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Carlos's first meeting with the minister has been written exactly the way it happened.
Reverend Ezekiel Stone stands six-foot-three and has short brown hair that he combs on the back of his head. The brown-eyed man had the meticulous grooming of a TV lawyer. He had been a Pentecostal preacher for eighteen years. He and his wife, Doris, lived in Speedwell Texas, about two miles from Mikal Watts's office. He had traveled around the world several times with another evangelist, preaching God's word of deliverance to anyone who would listen, but after years of traveling and being away from his family, he started his church, Sanctuary of Grace Fellowship, in San Antonio, Texas.170Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIYEEeglZp1
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Ezekiel Stone stood outside the front doors of the nightclub, watching the traffic zipping up and down I-59. He was wearing a white long-sleeve shirt and blue jeans. He checked his watch and wondered where the Reverend could be. As he looked up the highway again, he was relieved to see the minister's silver 1974 Lincoln Continental pulling into the upper parking lot.
The clergyman parked the car and walked toward Mikal smiling, carrying a brown Bible in his left hand.
"How's it going?" the preacher asked as he gazed past Watts, staring intently at the building they were about to enter.
"Real good----I think!" Mikal answered with a slight chuckle. "But maybe I better not say that until we see what happens in there."
"Have you met Carlos yet?"
"Pastor Stone, allow me to provide you with some insights regarding Carlos," Mikal began with a composed demeanor. "He's quite an intriguing character, to say the least. Fond of invoking phrases from the '60s, and his attire suggest a certain nostalgia for that era. But it's not just his mannerisms; there's an interesting blend of eccentricity and pragmatism about him. What's particularly curious is his appearance. It's rather unique—a melange of various ethnicities, with features that seem to fluctuate, almost like a shifting portrait. However, despite these peculiarities, Buck believes that some of the staff might have been influenced by excessive exposure to horror cinema. I think he's right."
"Maybe. Maybe not!" The pastor replied quite matter-of-factly as he pushed his right index finger against the bridge of his wire-rimmed glasses, straightening them on his face.
Reverend Stone was clad in a blue suit, a white long-sleeved sports shirt, and a red tie.
"Are we about to get started?" the minister asked.
"I guess so," Mikal arched his eyebrows. "Ready as we'll ever be! Come on, I'll introduce you to Carlos. By the way, I brought along three cameramen and a news reporter just in case anything happens. They'll stay out of the way, though."
"No problem," the Reverend smiled. "Let's get the show on the road."
The minister followed Mikal up the mirrored hallway and into the main ballroom, where they spied Carlos sitting at the south end of the bar near the swinging doors. Mikal made the introductions between the two men and then left them alone so they could get to know each other. Stone headed for the old kitchen area to see if the cameramen were about finished setting up the equipment.
Carlos looked at the minister with a warm, yet apprehensive smile. He was dressed in a retro '60s ensemble, exuding a vintage coolness that was hard to ignore. He sported a paisley button-down shirt with bell-bottom jeans, complete with a wide leather belt adorned with a flashy buckle. His feet were snugly encased in a pair of polished Chelsea boots, adding a touch of mod sophistication to his look. Topping it all off was a suede fringe jacket, giving him an air of rebellious charm straight out of a groovy magazine spread. "Mikal spilled the beans to you," Carlos blurted out. "Dig, have you ever heard of such a thing?"
"Yes, on both counts," Ezekiel smiled as he answered him. "Mikal told me of the haunting here and of the chance you might be possessed. I don't know a lot of the details, but that doesn't matter. I'm here to help you, Carlos."
"Well, dig this, man," Carlos exclaimed, trembling. "Those spirits, they ain't playin' around. If you mess with 'em, they're gonna bring down some serious heat, man. Like, Satan-level stuff. Their powers, they're like, outta this world, you dig?"
"Let me worry about that. The Lord, thy God, will protect us!"
"Hey, man, you ever pulled off something like this?" Carlos just had to ask. "Like, have you ever busted out an exorcism before?"
