The Dark Man (17 page)

“ … name … Azeraul …
”

Mike asks me, “Did she say ‘Azeraul’? I’m assuming that’s the demon’s name? Have you ever heard of that one before?”

“Doesn’t sound familiar. Louisa? Are you still there?”

“
… here …
”

“Thank you. We’re proud of you, and I know it’s going to be tough, but hang in there for a little bit. It won’t be much longer.”

Mike is panning the thermal imager around the room, trying to find any sign of our companion, and then he takes a quick look back down the hall. It’s not like Azeraul would need to use the conventional methods to enter a space, but I can see how Mike would feel like it’s a natural reaction.

“Ask her about the case,” he says. “Ask while we have her on the line.”

“It’s too much. Not right now. Let’s get that thing out of here and then—”

“Ford!” he barks. “We may not get that chance and you know it. She’s using up so much energy already just to communicate. If this Azeraul bastard builds up enough energy for another attack, she could be too weak. This is it, bro. We gotta do it now.”

“I don’t want to put too much—”

Again, he barks, “Ford!”

“Okay, okay. Louisa, if you’re still here, if you can still communicate, there’s something else we can do for you. If you want to be at peace, if you want to go to the light, then tell us this: were you murdered?”

“
… I … was … true …
”

“Can you tell us who did it? That’s what we need to know, okay? If you want your soul to rest and finally leave this world behind, tell us now.”

“
… can’t … weak …
”

“Stay with us. It’s okay, we’re almost there.”

“
… demon … here …
”

“No,” I shout. “Don’t go. Fight him. Fight it, Louisa. Give us the name of the person who murdered you. We’re so close. Are you scared to tell the truth? Nothing can hurt you, I promise. It’ll be fine. Give us a name and then go to the light.”

Thinking that it may have been the mayor himself, and that he may have learned that she had kept a diary of their illicit affair and then threatened her, possibly even murdered her, I ask, “Was it the mayor? Did Mayor Gardner kill you? He’s dead now. Died three years ago, and if it was him, I’m sure he’s burning in hell. He can’t reach you.”

“
… still love … her … go …
”

“No, no, stay. Please stay. We can do this together, I promise. I can protect you.” I turn to Mike and order him to take out his holy water. He complies and begins saying a prayer that I don’t recognize as he splashes it around on the boxes, her pile of clothing, and the curtains.

The main bulk of the approaching thunderstorm that has been threatening Hampton Roads all evening hangs in the distance, as if Mother Nature herself is too scared to approach. Small sparkles of lightning illuminate the night from the west. I’m glad the storm is hanging back because we don’t need another source of energy for Azeraul.

I ask her again, “Mayor Gardner. Was it him?”

“
… her …
”

“Her? Her who?”

“
… Azeraul …
”

“I—what? I don’t understand. The demon is a female?”

“
No … but light … above …
”

“It’s not a male? You’re not making much sense. Can you explain what you mean? Louisa? Louisa?” And then the tape is filled with unbearable, deafening silence. I inhale the deepest breath possible, because I swear it feels like I haven’t taken in oxygen in fifteen minutes.

Mike yanks the second earbud out and slings it hard enough to pull the other one out of mine. “Son of a fucking bitch,” he snaps. “We
had
her. We could’ve solved this whole thing and been done with it, and then she tells us some crap about being in love with a demon? Are you kidding me? I mean, what is this bullshit? Something like Stockholm Syndrome?”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Calm down. Mike. Hey. Breathe for a second.”

“Bah,” he grumbles, and shoves my arm away. He marches over to a window and leans up against it with his forehead, shoulders slumped, disappointed.

“You know as well as I do that we only get a small percentage of clear answers. That’s how this works, and it’s the same thing that I tell every single police department that I’ve worked with. You remember that. I know you do. You’re not that far out of practice.”

