Deliver Us From Evil

“Pauline, baby. Come on so we can pray. It’s almost time to eat.” Like most people in the south, Pauline’s mother was a devout religious woman and was raising Pauline to be the same. 

“Yes, ma’am!” Pauline dropped her dolls and looked in the mirror. She caught her gaze and instantly felt hypnotized. The aura of light that surrounded her slowly started to dim. An entity in the mirror gently pulled her mind into the deep sea of malevolence that awaited her on the other side.

“Pauline! Now!” Her mother’s shriek broke the spell of the shadows and she skipped away into the kitchen where her family awaited her. She grabbed her uncle’s hand, and he looked down at her with a face full of concern. 

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Pauline gazed at the sky, cursing the sun with her scrutiny as the sweat formed over her brow. Her light pink tweed suit and fascinator hat made her feel 10 degrees hotter than it actually was outside. She shuffled against the gravel through the parking lot. Her feet kicked the dust into a surrounding cloud of vapor. The sheen on her golden skin dissipated and turned a drab gray color. She continued to walk slowly until she felt the click of her heels on the concrete sidewalk.

“Miss Pauline… Fancy meetin’ you here. How are ya?” The short, round man hooked his thumbs into his suspenders and smiled with a missing front tooth. He smelled strongly of mildew and looked as if he would melt into a puddle at any given second. 

“Well hey there, Steven. I can’t complain. I just left the church. Reverend Dixon taught an awesome lesson today! I always take somethin’ real good from his sermons. Won’t you join us next Sunday?” Pauline had a slight southern drawl that was always emphasized when she tried to suppress her accent. 

“Ahhh… I don’t think I’ll be able to make it, but it would be mighty nice if y'all put me on the prayer list.” Steven chuckled as he wiped sweat from his top lip with the collar of his oil-stained t-shirt. 

Pauline was not one to take no for an answer, but she was starting to become more aware of her character. She towered over Steven and smirked. 

“Aw, well, whenever you get a free Sunday, make sure you come on down! You wouldn’t want no piece of the devil in you, would ya?” She giggled and took note of the fear in his facial expression. “I gotta get down to the market. Be careful, Steven.”

“Ha… hav… have a nice day, now.” He stuttered and scurried away as quickly as his chubby legs housed in corduroy pants would allow him. 

Pauline stretched her neck and took off her blazer. A necklace of sweat slid past her collarbone as the heat intensified within her. “I don’t know why people play with God like that. He needs to come to the church and I’ll make sure he does. He’s not exempt from suffering in sin.”

She walked into the market. A bell above the door rang against the glass, and the ceiling fan cooled her pending heat exhaustion. 

“Pauline… I knew it was you.” Emma rolled her eyes and sighed loudly as she watched Pauline stroll into her store. 

“Emma. How’d you know?” Pauline pulled her shoulders into perfect posture and wore her infamous smirk.

“I, uhm…” Emma was about to say something out of line, but she held it in. “I just knew.”

Pauline leaned down on the counter and spoke to Emma in a hushed tone. “The good Lord can see and hear everything you do and say. Don’t think I didn’t notice it either. He gives me the sight, ya know? Don’t let it happen again, or I’ll have to take you to the altar myself.” She smiled a mischievous, full-toothed smile and backed away slowly as she stared Emma down.

Emma fell backward into the shelves behind her with her eyes wide open. She started rubbing her skin as if she was brushing dust off of her. 

Pauline rushed out of the store in a slight panic. “I almost lost it. I have to put my own feelings aside. I’ve been doing so well and I can’t let a little girl like Emma get me all worked up. Where is my bible?” She sat on a stoop, pulled out her pocket bible, and started reciting Matthew 6:13 frantically. As she was reading, a couple walked past her as if they were in a hurry to be somewhere. 

“Who is that lady? I’ve never seen her before.” The woman asked her boyfriend with a raised eyebrow.  

“That’s Pauline. She’s a little off her rocker, but she claims it’s all because she’s so close to God.” He twirled his fingers around the side of his head and whistled, alluding to the fact that most people thought she was insane. 

Pauline paused her recitation and looked at the couple with tears in her eyes. She breathed in sharply and the couple turned around immediately, frightened to learn that she heard their conversation. They attempted to walk away, but Pauline slowly stretched out her index finger. A small, pixelated shadow emanated from her wrist like a ribbon, wrapped around her hand, and flowed through the wind toward the couple. “Evil shall slay the wicked, and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.” The couple stayed frozen in their tracks as the shadow started to swirl around them. 

“Pauline! Please! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it!” The man strained to say, trying to save himself and his girlfriend. His head felt like it was going to explode. His eyes crossed and he started to hallucinate. 

