The Exorcist's Apprentice

by Mark Lukens

  There was the sound of running feet across the wood floor and then the sound of the bedroom door flung open. Then there was the sound of running footsteps out in the hallway, and then the sound of the bedroom door slamming closed.

  The assistant had finally run, Paul thought.

  Paul turned his flashlight on and shined it at the wall where the small table and candles were. He did not expect to see Father O’Leary still standing there.

  But the young priest cringed against the wall, still clutching his crucifix and rosary beads, his lips moving in non-stop prayers. His skin looked so pale in the flashlight’s beam, his eyes so wide. He was beyond shock now.

  But Paul needed to get through to Father O’Leary.

  “Father O’Leary! Re-light the candles! We need the light!”

  It took a moment for the priest to even realize someone was talking to him. He looked into the beam of light at Paul, blinking uncontrollably as tears slipped from his eyes.

  “The candles!” Paul yelled again.

  The young priest nodded and lunged at the table. He found the lighter and dropped his cross and rosary beads on the table next to the candles as Paul shined his flashlight beam at him. He lit the candles and hovered over the flickering flames as if it was his last lifeline in this sudden world of darkness.

  If Father O’Leary hadn’t run out of the bedroom, then who had?

  Paul swept his flashlight beam around the room. Julia was still tied down to the bed and all of the cuffs on her wrists and ankles seemed secure even though she had struggled against them with incredible strength. But she laid very still now, her head turned to one side, her dark hair splashed across her face. She looked like she might be unconscious.

  “Julia …” Richard whispered.

  Paul whipped the flashlight beam over to the bedroom door where Richard stood next to the light switch. He looked horrified, afraid, and hopeful all at the same time.

  “The light switch!” Paul yelled at Richard.

  “It’s not working!”

  Paul swept his flashlight beam around the bedroom. Father James was the only one not in the room. It was Father James who had run.

  No, Paul thought. He hadn’t run … it was worse than that. The demon had jumped from Julia to Father James when the lights went out.

  Richard ran across the room and knelt down by his daughter’s bed, brushing her hair out of her face.

  “She’s alive,” Richard whispered and looked at Paul as a lightning bolt from outside lit up the room. In that split second, Paul saw that Richard’s face was shiny with tears.

  “It’s not over yet,” Paul told Richard. “Don’t untie her until I get Father James.”

  “Is she still … is that thing still inside of her?” Richard asked.

  “I don’t know. We can’t be sure. There may have been more than one demon.” Paul thought of the story from the Bible that the demon had spoken of through Julia’s lips before: The story of Christ casting out the demon Legion from a man and forcing them into a group of pigs. Legion. Many demons.

  It had been a long time since Paul had dealt with more than one demon possessing a person’s body. Usually a person couldn’t be possessed unless they allowed themselves to be, unless they opened the door somehow, even just a little bit, and invited them in. Once the door was open, the demon could wriggle its way into that person’s life, little by little, inch by inch. Sometimes a person just suddenly felt anxious or depressed for no apparent reason. Or they had strange thoughts, maybe a voice whispering to them to do something terrible either to themselves or to others.

  What door had Julia opened? What had she been messing around with? He hadn’t noticed any signs of the occult among the possessions of her bedroom that had been laid out in the living room, not even a seemingly harmless Ouija board.

  It didn’t make sense for her to be possessed this strongly, a possession this total and complete should’ve taken years. There should’ve been signs along the way; she should’ve gotten help long before tonight.

  But Paul knew there were rare cases where a demon, or more than one demon, took over someone’s body quickly and completely. It was rare, and it must be what he was dealing with tonight.

  And now the demon had jumped from body to body—another very rare occurrence. He was dealing with something he’d never seen before, only heard about or read about in case studies.

  Paul didn’t have time to ponder these things right now. He needed to find Father James.

  Thunder rumbled as Paul set his flashlight down on the floor. He grabbed the canister of salt and dumped the last of it onto his hands and rubbed it into his skin to purify them even more. He picked his flashlight back up and looked at Father O’Leary who was still huddled by the table of candles in the corner.

  “Help him pray,” Paul barked at the young and shaken priest. “Don’t untie her and don’t leave this room. If Father James comes back in here, don’t trust him. He’s possessed now.”

  “That can’t be possible,” Father O’Leary said as he walked on numb-stiff legs over to the side of Julia’s bed.

  Julia still hadn’t moved a muscle or made a sound. Her eyes were closed and the strange half-smile was gone from her face now.

  “We’re dealing with a very strong force here,” Paul told Father O’Leary. “Your faith must be the strongest it has ever been. Father James’s faith may have slipped and allowed the demon a way into him. You don’t want to let that happen to you. Stay inside the circle, both of you. It will offer some protection, but it won’t replace your faith.”

  “What are you going to do?” Father O’Leary asked Paul.

  “I’m going to find Father James and drive the demon out of him.”

  Paul grabbed the black box from the floor and turned for the door. He didn’t have time to keep this conversation going just so Father O’Leary could be comforted.

