by Mark Lukens
Richard still held Father O’Leary by the threat. Richard spoke in a language Father O’Leary had never heard before.
An inhuman and guttural language.
A demon language.
The half-smile had never left Richard’s face.
Richard squirted the lighter fluid onto Father O’Leary’s struggling body, all over his black clothing, and then he tossed the plastic container away onto the floor. Then he picked the young priest up by his throat and threw him across the room like he weighed ten pounds.
Father O’Leary flew through the air and then collided with the candles on the table in the corner of the room.
Flames whooshed up.
Father O’Leary screamed.
†
Paul heard the screams from the bedroom. It was a man screaming, and Paul had no doubt that it was Father O’Leary.
He had to help the young priest. He tried to run, but Father James knocked him to the floor with a vicious blow.
Paul hit the linoleum floor and tried to get back up, but a pain exploded in the side of his head. The priest was too strong with the demon inside of him. Paul needed to get through to Father James who was trapped somewhere inside.
Paul crawled backwards away from Father James; he was still on the floor in a crablike position, ready to jump up and defend himself.
Father James walked towards him and loomed over him with an ax.
Where had he found an ax? Who kept an ax in their house?
And now Paul realized what he had overlooked. He had missed the details, the signs, and now Father O’Leary was being injured, maybe even killed, because of Paul’s inattention to detail. And now maybe he himself was going to die because of his mistake.
There was no way Julia could be possessed this deeply without other people noticing, without her father or mother seeking help. And now Paul knew why. Richard knew Julia was possessed the whole time, because he was possessed, too.
A long time ago the two of them had opened that door, maybe only a crack, but they had let the darkness inside of them. It had grown inside of them, getting stronger and stronger, until it had taken over completely.
Something was inside that other room in the hallway, the one behind the closed door that he hadn’t checked. There was something in there that he should’ve seen, at least guessed at. Maybe it was an altar. Or it was their sacrifice or their symbols and gifts to the Dark Lord and his minions.
Father James swung the ax down, driving the tip of it down into the linoleum floor. Paul moved out of the way just in time and then kicked the old man in the knee, catching him off balance and driving him back away from him. It was a kick that would’ve normally injured the old man severely, possibly even broken his leg. But the old priest had super strength now and nothing could hurt him.
“Father James!” Paul shouted as he jumped to his feet. “I know you’re still in there! You can’t let this demon control you! Father O’Leary is in danger. He’s hurt. He’s dying! We have to help him!”
Paul felt a heat radiating out of the hallway, and Father O’Leary’s screams floated out on that wave of heat. He could even smell the smoke. He could hear the crackling of flames.
Somewhere a smoke alarm was sounding off.
Oh God, the house is on fire!
It was Richard and Julia’s ultimate sacrifice and their ultimate gift to the Darkness—the killing of a priest.
Father James got back to his feet. His eyes were still black and the half smile was still on his lips.
Paul couldn’t keep fighting Father James—it would take too much time. It was just a distraction so he couldn’t get to Father O’Leary.
He jumped to his feet and was about to run down the hall into the smoke and heat.
But then something happened in a split second. Something changed on Father James’s face. The twisted smile was gone, his mouth dropping down into a frown, his long face jowly once again. His eyes cleared, his black eyeballs turned back to blue again. He was suddenly aware, but confused.
The demon had let the priest go.
But why?
Demons never let anyone go voluntarily—they always held on to the bitter end until they were driven out.
Something was wrong here.
Father James looked at the destruction of the kitchen table and chairs, then down at the ax stuck in the floor, then back up at Paul. It was like he suddenly realized that the house was heating up, smoke drifting into the kitchen, the smoke alarm screeching from somewhere down the hallway.
“What happened?” Father James croaked.
“You were possessed.”
Father James shook his head no as if that were impossible, his jowly cheeks quivering.
Paul didn’t have time to argue with the old priest, there would be plenty of time to argue about it later if the old man could ever be convinced that a demon had taken possession of his body and controlled him like a puppet.
“You need to call 911!” Paul yelled at the priest. “Use your cell phone if you have one, or there’s one in my truck. You need to get out; this whole house is going to be on fire soon!”
“Where are you going?”
“To get Father O’Leary. He’s still in the bedroom.”
“What about Richard? Julia?”
“It’s too late for them now.”
Paul saw the confusion on the priest’s face, the questions racing through his mind, but he didn’t give him a chance to ask them. He grabbed the black box from the floor near the wall and ran down the hallway.
He kicked the bedroom door open and rushed inside. The far wall was engulfed in flames. Father O’Leary had stopped screaming because he was dead. His charred body was slumped down and curled up in the corner over what used to be the end table.
Paul dove down under the low ceiling of black smoke and grabbed his tape recorder and his canvas bag.
Richard rushed at him out of the flames and smoke. The thing that used to be Richard tried to grab at Paul, but his hands touched the black box and he flinched back into the smoke and flames. It was enough of a flinch for Paul to back up towards the door, just enough of a distraction.
