Hell

by Tom Lewis

  “I’m Cassie.”

  “I know,” Katie said in a soft melodic voice. It was tinged in sadness, and Cassie knew it wasn’t sadness for herself; it was sadness for Cassie. For reasons known only to Katie and God, this beautiful young girl, whose life had been cut so tragically short had taken pity on Cassie.

  “I’m so sorry, Katie,” Cassie’s voice broke. It was the most heartfelt sentiment she had ever expressed.

  Katie looked at her, then reached over and handed Cassie the daisy.

  Cassie’s heart melted in tears. She held the daisy to her nose and smelled the sweet scent that had dispelled the darkness so many times.

  Wiping her eyes, Cassie turned back to Katie, who was again looking at her hands folded in her lap. “Thank you,” she said, and her voice broke again.

  Katie nodded, accepting Cassie’s thanks. “He’s wrong about the spirit,” she said.

  “Who’s wrong?” Cassie asked.

  “The doctor. He doesn’t believe in it. But he will.”

  “So, you know about the spirit?” Cassie asked.

  Katie nodded. “It’s here. Right now.”

  In that instant, Cassie felt it — the unsettling chill of being watched.

  Somewhere, beyond the ring of cold blue moonlight, the Shadow was watching. Turning ever so slowly, she caught it from the corner of her left eye as it drifted through the shadows.

  Then it was gone.

  “Only God can help you, Cassie,” Katie’s voice came like a soft echo.

  Cassie turned back to Katie, but only the empty swing remained. Katie was gone, and Cassie found herself alone. All around her, the darkness began to creep in, and within that darkness stirred things of nightmare — things that had been kept distant by the warm light of Katie’s presence. They were free.

  And they were coming for her.

  ****

  Cassie’s eyes snapped open mere seconds before that darkness on the playground would have enveloped her. She sat up panting.

  “Cassie!” came Switzer’s voice from a nearby chair.

  She looked around. She was in Switzer’s office, lying on his couch. It was coming back to her now.

  “That’s it,” he nodded. “You’re in my office. You’re safe.”

  She took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves from the dream.

  “You were crying, Cassie. Then you began screaming. Do you recall what you saw?”

  It took her a second, but then she nodded. “It was the little girl. The one I’ve been seeing...” Cassie thought about it a second. There was more. She turned to Switzer. “I know who she is now. Her name’s Katie. She’s the girl who was killed in the other car.”

  Switzer sat back in his seat and nodded along with her. He’d long ago suspected a connection between this girl Cassie claimed to be seeing and what he felt was her guilt over her complicity in the girl’s death. Cassie’s recognition of this was a considerable step forward.

  “This little girl, did she say anything to you?”

  It always annoyed her when he patronized her like that. They both knew he didn’t believe her, so why put up the act? But she played along anyway.

  “Yeah, she did,” Cassie said and turned to look him in the eyes. “She said you’re wrong about the spirit. That you don’t believe in it. But you will.”

  Switzer was taken aback by the boldness of that last part. But you will. He was quite certain that he wouldn’t.

  As Cassie watched his reaction, she realized there was something in her hand. Without even looking, she knew what it was by its feel. She held it up for Switzer to see — it was the daisy Katie had given her.

  “And she gave me this.”

  ****

  Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

  That line from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle resonated in Switzer’s mind as he contemplated the daisy that sat in a small vase on his desk.

  Also on his desk were two patient files. One of them was Cassie’s file, and the other was for a female patient named Janet Sterling. A photo of each patient was paper clipped to the top left corner of each file.

  Janet’s photo was of the woman Cassie had encountered in the hallway, whose throat had been slit from ear to ear. She was the woman who, as Jenkins had surmised, had taken her own life.

  Inside each file was a drawing that bore a strong similarity to each other. The drawing in Cassie’s file was the printout she had found on Kyle’s website. The similar image in Janet’s file had been drawn by one of the nurses at Switzer’s request.

  Was this all just a coincidence? Switzer was beginning to question this as he again looked back at the daisy in its vase.

  Switzer had no doubt that Cassie’s hands had been empty when their session began. It was common practice to make sure they held nothing with which they might harm themselves.

  And yet there it was.

  Switzer was a man of science. You might even say it was his religion. He was medically trained and prided himself on his ability to find rational explanations for seemingly inexplicable behavior and phenomena.

  And yet there it was.

  In all of his years of practice, only one other patient’s case had challenged Switzer to question his rigid adherence to scientific dogma. And that had been Janet’s.

  Like Cassie, she had claimed to see the specter depicted in the drawing from the corner of her eye, and nurses attending to her had reported various “disturbances,” similar to those felt by those around Cassie. There had been a glass that had fallen, as if knocked from her dresser; lights that had flickered in her room, despite any electrical cause; and they had all reported an inexplicable cold they felt when in her presence. Before long, all of the nurses refused to attend to Janet.

  Switzer had never personally witnessed any of these disturbances and tended to dismiss them as some sort of group hysteria; and yet they persisted. Several nurses had gone so far as to quit their jobs in order to avoid being in the hospital with her.

