American Demon Hunters_An Urban Fantasy Supernatural Thriller

by J. Thorn

I hope she’s old and ugly, Hank thought. That would make Michelle laugh.

  He opened the door and was met by a blast of dry, manufactured chill filling the vestibule. Hank opened the inner doors and felt the humidity reclaim the air inside the old building. He wrinkled his nose. The ground floor smelled like wet dog and the hallways were empty. He decided to reserve judgment on the facility until after his session. Hank walked to the elevator, hit the up button and the doors immediately opened.

  The elevator stopped on the third floor and he saw 3S on the plate next to the door directly facing him. Hank opened it and walked into a waiting room the size of a broom closet. Someone, probably Sonya, made a valiant attempt. The stack of magazines on the corner table was over a year old and one of the light bulbs on the free standing lamp was out. Dust lined the framed pictures on the wall and a single clipboard sat beneath the frosted-glass window of the receptionist cubicle. The sign next to it said, “Sign yourself in and then ring the bell.”

  “High traffic office,” Hank said to no one.

  He reached down and pushed the button and heard the distinct ring of a cheap doorbell from somewhere deep in the office. A moment later, a tall, blonde woman in her early thirties opened the door. Her long, straight hair framed an oval face and high cheekbones with narrow yet warm eyes. She wore a silver chain around her neck with a charm dangling from the end, resting at the top of her cleavage.

  So much for old and ugly.

  “You must be Hank.”

  “And you’re Dr. Lisander?”

  “Sonya,” she said, resting her pen on a black leather portfolio and extending her right hand.

  “Nice to meet you,” Hank said. He felt the skin on his neck prickle and her touch made his face bright red.

  “Come in. I’ll be ready in a moment.”

  Hank nodded. Sonya turned and walked toward her desk on the back wall. He followed, his eyes drawn to a round, full bottom inside of a tight black skirt. Dr. Lisander walked behind her desk and sat in a chair, breaking Hank’s eye contact with her ass.

  “Dr. Singleton referred you?”

  “Not exactly,” Hank said, sitting in the chair across from her desk. “My father-in-law knows him.”

  Sonya smiled and looked down at Hank’s left hand. Hank thought about what he just said while following her gaze.

  “Well, my ex-father-in-law. Well, that’s not exactly true either...”

  “It's okay. You don’t have to explain everything all at once. Why don’t we start with introductions?”

  He leaned back in his chair and exhaled. Hank put his hands behind his head and looked up at the ceiling tiles. He noticed a few water stains before he realized his own avoidance tactics. He leaned forward and put his hands on the desk as if to prove he was not concealing hidden weapons.

  “I’m a thirty-five year-old math professor. My son, Corey, is twelve. He was struck by lightning about a year and a half ago and now he can’t talk. But he might have gained psychic powers. My wife was killed by a drunk driver nine months ago and now my son and I live with her parents. We moved back to Cleveland Heights from San Francisco. I like romantic music, sunsets and long walks on the beach.”

  Dr. Lisander put three fingers to her lips as if to stifle a laugh.

  “I didn’t mean to be flip,” Hank said. He leaned back in his chair and cursed under his breath.

  “Relax. This is not an interrogation or a job interview. You’re doing fine.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “Acting like an asshole. I don’t know if I’m trying to impress you, make you laugh or be compliant.”

  “You’re not an asshole and you’re not acting like one.”

  Hank looked into Sonya’s eyes and he believed she was being honest with him.

  “Okay. Can we start over?”

  “No need. Let’s just continue,” she said. “Tell me why you’re here?”

  “Fred and Martha, my wife’s parents, they’re worried about me. Hell, I’m worried about me. I’m worried about Corey. I worry a lot.”

  “You live with Fred and Martha?” Dr. Lisander asked, scribbling in her black leather portfolio.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Hank glanced at her desk and saw no evidence of a computer or a laptop. No cell phone or landline, no printer or fax machine.

