by Tim Miller
Dark Exorcist
Tim Miller
© Tim Miller 2013
All rights reserved.
The right of Tim Miller to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.
Cover Design by Covermecreative.com
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the help of several people. While I had several beta readers who helped in critiquing the story, there were a few whose time, dedication, and feedback were incredibly valuable. Thank you to Crystal Allmon, Frances Baker, Randi Palmer, Kelli Smith, and to Jacquelynn Gagne for all the advice and support.
I dedicate this book to my beautiful wife Lori and to our munchkins, Ashley, Josh and Lexie. Thank you all for believing in me even when I don’t.
Chapter 1
Officer Peter Roman, 11:00 p.m.
I stood, listening to the woman screaming about her boyfriend. It was my third time at this house in the past week, for domestic disturbance calls. Despite being so short, Sabrina was incredibly loud, and shrill. Just the sound of her voice made my ears want to bleed. The other half of the fight, Wayne, was inside the house talking to another officer. They weren't the classiest pair. Between the two of them, I don't think you'd come up with a full set of teeth. Apparently dental hygiene is a lost art these days. I think it went out the window with common sense.
“Aren't you going to arrest him for what he did to me?” she screamed.
“Sabrina, you scratched him, from the looks of it,” I explained.
“That was self-defense!”
“Against what?”
“Against his being an asshole!”
It was way too early to listen to this.
“That motherfucker hit me in my motherfucking face! You see? Or are you too fucking blind?” She kept screaming. I couldn't see any marks on her at all, unless you count a dirty face, as signs of injury.
“Okay, calm down,” I said. “We go through this a few times a week. Wayne's face is all scratched up. Technically, I should arrest you.”
“You know what, fuck you, you fucking pig! You fucking cocksucker. I should have known you guys wouldn't do shit!” Her screaming was interrupted by the felony tone going off on my radio. I put my ear to my shoulder mic, so I could hear the call.
Units A-367 and A-455
A-367 was my badge number. Thankfully they were calling me away from this mess.
“Go ahead for 367,” I answered.
Signal 52 in progress at Fourth and Marion. Suspect is a white female. Several bystanders trying to subdue her now. Medics are also en-route.
“Roger, 367 en-route,” I replied. Signal 52 means battery, or assault. This should be interesting. Doesn't sound domestic. Sabrina was still screaming, as I left. There were two other officers on the scene, so I figured they'd be fine.
I got into my car and activated the overhead lights, as I sped off to Fourth and Marion Streets. That was already a nasty part of town. The only buildings in that area that weren't vacant were crack houses and meth labs. This was probably some girl flipped out on drugs, going off. It wasn't an unusual occurrence in that neighborhood.
As I pulled up, there was all kinds of commotion in the middle of the street. I stepped out of my car to see a girl, flailing her arms, and about six grown men trying to hold her down. The ambulance pulled up right behind me, along with another officer. I wasn't sure who my backup was. Since our department had over three-hundred officers, we didn't always know each other. He started working crowd control, so I could go see what was going on with the girl.
As I approached, there were three guys lying on the ground, bleeding. The girl couldn't have weighed more than 100-110 pounds. She looked to be fourteen or fifteen years old. She was screaming something I couldn't quite make out, while the guys holding her kept screaming to hold still. I never understood why people scream at someone who is screaming, as if they can hear each other at that point. She threw the guys around like rag dolls, as they all screamed and yelled.
“Everybody stop!” I yelled. The girl replied with gibberish, before hurling the guy who was holding her right arm, at me. He plowed into me, almost sending me tumbling to the ground. I took out my Taser and shot her in the chest. Both prongs hit dead center, knocking her to the ground, as the volts ran through her body. The screaming was replaced by loud, raspy sounds, as I slapped cuffs on her. Once I was able to see her close up, I saw that her face was scarred and beaten, as if she's been in a terrible fight. It wasn't this one, as she was winning, rather easily.
The paramedics arrived and I helped them strap her to a gurney, and load her into the ambulance. She was still cuffed. One of the bystanders approached me, once the girl was loaded up.
“So, what exactly happened here?” I asked.
“I'm not sure,” the man said. He was a tall Hispanic guy with short, buzzed hair, wearing a wife beater. “She was running down the street when that dude on the ground, over there, almost hit her with his car. He got out to see if she was okay, and she flipped the fuck out man. I tried to help, so did some others, but she beat the shit out of all of us. She knocked some dudes out cold. That bitch is nuts.”
“Sounds like it,” I said. “Did she say anything?”
“Nothing I could make out, just a lot of bullshit that didn't make no sense.”
“Officer! Officer!” Someone screamed from behind me. I turned to see one of the paramedics running toward me.
“What's going on?”
“You might want to see this,” he said. I ran to the ambulance, where the door was half open. The girl was lying there unconscious. “Watch this,” the medic said as he inserted an IV needle into her arm. Within seconds, the IV bag drained until it was completely empty.
“What the hell?” I had never seen anything like that, by the looks on their faces, the medics hadn't either. After a few more seconds, a wet spot began to form on her jeans in the front, getting larger and larger as she urinated on herself, the entire contents of the IV she'd just drained.
