The Paranormalist- Servants of the Endless Night

by William Massa

  I felt tempted to dive in, to seek solace under its surface the way I did whenever I missed mom (she had died in a car accident when I was eight) or whenever I saw or felt something didn’t make sense to me (which was happening more and more lately). Underwater, I could shut out the world for a few minutes.

  Unfortunately, a nighttime swim wasn’t going to solve my current problem.

  Time was running out. The chopper was about to come around for another pass.

  The fear of being caught in the glare of the helicopter's lights motivated me to stay in motion. A few seconds later, I was sprinting down the narrow flight of stairs on my way to the beach two hundred feet below.

  Our sprawling mansion sat on a tall cliff that overlooked the majestic ocean. People who visited the house described the view as breathtaking. To me it was just home, another luxury among the many that defined my life. I had zero idea that I lived in a gilded bubble, but I was about to discover how different my life was, even compared to the other rich people in Malibu.

  I was about to find out there was a dark side to paradise.

  I heard a shout in the night and fearing an officer had spotted me, I picked up my pace. I kept my head low, praying it would be hard for anyone to get a fix on me in the dark.

  As I continued my descent into the black void, the soothing sounds of the ocean started to drown out the helicopter above. Waves crashed against the jagged rocks over and over again, and the surreal spectacle playing out in front of my home felt a million miles away.

  After what felt like an eternity, I reached the bottom of the stairs. Setting foot on the moist sand was like landing on an alien planet, a world far better than the one I’d come from.

  I took a deep breath and realized how cold it was. Shivering, I hugged myself and wished I had thrown a jacket over my pajamas.

  As I scanned the beach, my heart sank. There was no sign of my father. No sign of anyone.

  My shoulders slumped. I had been so confident…

  A terrible helplessness gripped me as I tilted my head up at the sprawling mansion. The estate towered over me like some haunted castle in a horror movie, cutting a sinister silhouette in the police chopper’s roving searchlights. I felt small and all alone, a thirteen-year-old kid in way over his head.

  I had been standing there for I don’t know how long, fear digging its claws into my guts, when I spotted what appeared to be a flickering light to my right. It seemed to be coming from behind the immense boulders at the base of the cliff directly below our mansion. Was it the reflection of the searchlights on the rocks…or something else?

  As I drew closer, I realized the light was coming from inside a small cave, and I froze in place. I’d never noticed this cave before. And that was impossible. I’d spent countless hours exploring the beach, pretending to be an archeologist in search of buried treasure. A cave would have been the first thing I checked out.

  The guttering light flickered tantalizingly in the night, calling out to me, urging me to enter the cavern and discover its many mysteries. I should have been terrified, but my need to find my father was stronger than my fear.

  Almost as if my legs had developed a will of their own, I entered the yawning mouth of cave. The rough walls were lined with torches. Oily smoke lingered in the air, and I let out a loud cough.

  As I looked up at the uneven ceiling, panic threatened to overwhelm me. For a terrifying moment, I saw the cave crashing down on me.

  Despite my mounting terror, I continued to advance .

  Soon the earthen passageway began to widen, and more torches grew visible, almost as if they were intentionally leading the way deeper under the earth.

  I gazed at the stone walls and made out strange symbols carved into the rock. The torches hissed and guttered, their light making the symbols appear to writhe.

  I pressed on, gripped by the surreal feeling that I wasn’t merely moving deeper into the cave but also traveling back in time somehow. As the entrance receded behind me, I realized I had to be below the mansion now.

  Compared to the fact that there was a secret, Goonies -style cave underneath my house, the heavy police presence around our home didn’t seem all that strange. Perhaps it was all a dream. Any moment now, I'd wake up, and life would go back to normal…

  I froze, one foot poised to take a step.

  A monster loomed before me.

