The Dark Man

by Desmond Doane

  “Definitely. She’s gone,” I say. “Just like always, and I don’t know how I know, but I can feel it. Heaven or hell, she went somewhere else.”

  “Ssshh,” Mike whispers, putting a finger up to his lips. “You hear that? Footsteps?”

  “I thought it was a door latch. Metallic, maybe.”

  “Let’s go check.”

  From down the hall, we hear a tremendous crash. Mike and I rush for the door, allow each other to exit without a comical mishap, and once we step into the upstairs hall, I can immediately tell what happened. In the far front room, the spartan one where Azeraul had hidden earlier, a rush of water is leaking out from underneath the closed door.

  “The vase,” I say.

  “Yep.”

  “God, feel the temperature in here.”

  “Feels like it dropped another five.”

  “It must be fifty degrees.”

  Mike turns on his thermal imaging camera. “Good call. Solid forty-nine point two, except for that bedroom.”

  “What’s it reading?”

  He holds the camera sideways so that I can see the screen. The door is glowing white hot on the monochromatic setting. A small cursor, ironically in the shape of a cross, plots around the screen, scanning temperatures and giving us an idea of what the laser is picking up with various locations. When it dances across the door, I almost expect it to read sixty-six point six. Instead, I’m blown away when I see eighty-seven degrees.

  “Eighty-seven? Are you kidding me? And that’s the outside of the door.”

  “I can’t even imagine what it’s like inside there.”

  I feel a slight rumble in my feet. It’s a muted shake, almost like the platform in a subway station when the train rolls in for a stop. “Dude? You feel that?”

  “Yeah.”

  We both look down at the hardwood flooring and retreat a step, as if that will have any bearing on our safety.

  “Any trains close by?” he asks.

  “Nope.”

  “Didn’t see headlights so I’m guessing no semis come down this street.”

  “Residential,” I remind him. “No restaurants or convenience stores for blocks.”

  “Then it’s our buddy, or not?”

  “Azeraul? Could be, but I would think—”

  Something pounds against the inside of the closed bedroom door.

  BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

  It’s thirty feet from us, but I can feel the reverberations in my feet. They’ve escalated. It’s no longer the rumble of an approaching subway train. Instead, it almost feels as if we’re standing on top of an unbalanced washer. Almost like a rhythmic thumping under the soles of our shoes.

  To our left and right, here in this cramped hall, the walls are grumbling. I put my hand out and feel the pressure being built up inside them.

  “This fucking thing is strong,” I tell Mike. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

  “Not since the Hopper house.”

  It’s dark in here. Damn, is it dark. You’d think with some of the streetlights outside, there would be more of a glow, yet it feels like Azeraul is draining all the light out of this place. No wonder Dave Craghorn had such a pallid look to his skin.

  Craghorn.

  Craghorn’s skin.

  I keep forgetting to talk to Mike about Craghorn’s skin. No time for that now.

  We both stand motionless, like breathing cadavers, watching the room, waiting on whatever comes next.

  “Mike?” I whisper with a tremor in my tone.

  “What?”

  “I’m not gonna lie, dude. I’m not sure I want to go in that room.” I expect him to shoehorn me into attacking this demon. I expect him to say something about how the great Ford Atticus Ford of the past would never back down, and what happened to wrecking this thing’s ass?

  Instead, he says, “Me—uh, me neither.”

  “Want to stall a minute, see if it burns itself out?”

  “Please.”

  BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

  The pounding isn’t just in the door this time, it feels as if a giant is slamming the home’s foundation with a monstrous warhammer.

  It’s not enough to make me stumble, yet I have to hold my arms out to keep my balance. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. People always talk about how that happens to them during a scary movie—maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t—but wait until you’re standing in a house with a demon and see what happens.

  That shit is real.

