The Exorcist's Apprentice

by Mark Lukens

  Danny swallowed hard as the kid stood motionless, ball under one arm now. He just stood there, staring at him and smiling.

  “I came here to give you a warning,” Ricky said.

  Danny didn’t say anything.

  “Don’t go with your father. You don’t want to see what he’s going to show you. You don’t want to be there when that happens.”

  Ricky turned to shoot the ball. When he turned, Danny noticed that the back of his head was caved in and matted with blood; a few dark chunks of glistening brain were mixed in with the blood that clung to the back of his head.

  How did he not see that before?

  No way he could have missed it.

  Drops of blood dripped down from Ricky’s matted hair and plopped down on the concrete. Little drops of blood were everywhere. There was even a small clump underneath the basket that looked like a piece of meat or brain covered with blood.

  Ricky made his shot—a swoosh, nothing but net. He turned and looked at Danny with the severe half-smile on his face, the same smile Danny had seen on the blond-haired man back at his house in Cleveland as the man struggled to get inside the basement door.

  Danny didn’t bother saying anything else.

  He ran.

  And he heard the pounding of sneakers on the concrete as the kid chased him.

  Would the kid catch up to him? How fast could the dead run?

  Danny didn’t waste any energy turning around to find out. He ran, listening for Ricky’s footsteps or shouts from behind him, but he could only hear his own sneakers slapping the sidewalk and his heavy breathing. He expected to feel the dead kid’s fingertips touch his shoulder or the back of his neck at any moment. He knew the feel of the kid’s flesh would be ice-cold and slimy. It would feel wet, like from under a cold lake. And that touch might stop him in his tracks. That touch might make him pass out right there on the sidewalk.

  When he crossed the intersection to his dad’s street (without even stopping to look for cars), he slowed down and glanced behind him.

  He didn’t see Ricky running after him. He didn’t see anyone on the sidewalks. It was darker than he had noticed and he saw lights on in most of the houses—cozy, yellowish lights, people tucked safely away inside their homes, protected from the creatures that prowled the night out here.

  A hand fell on Danny’s shoulder and he let out a scream, whirling around, his hands up to ward off the dead kid who must’ve used a shortcut through some backyards to cut him off before he got home.

  Paul defended Danny’s strikes easily, and then he backed up a step.

  “Danny, what is it?”

  Danny stared at Paul, and he wanted to burst into tears. He was happy his father had come looking for him, but at the same time he hated him, hated that all of this was from his dad and his cursed family line.

  And it was true. Danny had just seen that. Either he had the Gift of visions as Paul had suggested, or he was going crazy, perhaps breaking down from the stress of his mother and sister’s deaths. Neither option really seemed that great to him right now.

  “It’s late,” Paul said.

  “Yeah,” Danny breathed out. “Sorry. I was trying to hurry back.”

  Paul stared at Danny like he didn’t believe him.

  CHAP†ER †WEN†Y-†HREE

  Danny went straight up to his bedroom when he got home. The cable guy had come and set up the cable and internet before he and Paul had had their little chat about exorcisms, possessions, visions, and demons trapped inside little wood boxes. He tested out his TV and was satisfied. He left it on the Cartoon Network for now, and he knew he was going to leave it on all night while he tried to sleep. Maybe he would feel better under the comforting, flickering light of the TV.

  After a quick shower, a snack, and another can of Coke—which Paul seemed to frown on but thankfully said nothing about—Danny went to his room again and shut the door. His door handle had a lock that a skeleton key would fit, and he thought about asking his father for the key. But he didn’t.

  He turned the volume down on the TV and checked the closet which had a few cardboard boxes of storage on the top shelves (no little black wooden boxes, thank God), but was mostly empty except for Danny’s clothes on hangers and his two empty suitcases on the floor. His boxes with his posters, knickknacks, sports equipment, and other possessions that he and Paul had shipped from Cleveland hadn’t showed up yet. Maybe it would be here in the next day or two. Danny couldn’t wait to get his basketball posters up on the walls, his boxes of trading cards that he collected, books and comics stacked on a bookshelf, the things that would make this room his own room.

