by mike Evans
James did not comply and the two proceeded to knock off the shelves and knickknacks from the wall and dresser when they collided into it. Billy rushed the two of them wrapping his bloodied hands around her left arm. James let go taking her right and the two both took holy water and dumped the small vials of it over her head. She screamed and finally stopped levitating falling to her knees. The two recited the same prayer as before to save her soul as well as her life. She thrashed, kicked and did everything in her power to try to free herself, but they had her now, dead to rights.
The two cameramen watched nervously as Morty walked closer and closer to the door while the screams echoed down the street. By now the entire neighborhood had begun populating their stoops. Dale yelled, “Get back in your homes, it isn’t safe!”
They stood there dumbfounded trying to see what was going on, the two floors both now had broken windows, the curtains flapped in the wind and a bloody, beaten looking Martyn was curled into his mother’s protective arms clutching her neck. She was doing the best that she could to soothe the boy, but it was doing little good.
Morty started walking toward the door. He looked behind him, Rod and Nick both tried to weigh what it was that they were doing and if it was worth it. “If the two of you don’t follow me into that house, then you can walk home. Not sure you want to go and do that in this neighborhood.”
They followed him, neither happy about it, but after the crash of the economy in the eighties the last thing either of them wanted to do was be unemployed, especially in their forties. Morty held up a hand before getting the countdown from Rod to start. “The two of you do anything to screw this up, you are gone. This is solid gold and we...I mean no I do mean that, I am going to skyrocket like never before after this. Everyone in the world is going to want to air this footage and it is going to make me a legend. Now count me in!”
Rod pointed behind him, Morty heard the footsteps and went to run, but Dale, who did not have a child clinging onto his neck sprinted.
“Hayley, Hayley, baby, are you okay, are you okay?”
The only thing that could be heard were her cries. James took the steps slowly; his back and knees were feeling the day after the window. She had bloody handprints on the back of her worn flower print dress from the cuts he’d endured when he had to jump back up from the awning. Dale hugged James and Hayley at the same time. She winced, jumping and let go of James and wrapped her arms around Dale’s neck.
James got up close to his ear. “You need to take them to the hospital Dale, you need to take the family there, get the kids looked at, please.”
“I thought you got the demons out of them, you sent them to hell where they belong, right?”
“I did, but that doesn’t mean they are healthy. People who have been possessed can be severely dehydrated, worn down, muscle fatigue, on the brink of starv-”
“For the love of God, never mind, I’ll take them, there’s nothing more important than family. I can see that now. How can we ever repay you? Where is the other priest, is he okay, did something happen to him?”
Billy walked down the steps. He had his hand up against his stomach holding it with his good arm. “I’m going to be alright, I took a nail in my hand.”
“Do I want to ask how?”
“Your possessed son thought it’d be a good idea to crucify me upside down in his bedroom. When they almost took Father Clapper out I had to rip my hand free to stop him. If we got him back, then it is all worth it.”
Dale patted Billy on the shoulder. “You two have a place at my table anytime you need it, you just stop by, no need to call, we’ll be here with open arms.”
Lorraine was barely able to hold it together. She walked over with a quivering lip as she tried to say thank you to the two of them. She gave Billy a hug and moved to James and repeated it.
Morty swung in his microphone. “Mr. Parkes, Mrs. Parkes, can I ask you a question, please, Hayley, Martyn, can I please ask you a few questions? Did you see hell, did the devil welcome you with open arms?”
Dale raised a fist toward Morty. “You hit me and I’ll be adding just one more property to my list, Mr. Parkes.”
Dale brought his fist back, but James slipped in between them. “He isn’t worth it, I’m sure it would feel wonderful, but it isn’t worth it, I am confident, very confident.”
Morty said, “I take that personally, Father Clapper. You are supposed to be a man of God; what kind of a way is that to act?”
“Me being a man of God and you acting the way you are is the only thing saving you from looking up at us from the ground.”
Morty took a few steps back, holding his hand up. “I’m a lover not a fighter.”
Nick laughed, trying to keep the camera steady and Morty shot him a glance only losing his cool persona for a second. “You owe the Father; you think this place is something I’m worried about losing then you are sadly mistaken. We aren’t stepping foot back in this place if you dropped a tanker of holy water on it.” Dale said.
Dale shook hands again with James and Billy before heading to his work truck where they all climbed in getting ready for the trip to the hospital and the first of hopefully many days of happiness and demon free living. They wasted no time getting in and headed out.
James looked to Billy once they’d left. “How are you doing, we need to get you to a hospital.”
Billy shrugged, “I’ve been better. I’m not going to a hospital though, no time for it.”
“You are aware that you have a hole...through your hand, right? You didn’t get hit too hard on the head that you forgot that?”
