering the miasmatic mist characteristic of an early winter night at Croatoan Cemetery. 

Bonum had just secured the trunk of his late model automobile when he turned slightly to behold Cleo, as she earnestly regarded the approaching female pedestrian in the parking lot. 

Not wishing to impose, neither wishing to appear inattentive by boarding his vehicle, Bonum Vir hovered between the back of the car and Cleo. As the brief conversation concluded, the woman who had approached Cleo began to walk away from her. Recessing, she peered over her shoulder and shot Bonum Vir a meaning glance. Her words, however, were for Cleo: “You should stay away from the former Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center, Dr. Mariniere, there’s nothing there for you.”  

The year was 1753. Several of the children at the Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center had been rolled and wheeled to the big room in the back of the stone and brick Pennsylvania Colonial. Pound had originally been a private residence, with an infirmary, bequeathed; to be used as a hospital. Later, to accommodate the research center, a gothic revival addition was erected. 

Visible from the windows in the big room in the back, a long, wide hill sloped gently, and one could survey the surrounding countryside expansively, due to the structure’s place on the hill. Tall trees and sturdy homes dotted the billowing countryside. Wearing paper party hats, the pediatric patients in the big room sang in unison to their fellow patient, Emily Ann Pound, a descendant of the benefactor who had made Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center possible. 

Emily Ann clasped her hands in shy but excited expectation as they were served carefully considered refreshments in the late afternoon. Emily Ann regretted being sick and missed being home. It was all forgotten for a few moments as she clasped her hands excitedly, also in a party hat, as well as in a tiara, smiling shyly. 

As they were enjoying their refreshments, one of the girls approached the dais. 

“Let’s meet back here after The Nanti puts us to bed,” she whispered to Emily Ann. “Who wants to stay inside those stuffy rooms all night, anyway?”

Two floors below, a horse drawn coach came to a jangling stop on the trail in front of Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center. Slowly, assiduously, his wide white collar visible beneath his autumnal cloak, Father Renwick stepped out of the carriage and thoughtfully, carefully, set his feet on the gravelly trail, and set his sights, for the first time, upon the Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center. This would be work, and home, for the immediate and perhaps continuing future, he thought. 

A woman dressed in Nurse’s garb approached the trail to meet Father Renwick. 

“Thank you for finding your way here, Father Renwick, it’s a shame Father Inchfeal took so ill and had to be taken for treatment.”

“Thank you, Nurse. Your name, what is it?” 

“Please call me The Nanti, Father Renwick, that’s what the children call me. How auspicious to have a man of your experience here, we have heard of your long history of ministering to the sick, and especially to children.”

 

“Thank you, Nurse.  The procedures at Pound are now officially under review, that’s why the Order sent me. I come bearing a letter of introduction as well as a Ministerial Letter. The latter indicates the minor patients are being restrained, and several have died during exorcisms. Thus, it is especially unfortunate that Father Inchfeal has taken ill and departed. 

“Oh yes, Father. Very ill. T’was the stress of performing the rites, if you want to know what I would say.  The children wore him down. Evil, dirty, creatures of perdition, most of them.”

“The patients will be treated with compassion, Nurse. And I will conduct my review.”

“Well, go along now, Father, 'tis a shame Father Renwick, that your predecessor took quite so ill. Father Inchfeal won’t be able to help you now…”

As the night descended, The Nanti hurried back towards the third floor infirmary. Most of the little beasts were poor, the benefactor had seen to that when he provided for Pound, insisting that it be used to treat the local indigent as well as his own issue. Sometimes, when their gashed little bodies stopped responding to the beatings, The Nanti rewarded herself with the valuable trinkets the patients’ families had entrusted to Pound.  However, in most cases, she had to content her sadistic Nanti heart with the satisfaction of their little contorted faces, at times dumped in the infirmary as often as back in their soiled beds. Little demons, she thought, diabolically, a burden to us all.

Naturally, The Nanti was not actually a nurse. The Nanti was a shape shifting demon. She often took the form of a fisher, sometimes also taking the form of several small animals at once. Humans, The Nanti had observed, unthinkingly, trustingly, reacted to the authority of the uniform of a nurse. The Nanti, who had taken form in this world to harness and deploy evil,  had learned to exploit this human tendency to further her own nonhuman ends. 

The Nanti had a natural ease traveling between eras and forms and had disposed of Father Inchfeal, summoning the wickedness her hard won years of afflicting the less powerful and the more easily provoked had bestowed. Now The Nanti had Father Renwick poking around her demesne, the Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center. This would not end well, she sensed. 