  He closed the closet door, making sure it was shut securely. He checked underneath the bed—nothing under there except a few dust bunnies and his shoebox. He checked the only window in the bedroom; it looked out onto the strip of dormant grass that served as the side yard between Paul’s house and the neighbor’s. He looked as far as he could out the window and he could see part of the front yard, the sidewalk, and the street beyond that. He had almost expected to see Ricky standing on the sidewalk under the glow of the streetlight, his basketball tucked underneath one of his thin and pale arms, his caved-in head glistening in the yellowish-orangish light, the light casting sharp shadows on the kid’s face, making his half-smile even more menacing.

  But Ricky wasn’t standing down there on the sidewalk.

  Danny left the curtains open so some of the streetlight would beam into the bedroom, and then he went to his bed.

  Maybe Ricky hadn’t been there at all today.

  The thought of hallucinating seemed as scary as seeing dead people walking around, talking to him and giving him warnings.

  Almost as scary.

  Was he losing his mind? Was he cracking up from all the stress?

  He didn’t know. He just wanted to fall into an eight hour dreamless sleep. His body needed the rest. His mind needed the rest.

  †

  Danny woke up in darkness. His TV was off. The bedroom door was still closed. The light from the streetlamp shined in through the window and Danny saw the person standing at the foot of his bed, just beyond the line between the dark and the light.

  It was his mom.

  She stood there in the darkness, her arms reaching out for Danny, bits of muck and lake bottom plant-life hanging from her arms. Water dripped from her hands, her arms, her stringy hair, and her wet dress that clung tightly to her body. Her eyes were pure black, lost in shadow. Her mouth hung open like her jaw might be broken. A gurgling sound came from somewhere down deep inside her throat like she was trying to breathe through water.

  “Danny …” she whispered. “Danny … come down here with me. I’m so lonely …”

  Danny jumped up in bed onto his feet in a crouch like he was ready to spring off the bed and escape. The headboard crashed into the wall behind him as he backed up into it. The mattress squeaked from his sudden movements. The bed shook.

  He heard a ticking at the bedroom window. He tore his eyes away from his mother and saw the blond-haired man at his window, standing outside like he was floating on the night air two stories up. The streetlight lit half of him up and kept the other half in shadow, but Danny couldn’t mistake that smile and those dark and dead eyes.

  The man clicked on the glass of the window with his long, yellowed fingernails.

  Danny screamed.

  He fumbled with the lamp next to his bed, trying to turn it on. He heard the wet footsteps in the room with him, the squelch of water on the floorboards, the tapping at the window. But he didn’t look at either one of them; he concentrated on the lamp, he concentrated on trying to twist that little knob.

  “… isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real …” Danny kept whispering like a mantra.

  The bedroom door flew open and the overhead light came on.

  Paul stood in the doorway, looking alarmed and angry at the same time.

  “Danny! You okay?!”

 
Danny stared back at Paul. He shook his head no and tears spilled down his cheeks even though he didn’t want to cry in front of his father. “I don’t think so,” he finally said.

  †

  Paul and Danny sat at the kitchen table. It was almost five o’clock in the morning.

  Paul made a pot of strong coffee for himself and gave Danny a can of soda which he cradled in front of him.

  At seventeen years old, Danny was already almost as tall as Paul, and he already had wide shoulders and naturally long limbs. He looked like he was beginning to fill out his frame with muscle. But right now, to Paul, he looked so small and vulnerable, curled up in the kitchen chair in front of the table.

  “What did you see?” Paul asked him after they were quiet for a long time.

  Danny didn’t answer for a long moment. He just trembled and sipped his can of Coke, staring down at the table.