Paul backed up to the bedroom door about to leave.
Richard and Julia stood hand-in-hand in the flames that had already caught the bed on fire.
Neither one of them moved. They stood among the flames with the twisted half-smiles on their faces, staring at Paul with their completely black eyes.
Paul hesitated for a moment in the doorway. “There’s still time!” he yelled at them over the roaring flames and screeching smoke alarms. “You can repent! He will forgive you!”
Neither one of them answered. Neither one of them moved. They just waited in the flames, smiling.
Paul ducked out of the bedroom and slammed the door shut on the flames and smoke. He thought of stuffing some of Julia’s clothes from the living room underneath the door to block the smoke and possibly slow the fire down a little, but he decided not to bother.
This house needed to burn.
Richard and Julia couldn’t be saved now, he knew that. They had made their pact with the Darkness a long time ago.
It had been difficult to see before in the darkness inside the house, but now with the roiling smoke it was nearly impossible. Paul felt his way along the hall, past the locked door, then past the archway into the kitchen, and then out into the living room.
The front door was wide open and the night outside was lighter than the inside of the house. The rain was still coming down, but it was a lot lighter than it had been before.
Paul grabbed his coat and hat from the arm of the couch, and then he was out the door.
He heard screams coming from the bedroom as he left the house. Julia’s screams. Richard’s screams.
Father James waited for Paul in the front yard. He stood in the rain, right in the middle of a large muddy puddle, his shoes caked with mud now, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Where’s Tim?” Father James a
sked.
That must’ve been Father O’Leary’s first name, Paul thought.
“I’m sorry. He didn’t make it.”
Father James’s shoulders slumped, his face hung even lower, like he was fighting back tears. “Richard and Julia?”
“They were possessed all along. I think they drew us here.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. To kill us. To sacrifice us. To spread the possession.” But Paul thought he might know the real reason why they were brought here and it sickened him. He didn’t want to think about it.
He remembered the voice that had emanated from Father James’s throat when he’d been possessed.
I am the Terror By Night, and I am going to take everything away from you, Paul. Everything that you love.
“Let’s get these vehicles moved back away from the house,” Paul told the old priest, gently guiding him by the arm out of the puddle he was standing in.
“But the house,” Father James muttered. His voice was slow and thick, like shock was setting in. “The fire …”
“There’s nothing we can do about it now. Maybe the rain will slow it down a little before the fire trucks get here.”
Paul turned and looked at the house. He saw the flames exploding out of the side window near the back of the house, the flames spiraling up into the night sky, spreading along the roof quickly, like the fire was alive.
No, the rain wasn’t going to slow this fire down, Paul thought. Not this fire.
I am going to take everything away from you, Paul, the voice echoed in his mind again. Everything that you love.
Paul thought of his son. His daughter. His ex-wife.
CHAP†ER EIGH†
Paul and Father James were allowed to leave the property after the sheriff had taken their statements. Father McFadden had shown up when the police arrived and he had vouched for what had happened here at the Whittier house.
Paul and Father James had gotten their stories straight before the cops got there. They told the police that they’d been here on the Church’s authority to investigate a case of possession, but the father of the daughter had turned violent and started a fire in the house, killing himself, his daughter, and Father O’Leary.
The cops seemed like they believed Paul’s story, but they promised to investigate further. But Paul knew they wouldn’t find much evidence inside the house—it had been burnt nearly to the ground. But he had a suspicion that they might eventually find the mother/wife’s body buried somewhere on the property—sacrificed a short time ago by Richard and Julia.
Before Paul left, he gave Father McFadden a brief account of what had really happened (he’d left out some of the more unbelievable parts of the account to the cops, including Father James’s possession), and Paul promised to give Father McFadden a complete written report in a few days, as was protocol. Father McFadden promised that he and the Church would clear things up at the Whittier house and that neither Paul nor Father James would face any further inquiries from the police.
A little while after his conversation with Father McFadden, Paul drove home, driving back down the sloppy trail through the woods.
He dialed Rachael’s home number in Cleveland, Ohio as he drove, but got no answer even though it was one o’clock in the morning and she and the kids should be at home. He called Rachael’s cell phone after getting no answer on her house phone. No answer on her cell either, so he left a message for her.
“Hi, Rachael,” he said into the phone. “It’s Paul. Sorry to call so late. I just really need to talk to you about something. Please call me back as soon as you get this. It doesn’t matter what time it is, just call me. Please. Thanks.”
He hung up the phone.
What else could he say? That she and the kids might be in grave danger right now? The reason she had kept the kids after they had divorced, and the reason she had never allowed Paul much contact with his kids over the last few years, was because Rachael didn’t want the disease of his delusions (as she called them) to infect her children.
Damn, if she would just believe him. Trust him this one time.
But she was a firm believer that God was just an abstract idea, if there even was a god, which she’d expressed several times that she wasn’t sure about yet.