  “With Corey?”

  “Right.”

  “I have some of the standard info from the form you filled out prior to your visit, the basic biographical information.”

  Again, Hank saw no evidence of the form he filled out online.

  “Can you tell me what happened to your wife?”

  He nodded. As strange as it felt, nobody had asked him that question yet. Everybody in Hank’s life simply knew what happened and, for the first time since Michelle’s death, he was going to have tell the whole story. Hank took a deep breath and began.

  “It was early December. Michelle was flying to Detroit to visit her cousin and then was going to meet us at her folks’ place in Cleveland. She had a few days off from work and had to take them before the year was up.”

  Sonya nodded, her pen moving silently across the portfolio.

  “The guy didn’t hit her car but he caused her accident.”

  “Can you back up?” Dr. Lisander asked.

  “Yes, sorry. Some guy was drunk driving after leaving an office Christmas party. He killed two kids on Route 24. He ended up hanging himself in prison. Fucking bastard.”

  Hank heard the words come out and shook his head.

  “Sorry, again. Dammit.”

  “Stop censoring yourself and tell me the story,” Sonya said.

  “So this guy ends up slamming into a teenage girl and her little brother coming from hockey practice,” Hank said. “They both die. He goes to jail and hangs himself. But before he ran into them, he drifted into the oncoming lane, which forced Michelle off the road. Her car slid into a telephone pole and she broke her neck. If the guy hadn’t hit the other car a mile or so later, we would have never have known why she lost control. The investigators made the connection between the two accidents.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks,” Hank said. “What has been really difficult for me is the fact that we had an argument before she left for Detroit. The last thing I said to my wife was ‘whatever.’ Not ‘I love you’ or ‘I can’t wait for you to come home.’ I said ‘whatever’ as she left the house to go to the airport.”

  “How was your marriage?”

  “We loved each other more than anything. We were a tight family.”

  “Were you ever unfaithful? Was she?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Hank asked. “And no. I never even looked at another woman.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  He rubbed his goatee with his left hand and leaned forward.

  “This is all still raw.”

  “That’s why you’re here.”

  They talked a bit more before Hank slid the phone from his pocket and saw the hour was almost up. He rubbed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose.

  “Should we schedule our next session?” he asked.

  Sonya put her pen down inside the portfolio and closed it. She leaned back in her chair and gave Hank a warm but conservative smile.

  “Yes. Next week. Same time?”

  Hank stood and reached across the desk to shake her hand.

  “Thank you, Dr. Lisander.”

  “Sonya.”

  “Thank you, Sonya. I’m ready to heal. I need to be healthy for my son.”

  She watched Hank leave her office, pass through the waiting room and out into the hallway. When the door shut, Sonya pushed the red button underneath her desk to lock the office remotely. She said “Singleton” out loud and a moment later a man’s voice came from the speakers concealed in the wall on each side of the hidden camera.

  “Well?”

  “What do you think?” she asked.
“Do you think he’ll try to bring Michelle back?”

  “You have your work cut out for you. He’s strong. I hope you can distract him from the death map. We can’t have him open the portal.”

  “Don’t underestimate the power of female persuasion, Dr. Singleton.”

  “He’s your only client,” Singleton said. “Make it happen.”

  Sonya hit the kill switch on her wireless communication rig, ending the call.

  Chapter 9

  He left the session and drove to the cemetery. The heat and humidity squeezed Hank’s skull like a vise. Even the breeze coming off Lake Erie could not dispel the syrupy air. Hank swatted a gnat and looked down the asphalt path through the shimmering air hovering above it. The ground was hard and baked, one of the few things that would make a gravedigger cry. He walked to the right and nodded at a couple carrying a bouquet of flowers toward a headstone. The petals drooped and Hank wondered how much they paid for them at the gas station convenience store.

  He waited until nobody was around and proceeded into the valley on foot, knowing full well where he was headed. Even though his heart was screaming at him to visit Michelle's grave, another equally powerful force was pushing him in a different direction.