Upstairs, in a private hospital room, the little girl lay dejectedly. Emily Ann Pound was gaunt beneath her now soiled dress and she felt so very afraid. Momma had left her here days ago and had not returned. Emily Ann just wanted to see her fluffy pink bedroom again, and her beloved kitten, Saffron, and play dolls with her friends. Yesterday had been her 14th birthday. A birthday in a hospital, she thought glumly, fighting back tears and dread. At least this afternoon had been fun. 

***

Several weeks after Bonum Vir witnessed the warning Dr. Mariniere was issued in the parking lot of the new supermarket mini mall, Dr. Mariniere once again found herself taking a leisurely walk with her friendly goldendoodle. 

Hoping to avoid another lost evening, Cleo Virginia Mariniere had taken the utmost precautions when she had arrived at the perimeter of the former Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center. Rather than take Renwick off his leash, she had let him lead the way; he had seemed so intent on doing so. Nevertheless, Cleo had, after crossing into the area near where earlier in the year she had somehow fallen into a tunnel, again found herself, as if in mid air, descending, with, again an unfamiliar breeze nipping at her neck and back. Feeling herself land, she sprang to her feet and almost reflexively grabbed for her phone. It was not in her waist pack. Cleo spun toward where there seemed to be some light, and as she did so her mind registered several anomalies.

Perhaps the phone had fallen out of her waist pack before she fell into this dimly lit space of as yet undefined proportions? Perhaps, although she did not remember doing so, she had relinquished her hold on Renwick’s leash? Perhaps the large room in front of her, which she could now see into clearly, was in her imagination? Perhaps she had hit her head when she had fallen, and was now only experiencing some kind of dream as she lay at the foot of the ruin. 

As the space in which she found herself came further into focus, the big room now behind her, and several smaller rooms before her, Cleo Virginia Mariniere stood in a corridor. Cleo Virginia struggled to steady herself and her powers of detection. In one of the smaller rooms she now faced, the spectral birthday girl she had previously observed clasping her hands on a dais, now lay on a bed. Emily Ann Pound was whimpering. A woman dressed in old fashioned nurse’s clothes hunched over her. 

“Evil child, you were told to stay in your room! Now you shall heed my words without exception!” And the long arm belonging to the body in the old fashioned clothes and nurse’s hat reached over and struck the whimpering child’s face, hard, and with determination. 

Cleo Virginia, upon seeing this, immediately started to move toward Emily Ann Pound’s bed, in defense of the helpless child. The room it seemed, from Cleo’s vantage point in the long corridor, was only a few short feet away. However, Cleo Virginia Mariniere Ph.D. was dispiritedly shocked to realize, she could not move. Her body was frozen, in that standing position in the corridor, with the big room with the windows facing the countryside to her left, and several small rooms, like the one into which she now peered, before her. Thinking quickly, and realizing she was somehow unable to approach closer into the child patient’s room, Cleo Virginia instead decided to take a mental note of the details of the room, so she could diligently describe them later to the proper authorities. The child Cleo recognized bore restraints across her little elbows, as well as along her shins. The child’s waving flaxen hair encircled her shoulders as she whimpered. Adjacent to the bed was a night stand, upon which a lit candle glowed.

Just at that moment, Emily Ann Pound’s fear became anger. Who was this poisonous woman, to strike her? Emily Ann Pound thought she had seen the odious nurse pocketing one of the other children’s earrings but had told herself she must be mistaken. Now, Emily Ann was certain of it. As Emily Ann’s hands desperately and frustratedly grasped at the mattress, her mind’s simple but profound fury had come to focus on the lit candle at her bedside. It twinkled a few inches from the folds of one of the sleeves of the nurse’s uniform. Emily Ann Pound indexed the stinging pain to her face and continued to stare at the narrowing expanse of space between the lit candle on her nightstand and the folds of the Nurse’s gown’s sleeve, her fury emboldened. Where was Momma? A birthday in a hospital. And now tied to a bed as this iniquitous beast struck her. One more beseeching glance at the candle, and Emily Ann Pound, a bashful child more used to being surrounded by the fluffy pink of her bedroom, and delicate porcelain dolls, the likes of which she had now not seen in days, this small child’s giant fury knocked that lit candle on the night stand over. The flame of the candle quickly leaped the few inches to the dress sleeve of the insidious demon disguised as a nurse and now, that nurse’s arm was on fire.

Cleo Virginia had watched in disbelief as the candle knocked over, seemingly on its own, and had set the nurse on fire. As the Nurse turned to run out of the room, Cleo Virginia saw her face for the first time and finally realized it was The Nanti. 