"Many times! I've been in the ministry for eighteen years, and I've come close to seeing it all."
Just as the minister finished speaking, Mikal returned to the ballroom and announced that everything was ready. Carlos and the minister followed Watts into the old kitchen area where three cameramen and a local news reporter stood against the west wall of the room.
The room had been stripped of the sink, stove, and other cooking paraphernalia. The wooden walls were bare. For the past several months, the old kitchen had been used primarily as a storage area. The north wall was cluttered with tables and chairs that had been lined with big windows, but now, the outside had been boarded up so that nobody could see through the glass. In the middle of the wooden floor sat a square wooden table with four chairs placed around it. The scene reminded Carlos of the death chamber at Huntsville Prison. He felt like he was the condemned man, about to be put to death by lethal injection, and the news reporter and cameramen were there to cover the story.
Pastor Stone looked at Carlos with a warm smile and then began by praying aloud for the Lord's help. Completing the prayer, he looked across the table into Carlos's eyes and saw the fear radiating from them.
"If there is a spirit in Carlos Gutierrez," Reverend Stone began in a cool, calm voice as he c continued looking at Carlos sitting across the table, "I ask that it speak and identify itself tonight, RIGHT NOW! You spirit, you agent of the Devil, I am not afraid of you!"
Carlos's hands were palms down on the tabletop, pushing hard against the surface. He began nodding his head up and down and began mumbling something under his breath in a low, different tone of voice.
The minister asked the spirit speaking through Carlos what it had said.
There was a long pause.
"Carlos says he wants to be delivered and you spirits have to leave so he can fill his temple with another spirit," the pastor pressed on.
Another moment of silence.
"Man, I can't talk. She won't let me. It's like she's got a hold on my tongue."
"She?"
"I, uh, I remember her now, man. She was the big kahuna, the head of the all-girl Satanic gang back in the high school days." Carlos stammered.
"Tell me about her!"
As Carlos sat at the table, an eerie transformation overtook him. His features morphed into those of a teenage black girl, her face adorned with a voodoo symbol etched into her cheek. Her hair, styled in a classic '60s bouffant, added to the surreal sight. With an otherworldly air, she warned Stone, "You don't wanna mess wit' me. I ain't nobody you wanna get involved wit'." Her voice carried a haunting tone, reminiscent of distant echoes and whispers from the past.
"You're speaking to a man of God, and you have no power over me."
"I'm a priestess of Satan, honkee! You wouldn't last a minute in a fight with me!"
As the female spirit spoke through Carlos, his clothes suddenly morphed into a rebellious "James Dean" style ensemble reminiscent of "Rebel Without A Cause." His regular attire was replaced by a red leather jacket, tight blue jeans, and a white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The transformation was abrupt and eerie.
"The word of God says deliverance is Carlos's!" Stone argued to the entity that had, evidently, not only taken control of Carlos's body but also of his outward appearance, embodying the rebellious spirit of the 1960s.
The preacher quickly thumbed through the pages of the text and then began speaking in a loud tone.
"In Ecclesiastics, Chapter 1, the Scripture says Solomon asked God for wisdom. He wanted answers for all things in life. Now hear these words!"
Reverend Stone took a deep breath as he looked at Carlos, then continued reading from the Bible.
"'What profit have a man of his labor, that taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away and another cometh.' The Bible is talking about the cycle," Stone continued boldly.
"The sun also riseth and the sun goes down to the place where it arose. The wind goeth to the south and turneth around in the north and the wind returns again according to its circuits."
The minister stopped and looked at Carlos. He had returned to his normal appearance, but his eyes were glassy. "There's the cycle again!" He expounded his knowledge of the Holy Bible.
"All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full unto the place to whence the rivers come, thither they return again!"
Reverend Stone was getting into it now! He gripped both sides of the opened book, squeezing the text with white-knuckle tenacity as his eyes bore into the printed words on the text.
