A howling, louder than anything I’ve heard so far, explodes throughout the static-filled space around me. It’s hideous and coated with such vile hatred that it weakens my heartbeat.
Then, a deep, disembodied voice says, “Hell waits for you, Ford.”
And then the pressure on my neck is gone.
It hurts like, well, it hurts like hell, and I feel like someone held a hot iron to my throat, but at least I can take a breath.
It’s warmer, too. Noticeably warmer, as if the temperature in the hallway is clicking up a degree with each tick-tock of the supposedly broken grandfather clock downstairs.
I slump to the floor. I barely have the energy to hold my head up.
My vision swims, and Mike is at my side, hands under my arms, trying to drag me back into the bedroom. He’s saying something, yet I can’t make out what, because the only thing that’s at the forefront of my mind is that this demon called me out by name. Again.
There’s power in a name.
I’m not sure how long I’m out, but it’s the second time I’ve been unconscious around Mike today. At least it wasn’t his fists of fury that put me down into la-la land. I’m hoping this doesn’t become a trend, because I’m not a fan of it.
Actually, before I open my eyes, I lie here for a second because I can hear Mike talking, and it’s slightly amusing. He obviously doesn’t know I’m conscious yet, and this might be a perfect chance for good ammunition down the road.
“Dear Heavenly Father, hallowed by thy name, your will be done on earth as … As what? Jesus. Why can’t I remember this? On earth as in heaven! Right. That’s right. And then—shit. Forget it. Amen. Just do not let him be possessed, okay? Please? I know you’re up there, God, and I know you’re listening, because there can’t be good without evil and evil without good, and whatever that thing was, it was evil, so I know you’re up there, too. Just—look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I didn’t stick closer to my friend, and I’m sorry I abandoned him, but you gotta understand—it was harsh—harsh—that thing we did. He did. And I couldn’t stand by that, and now, Jesus, who knows what’s going on. All I’m trying to say is, if you’ll take this off of him, get this demon out of him, we can fight it, and I’ll make him, or we—we—can figure out what it was that attacked the Hopper girl, okay? We’ll fight it for you. We’ll be holy warriors, or whatever.”
I open my eyes and say, “Dude, it’s not your fault.”
Mike yelps, lurches back, and then pulls me in with a strong hug. He’s overjoyed for a good fifteen seconds before he leans into a solid punch that will certainly leave a bruise on my chest.
“Damn you, Ford,” Mike says. “How long were you awake?”
“Lord’s Prayer. After all these years, how it is possible that you don’t have it memorized?”
“You better believe I’m gonna learn it now. Are you okay?” He helps me to my feet, hands on both of my shoulders, and starts to survey me the way a mother does when her only son gets home from the war.
“Does it seem brighter in here?”
I hadn’t noticed that the storm finally arrived, but it’s reached an apex. Lighting flashes and thunder bellows its damning curse. Bulging, pregnant drops of rain slam against the windows.
Yet the spare bedroom, our sanctuary, appears to be livelier. Alleviated. Unburdened.
“I swear, man, as soon as you got rid of that thing, it was almost like somebody turned on a low-watt lightbulb or lifted a blanket off the streetlights. So crazy.”
Mike lets go of me and backs up a step with his hands on his hips. I roll my shoulders and crack my neck, then give him some bad news. “It’s not completely gone,” I say. “It’s still here.”
A grin spreads his lips, pulls his cheeks up until the dimples are on display—the same dimples that thousands of spotcamgirls tweeted and posted about for years. I haven’t seen Mike smile like that since, well, it was a long time before Chelsea Hopper. I can remember that much.
“You’re fucking with me, right?”
I’m not, and he knows it. We’ve been friends and partners long enough for him to understand what I’m getting at. I’ve mentioned that I’m ‘sensitive’ to spirits, for lack of a better word, and at the moment, I can feel that Azeraul remains in this house. Lurking. Holding back. Waiting and conserving his energy. If it’s like before, it’ll be another fifteen minutes or so before he can fully attack again.