“Let me ask you this,” he says, staring out into the night, his breath leaving small condensation circles on the glass. “How often are you
actually
able to help with an investigation, huh? How often do you come away with something tangible that they can use? Because, to me, it was always gibberish, the stuff we caught during a case, you know? At least the EVPs most of the time. When we captured apparitions on camera or saw a ball roll across the floor, that’s what I could get behind. But the voices? I don’t know how many times I wanted to tell you that you were full of shit, the way you tried to read between the lines and convince the audience that these random words we captured meant something. That’s the part I never got, you know? Why do it? Why bother trying to force meaning onto nothing?”

“It’s not nothing, Mike. It’s
never
nothing. They’re there. They’re communicating.”

“And you’re making up stories around nonsensical crap.”

“I’m trying to give these spirits an identity. They’re people. Are. Were. Doesn’t matter. They have a story and they’re trying to tell it. Think of it like a coloring book. The structure was there, it just needed filling in because that’s what worked for the fans. And to answer your question, I give the detectives actionable material about forty percent of the time, honestly. At least according to my case records.”

“That much, huh?”

“Yeah. You want, I can sit down with you and show you all my files.”

“I believe you, Ford. It’s just—”

“Just what?”

“This is going to come out of left field, but I
have
to know,” he says, turning to me, crossing his arms. “Here’s your chance.”

“For?”

“I think, maybe—look, I can’t think of a way to say it without getting all worked up—but fuck me, Ford,
why
? Why did you do that to Chelsea? Huh? Can you explain it to me? I can’t even begin to tell you how goddamn let down I was. You were my brother. I thought I knew, man, and then …
that
. I don’t get it. You already had money. You already had fame. Give me a reason, not an excuse. I never gave you a chance before, so tell me now.”

I sidestep over to a rickety stack of crates, grunting an exhausted old-man groan, as I lower myself onto them. I’m tired. Emotionally wrecked on so many different levels. “Really,” I say, tapping the digital voice recorder on my palm. “Really, truly, and honestly, I’ve been trying to figure that out for over two years now. Part of me got blinded by the moment, the potential to create, what? Television history? Who would’ve remembered it a year later other than our fans? The other part of me—on some delusional level—actually believed that if Chelsea was able to
literally
face down her demon, then she could take on the world.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t try to fool me or yourself with that horseshit. We didn’t send her in there to come out with a
win
. She was a goddamn trigger object and you know it. We sent her in there to draw out that right-hander and get some good shots for Halloween.”

“Nah.” I shake my head. “That was me being ‘TV Ford’ around the producers and the network people. I thought I was doing the right thing. You and I, the crew, the producers, we’d all been through so many investigations together and we’ve all seen how horribly some families can get affected by the paranormal. Whether it’s a pissed-off spirit or an actual demon, everyone knows that lives get ruined all the time. I can’t even describe to you just how conflicted I was, but when I looked at Chelsea and her case, the ego was on one shoulder wearing the devil horns, carrying a pitchfork, and this overwhelming need to
help
her was on the other, wearing a halo and playing the harp.”

Mike moves away from the window, steps over, and sits down beside me on the wooden crates. The slats creak under his added weight. “Fine, I get
that
. Here’s what I don’t get. Answer this, and we can drop it, okay? I’m so fucking tired of hating you for what you did. It’s exhausting carrying around so much mental baggage. I’m not saying that we can bro hug and be done with it, but what I need to know is, why bring her back to that house after they’d managed to break free? That’s the part I don’t get. We could have done the show without her. They were twenty miles away, and she showed every indication of being fine. Happy little kid, back to normal. Why subject her to that house again?”

Here we go. I’ve been holding onto this for a long time. “Did I ever tell you that I went to see the Hoppers about a week before the investigation?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Wait, was that when you said you were taking Melanie to New York City for the weekend?”

“Yep.”

“Why lie about that?”

“Because, I felt like, if I took you with me to do a
pre
-pre-interview, you’d squash the whole live show, and that’s kinda why I went. I wanted to gauge the situation with the family and get some feedback before we went in, right? Like you said, Chelsea seemed fine. Seemed like a normal kid, and I thought that there wasn’t any use in bringing her back.”

“And?”