“Holy shit,” I said. This was going to be a long night.
Chapter 2
11:45 p.m.
I waited in the ER while the doctors tended to the girl. We still didn’t know h
er name. She had no ID or anything on her. I could hear screaming and shouting from the treatment room as the nurses tried to keep her under control. I finally went back in to help. I was able to use my extra set of handcuffs and get her cuffed to the railing by each arm. It wasn’t ideal, but their safety straps just weren’t holding. After almost an hour of non-stop screaming and wailing, she passed out.
“Holy shit,” one of the nurses said. She was short, with short cropped dark hair. Her name tag just said ‘Cheryl.’ “Any idea if she’s on anything?” Cheryl said.
“I have no clue. She was like that when I found her, and she kicked about five people’s asses.” I had seen similar situations in my time. Let me tell you, the toughest fights I’ve had in law enforcement have been girls. After ten years on the job, I will take on a six foot six drunk guy before I’d want to take on a ninety pound girl on meth or crack. One girl kicked an officer in the nuts so hard, he had to have them surgically removed from his abdomen. This girl though, she was something different.
“So, what’s going to happen to her?” I asked.
“They’re gonna take her up to the psych unit. If you could stick around, we’ll probably need your help,” Cheryl replied. This wasn’t unusual. The hospital staff was limited as to how hands-on they could get with aggressive patients. Police have more leeway, so they call us. Since I happened to already be there, I’d just hang tight, if they needed me. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to Taser
her again.
Cheryl, and one of the hospital techs, came wheeling the girl out of the exam room and toward the elevator. The tech was a tall guy, who looked no more than nineteen, though he was probably older. His name tag said "Jeff.” Jeff was pushing the bed while Cheryl and I walked along. I figured we might need more people, but they were usually short staffed, so it was just us. The psych unit was on the third floor, should be a simple enough ride.
We got onto the elevator, and I hit the big 3 button for the third floor. It moved slowly past the second floor. Suddenly the elevator stopped, and the lights went off.
“What the hell?” Jeff said. “We lose power?”
“There should be a backup generator kicking in any minute,” Cheryl said.
No generator kicked in, but a scream came from the bed. Two screams actually. One was our girl, the other was Jeff.
“Fuck! Get her off me! Get her off me!” he screamed.
I felt something push against me as I pulled out my flashlight. The girl had somehow broken free and was on Jeff’s back, like a spider monkey. I couldn’t tell, but it looked like she was biting him. I tried to pull her off, but she kicked me so hard I flew back into the elevator doors. I heard Cheryl cry out, from my right. She was pinned between the bed and the wall. Jeff kept spinning around as the girl growled and screamed. I felt blood spraying all over me. There was no way to use the Taser in close quarters, so I started hitting her with the flashlight. It was difficult not to hit Jeff in the process, as he kept spinning around. The power came on suddenly, and she released her grip from Jeff, leaping to the ceiling.
Jeff collapsed as soon as she released him. His face, chest and neck were covered in blood. The girl clung to the ceiling of the elevator on all fours like she was some kind of spider. Blood dripped from the tips of her fingers and toes, where she was digging into the ceiling.
“Oh my God,” Cheryl said, finally able to get free, staring up at the girl. The girl glared at us, her face distorted and misshapen. She seriously looked like something out of a horror film. Cheryl remained calm, and tried to talk to her.
“Look honey, we want to help you. No one wants to hurt you. Do you understand?”
“Tha pethánei apópse" she shouted. “Pétros skóto̱se ti̱mi̱téra tou , klaíei i̱psychí̱ti̱s gia to aíma tou !”
“What did she just say?” I asked.
“Sounds like Greek,” Cheryl said. “I took some Greek in college. Something about someone's mother was killed and souls crying for blood.”
“Why are you working here if you took Greek in college?” I asked.
“I went to a Christian college. They make you take Greek or Hebrew, regardless of your major.”
“Interesting.” Though it was odd, we were having this conversation with a crazy girl hanging from the ceiling and snarling at us.
Cheryl and I looked at each other as the doors opened on the third floor. The girl dropped from the ceiling, back into her bed, sound asleep. Cheryl looked at me as if she’d seen a ghost. She knelt down to tend to Jeff.
“Is he okay?” I asked.
“He’s still breathing, but barely. Get her out of here and call for help.”
I wheeled the bed out of the elevator and grabbed the phone along the wall. I called down to the front desk, and they paged for emergency assistance to the third floor elevator. I looked in on Cheryl, and she was talking to Jeff. He was making some sick gurgling sound. I turned around toward the bed and found it empty.
“Motherfucker,” I said. I hadn’t cuffed her back to the bed. I looked up and down the hallway, but there was no sign of her. She was gone.
Chapter 3
11:55 p.m.
Hospital security, two more nurses, and a doctor arrived to tend to Jeff. I explained to one of the security guards what happened, and told him to lock down the entire third floor. I was glad I hadn't eaten lunch yet. All the years on the department, and I never did care for the sight of blood, for some reason. On a dead person, it didn’t bother me so much. But when the person was alive, gurgling, and flopping around, it was sometimes more than my stomach could handle.
