The White Night

by Desmond Doane

  Well, strike that. I’d love to hang out here all night and discuss life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness with Dakota.

  Just not under this particular set of circumstances.

  Dakota takes one of the small plastic bottles out of the running belt, examines it, and slips it back into the empty slot. “Nice fanny pack. Only thing you’re missing are some black socks pulled up to your knees.”

  Eyeballing her sideways, I fire back, “Hey, you’re the tourist.”

  “Not in my own house.”

  “Yeah, but we’re on my investigation. You’re just along for the ride, sister.”

  She playfully pokes my shoulder. “Try to keep up, Fanny Pack.”

  It’s fun, this gentle, friendly bickering. I really enjoy it, which scares the absolute doodoo out of me since I’m about to take this awesome human being back inside the prison of her own home.

  You know, where it’s entirely possible for her to become demonically possessed.

  No biggie.

  I feel the sweat leak out onto my palms, hesitating to touch her with the clamminess as she fiddles with some dials on the thermal imager. “Just in case,” I say, “if anything happens to either one of us, my cell phone is in my back pocket. Don’t go fondling my butt if you need it—”

  “Pfffft. Gotcha.” The surprised sputtering is real, genuine. I love her laugh.

  “I’m serious, though. We gotta promise to do this for each other. There’s a Catholic priest in my contacts. His name is Father Duke, same one who blessed the holy water. I’ve known him for years and we even had him on the show once—”

  “That guy? The short round one with the glasses?”

  “Yep.”

  “I remember thinking he looked like an owl. He seemed nice on the show. And, appropriately concerned about the sanctity of your eternal soul before they’d allow you through the Pearly Gates.”

  That’s what he said on the show, almost word for word. She’s good.

  “He’s a good guy. Loved Graveyard, not that he necessarily approved of us playing with hellfire, like you said. Anyway, I’m more worried about you than myself, but if anything—and damn it, I mean anything—goes funky with me, you call him. Understand?”

  “Mikey’s back in the captain’s chair. I like it.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I know you are. It won’t, but if it does, what if I can’t get the phone out of your pocket? Like you become this crazy, evil, fanny pack wearing version of yourself and I can’t get near you?”

  “Good point. We can move it room to room during the investigation. Always within reach.”

  “Aye, aye, cap’n.” Dakota salutes me, and then slaps my bottom like we’re about to take the field. I feel like I’m blushing, but damn, the camaraderie is endearing, which scares me even more.

  I’ve done this enough to have a certain shiny veneer of confidence, yet the idea of Dakota having to deal with a haunted version of Mike “The Exterminator” Long, especially now that I have a well-defined muscle or two, leaves me shaky and unsure, again, about allowing her to come along.

  It’s not a battle I’m going to win, I know this, so I resolve to take every precaution necessary to keep her safe.

  Which is a nice idea, in theory.

  ***

  Thirty minutes pass. Dakota and I maintain radio silence as we execute our pre-determined game plan. I don’t allow her to leave my sight, but we individually accomplish our own tasks. She runs EMF checks while I use my GS-5000 to listen to the background noise and search for any signs of something demonic that Damon Healy might have left behind. I mean, like, hidden symbols, decapitated squirrel bones. The standards.

  We haven’t been in here long, but so far, we’re coming up empty. I would’ve expected more, sooner. I’d rather this son of a bitch manifest on its own, without needing to provoke it, for a couple of reasons: first, spewing all of that negativity out of my mouth can cause negative energy to grow and mutate, even if you don’t mean for it to happen. Positivity begets positivity. Negativity does too. I want to keep the latter to a minimum.

  Second, I’ve never been sure that it matters, nor has Ford, but if this demon manifests without me taunting and cursing its good name, that scenario is preferable to some supremely pissed off entity storming through the gateway to hell, angry and combat ready, because I insinuated that he enjoyed sodomizing his mother.

  When we finish the first stage of the game plan, which entails fully scouting the first floor, I call out to Dakota on the far side of the kitchen, “Anything?”

