Salim’s Saturday night exorcism

June 22, 2025

Date: 2025-06-21 23:03

(Salim’s Saturday night exorcism)

[Sat Jun 21 2025]

Bunker Hill Chapel/span

It is about 55F(12C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At Carnation and Washington/span

The chapel’s interior feels heavier than it should at this late hour, the sandalwood incense unable to mask an underlying metallic scent that clings to the back of the throat. Gwyndolyn and Salim stand near the entrance, their footsteps echoing more than they ought to in the sacred space.

At the altar, the bronze temple bell sits motionless in its carved wooden frame, yet something about it draws the eye unnaturally. The deep purple and black streaks across its surface seem to pulse faintly in the flickering candlelight, and three frayed red cords hang from its rim like dried blood. Four empty holes where other cords once hung gape like small wounds.

A soft whisper of air moves through the chapel despite the still night outside, carrying with it the faint sound of weeping that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. The jasmine flowers in their ceramic bowls have begun to wilt prematurely, their white petals curling inward as if recoiling from something unseen.

Salim’s hand instinctively moves toward his side, his scarred features tense as he scans the shadows between the pews. The war-worn man’s unease is palpable – whatever brought them here tonight, it’s already making itself known.

Staring about himself and maintaining a semblance of unease, Salim seems to nonetheless flick the safety on for his carbine and allows it take a place strapped to his back. Instead, Salim elects for Salim’s estoc instead and draws the blade with a sibilant sound that rings out through the chapel’s interior. The chapel bell, given its size and its thrumming streaks of color are enough to make Salim approach, albeit reservedly. Extending the tip of his blade, Salim prods at the bell with no small amount of caution, likely trying to elicit something from it.

Gwyndolyn draws in a deep breath, taking in the smell of incense and what she could only assume was blood, in the air. She stays close to Salim, covering his back, conveniently also hiding any apparent fear of ghosts infront of her boss. “… A haunting. I’ve never seen one up close, only ever the aftermath.” She remarks, her voice quieter, her grip on the axe’s shaft now slid down into a one-handed grip.

Robert strides into the room, his expression focused and equally determined, his ear buzzing with reports before it goes suddenly silent. A shotgun strapped to the shoulder and axe to his side. His hand goes to the shotgun, first, pulling it off a strap and letting it fall right into his hand. “Evening, sir,” He says with easy cheer to Salim that contrasts the darkness of the room. He rummages in his apron. A flashlight falls out, into his hand, strapping it to the wrist that holds the butt of the gun. There’s a soft click, and a beam of light, sweeping across the floor.

“Forgive me… forgive me…”

The temperature drops noticeably, breath beginning to mist in the suddenly frigid air. Three of the candles along the altar gutter and die, leaving only the moonlight streaming through the stained glass to illuminate the scene. In that colored light, the bell’s surface shows not its own reflection, but glimpses of faces – dozens of them, all bearing expressions of final terror or desperate regret.

Salim feels an almost magnetic pull from the bell, urging him to strike it properly, to let it sing its full song.

Robert’s sudden arrival causes Salim to extend his blade forward with a sudden start, the reinforced tip colliding solidly with the bell. There’s a loud scrape, and even his reinforced estoc chafes in protest a bit against the bell’s construction. With a swivel of his head, Salim looks with mild surprise towards Robert before his features readily settle. “Evening Robert,” Salim manages, catching his breath before immediately shifting his attention back towards the bell. “Of all the things we could be dealing with, this is lower in my area of expertise.”

Gwyndolyn casts a lightly judgemental look to Robert, seeing Salim jump in response to his arrival. She makes a mental note of the name, and gives him a quick, acknowledging nod. She grips her axe tighter, instinctively, as the candles begin to flicker and die, one by one. “Don’t remind me. Isn’t Constance our specialist in these matters?” She asks, head tilting to the side.

“You’re not a bell-founder? Are you more a carpenter or fishmonger?” Robert answers in easy jest as he calls the creators by their name, his booted feet thump-thumping across the floor of this hilltop wooden chapel, pausing a moment to admire the Thai motifs. He shifts his gaze over to Gwyndolyn, furrowing his brow. “I thought the only thing she was good at was stabbing things.” He flicks his sunglasses up. “But we can try and see if there is a bible behind the pew, in here, to begin with. There might be some notes left behind by the people who service this place.”

The moment Salim’s blade strikes the bronze, a deep, mournful tone resonates through the chapel – not the pure sound the bell was meant to produce, but something twisted and broken. The note hangs in the air far longer than it should, seeming to echo from within the walls themselves.