"THERE'S THAT CYCLE AGAIN!" he proclaimed loudly. "Now the spirits that have been bothering you, Carlos....It's my opinion that they don't know they have died and it's time for them to leave and go into the realm of the spirits for the recycling of that spirit."
It became apparent now that Paster Stone and his own beliefs concerning biblical text, and he knew what he was doing. Most ministries denied the existence of spirits and only believed that demons walked the earth, but not this man of the cloth.
"I speak to all of you spirits!" he exclaimed with authority. "And I tell you there's a future for you if you'll go into the spirit world. Carlos! You must fight these spirits!"
Carlos's eyes were now focused on the man of God sitting across the table. "Man, you done really made 'em mad now. They say I'm gonna know real soon what it's like to be one of 'em. Satan's on his way to deal with you."
Ezekiel knew it wasn't Carlos talking, not really, but some entity that was trying to play on his sympathy.
"If you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, nothing can hurt you," the minister argued. "Carlos, come to Jesus now! God says 'You'll never be alone if you believe in me! I won't forsake you!' You have come to know Christ as your personal Savior so you can learn to fight the spirits that try to overtake you and your body!"
There was a deafening silence. Neither Carlos nor the spirits could speak.
"What are you thinking right now, Carlos?" Stone demanded, still aware it wasn't Carlos he was speaking to, or if it was, the man wasn't letting go of the spirits for some reason.
It had turned out to be the latter. "Hey man, we don't give a damn 'bout what you're preachin'," one of the spirits that were still inside of Carlos retorted in a tough, streetwise tone. "We're here, part of the generation that said we ain't gonna grow old and die like the rest. We gonna get what we want right now, and we'll mess up anyone who tries to stop us. We got powers, man."
"Listen, son," the sandy-haired reporter interjected without thinking, "Pastor Stone is right. You are dead! You just won't accept it, that's all. You need to move on, and you need to move on now!"
"In the name of God Almighty," the Priest declared with solemn authority, "I see through your deceit. You desire not growth, but the expansion of your evil, seeking to infect not just this resort, but all of Pepper, perhaps even all of Houston, with your pestilence of horror and terror. But know this, Carlos, you have the right to freedom and victory through God. Do you feel the spirits are attempting something new?"
Before Carlos could even utter an answer, his countenance, without warning, underwent a horrifying metamorphosis. Horns sprouted from his forehead, twisting skyward like the branches of a malevolent tree. His eyes, once human, now blazed with an eerie crimson glow, reflecting the depths of infernal fury. And when he opened his mouth, his teeth had transformed into razor-sharp fangs, gleaming with a hunger born of the abyss itself. "Behold me, for I am Satan!" Carlos proclaimed with a voice that seemed to echo from the depths of hell itself. "These kids have aided me in turning this high school into a circle of my kingdom. It belongs to me; they belong to me. This is our territory." With an ominous tone, he threatened, "And if you try to force us out, Priest, I will destroy you."
"In the name of Jesus Christ, I rebuke you, Satan," declared Reverend Stone with unwavering conviction. "Your threats are empty lies, just like your promises. You tried to tempt Jesus and failed, and you will fail again. These teenagers have free will, and they can choose the light of truth over your darkness. What say you to that?"
Carlos didn't answer. The horns and all the demonic features that had materialized on his face vanished as suddenly as they had come.
"Carlos, you have to fight them. Let me read something else out of the Bible," the preacher took a deep breath and then continued. "James, Chapter Four, Verse VII....' Submit yourself therefore to God, wherefore he saithe resist the Devil and he will flee from you.' The next verse gives us the key to make it work! 'Draw nigh to God and cleanse your hands you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.'"
The minister was becoming absorbed into the Word of God, and he felt the power of the Holy Ghost washing over him.
"St. John, Chapter Ten, Verse VII....." he declared in a fire and brimstone voice as he quickly thumbed through the pages of his Bible until he found what he was looking for. " 'I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep cannot hear them. I am the door! By me, if any man enters in, he shall be saved and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but to steal, kill and destroy. I am, so that they might have life and more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth life for the sheep.' Jesus died for your sins, Carlos. He died to give you life. You must make a commitment unto him. I'm going to lead you in prayer and when we call upon the name of Jesus the spirits must leave because I'm here as a son of God to take authority over them....Just as Jesus did when he walked the earth."