  “Flat. Everywhere. Had a reading of zero-zero the whole time.”

  “Figured as much. He’s hiding out upstairs.”

  Dakota is over by a couple of the larger, ocean-facing windows. She asks if she can open the blinds, maybe let some light in.

  “Um…”

  “I know you guys always liked it pitch black for your investigations, and I know it’ll be night soon, but maybe—I might feel safer with more light.”

  I nod my assent. “Of course.” Anything for you, Dakota. “We only did that to make the equipment more effective anyway. Although, upstairs needs to stay darker. That’s where the cameras need to be at their peak.”

  Dakota stops in mid-pull. The clattering of the blinds goes quiet, their weight keeping her arm suspended. “So this is pointless?”

  “‘Fraid so.”

  She mock pouts, bottom lip drooping dramatically, as she lets go and walks over to me. Jokingly, she says, “If we have to be in the complete dark, are you gonna hold my hand?”

  “‘Fraid so.”

  It’s easy to see how delicate flirtations can lead to a major downfall in so many different ways.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Ford Atticus Ford

  I’m here at Newport’s police station, sitting in a suspect interview room, and the lights overhead burn my eyeballs as if they’re scrubbing them with bleach. They’re too bright, too white, for my darkened mood.

  My chair is your standard, uncomfortable plastic piece of crap, purchased with taxpayer money on a limited budget, and I squirm to get comfy. I’ve been waiting here for over three hours. Maybe longer. I’ve lost track.

  I have a room-temperature cup of coffee sitting on the table that someone brought five minutes after depositing me here, though I doubt that’ll do any good for the nausea roiling in my gut like a volcano bulging on the eve of eruption.

  Why the nausea? Well, a couple of things: thinking about the squishy crunch of that poker sliding through a used-to-be-human neck, combined with the fact that I am absolutely torn up about the fact that they won’t tell me if Ulie is okay. I tried to have them get word to Melanie, to let her know that I’m okay, and they’ve yet to give me an affirmative on that as well.

  Matter of fact, I’m surprised she doesn’t have a lawyer here yet. Although, more than likely, knowing Melanie, she hopped in her car and is on the way here.

  I risk a sip of the coffee. It tastes even worse with the lack of heat. I grimace and think about how Lauren will never get to drink coffee again and my stomach spins around the uneven bars like a drunken gymnast.

  I feel horrible about what happened to her, I really do.

  I had so much stale hatred for her, but I was coming around. Could be that I’m feeling sentimental and sad now that she’s dead, but no matter what I thought about her past transgressions, I’ll admit that I could’ve learned to enjoy her company.

  Eventually.

  You know, like how you despised broccoli as a kid, and now as an adult you can tolerate it as long as it’s seasoned properly.

  Anyway. Lauren was more than broccoli, and it’s so damn unfortunate that she had to go out like that. I’ve been sitting here wondering if I could’ve done anything for her, and I’ve come to the conclusion that no amount of spiritual antibiotics would’ve cured what ailed her, so she’s in a better place.

  Or, at least she’s in a different place. Let’s hope her sou
l travelled the right direction.

  That gets me to thinking about Ulie again and I feel a lump well up in my throat.

  Dogs are heaven-bound, no matter what. If anything happened to him…

  Ugh. Man, this sucks.

  Ulie is the child I never had. My heart aches that much.

  I left the poor guy cooped up inside the condo with Grandma Death Eyes.

  I was mentally wavering on the way here, but I specifically remember babbling about my little buddy and that he was in terrible danger.

  I shout at the two-way mirror, “Can somebody please find out what happened to my dog?”

  As expected, the silence continues.

  Before they tossed me in the squad car, while I was sitting at the kitchen table, hands cuffed behind my back, I also managed to remember the camcorder, mentioned it to the uniformed officers, and then prayed like I’ve never prayed before that it caught everything.

