"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.