  After a moment, I realized I was looking at a giant statue. The figure seemed to be part animal and part human. Eyes glared menacingly at me in the flickering torchlight, fangs bared. Behind the stone figure, the corridor widened. The statue felt like a final warning to turn back.

  I refused to heed the warning, I couldn’t turn back now. I was beyond fear. A dark fire burned in my chest, a desperate need to understand what was going on here, why my life had taken a sharp turn into the Twilight Zone .

  I had to know what lay at the end of this treasure map .

  After about another fifty feet, the passageway opened into a circular chamber to which someone had added a few supporting pillars and walls. More torches cast surreal shadows, and as I drew closer, I could make out a group of hooded figures in the room.

  The sudden presence of people took my breath away. Were these my dad’s friends? But why were they all wearing red medieval robes with deep hoods that hid their features? The group faced a rough-hewn altar fronted by a purple-robed figure who appeared to be the leader of the eerie congregation.

  I edged closer while doing my best to remain in the shadows. If the robed figures turned in my direction at this moment, they would see me. Fortunately, their entire focus remained fixed on the altar. A beat later, I understood why.

  My mouth went ashen when I spotted the young woman chained to the stone. A shiver raced down my spine, and I forgot to exhale.

  Almost as if to confirm my greatest fear, the purple-robed figure fronting the altar raised a knife and held it above the woman.

  Why wasn’t she screaming? Had they drugged her? She kept staring at the knife as if in a trance.

  And then the blade lit up with a fiery burst of something that rapidly expanded throughout the underground chamber. Beams of light bathed the temple in a bloody glow. In the pulsing waves of energy, I made out the faces of the robed figures.

  With horror, I saw that they weren’t human. Unearthly creatures hid under the robes. I glimpsed a reptilian albino face webbed with scarlet veins, then another figure with animalistic, wolf-like features.

  Grunts, snarls, and roars filled the cavern. A pulsating mass of gray ooze expanded from one of the hoods, eyes suspended in the translucent flesh like flies in amber, as if it wanted to get a better look at the action on the altar.

  I almost cried out in terror as tentacles lashed out from the robed creature standing to my left, the grotesque appendages casting warped shadows on the stone floor.

  I would have taken off screaming, but I was in total shock, my body paralyzed. I found myself surrounded by demons and monsters, a nightmare gallery that had gathered in this cave to perform some terrible ritual. I shouldn’t be here, yet I was too terrified to leave.

  Then, worse than any monster, I glimpsed the face of the man wielding the glowing knife. Nothing in my short life had prepared me for what I was looking at. The features framed by the purple hood were intimately familiar to me. I saw them every morning across the breakfast table.

  They belonged to my father.

  As my world came crashing down around me, my dad raised the gleaming knife. His eyes transformed into glowing embers. He looked like a demon himself.

  When my dad plunged the sacrificial knife into that woman’s heart, she wasn’t the one who started screaming. That honor belonged to yours truly.

  Chapter Three

  Present Day

  A woman’s smoky voice thrust me back to the present. The speaker’s name was Ashley Jones, and she was the host of the most successful paranormal podcast on the air today. Mysteries from the Beyond had over two million rap
t followers, and I had agreed to appear on the special 300th episode.

  “We’re here with Simon Kane, the son of the infamous cult leader Mason Kane, who is finally telling the public his side of the story for the first time,” my hostess was saying.

  I hate my last name, a name that keeps trying to define me despite all my efforts. I could comfortably live out the rest of my life without reading another news headline proclaiming that the “Son of the Demon ” solved another bizarre murder case .

  “Simon, I can’t imagine how you must’ve felt after you learned that your father was a murderous cult leader,” Ashley continued. “Can you tell us about that night?”

  Yeah, my old man sure was full of surprises , I thought grimly.

  I took a deep breath. Fifteen years had passed since the incident in the underground temple, but talking about that terrible night was stirring up a lot of dark stuff. Maybe coming on this show had been a bad idea.

  I gave the woman sitting across from me in the small recording studio a measured glance.

