The Exorcist's Apprentice

by Mark Lukens

  Then Paul heard the unmistakable sound of Danny kicking the black wooden box across the room like he was kicking a soccer ball. The box landed somewhere in the distance, and Paul wasn’t sure if Danny had broken the box apart or not.

  A flickering of light appeared from behind Paul. Then more light.

  Father Hopkins had the candles lit, and it was amazing how much light they put out in this area of the basement.

  Paul sat up on the floor, his hands up and ready to defend himself from another kick from Danny.

  But Danny wasn’t there.

  Paul hopped up to his feet. He stood in a crouch with his hands still up in front of him, ready to fend off punches and kicks. His eyes darted back and forth, searching as far as the flickering candlelight would allow.

  “Danny,” Paul called out. “Where’d you go?”

  No answer from Danny.

  Paul could see the empty wood chair in the darkness. He could make out the torn leather straps hanging off the arms and legs of the chair like pieces of broken strings.

  And then a gleam on the floor caught his eye—his crucifix. He ran forward and plucked it up from the floor. It was bent and slightly mangled, but he gripped it in his hand anyway.

  The dancing shadows created by the candlelight moved around the edges of the light, and each trembling shadow could be Danny.

  Paul backed up towards the table where Father Hopkins waited. The father gripped his own crucifix in his hands. He looked scared, but still strong.

  “Where are the others?”

  “Father Severino found a flashlight,” Father Hopkins whispered. “He’s looking for more light.”

  “Robert and Helen?”

  “I think they ran for the door.”

  “They don’t have an extra key, do they? Please don’t tell me that one of you kept an extra one.”

  “No. You have the only key.”

  Paul nodded, his eyes still constantly scanning the vast basement. “We can’t let Danny leave this room no matter what happens.”

  Father Hopkins didn’t bother answering; he just gave a curt nod.

  “If Danny gets out, the demons may jump to others,” Paul said. Or to one of us, Paul thought, but he didn’t want to utter those words aloud. He was sure the others knew the dangers they faced down here.

  A scraping noise sounded from somewhere deep in the darkness.

  Father Severino hurried up to the table from the darkness with an armful of flashlights. He had scratches across his face that had welted up. A few of them dripped blood. His eyes were orbs of terror, but he wasn’t running away yet.

  “I found some flashlights,” Father Severino whispered.

  Paul was proud of the young priest’s fortitude, but he didn’t want to waste time with words right now. He took the offered flashlight and turned it on.

  “What happened to you?” Paul asked Father Severino. “Did Danny do that to you?”

  Father Severino handed a flashlight to Father Hopkins and then set the other two flashlights down on the table next to the candles. He looked at Paul and shook his head no. “It was someone else. A woman I’d never seen before.”

  Rachael.

  “Did you see Danny anywhere?”

  Father Severino shook his head no.

  “I want you two to stay by this table for now,” Paul told the two priests. “Keep together and keep praying. Don’t stop praying. I need to find the black box and the parchment.”

  Paul left the priests and the candlelight. He walked towards the chair that Danny had been strapped to, and he clutched the slightly bent crucifix in one hand and the flashlight in his other, which lit his way through the darkness. He walked past the chair and then he moved towards the stacks of crates, boxes, and furniture in the gloomy distance.

  There were hundreds of places to hide and Paul’s mind flashed back to Julia Whittier’s exorcism and seeing Father James holed up on top of the refrigerator like a spider waiting to jump out of its nest, his long arms and legs somehow impossibly folded up underneath him in the small space, his large pale face and black eyes staring out at him.

  He could imagine Danny packed into some small hiding place, waiting to attack. Normally, Paul would be stronger than Danny, but not now that Danny was in this possessed state.

  Paul ventured deeper into the basement, moving past stacks and stacks of boxes, crates, furniture, shelves. The flashlight only illuminated a small part of the basement, the rest was hidden in pitch-black darkness.

  He heard a sloshing sound and shined the light down at his feet. He was walking in a few inches of murky water. He panned the flashlight from his feet towards the block wall of the basement in the distance and saw that the whole floor was covered in the dark water.

  This isn’t real, Paul kept whispering in his mind.

  He saw something long and serpentine swimming quickly just underneath the surface of the water, and then it was gone.

  “Paul …” a woman’s voice whispered to him from the darkness, her voice gurgling with water.

  And then he heard her footsteps sloshing through the thick and murky water, getting closer to him.

  “Paul … why didn’t you help me? Why weren’t you there for me? Why weren’t you there for Lisa?”

  “I tried,” Paul called out.

  He had to stop himself. He couldn’t let himself converse with the demons, he couldn’t let them pull the strings of his guilt and use it against him.

  He saw her.

  Rachael stepped out from behind a stack of boxes. She wore a thin, white dress that clung to her wet and bloated body. Her flesh was bluish-gray. Her dark hair was matted to the sides of her bloated face. Her lips were so dark they looked like they had black lipstick on them. Some of her skin hung in loose folds from her elbows and knees, like her flesh was sloughing away from her bones.

