The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
“You said he had a problem with his faith.”
Dyer nodded.
Chris lowered her head a bit and shook it. “I can’t believe that,” she answered abstractedly. “I’ve never seen such strong faith before in my life.”
“Car is here now, Madam!”
Snapped out of her reverie, Chris called out, “Okay, Karl! We’re coming!” She and Dyer stood up. “No, you stay, Father. I’m just going upstairs to get Rags.”
Dyer nodded absently. “Okay.” He was thinking of Karras’s puzzling shout of “No!” and then the sound of running steps overheard before his leap through the window. There was something there, he thought. What was it? Both Chris’s and Sharon’s recollections had been vague. But now Dyer thought again of that mysterious look of joy in Karras’s eyes. And something else, he now remembered: a fiercely shining glint of … what? He didn’t know; but he thought it was something like victory. Like triumph. Inexplicably, the thought seemed to lift him. He felt lighter. He walked to the entry hall, hands in his pockets, and then leaned in the open doorway watching Karl help the driver stow luggage in the trunk of the limo. Dyer wiped his brow—it was humid and hot. He turned his glance to the sound of footsteps coming downstairs, Chris and Regan, hand in hand. They came toward him. Chris kissed his cheek, then held her hand to it as tenderly she probed the priest’s sad eyes.
“It’s all right, Chris. I’ve got this feeling it’s all right.”
Chris said, “Good.” She looked down at Regan. “Honey, this is Father Dyer,” she said. “Say hello.”
“Pleased to meet you, Father Dyer.”
“And I’m so very pleased to meet you too.”
Chris checked her wristwatch.
“Gotta get going now, Father.”
“It’s been peachy. Oh, no, wait! I almost forgot!” The priest reached into a pocket of his coat and extracted something. “This was his,” he said.
Chris looked down at the holy medal and chain that was cupped in Dyer’s open and upraised hand. “Saint Christopher. I thought you might like to have it.”
For long, silent moments Chris stared down at the medal thoughtfully, her brow lightly furrowed as if debating some decision; then, slowly, she reached out a hand, took the medal, slipped it into a pocket of her coat and said to Dyer, “Thanks, Father. Yeah. Yeah, I would.” Then “Come on, honey,” she said to Regan, but as she reached out to take her daughter’s hand, Chris saw that she was frowning and squinting up fixedly at the Jesuit’s round Roman collar as if at sudden remembrance of forgotten concern. Then suddenly she reached up her arms to the priest. Surprised, the young Jesuit leaned over, and with her hands on his shoulders Regan kissed his cheek, and then, dropping her arms, she looked off with a frown of puzzlement, as if she were wondering why she had done so.
Her eyes abruptly moist, Chris briefly looked away, then, taking Regan’s hand, she said softly and huskily, “Oh, well, we’ve really gotta go now. Come on, honey. Say good-bye to Father Dyer.”
“Bye, Father.”
Smiling, Dyer wiggled the fingers of a hand in farewell and said, “Good-bye. Safe journey home.”
“Father, I’ll call you from L.A.,” Chris said over her shoulder. It would only be later that she would wonder what he actually meant by “home.”
“You take care now.”
“You too.”
Dyer watched them move away. As a driver opened a door for them, Chris turned and waved, then blew a kiss. Dyer waved back and watched her climb into the back of the limo, next to Regan. As the car pulled away from the curb, Regan stared at Dyer hauntingly through the rear window until the car turned a corner and was gone from his sight.
Dyer turned and looked left as from across the street he heard a squealing of brakes: a police car. Climbing out of it was Kinderman, who walked quickly around the front of the car and then waved as he hurried toward Dyer, calling, “I came to say good-bye.”
“You just missed them.”
Crestfallen, the detective stopped dead in his tracks.
“Really? They’re gone?”
Dyer nodded.
Kinderman turned to look down Prospect Street regretfully, turned back, lowered his head and shook it. “Oy!” he murmured. Then he glanced up at Dyer. He walked up to him and somberly asked, “How’s the girl?”
“She seemed fine. Really fine.”
“Ah, that’s good. That’s really all that’s important.” Lifting an arm, the detective glanced at his wristwatch. “Well, back to business,” he said; “back to work. Bye, now, Father.” He turned away and took a step toward the squad car, but stopping, he turned his head to stare speculatively at the priest. “You go to films, Father Dyer? You like them?”