The Nanti, antique clothes in flames, ran past Cleo Mariniere, in the long corridor, as if she had not even seen Cleo.  Cleo could still not move, and had further realized that she could not scream either. Cleo was trapped and suffocating in a pre colonial nightmare. 

A man with kindly eyes and a priest’s frock, complete with its wide white collar, ran frantically down the corridor, from some unknown room beyond where Cleo’s gaze could identify, towards the little girl’s room, which was quickly filling with flames and smoke. As he crossed the threshold into the room, in what seemed to Cleo a desperate attempt to rescue the child, burning debris from overhead struck the kindly eyed priest and slapped him to the ground. Cleo could no longer see into Emily Ann Pound’s room, it was too smoky. The entire structure creaked and threatened to splinter into pieces, as stone smoked and brick released sparks. The Priest on the floor was completely immobile and was now also consumed by flames and cinder. The fire had taken form so quickly from that moment, which only seemed a few seconds ago, when the candle caught The Nanti’s dress, to this hellscape now before Cleo Virginia.

Cleo Virginia Mariniere felt her throat burning and her eyes stinging, as the corridor continued to fill with astringent smoke, yet she could not move.

(Editor's note: Renwick The Exorcist is a fictional ghost story.)

Renwick The Exorcist” A Halloween Tale in Three Parts: 

“Renwick The Exorcist” Part I: https://stanza28.blogspot.com/2021/08/renwick-exorcist-i.html (Released August 28, 2021)

"Renwick The Exorcist” Part II: https://stanza28.blogspot.com/2021/09/renwick-exorcist-ii.html (Released September 28, 2021)

"Renwick The Exorcist” Part III: Available October 28, 2021

🎃🎃🎃 Happy Halloween 🎃🎃🎃

“Renwick The Exorcist” I

 Cleo Virginia Mariniere had the habit of walking past the cemetery on her way home from work. It was well maintained and quite old, with graves that dated back centuries. Along the north perimeter of the memorial park, on a hill, sat ruins from what had once been a pediatric hospital and research center.

On this particular afternoon Cleo Mariniere had walked past the cemetery to her home, and circled back with her dog Renwick, a goldendoodle Cleo had found wandering on her front patio on a far-reaching afternoon several years ago. Cleo Mariniere had been immediately smitten with his kind eyes, and wide white collar. Renwick was a happy pooch who needed to stretch his legs and Cleo Mariniere wanted to give him the chance to do that before it was too late. Cleo Mariniere still had to grade several more of her students’ papers when she settled into her favorite barcalounger in her living room, and Cleo Mariniere was not planning to go out again after that. 

As they meandered along the perimeter of the cemetery, Cleo Mariniere was distractedly considering why the dilapidated stone remnants of a Children’s Hospital were so close to, and practically adjacent to a cemetery. That’s when Renwick started to chase a squirrel.

There were no cars around and it was okay with Cleo Mariniere for Renwick to take a few joyful leaps before they returned to her small home, and Cleo Mariniere was not alarmed by Renwick’s movements along the grassy stones at all. However, it was starting to get dark at which point Renwick would be nearly invisible to any cars and that concerned Cleo Mariniere as she gazed around the hilly north perimeter of the now dusking, mostly grassy cemetery.

The hospital ruins were comprised of what looked like the back wall of what had been, perhaps, a three or four story building that may have been about the width of one city block. Cleo Mariniere had curiously researched for information about it, and until then, her benign curiosity had gone unanswered. 

The other three sides of the ruin were only a few feet high, these heights varying, overgrown with grass, wildflowers and undulating piles of dirt. Along the side that flanked the north perimeter of the cemetery, the gothic stone of the former center extruded more visibly to the human eye, due to a long bald patch of extra dark dirt. Nitrogen rich soil, Cleo Mariniere, a science teacher, observed to herself, common where human remains had decomposed.

“Renwick!”

The kindly-eyed pooch was nowhere to be seen. Nevertheless, within the perimeter of the ruins, glimmering lights captured Cleo’s attention in the fall dusk. Cleo Mariniere quickened her steps. Damn dog. Cleo Mariniere would never finish her grading before midnight if Renwick didn’t materialize soon. 

Cleo Mariniere reminded herself to tread carefully despite her concern about the wasting day. After all, if she stepped on a rusty nail and had to go to the ER to get an emergency tetanus shot, her grading schedule would be seriously compromised. “What on earth possessed me to take Renwick off his leash?” she thought, somewhat distractedly. Renwick could encounter an equally gory fate at these deserted hospital grounds…

On the horizon, to Cleo Mariniere’s right, was the recently opened supermarket, next to the old gas station; flickering neon signs on a darkening fall night. To her left, a cemetery parking lot, scented by tree bark and the perfume the cemetery used to mask the smell of decomposing human flesh. 