As the sound fades, shadows begin to move independently of their sources. A figure materializes near the altar – translucent and flickering like candlelight. An elderly man in clerical robes, his face gaunt with madness, mouth moving in silent prayer or perhaps condemnation. The apparition’s hands clutch at his throat as if trying to remove something that isn’t there.

The bell’s surface now shows more faces clearly – men, women, children – all frozen in their final moments. Their mouths move soundlessly, as if trying to speak warnings or pleas.

Behind the front pew, a leather-bound journal lies open, its pages fluttering despite the still air. The visible text appears to be written in an increasingly erratic hand, with words like “purification” and “corruption” scratched deep into the paper.

The metallic scent grows stronger, and the remaining jasmine flowers blacken and crumble to ash.

Salim’s gaze tracks the flickering shade as it takes form near the altar, his jaw tight as the unsettling sound from the bell lingers far longer than expected. His sole good eye remains fixed on the clerical figure for a moment, studying the silent gasps and tortured motions of his hands. Drawing in a long breath, Salim allows himself a measured exhale in an effort to compose himself

“Getting real tired of hauntings involving clergy and bureaucrats,” Salim hisses, just loud enough to carry to both Robert and Gwyndolyn. With a tightening stance, Salim preps his feet more firmly upon the chapel’s floor as Salim readies his estoc into both hands. “Robert, you’re likely the most read between the three of us. Check the journal. d’Argentre and I will remain poised to strike the damn thing and destroy it if it does anything else.”

“Please! For one, I can extend a proper greeting.” She smiles back playfully at Robert, “D’Argentre, at your disposition-” Her introduction is broken by the loud, haunting sound produced by the church bell, immediately shifting her focus to the ghostly apparition. She keeps a neutral disposition, curiously watching the ghost claw at his own neck. “.. Suffocation, perhaps? No… Asphyxiation?”

Her eyes track Robert as he moves to retrieve journal, though still covering Salim’s back. Gwyndolyn had already steeled herself by now, axe held in both hands and raised up by her waist.

Robert dryly answers as he shoulders the shotgun, “You know I’m half of both of those, Carver. And I haunt you all the time. I suppose now would be a bad time about approaching you about new signage?” He’s clearly joking, and his feet are already moving – diverting from the bell to his flashlight pointing at the sudden appearance of the spirit, before the beam dances wildly over towards the journal. He alters his pace and direction right over towards the journal, rolling up his sleeves one-by-one. Distractedly, he answers, as he grasps the book:

“Good evening, D’Argentre. Robert Martin. Lovely to meet you.”

“The bell must be cleansed of its heathen influences. Seven cords bind seven spirits – I have cut four free, but the remaining three mock me with their crimson threads. The bronze itself is corrupted, breathing with unholy life. God forgive me, I know what I must do…”

The ghostly priest suddenly turns toward the group, his hollow eyes fixing on Robert with the journal. His mouth opens in a soundless scream, and the temperature plummets further. Ice begins forming on the windows.

More shadows coalesce around the chapel – a woman clutching her chest, a child reaching toward the door, an elderly man collapsed between the pews. All bear the expressions of their final moments, all drawn to the bell’s malevolent resonance.

The three remaining red cords begin to sway despite the still air, and the bell itself starts to rock gently in its frame. The bronze surface ripples like liquid, the trapped faces becoming more distinct and desperate in their silent pleas.

A new sound emerges – not from the bell, but from the walls themselves. A rhythmic creaking, as if something heavy is swaying from the ceiling beams above the altar.

Shifting his grip along the handle of Salim’s estoc, Salim’s fingers tighten around its leather wrap as the air turns sharp with chill. The creeping frost, the creaking aloft, and the silent screams all seem to keep him from understanding what the spectral priest is trying to convey, but the image of threads and cutting seems to be something that Salim can understanding given how quickly Salim’s stance shifts. Tilting his head to the side, Salim catches the movements of the red cords.

“Three cords,” Salim murmurs, seemingly to himself, but also towards Gwyndolyn and Robert despite being drowned out by the noise. “Metaphor maybe? Fuck it.” He steps carefully, circling around the bell and over towards one of the red cords. With a lift of Salim’s blade, Salim brings the reinforced tip close to one of the three cords and, with a flick of his wrist, Salim makes a steady slash towards one of them.

Gwyndolyn quickly turns her attention to the ceiling, eyes narrowing in an attempt to make out the source of the sound in between the darkness of the chapel. “Brrr…” In spite of her instincts, she remains still, her body weathering the sudden change in temperature without so much as a shake. It is only after Salim steps forward that she does, too, staying four paces behind him, poised to strike at whatever may come out of the bell – or from up above, at the ceiling.

