Hope staggered to her feet, moving toward Faith, who stood frozen, her gaze locked on the bed as if watching something that shouldn’t be there—something twisting reality in a way that made the air feel wrong. Grace pulled herself upright, and all three women turned toward whatever had captured Faith's attention.
They stood motionless, transfixed in stunned silence, their breath suddenly visible in the air—little clouds of vapor that shouldn’t have been possible in the stifling heat of the room. The temperature had plummeted so suddenly that Hope’s skin prickled with gooseflesh.
Madison sucked in sharp, ragged breaths, like her lungs had forgotten how to work, each inhale frantic and incomplete.
CRACK!!!
The sound was like ice splitting on a frozen lake. All three women flinched as if struck. Their attention wasn’t on Erik's twisted corpse, the blood pooling beneath him thick and dark. It was the bed—it was Madison—that held them. What they saw made their faces drain of color.
Madison's torso hovered two feet above the bed, suspended by nothing. Her back and limbs bent at impossible angles, inverted in ways that defied anatomy. She looked like a photograph of a car crash victim, only animated and breathing. Below her, the mattress began to smoke—thin tendrils at first, then plumes that darkened as the fabric caught fire.
Insects materialized from nowhere, buzzing in erratic patterns around the suspended body. From somewhere beneath the floor—the basement, maybe, or deeper—came muffled screams that sounded like souls in torment. Madison's skin bulged outward as if something inside was trying to escape. The protrusion moved, a living thing beneath her flesh, running the length of her body before disappearing back inside her with a wet, slithering sound.
Her body twisted further, joints dislocating with audible pops and cracks before snapping back to its natural configuration and slamming down onto the mattress with such force the bed frame groaned in protest.
Hope’s scream tore through the room as she stumbled backward, tripping over her own feet and crashing to the floor. Faith's hand flew to her mouth, a silent scream trapped behind her fingers.
Grace, though—Grace held her ground. The Bible in her hands seemed to anchor her, keep her steady even as the world around her descended into madness. Madison's face contorted into something malevolent and ancient. Her mouth stretched open, wider than a human mouth should go, and expelled a torrent of black liquid—food and bile and something else, something that steamed and hissed when it hit Faith's skin and clothes.
Madison groaned, the sound amplified and distorted as if they stood in a cathedral instead of a cramped bedroom. Her body lifted again, hovering inches above the mattress. The walls trembled. The plywood nailed over the windows partially ripped from the frame, and then slapped against the glass. The bed frame lifted and crashed down repeatedly, the noise like gunshots in the confined space.
The insects multiplied, a writhing cloud that blackened the air above them.
Hope's screams crescendoed as Madison growled—not the sound of a human in pain or anger, but something bestial and primordial. The noise crawled inside their skulls and nested there, vibrating against the bones.
And then—silence. It hit like a physical blow. The insects dispersed, vanishing as suddenly as they’d appeared. Madison dropped back to the mattress, her body rigid and still. The charged atmosphere dissipated, leaving behind an unnatural calm that felt more threatening than the chaos that preceded it.
Faith, Grace, and Hope cautiously approached the bed, as if expecting Madison to spring back to life at any moment. Madison's eyes fluttered open. When she looked at Faith, her expression was one of profound confusion.
"Wha, what? What's going...?" Her voice was small, fragile.
She tried to move but found herself restrained. Pain flickered across her face as she pulled against the ties. "Wha, wha, why am I tied up?"
Her gaze darted around the room before finding Faith's face. Something in her eyes—recognition, maybe, or trust—seemed to break through the confusion. Faith collapsed beside Madison, wrapping her arms around her. Madison's breathing quickened, her chest rising and falling in rapid succession. Faith released her and stepped back, reluctance evident in every movement.
Suddenly, a change came without warning. Madison's body seized, convulsing violently, her movements so erratic and powerful it seemed impossible the restraints could hold.
"No! Maddy, please, no, no—!" Faith's voice cracked with desperation.
The crucifix tore from the wall and plunged into the floor with the sharp thunk of a thrown knife. It shuddered there, vibrating, a low, bone-deep hum filling the room and setting their teeth on edge. The metal darkened, then glowed red-hot, thin tendrils of smoke curling up from the scorched floorboards.
An unearthly howl filled the room, originating from everywhere and nowhere. Grace was thrown forward by an invisible force, landing across Madison's lap. Before anyone could react, the bedposts snapped like kindling, and Madison's arms shot forward. Her hands, pale and veined, closed around Grace's throat and yanked her closer until they were face to face.
Madison's skin had taken on a sickly green hue, her features twisted into something that wasn't human anymore. When she spoke, the voice that emerged was ancient and layered with other voices beneath it.
"Te invitavit me," she said, the Latin flowing smoothly from lips that had never spoken the language.
