Demonic Tome

by Daniel Stephens

  “Sorry, I hate to get on your dad’s bad side, but I figured that you could get your mind off of what happened last night.”

  “Thanks,” Isaiah said as he and Mark started down the street in a slow jog. “I appreciate it, Mark.”

  At this hour of the morning, everybody was still asleep; and being the small town that it was, there wasn’t any cars driving around. This town was one of those small towns that you’d see in a movie: all constructed out of the same material—here it was wood—with the same kind of atmosphere and the same kind of people. He and Mark liked jogging early in the morning like this because it was cool, and with winter soon coming up, it was a good day to go out jogging. It wouldn’t be long before the two of them were confined to the gym and running on treadmills for three months when it started snowing.

  “I’m sorry about what Jerry said,” Mark said after moments of silence. “I really am, Isaiah.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault that your friend has a mouth as big as his sex drive.”

  Mark laughed.

  “He’s such a horny ass, and his girl’s probably the biggest slut I’ve ever seen. They didn’t care that we were five feet away from them, as long as they had something to hide behind.”

  They both laughed for a good while before Isaiah looked around, seeing that they were leaving his neighborhood.

  “Mark, where are we going?”

  “We’re jogging, remember? This is the path I always go on.”

  “No it isn’t. I’ve been jogging with you before.”

  Mark sighed and grabbed Isaiah’s arm, stopping him from going any further.

  “Isaiah, I lost my wallet at the cemetery last night.” Mark wiped more sweat from his forehead. “I lost my fucking wallet! I had my check and my license in there!”

  “Alright, alright, calm down.” Isaiah gripped Mark’s sweaty shoulder. “I’ll go down to the cemetery and help you find it. It’s not much farther from here if we cut through the field.”

  “Thank God you’re my best friend, Isaiah.”

  Isaiah smiled before they jogged out of the neighborhood. A large field blanketed this side of the town, a grass field where an old man let his horses run free during the weekdays.

  “Looks like we’re going over the fence.” Mark vaulted over it. “Come on, Isaiah!”

  Isaiah climbed over the fence and jumped down to where Mark was. He grimaced as he looked over at the old man’s house.

  “Do you think he’ll see us?”

  “No, I don’t think he will. Come on, let’s keep going.”

  The two of them jogged across the field, staying near the far side in case somebody was watching. The old man wouldn’t be up at this hour, but if somebody rolled by in their car and saw two men jogging across the field, they were bound to get suspicious.

  They were halfway across the field when they stopped.

  “You alright, Isaiah?”

  “Yeah, I forgot my inhaler, though.” Isaiah sat down and leaned against a tree. “Sorry, I’m such a fucking sissy.”

  “No, you’re not. It’s not your fault that you have a breathing problem. We’ll just wait here until you get your breath back.”

  Isaiah nodded and lifted his fist to cough into it, leaning his head back after he got over his short fit and took slow, deep breaths.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, Isaiah?”

  “I’ll live, Mark. You’ve seen me without my inhaler before.”

  “Yeah, I know. I still get nervous, though. We’re halfway across this field, and if you couldn’t breathe, I don’t think I could carry you across it to get back to town. I don’t have my phone, either, so there’d be a fat chance of an ambulance coming.”

  Isaiah nodded and continued to take short, deep breaths. Mark was right, but he knew that he would get over this soon. It wasn’t as if he was having difficulty breathing. He just needed to let himself relax and get his breathing.

  This short delay would get him grounded for another month. He knew that.

  Isaiah pushed away from the tree and was about to reach back before he felt Mark place a hand on his back.

  “Are you sure you’re alright? We can always forget about it and take you back home.”

  “No, let’s keep going,” Isaiah said. “We don’t want you to lose your wallet. Somebody will have a hay day with all that money you have.”

  Mark laughed and the two of them started across the field, but at a much slower pace this time. Isaiah was sure that his friend didn’t want to push him back into the state he had just been in. He hated it when his asthma interrupted his normal life, but he always got around it.

  “Sorry,” Mark said out of the blue.

  “For what? You didn’t do anything.”

  “I made you jog across this field, though.” Mark sighed. “It’s my fault that you had an asthma attack.”

  “No it isn’t, Mark. Quit blaming yourself. You’re telling me that it’s not my fault because I have asthma and now you’re telling me it’s your fault because I have it? Big deal! Let’s just forget about it, alright? I’m fine now, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

  Mark give a nod, but Isaiah wasn’t all too sure he was taking him seriously. His friend took him more seriously than anybody else at school did—hell, Mark was his only friend at high school—but sometimes Mark could be stubborn as hell.

  Isaiah loved Mark for it, though.

  “There’s the side entrance that we went through.” Mark pointed as they neared the end of the field. “The wallet will probably be somewhere around there or by Didada’s grave.”

  Isaiah nodded, all the while trying to suppress a shudder. What they had done last night was something that should never have been done. Even if it had been just a ‘fun joke’ on the dumbest blonde that had once gone to their school, it was still wrong. He’d been lured into it because he knew about the necromantic magic of the old world. He had gone for the fun of it, but as he thought back on it, he knew it was wrong.