Stone reached across the table and grasped the top of Carlos's wrists. He began praying aloud over the man, and, when he did, Carlos's body began shaking violently and he tried to pull away from the minister's grip, but Stone held tight, commanding the spirits to leave Carlos's body and the building.
"Satan! I denounce you. I denounce your ways!" Stone shouted. "I denounce everything you stand for and in the name of Jesus, I command the spirits, right now, in the name of Jesus Christ, to leave Carlos Gutierrez alone!
"Father God, in the name of Jesus, I take authority and denomination over the spirits and command them in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth to loose their grip upon Carlos Gutierrez. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, I speak to you spirits and I command you to LEAVE! I command you to lose your grip on Carlos Gutierrez!"
As the minister's words began to fade into the air, Carlos's body began jerking and he again tried to pull free from Pastor Stone's grip, but the minister held on tightly, refusing to let go. Carlos began quivering and shaking violently, his whole being squirming and jerking like a fish out of water, but as Reverend Stone continued commanding the spirits to leave, Carlos went limp and dropped his head down into his arms, which were still spread out across the table in front of him.
"Look at me!" Ezekiel Stone demanded of Carlos as he still gripped the man's wrists.
Carlos groaned slightly, then answered him as a slight smile formed on his face. "I feel different," he said with a weary sigh. "Something in me has changed."
"It's over," Stone stated softly as he let go of Carlos's wrists. "But the spirits will return and try to take over your body again."
"I won't let 'em! They're gone, and they're staying gone!"
"Good!" Stone smiled as he stood from the table. "I want you to try and get a good night's sleep. I'm sure you're exhausted. Would you mind if I stay in touch with you from time to time?"
"It's cool with me," Carlos answered, as he too stood up and moved away from the table.
Mikal Watts watched as the reporter walked out of the room disappointed. Mikal stood silent, watching the cameramen as they quickly packed up their equipment. It was very apparent that everyone was disappointed. All, that is, except Mikal himself. The footage captured by the cameramen, showing Carlos morphing into the forms of other teenagers and ultimately transforming into Satan himself, held immense value. Mikal was certain that this footage, presented correctly, would generate substantial revenue for him. However, there was a risk of accusations of fakery, a challenge Mikal would need to navigate carefully to realize the full potential of this extraordinary footage.
Carlos walked out of the room and opened the back door leading to the parking lot. He sat down on the pavement and lit a cigarette. He wanted to be left alone.
Mikal walked over to Pastor Stone, his expression a mix of awe and trepidation. "Pastor, I gotta say, those were some of the most bizarre scenes we've ever captured on film," he began, his voice tinged with nervous energy. "But let me tell you, they're gonna leave me with nightmares for years to come." He glanced around the room, shuddering involuntarily. "I think it's high time we got out of here, and the sooner, the better."
Stone smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "Let's go outside and talk, but, first, let's tell Carlos we're leaving."
"Okay," Mikal was puzzled. "I'll follow you."
The men walked out of the old kitchen area and found Carlos sitting on the blacktop silently staring at the clear sky, the moon and stars shining brightly overhead.
"You okay?" Stone asked. "We're getting ready to leave."
"I'm on Cloud 9 right now, Pastor," Carlos replied, not even looking at the men. "I just need some time alone to put on my thinking cap, is all."
"I understand," Stone said consolingly. "I'll call you or drop in some time if that's okay."
"Groovy, man!" Carlos whispered.
Stone turned and walked through the ballroom, heading for the front doors with Mikal right behind him. Once they stepped out of the building, and saw that the reporter and cameraman had already gone, Stone turned around and looked Mikal in the eyes.
Mikal observed the serious expression on Stone's face, recognizing it instantly. "I know that look," he remarked, his tone serious. "What's so super secret that we can't discuss it in front of Carlos?"