“I’m not crazy. Say you’ll repent.” Pauline inched toward them, keeping herself from blacking out and losing control. 

“Repent for what?!” The man stated, then started to scream because of the increasing pressure on his body. 

“Say it!” Pauline howled. The man didn’t make a noise. She knew she had gone too far and stopped before his life was taken.

She retracted the shadow into her wrist and wiped her eyes with her powder pink handkerchief that was tucked away in her pocket. Pauline was devastated and embarrassed. She kicked off her kitten heels and ran to her house. Inside was a room that only she was allowed in. She didn’t have to worry about intruders — visitors didn’t come to her easily. She hurried into the room and locked the door. It was the size of a closet with a small wooden coffee table inside. On the table sat a huge bible on a stand with worn pages, 2 long white candlesticks, and a notebook with a red pen. She lit the candles and kneeled on the floor in front of the table.

“Now, I know you say to love my enemies and bless them. Well, I did! I did, and look what happened? I lost control. They made me lose control. They did it to me, it wasn’t my fault. I’m the righteous one. Loving them doesn’t help sometimes. They all turn against me eventually, and then what am I supposed to do? I’ll tell you what… it’s right here in Deuteronomy. ‘When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, be not afraid of them: for the Lord, thy God is with thee.’ See? It says it right here. I’m supposed to fight them and not be afraid. I won’t be scared to lose control this time. I’ll just let it take over. That’s what you want me to do, right? Yeah, I heard ya say it. That’s what I’ll do.” Pauline wore a grin of satisfaction. She pricked her left thumb with the red pen and dripped more of her blood into the inkwell. She wrote down the scenarios that just happened in the blood ink. At the bottom, she signed her name and wrote the scripture right beside it. She raised from her knees, washed her hands, and went to bed. 

The following day, Pauline went to the church at seven o’clock in the morning. It was a Monday, so she knew no one would be there. She sat on the pew and stared at the chairs in the pulpit. Her eyes moved around from the purple velvet seats to the golden woven crosses, and landed on the baptism pool. She was no longer an ordained minister, but she went against doctrine and took it upon herself to fill it. She ran the water as cold as possible and walked down the steps into the pool.

“Miss Pauline!” A thundering voice called to her. 

“Reverend Dixon? I was just making myself anew. I need to be reborn.”

“Miss Pauline, this is your eighth time breaking into the church and giving yourself a baptism. You can’t keep doing this. I’ll give you some grace, but let’s get you some help.” Reverend Dixon held out his hand and raised Pauline out of the pool. He was the only one that wasn’t scared of her. He knew how to handle her. His congregation kept telling him to leave her be, but he threw caution to the wind every time. He prided himself on being a true shepherd and refused to give up on Pauline as one of his sheep. 

“Thank you, Reverend. I just… I just don’t know how to keep it in when people keep putting me down.” She spoke in a whisper and tears rolled down her rosy cheeks. “I feel like a baby crying over spilled milk.”

“I know, Miss Pauline. Let’s have a little prayer and then we’ll get ya down to the hospital.”

“Do what, now?” Pauline jerked away from Reverend Dixon’s hand and looked at him with a disgusted look.

The Reverend’s smile faded as he realized what he had done. “Miss Pauline, you need some help. More help than I can give you, and I just want you to be right with the Lord and right with yourself.”

“What about what you said yesterday in your sermon? You said to turn your problems over to God and let him take care of the rest. I just gave everything to him and had another rebirth, so you let him take care of it!” Pauline’s voice got louder as she backed the reverend into a corner. 

“Miss Pauline. We can work something out. The good Lord don’t want you to suffer any longer than you already have.” Reverend Dixon was now panting heavily, anticipating what was coming next.

“It’s too late. I thought you were really one of God’s messengers. Turns out, you’re just like the rest of ‘em. I’m gonna do exactly what the bible tells us to do. I can’t take any more from you people that call yourself doing his work. The work that I do is real. I get my instructions straight from the horse’s mouth.” Before Reverend Dixon could interject, Pauline’s shadow rose up from her wrist and wrapped around his neck. “Evil shall slay the wicked, and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.” The Reverend’s eyes blacked out completely, and he slid against the wall to the ground.

Pauline breathed a sigh of relief. “I did what you said. Did I make you proud?” She smiled mournfully with a single tear streaking her face. “I know, I know. The ultimate rebirth. It’s time.” 

She kneeled at the altar and repented for letting her darkness steal Reverend Dixon. After her prayer, she walked back over to the baptism pool. She took a deep breath, walked down the steps, and kneeled on the cold, hard tile. Bubbles started to float to the top of the water as the shadows slowly dispersed to the corners of the pool and escaped out of the thin crack in one of the stained glass windows. She closed her eyes, interlocked her fingers, bowed her head and embraced her final deliverance.