  He slipped out of the bedroom and closed the door on the flickering candlelight. He was now in near-total darkness with his flashlight beam as his only light.

  He shined the light to his left, towards the two doors at the end of the hallway. He crept down the hall, his boots not making a sound as he walked. He shut the flashlight off as he made his way slowly to the first closed door without a sound, like he was a shadow among the shadows. His eyes had already adjusted to the darkness. He opened the door and it didn’t squeak or squeal when he pushed it open. He stepped inside a bathroom and glanced around just as another flash of lightning lit up the room from the bathroom window.

  There was nowhere for Father James to hide in here. The shower curtain was pulled back revealing the tub, and the door to a tiny linen closet was open.

  Paul hurried out of the room and opened the next door which led to a master bedroom. This room took a few more moments to search. He turned his flashlight back on and used the beam to quickly search under the bed and inside the walk-in closet.

  As he searched the bedroom, something tugged at his mind. He looked at the artwork on the walls in the bedroom, the décor on top of the dresser. It looked like a woman shared the room with Richard, but then again it didn’t. Like he might have been married at some point in the past, and then she left, and he hadn’t gotten around to redecorating, maybe like he had wanted to keep everything the same in case she ever came back.

  But that didn’t feel right, either.

  He let his eyes linger on the clothes hanging in the closet a moment longer.

  Something was wrong here. He was missing something, but he wasn’t sure what it was. He had a sinking feeling that it was something important.

  Father James wasn’t back here in these two rooms, and Paul hadn’t heard anyone in the hallway. He had decided to work his way from the back of the house to the front. But he needed to hurry before Father James either attacked someone or left the house so he could spread the infection of his possession on to someone else.

  Paul hurried down the hallway. There was only one more closed door in the hallway b
esides the door to Julia’s room. As he passed the closed door to Julia’s bedroom, he stopped for a moment, listening. Everything sounded quiet in there, and he could still see the flickering light of the candles coming from underneath the door.

  Everything seemed okay in there, but then again it felt like it wasn’t.

  Opposites, but similar at the same time. The way demons liked it. Light and dark. Good and bad. Right and wrong. Confusing everything.

  Leave. Stay. The words echoed in Paul’s mind, the words uttered through Julia’s lips. Leave. Stay. Leavestayleavestay. Obeynotobeyobeynotobey.

  Paul shut the voice away in his mind. He couldn’t be distracted right now … he had a job to do here.

  He walked down the hall and came to the last closed door on the other side of the hallway. Maybe it was a guest room of some kind, he thought. Or maybe an office or home gym or storage.

  He wrapped his hand around the door handle, just about to open it, but then he froze when he heard a sound from the kitchen—a crashing noise. And then he heard the sound of someone giggling; it was a deep voice that was giggling—it was Father James.

  CHAP†ER SIX

  Paul dropped his hand away from the door handle and stared down the hall that opened up to the living room with the archway to the kitchen off to the right. He was certain that the crashing sound and the giggling had come from the kitchen. He had trained his ears through the years to locate sounds in the dark.

  Paul clicked his flashlight on and shined it down the hallway as he walked. He could use the heavy flashlight as a weapon if he needed to.

  “Father James,” Paul said in a low voice. “Come on out and show yourself. You need help. I want to help you.”

  There was another noise coming from inside the kitchen now, like the sound of someone crawling across the floor.

  †

  In Julia’s bedroom, Father O’Leary knelt beside the young woman’s bed. Richard knelt on the other side of the bed. Everything was quiet now, everything very still. The only sound was the occasional rumble of thunder and the dancing of the rain on the roof. But the rain was softer now, the storm beginning to move past them.

  Father O’Leary prayed silently, but he also tried to listen for sounds of Paul in the house. But he couldn’t hear Paul.

  Julia still hadn’t stirred. She was very still, but Father O’Leary saw that her chest was rising and falling slightly.

  “You like watching her?” Richard asked Father O’Leary from the other side of the bed.

  Father O’Leary looked at Richard. The big man’s expression had changed and the tears in his eyes had dried up. In the flickering light of the candles from the corner of the room, Richard’s face seemed to be changing, morphing into the expression of a madman. He had the same twisted half-smile that Julia had worn earlier, and his eyes seemed to have grown very dark—his entire eyeballs were black.

  Father O’Leary didn’t answer Richard. His voice was stuck in his throat, his mouth suddenly so dry he was afraid his tongue was going to stick to the roof of his mouth. His body had become both tense and rubbery at the same time, the strength draining out of him now. Even though it was still freezing inside the room, he felt cold sweat trickling down his back and from his armpits. His testicles shriveled and hugged close to his body.

  “You like watching her, don’t you?” Richard said again, his breath escaping his mouth in a cloud of vapor that hovered over Julia’s body for a moment before disappearing into the air.

  “What … what are you talking about?” Father O’Leary stammered. “We have to pray. We have to be strong.”

  “We are strong,” Richard said and moved his hands to the cuff on Julia’s left wrist.

  “What are you doing?!”

  Julia turned her head towards Father O’Leary, and now she had the same twisted smile on her face, her eyes pure black again. “Come join us,” she said to Father O’Leary.

