by Wood, Rick
Cool it?
If she wasn’t so fricking hot, I’d have told her to piss off.
He felt her gentle hand rest against his back.
“Don’t worry, this will go within a minute,” she reassured him, though he didn’t quite believe her. “You’ve just got to control it.”
“Control it?” he gasped between sweaty panting and spits of sickly remains. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Oscar, man, this is something we’re used to seeing in people like you.”
“People like me?” he barked. “There is no ‘people like me.’”
He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them the world still spun, but at a faster pace. April’s raised eyebrow came into focus, and he seethed at her as she knelt beside him with a sympathetic smile.
“I have mental health problems,” Oscar snapped. “I need my medication. This is what happens when I don’t have my medication.”
“And what is this, Oscar?” April laughed with a cocky smile that only infuriated Oscar further.
“This?” he echoed, with such tension it came out at a far higher pitch than he’d intended. “This is an episode.”
“An episode, huh?” April chuckled.
“Would you stop laughing at me!” Oscar demanded. He tried to get to his feet but found himself unsteady, and fell straight back onto his backside.
“Relax, Oscar.”
Oscar’s head still pounded, but his vision was finally returning to normal. The front garden became still. Whatever it was, it had ended; but he still felt terrible.
“Would you stop telling me to relax!”
April took a bottle of water from beside her and offered it out to Oscar. She looked at him like you would a child who had gotten something wrong and had just learnt they were being silly. Her eyebrows were raised and her smile was patronisingly wide.
Oscar snatched the water bottle from her and gulped it down, not realising how dehydrated he had become.
“What did you see?” April inquired.
“What do you mean, what did I see?” Oscar frowned, taking another swig from the bottle. “What does it matter, what I saw?”
April let out a big sigh, an exhalation of irritation.
“I’m only just starting to come around to you, Oscar; don’t do my nut in now.”
“Me do your nut in?”
April gazed up at the warm family home, casting her eyes over the loving house of terror.
“Inside that house,” she began, “is a mother, a father, and a daughter who are going through something nothing short of atrocious. And it is our duty to help them.”
“Our duty?” Oscar sneered. “What do you mean our duty? Why is it our duty?”
“Because we can, you fool,” she joked, placing a reassuring hand on Oscar’s shoulder that made him feel all warm inside.
“I can’t help anyone.” Oscar’s eyes dropped to the floor as he despondently shook his head.
“Stop it with the puppy dog eyes and the weak boy act, it’s getting old. What you had is called a glimpse.”
“A what?” Oscar lifted his head slightly, hesitantly intrigued.
“A glimpse, Oscar. It’s what we call it when you have a vision, when you see something that isn’t there, or was there, or will be there.”
“What?”
“Many people have had many glimpses. A lot of them don’t even know it. And if you truly have the gift, that won’t be your last.”
“What?!” Oscar screeched.
It was not a pleasant experience. In fact, it was a bloody awful experience, one that Oscar was happy to be medicated for and would thoroughly love to never have again.
“Don’t worry,” April reassured him. “Once you learn to control them, and harness them, they won’t be like that. You just have to get used to them.”
“I don’t–”
“I have glimpses, too,” April interrupted. “Well, kind of glimpses. I don’t have fully formed visions like you seem to. I am able to act as a conduit for speaking to the dead, or to the beyond, and I can see visions of their life when I do it.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You can see glimpses but, what Julian and I are thinking, is that your glimpses are about people, and the forces hovering around them or controlling them. You can see and feel these entities.”
Oscar took a moment for this situation to sink in.
Yesterday, he was a Morrison’s checkout boy.
Now I don’t have a clue what is going on.
“Which is why you are important to us.” She looked him dead in the eyes. “Which is why you are important to me.”
He filled with a giddy buzz that sent tingles to the tips of his fingers and the tips of his toes.
“Now, what did you see?” she asked.
“I was in the basement, and there were all these children. And they were, like, I don’t know…” He strained to remember, but in a sudden wave, it all came flooding back. “They said the girl is not who she says she is.”
“That confirms it then.”
“Confirms what?”
“The girl is not who she says she is. That, matched with the demon you saw, I’d say means we have a pretty strong case of possession.”
April sprang to her feet and offered her hand out to Oscar.
“Come on, we need to help Julian do his thing.”
Oscar didn’t want to get up, but the simple act of being able to put his hand in hers, even if it was just to help him stand, was too inviting.
“Can I be honest?” Oscar asked, his hands tentatively twitching.
“Always,” April replied.
“I still don’t really buy it. I mean, I know you believe it’s true, it’s just… I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in all this. It makes a lot more sense to me that everyone involved is crazy.”
“Good,” April declared. “If you believed everything, you would be no good at this job. You need to have a sceptical mind.”
She grabbed hold of his hand, which once again made his whole body tickle with teasing excitement.
“Once you have seen Julian do his thing you will believe,” she asserted. “I mean, he’s going to poke and prod to try and bring this demon out into the open, just to make sure. Once you’ve seen that happen – there is no questioning anything ever again.”