  The disturbances apparently ended on the night Janet took her own life. But the staff continued to shun the room she had been kept in, so it remained unused to this day. It was the infamous second-floor room 226.

  A knock at the door snapped Switzer from his musings. Charlie poked her head in and held up a large envelope. “Got the results on the MRI you ordered for Cassie Stevens.”

  “Please. Come in.” He waved her over. “Let’s have a look.”

  Charlie walked over and removed an MRI slide from the folder.

  “Were there any abnormalities?” Switzer asked, taking the slide from her.

  Charlie shook her head. “None the radiologist could find. He said it looked like a normal human skull.”

  Switzer held the slide up to the light, shifting it around as he examined it.

  “What about the other slides?” Switzer asked. “Was anything there?”

  Again, Charlie shook her head. “They’re all pretty much the same.”

  Switzer decided to have a look anyway. He slid a second slide from the envelope and held it up to the light.

  Charlie watched as he probed every detail for some sign of abnormality. But there simply weren’t any. “If there’s anything going on in there, it’s sure not showing up on these tests,” she remarked.

  “No. Apparently not.” Switzer put the slide back inside the envelope.

  “Do you want to try again?” she asked. “Maybe recalibrate, and run some more tests?”

  Switzer sat back in his chair, and his eyes drifted over to the daisy. “No,” he said humbly, “that won’t be necessary.” He took his eyes off the flower long enough to give her a nod of thanks. “Thank you, Charlie.”

  “Not a problem. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She turned and headed off.

  “Good-night,” he said, but his thoughts had already drifted elsewhere. Once again he turned his eyes to the daisy. How curious, he thought, that something so small and delicate could unwind years
of rigid scientific dogma.

  Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Fate

  The rain had begun as a drizzle shortly before sundown and by nightfall had grown into a downpour. Distant flashes of lightning cracked the sky, and the deep rumble of thunder rolled in from the ocean.

  Jenkins stood at his bedroom window on the second floor of the rectory. Below, he could see the school courtyard, with its wide marble fountain in the center and the arched breezeways that bordered it on four sides. Each breezeway had mercury vapor lamps mounted to its columns, and they cast the darkness in a yellow hue. It looked particularly foreboding that night.

  The hour was late, and Jenkins needed sleep, but his thoughts were haunted by memories of that dead teenage girl he had encountered all those years ago.

  Natalie Stark.

  Jenkins and everyone involved in that case — police and jailer alike — had spent many sleepless nights after that encounter staring into the shadows and wondering what dark eyes were watching them. And with memories of that grisly encounter with evil stirred, Jenkins again felt those cold dead eyes watching him from the shadows. Each time he had closed his eyes to sleep that night, he felt the foul presence beside him and the sulfurous odor of its breath against his neck.

  Soon, Father. We’re coming for you soon

  Two sharp knocks at the downstairs door startled him from his thoughts. He glanced at the clock on his nightstand, and it showed a little after midnight.

  Who on earth could be out this late on a night like this? Had Sean maybe locked himself out? He waited a moment to see if the knocks persisted...

  Two more knocks came. Jenkins threw on his coat, then headed down the hallway to the stairs and down them to the living room. The front door was directly across from the stairs, and the long window on the front wall gave him enough light to see his way over to it.

  He pressed his eye to the peephole on the door — someone stood outside. The person was a dark silhouette against the night, but Jenkins could see from the outline it was a girl.

  “The rectory is closed for the night,” Jenkins spoke through the door. “We open again at nine in the morning.”

  There was a brief pause, then a girl’s voice spoke from outside. “I’m cold.”

  Jenkins hesitated. She was probably one of the homeless who often slept in the courtyard. There had never been a problem with any of them, and they always cleaned up after themselves in the morning. He knew the charitable thing would be to offer this girl shelter from the storm, and she could leave once it passed.

  That would be the charitable thing.

  Then why did he feel this strange sense of dread?

  He hesitated a moment then asked through the door: “Is there anyone with you?”

  There was another brief pause, then her voice came again in reply.

  “I’m cold.”

  Jenkins pressed his eye back to the peephole. The girl appeared to be alone. But that icy fear was still there.

  Run. Run away. Do not open that door.

  He opened it anyway, and a gust of wind hit him. Beyond the shelter of the porch roof, the rain came down in sheets. But the girl was gone.

  Jenkins stepped out onto the porch. He looked to his left toward the school and courtyard, and beyond that to the dark outline of the church.

  “Hello?” he called out, but all he heard was the heavy drum of rain.

  “Are you still there?” he called out again. There was still no reply.

  He had waited too long, and she had gone off into storm. It didn’t occur to him how she had vanished so quickly.

  He started to return inside the rectory when a sudden flash of lightning lit the night — and in that brief flash, he saw the girl racing down the breezeway towards the courtyard. It was like seeing a ghost with the way her long white gown billowed swiftly in the wind.

  Jenkins shook off that thought.

  “Wait!” he hollered, but his voice failed to carry over the storm.

  Jenkins pulled his coat snuggly around himself then pressed out into the downpour. It bit like stones, and within seconds he was drenched. He ran as quickly as he could over to the breezeway, then took shelter there while he scanned the courtyard for the girl.