“Was a little girl too much for you to handle?” he asked. His name was Troy. He was about my height, around six feet tall, but a little chubbier. I figured he was in his 30’s, which explained the attitude. No one chooses hospital security as a career. He’d probably tried to get into the department, but couldn’t pass some aspect of the tests. Now he figures he’s stuck in this job. I wasn’t in the mood for his shit.
“Fuck you pal. You have no idea what’s going on with this kid. She just tore one of your techs apart. Lock down this floor, while I call for some more officers. She couldn’t have gotten far, we’ll find her.
“What about all the patients?”
“We’ll have to do a sweep of their rooms. She doesn’t seem to be targeting anyone in particular. She’s like a rabid dog. Let’s just find her.” I said.
Troy walked away, talking on his radio, as the power went out again. The only lights in the halls were the backups along the wall. They provided some illumination, but it was still fairly dark. They gave the whole floor a creepy haze, as if the night wasn't weird enough already. Several other security guys showed up, so hopefully they’d find her without killing themselves in the process. I called dispatch on my cell to fill them in. Unfortunately, they said no back up was available. There had been a shooting downtown, and everyone was dispatched, trying to locate the suspect. They asked the same thing Troy had, couldn’t I handle a little girl? Smart asses.
I asked dispatch if there had been any missing person reports in the last twenty four hours for young, white females. They advised none, so far. This was bizarre. That girl had to come from somewhere.
“Do you have a name?” the dispatcher asked.
“Nope. She’s just a Jane Doe for now.”
The medical team lifted Jeff onto a gurney, and headed back down to the ER. The third floor was huge, so I figured I’d walk up and down each hallway. The psych unit was just to the right. The door was heavy steel, and you had to be buzzed in from the inside, so I knew she couldn’t have gone in there. Someone screamed from the other side of the hallway. I ran in that direction, as fast as I could. The screaming was coming from room 325. When I arrived, the door was standing open.
“Help! Get away! Get away from me!” a woman was screaming. I ran into the room where one of the security guards was wandering around with his flashlight. This kid looked like he raided his dad’s closet. He was too short, and too skinny to be doing anything security related, but here he was.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m looking for the girl,” he said.
“Did you not notice the screaming patient? The girl’s obviously not in here. Get the hell out.”
“She could be hiding,” he said, without looking at me. I grabbed him by the collar and shoved him out of the room, into the hallway.
“You show a little respect for the patients here. The room ain’t that big, if she don’t jump out at you, squealing, then she’s not there. Now move along.” I sent him back down the hall as I headed the other direction. The one thing that stuck in my head was whatever she’d yelled on the elevator. It didn’t sound like gibberish, it was more like another language, yet I had no idea what language it was, or what she’d said. Before I got much farther, the power went out, again. Great.
Pitch black, even in the hallway. It was almost two in the morning, so most of the patients were already asleep. Usually a hospital would have emergency floodlights kick on, but none did.
“What the hell is going on?” I heard one of the security guys shout.
“The power is off genius!” I yelled, as I turned on my flashlight. I shined it down toward the security guys and saw them standing in a circle, talking to each other. I had a feeling I’d get more done if I were by myself, instead of babysitting these clowns. I turned around, and there she was, inches from me. Her face contorted into
a horrific smile. Her eyes were almost white, her face and lips cracked and split open in random places. Blood oozed from some of the cracks. As she smiled, she licked away the blood that ran down her chin.
“Officer Roman, why don’t you pull your head out of your ass if you want to graduate from this academy!” she yelled, yet it wasn’t her voice. It was in the voice of my old academy instructor, Captain Davis. What the fuck is going on? “Petey! Petey! Don’t let me die!” That was my mother’s voice. She had died my rookie year, after a short battle with cancer. I watched her wilt and die, as the disease took her. “Don’t lie to yourself Petey,” she said, now in a hideous, guttural voice. “You killed her. You couldn’t wait for her to die.”
“That’s not true, you freak!” I shouted
“Yes it is, she’s in here with us. She told us everything.”
“In where with whom? What’s wrong with you kid?”
“You still don’t know, do you?” it said.
“Know what? Who the hell are you?”
“I am the one who is in control.”
Chapter 4
11:58 p.m.
I couldn’t decide if I should turn and run from the girl, or take out my gun and shoot her. Either way, I couldn't move. My stomach lurched, as I tried to reach for my gun. My muscles wouldn't move, as if my body was refusing to follow my brain's instructions. She stood, staring at me, waiting for a response. Apparently bored with me, she punched me in the face, knocking me flat on my back. For a moment, I thought the lights had come back on, but I was just seeing stars.
“You okay?” a man asked from behind me. I slowly began to sit up. “Be careful,” he said. “I almost tripped over you.” I had dropped my flashlight, so couldn’t see who it was.
“Who’s there?” I asked.
“I’m Dr. Bennett, the on-call psychiatrist. I heard all the commotion, so I came out and found you. What’s going on? I thought you were bringing me a consult.”