“And she
was
fine, great, wonderful, until she said—I’ll never forget the chills I got—she said, ‘If you go back to our old house, can you tell the dark man to stay out of my dreams?’ That’s when I knew. That’s when it occurred to me that we had one helluva show on our hands and that she needed to beat it if she ever wanted calm in her life again. I’ve regretted the decision since she fell out of that attic. You don’t need to hate me. I do enough of that to myself.”

“Jesus,” Mike says, holding out his right arm. “Look at my goosebumps.”

“See what I mean?”

“No, not from that.” He snatches an EMF detector off his tool belt, flips it on, and the meter immediately pegs in the red. “Azeraul is back. Get ready.”

We used to do that sometimes—have deep, philosophical chats during the down periods. It never made it onto the show because who wants to see two paranormal investigators sitting around, having a heart-to-heart discussion? Nah, save that for the behind-the-scenes menu item whenever the box set of seasonal DVDs comes out. We both know that after a giant explosion of energy, like our attack downstairs, it can take some time for a spirit or a right-hander to recharge itself. Depending on the strength of the entity in question, it could be a couple of hours, or a couple of days.

Apparently, Azeraul needs about fifteen minutes to recover, which is just insane. We don’t have any EMF pumps running, and that approaching storm has yet to move any closer. Sure, tiny droplets of rain pepper the windows, and the lightning flickers once in a while and illuminates the house, but it’s not close enough for him to recharge his paranormal batteries.

Mike hops to his feet. He’s thinking the same thing because he checks his watch and says, “That was just a little over fourteen minutes since the attack downstairs. Makes you wonder if that damn thing plugged itself into an outlet.”

“Plan of attack? Stay put? Or, no, we should go back to that front room where we saw him earlier. Maybe Louisa was living in
here
, and he’s playing house over
there
.”

“Not that I think it matters, because he’ll find us regardless, but I can tell you this much: dude is gonna be super pissed that his play-toy is gone. We could probably do a quick round to check, but it sounded to me like Louisa moved on.”

“Definitely. She’s gone,” I say. “Just like always, and I don’t know how I know, but I can feel it. Heaven or hell, she went somewhere else.”

“Ssshh,” Mike whispers, putting a finger up to his lips. “You hear that? Footsteps?”

“I thought it was a door latch. Metallic, maybe.”

“Let’s go check.”

From down the hall, we hear a tremendous crash. Mike and I rush for the door, allow each other to exit without a comical mishap, and once we step into the upstairs hall, I can immediately tell what happened. In the far front room, the spartan one where Azeraul had hidden earlier, a rush of water is leaking out from underneath the closed door.

“The vase,” I say.

“Yep.”

“God, feel the temperature in here.”

“Feels like it dropped another five.”

“It must be fifty degrees.”

Mike turns on his thermal imaging camera. “Good call. Solid forty-nine point two, except for that bedroom.”

“What’s it reading?”

He holds the camera sideways so that I can see the screen. The door is glowing white hot on the monochromatic setting. A small cursor, ironically in the shape of a cross, plots around the screen, scanning temperatures and giving us an idea of what the laser is picking up with various locations. When it dances across the door, I almost expect it to read sixty-six point six. Instead, I’m blown away when I see eighty-seven degrees.

“Eighty-seven? Are you kidding me? And that’s the outside of the door.”

“I can’t even imagine what it’s like inside there.”

I feel a slight rumble in my feet. It’s a muted shake, almost like the platform in a subway station when the train rolls in for a stop. “Dude? You feel that?”

“Yeah.”

We both look down at the hardwood flooring and retreat a step, as if that will have any bearing on our safety.

“Any trains close by?” he asks.

“Nope.”

“Didn’t see headlights so I’m guessing no semis come down this street.”

“Residential,” I remind him. “No restaurants or convenience stores for blocks.”

“Then it’s our buddy, or not?”

“Azeraul? Could be, but I would think—”

Something pounds against the inside of the closed bedroom door.

BOOM
.
BOOM
.
BOOM
.

It’s thirty feet from us, but I can feel the reverberations in my feet. They’ve escalated. It’s no longer the rumble of an approaching subway train. Instead, it almost feels as if we’re standing on top of an unbalanced washer. Almost like a rhythmic thumping under the soles of our shoes.