I don’t plan for us to be in this house for that long, but I’m not done yet.
“You can feel it, can’t you?”
“He’s weak, but he’s here. I don’t know where.” I point to Mike’s utility belt. Each of his devices hang in their slots like grenade duds, useless and weighing him down. “You got any batteries left for those?”
“Ford, no.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah, one set left for the DVR. He didn’t get those.”
“Load ‘em up.”
“Hell no. Let’s beat feet and get away from it. It’s too powerful, and this is a fight we cannot win. You know me, Ford. I don’t ever back down from a challenge, but I know when to cut my losses and move on.”
I hold out my hand and waggle my fingers. The international sign for “gimme.”
“I’m telling you, don’t do it. Don’t risk it. Look at your neck. You’re already contaminated. One more like that, and—”
“Mike! Enough. Just give me the damn DVR. You can leave if you want, but I need answers.”
He relents with a huff forceful enough to knock down a Clydesdale.
“What?”
“Nothing, it’s just that you remind me of somebody I used to know.”
“Who?”
“The old Ford. The real one.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The upstairs seems dead—pardon the afterlife pun—so Mike and I move downstairs. He keeps checking his watch, every fifteen or twenty seconds, and I finally tell him to chill because the anxious repetition is driving my own angst level exponentially higher. “And besides,” I tell him, “if this right-hander’s recharge time is a little over fourteen minutes, then we have—”
“Eight minutes and thirty-seven seconds left,” Mike says, interrupting with a voice that quakes over some obvious nervous tension.
“That’s an eternity. If we were in the fourth quarter of an NFL game, we’d have, like, another thirty minutes to go.”
“Shitty metaphor. We don’t get any timeouts.”
I smirk and see that my attempts at calming him aren’t working. He’s almost vibrating.
“You getting anything on the live feed?” he asks.
“Nada. Quiet as a tomb in here.”
“Are you intentionally fucking with me?”
“Probably a little.” I readjust the earbuds, and if it’s possible to physically do so, I listen harder. There’s only the sound of our shoes on the hardwood floor, Mike’s uneasy breathing, and the occasional creak of a board underfoot or a door swinging open. I don’t bother audibly marking them on the recording because I’m so amped up about this moment, I’m mentally logging everything. It’s only the two—well, three—of us inside this house, and the contamination from outside is so minimal it might as well not exist. We’re in a vacuum, just us and him.
“Seven fifty,” Mike informs me.
“Relax. Please.”
“I can’t, man.” He cracks his knuckles and wiggles his fingers. “I don’t know what to do with my hands when I’m not holding something.”
“Use one of them to cover your mouth. I’m trying to listen. In fact, maybe I should go a little batshit on him, huh? Get crazy aggressive and try to draw him out before the timer stops.”
“Are you nuts?”
“Rhetorical question? We draw him out before he’s full strength, we get control of the situation, we get some answers, and we’re gone. It’ll be like we’re psyching him out or something. Maybe demons are just like us. Maybe they get stupid when they’re all worked up.”
&nb
sp; “Seven minutes, fifteen seconds. If you’re going to do it, do it now.”
“There’s Big Mike. Back again.”
“Whatever. Go. Do it.”
Mike is basically going into this blindfolded and wearing earmuffs since I’m holding the last working piece of equipment. It has to be slightly unnerving to simply stand there and wait on the next attack to hit without any forewarning. So I understand his hesitation, but if I get what we need, it’ll all be worth it.
“Azeraul!” I call out. “Demon child of Satan! How did it feel earlier when I kicked your ass with the power of God? Did you like that? Huh? Tell me. How’d it feel when a pissant, pathetic mortal like me gave you a nice little battle scar? All the other demons around the block, laughing at you, pointing at that nice crucifix branded on your forehead. I heard it, Azeraul. I heard the hiss. I heard your flesh searing with the burn of God’s love. You’re weaker than I thought. You’re pitiful.”