She continued, the language shifting to what sounded like Turkish. "Nunc rogas me discedere!?"
Then Romanian, her voice rising to a roar: "TU PRIMUS!"
The insects returned, hundreds of them now, swarming above the bed in patterns too deliberate to be random. The room trembled, and disembodied moans filtered through the walls as if the house itself were in pain.
Something massive struck the roof with enough force to make plaster dust rain down from the ceiling. The sound reverberated through the floorboards.
Faith lunged toward the bed, desperately trying to break Madison's grip on Grace's throat. Grace gasped for air, her face purpling as she struggled against the impossible strength in those slender fingers. Madison inhaled deeply, like she was savoring Grace's scent, as Grace’s struggles began to weaken.
"Madison, no!" Faith's voice was raw with terror.
As Faith fought to free Grace, Hope rushed forward to help but stopped abruptly. Her scream pierced the chaos as Faith was dragged by an invisible force off the bed, across the floor, and into the bathroom. The door slammed shut with the finality of a coffin lid.
Hope stood paralyzed, watching as Madison continued to choke Grace. Blood vessels burst in Grace's eyes, turning the whites a vivid crimson before they rolled back in her head.
Faith barreled through the bathroom door, the frame shattering where the lock held it. Wood splintered and burst out like a shotgun blast, spraying jagged pieces across the room as she raced to the bed. She struggled to wrench Madison’s fingers from Grace’s neck.
"Hope!!!" Faith's scream finally broke through Hope's paralysis.
Hope rushed to Grace's side as Faith grabbed Madison's hands, trying to pry them from Grace's throat.
Grace's body went limp, a marionette with cut strings. Madison's fingers relaxed their death grip.
Hope pulled Grace into her arms, but the dead weight was too much, and they both collapsed to the floor.
Madison lay motionless on the bed, only the shallow rise and fall of her chest indicating she was still alive.
Faith fell across Madison's body, her wail of grief muffled against the fabric of Madison's clothes. Madison's hand shot up, tangling in Faith's hair and yanking her head back until their eyes met. Madison's eyes had transformed—no whites, no irises, just endless black pits, devoid of any humanity.
Hope struggled beneath Grace's weight.
"Not today, Satan!" Faith's voice had found new strength.
Faith arched her neck backward, her body tense as she straddled Madison on the bed. The pressure on her scalp intensified as Madison yanked harder, bending Faith's neck at a sickening angle. Her windpipe compressed. Breathing became a luxury she could no longer afford.
"Ho...pe..." The name scratched its way out of Faith's closing throat. "He...lp! B-bring...the...Bible!"
Hope gathered her strength and pushed Grace's limp body off her lap. Grace rolled away like a discarded doll, limbs splaying at unnatural angles against the floorboards. Hope sat up, blinking rapidly, as if emerging from a fog.
Faith's fingers scrabbled behind her head, finding Madison's hand. With one desperate, calculated twist—a move born of instinct rather than planning—she wrenched Madison's wrist. The howl that followed was inhuman, a sound that belonged to the basement of creation rather than a teenage girl's bedroom. Madison's grip loosened, but Faith refused to release her, clinging to the attacking hand with the determination of someone who knew what letting go meant.
"Hope!!!" Faith's voice cracked with urgency.
Hope remained transfixed, her gaze locked on Grace's motionless form, as if reading some terrible truth written on her friend's slack face.
"The Bible!" Faith managed, her voice raw.
Hope's unfocused eyes drifted toward the leather-bound book that had fallen to the floor during the struggle. Something inside her snapped back to attention. She pushed herself up on unsteady legs and lunged toward it.
The attack came without warning. The dresser drawers—all of them—launched themselves across the room as if fired from cannons. Hope dodged the first by pure luck, a matter of inches. The second collided with her leg with a sickening crack. As she stumbled, the third drawer struck her temple with a precision that couldn't be coincidental.
The world tilted and swam around Hope. A high-pitched ringing filled her ears, drowning everything else. Blood—hot and insistent—trickled down the side of her face. Her vision pulsed between clarity and darkness as she tried to make sense of her surroundings.
"Hooooopppppe." Faith's voice reached her as if from underwater, stretched and distorted.
Hope's fingers twitched. The Bible lay just inches beyond her reach, its black cover gleaming dully in the bedroom's sickly light.
"Hooppe!" Faith called again, her voice sharpening into focus as the ringing in Hope's ears began to subside.
"Hope!"
With enormous effort, Hope dragged herself forward, fingers closing around the Bible's worn spine. She pulled it to her chest and crawled toward Faith, extending the book toward her friend's outstretched hands.
Madison moved with impossible speed. One moment Faith was reaching for the Bible; the next, she was airborne, flung across the room like a rag doll. The sound of her body hitting the wall echoed with a finality that made Hope's stomach drop.