  “What did you see, Danny?” Paul asked again in a gentle voice.

  “It was just a nightmare,” he whispered.

  “And earlier tonight, when you went out for a walk? You were running from something, weren’t you?”

  Danny looked up at his father with a lost look in his eyes. “I saw a kid my own age at the basketball courts. He said his name was Ricky. But he was dead. Or he should’ve been. He had a big … like a wound at the back of his head. Like his head had been smashed in or something.”

  Paul only nodded. “Could be Ricky Doleman. He used to live a few streets over from me. He was playing basketball in his driveway a few years ago and chased the ball out into the street. He was hit by a car.”

  Danny let out a long breath and shook his head no. “You’re saying I saw a dead kid? That I shot baskets with a dead kid?”

  “I’m saying a demon came to you disguised as that form. They don’t reveal their true forms very often. Sometimes they mask themselves as someone else and try to weasel their way into someone else’s life.”

  Danny shook his head no again. “No. This can’t be real.”

  “It is,” Paul said with more force. He didn’t want to scare Danny away, but he needed him to see the truth. “It’s real and it’s dangerous. They’re after you, and they’re after me.”

  “But why?”

  “I think they’re afraid of me because I can trap them. I know they hate me. They hate the family line I come from. They want to hurt me by hurting you and my family. And I think they might be afraid of you, too.”

  “Of me? Why? I can’t do anything like what you can do.”

  “Not yet. And you don’t even know what your Gifts are yet; what powers you might have inside of you.”

  “It’s not fair,” Danny said. “I never asked for this. I never did anything to them.”

  “They don’t care about fairness and they don’t care about your concerns,” Paul said and then sipped his coffee. His throat was suddenly very dry.

  “I don’t remember anything from the accident,” Danny said after a long moment.

  Paul nodded.

  “But I do remember something right before we crashed.” Danny hesitated like he didn’t want to say more.

  “Come on, Danny, we can’t have any secrets between us right now,” Paul said even though he was still holding on to some very big secrets of his own. He couldn’t tell Danny everything all at once.

  “I saw someone at the side of the road,” Danny finally said. “He might have been standing in the road. I’m not sure. I might have yelled at Mom when I saw the man. I might have distracted her just long enough to …”

  Danny wiped away at his sudden tears.

  Paul waited patiently.

  Danny described the blond-haired man to Paul. And then he told Paul about the two times that he had seen the man before: once on the way home from school and once outside the basement door when he had been jiggling the door handle and trying to get inside.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this man before?”

  “I don’t know. I thought it was just some crazy guy. And then when I remembered him from the accident, I started wondering if I’d seen him at all. No one else had seen him but me. I started wondering if I was going crazy. And now the nightmares of Mom and the kid at the basketball courts …”

  “You’re not going crazy. As much as you may not want to believe it, this is real. And the sooner you come to terms with that, the sooner you can learn to defend yourself, and the stronger your faith will become.”

  “If God is so good, then why is He doing this to us? Why is He allowing this to happen?”

  “He gives all of us a choice. You can’t help the family line you were born into. But you still have a choice—you can choose to ignore the family line and the calling, or you can choose to embrace it. You can pretend that what you’ve been seeing were hallucinations. And you can choose to try to run away and hope that the dark spirits don’t get to you. Or you can choose to fight back.”

  Paul got up and poured another cup of coffee. He noticed the time on the microwave oven. It was getting close to six o’clock in the morning now. The first light of morning was lightening up the kitchen window. There was no sense in going back to bed now.

  “I want to fight,” Paul heard Danny say from behind him. Danny’s voice was strong. And it was angry.

  Paul turned around and saw that Danny was looking straight at him, his dark eyes seemed darker, his jaw was set, his jaw muscles clenched. He looked bigger now, stronger.

  “I want to make them pay for what they did to Mom and Lisa.”