“Ford—”
“I got this.”
“I’m just saying—”
“Azeraul. Are you there?” I hold up a wait-a-second finger to Mike when the distant sound of a child’s laughter—a young girl—comes across the earbuds. I whisper to Mike, “Laughing. He’s here. Taking the form of a girl.”
“Oh, shit. Okay, okay, just be careful.”
“I can hear you,” I shout, slipping into the living room. The clock on the wall, a plain-faced one that maybe cost Craghorn a buck at a discount store, ticks with abandon, like it’s projecting through a megaphone. “Come talk to me.”
More giggling, followed by the angelic voice of a young child. She sounds like she might be about five years old, but I’m not fooled. I know this is Azeraul. I’ve been doing this awhile, and there’s not much creepier than a foul-mouthed, wretched, rotting right-hander trying to pass itself off as a kid.
In the girl’s voice, he says, “That’s not my name, silly.”
The voice sounds as if it’s on my left, so I turn in that direction and face the corner. “Yes, it is. Louisa told us. You’ve been keeping her hostage, and she knows you. Demon, thy name is Azeraul, and you must obey the word of—”
“Shut up,” the girl’s voice screeches. “I … am not … Azeraul.”
“Your lies are pathetic. We know your name. We have power over you.”
Mike tugs at my sleeve. “Goddamn it, dude, don’t leave me hanging. What’s it saying?”
“It’s lying,” I tell him. “Says its name isn’t Azeraul.”
“Is it the same one? Maybe the big one left.”
I shake my head, feel the earbud wires swaying against my neck, and say, “It’s him. I can feel it. Definitely trying to disguise himself.”
Mike groans. “God, I hate it when they do that.”
I lift my voice to the corner and take two steps closer. “Azeraul. Tell me now. Tell me what you know about Louisa Craghorn.”
Nothing. Just that fucking clock ticking like John Henry hammering a railroad spike.
I try a different tactic: flattery. “If you’re so powerful, then you must know things that we don’t. Doesn’t that feel good? Having information? Use that power of yours. Who murdered her? If you tell us that, we’ll leave, and you can have your house back. You win, we win.”
Silence.
“Was it her husband? Did Dave Craghorn find out that his wife was cheating on him, and he murdered her?”
Excruciating silence.
I’m afraid I’ve lost him or that he’s decided to retreat for now, to regroup and build up more energy before he comes back for another attack.
“Time check, Mike.”
“Four minutes, eighteen seconds. Did he ditch? Should we go?”
“Calm before the storm, I think.” I move around the love seat and short-step over to the corner where the demon may have been. I don’t smell sulfur, nor do I see any signs of him, like floating black masses or darting orbs of light. It’s times like this that the full-spectrum camera would come in handy. It’s a lesson we thought we’d learned ages ago. You can never have enough batteries.
Especially against a right-hander.
Mike says, “The hair on my arms is standing up.”
I look over at him, concerned. “Like, from fear, or what? A presence?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Both?”
Back when the show was running, and even before then when we were two goofy guys with a couple of cameras and a dream, the typical “sensitive” things rarely happened to Mike.
This is not a good sign. I’m worried that Azeraul is sneaking around here, trying to steal Mike’s energy from him, perhaps even invade his body.
“Get out of the house.”
“But what about—”
“Out the door, Mike. I’ll be fine.”
“But—”
I quickly remind him about his wife and kids, that he doesn’t have to do this, that I dragged him into it, and it’s my battle.
He closes his eyes and rubs his temples. “I feel dizzy. Weak, too.”
That’s even worse.
“Do I have to shove you out that door?”
“My heartbeat is going so fast.”
In my earbuds, I hear a cackle of little-girl laughter, like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. Obviously, Azeraul has absorbed enough of Mike’s life force to return.
Mike whispers, “Sulfur,” so quietly that it’s barely picked up by the microphone. Then he adds, “Two minutes.” His arm drops to his side, then the rest of his body crumples onto the middle cushion of the large couch. He sits back, eyes glazed over and staring into the center of the room as if he’s catatonic.