“No, believe me, I am perfectly aware of the fact that I have a new hole in my body that I didn’t have when I woke up. I don’t think we have a lot of options. I can take care of my hand later.”
“How long does it take for a doctor to put a couple stitches in it and give you a quick tetanus shot? You really don’t think we can do that?”
“James,” he looked over seeing Morty and his crew watching him and tried to regain his composure. “Father Clapper, did you hear them when they spoke, do you remember what they said? They are going after my brother, that or they are trying to trick us. I don’t think this day is over, and I don’t think wasting time sitting in a hospital while they take over more souls than we can count is a good idea. I only need one hand to do the sign of the cross.”
“Right, but two sure does come in handy when there is a demon that needs to be held down,” James said. “Come on we’ll swing in, stitch you, and we will go, simple as that.”
Morty cleared his throat, sliding over and giving the million-dollar car salesman smile. “I notice the two of you are in need of a ride, maybe my crew and I could be of assistance. Our life is to serve the-”
“Stop before my ears bleed, Mr. Spencer,” Billy said, leaving him behind and heading to the van.
Morty did a fist bump watching as the two priests walked to the van. He looked around at the block. The neighbors, mostly wives who were caretakers for their children sat out front watching the two priests. They were holding rosaries in their hands and it was not hard to tell they were praying to the Man above.
Billy slid the door open to the van. Billy patted James on the back as he entered and then whispered, “Enjoy your interview, Father Clapper.”
James turned around to see him stepping to the side and taking the passenger’s front seat. He sat down, shaking his head thinking of a few things he would happily be telling him later. Rod took the wheel looking at Billy and his hand. He shook his head in disbelief. Billy said, “Something on your mind, sir?”
“Rod, my name is Rod...I can’t get my hands to stop shaking, I’ve never seen anything like that before...ever.”
“Real stressful was it...watching us taking care of the demons, being thrown out of the windows, taken upstairs by force, having my hand nailed to the wall. You think you’ll be okay, Rod?”
Rod opened his mouth to say something, but he realized there wasn�
�t much he could say. He pulled out a box from beneath the seat offering it to a thankful Billy. He opened it with his good hand, looking at the contents. He gritted his teeth as he drained a bottle of disinfectant over his hand.
It bubbled and turned Rod’s stomach at the thought of what he was feeling. Billy sat back in his seat, letting it air dry for a second and letting the pain subside for a moment before moving on to wrapping it with a few Band-Aids and covering that with a roll of ace bandages. When he was good Billy nodded and he started driving. Nick got up close to the window opening it and hanging the camera out to see the mass of people that had gathered in the street by now. “It’s kind of a miracle,” he said. “I mean, think about people and hope nowadays, this is amazing.”
Rod said, “I still can’t believe that you guys do this and no one knows about it. I mean the only people that we get on the show are absolute quacks, people who don’t know what they are doing and more than likely have never seen a demon let alone dealt with one. I don’t understand how you keep it so quiet.”
Morty was going to tell the two of them to shut up, so he could begin interviewing James but Billy started replying. “Those that want attention for it typically are just witch hunters. They don’t know what they are doing. Their training came from a book by someone who didn’t know what they were doing either. James and I aren’t here to get rich, between the two of us, we make less than twenty grand a year. If we had to repay our student loans we would be poor. We don’t go around telling people about what we do. We aren’t trying to stir the waters and bring the devil to town. Things like possession get glamorized, people, the innocents tend to forget how dangerous they are and that it can lead to death. There are no guarantees, we pray that when we rid someone that they will be okay, the long-term damage won’t be something that is evident forever. We’ve seen people who have clawed almost all the skin from their faces trying to get the demons out of them, or they’ve been fighting them from taking over. They are scarred with that for the remainder of their lives. Their people understood what it means to be saved. If you were a devout member you would as well, and you wouldn’t want to brag that the devil tried to take your loved one. Does that make sense, Rod?”
Rod was nodding slowly, he felt closer to God than a childhood of Sunday school had. Morty cleared his throat and a thin long microphone appeared to the side of Billy’s face. “You know, just for the people at home, Father Parker, do you think there is any chance that maybe you could say that again into the microphone. I don’t know how much of it I was able to pick up.”
“No, there’s not really a good chance of me repeating it, Mr. Spencer. Rod, you go north eight blocks and turn on Spielman Drive, take that three blocks to Bryant Lane, and don’t stop until you hit Schmidt Avenue. You got that?”
“Not really, I’ll just go straight and you tell me where to turn, you think that you could do that?”
James patted him on the shoulder. “Looks like that microphone doesn’t really care if you sat up front does it, Father Parker?”