  “Hello? Are you here?” he called out. He cupped his hands to his eyes to help him see. The mercury vapor lamps, while providing sufficient light for the breezeways, did little to penetrate the darkness of the courtyard.

  Lightning flashed and briefly lit the courtyard — the girl sat on the rim of the fountain in the courtyard’s center.

  “Young lady,” Jenkins hollered to her. “Please, come in out of the storm. I can allow you to rest inside the rectory.”

  The brief flash of light was gone, but it didn’t appear that she had moved. Maybe she hadn’t heard him.

  Jenkins stepped out from the breezeway and was again pelted by rain. It was cold and miserable, and yet the girl seemed oblivious to it.

  “Please. Come in out of the storm. I apologize for my rudeness earlier.”

  He was close enough now to see her in the storm’s dim light. Her head looked down, and her long dark hair concealed her eyes. She seemed to be staring at something near her bare feet.

  As Jenkins stepped closer, he saw that her drenched white gown was tattered and stained with something dark.

  Blood?

  “Are you okay?” Jenkins asked, now less than ten feet from her. “Do you need me to call for an ambulance?”

  It was only then that the girl seemed to notice him. She lifted her head, and while her eyes remained concealed behind wet tangles of long black hair, he knew she was watching was him.

  And he knew that no human life existed behind those eyes.

  “He sent me for you, Father,” came her voice, croaking with a disturbing resonance that sent chills through Jenkins. She extended her arm from the long sleeve of her gown and rolled it over so that her palm faced upwards.

  There was the deep gouge in her wrist where she had bitten through it decades ago in her jail cell.

  The night she died.

  Jenkins stumbled backward as he felt a steel vice grip his heart.

  The dead teenage girl rose and took a lumbering step toward him... and then another...

  Lighting crashed and struck the transformer on a nearby utility pole. It exploded into sparks. The mercury vapor lamps blinked off and plunged the courtyard, school, and church into darkness.

  The girl took another step, and Jenkins could finally move. He stumbled backward to the breezeway, then raced down it to the back door of the church. He fumbled with his keys and finally got the door open. He took a quick look back down the breezeway, and saw her dark shape lumbering toward him.

  Jenkins ducked in the door and quickly locked it. He was in the back room of the church, where shelves held weekly bulletins and reading materials. Behind him, tall double doors opened into the main sanctuary. Jenkins stepped through them into the church itself. Its vaulted ceiling rose high above, with a choir loft and rows of stained-glass windows lining the walls. What little light there was came through those windows, and was painted in ghostly hues.

  He looked back at the room he had come from, he wondered how long she would stay out there? Till sunrise? Or later?

  Was she still out there?

  It was then that he felt the cold soulless eyes watching him.

  She wasn’t out there.

  He turned in the direction of the altar at the far end of the church, and his blood turned to ice.

  Like a grim harbinger of death, the dead girl floated in the air above the altar. Her blood-stained gown hung from skeletal shoulders, and her arms reached outward from her sides. It was an unholy mockery of the figure of Jesus on the large wooden cross behind her.

  Jenkins took a step back, but invisible hands gripped him by the neck. He was raised five feet off the floor and slammed into t
he back wall.

  Every muscle in his aged body tensed with frantic efforts to break free. But that grip held him like a vice.

  The dead girl watched from beneath her long matted hair. Then she extended her arms forward and floated across the sanctuary toward him.

  Jenkins could no longer move and could barely think; so great was the terror that froze him. He could only watch in horror as the phantom floated ever closer.

  Stained-glass windows began shattering along the walls, spraying colored shards across the pews. Lights flickered on in the chandeliers, then burst in bright flashes. Heavy wooden pews broke from their floor bolts and crashed across the floor.

  Then came a sudden, blinding flash. Lightning streaked through a shattered window and exploded on the large wooden cross. It shattered into splinters and shot large shards like missiles through the church.

  One javelin-sized shard shot down the aisle past the girl and plunged through Jenkins’ lower chest. So great was its force, that it planted in the brick wall behind him, pinning him to it.

  That unseen force released its grip on his neck, and his torso fell forward onto the shard.

  With his final thought, he whispered a prayer for Cassie’s liberation.

  ****

  Miles away, Switzer sat alone in his office at Hillview. He had committed to read at least a few chapters of Jenkins’ book on demonic possession; and now, as the clock ticked well past midnight, he found himself completely absorbed in its well-documented chronicles of ordinary people who had fallen under possession.

  As he read the case histories, each meticulously documented with footnotes and an extensive bibliography, he recorded notes to himself on a microcassette recorder he kept on his desk.

  He reached the end of the latest chapter and traced his finger to a footnote at the bottom of the page. He pressed the record button on the small recorder and spoke into its microphone: “Page ninety-two. Have Cynthia locate the New York Journal article referenced in footnote sixty-three.” He clicked it off.

  Lightning flashed suddenly outside his window. There was a loud crash from somewhere, and the hospital’s lights flickered out. It left his office cast in the storm’s dim gray pall.