  “I can’t breathe. Can we get out of this hallway?” Mike asks without waiting for an answer. I agree immediately and follow him, albeit forward, which is not exactly my preferred direction, until we’re at the landing where it’s less suffocating. The long set of stairs stretch out below us, and we both move behind the banister to our right, as if these dark-stained slats will give us any layer of protection.

  “How long do we wait?”

  “As long as it takes. That door,” Mike says, looking down at the thermal camera, “is up to ninety-two degrees. It can’t sustain this much—”

  A violent rumble interrupts Mike. The entire house shudders.

  BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

  I tell Mike, “He keeps that up, he won’t have much left.”

  “Seems like it’s getting stronger. We gotta wait, Ford. I go home with company, especially something like this? Toni will murder me before it has a chance to.”

  “Agreed. I talk a big game, but this is an entirely different sport.”

  We’re both so caught up in the moment that I realize we’re not running any equipment other than Mike’s thermal imager. We never had a chance to set up our spotcams on the second floor, and I still have the GS-5000 shoved in my back pocket. I’m hoping that our cameras downstairs are picking this up on audio and capturing the shaking.

  I pull the voice recorder out, offer Mike an earbud, and he declines.

  “Thanks, but I’d rather not hear what that thing has to say.”

  I press record and wait through the rumbling of the floorboards, the rattling of the picture frames, and the erratic breathing of one Mike Long, once famous paranormal investigator. Aside from the static hiss crawling in over the top of the surrounding noises, I hear nothing. I wait and I wait, and the floor continues to shiver under our feet.

  BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

  I jump. Mike jumps.

  And then we’re engulfed in shuddering silence once again.

  I expected demonic growls. I expected this almighty right-hander to come across the airwaves, shouting vicious words of putrid hate at us. But he’s not, and after witnessing this display of incredible power, I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m still not going anywhere near that door.

  “Can we take a breather for a sec?” I ask.

  “Now?”

  “I need to think about something else before I piss myself.”

  “Fair enough.”

  I ask him, “Probably not the best time, but Craghorn—what was it about his skin? Something made my sixth sense tingle.”

  “You’re right, it is bad timing,” Mike says, glancing at me while keeping a wary eye on the superheated bedroom door. “But yeah, what I didn’t get was, if his whole damn body was covered in that roadmap of claw marks and scratches and scars, why weren’t there any on his face?”

  “There weren’t?” I try to picture Craghorn in my mind— BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

  Goddamn it.

  —and I see a diminutive, timid man wearing slacks, a long-sleeve shirt, and a jacket in the middle of a summer heat wave. I haven’t seen him in six hours, but under such duress with that fucking thing over there, trying to rip the house off its foundation, I’m having trouble recalling Craghorn’s face. Long hair. Goatee. I picture him showing me his arms and his belly, his scarred back, and then his face comes into focus. It’s somewhat pockmarked from an unfortunate childhood with either smallpox or acne, but not a single series of three claw marks mocking the Holy Trinity.

  “Shit. Smooth as a baby�
��s behind, wasn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “Fine, as smooth as the moon’s surface, but what do you think it means?”

  “Use your head, man—”

  A gut-wrenching roar emanates from the room and scrapes at my eardrums. It’s the wail of a million souls swallowing acid. It’s a pterodactyl being burned alive. It’s Godzilla stepping on a Lego in the middle of the night.

  Mike puts a hand on my arm and pulls me into a retreating step.

  “You don’t think he was lying, do you?”

  “That’s exactly what I think.”

  “Craghorn was making it all up?”

  “Well, not all of it. I mean, witness Exhibit A behind that door.”

  As if on cue, and reacting to us acknowledging his presence, Azeraul pounds the door yet again.

  BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

  “Goddamn, that’s getting annoying,” Mike says.

  “He’s not backing down, is he?”

  “EMF meter is red-lining big time.”

  “Okay, so, Craghorn. You think he’s using this demon as an alibi? Sort of?”