  Yet she walked … she stumbled towards him in the beam of light from his flashlight.

  “I’m so sorry,” Paul whispered.

  “Come down here with me, Paul,” Rachael said and lifted her arms up, reaching out for him like a lover. “Come down here under the water with me. I’m so lonely. I want you back. Lisa’s down here, too. We can be a family again.”

  For a split second the thought struck him. It had always been his fantasy to reunite with Rachael and his children again. To be a family again.

  Paul snapped out of it and brought his crucifix up in front of him like a shield. “Back away, demons!”

  Rachael attacked. She moved with a sudden and blinding speed. She knocked him back into a stack of cardboard boxes that crumbled when he crashed down into them. He dropped both his crucifix and his flashlight down into the water.

  He felt cold and wet hands grab his throat.

  He looked up, expecting to see Rachael’s bloated face inches away from his. He expected to smell the rotting lake-bottom smell coming from her open mouth.

  But it was Danny’s face in front of him, it was Danny’s hands gripping his throat and squeezing the breath from him. Danny’s face was twisted into a mask of rage and hatred.

  “Die!!” Danny growled.

  CHAP†ER FOR†Y

  Paul grabbed Danny’s wrists and tried to break his grip on his throat. Paul could still breathe, but he could feel Danny’s fingers tightening and his own strength beginning to fade.

  “Danny,” Paul croaked out. “Danny, I know you’re still in there somewhere. I know you can hear me …”

  Danny’s grip tightened.

  “Danny, fight it. Fight this evil. It’s your only chance. Our only chance. You can control these demons. They’re afraid of you.”

  Danny growled, and he mounted Paul. The crushed cardboard boxes underneath Paul flattened even more under their combined weight. Something sharp poked at the back of Paul’s leg, but not enough to pierce his flesh yet.

  “Danny … this isn’t your fault … you didn’t kill your mother and sister …”

  Paul felt Danny’s fingers tightening even
more, and his words were choked off. He could barely utter any other words. But there was something he had to say, something he needed to say.

  “Danny … I … I love you … son …”

  †

  Danny floated in a black void. It seemed like he had been in this darkness forever, but at the same time it only felt like mere moments. He saw a light far away in the distance, a flickering light. He realized he was underwater. He pulled himself towards the light and he was suddenly …

  … in his mother’s car again.

  They drove down the dark road towards the lake down in the valley. Danny saw the blond man on the side of the road. He saw the man raise his hands and pretend he was gripping an imaginary steering wheel. And then the man gave it a sharp turn with his dark eyes on Danny and that half-smile pasted on his face.

  His mother screamed.

  She couldn’t control the steering wheel, and she couldn’t move her leg, her foot stomped down on the gas pedal.

  Danny tried to help her, he tried to move her arms and legs, but they were rock-solid; they felt like stone.

  “I can’t move!” his mother screamed. “Danny, hold on!”

  They crashed through the guardrail …

  … down the embankment …

  … crashed into the water. The nose of the car plunged down into darkness. The headlights barely cut through the muck.

  Lisa’s screams were cut short as she slammed into the back of his seat, knocked out immediately.

  Mom was dazed as the car sank deeper into the water. Blood floated out from a gash in her forehead, mixing in with the dark water. The exploded airbag deflated and sank down to her lap.

  Danny’s airbag was now a wasted white thing floating in front of him. He pushed it away and looked down at his lap and the seatbelt still holding him in place. He struggled to hold his breath.

  So cold.

  So dark.

  Danny fought with the seatbelt clasp. It was stuck.

  The dashboard lights and headlights flickered, beginning to short out.

  Danny held his breath, and his lungs were beginning to burn. The entire car was under the water now, sinking down to the muck-covered lake bottom, hitting it with a muffled thump.

  He looked down at his seatbelt in the fading light, trying to unclick it.

  And then he saw his mother’s pale hand. She laid her hand over his, calming him down instantly.

  She unclicked his seatbelt and freed him.

  He looked at her. Her eyes and mouth were open. She was dead, but somehow she had helped him.

  She had helped him.

  The passenger window burst open and Danny turned to see the blond-haired man with the twisted smile reaching in for him. He touched Danny’s arm, grabbing at him.

  And then Danny blacked out. He felt a slimy creature slithering inside of his mind, swirling down into his soul … taking it over.

  And that was the last thing he remembered before he came back to consciousness in the back of the police car with Officer Booker standing over him.

  Now Danny floated outside of his mother’s car underneath the lake. He watched it in the darkness; the car was just a black mass at the bottom of the lake with its dimming headlights shining into the black void. But Danny knew he wasn’t really there at the bottom of the lake … he was just remembering it.

  And he remembered now. He remembered everything.

  He hadn’t killed his mother and sister. The blond-haired man had done it—the demon inside the blond-haired man had done it. And then that demon had jumped from the blond-haired man and into him.

  And now that same demon was inside of him now.

  But it was more than one demon—it was a legion of demons led by one very powerful demon.

  Danny felt himself floating away from the car, further into the darkness.

