The Darkest Night

by Mike Ramon

Chapter Fourteen

  By the time Tom left Patricia’s house he was fully decked out in James Gomez’s clothes--the khaki pants, a pair of black dress socks, black wing tip shoes, and a white button-down dress shirt. He made a stop at a convenience store to call the man he wanted to see from a payphone that looked busted, but turned out to work just fine. In his rush to get out of the house the previous night he had neglected to pick up his cellphone on the way out the door. He knew that eventually he would have to go home again, but he wanted to put it off awhile.

  The man told him to stop by around noon, and Tom thanked him. He had a couple of hours to kill, so he then went back to the diner where he had spent most of the night sleeping on a toilet; this time he was there not to sleep, but to get some breakfast. He had silver dollar pancakes with maple syrup that was gummy and tasted bad, with a side of hash browns and a cup of coffee (his second cup of the day).

  The man he had called was named Bennett Hendrix, and he had been a Catholic priest until late 2004, when he was excommunicated after a series of odd sermons that culminated in a church service the week before Christmas in which Father Hendrix had informed his parishioners that demons were all around them, that some of them were demons, and that he himself had been possessed by a demon that he had managed to cast out of himself. He then left the church, running out into the cold December day, screaming about demons and the indifference of an unloving God.

  After an eighteen month stay at a mental hospital in Rockford Hendrix (no longer “Father Hendrix” at that point) had come home to Cedar Falls. Tom, who was not Catholic (he preferred the term “irreligious” to “atheist”) had looked Hendrix up in the phone book and left a message asking if he could do a story on him. The former priest had called him back, and agreed to speak with Tom, with the understanding that anything they talked about would remain off the record unless, and until, Hendrix consented to any of it being published. When Tom arrived at the man’s house, the house Hendrix had grown up in and which had been left to him by his parents when they passed, he had been greeted by a small, bespectacled, mild-mannered African-American man in his mid-fifties, with a soft-spoken voice and a calm demeanor. He didn’t seem like someone who would go raving about, screaming about demons. The first thing the man had said to him was:

  “I’m a black man, and my name is Hendrix. No, there is no relation, and any joke you can think of, I’ve already heard it.”

  The two men had met a total of three times, but mostly Hendrix had talked about anything and everything but what had happened at the church on his last day as a priest at St. Bernadette Parish. In the end Hendrix had decided he didn’t want anything they had talked about to make it to print, and Tom, a man of his word, had moved on to another story. He kept in touch with Hendrix for a while through periodic phone calls, but eventually the phone calls had stopped, as Tom got on with his life. When Michelle died he thought about going to see the old priest, thinking that maybe together they could find reason in the unreasonable, logic in the illogical. Tom never had gotten around to visiting, however.

  It was noon on the dot when Tom pulled up in front of Bennett Hendrix’s house, parking at the curb. As he walked up to the door it swung open before he had a chance to knock. Hendrix, his hair a little grayer and the lines around his eyes a little deeper than Tom remembered, stood in the doorway.

  “Long time, no see, Mr. Dwyer,” Hendrix said.

  “A long time, indeed,” Tom agreed.

  “Come in.”

  Hendrix moved from the doorway, allowing Tom to enter his home. Hendrix headed through his living room, waving Tom along after him. Tom followed him into the kitchen, where lunch was spread out on the kitchen table.

  “Sit,” Hendrix said. “We’ll eat while we talk. Or talk while we eat. Same thing , I guess.”

  Tom wasn’t very hungry, having just eaten breakfast some two hours before, but the food looked good, so he sat down and pulled the plate that Hendrix had already fixed for him closer. On the plate there was a turkey and roast beef sandwich on wheat, cut diagonally, and a cantaloupe wedge.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Hendrix asked, still standing. “I have freshly squeezed orange juice, ginger ale, Diet Coke…”

  “I’ll take a ginger ale,” Tom said.

  “Coming right up.”

  Hendrix moved to the fridge and brought back a cold can of Seagram’s Ginger Ale, setting it down next to Tom’s plate, and then went back to the fridge and pulled out a pitcher of orange juice. He got a glass down from a cabinet and poured himself, then put the pitcher back in the fridge and brought his glass over to the table, setting it down and taking a seat.

  “Do you want to…you know, say grace?” Tom asked.

  Tom figured the man might still have enough of the Church in him to hold on to the custom.

  “No, that’s quite all right,” Hendrix said. “I’ve done enough of that.”

  Hendrix picked up one diagonally cut half of his own sandwich and took a bite, and Tom followed suit. It tasted good, with a hint of Dijon mustard. Tom grabbed one of the two cloth napkins resting in the center of the table and dabbed at his lips.

  “So,” Hendrix said, swallowing a bite of his own sandwich. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

  Tom thought about how to approach the subject. He had been thinking about it ever since leaving Patricia’s house, but every way he thought of just sounded crazy.

  “I wanted to ask you about demons,” Tom said.

  Hendrix paused mid-bite, sitting frozen for a moment like a statue. He slowly put his sandwich down on his plate and turned his head to stare out the kitchen window for a while. Tom felt uncomfortable in the silence, and he thought that he had made a mistake in coming to see the ex-priest.

  “I thought it might have something to do with that,” Hendrix said.

  He turned back to face Tom.

  “I thought I was done with all of that,” he continued. “That was a bad time in my life. I was confused. It was like something broke inside of me, and shattered into a thousand pieces. But that place in Rockford helped me put myself back together. I’m better now. Let the past remain the past, I say.”