  “Think about it. He’s got marks all over his whole body. Even told me they’re on the bottom of his feet. While you were down talking to the detective, Craghorn showed me places I didn’t necessarily want to see. He’s covered. All but his face.”

  Lightbulb. Sometimes I’m dense. “Ooooh, which he can’t hide in public with long sleeves or pants.”

  “Ding ding ding.”

  “So you think he killed her? You think he found out about Louisa’s affair? Choked her to death, then dumped her in the Chesapeake Bay?”

  “Doesn’t that make sense to you?”

  The pounding hasn’t happened in at least thirty seconds, and I glance at the thermal imager to see if the temperature has gone down. Fingers crossed, I’m hoping Azeraul is burning himself out again.

  Nope. The exterior temperature of the door has actually spiked by another degree.

  “Ninety-three,” Mike announces.

  “I noticed.”

  “He’s building up.”

  “I noticed that, too.”

  The doorknob begins to rattle. I can’t see it from here, but I’ve heard that sound enough over the years to peg precisely what it is. It’s a sound that’s as distinct as clipping your nails.

  “Umm,” Mike whines, retreating another step.

  I follow him.

  “I’m buying that Craghorn is hiding something with the claw marks, but—”

  “Ford?”

  “I don’t understand what it could be. Your theory makes sense from every angle—”

  “Ford. Look.”

  “I see it.” The door is creeping open, centimeter by centimeter. “But the thing is, Detective Thomas told me that Craghorn has a solid alibi. He wasn’t anywhere near Louisa. He was out of town on business for two weeks prior to when they found her body. Forensics said she’d only been in the bay for a week.”

  “Hitman?”

  The bedroom door slams open, violently. There’s an explosion of plaster and the door gets stuck because the handle is imbedded in the wall.

  We scamper back to Louisa’s room. Why? Who knows? It feels safe back there. Going forward to reach the stairs would mean going toward Azeraul.

  No, thank you.

  The almighty Ford Atticus Ford and Mike “The Exterminator” Long are officially terrified.

  Mike admits it out loud, and I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever felt this level of fear.

  Now I know what little Chelsea Hopper must have felt like before I talked her into climbing that ladder.

  I try to make a joke. I do that in the worst possible situations sometimes. It’s a defense mechanism. I say, “Hey, Mike?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t let the dark man get me, okay?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  You know what’s really damn eerie? Looking down an empty hallway and hearing slow, methodical footsteps coming in your direction without being able to see what’s there.

  This isn’t just my ego talking, but it’s likely that I’ve performed more investigations than any other working paranormal investigator, in the public eye and out, yet that gets me every single time. You’d think I would be used to it by now. You’d think that I’d be like, “Oh, shucks, there’s a spirit coming, time to go say howdy.”

  Nope.

  Each time is different. Each new experience brings new fear, new challenges.

  That thing marching down the hallway? It’s an approaching storm, much like the flickering lightning and distant rumbles outside, and it’s about to unleash the fury of hell instead of a cleansing rain.

  I duck my head back inside Louisa’s room. “He’s coming.”

  “I can hear it.”

  “Not it. Him.”

  “Whatever the fuck that thing is, Ford, it’s coming, and I can hear it.”

  Mike tells me this as he’s frantically working with his digital voice recorder, the thermal imaging camera, the full-spectrum cameras, everything we brought, all of which seem to have simultaneously lost battery power. To a ghost or a demon, a fresh battery is a protein bar packed with extra caffeine.

  Azeraul sounds like he’s still twenty feet down the hall, and somehow he’s reached inside this room and sucked the life out of our equipment, essentially leaving us defenseless.

  Mike screams, “Shit!” and slams a now-useless recorder down onto a crate. A plastic button pops off, bounces to the side, and drops to the floor.

  We exchange worried glances.

  Worried about demonic possession. Worried about physical damage and pain.

  Worried about taking something home with us that might affect our friends and loved ones.

  For Mike, he has an entire family to worry about.