  Paul nodded and kept his expression neutral. But on the inside he was happy. This was the first major step for Danny—belief. Sometimes it was the most difficult step.

  “Okay,” Paul said. “We can begin training soon.”

  Danny didn’t say anything; he just nodded.

  “In a few hours we’re going to Mass at St. Mathews. I want you to wear your nicest clothes. The darker the better.”

  CHAP†ER †WEN†Y-FOUR

  Danny wore the black pants and shoes that he had worn to his mother’s funeral. But he picked out a different shirt and put that on. Then he pulled a dark sweater on over that.

  He was ready.

  They drove to the church in Paul’s rumbling Bronco. Even though the truck was old, the engine had been rebuilt and it was like brand new. Paul explained the importance of having a reliable vehicle, and having one with both power and speed, one that could be used in both the city and off-road if need be.

  “But gas for this thing must be outrageous,” Danny said.

  “The Church pays for that. And they pay for my house. And they pay me a nice salary.”

  “Wow,” Danny said.

  “I provide an important service for them. I go to places and do things many others can’t or won’t. And one day, so will you.”

  †

  St. Mathews church looked like a small city to Danny. The buildings took up over one city block. Paul parked his truck in a massive parking area that was as big as a Wal-Mart parking lot, but much cleaner and with perfectly mowed and trimmed grass islands that broke up the rows and rows of cars and trucks.

  They walked to the main sanctuary. It was a massive building with wide sidewalks that ran through meticulously landscaped lawns and shrubbery that led up to the massive doors that were opened wide, welcoming in the congregation. Statues of angels rimmed a cathedral with a steeple that rose up into the gray sky with a cross on top.

  Danny and Paul sat in the last row of pews with most of the congregation bunched up in the first half of the rows of pews, closer to the dais. Paul had his large manila folder on his lap, the one Danny had seen on his desk in the office, the one with the neatly printed name: Father McFadden.

  Danny’s eyes wandered up to the high ceilings, the gigantic wooden beams that stretched across them. He gazed at the windows of stained glass art, rows and rows of them.

  He looked back at the congregation in front of him as they settled in. Many of them glanced back at him and Paul, stealing
peeks. They seemed both offended and nervous that Paul was attending the service. Danny was secretly amused and prideful. He always thought Paul was a badass, and now he could see the fear and the respect in other people’s eyes. He could see them wondering about his father, the mystery of the man in the black clothing who sat in the last row. And now he had this boy with him. His son, perhaps? their eyes questioned.

  †

  After the service was over, Paul introduced Danny to Father McFadden. They had walked down a labyrinth of wide halls to meet with him at his office door which was wide open.

  Father McFadden was an inch or two taller than Paul, but he was thin and had the rigid posture of a lamppost, yet he somehow managed to seem at ease at the same time. He had a warm smile and a twinkle in his gray eyes, but Danny sensed power and authority coming from this man.

  “Danny, I’m so glad to finally meet you,” the priest said as he shook Danny’s hand in a warm and firm grip.

  “Yes, sir. Thanks.” Danny didn’t know what else to say.

  Father McFadden’s face fell into a frown. He dropped his head a little. “I was so sorry to hear about your loss.”

  Danny felt an instant ache in his chest and a tightening of his throat. The compassion in the priest’s expression and voice almost brought him to tears.

  “Thank you,” Danny croaked out.

  Danny pushed his thoughts away from his mother and sister, and he pondered his father who stood beside him. It was still a little difficult for Danny to wrap his mind around the idea that his father came from a long line of Investigators that stretched back before the Middle Ages. And it was even more difficult for him to believe that he might be an Investigator himself eventually.

  “I have a few things to discuss with Father McFadden,” Paul said as he looked at Danny.

  Danny could tell he was being brushed off and it hurt his feelings a little. He had already told Paul that he wanted to learn the ways of the family line. He thought today would be his first day of training.

  But he didn’t dare question it—not with both Father McFadden and Paul staring at him.