At the time Paul had met Rachael, Paul was wrestling with his own doubts about God. Even though he’d come from a long line of Investigators, he didn’t want to believe, he didn’t want to follow in their footsteps. He didn’t want that life.
But after Danny and Lisa were born, and after his own father had died, Paul started changing. And year after year he drifted back towards God. And towards his true calling. He couldn’t stay away; he couldn’t turn his back on the Voice calling to him.
Rachael didn’t understand.
They grew further and further apart. Paul wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps after he died. But Rachael didn’t want that kind of life for herself, or for her kids.
She always called them her kids.
But they were his kids, too.
Not anymore. Rachael had filed a restraining order against Paul because of his delusional fantasies that he was some kind of crusading demon hunter for God.
Paul talked to his children on the phone sometimes, but he could hear the resentment in their voices. Now that they were teenagers, Danny seventeen and Lisa fourteen, they were growing away from him. Rachael thought it would be easier if she just told the kids that Paul wanted to stay away from them rather than saddle their children with the idea that their father was mentally ill. What if the kids feared becoming mentally ill themselves? Rachael had argued. What if they believed Paul’s sickness could be passed down genetically?
And Paul had reluctantly agreed to stay away from his own children.
Paul knew Rachael’s worst fear was that one or maybe both of their children would end up like him, living in this fantasy world of God and demons and possessions.
Rachael felt (irrationally anyway, because Rachael was a big believer in science) that keeping their children away from Paul would keep them from being exposed to his sickness, like he had some kind of virus that could be caught by close proximity.
Paul sent birthday and Christmas cards every year. He shipped Christmas presents in the mail. He called his kids every few weeks and tried to talk to them—as long as they would let him, anyway. As long as Rachael would let them.
It crushed him that he wasn’t allowed to see his children anymore; it crushed him that he wasn’t allowed to be in their lives, to know them. Why would God allow that? Why did God call him to this duty that drove him away from his family?
Yet, on the other hand, a small part of him was glad that he wasn’t around his family, that they weren’t close to the evils that he faced, that they were safe from the darkness he was drawn to and duty-bound to fight.
Yes, maybe God was working in His mysterious ways even though Paul wasn’t happy about it.
Feeling his children were far away and safe had always comforted Paul a little.
Until tonight.
Until the warning.
He had to be sure his family was safe.
†
Paul drove down his neighborhood street in Boston and pulled up to his row house that was squeezed in between two other homes that lined the narrow street. His Ford Bronco rumbled with power as he eased it into his driveway. He was sure his neighbors weren’t too happy about hearing the throaty growl of his truck pulling into the driveway at two thirty in the morning.
Paul shut off his truck and grabbed his coat, hat, and canvas duffel bag. He got out of the truck and shut the door as quietly as he could. A quick glance around told him that a few lights were on here and there in the other houses, but he didn’t see anyone peeking out the window at him.
His body was sore from the fight he’d had with Father James. He knew it would probably be worse in the morning. But he would take a few aspirins and keep going—he had felt worse than this before. Much wor
se.
He unlocked his front door and entered his dark home. He flipped on the light switch which lit up the lamp next to the armchair in the living room. He closed his front door and locked it. And then he engaged the deadbolt, listening to the loud thunk of metal thumping into the wood frame of the door.
After he hung his coat and hat on an antique coat rack near the front closet door, he dropped his canvas bag down beside the recliner next to the couch. He went to the kitchen for a drink.
The kitchen was as Spartan and minimal as the rest of Paul’s home. Not much in the way of décor, and nothing that didn’t serve a purpose. The sink was empty and gleaming, the dishes put away. The countertops were bare except for the toaster, the coffee machine, and four ceramic canisters that held coffee, tea, sugar, and salt.
He flipped on the light over the stove instead of the harsh fluorescent lights overhead and the yellowish light provided a cozy glow in the small kitchen. A small four-seat table was shoved against the wall and it served as the dining room table. A large iron crucifix hung on the wall above the table.
Paul opened the cabinet next to the refrigerator that housed a few recipe books, a holiday dinner set passed down from his mother that he never used, little jars of spices, cold medicines, and some other odds and ends. And there was a bottle of vodka.
He poured himself half a glass of vodka. He popped two aspirins into his mouth and chased them down with the fiery liquid. He set his cell phone on the kitchen counter and sat down at the table with the glass of vodka in his hand. He sat in the kitchen, listening to the hum of the refrigerator and watched the cell phone like Rachael might call at any minute.
But he knew better than that.
He knew he would have to call her again tomorrow.
CHAP†ER NINE
Cleveland, Ohio
Danny walked home from school down the wide streets of Parma, a suburb of Cleveland. The Victorian-style houses were set close to the street with only small squares of green lawns in front of them. He walked underneath ancient trees that ran in a line down both sides of the street between the sidewalk and the road. Cars and trucks were squeezed into the driveways that ran down along the sides of the houses, many of the driveways leading to free-standing garages in the backyards.