  There’s also the matter of the two empty black-eyed children in the bathtub, and I have no fucking clue how I’m going to explain what they were doing there. I also realize how patently insane it’ll sound if I try to truthfully explain why I was there, and how the celebrity television host and beloved local girl, Lauren Coeburn, had gotten possessed and then tried to kill me, which resulted in her lying on the living room floor with a poker sticking out of her like she was a demonic corndog.

  The only reason I’m not cuffed now is that the uniforms and the detectives in charge, Carson and Jaynes, recognized me as “that guy, the one from the ghost show—you know, Graveyard Something or Other.” This was followed by a round of whistles and exaggerated oohing and aahing, along with a knowing set of smiles.

  Then they promptly shoved me into this austere room with a single table, two chairs, and a two-way mirror. There’s a camera up in the corner watching my every move. Not that they need it. The only thing I’ve been able to do is sit here and relive the last few minutes in the movie of my mind, over and over.

  Again, the whole scenario is further proof that it’s all connected.

  The afterlife, I mean, and the energy that bonds it together.

  Master, whatever his actual name might be, had sent messengers.

  Our demon, my nemesis, wanted to tell me he’s taking Chelsea back, and because he’s an all-powerful sumbitch and thinks he can do whatever he wants, he throws down the gauntlet, basically challenging me, wanting me to know that just for funsies, he’s going through me to get to her. And if the Lauren Thing is to be believed, Master’s intent was to stick his hand up my butt and use me like a puppet.

  I’ll tell you what, dude—over my dead body.

  He’s calling me into the ring.

  And I’ve never been one to back down from a fight.

  You know, except for that time in elementary school when Danny Delp wanted to fight me by the swings during recess.

  I was a shy, quiet kid growing up. During art class, the other rugrats would fashion crowns out of construction paper and shove them on my head, calling me the Nerd King.

  So, yeah, I kept to myself a lot. Imagine that.

  One day, in a rare moment of peeking out of my antisocial shell, I had tried to stop him from picking on Cindy Moss—who bore a striking resembling to Chelsea Hopper, come to think of it. The teachers intervened, and Danny was far from happy about that. I had taken his toy away from him, and now it was my turn in his spotlight.

  I didn’t meet Danny by the swings that day because I was smart, and because he was about three times my size. He ruled the school. He had dozens of friends and lackeys that he could order around. Totally a genuine cliché.

  He always booted homeruns in kickball and won every arm-wrestling contest.

  I was the weird skinny kid who watched The Exorcist over and over.

  Danny and his friends taunted me for several weeks after, called me a pussy and pushed me into lockers. Knocked my lunch tray out of my hands.

  I couldn’t take it anymore, so you want to know what I did? My dad, Bill Ford, was ex-military, a real badass with a high-and-tight haircut and muscles that had muscles. He used to beat up hippies back in the sixties for shits and giggles, and among the remnants of his past was a set of brass knuckles that I found in a cardboard box in the corner of our attic. They were easily hidden in a backpack all morning, and then under my jacket during a game of dodgeball.

  Danny started his crap and one good pop was all it took. He left for the hospital with a fractured cheekbone and never bothered me again. That is, once I got back from my month-long suspension and my parents paid his medical bills.

  Plus, if you look closely enough, you can still see the scar on my right ass cheek where my dad’s belt buckle landed instead of the strap like he intended.

  Needless to say, not many people have examined my ass to that extent.

  It’s not that I enjoyed watching Danny Delp lying there in the mud on that rainy Thursday morning, clutching his cheek and bawling as he writhed on the ground. I didn’t like that part at all—okay, maybe a little—but I came away with something different.

  Whenever I tell this story, I still get chills. That day awoke something inside me. Not necessarily a fire, just…a different level of perception about the world and my role in it. I could be strong. I could fight back if I wanted to. I had the power to change things if I wanted it badly enough, or if something had pushed too far.

  I was entirely too young to fully grasp the enormity of my realization, but now I can look at it like this: if you go back to the metaphor of Adam and Eve’s apple, I held two of them, one in each hand. One of the apples was made of a life that I could create for myself. The other apple was made of a life that was handed to me by external events.