  “Oh God, no!” Father O’Leary whimpered and jumped to his feet.

  Richard unbuckled the cuff on Julia’s wrist and her arm was free.

  †

  Paul entered the kitchen with the black box tucked underneath his arm. He panned his flashlight beam around the room. He didn’t see Father James anywhere. The kitchen was large and open, with a table for four against a wall and an L-shape of cabinets and appliances on the other wall. Another large archway at the other end of the room led out to the dining room, and a door near that archway led out to the garage, Paul supposed.

  But Paul didn’t worry about those doors and archways. Father James was still somewhere in this kitchen, he was sure of it.

  Paul heard a noise from the refrigerator behind him. He whirled around, his flashlight up, the beam pointed at the top of the large refrigerator where Father James was somehow impossibly crammed up on top of the refrigerator in that small space, his body folded in on itself.

  “Father James,” Paul breathed out. “I know you can still hear me from somewhere inside there. You have to fight this … you have to hold on to your strength.”

  Father James’s eyes were coal-black in his pale face that stuck out from his body over the top of the refrigerator. He opened his mouth wide and his breath misted out into the suddenly cold room. The window over the sink had fogged up.

  As lightning flashed, Father James sprung out from the top of the refrigerator like he had been shot from a catapult; a gangly, flying object, large head and open mouth, sharp elbows and knees, large hands open and reaching for Paul.

  Paul managed to turn his shoulder into the attack, and he let the black box fall from his hand as he grabbed at the priest’s clothing and limbs, and then he twisted and flipped, slamming the old priest down onto the table top in one smooth movement. The table collapsed, the legs flying out. One of the chairs cracked apart in the process.

  Father James was back on his feet in a split second, bleeding and damaged, but not feeling it. He smiled at Paul, but it was the same twisted, half-smile Paul had seen on Julia’s face, the upturn on one side of the mouth so severe, the eyes so wide and dark.

  “In the name of Almighty God!” Paul shouted. The silver crucifix around his neck winked in the light from his flashlight which he’d lost in the quick battle with Father James. The flashlight was on the floor shining a splash of light across the linoleum, shining right on the black wooden box that had landed near the baseboard of the wall.

  Paul lifted his hands up and the rings of iron were dark circles on his fingers. Religious tattoos and crosses on his wrists peeked out from underneath the cuffs of his dark sweater.

  “I command you to leave this man’s body!” Paul shouted, his hands still up and ready to defend himself against this raging animal that had been an old man only moments ago. “You leave this holy vessel! You have no right to be there. You are not welcome in this holy man’s body. You are not welcome anywhere!”

  For a moment Father James hesitated and his dark eyes cleared a little.

  But then Paul heard a scream from Julia’s bedroom.

  It was a man’s scream.

  A distraction.

  Father James used the distraction and pounced on Paul, knocking him down to the floor.

  “You want to know my name?” Father James growled as he hovered over him. “I am the Terror By Night, and I am going to take everything away from you, Paul. Everything that you love.”

  CHAP†ER SEVEN

  Father O’Leary jumped to his feet beside Julia’s bed. The flickering light of the candles made it seem like there were shadows moving all around the corners of the bedroom.

  But the shadows seemed darker, and more solid. Were they coming for him?

  The young priest didn’t waste any time; panic had overtaken him. He ran around the foot of the bed and bolted for the bedroom door, praying he would be able to get past Richard.

  Julia had unbuckled the cuff on her right wrist with her free hand and now she sat up like a piston and began working on the cuffs around her ankles. She would
be free in seconds.

  And in that moment before he ran, Father O’Leary swore he saw those worm-like creatures squirming underneath the fabric of her sweatpants and underneath the skin of her arms and face.

  Those worm things couldn’t be real, could they? he kept telling himself. It was just an illusion from the candlelight.

  Father O’Leary whispered out a string of prayers as he raced for the bedroom door, almost like his mouth was working on its own. His body felt rubbery and weak from pure shock, but at the same time a shot of adrenaline was coursing through his veins causing a fight-or-flight response … and he chose flight.

  For the briefest of moments, Father O’Leary dared to believe that he’d gotten past Richard.

  But Richard was somehow in front of him, looming there, blocking the door. The big man grabbed Father O’Leary around his throat with one large hand, clamping down hard, squeezing the air out of him and stopping his movements suddenly.

  Father O’Leary’s hands went to Richard’s wrist and he tried to pull the man’s hand away, but Richard was way too strong.

  And then Richard pulled something out from underneath his shirt as Father O’Leary struggled in the big man’s grip. It was some kind of plastic bottle that looked like a flask, a white bottle with a red plastic cap and some kind of label on it that Father O’Leary couldn’t read because black and white spots began to dance in front of his eyes.

  But when Richard popped the cap open with a quick flip of his thumb, Father O’Leary could smell the pungent chemical scent.

  Oh God, no … lighter fluid!

  The priest heard Julia from behind him; he heard the squeak of the mattress, the squeal of the bedsprings as she got off the bed.