"Dog."
"You say that you come from a dog?" "Dogmorfmocion,"
Regan replied.
The psychiatrist thought for a moment, then attempted another approach. "When I ask you questions now, you will answer by moving your head: a nod for 'yes,' and a shake for 'no.' Do you understand that?" Regan nodded.
"Did your answers have meaning?" he asked her.
"Yes."
"Are you someone whom Regan has known?" No.
"That she knows of?" No.
"Are you someone she's invented?" No.
"You're real?" Yes.
"Part of Regan?" No.
"Were you ever a part of Regan?" No.
"Do you like her?" No.
"Dislike her?" Yes.
"Do you hate her?" Yes.
"Over something she's done?" Yes.
"Do you blame her for her parents' divorce?" No.
"Has it something to do with her parents?" No.
"With a friend?" No.
"But you hate her?" Yes.
"Are you punishing Regan?" Yes.
"You wish to harm her?" Yes.
"To kill her?" Yes.
"If she died; wouldn't you die too?" No.
The answer seemed to disquiet him and he lowered his eyes in thought. The bed springs squeaked as he shifted his weight. In the smothering stillness, Regan's breathing rasped as from a rotted, putrid bellows. Here. Yet far. Distantly sinister.
The psychiatrist lifted his glance again to that hideous, twisted face. His eyes gleamed sharply with speculation.
"Is there something she can do that would make you leave her?" Yes.
"Can you tell me what it is?"' Yes.
"Will you tell me?" No.
"But---"
Abruptly the psychiatrist gasped is startled pain as he realized with horrified incredulity that Regan was squeezing his scrotum with a hand that had gripped him like an iron talon. Eyes wide-staring he struggled to free himself. He couldn't. "Sam! Sam, help me!" he croaked.
Agony. Bedlam.
Chris looking up and then leaping for the light switch.
Klein running forward.
Regan with her head back, cackling demonically, then howling like a wolf.
Chris slapped at the light switch. Turned. Saw grainy, flickering film of a slow-motion nightmare: Regan and the doctors writhing on the bed in a tangle of shifting arms and legs, in a melee of grimaces, gasps and curses, and the howling and the yelping and the hideous laughter, with Regan oinking, Regan neighing, then the film racing faster and the bedstead shaking, violently quivering from side to side as Chris watched helplessly while her daughter's eyes rolled upward into their sockets and she wrenched up a keening shriek of terror torn raw and bloody from the base of her spine.
Regan crumpled and fell unconscious. Something unspeakable left the room.
For a breathless moment, no one moved. Then slowly and carefully, the doctors untangled themselves; stood up. They stared at Regan. After a time, the expressionless Klein took Regan's pulse. Satisfied, he slowly pulled up her blanket and nodded to the others. They left the room and went down to the study.
For a time, no one spoke. Chris was on the sofa. Klein and the psychiatrist sat near her in facing chairs. The psychiatrist was pensive, pinching at his lip as he stared at the coffee table; then he sighed and looked up at Chris. She turned her burned-out gaze to his. "What the hell's going on?" she asked in a mournful, haggard whisper.
"Did you recognize the language she was speaking?' he asked her.