And with that, she dragged him back into the house and shut the door behind them.
20
Oscar took each creaky step with a curious hesitancy. Part of him was starting to believe, but part of him was also wary about what Julian might do to provoke this demon into revealing itself.
Yes, he could be about to witness the evidence he longed for.
But he could also be about to witness a huge case of child abuse.
Either way, he found his feet unintentionally guiding him toward the bedroom. His lip quivered as April turned back to him and gave him a deep, sincere gaze into his eyes.
“Are you ready for this?” she asked.
Oscar reluctantly nodded.
“Remember – a demon will say and do things to provoke you, and everyone else in the room. You must not respond to it, or listen to it. You understand?”
He nodded once more.
“Oscar, I’m going to need an actual confirmation from you that you understand this.”
“Y-yes,” he stuttered. “I understand.”
“Julian is going to get this thing to say its name. If it admits to being Ardat Lili, or Lilith – we will take that as evidence.”
Bracing herself with a deep breath and relaxing her muscles, they entered the bedroom.
As Oscar passed the threshold he was hit with a sudden stab of frozen air. His breath was visible, such was the low temperature of the room. Henry stood in the corner of the room with a tearful Nancy in his arms, shielding her from the potential torment.
Julian stood dominantly over the bed, over Kaylee, whose wrists were fastened to the bed-posts with handcuffs, and her ankles with belts. The girl look
ed distraught; a face full of fear, tears trickling down her cheeks, no understanding of what was happening.
A sickening feeling of uncertainty filled Oscar. This wasn’t right. It felt like a scene from a movie, one that would never realistically happen due to the complete negligence and disregard for the child involved. This child didn’t look possessed; she looked devastated. Utterly inconsolable at what her parents and these strangers were doing to her.
“Are we ready?” Julian prompted April with a deadened voice. April nodded and shut the door behind them.
Julian turned to Kaylee on the bed beneath him, glaring at her with a face full of disdain.
This wasn’t right.
Whatever these people believed, Oscar couldn’t watch this.
This is just wrong.
“April, I can’t–” he began, but was abruptly silenced as April shushed him.
Julian made the shape of a cross over his body, then kissed his hands. He dropped his head, closing his eyes, and giving a silent prayer. When his eyes shot open they were full of determined resolution. Full of tenacity; they were the eyes of a man with strong convictions in what he was about to do.
“Kaylee, are you okay?” Julian asked.
The little girl turned her head, eyes full of tears, and gaped wide-eyed at the scary man stood over her.
“Listen to me, Kaylee,” Julian began. “I know this is tough, and I know you don’t want to do this, but I’m going to need to speak to whatever it is inside you.”
She vigorously shook her head, tears streaming down her face, pleading under her breath, “No, no, no, please, no…”
“I need you to be strong,” Julian insisted. “If you want us to get this thing out of you, I need you to be really, really strong.”
“Please…” she begged, her voice jittering like a scratched disc.
“Just relax, take a back seat, and let us talk to this thing. Can you do that for us? Can you be strong?”
Kaylee briefly closed her eyes and heavily exhaled. She feebly nodded. Her tensed muscles relaxed. Her whole body sank into the bed.
“I am no longer speaking to Kaylee. I speak to the thing within. In the name of God, I command you to reveal yourself.”
Kaylee remained still, her eyes staring at the ceiling above, bloodshot and unmoved.
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I implore you, demon, reveal to us your name.”
Oscar backed up against the wall. He glanced at the parents in the corner of the room, the mother with her face plastered against her husband’s chest, unable to watch.
“In Jesus’ name, I require you to reveal yourself!/”
“Why are you doing this?” Kaylee whimpered, a small, weak voice echoing from her shaking body.
“What is your name?”
Kaylee locked eyes with Oscar.
“Why are you letting them do this to me?” she asked. “Why aren’t you stopping them?”
Oscar gazed back, mortified, pinned against the wall.
Why was Oscar letting them do this?
Why wasn’t Oscar stopping them?
“April, get me my bag,” Julian commanded.
April picked up the tatty, leather bag and took it over to Julian. He withdrew a cross, gently kissed it, and dropped the bag to the floor.
“In the name of the holy angels and archangels, reveal your name.”
“Please, stop them!” Kaylee continued to beseech Oscar. “Why won’t you stop them?”
Julian grabbed the cross and pressed it up against the young girl’s chest. She writhed in pain, struggling under the pressure Julian was putting on her with his wooden weapon.
“Please, make it stop!” the girl moaned. “Why are you hurting me?”
Oscar shook his head. This was assault. This was cruelty. He couldn’t do this.
Julian lifted the cross to Kaylee’s neck and pressed down hard, and harder still.
“Please!” Kaylee lifted her head back but kept her eyes hellbent on Oscar’s. “Please do something!”
Julian pressed the cross again on her neck so hard she stopped breathing. Beneath his firm grip she suffocated, coughing and choking against him – but Julian did not repent.