“Faith!" Hope scrambled to where Faith had collapsed in a heap. Madison convulsed on the bed, her eyes unnaturally wide and unblinking. Dark veins protruded beneath her skin like a network of tiny snakes. Gray foam bubbled from her nose and mouth, spilling down her chin in viscous rivulets. Her head remained eerily still while her body thrashed, a puppet with tangled strings.
Faith's eyes fluttered open, immediately locking onto the Bible clutched in Hope's trembling hands. She snatched it with surprising strength, flipped to pages marked with colorful tabs, and began walking toward the bed, her voice steady despite everything.
"I command you, unclean spirit, whoever you are, along with all your minions now attacking this servant of God, that you tell me, by some sign, your name!"
Madison's body jerked upright with unnatural speed, her spine straight as a rod. More gray ooze leaked from her facial orifices, running down her chin and staining the sheets beneath her.
"Faith!!!" Hope's scream contained a warning Faith didn't immediately understand.
Hope's eyes were fixed on something to their right. Faith followed her gaze and felt her blood turn to ice water in her veins.
The pile of pens on the floor was trembling, vibrating with impossible energy. Six of them rose in perfect unison, hovering above the others, their points aligned like arrows—all aimed directly at Faith.
Hope lunged toward her sister as the pens launched forward. The sound they made cutting through air was almost beautiful—a soft, deadly swoosh followed by the sickening percussion of penetration. Six impacts. Six wounds.
Hope's body jerked with each strike, her momentum carrying her into Faith's arms. Faith caught her, desperately trying to keep her upright as realization dawned.
"Hope! No! Hope!"
Faith's tears fell freely as she lowered Hope's increasingly heavy body to the floor. Blood poured from the wounds where the pens had embedded themselves in Hope's back, forming a crimson pool that spread with terrifying speed across the wooden floorboards.
Madison spat gray matter with each word, her voice no longer her own—a growl that seemed to emanate from somewhere deeper than her throat.
"Mammon, Asmodeus, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan, Belphegor!"
The silence that followed pressed against Faith's eardrums with physical weight. She looked at Hope's motionless form, at Erik's mangled corpse in the corner, at Grace's crumpled body. A single tear carved a path down her cheek as her expression hardened from grief to determination.
A laugh erupted from Madison—deep, inhuman, seemingly sourced from the foundations of the earth itself.
Faith clutched the Bible tighter, her knuckles whitening as she approached the bed where Madison sat perfectly still, staring with eyes that reflected nothing.
"Lord, heed my prayer," Faith whispered.
Madison twitched, a marionette whose strings had been plucked.
"Lord God almighty, bless this home."
Madison's body contorted, her limbs bending at impossible angles as sounds poured from her mouth—sounds of suffering, of rage, of places where light never reached. The insect-like buzzing that had been at the edges of Faith's awareness swelled to fill every corner of the room.
"Grant salvation from our foes and from the hand of all that hate us."
The bed buckled beneath Madison, the frame splintering as it crashed to the floor. Faith flinched but held her ground, took a steadying breath, and continued her approach.
"Enable us to be rescued from the clutches of our foes to worship—"
Madison growled, the sound rumbling up from depths no human throat should contain. Faith swallowed hard and moved closer to what remained of the bed.
"—without fear, in holiness and observance of the Law, in His presence, all our days."
Faith's fingers closed around the small bottle of Holy Water in her pocket. She withdrew it and, with a flick of her wrist, splashed the contents across Madison's contorted face.
"And you, my little one, will be—"
Madison's shriek pierced through Faith like a physical blade. The girl's arms and legs thrashed with violence that threatened to tear her limbs from their sockets.
"—hailed 'Prophet of the Most High',—"
The entire room began to tremble. The walls seemed to breathe in and out as sounds from some unimaginable elsewhere pressed against reality's thin membrane. A deep humming vibration rose through the floorboards, rattling Faith's bones.
"—for the Lord's precursor you will be, to prepare His ways,—"
Screams and moans filtered up from below, as if the house itself had become a gateway to somewhere else. Faith's voice grew stronger, defiant in the face of the cacophony.
"—and He will impart to His people knowledge of salvation through—"
Faith took another step toward the bed, her bare feet leaving prints in the dust that had inexplicably begun to coat the floor.
"—forgiveness of their sins."
Madison's restraints snapped with audible pops. Her body went rigid, board-straight, and slowly levitated until she stood upright in the air, her feet hovering inches above the broken bed frame. Her gaze fixed on Faith with an intensity that seemed to burn through the air between them.
Three thunderous knocks echoed from the front door, so powerful they seemed to shake the foundation of the house.
Faith did not look away from Madison's eyes. She did not blink. She did not run.