  One tasted sweet. One tasted bitter.

  One was fulfilling. One left me famished and empty.

  The choice was simple.

  Somewhere along the monumental run of Graveyard: Classified, I went back to eating the wrong one.

  I sit up straighter in the chair and cross my arms, feeling a hint of realization beginning to manifest somewhere in my mind.

  I think back to that Very Special Live Halloween Episode, and the days and months leading up to it, when I kept trying to convince myself, Chelsea, and Mike—especially Mike—that if Chelsea stood up to the demon and beat it, then she would be a changed person for the rest of her life, ready, willing, and able to take on anything. That was me taking a bite from both apples, the old Ford desperately trying to regain control.

  It’s like wiping the condensation off a fogged up bathroom mirror when the understanding finally settles in.

  I suppose I was channeling myself from the third-grade, and trying to reconcile that with Chelsea’s situation. Deep down, floating around in my subconscious was a well-intentioned desire for her to experience that kind of awakening, too.

  Eat the right apple, Chelsea.

  I had good intentions, but what I didn’t take into account was the fact that there’s a fuckload of difference between a bully named Danny Delp and a Tier One right-hander who probably plays darts with Satan every other Saturday night down at the local watering hole.

  Whatever Master’s actual name is—let’s call him Boogerface for now—whatever Boogerface has in mind probably involves lots of planning, lots of deception, a tactician’s dream.

  Why go through all the trouble?

  Boogerface has an eternity on his hands. He has time to entertain himself. Even if we send him back where he came from, he’ll still be down below, boiling in the fires of Hades for thousands upon thousands of infinite years to come.

  It’s not a far-fetched concept to assume that demons get bored.

  This is all a game to him. Chelsea is a pawn. Maybe I’m a knight. Mike’s a knight.

  And Boogerface is simply moving his pieces around.

  I wish I could figure out what’s so special about Chelsea, you know? Why her?

  I think about what Grandpa Joe said back in the Hampstead farmhou
se, about how Chelsea is the key to everything. I kept thinking that perhaps he meant that Chelsea was some sort of catalyst to this spiritual war that’s about to take place.

  Could be, though now I’m starting to think it might be far simpler than that.

  This is Cindy Moss all over again.

  Boogerface is pissed off because I took his toy away from him.

  Sure, Chelsea got hurt in the process when he lashed out and attacked her, which was probably his way of saying to me, “Now look what you made me do!” and to be perfectly honest, so did Cindy back in the day, but what it all comes down to is this: he wants revenge, and has been setting up his pieces since Chelsea’s parents took her away that night.

  If that’s the case, then why didn’t he follow her to her new home when she left the first time, before we even filmed the Very Special Live Halloween Episode?

  Maybe he did, at least a small part of him. She kept having those horrific dreams.

  Maybe he had to stay behind in the house, close to his portal to hell. I can’t say. I can’t pretend to know the mind of a demon.

  And then we brought her back that night. We brought people, and cameras, and batteries, and the black heart of Carla Hancock. We brought energy, millions of subliminal watts of paranormal energy from all around the world with so many people focusing everything they had on that one singular location.

  Trust me, I know my shit, but sitting here, in this empty room as I wait on somebody to come talk to me, I think I’m just now realizing how lucky we got that Chelsea’s attack wasn’t far worse.

  We didn’t necessarily save Chelsea from Boogerface forever, much in the same way that my intervention didn’t stop Cindy Moss from getting picked on again, but we put our noses where they didn’t belong.

  And, again, much in the same way that Danny Delp and his heathen cronies taunted me mercilessly for weeks on end, often slapping and shoving Cindy Moss right in front of me, asking, “Whatcha gonna do about it, huh, pussy?” it’s plainly obvious that Boogerface has the same motivations.

  He’s a playground bully.

  With an extremely powerful right-hander like that, he can have Chelsea anytime he wants, and anywhere he wants. It’s not necessary for the Graveyard: Classified crew or me to be within a thousand miles of the Hoppers for Boogerface to take control of Chelsea again.