Tales from Beyond the Pulsing Door presents: The Ballad of a Holy Man 

In the late 1960s a Priest was interviewed regarding the mysterious death and mangling of Phillip Dauterive. His description of events leaves a number of suspicious gaps in terms of the Father’s involvement, but also the very nature of what is “allowed” to happen in our earthly realm. Did the father witness demonic possession? Supernatural forces? Or is he just protecting himself from the consequences of his actions?

 *** 

I…well let’s see here it’s…3:51am, August 6^(th) in the year of our lord 1900 and 68. I…understand that anything I say might be…oh. Yes, I’ve been read my…Miranda? Miranda rights and I have opted to speak without the presence of a lawyer. I am of sound body and mind, and I am aware that the things I say in this recording may be used as evidence against me in later litigations. However, I thought it important to explain what I witnessed now, while it’s still fresh and I…well I’m not sure I could sleep if I wanted to anyway. What’s that? Oh, yes, I…I suppose I should start with an explanation of how I…well I guess I’ll just get right into it.

I joined the priest hood nearly ten years ago. Prior to that I was a student at oxford. I was finishing my Master’s in theology when I experienced my first…uhm...well encounter I suppose. And encounter with that would commonly be referred to as a demon. I-o-officer please I promise that this is relevant…please. Thank you I- no…no I don’t need any water I’ll be alright. *Clears throat* Anyway…I suppose there’s something well…life altering about observing definitive proof of otherworldliness. In ’63 I was ordained after four years or so of practice. I wasn’t exactly popular in seminary. Everyone knew who I was and why I was there. I suppose my fascination with possession and demonology combined with my abrupt shift into the priesthood from academia raised some skepticism as to the extent of my faith…of my devotion. Why, I remember once that another pastor slipped what appeared to be a used condom into my wastebasket in an attempt to have me removed *chuckling briefly* Oh…pardon me…yes officer I’ll get to the point.

I didn’t become a man of the cloth because I wanted to perform exorcisms but, well, my reputation pigeonholed me a bit. Pardon me for saying so but…what’s the least honorable job you could have as an officer of the law? Beat…cop? Well, yes then consider my tenure as a priest akin to that of a beat cop. Nobody wanted to take calls or complaints about possession so I became the sort of…go-to on those issues. And then just last year well…that’s when I moved to the states. There are a bounty of possession claims out here you see and…well as I mentioned I’d never been very well liked. I think they believed that sending me here was a bit of a punishment. Or at least a way to get me out of their hair. What? I…well I suppose yes. I don’t quite care for your phrasing, though. I am not “claiming” to have been performing an exorcism at the time of…death. I’m explaining that when it happened I was in the middle of performing an exorcism. Please...I promise there’s a reason I’m telling you this if you’ll just…please.

In my years as a priest I’ve attended to hundreds of calls from people who said they were possessed or haunted, that their loved ones were…well you get the point. Before tonight I had performed dozens of exorcisms – first under the guidance of a more senior priest and then on my own. *pause* What? I…well…I don’t know if I believed that they were really hosting a…demon in their body but…you see the spiritually inclined, those of great, powerful faith, they tend to…look for the lord a bit more than they let the lord come to them…if you catch my drift. That’s why the vast majority of “possessions” end with me burning a bit of sage, reciting a passage from John or Matthew, and then taking my leave. When I do actually have to perform an exorcism it…it involves a lot of what you might call “smoke and mirrors.” Most of what I do is an effort to comfort people, which is why nobody was ever hurt or anything close to it in any of my previous...what? I…I don’t see how that matters. Whether or not I believe in god is irrelevant and…I don’t think I’d like to answer that question. *pause* Hah…you act as if you’ve never heard of a godless priest. They’re much more common than you think, officer.

*Clears throat* Right. About two weeks ago I was first contacted by Mr. Dauterive claiming possession. As with any instance of demonic claim, my first reaction is a healthy dose of skepticism. We spoke on the phone and then met in person and I…he was…very unwell, officer. No, no exactly, it was unlike any other case I’d taken before. Hm? Well…yes I did say I’ve seen…paranormal creatures but never, not once do I believe I encountered actual demonic possession inside another human. But officer you must understand this man…Mr. Dauterive was sick in a way that I could instantly recognize as supernatural. It was almost as if he…had a heartbeat…behind his eyes. His body was covered in scrapes and scratches and his skin was grey and leathery which…well in my line of work it’s not all that uncommon but his eyes…they had sunk back into his skull for what felt like forever.