“You need to stop this,” Oscar spoke, so softly no one noticed.
“I can’t breathe!” the girl cried, then squinted a glare toward Oscar. “You really are a shitty little loser, aren’t you?” she asked mockingly.
She gasped for air that didn’t come.
Oscar couldn’t take this anymore.
He couldn’t be a witness to this.
He couldn’t stand by and watch a child die.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he burst out of the room and marched down the corridor.
“Where are you going?” demanded April’s voice. Oscar froze and turned to see her standing in the doorway of the bedroom.
“This is barbaric!” Oscar claimed.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” April growled, full of aggression Oscar had never seen from her before.
“He’s throttling her!”
“He’s throttling the demon!”
Oscar turned and strode to the stairs.
“She’s right, isn’t she?” April asked with a mocking shake of the head.
“What?” Oscar asked, pausing on the top step.
“What Kaylee just said. What the demon just said. You are a shitty little loser.”
Oscar shook his head, full of adamant resistance.
“You can’t hold that against me,” he retorted. “Just because I’m not going to watch a child be tortured.”
“You really think a child suffocating would say to a random person in the room that they are a loser, huh?”
Oscar went to reply but had nothing. She was right.
“I’m not going to keep chasing you!” April was shouting now, full of anger, full of frustration. “If every time things get a little rough, if every time you feel it’s too stressful, you bail, then go on. Fuck off. We don’t need you.”
Oscar looked to his feet, shaking his head.
All his life.
All his life, he had run.
“Make the choice, Oscar. Either you’re going to man up and help us, or you are going to leave now and never look back. Either way, choose. Because I can’t be arsed with you running off no more.”
With that, she went back inside the room and slammed the door behind her.
Oscar lingered on that top step.
Thinking deeply.
There was something going on here.
Was he going to admit it? Face it? Fight it?
Or was he going to do what he had always done?
With a reluctant sigh, and a brief moment of contemplation, he found his feet carrying him straight back into that room.
With an approving nod from April, he looked to Julian doing all he could to pin down Kaylee, who was bouncing and seizing, pulling against her restraints.
“Grab her legs!” Julian shouted at Oscar. Oscar didn’t waste a moment in complying, grabbing hold of Kaylee’s legs and pinning them down, just as April forced down her waist and Julian pinned down her shoulders.
Oscar saw the girl’s eyes. They had changed.
They were something else.
Her pupils had fully dilated, with trails of red spiralling in every direction.
Her body rose fractionally off the bed, stiff as a plank.
It laughed, but this laugh was deep, croaky, sinister. Not the kind of voice a little girl would speak.
“For the last time, demon,” Julian spoke, clearly and succinctly. “What is your name?”
Kaylee moved her head toward Julian – or rather, the demon moved Kaylee’s head toward Julian. Looking him deep in his eyes, Oscar watched her grin grow, witnessing what he thought he would never witness.
“My name is Ardat Lili,” it croaked, full of triumphant arrogance. “But you can call me Lilith.”
21
Jason understood why
some officers never married.
It was gone 2.00 a.m.
Five hours since his shift had ended.
And there he was. Sat half-shaven, half-awake, with a half-empty paper cup perched on his crotch – his ninth coffee that day.
What was worse, he saw nothing wrong with that.
And he knew his wife would be furious.
It was just… that girl. Something about her was off. At first, it was a trivial curiosity. Since getting hold of the CCTV footage of her interview and playing it over and over, it had become an incessant nagging. A need to understand. Call it the instinct of experience, or call it being a nosy, lifeless prick; it just didn’t make any sense.
He rewound the stream and watched Kaylee Kemple once more.
Still, she sat there. Motionless. A sadistic grin.
Yes, it was extreme to call the smile of a nine-year-old girl ‘sadistic.’ How could a girl that age have any kind of evil temperament? Personality disorders, or even psychopathy, were known to develop in late adolescence. It was just something…
Off.
That was the only way he could describe it, and it was immensely frustrating. Almost twenty years into the job and the best he could come up with was, “She’s off.”
“Pathetic,” he muttered to himself, finishing the last of his cold, grainy coffee he couldn’t even remember making.
The girl was from a middle-class family. Her dad was a doctor. Her mother was an incredibly caring woman. There were no nurturing influences to create negative behaviour.
So, what was it?
He crumpled the paper cup and threw it at the bin, missing completely and hitting the wall. Slamming his fist on the table with a heavy hand, he leant forward in his chair, getting as close to the screen as possible.
He rubbed his eyes, shook his head and ran his hands through his hair, doing whatever he could to wake himself up.
His next shift started in a few hours.
May as well just sleep in his office chair. It wouldn’t be the first time.
His eyes hovered inches from the screen, staring avidly at the pixelated face.
She didn’t blink.
Not once did the damn girl blink.
She stared back at the questioning officer, eyes wide open, a smile spread across her cute little cheeks. Freckles gleaming on a face full of guilty innocence, a mocking smile mocking the useless interrogation.