  A shudder did go through him.

  “You alright?” Mark asked.

  “Yeah,” Isaiah said. “I’m fine.”

  The two of them climbed over the wooden fence and walked through the side entrance, scanning the ground for Mark’s wallet.

  “Do you know where you lost it?”

  “No. If I knew that, I would’ve come out here by myself.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean… There it is!”

  Mark ran to where Isaiah pointed and picked up his wallet, fumbling through it.

  “Good, my license and cash is still in here.”

  “Alright, let’s go.” Isaiah turned to look at the cemetery. “This is…”

  Isaiah stopped speaking.

  In front of him, Didada’s grave was torn apart.

  #

  “I said you were grounded!” Isaiah’s father said right when he opened the door.

  “I’ll see you later, Isaiah.” Mark raised his hand and waved before he walked off.

  “What do you have to say for yourself, boy?”

  “Dad, I’m sorry.” Isaiah tried to walk into the house, his father placing his hand on the doorframe, keeping him from coming inside. “Mark came over and asked if I wanted to run with him. Richard said it was okay.”

  “Rich? You said he could go out running?”

  “I didn’t think you would care if he was exercising,” Richard said. “I’m sorry, Scott.”

  “Isaiah…” His father sighed, removing his arm from the doorframe. “I thought you would listen to me, son.”

  “I’m sorry Dad. Mark lost his wallet, and I had to help him find it. Otherwise, I would’ve been back before you got up.”

  Isaiah walked past his father and into the house. He didn’t turn around, but he heard the door close.

  “A month,” he said. “I trusted you, and now you’re getting a month.”

  “But, Dad, I…” Isaiah trailed off, sighing. “Yes, sir, I’m sorry.”

&nbs
p; “Get back to those chores,” his father said, patting his shoulder as he walked by. “Start on the dishes. There’s not too many in there.”

  Isaiah sighed and walked over to the sink, where he pulled the rubber gloves over his hands and began to do the dishes. He was allergic to the damn soap, and he sure as hell didn’t want his hands to flare up on him. He shook his head and continued with the dishes, but his mind soon strayed back to what he and Mark had witnessed in the cemetery.

  Why had Didada’s grave been torn apart? Was it some cruel, twisted prank by some of Mark’s asshole friends? Or what if what he was trying to do last night had worked, what if…

  No! It didn’t work, and don’t you believe it! You know that all that stuff you know about is a bunch of bullshit anyway.

  That was all it was, bullshit…

  #

  “Isaiah, are you sure there’s no way that what we did last night worked?”

  “I’m sure.” Isaiah cautiously looked back at the door. “It’s not the best time to talk, Mark. My dad has me down for a month now, and if he comes up…”

  “Isaiah, it’s three in the morning. I don’t think your dad’s awake.”

  “He might if he and Richard were…” Isaiah shook his head. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We did chant her name, though. Every one of us was chanting ‘Didada, Didada, Didada’ over and over.”

  The breath passed from Isaiah’s lungs after Mark spoke.

  “Isaiah… come on, man. You’re scaring me. What the fuck is wrong?”

  “I wasn’t chanting Didada… I was chanting Trish.”

  Neither of them spoke.

  To bring a person back from the dead like they did, you had to speak the true name.

  Isaiah had chanted her real name.

  He had freed her from her grave.

  #

  Isaiah woke up to the sound of a dog howling far off in the distance. He didn’t know how far off the dog was, but he didn’t care. Those waking moments reminded him that he had done something wrong, something forbidden, and something that would damn him to Hell for eternity.

  We’ll deal with it later, Mark had said. You don’t have to worry about a thing, Isaiah. You don’t have to worry about a goddamn motherfucking thing. Because we’re going to go back to that cemetery and see that we didn’t do anything.

  The only problem with Mark’s plan was that Isaiah was grounded. Being grounded sure didn’t help anything. It would only make the problem worse. It’d be better if he wasn’t grounded, but how would he fix the problem? By going into the cemetery and telling Didada to lie down and die? He didn’t think that would work, regardless of the fact that the Duppy was stupid enough to just walk around and trip over things.

  He shook his head and looked over at the clock. He’d only been asleep for two hours, which would kill him tomorrow morning when his father woke him up at the crack of dawn to start on the chores.

  He fell back asleep with thoughts of what he had done.

  #

  The next morning, Isaiah was cleaning the kitchen when he heard the doorbell ring. He didn’t have to stand up and walk to the door to know it was Mark.

  “What are you doing here?” Isaiah whispered. “I’m grounded from you, too.”

  “Hey, that’s not very nice of your dad.” Mark smiled. “Look, I just wanted to tell you not to worry about anything, alright?”

  “I’m not worrying about it right now. I have to scrub the kitchen until dad can see his face without his glasses on.”

  “Seems like you’ll be doing that for a good while.” Mark sighed. “Sorry I got you in trouble.”

  “It’s alright, just go before he comes out of the bathroom.”

  Isaiah closed the door just as his father was coming into the kitchen.

  “Who was that, Isaiah?”

  “The church… I just said we weren’t interested.”