Cleo Mariniere thought she saw Renwick’s tail wagging in the distance and was torn between wanting to check her phone and wanting to not lose sight of her trusty goldendoodle. 

That is when Cleo Mariniere heard what sounded like singing, from far away.  Cleo Mariniere adjusted her posture as she concentrated on identifying what she was hearing. It definitely sounded like children singing, but the melody, rather than pleasing her, sent a stiff chill down her spine. 

Happy Birthday?

Were they singing Happy Birthday?

Cleo Mariniere relented and checked her phone. It was getting late and Renwick’s tail was no longer visible in the quickening night. Cleo Mariniere used the phone like a flashlight to scan along that tall back wall and finally, Cleo ran towards her dog. Cleo Mariniere had almost caught up with Renwick, who appeared near the back of the ruin’s perimeter. As Cleo Mariniere took one more step, she heard a sickening crack, and felt herself falling. An unfamiliar breeze beckoned at her neck as she descended. 

Disoriented, having landed in a pile of dirt, Cleo Virginia Mariniere heard the singing again:

“Happy Birthday to you”

“Happy Birthday to you”

Cleo Mariniere had fallen through the ground, into some kind of hole. Perhaps it was a tunnel. The older homes in the neighborhood had been built before the Revolution and those estates had contained tunnels, to fend off attacks from Native Americans. Cleo Mariniere had heard local gossip about how sometimes those tunnels were still in use. 

Okay, Cleo Mariniere thought, dusting herself off, in a dark illuminated only by her phone light. I’m not hurt, I fell through some kind of rotted floorboards at the old Children’s Hospital and I’m in some kind of tunnel. 

What happened to Renwick?

And how do I get back up to street level?

Cleo Mariniere brushed soil out of her auburn hair. This morning she’d gathered that chignon with such care. What a sloppy mess she must look now, she thought. At least nothing feels broken. Just find your dog and go, she commanded herself. Those papers are never gonna get graded and I am starting to feel creeped out.

“Happy Birthday to you”

“Happy Birthday to you”

Now, completely unnerved, Cleo Mariniere’s line of sight followed the childish singing voices, behind her. 

Cleo Mariniere’s heart THUMPED. They looked like they were almost a city block away. Gathered around in a circle were several children. Glowing in a diaphanous party dress, one child, standing apart from the others, was visible from the distance. Cleo Mariniere stood and stared transfixed, now in horror.

They had Renwick. 

Her goldendoodle was surrounded by children. Cleo Mariniere continued to stare in shocked disbelief as she moved closer towards them. The children glittered unexpectedly and overall seemed somewhat transparent. Their little bodies turned toward a dais where the birthday girl in a diaphanous dress seemed to be clasping her hands in excited anticipation. One of the small children before her attempted to place a paper party hat on the laconic dog.

Cleo Mariniere was mute, with a mixture of horror and curiosity. Although the children were translucent and glowing, she could make out pertinent details that further alarmed her.

The birthday girl, hands still clasped expectantly, well, Cleo Mariniere could discern that she was the birthday girl from her tiara and her paper hat, its elastic secured below her chin, but, her flesh, the flesh on her little face looked decayed. There were spots of sooty dark as well as an actual absence of flesh, where the tip of her chin should have been. As Cleo Mariniere continued to recoil in horror, she noticed the girl’s arms, long and thin beneath the sheer and pink short puffed sleeves of her party dress, were similarly decayed. Thick black marks encircled her neck as well as her wrists. There was almost no flesh at all on the emaciated creature’s small hands. 

The singing children encircling Renwick shared the birthday girl’s undead pallor of decay, as well as her semiformal style of dress. It was old fashioned, Cleo Mariniere desperately realized, before everything went BLACK.

The next thing Cleo Mariniere remembered was regaining consciousness in the back of an ambulance. It was stopped outside of her residence. Cleo Mariniere had recognized her home as she emerged from the creaky open back doors of the ambulance. 

“Are you certain you want to be left here with your canine instead of being taken to a proper infirmary or hospital Ms. Mariniere?” said a voice Cleo heard, only distantly, in the now late night.

Overhead it thundered ominously. Cleo Mariniere shakily pushed open her front door. Renwick was whining and promptly curled up, exhausted, on the apple green velvet sofa. Bewildered and similarly exhausted, Cleo Mariniere thought: Where was Renwick’s leash? Where had that old fashioned ambulance come from? 