  No … he couldn’t let himself float away again. He had to fight.

  He swam in the water, dog-paddling frantically like he was fighting a strong underwater current.

  He looked up into the darkness above him and saw a light. This light was much brighter than the headlights of the submerged car; this light was so warm as it shined down on him through the water.

  This light was calling to him.

  As Danny tried to swim up to the light, he felt something grab his ankle from the darkness below. He looked down and saw a monster from his worst nightmares, a constantly changing form of evil reaching a muscular arm out to grab him. One of the creature’s clawed hands gripped his ankle. And swirling around this demon were other smaller demonic forms that circled it like small feeder fish around a shark.

  You will stay down here with us, the demon growled. But Danny heard the creature’s voice in his mind.

  Danny tried to pull out of the thing’s grasp, but it was too strong. He looked back up at the light and for some reason he knew the light was God. He wanted to go to God, to swim up to God.

  “Help me, God,” Danny whispered in the dark water and then he pulled his leg up as hard as he could in one quick jerk.

  And he was free.

  He swam and swam up through the water as hard as he could, knowing the demon and his minions would be swimming after him, rushing up through the water like a torpedo. The monstrous demon was reaching for him again, about to grab on to his ankle again, and this time Danny was sure that he wouldn’t be able to tear his leg out of the thing’s grasp.

  But it was also just a memory. At the same time Danny knew that this monster, this demon, was already inside of him. It was already at home inside of Danny, like a rat tucked away in a burrow, like a parasite inside a host. But now everything felt different. He knew that the demon was there, and he knew that he could control this demon if he wanted to, hold on to it, use its power, and use its strength if he wanted to.

  He stopped swimming in the dark water. He looked down below him into the depths, but the monsters were gone.

  Because they’re inside of you now …

  Danny heard a voice. It sounded both far away and so close at the same time.

  “Danny … it’s not your fault … you didn’t kill your mother and sister …”

  It was Paul’s voice.

  “Danny … I … I love you … son …”

  It was his father’s voice.

  Danny screamed in rage and in one explosive moment he was …

  †

  … strangling Paul on top of a collapsed stack of cardboard boxes.

  He pulled his hands away from his father’s throat.

  What was he doing to him?

  Paul looked barely conscious, but he inhaled a wheezy breath as soon as Danny let him go.

  “Dad,” Danny whispered and he felt tears slipping from his eyes, dripping down his checks.

  “You’re back,” Paul whispered.

  Danny helped Paul up and Paul found his crucifix in the water. He clutched it and hugged Danny.

  “Pray with me.”

  Danny closed his eyes as more tears squeezed out. “I didn’t kill them, Dad. It wasn’t me.”

  “I know you didn’t. I always knew.”

  “It was Astaroth.”

  “I know,” Paul answered.

  Paul prayed. He felt more hands on him from the darkness. Father Hopkins. Father Severino. He heard two more people sloshing around in the water, bringing more flashlights—Robert and Helen. They laid their hands on them.

  And then one of them forced the wooden black box into his hands.

  With a shaking hand, and with the help of a flashlight beam from Father Severino, Paul scribbled the demon’s name down on the parchment and folded it in half. He stuffed the parchment down into the box. But he didn’t close it yet.

  They all joined together, their voices separate whispers of words, but all becoming one voice.

  A mist escaped from Danny’s mouth and nostrils as he backed away from their group. He stood there in the shallow dark water, his body trembling as more mist began to rise up from him; it seemed to c
ome out from every pore in his skin.

  The misty fog collected above Danny, growing bigger and denser, swirling around and around. It felt like they were in the middle of a funnel cloud with the fog racing past them.

  A moment later, hundreds of wailing demonic voices cried out from this spinning black mist.

  Creatures formed from the mist as it swirled around them faster and faster. A face with a yawning mouth full of sharp teeth lunged out at them …

  But they kept praying. Paul pulled Danny back into their group and held on to him. They kept their hands on each other and kept praying.

  The monstrous face melted back into the fog. And then giant spider legs unfolded from the mist, reaching out to touch the six of them with poisonous tips, but then the legs folded back in on themselves and became part of the swirling mist again. The spinning wall of fog looked more and more like the inside walls of a silent tornado.

  More creatures formed: snake-like creatures, insect-like creatures, demonic faces of rage, tormented faces. But then they all melted back into the fog.

  Danny looked back at the tornado of fog all around them. These creatures were the same ones he had seen swirling around the main demon under the water. “I know who you are now, Astaroth!” he screamed.

  Paul lifted up the box with its lid open. “We command you, Astaroth, into this prison in the name of Almighty God!!” Paul screamed, still clutching his son with his other hand, all of them still clutching each other.

  The others joined in, shouting at the spinning fog and the forming and re-forming creatures that wailed in misery. They shouted the demon’s name and commanded him and his minions back to Hell in the Almighty name of God.

  The mist rose up into the air above them like a storm cloud, and then with one last desperate cacophony of wails and moans, all of the mist and creatures were sucked down into the black box.