“Oh, well, sure.”
Kinderman turned back and moved closer to Dyer. “I get passes,” he said weightily. “In fact, I’ve got passes for the Biograph tomorrow night. You’d like to go?”
“What’s playing?”
“Wuthering Heights.”
“Who’s in it?”
“Who’s in it?” The detective’s eyebrows bunched together in a scowl as he gruffly answered, “Heathcliff, Sonny Bono and in the role Catherine Earnshaw, Cher. Are you coming or not?”
“I’ve seen it.”
The detective stared at the Jesuit limply, then looked away and murmured ruefully, “Another one!” Then he turned back to Dyer with a smile and, stepping up to the sidewalk, he hooked an arm through the priest’s and started walking him slowly up the street. “I’m reminded of a line in the film Casablanca,” he said fondly. “At the end Humphrey Bogart says to Claude Rains: ‘Louie—I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’ ”
“You know, you look a little bit like Bogart.”
“You noticed.”
In forgetting, they were trying to remember.
About the Author
Four decades after it first shook the nation, then the world, William Peter Blatty’s thrilling masterwork of faith and demonic possession returns in an even more powerful form. Raw and profane, shocking and blood-chilling, it remains a modern parable of good and evil and perhaps the most terrifying novel ever written.
WILLIAM PETER BLATTY is a writer and filmmaker. The Exorcist, written in 1971, is his magnum opus; he also penned the subsequent screenplay version of the film, for which he won an Academy Award. His most recent works include the novels Elsewhere (2009), Dimiter (2010), and Crazy (2010).
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Notes
I have taken a few liberties with the current geography of Georgetown University, notably with respect to the location of the Institute of Languages and Linguistics. Moreover, the house on Prospect Street does not exist, nor does the Jesuit residence hall in the location in which I have described it. Finally, the fragment of prose attributed to Lankester Merrin is not my creation, but is taken from a sermon of Cardinal John Henry Newman titled “The Second Spring.”
Praise
Critical Acclaim for
THE EXORCIST
“A horror story for all midnights.”
—The Boston Globe
“There are not many readers who will be unmoved. Written in a literate style, The Exorcist is to most other novels of its kind as an Einstein equation is to an accountant’s column of figures.”
—New York Times Book Review
“Immensely satisfying, it holds its readers in a vise-like grip worthy of Poe.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Wonderfully exciting.”
—Newsweek
“Absolutely superb. Blatty makes you think this scary tale really might have happened.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Up till dawn, I was, with The Exorcist. A shocker … driving to a violent conclusion.”
—Cosmopolitan
“A page-turner par excellence. Poe and Mary Shelley would recognize [Blatty] as working in their ambig
—Life
“A tremendous novel … fast, powerful, and completely gripping, a hypnotic combination of morality tale and supernatural detective story. A parable for our times, a stunning achievement.”
—The London Sunday Express
“The Exorcist should be read twice; the first time for the passion and horrifying intensity of the story, with a second reading to savor the subtleties of language and phrasing… It’s an experience you will never forget.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Suspense that never lets up!”
—Publishers Weekly
“A fantastic and deeply religious novel that will touch the reader to his very soul as it touches on things in this world that cannot be explained away rationally.”
—Texas Abilene Reporter-News
Other Works
Fiction
Which Way to Mecca, Jack?
John Goldfarb, Please Come Home
I, Billy Shakespeare!
Twinkle, Twinkle, “Killer” Kane
The Exorcist
The Ninth Configuration
Legion
Demons Five, Exorcists Nothing
Elsewhere
Dimiter
Crazy
Nonfiction
I’ll Tell Them I Remember You
William Peter Blatty on ‘The Exorcist’: From Novel to Film
Credits
Cover design by Milan Bozic
Copyright
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2011 by HarperCollins Publishers.
THE EXORCIST. Copyright © 1971, 2011 By William Peter Blatty.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
First Harper paperback published 2011.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-06-209435-3 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-06-209436-0 (pbk.)
EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2011 ISBN: 9780062094377
Version 02082013
11 12 13 14 15 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (P.O. Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au/ebooks
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollins.com
William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist
(Series: # )