  “Actually, it’s not the past that I’m concerned with,” Tom said.

  Hendrix’s eyebrows went up, naked curiosity plainly showing on his face.

  “You see…it’s hard to explain,” Tom went on. “Me and some…friends of mine have been having some problems lately that we can’t explain. Strange things have been happening.”

  “Bad things, I take it?”

  “Yes. There have been dreams, bad dreams. All three of us have had them. My two friends have had similar dreams of being trapped somewhere, only it’s not just any ‘somewhere’, but the same ‘somewhere’.”

  “And you find this strange?” Hendrix said before taking a drink of o.j.

  “It’s very strange when you consider that they didn’t even know each other when they started having the dreams.”

  “Interesting,” Hendrix said. “And you’re certain that this place they both dream of being trapped in is the same place?”

  “I’m certain.”

  “And you have dreamt of being trapped in this place, as well?”

  “No, I haven’t. This place, this building that they dreamt of, was in my dream as well, only I wasn’t inside of it, but outside. I saw something happen in the dream…I saw something happen that I believe was actually happening as I dreamt it. It was like I was being shown this thing for a reason.”

  “For what reason?”

  “I think it was a warning,” Tom said. “I think something was warning me to, I don’t know, mind my business.”

  “I’m assuming that this thing that you saw in your dream wasn’t pleasant.”

  “No, it wasn’t pleasant at all, but I’d rather not say what it was.”

  “Have there been any other dreams?” Hendrix asked.

  “One of my friends has had another kind of drea
m. These dreams are also set in this one location, but in these dreams he’s not trapped so much as he is…I guess you would say an observer. It’s like he is watching scenes play out that actually occurred a long time ago. I mean, like things that actually happened.”

  “In his dreams he is seeing the history of this place. Which was also unpleasant?”

  Tom nodded his head.

  “There were other things as well,” Tom said. “Not just the dreams.”

  Tom told the man about the incident at the library, and about what he had seen the night before in his bathroom, the grotesque imitation-thing that looked like his wife. As Tom spoke the man’s calm demeanor turned dour. As Tom finished the man pushed his plate away, the sandwich half-eaten, his appetite having evidently deserted him.

  “And you think all of this might be the work of demons?” Hendrix asked.

  “I don’t know what to think,” Tom said.

  Tom pushed his own plate away. Neither of them would be finishing their lunch.

  “So you came to see the mad priest,” Hendrix said.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you--”

  “And you haven’t. Please, Mr. Dwyer, understand that I am no longer bitter about what transpired all those years ago. I know now that I was a sick man. I am better now, though.”

  “And you no longer believe in demons?” Tom asked.

  “Well, I didn’t say that. I still believe in demons; just not the biblical variety. I believe we all have demons in us, those dark places in our hearts where we keep all of our fears and our hatreds, and all the things we cannot speak of. But do I believe in demonic possession, in agents of the Devil who can possess us or oppress us? No, I do not.”

  “But these things that have been happening…I thought…”

  Hendrix held up a hand.

  “Give me one moment.”

  The man stood up from the table and left Tom alone. Tom looked at his abandoned plate and felt a slight rumble in his stomach; he hadn’t completely lost his appetite, after all. Before he could reach for the sandwich Hendrix returned, taking a seat across from Tom. Hendrix placed a slip of paper on the table and slid it across to his guest. Tim picked up the paper and took a look at it. It read, in the old man’s neat, tight handwriting:

  Centennial Oaks

  2254 Oberst St.

  Rockford, IL

  ph. # 815-555-0394

  Tom read it over again. Centennial Oaks--the name sounded familiar. He looked up at Hendrix.

  “What is his?” Tom asked.

  “This is the place where I went to get well,” Hendrix said softly. “I think they can offer you some help. If you want I can call ahead and talk with a doctor there who I know. If he’s still there, that is. There is nothing to be ashamed of in asking for help.”

  “You think that I need ‘help’?”

  “These things that you’ve told me aren’t exactly…normal”

  Tom knew he would get no help here. He pocketed the slip of paper and stood.

  “Thank you for your concern, Mr. Hendrix. I’m sorry if I’ve inconvenienced you in any way.”

  Hendrix stood and followed Tom to the door.

  “Call that number.” Hendrix said. “You’re not alone, even if you think you are.”

  “Thank you,” Tom said, forcing a smile as he silently cursed himself for having miscalculated so badly.

  Tom walked out the door, but he stopped and turned around.

  “When you were at this place,” Tom said. “This Centennial Oaks place. Did they help you figure out what led to…well, you know.”

  “I already knew, Mr. Dwyer. They just helped me to face it.”

  Tom held the man’s gaze.

  “Would you like to know?” Hendrix asked.

  Tom nodded.

  “My conflict with myself began when I realized that I could no longer hear the voice of God. I’m sure you can understand how, for a man of the cloth, this posed quite a problem.”

  “Can you hear it now?” Tom asked.

  Hendrix sighed.

  “Sometimes I think I can,” he answered. “Sometimes I think I can. Faintly. Sometimes all I hear is the echo of my own voice calling back to me. That’s the most terrible thing, when all you can hear is your own voice echoing in the void.”

  With nothing left to be said between them Tom turned away and walked to his car. As he pulled away from the curb Hendrix was still standing in the doorway, watching after him.