  For me, it’s just Ulie, but I love that mutt like my own child, and I don’t want anything to happen to him. Pets are sensitive, I’ve explained that, but I’ve also seen horrible cases where family pets have been mutilated by outraged, jealous, vindictive spirits and soulless demonic entities as a means of retribution or mental torture. That’s not happening to my pup. No way.

  I’m filled with a renewed sense of vigor, thinking about this thing trying to do harm to our families.

  They say that true courage is running into the battle even when you’re scared.

  Well, I’m no hero, but I’m not a pansy, either.

  Mike shouts, “Goddamn it!” at the ceiling. “Another one, dead in seconds.” He pulls a rechargeable battery out of a full-spectrum camera, flings it across the room, and we’re immediately greeted with the sound of shattering glass. Just a picture frame. Not a window. Though I doubt Craghorn would care much if he’s never coming back here.

  In addition to the footsteps, Azeraul knocks on the wall.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Step, step.

  It sounds like hard-soled shoes on a hardwood floor, but I know better. That’s the clop of hooves.

  Step, step. Tap, tap, tap.

  He’s teasing us.

  Step. Tap, tap, tap. Step.

  “Holy water, Mike.”

  “What?”

  “Your holy water. Give it to me.”

  He yanks the small bottle out of his utility belt and tosses it over. “That’ll probably be like shooting a charging bull with a marshmallow gun, but what the hell, you can try.”

  Step, step.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  “I can do this,” I say. “You just see if you can get one of those DVRs working. Or the spirit box. Something. I want to have a chat with this son of a bitch.”

  “Yeah, right,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t do anything stupid. You know how you get when—”

  I hold my palm up. “I got this. It’ll be okay.”

  Step, step.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Azeraul can’t be more than ten feet from us.

  Outside, over the rooftop of a distant offi
ce building, a bolt of lightning shreds the sky in half, a yellow streak across a mottled black canvas.

  A beat later, thunder reverberates throughout the house, rattling loose-paned glass windows.

  Sure, maybe that’s a subtle warning from God, but the dude ain’t here right now to tell me in person, so I’m pushing ahead.

  I unscrew the cap on the bottle of holy water, shove it in my pocket, and then sidestep over to the bedroom door, scooting and sliding, really, until my shoulder is just inside the opening. I lean out quickly for a peek and duck back inside. It appears empty, as expected. For the sake of my soul, it’s better that I don’t see it. My morbid curiosity, though, would like to witness a demon manifest in the flesh. Once would be enough. Once might be the only chance I’d ever get.

  Mike says, “Hey, hang on. Look what I found.” He hands me a crucifix, a much larger version of the one hanging on the chain around my neck. “It was over there on top of that box. Must’ve been Louisa’s.”

  “Little extra ammo never hurt anybody. You should probably know that you’re in my will, just make sure the lawyers know where to find you,” I say, and then take three quick breaths in succession. I dart through the doorway and hold the crucifix aloft with one hand, squeezing a short stream of holy water down the hall with the other. I manage to say, “In the name of our Lord—” before I hear the same eardrum-scraping scream as before.

  Only now it’s directly in front of me and so loud that I can feel the sound slithering over my skin.

  Before I can react, before I can dart back into the room, a searing hot hand clasps my throat, clenching tightly, sharp claws gouging my skin.

  I lash out with the crucifix, trying to use it as a hammer, and sling more holy water at the invisible demon in front of me.

  Another acid-drenched screech fills the hall, and underneath it, I can hear Mike shouting, “Ford! Get back in here!”

  The white-hot hand is crushing my windpipe. I manage to gurgle, “Can’t. Too strong.”

  Another stream of holy water. Another wail.

  “In … the name of … God, our Father in Heaven … I command you … Get off me!” I shove the crucifix forward, in the direction where I suspect Azeraul’s face might be, and I hear the crackling, hissing sound of searing demon flesh.