Cleo Mariniere shakily looked out the window as the skies thundered again. A low peach and gray hued fog had descended upon the now mostly empty street. It was hours later, Cleo Mariniere and Renwick were quite disheveled and the *#$% papers were still ungraded. 

Further into the autumn, seated in the back of her own classroom, Cleo Mariniere tried to concentrate. She’d had almost no sleep due to her recent grading backlog. Today, as part of an outreach program, a nurse, “Nanti Tusadera, R.N.” would address the students about careers in medicine. 

A slide show accompanied Nurse Tusadera’s narrative for the students. It concerned the history of some of the local hospital systems. Cleo Mariniere had mostly heard the lecture before. Her waning interest in the presentation was piqued by slides depicting a former children’s pediatric hospital and research center.

The old photographs were of the Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center. “Its ruins are adjacent to the Croatoan Cemetery and are still visible from the supermarket mini mall on Alley Street. One entire floor of this facility was devoted to treating indigent children who would otherwise not have been able to afford treatment. A common problem of that era was accumulated toxicity, a type of poisoning which sometimes caused seizures in children. Various kinds of contamination ran rampant in this era and due to insufficient knowledge and training, children were often misdiagnosed, and understood to be possessed, and in need of an exorcism.” 

Cleo Mariniere lurched out of her seat to interrupt the slideshow. If it got back to the students' parents that the science teacher had a guest speaker who discussed religion with the students, Cleo Mariniere’s job could be in jeopardy.

“Thank you so much, Nurse Tusadera! We’re so grateful for your visit!” “Class, that concludes Nurse Tusadera’s presentation.”

Lowering her voice a bit, Cleo Mariniere looked toward Nurse Tusadera, “Please allow me to take you out for lunch if you like, Nurse Tusadera.”

A few minutes later, Cleo Mariniere, middle school science teacher extraordinaire sat, with Nurse Tusadera, in the faculty section of the middle school cafeteria. The walls of the cafeteria were painted light chartreuse, reminiscent of vomit.  

“Please call me, “The Nanti”, Ms. Mariniere, that’s what everybody calls me. The Pound Pediatric Hospital & Research Center treated indigent children as well as children of means. However, often, there were very different outcomes for the indigent pediatric patients. Many times, after they were admitted, they never again left the hospital. Exorcisms were performed on site, for those children, to treat what were probably toxin induced seizure disorders and accompanying behavioral disorders. They were often restrained.” 

Cleo Virginia Mariniere Ph.D., listened with restrained skepticism. “Please call me Dr. Mariniere, or Cleo. I wrote, presented and defended my dissertation on the scientific method last year.” 

The nurse continued, “Well that’s the folklore, anyway. There are no records of those children, or even of the research wing, unfortunately. When the building burned down its administrative records went with it, and by that time they’d been closed for decades… It wasn’t their first fire. Drives me to rage, Dr. Mariniere, sickened children, restrained in their beds, dying in a fire. That’s why the hospital lost their charter. The place then went to ruin. There’s nothing to see there now.” 

“I walk my dog near there. We love it, but had no idea its history was so sordid until you mentioned it to the class. Is there anything more to the story, anything that can be corroborated?”

“No. Pound wasn’t part of any still existing local hospital system. Remember that we are talking centuries ago. Pound was originally the residence of affluent pre-colonists. They added an infirmary out of necessity and left it to the community on the condition that Pound’s descendants receive care. It was built around them. Back then such institutions were much less organized. There was much less licensing and structure. The hospitals we know today weren’t even a thought in these folks’ minds. Standardized procedures for diagnosis? No such thing. Records wise… there have been too many catastrophes at the site and it was too long ago to be certain about anything. However, my family has been in nursing for generations, and I remember my now late, Great Aunt Nanti recalling about the exorcisms and fires, around the holidays. Great Aunt Nanti… never had her own children… hasn’t walked this world in years… sometimes when she took to her storytelling she would remember us to her Great Aunt Nanti. Nursing’s in my blood, Dr. Mariniere.”

“Well, thank you so much for coming to speak with the students, and with me.”

(Editor's note: Renwick The Exorcist is a fictional ghost story.)

“Renwick The Exorcist” A Halloween Tale in Three Parts: 

“Renwick The Exorcist” Part I: https://stanza28.blogspot.com/2021/08/renwick-exorcist-i.html (Released August 28, 2021)

"Renwick The Exorcist” Part II: https://stanza28.blogspot.com/2021/09/renwick-exorcist-ii.html (Released September 28, 2021)

"Renwick The Exorcist” Part III: Available October 28, 2021

🎃🎃🎃 Happy Halloween 🎃🎃🎃