  “Well, Ashley, it all started with a helicopter…”

  As I recounted the story of that horrific night, I’d strategically left out the more disturbing details. There was no mention of the cult members morphing into bloodthirsty monsters, for one. Nor did I elaborate on how the mysterious cave opening had revealed itself to me that night on the beach.

  The only time I’d ever talked about those things honestly was fifteen years ago. The nurses and psychologists who treated me at the time wrote off the more fantastical details of my story as a desperate attempt of a little boy to rationalize the horrors of what he’d experienced. I doubt anyone would dismiss such crazy tales if they came from the mouth of a grown man. I’d be institutionalized, pumped full of anti-psychotics. Not something I was keen to experience.

  For many years, I’d convinced myself that the doctors were right. Monsters weren’t real.

  Talk about wishful thinking! Nothing could be further from the truth. The nightmares are real. I know this because I’m the guy who makes sure the monsters stay in the shadows where they belong.

  Ashley Jones watched me with grave interest. She was attractive, dressed stylishly, and looked normal for someone obsessed with the supernatural. I had imagined her as some goth girl with piercings and tats. Instead she showed no aversion to designer labels, bright colors, and red lipstick.

  I wondered what drew Ashley to the paranormal. Had she experienced some sort of unexplained phenomena when she was younger? There was something unnerving about her passion for the subject, and about the way her eyes lit up whenever I spoke about my father. I’d seen that type of passion before, generally in the people who worshipped men like my dad.

  Believers. Followers. Fanatics.

  She leaned forward in her chair, eyes glittering in the florescent lights. “So what happened next? Don’t leave us dangling in suspense! Did your father end up sacrificing that woman to the Devil?”

  I fought back the temptation to correct Ashley. The dark beings my father worshipped had very little in common with any Christian conceptions of good and evil.

  Of course, Ashley knew the answer to her latest question. She was feigning ignorance for the camera recording our interview for the live YouTube audience

  “Mary Kinsey lived,” I said. “Before my father could finish what he started, the cops burst in the temple and opened fire.”

  “They shot your dad right in front of your eyes, didn’t they?”

  My chest tightened as I dug my nails into the armrests of my chair. There is no doubt in my mind that my dad was an evil man who got what was coming to him. Mason Kane had been a monster…but he was also my father. After my mom died, he was the only family I had left. The newspapers never talked about the man who had made his son waffles on the weekends or made a point to attend every Little League game.

  I stole a glance at the exit and fought the impulse to take off.

  Too late to turn back now, buddy. You gotta see it through.

  I sucked in a sharp breath and said, “The way I look at it, Ashley, the cops stopped a madman from murdering an innocent woman. Thanks to the heroic efforts of those officers, Mason Kane was stopped from claiming his thirteenth victim.”

  I held the interviewer’s searching gaze, my lips compressed into a grim line as memories flooded my mind. I saw my father’s sacrificial knife exploding with red light, watched the blade ripple toward the woman on the altar while my scream echoed through the cave.

  Then gunfire drowned out a little boy’s panicked screams. Red holes erupted all across my father’s purple robe, his head snapping back in what seemed like slow motion. The light of the sacrificial blade went dark, and the nightmarish faces of his followers turned human again.

  Dad had been a monster, it was true. He’d been very good at hiding who he was from everybody, including me. Only mom knew who she'd married. And this knowledge came at the cost of her life. That's right—dear old dad was responsible for her accident, as I ultimately found out. Black magic is brutally efficient when it comes to ridding yourself of your enemies. Who knows how many lives were on my father's conscience? Then again, I doubt he had much of a conscience to begin with.

  People have often wondered how I could have been so oblivious of my father’s true character. Surely I must’ve had a feeling that something was wrong with my old man. And if not, what did it say about me?

  I’ve had to field those kinds of questions my entire life. Even the folks who claimed to be understanding couldn’t hide some of their doubts. I could practically read their thoughts: We better keep an eye on this guy. Just in case the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.