Billy held his hand now bandaged and could feel throbbing coming from beneath it. He knew that between Father Michaels and the lucky doctor who would be working on him he was going to get the fifth degree at some point. He smiled, watching the people passing by, each of them was saying thank you and he was nodding doing the sign of the cross for those giving him eye contact for as many people as he could.
Morty sat back realizing he couldn’t get blood from a rock, and Billy was a rock if he had ever seen one. “Father Clapper, is there any chance that I could ask you a few questions please?”
“Knock yourself out, Mr. Spencer, but your questions end when we get to our location.”
Billy said, “You can drop him off first, we don’t need to drive in circles all day.”
Rod, who didn’t need to be told to let off the gas and they could all feel the van slowing down. Morty smiled uneasily for a moment before counting himself back in. “We are here on the mean streets of the Southside of Chicago and we have our esteemed guests from earlier. Now please let me just apologize, yes you heard me right, I need to apologize from the bottom of my heart. I didn’t believe that what you did was real. Now I need to apologize again, because I have questions, oh lord do I have questions now!”
“You know we can’t necessarily answer everything. We have secrets and we keep those so that we can keep that power to save people. There’s nothing stopping a demon or Satan from watching your show, nothing keeping them from learning. They are older than time in some cases, you aren’t aware of how intelligent they can be. The fact that he sent two into one house really says something.”
“How did you know they were possessed and the mother wasn’t just a little crazy?”
“Well, Mr. Spencer, they were flying, not like what you’ve seen in a Superman movie, but more like what you’ve seen when they go up a few inches near the window.”
“Yes, and you pulled Hayley back in, is there a reason for that? What would happen if you would have let her stay out of the home, what could she do?”
“Every demon is different, Mr. Spencer.”
“Please with the formalities, call me Morty, we are going to be good old friends one day sitting around my giant mansion enjoying drinks and talking about the day we met. I owe you two everything.”
“We weren’t really trying to get you famous, you realize we were doing our job, you were simply intruding on our day. I know we can’t stop you from going forth with making it public, but you won’t only catch the attention of the church, but you very well might catch the attention of others. Satan isn’t flamboyant, and his demons try taking family by family, it is our job to save them before it is too late. We can’t go around screaming to keep an eye out for demons, no one knows what to look for until it is too late,” James said.
Billy pointed to the street sign, “Turn right there, drop off Father Clapper first.”
As they approached the church Morty said, “Father Clapper before we drop you off, is there anything, anything at all you can tell the people at home?”
“Just that everyone needs to keep the faith. It won’t completely protect them, but it can’t hurt. The demons pray on the weak, or those with disabilities, they think they will get further going into those that people already try not to see the way it is in society. That if they can get so far in that they can get the others in their family, but when they start going after everyday children it means that the demons are coming out and they are doing it fast. They aren’t trying to keep things quiet, they are going to go after something bigger.”
Morty wasn’t sure what to say, he nodded slowly thinking about it. “You mean there’s more places in Chicago that are going to be under attack?”
“Not just Chicago,” James said.
“America?”
James ran his hands through his hair. He couldn’t believe this was happening on this scale, again. “Heaven.”
Morty smiled nervously, he didn’t know what to say. “Heaven? How in the hell, excuse my language, does he get into Heaven? I thought he was bound to hell?”
Billy spun around in his seat, smiling from ear to ear. “Really throws you for a loop the first time you hear a bunch of stuff for the first time, doesn’t it? You want an interview, but I can confidently say you aren’t quite ready to have it yet. You see if you can survive through this first session of possession. We are going to try and save as many people as we can, but if they go after anyone that we can’t claim as church members the chances of us knowing about it are going to be quite slim.”
James looked to Billy, “You always have such a poetic way with words, Father Parker. You sure you don’t want me to come and talk to Tony with you?”
“No, not so long as our new friend and believer, Morty here decides to behave himself and really leaves when he drops me off there.”
Morty held up his two fingers like a boy scout. “You’ve got my word. I should ask though; you boys or men are both quite y
oung. How long does the church expect you to do what it is you do? I mean there can’t be thousands of you out there doing such a thing, right? When do you get peace, I can’t imagine dealing with these things daily.”
“It isn’t daily,” Billy responded. “They aren’t always here, not at least all the time I mean. But as far as how long we do it, I don’t know. We took our vows much like someone vows to a wife, until we die and we are laid to rest. There’s nothing that will keep us from doing what we need to do so long as it helps the church. My biggest concern is that we will be called upon and there will be a time that we aren’t able to do anything to help, or worse that we will try and fail and have to watch the demons as they take the innocent.”
“Is there a reason you two don’t make more than twenty grand a year?” Morty said somberly.