I…pleaded with Mr. Dauterive to seek medical help. I could tell something was very wrong with him, very wrong indeed. He told me that he had tried but when he entered the clinic his doctors would hiss and scream at him. He said that he believed that the…entity was making him see things, or perhaps that it was manipulating the behavior of the people in his life. By the time he came to me he said it had been months since he’d even been in the same room as another person…I felt I had to help him. So I…what? Well y-yes of course I’ll explain how we got to the graveyard. Officer please, I don’t know if you’re under the impression that I’m enjoying myself but I assure you I am not. You said you wanted my unabridged testimony and you’re getting it. If you don’t like what you’re hearing I can always call my lawyer. *Pause* No…no of course that’s not a threat. I’d just like to continue if that’s alright…thank you.

So, as I mentioned he first contacted me two weeks ago and after several days of back-and-forth he seemingly vanished. This happens quite a bit. People…get cold feet, “cure themselves,” etcetera I’m sure. But something about the state of Mr. Dauterive was scratching at the back of my mind. This morning I decided to pay him a visit. After all his apartment was not even a mile’s walk from my abode. I knocked on his door and noticed that it was ajar. I probably should not have but I decided to push it open...just to...you know, make sure he was alright. But no sooner did my wrist flick to lightly shove the door on its hinges that I saw him…standing right there. Facing me. Clear as day. He was…in a trance of sorts. He told me that he had been waiting for me. For how long I…it looked like he hadn’t moved for days.

I did my best to comfort him. I sat him down and got him some water…but he refused to drink. He kept insisting that he could “Sweat it out.” That if he dehydrated himself to the point of expiration that finally the creature would have nothing left to feed on. Naturally I informed him that I was calling an ambulance. I picked up the phone an began to dial the new 9-1-1 number, but as I held the phone in my hand it began to sizzle and pop…no…no officer not the line. The phone. It was as if someone had poured acid onto it. It was painful to the touch. I dropped it! I then turned to Mr. Dauterive to demand an explanation, but he was gone from the room. All that was left was a note…this note. Yes…no I’m not surprised, it’s Latin. I’ve studied enough of it to make sense of what it says. It reads: I am unsafe. I took them all before it could. I buried them in Morton’s cemetery. I will show you. Midnight.

Why didn’t I what? O-officer I don’t think you understand how jarring it was to see…well…I suppose hindsight allows us to see things more clearly then, doesn’t it? I think we can both agree that I’m not sitting here because I made a series of well-informed choices, can’t we? Time eked by like a thick scoop of molasses as I waited for the clock to strike midnight. I arrived at the graveyard nearly an hour early…something about being there made me feel…well…not at ease but…I guess I felt like I couldn’t be snuck up on that way. Sure enough, when the clock struck midnight there he was. He faded into my sight. Almost like had been standing there the whole time. The edges of his form twisted into the foreground almost like a child’s pop-up book. Like he came from nothing, and nowhere. There was silence.

“Who did you bury, Mr. Dauterive?!” I asked, quite loudly I might add. It was at this time I realized that he’d never told me his first name. Hm? Phill? I see. When I asked him that, he didn’t answer with words. He folded his way over to…what appeared to be freshly dug and buried graves. Yes, I said folded. He didn’t walk. He didn’t move. It was as if his plane of existence was an illustration on the blinds of a window. As if someone was twisting the pole of the blinds, gently spinning him like a wretched cartoon…a flip book! That’s what they’re called! Yes I know it sounds ridiculous, how do you think it felt seeing it?! Whatever was happening to him, it was hurting him. People…they’re not meant to move on whatever plane he was moving across. It made him bleed. His motion was perforated, like every other window blind was slicing his skin open, while the others sewed him  back up. This, nearly a hundred times just for him to move a stone’s throw over to the graves he’d dug.