  I drained my glass of sparkling water in one deep gulp. Man, I desperately craved a real drink.

  Ashely Jones was still asking questions, still probing for more information. “How did the police locate the underground temple? Did you lead them down there?”

  They sure as hell didn’t take some secret trail to the beach or walk through the magical cave entrance that disappeared as soon as I passed through it.

  I gripped the armchair even tighter, determined to regain control over the interview.

  “As the officers searched the house,” I said tightly, “they discovered a secret entrance in the library that led under the house.”

  My own personal Batcave, and I’d never realized it was there. Sometimes humor is the only thing that keeps me sane.

  I believe my father left the doorway open on purpose. I was meant to find the temple that night. My father wanted me to witness the ceremony. After all, I’d just turned thirteen. It was time to be initiated into the cult. That’s also why the cave opening appeared to me on the beach that night.

  Dad was ready to let me in on a little secret that night: Your whole goddamn life has been one fat lie, son. Are ready to join me and unleash hell on Earth?

  My father's big miscalculation had been the law. He couldn’t have imagined that the LAPD would interrupt his final sacrifice. That they would succeed where so many of his enemies had failed.

  Ashley stared at me for a long beat, and I wondered what other questions might be going through her mind. Was she wondering if underground temples were standard issue for Malibu mega-mansions? Did she expect me to elaborate on how my father had converted a fallout shelter into a demonic playground for him and his followers?

  “Let's backtrack slightly,” she said. “How did the cops discover that your father was the leader of the killer cult terrorizing Los Angeles?”

  Ah yes, the summer of 2004. Twelve murder victims turned up with their hearts removed. Both women and men, mostly newcomers to the city. Their deaths had terrified Los Angeles for three long months. How did my old man select his victims, you wonder? Dad was a top plastic surgeon. Great gig. He got to play with knives all day while making beaucoup bucks.

  Most importantly, his practice brought him in contact with plenty of desperate souls who wanted to change their outward a
ppearance. All the victims had been aspiring actors desperate to live up to the unattainable, unrealistic standard of beauty this town demanded from its performers. Countless fresh yet flawed faces passed through the door of his practice every day but lacked the funds to make their dream of physical perfection come true.

  A tailor-made profession for a budding cult leader, wouldn’t you agree?

  Mason Kane preyed on those poor fools. Promised them the world and rewarded their gullibility with a knife to the heart.

  I shuddered at the cruelty of the whole situation and merely said, “The police found forensic evidence linking my father to the murders and the disappearance of Mary Kinsey.”

  I was relieved when Ashley didn’t ask me to elaborate on the precise nature of my father’s crazy beliefs. People only gave a damn about the crimes, not the nutty ideology that inspired them. It was easier to write off the murders as the work of a madman as opposed to a dark sorcerer following a horrifying yet carefully laid-out black magic ritual.

  My father and his followers called themselves the “Children of the Void.” Most people laughed when they first heard the cult’s name. If they knew how close my dad had come to destroying the world, those smiles would vanish pretty fast.

  “And that brings me to my next big question,” Ashley said, flashing me her mega-watt smile. “What happened to the little boy who lost everything?”

  “My mother’s sister adopted me. I moved to the East Coast and tried to live a normal life as far away from my father’s crimes as possible.”

  “How did that go?”

  “As you can imagine, my dad’s horrific crimes cast a long shadow.”

  Talk about an understatement. To the world at large, my father was a terrifying cross between Aleister Crowley and Charles Manson. Immense wealth coupled with inhuman evil. An iconic monster. There is no way to start over once you become known as the son of the boogeyman. It’s not something you can live down. It follows you wherever you go.

  “I’ll be honest, Ashley, for years I tried to run away from my past, to lie about who I was. But that changed when I returned to Los Angeles. I had to make peace with the past. It was time to face my demons.”