William Blatty - The Exorcist

"I don't think so. I'll try an LP."

"Good idea."

"In the meantime, I'd like you to see her."

"How's today?"

"Well, I'm---" Telephone buzzer. "Excuse me." He picked up the telephone. "Yes?"

"Mrs. MacNeil on the phone. Says it's urgent."

"What line?"

"She's on twelve."

He punched the extension button. "Dr. Klein, Mrs. MacNeil. What's the trouble?"

Her voice was distraught and on the brim of hysteria. "Oh, God, doc, it's Regan! Can you come right away?"

'Well, what's wrong?"

"I don't know, doc, I just can't describe it! Oh, for God's sake, come over! Come now!"

"Right away!"

He disconnected and buzzed his receptionist. "Susan, tell Dresner to take my appointments." He hung up the phone and started taking off his jacket. "That's her. You want to come? It's only just across the bridge."

"I've got an hour."

"Let's go."

They were there within minutes, and at the door, where Sharon greeted them, they heard moans and screams of terror from Regan's bedroom. She looked frightened. "I'm Sharon Spencer," she said. "Come on. She's upstairs."

She led them to the door of Regan's bedroom, where she cracked it open and called in, "Doctors, Chris!"

Chris immediately came to the door, her face contorted in a vise of fear. "Oh, my God, come in!" she quavered. "Come on in and take a look at what she's doing!"

"This is Dr.---"

In the middle of the introduction, Klein broke off as he stared at Regan. Shrieking hysterically, she was flailing her arms as her body seemed to fling itself up horizontally into the air above her bed and then slammed dawn savagely onto the mattress. It was happening rapidly and repeated.

"Oh, Mother, make him stop!" she was screeching "Stop him. He's trying to kill me! Stop him Stooopppppp hiiiiiimmmmmmmm, Motherrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

"Oh, my baby!" Chris whimpered as she jerked up a fist to her mouth and bit it. She turned a beseeching look to Klein. "Doc, what is it? What's happening?"

He shook his head, his gaze fixed on Regan as the odd phenomenon continued. She would lift about a foot each time and then fall with a wrenching of her breath, as if unseen hands had picked her up and thrown her down.

Chris shaded her eyes with a trembling hand. "Oh, Jesus, Jesus!" she said hoarsely. "Doc, what is it?"

The up and down movements ceased abruptly and the girl twisted feverishly from side to side with her eyes rolled upward into their sockets so that only the whites were exposed.

"Oh, he's burning me... burning me!" Regan was moaning. "Oh, I'm burning! I'm burning!..."

Her legs began rapidly crossing and uncrossing.

The doctors moved closer, one on either side of the bed. Still twisting and jerking, Regan arched her head back, disclosing a swollen, bulging throat. She began to mutter something incomprehensible in an oddly guttural tone.

"... nowonmai... nowonmai..."

Klein reached down to check her pulse.

"Now, let's see what the trouble is, dear," he said gently.

And abruptly was reeling, stunned and staggering, across the room from the force of a vicious backward swing of Regan's arm as the girl sat up, her face contorted with a hideous rage.

"The sow is mine!" she bellowed in a coarse and powerful voice. "She is mine! Keep away from her! She is mine!"

A yelping laugh gushed up from her throat, and then she fell on her back as if someone had pushed her. She pulled up her nightgown, exposing her genitals. "Fuck me! Fuck me!" she screamed at the doctors, and with both her hands began masturbating frantically.

Moments later, Chris ran from the room with a stifled sob when Regan put her fingers to her mouth and licked them.

As Klein approached the bedside, Regan seemed to hug herself, her hands caressing her arms.

"Ah, yes, my pearl..." she crooned in that strangely coarsened voice. Her eyes were closed as if in ecstasy. "My child... my flower... my pearl..."

Then again she was twisting from side to side, moaning meaningless syllables over and over. And abruptly sat up with eyes staring wide with helpless terror.

She mewed like a cat.

Then barked.

Then neighed.

And then, bending at the waist, started whirling her torso around in rapid strenuous circles. She gasped for breath. "Oh, stop him!" she wept. stop him! It hurts! Make him stop! Make him stop! I can't breathe!"

Klein had seen enough. He fetched his medical bag to the window and quickly began to prepare an injection.

The neurologist remained beside the bed and saw Regan fall backward as if from a shove. Her eyes rolled upward into their sockets again, and rolling from side to side, she began to mutter rapidly in guttural tones. The neurologist leaned closer and tried to make it out. Then he saw Klein gently beckoning. He moved to him.

"I'm giving her Librium," Klein told him guardedly, holding the syringe to the light of the window. "But you're going to have to hold her."

The neurologist nodded. He seemed preoccupied. He inclined his head to the side as if listening to the muttering from the bed.

"What's she saying?" Klein whispered.

"I don't know. Just gibberish. Nonsense syllables." Yet his own explanation seemed to leave him unsatisfied. "She says it as if it means something, though. it's got cadence."

Klein nodded toward the bed and they approached quietly from either side. As they come, she went rigid, as if in the stiffening grip of tetany, and the doctors -looked at each other significantly. Then looked again to Regan as she started to arch her body upward into an impossible position, bending it backward like a bow until the brow of her head had touched her feet. She was screaming in pain.

The doctors eyed each her with questioning surmise. Then Klein gave a signal to the neurologist. But before the consultant could seize her, Regan fell limp in a faint and wet the bed.

Klein leaned over and rolled up her eyelid. Checked her pulse. "She'll be out for a while," he murmured. "I think she convulsed. Don't you?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Well, let's take some insurance," said Klein.

Deftly he administered the injection.

"Well, what do you think?" Klein asked the consultant as he pressed a circle of sterile tape against the puncture.

"Temporal lobe. Sure, maybe schizophrenia's a possibility, Sam, but the onset's much too sudden. She hasn't any history of it, right?"

"No, she hasn't."

"Neurasthenia?"

Klein shook his head.

"Then hysteria, maybe," offered the consultant.

"I've thought of that."

"Sure. But she'd have to be a freak to get her body twisted up like she did voluntarily, now, wouldn't you say?" He shook his head. "No, I think it's pathological, Sam---her strength; the paranoia; the hallucinations. Schizophrenia, okay; those symptoms it covers. But temporal lobe would also cover the convulsions. There's one thing that bothers me, though..." He trailed off with a puzzled frown.

"What's that?"

"Well, I'm really not sure but I thought I heard signs of dissociation: 'my pearl'... 'my child'... 'My flower'... 'the sow.' I had the feeling she was talking about herself. Was that your impression too, or am I reading something into it?"

Klein stroked his lip as he mulled the question. "Well, frankly, at the time it never occurred to me, but then now that you point it out..." He grunted thoughtfully. "Could be. Yes. Yes, it could."

Then he shrugged off the notion. "Well, I'll do an LP right now while she's out and then maybe we'll know something."

The neurologist nodded.

Klein poked around in his medical bag, found a pill and tucked it in his pocket. "Can you stay?"

The neurologist checked his watch. "Maybe half an hour."

"Let's talk to the mother."

They left the room and entered the hallway.