I had seen enough. The time for questions had come and gone. I revealed my crucifix and bore the holy text, reciting from memory like I had so many times before, but he was unimpressed. It had no effect whatsoever. He just kept pointing at the graves. There were three of them. One, then the other, then the…he…had a wife? Two children…I…I didn’t know. I didn’t dig anything up, why would I? No. No he didn’t…I mean he wasn’t…being violent. He looked…suspended. As if he was being held in place by something that isn’t meant to hold things. Something that knew it was…breaking a…cosmic rule of sorts. Finally, I ask what it wanted. Mr. Dauterive replied. He said that he was too weak to host the entity. That it needed a new…vessel. He…*choking up* he said that those graves were…“so it couldn’t take them.” I…I didn’t know what he meant but you…you’re telling me he had…*sniffle* Officer. I want to be clear about something. You may find Mr. Dauterive’s fingerprints on the bodies of his family but…but I assure you that whatever he did to them he…he was trying to protect them. I…I think it’s important that his name not be sullied because he…because of what it made him do. You…what? Surely you don’t think I…officer kindly have some decency! Here I am, spilling all of my innards on the table of your confession room and you…insult me with an accusation like that?! No…no I will finish my story. And whatever…bastardly accusations have for me can wait until I’ve said my piece.

*Clears throat* now…as I said it looked like every time he moved it hurt him greatly. So I… I told him to stay still. I addressed the creature that had control over him directly. I firmly asked it to let him go. It was at that moment that things changed. Things around us…darkened. Yes, it was the dead of night but…somehow, the shadows gained shadows of their own. It got cold. Very cold. I thought…for a moment I thought it had taken me to hell. Our surroundings began to drip like warm wax…as if reality was an oil painting on a canvas that had been sitting too close to the fire place. But it was so, so cold. Like no cold I’ve ever felt. It was in my bones it…if felt like there were frozen maggots crawling through my veins. My eyes adjusted to the darkenss just in time to see. From Mr. Dauterive’s body…it emerged. It didn’t make sense…it wasn’t right. It was…it was just bad math! I mean it came from him. It didn’t…exit through his mouth like ectoplasm…it didn’t leave the way we imagine a soul exits a body, nor did it shed him like dead skin. What I mean is that the…creature…the entity shifted into view as Mr. Dauterive shifted out. I…I don’t know if you’re familiar with a…hologram? It’s…it’s an optical illusion where if you adjust…if you shift your perspective one image becomes another. And that…it’s how it appeared. But it was real. And again, it…seemed to cause great pain.

Officer I don’t think you understand what I’m explaining. I’m not a physicist but what I saw did not align with the way we understand the world. Not through science and certainly not through god. I was shaking. It was so cold and I was so scared. It was humanoid. A…collection of tiny moving bits that I suppose could have taken on any shape. But the form it chose was…upsetting. I dropped to my knees and prayed. Really, truly prayed. I begged for salvation. I begged for it to stop. And do you know what happened then? Do you know what I received in return for my desperate request? The…monster…almost as if it heard me…approached. Not…not like a creature would walk or move. It flipped and crinkled it’s image like a flurry of origami folds until it was in front of me. It…it didn’t move through space, it moved space around it. And then it touched me. Its bitter, blindingly hot finger made contact with the space between my eyebrows and I felt a flood of pain and dread the likes of which I have not the time, strength, or inclination to describe. It held me, frozen, for a thousand lifetimes as it forced me to watch all the ways in which it created and destroyed life. I watched myself die, I watched my children die…I watched the world break into unspeakable war, genocide, famine. I watched you die too. Finally, finally, he let me go. And as my hollow eyes locked onto his ever shifting, crawling arrangement he whispered to me at the volume of an exploding hydrogen bomb…“nullus deus.”

…No god. After all that…after everything it showed me. That is all it had to say. And then it was gone. I was back in the graveyard. Mr. Dauterive was dead and mangled…as you found him. So I ran straight here and…well I’ve been under your supervision ever since. No I…I know it sounds crazy but I…officer? H…hello? But I…I swear they were just…we were…no. No…you…you released me. You let me go…I…I can’t do it again…I cant…please…please don’t send me back! I…oh…I feel it…inside…I see it…I see you…

…no god.

https://preview.redd.it/g2z0duquybcd1.png?width=468&format=png&auto=webp&s=f96a2d35e0cd4fe9b610d828a20df37100842c2c