Rob Zombie - Lords of Salem

And so she had to focus on staying put, on keeping from moving, and that was where other things began to slip. Herman asked her something and her mind thought of something witty to respond, but her voice didn’t say it. Her voice said something else, something it had answered to a question that he’d asked her before, when she’d been outside. Even when she’d said it outside it hadn’t felt like something she’d been saying but something being said through her. What was wrong with her?

Come to think of it, most of the way over she hadn’t felt like she was the one walking. One moment she’d been in her apartment and something strange and troubling had been happening. What was it? She’d been trying to get out, but she couldn’t get out. Each time she’d opened the door something had been wrong.

No, she must have dreamed that, right? That sort of thing wasn’t real, just simply couldn’t happen. She’d been having bad dreams lately. That was simply one of them.

But then again, she couldn’t remember leaving the house. She could remember little bits of the walk over, but only bits. Could remember, if she thought hard enough about it, talking to Herman outside, but there, too, it had been as if she was watching her body talk rather than being in the body itself.

And then, inside the theater, Herman said something else, obviously surprised by how she’d answered, and she felt her mind again composing a response but her tongue was already operating, already speaking, giving again a piece of language it had already given, something that was wrong for the situation. She tried to turn toward him and explain that something was wrong, that she couldn’t figure out what was happening to her, but her head refused to turn away from the stage. No matter how hard she tried, it remained fixed there, motionless, staring on. All she could do was desperately flick her eyes his way, try to get Herman to see the panic and fear in them. But before he saw it, the music started.

And then things got really strange. The draw of the stage on her body was nearly physical now, as if someone had looped a rope around her waist and was beginning to tug on it, slowly pulling it tighter and tighter. Or, more than that, much more: like someone had cut her belly open and pushed out loop after slick loop of her intestine and was using that as the rope, pulling on her own flesh to drag her forward. She had to hold on to her chair tightly with both hands just to stay put. She felt, too, as if her vision was becoming smaller, as if she had been looking through a mask and as she moved the mask farther away from her eyes the holes she looked through showed her less and less. She could see the stage but it felt distant now, as if she had shriveled up, receded into her own body.

And then her eyelids blinked, and with that blink something else blinked inside her. It was not just that she was receding into her own body, she realized. It was that something else—something that she had never seen, hadn’t realized was there—was growing, had switched places with her. So that while before it had been a hard tumor or fistula deep within her, now it filled her whole body and she was the tumor; she was the fistula.

Help me , she tried to say, but nothing came out.

The creature within her laughed. Something you’ve never seen? it said. Sweetheart, you created me. You brought me to life. And she saw flashing through her mind a cascade of images, of every way she had lied or cheated or stole, the dark days of using especially, her last time with Griff when she had curled up beside him and slept and then woke up and left, only later hearing he was dead. Did he die from that fix, because of her? No way to know. So that, above all, but also the innocent enough things that she had done that slowly had made her a sort of monster. That had made her into this.

But no, another part of her said, or tried to say. This wasn’t her. This was all a trick. It was something else trying to take control of her.

As the music started, the beating of a lone drum, she kept hold of the arms of the chair, and the thing inside her let her. No, it was happy to wait, to let her resist until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She suddenly realized it believed this holding back would tire her, make her more pliable, and reduce the last of her resistance. But still she couldn’t help holding on.

When the creature took charge, it took hold first of her throat and mouth. She was trying to scream Help me , but the creature kept the words back. Instead, it offered its own dark chant, a glorification of the Satanic majesty. She saw Herman give a start, confused by what she was saying, and she was confused, too, but she could not stop. And then the creature crept into her extremities, seizing control of her hands, slowly prying her hands away finger by finger from the arms of her seat. Then, tingling, it moved into her legs, tightened the muscles in them, made her stand up, and she was heading stiffly down the aisle, still trying to resist but hardly with any control at all now. She felt her arms groping her body, then slowly pulling pieces of her clothing off, her coat, then her sweater, then her shoes and socks, until all that was left was a sheer see-through shift. She looked down, saw that the Lords symbol was inscribed upon it, written in dark red paint or in blood. When had that happened?

“Heal me, Satan,” she heard her voice saying, as inside she screamed for help. “Heal me of these mortal wounds inflicted by the Christian faith. I hold in contempt all of its symbols of the Creator.”

She was among the other women now, swaying and dancing with them, her body no longer her own. The figures onstage all at once stripped off their masks, revealing them to be her landlord Lacy and Lacy’s two sisters, Megan and Sonny. But no, Lacy wasn’t Lacy, she realized, but Margaret Morgan. How could she not have seen it before? And these two other women, her “sisters,” were other witches from Salem’s past. No, not exactly—they were still Lacy and her sisters, too, but there was something else there now, and that was what she’d seen. Their eyes were crazed, and their smiles seemed painted on. They raised their hands and the flames around them rose. Fires, too, began erupting all around the theater, seeming to burst up spontaneously here and there. The floor began to vibrate, rumbling. The hall began to fill with smoke and she could hardly see. She could feel her eyes tear up and her throat burn, but the creature held her where she was, gripped her throat and prevented her from coughing or choking.

She heard Herman’s voice calling her name. No , she tried to say. Run. Save yourself . But nothing came out.

“Hear me, Lord,” said Margaret Morgan from the stage, her voice as clear as a bell. “I am ready to bring your blessed child to this world! It shall burst forth from the body of your enemy, Hawthorne!”

The three sisters kept playing. The volume of the music grew louder. More and more women began shedding their clothes and now they began to caress one another, writhing and moaning with ecstasy and lust. She, too, Heidi realized with a start, was doing the same, caressing the woman next to her, the creature inside of her slavering. She tried to stop but could not.

She felt her body pulled forward, forced to the edge of the stairs, led now not only by the creature within her but by the call of the witches on the stage as well. They brought her body up and held it there, forced her head to look up, look at them.

“Adelheid Elizabeth Hawthorne,” Morgan said, gazing down at her contemptuously. “Your forbear John Hawthorne cursed and tortured us in the name of the lamb. But now, through you, we shall have our revenge. We have claimed you. We have made you our own.”