  Brainard, he thought. Why am I being drawn back to that crypt?

  Before he could answer his own question, Hank heard someone approaching from behind.

  “Mr. Siszak?”

  The black man walking toward Hank wore a blue polo shirt and baseball cap pulled down to his eyebrows. He smiled wide and deep, his teeth glowing against his dark skin. He had a lanyard around his neck with a laminated badge that was yellowed and barely translucent and a clipboard in his right hand. The man looked down at it and laughed, imagining how silly it would be to offer someone a hand full of invoices. He switched it to his left.

  “I’m Johnny Jackson.”

  “Siszak was my wife’s name. I’m Ferrence. Hank Ferrence.”

  Hank shook Johnny’s hand.

  “Are you delivering me a package in the middle of Lake View Cemetery?”

  Johnny smiled and shook his head, his right tennis shoe kicking at a twig on the ground.

  “No, sir. Sorry about this. It's kinda awkward. I know Fred Siszak. He was telling me about his daughter... My condolences, by the way.”

  Hank exhaled and the tension fell from his shoulders.

  “Thanks. So you know Fred?”

  “My route used to go through Case and I got to know Fred pretty well. Haven’t seen as much of him since he retired, but we see each other at the Cleveland Heights Community Center every now and again. Their gym is awesome.”

  “I’m sure it is, Johnny, and I appreciate you introducing yourself but—”

  “But what am I doing here?”

  Johnny laughed and Hank joined in, feeling his usual dull headache receding.

  “I saw Fred this morning. We talked about cars and such. He told me you had a Dakota. I was making a delivery at the main office here and saw your truck and then I figured it had to be you standing there. Know it's been a while since you lived in Cleveland, so I wanted to say hello. Welcome you back.”

  “Thanks. Man, that’s really cool of you.”

  Hank forgot about the August humidity and the whisperings coming from the Brainard crypt at the bottom of the hill.

  “I got another four deliveries to make before five o’clock so I should be off.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Hank said. “Of course.”

  “One more thing, Hank, if I can be so forward.”

  Hank paused and turned his head to the side, his feet spread and his arms relaxed at his sides.

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “This place,” Johnny said. “This place ain’t for the living.”

  “It is a cemetery, my friend. They’re all for the dead.”

  “This one’s different. You’d be best staying out of it. Take your boy to Edgewater Park and go swimming in Lake Erie. Head down to a Tribe game. You shouldn’t be in here.”

  Hank watched as Johnny tipped his cap and walked back to the blue delivery truck parked behind his Dakota.

  “Johnny,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “You came here just to deliver that message to me?”

  “Well, that’s what I do. I deliver stuff.”

  Johnny slid into the open door on the driver’s side. He circled the truck around and slowed to a crawl as his door passed by Hank standing on the edge of the asphalt path. “You should stay far away from this place.”

  The truck’s engine rumbled as Johnny pulled away, leaving Hank with a blast of diesel exhaust and a cloudy head. He climbed in his pickup and headed for a place where he could think without distraction.

  NOBLE LIBRARY WAS HANK’S favorite place to read. Even living in San Francisco, he knew about the Cleveland public library system. Noble Library was restored to its original decor, including high ceilings, glass chandeliers and dark, warm woodwork that tempted the reader with an afternoon of books and solitude.

  The air conditioners worked overtime on this August day, barely keeping the humidity at bay. Hank needed to dig deeper into the cemetery’s mysteries and he wanted to figure out why he felt pulled to it. Hank sat in an old-fashioned carrel retrofitted with a computer monitor. Hank typed in his library card number and password and waited for the web browser to appear. He felt an odd sense of relief from using the anonymous internet connection.

  You should stay far away from this place.

  He heard Johnny say it again in his head. The man seemed relaxed and friendly, yet his message was not. Johnny was deliberate in what he said and Hank had no doubt Johnny was assigned this duty. Someone was warning Hank away from Lake View Cemetery and he needed to know why.