  His father nodded and walked over to the fridge, where he pulled a soda out and looked around, examining his cleaning. He gave a few short nods before he popped open the soda.

  “It looks nice.” He reached into his jeans pocket. “I want you to go to the store for me and pick up some things.”

  “Alright, what do you need me to get?”

  Isaiah was handed a long list.

  I’m going to be gone for a little while…

  #

  Mark reached up to wipe a bead of sweat from his cheek and felt stubble.

  Goddammit, I always shave before I go out running.

  He had forgotten about it.

  Maybe it was a sign that he should start growing a beard.

  God, I’m half a year older than Isaiah, and he has more hair on his face than I do.

  He smiled when he realized that he had been running back toward the cemetery. He hadn’t been paying attention. That was the only logical explanation for it. Or, maybe, just maybe, he was going back to prove to himself that nothing had happened.

  “We never looked in the grave,” he said as the hairs went up. “All we saw was some dirt. For all we know, there could’ve been a dog messing around the grave, and it decided to dig a little hole.”

  He knew better than that. Dogs didn’t go in the cemeteries because there was nothing there for them. Why would a dog need to go into a cemetery unless it chased a cat or smelled food?

  It was all a big lie on his part. He was trying to make a good excuse as to how the grave had been…upturned.

  “Okay, let’s not go up there,” he said. “Just turn around and go back up the road.”

  He rested his hands on his knees for a moment before he started back down the road.

  What if Isaiah did bring her back the right way? What if he really did pull that ceremony out of that book of his and bring Didada back life?

  “No, he said he had chanted her real name.” He brushed his hand over his face, feeling the stubble brush against the skin. “That’s why the grave was upturned.”

  Are you even sure the grave was upturned?

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  Then why don’t you go look?

  He turned around and started jogging toward the cemetery.

  He hated it—absolutely hated it—when his conscience argued with him.

  #

  Didada’s grave was upturned, with the dirt scattered and the flowers lying in petals. Mark was afraid to go anywhere near the grave, for fear that what he, Isaiah, and those jackass friends of his had done had worked.

  Did Isaiah say it worked? Sweat ran from his armpits. No, he didn’t. He just said that the grave was upturned and that we would deal with it.

  “Or maybe he said, ‘We’ll deal with her.’” He backed out of the cemetery. “Maybe that’s what he said.”

  He was about to turn before he heard a door being slammed.

  “Sir, you’re under arrest for vandalism.”

  Mark swore his heart skipped beating before he was asked to place his hands behind his hand and interlace his fingers.

  #

  “What did you say?” Isaiah whispered as he listened to Mark’s frantic voice on the other end of the phone. “Slow down. I can’t hear you.” Mark repeated what he had been frantically saying, but this time in a lower voice. “What? They’re charging you with vandalism?”

  “Yeah, any chance you have fifteen-hundred dollars to bail me out?”

  “Fifteen hundred? Mark, you know I don’t have…”

  “Come on, Isaiah, you know my ‘rents are gone… Please don’t make me sit in jail.”

  Isaiah twisted the cord around his wrist and looked over his shoulder, trying to decide whether or not he should ask his father.

  “Isaiah, please…”

  “Alright,” he said. “I’ll come down with my dad and bail you out.”

  “Oh, God, please don’t,” Mark begged. “Bring Rich, please. Your dad will rat on me.”

  “Mark, my dad…”

  “Just ask Rich, please?”

  “I’ll b
e down soon, Mark.”

  Isaiah hung up the phone. He sighed and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his bare chest as he tried to figure out what he was going to do. Mark would end up going to court for the vandalism charges. He already knew that Trish’s parents weren’t going to let a potential vandalism suspect get away, but he also knew that if he didn’t go get Mark, he’d feel responsible for what had happened.

  You are responsible for what happened, dumbass. You’re the one who agreed to play along, the one who said her real name.

  “How was I supposed to know?”

  “Isaiah, who are you talking to?”

  Isaiah jumped as he heard Rich’s voice.

  “Mark’s in jail.”

  “What?” Rich asked. “Your friend?”

  “They’re trying to get him on vandalism. Somebody messed with an unmarked grave down at the old cemetery, and he was picked up for vandalism. He was jogging down that way…”

  “God, Isaiah, I’m sorry.”

  “His parents are out of town, and he wanted me to go down and bail him out, but… I’m not an adult. Rich, I need to ask you a really big favor, bigger than anything I’ve ever asked you for before.”

  “The bail money?” he said. “How much?”

  “Fifteen-hundred.”

  Rich grimaced after he said the amount. Rich didn’t say anything. All he did was lean against the fridge and cross his arms over his chest, shaking his head and closing his eyes.

  “Rich, please…”

  “You’re going to owe me your ass for this, Isaiah,” Rich said. “You and your friends don’t need to be hanging around cemeteries and smoking.”

  “What, how did you…”

  “It’s only obvious, Isaiah. The old cemetery here in town is the only place where you can go do drugs and not get caught. Trust me, I know from my younger days.”

  Isaiah nodded and sighed.

  “Will you come down and bail him out for me?”

  “I’ll try, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to. I thought it was only family.”