"I've erred," Reverend Stone admitted, a somber tone in his voice, "and I've underestimated the true power of the spirits within Carlos. They're formidable, strong enough to prevent their departure." He paused, his expression troubled, before continuing, "Their deception was revealed when I noticed the lingering '60s teenage slang in Carlos's speech."
"Are you serious?" Mikal questioned, his voice tinged with disbelief. After a brief pause, he pressed on, "Where do you think you might have gone wrong, Reverend?"
"I failed to do my homework," Stone admitted, his tone heavy with regret. "I neglected to delve into the mysteries surrounding Lone Star High School. What were the tunnels used for? What became of the alumni whose fates HISD refuses to disclose? Who among the students dabbled in Satanic rituals? And, most importantly, I overlooked the fact that I was dealing with ghosts from the '60s, a time marked by rebellion, drugs, sex, and rock music. The youth of that era were in open defiance against God. Hollywood even declared war on Him with films like Rosemary's Baby and Bewitched, both of which glorified the Occult. Time Magazine went so far as to declare God 'Dead.'"
"Are you saying part of this is due to contemporary pop culture?" Mikal inquired, his voice tinged with incredulity.
"In a way, yes," Stone affirmed, his voice laden with solemnity. "Contemporary culture has indeed contributed to the power of those spirits. It propagates the notion that there is no Heaven and no Hell. For mature Christians, Satan and Hell serve as deterrents to sin, and Heaven is the ultimate reward for those who accept Christ as Lord. Those who reject these concepts feel emboldened to make their own rules, completely disregarding the Ten Commandments. It stands to reason that if you have no fear of Satan, you have no faith in God. That, aside from their powers, could be one of the reasons they didn't leave Carlos's body. They didn't recognize His authority for the simple reason they never believed in Him to begin with."
Mikal shook his head in disgust. "Wonderful," he muttered, looking over his shoulder at the front doors of the resort.
"Another disturbing possibility arises," Stone mused, his tone laden with concern. "What if these kids possessed these unearthly powers before they died? It might explain why the school faculty did nothing to get these youngsters under control and enforce discipline. If they died young, as I suspect, then that only adds to their powers."
"So what happens now?"
"We come back and try again!" Stone stated matter-of-factly. "And we keep coming back until we finish it, but next time, we come alone! I didn't fool them one bit. They know we're going to return. To get rid of those spirits and demons, to teach those kids that God does exist, I'm going to have to pray and fast! There's no other way!"
"When do you want to come back?"
"That depends on what God tells me. I'll pray to Him for wisdom! Our Lord will tell me when it's time to return. If I make a suggestion, get yourself Baptized. Only faith will protect you from these spirits' unholy powers."
The preacher's words sent a chill racing up and down Watts's spine. Mikal had known Stone for a long time, and he knew by the minister's tone that he dared not ignore that man's advice!
"Let's be on our way," Stone said. "We've done all we can for tonight."
Mikal nodded. The men walked to opposite parking lots and climbed into their cars heading home. Mikal was half frightened of the idea of returning here again, being urged to be baptized, and Pastor Stone would no doubt pray to Jesus Christ as to how to handle the situation when he came back to this house of horrors.
Carlos made his way into the building through the service entrance. He slipped his key into the deadbolt, securing the door, then headed for his apartment.
As Carlos made his way upstairs to his apartment, Vince suddenly materialized before him in the Arcade. "Asshole! You make me sick!" Vince spat, his tone filled with disgust. "You lied to us, saying you had our backs. But we knew, man. We knew you were gonna let that preacher run us off. We're still in your body because of how strong our powers are. YOU didn't do jack shit for us! Why you think Lucifer had to step in and put that preacher man in his place?" Vince's voice dripped with disdain. "Don't come begging us for mercy now."
Carlos collapsed to the Arcade floor, overcome with emotion, as Vince faded away into the ether. Tears streamed down his face, his body trembled with the weight of Vince's accusations and the gravity of his situation.
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