  A woman and a man sat at the other end of the computer cluster. The woman was immersed in a video clip as she bounced, earbuds sticking out of the side of her head. The man was hammering on a keyboard. Hank looked away, but had he looked a bit closer he would have recognized the man’s face from the end of the bar at the Winking Lizard. Singleton gave his team explicit instructions to monitor Hank's movements but remain out of sight.

  Lake View Cemetery.

  Hank typed it into the search bar and was rewarded with a list of 432,000 pages. He opened the first few results and gleaned the usual historic information.

  Lake View Cemetery was founded in 1869 and sat on 285 acres. It was named Lake View because it is located in the "heights" area of Cleveland, with a view of Lake Erie to the north. The cemetery was designed after the garden cemeteries of Victorian England. The Italian stonemasons who came to work in the cemetery also founded the Cleveland neighborhood of Little Italy.

  He scanned further down the page.

  The locals call Lake View “Cleveland's Outdoor Museum.” It is home to the James A. Garfield Memorial, Wade Memorial Chapel, and an 80,000,000-gallon capacity dam.

  Hank sat back and thought about what he’d read before glancing around the main room. Two children sat at a table while their mom checked out a book. Several librarians were replacing books on the shelves. Otherwise, the library was not a popular place in August. He continued skimming the results.

  Over 100,000 people are buried in Lake View Cemetery. Notable internments include President James A. Garfield, John D. Rockefeller, Elliot Ness and Harvey Pekar.

  Hank pushed the hair back from his face, rubbed his eyes and put his hands behind his head. The woman bopping to the music was gone and the other man was still there, his face buried deep in the monitor.

  He tried a different search string.

  Lake View Cemetery paranormal.

  The first few entries seemed to be pages on Lake View’s official website attempting to discourage people from coming to the cemetery to photograph ghosts. But the fourth one listed was a blog. Hank clicked on it.

  Many visitors to Lake View claim President Garfield haunts its grounds. Some research suggests Garfield believed in the paranor
mal and was known to use séances to communicate with his dead father. In addition, some claim Garfield predicted his own assassination at the hands of an insane man in July 1881, identifying the murderer and the method before it happened. He suffered for two and a half months before succumbing to the wounds and some say his spirit began to wander during this time.

  There have been other stories surrounding Garfield’s spirit. In 1979, a man claiming to be Garfield reported a fire on the grounds. When the skeptical fireman questioned the caller he said, “I did not say that the fire had already happened—it is going to.” The maintenance facility at Lake View Cemetery caught fire ten days later.

  “What am I doing?”

  Hank stood up and walked to the window. He looked out at Noble Elementary School. Children were on the swings and two tossed a ball back and forth. The traffic rumbled, the sounds silenced by the library’s thick windows. He began to think the force pulling him towards the valley, to the Brainard crypt, was not real. He laughed and walked back to the computer when he saw Johnny’s face in his mind.

  If I’m imagining all of this, why did he warn me away?

  Hank sat back down. He cracked his knuckles, rolled his neck and typed up a new search string.

  Lake View Cemetery haunted.

  Although none of the results on the first page came back with a ghost story, another one caught his eye.

  There is a monument at Lake View Cemetery, a tribute to the 172 students and 2 teachers that died in the worst school fire in American history. Known as the “Collinwood Fire” at Lakeview elementary, it occurred around 9:30 a.m. on March 4, 1908. A hot pipe ignited one of the wooden beams and the fire raged through the building, pinning students inside of classrooms. Some teachers claimed the exterior doors opened inward instead of outward, trapping the students pressed against them. While these accusations were not substantiated, the building was extremely vulnerable to fire and the tragedy prompted a nationwide reform of building codes. The bodies of nineteen students were never identified and those remains are buried beneath the Collinwood School Fire Memorial at Lake View Cemetery.

  Hank closed the browser and logged off of the computer.