“The fourth cord is cut. Mrs. Chen’s spirit grows quiet. But the others… they hunger for release. The bell drinks their final breaths. I have become the very corruption I sought to cleanse.”

The remaining two red cords begin to fray at their edges, as if responding to the first cord’s destruction. The bell’s bronze surface shows fewer faces now, but those remaining appear more vivid, more desperate.

The ghostly priest points a skeletal finger at the remaining cords, his mouth forming the word “Free…”

“The seventh cord binds my own soul to this cursed bronze. When I cut it, I will be free… but what will be unleashed?”

Robert grimaces at the sudden chill, his body shivering and a grimace coming from between his lips as he clamps a hand over his book. “To do: Get gloves. And a coat.” He says, distinctly and briskly, opting to shoulder the crude weapon for holding up the journal and flicking through it with a furrow on his brow. Trying to browse it quickly. “Hmm.” He murmurs, his gaze drifting up to the priest, then down again, his foot tapping.

“And when they say to you, ‘Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,'”
“Should not a people inquire of their God?”
“Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?”
“To the teaching and to the testimony!” He sighs out, faintly, at the end, putting his education and faint knowledge of the occult to work.

Salim’s good eye and prosthetic both tracks the fraying of the remaining cords, the subtle shift in the bell’s surface drawing most of Salim’s attention. The cold chill seems to visibly wear at Salim now, and a hand raises away from the dual-handed grip of his estoc and over to an old scar on Salim’s forearm. “Fucking ghosts,” Salim mutters, choosing to now shift his attention towards the remaining cords. “I’ll take my chances with whatever is in that bell than whatever is stuck in it. At least I can probably stab what is in it.”

With that, Salim prepares Salim’s estoc once more and adopts a ready posture, albeit one-handed this time. With a wide swipe, Salim angles the tip of Salim’s blade and swipes without hesitations towards the second of the three red cords.

Gwyndolyn smiles to herself, hearing Robert’s verse. She allows her eyes to easen up for a moment, before she resumes a terse expression down towards the bell. She could feel her heartbeat quickening in anticipation, her body heating up even through the unnatural chill of the room – whatever could be in there, she was ready.

The second cord parts with a sound like a sigh of relief. The bell’s surface clears further – only a handful of faces remain now, their expressions shifting from desperation to something approaching peace. The ghostly priest nods approvingly, his form becoming slightly more solid.

“Two remain bound. The child who died of fever in 1982… and myself.” His voice carries now, hollow but audible. “When the final cord is cut, I will be free to pass on, but the bell’s hunger will turn elsewhere. It will seek new deaths to feed upon, starting with those nearest to it.”

The bronze begins to glow with an inner heat, the purple and black streaks pulsing like veins. The remaining cord starts to smoke where it touches the metal, as if the bell itself is trying to burn through its last restraint.

Above them, the creaking grows louder. In the flashlight’s beam, the shadow of a noose can be seen swaying from the rafters – the very rope Father Carrick used to end his life, still hanging after all these years.

The temperature begins to rise rapidly, the ice on the windows melting and running down like tears. The bell rocks more violently in its frame, eager for release.

Gwyndolyn furrows her brow, watching the noose above the group with rapidly deteriorating optimism. It seemed out of reach for a strike, if it even counted itself among the physical things of this world, and strangulation was a particularly sordid way to go about dying. She quickly fixes her gaze back to Salim, awaiting expectantly for orders. “If you’re cutting that, make it count. Shatter the damn thing if you must.”

Robert tosses away the ragged journal, almost dismissive, his gaze racking over the ceiling. “Ah.” He murmurs to himself, “Troublesome. A weapon of the bell, no doubt.” He sounds unsurprised by this, his mouth curled into a distasteful grimace. “Have to order the groundskeepers to cut it down.” He lowers his hand and the flashlight, turning about-face to the bell that is being cut.

He reaches again with the shotgun, snapping over the receiver briefly to check if it is loaded, then closed again, a grimace across his features at the ice – and seeming to remind him of other uncertainty. A reach for his belt as he lifts and slides a gas mask over his face. “No neutralizer grenades?” He says, in askance.

The final cord begins to fray on its own, the bell’s heat causing it to smoke and blacken. Father Carrick’s spirit raises his hands in warning.

“Wait! The bell must be destroyed the moment I am freed, or it will claim you all! The bronze hungers – it will not remain empty!”

The noose above begins to descend slowly, as if pulled by invisible hands. The bell rocks violently now, its bronze surface rippling like water. The last trapped face – a young child’s – looks directly at the group with pleading eyes.

The final cord snaps.