I let loose a chorus of curse words and dart across the living room, my shin slamming against the coffee table, sending knickknacks and magazines flying as it overturns. Before I can make it to Mike, I feel a hand on my chest, hot and burning, holding me back.
The little girl’s voice says, “He’s mine now, Ford.”
“Shut up. Shut up. Do not use my name. Get off me.” I try to wrench away, but no matter which direction I turn, I can feel the pressure of the claw-tipped hand on my skin. “The power of Christ compels you, Azeraul. Get off of—”
The now-familiar screeching roar doesn’t just come through my earphones, but it explodes into the entire room, so loud that I can picture it bowing the walls outward.
I trip sideways and fall to the floor, covering my ears.
Mike sits, immobile.
Azeraul’s voice, as before, comes from everywhere and nowhere at once. “I am not Azeraul. I am death. I am immortal. I am the enemy of God. I am the destroyer. I am everything you fear, child, but I am not Azeraul. This name you speak has no power over me. Master calls. I must … go. Light will come again, but so will I.”
I can’t actually believe what I’m about to do, because it’s pure crazy-talk, but I stand up and beg for a demon not to go. “Don’t leave. Please. Who murdered Louisa Craghorn? Was it her husband? Did she ever say who it was while you had her trapped? Give me some answers, please!”
Rumbling laughter that chills my spine and sends goosebumps across every inch of skin ripples around the room. And then, words follow that stun me into silence as they trail away, fading into the darkness: “Begging … beneath you … See you again … Hopper house.”
“What the fuck did you just say?” I feel dazed, slammed in the chest by a wrecking ball. “Are you the same … the same one … the one who …?”
And then he’s gone.
Azeraul. Not Azeraul.
Whatever that thing’s name is, it left the house. Just like before, when we initially drove him back, the room, the entirety of wood, brick, and stone in this structure, feels lighter. Brighter. Almost as if rock and maple alike are heaving a sigh of relief. The suffocating blanket that’s been choking the atmosphere has lifted, too, and for the first time since I stepped in this house earlier today—soon to be yesterday, according to the ticking wall clock—it feels like I’m inhaling
clean, fresh air. The hint of putrid smoke that laced the oxygen is gone, and I take deep breaths until my lungs feel washed and bleached of the demonic muck.
His final words clang around inside my head.
See you again … Hopper house.
I don’t even—I can’t wrap my mind around this possibility. We’re along the coast of Virginia. The Hopper house is in Ohio, a thousand miles away.
I stand, completely motionless, considering the implications. It’s not unheard-of for spirits to become attached to items and move thousands of miles, and I wouldn’t imagine that demons would be confined to an area. It’s not like Satan is franchising haunted houses, and these soul-sucking bastards have to set up shop in a specific territory.
But, holy shit, what are the odds that Chelsea’s demon is the same one that was here? And that I would end up here investigating it as well? Mike suggested the possibility earlier, but I scoffed at him, and now …
See you again … Hopper house.
Maybe, just maybe, that’s not what it meant. Maybe he was saying he’d see me there. Maybe I’m supposed to go back to Chelsea’s old house for a showdown.
I honestly don’t know.
Is it a sign? Should I agree to Mike’s request for the documentary? Could this really be a shot at redemption?
I tell myself not to let those thoughts intrude. My redemption should not come at the hands of exploiting Chelsea’s story again.
Over on the couch, Mike coughs, hard and raspy, like it’s his first time smoking a cigarette, and his body is trying to reject the filth in his lungs. He leans forward, hands up over his mouth, and hacks until I go to him. I sit down on the couch by his side, fearful that Not Azeraul might still be inside Mike, having duped me with false promises about leaving. But when he turns to me, I can see the real Mike in his eyes. They’re uncontaminated, unpossessed. He’s looking at me by his own volition.
He says, “Did we get him?”
“To be continued.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Dark Man Page 15