A tremendous DONG echoes through the chapel as the bell tolls once on its own. The sound is pure agony – every death, every final breath, every moment of terror compressed into a single note that seems to pierce directly into their souls. The ghostly priest screams silently as he’s pulled upward toward the rafters, finally free.

But the bell’s bronze surface immediately begins to darken again, reaching out with invisible tendrils toward the three living people in the chapel. The temperature spikes to unbearable heat as the cursed artifact seeks new victims to sustain itself.

The noose drops to head height, swaying between them and the exit.

The final cord begins to fray on its own, the bell’s heat causing it to smoke and blacken. Father Carrick’s spirit raises his hands in warning.

“Wait! The bell must be destroyed the moment I am freed, or it will claim new victims to replace what it has lost. Strike true when the last cord breaks!”

The bronze surface now shows only two faces – a young child’s peaceful expression and the tortured visage of the priest himself. The bell rocks violently, its wooden frame creaking under the strain. The noose above sways in rhythm with the bell’s movement, as if the two are connected by invisible threads.

The final red cord stretches thin, individual fibers snapping one by one. The bell’s glow intensifies, casting dancing shadows across the chapel walls. In moments, it will be free to hunger again.

“Now! Before it can claim another soul!” the priest’s spirit cries out, his form beginning to fade as his binding weakens.

The cord has only seconds left before it parts completely. The bell’s bronze surface ripples like water, ready to drink in new death the moment it breaks free from its restraints.

Salim’s gazes lifts upwards to the swaying rope above, watching the noose shift in the high rafters like some sort of pendulum. There’s a subtle working of his jaw to the side as the priest’s warning registers, but there’s a noted lack of hesitation in Salim’s stance and he prepares himself for a final assault on the last red cord. “The minute I cut that lost cord,” Salim says flatly, shifting his once free hand back upon his estoc. “I want the both of you to hit that fucking bell with everything you’ve got. Shatter it entirely.”

With his head craning slightly, Salim sets both Gwyndolyn and Robert into the periphery of his good eye. “I don’t have any neutralizers on me. Just this.” With a breath drawn through his nose and a short-lived exhale, Salim steadies himself again. Repositioning before the last cord, he cuts the final cord.

Gwyndolyn does not wait for a proper go, the flickering of the noose above her head being all the signal she needs. Adrenaline courses through her veins as she steps forward, heaving the solid steel axe above her head with a guttural shout – before bringing it down diagonally onto the surface of the bronze bell, wrist pulsing with power. The blade comes into contact near the fragile surface of one of its cracks, attempting to split it open with tremendous force.

“Don’t have to tell me twice. I already have slugs loaded.” Robert turns, briskly, towards the bell, holding his crude weapon to his side and shifting to a different angle – his squinting eyes taking in the swirls and colors, the age of the bell. He puts in a pair of earplugs, one by one. Then he lifts, a pair of heavy slugs loaded in, designed to punch straight through cover and other barricades. And then he waits, in breathless moment, his finger resting on the trigger.

And then when Salim slashes, he squeezes tightly, the roar of the weapon echoing in the chapel and the muzzle flaring briefly with a flash of white near where someone’ swings.

And then when Salim slashes, he squeezes tightly, the roar of the weapon echoing in the chapel and the muzzle flaring briefly with a flash of white near where someone swings.

And then when Salim slashes, he squeezes tightly, the roar of the weapon echoing in the chapel and the muzzle flaring briefly with a flash of white near where Gwyndolyn swings.

The final cord parts with a sound like a soul’s last breath.

For one terrible moment, the bell hangs silent and free, its bronze surface rippling with malevolent hunger. The noose drops another foot, swaying directly over Salim’s head. The temperature spikes unbearably as the cursed artifact reaches out with invisible tendrils toward the three living souls before it.

Then Gwyndolyn’s axe bites deep into the bronze, her blade finding the stress fractures in the metal. The bell rings out once – not the pure tone it was meant to produce, but a discordant shriek of agony. Robert’s shotgun blast follows immediately, the heavy slug punching through the weakened bronze where the axe struck.

The bell splits apart with a sound like breaking chains. Bronze fragments scatter across the altar, each piece hitting the floor with a different note until the chapel fills with a chaotic symphony of release. The trapped souls pour out in a rush of silver light – dozens of spirits finally free to move on, their faces peaceful at last.

Father Carrick’s ghost appears one final time, solid and serene. “Thank you,” he whispers, before dissolving into motes of light that drift upward through the chapel’s peaked ceiling.

The noose above crumbles to dust. The oppressive heat fades, replaced by the gentle warmth of a summer night. The jasmine flowers in their ceramic bowls bloom fresh and white once more.

The curse is broken. The dead are at peace. And the chapel stands silent and sacred once again.