The Dark Man (5 page)

His last words come out in a whisper as he holds an empty hand over his chest, clawlike, and squeezes the air.

He adds, “In all those shows you’ve done, you ever seen anything like that?”

“I have in person, absolutely,” I answer. “Though we were never able to catch it on film. I believe there’s a variety of shadow people out there, Detective Thomas, some with less power who show up as something like a floating mass or like a misty cloud up in the corner of a room. Then you have the ones that’re strong enough to appear in physical form, like being able to make out a head and shoulders, maybe even arms. I’ve seen those plenty of times with my own eyes, standing right there in the same room with them. I’ve been able to capture those on film, both with digital cameras and video recorders, plenty of evidence that those exist. But what you’re talking about, the ones with the red eyes? They’re too strong, too powerful, too … intelligent to get caught.”

Detective Thomas scoffs and leans forward in the chair. “You’re telling me that thing has a brain?”

“Well, there are two different types of haunts, detective. Residual and intelligent. Residual hauntings are like, say, leftover energy. Think of a tape recorder that’s stuck in an infinite loop. If you’re in a haunted house and you hear the same footsteps climbing the staircase every night at a quarter past twelve, that’s a residual haunt. That tape recorder is simply resetting itself and playing again.”

“So the ghost doesn’t know it’s doing it? It’s totally unaware that it’s stuck in limbo, repeating itself throughout eternity?”

“More or less.”

“Sounds like my ex-wife.” He chuckles at his own joke, and I offer a sympathy laugh. Craghorn sits patiently and quietly on the sofa, hands in his lap. His eyes keep flicking up, and his gaze lingers on something behind me. There’s another entrance back there, which leads into the kitchen, and I feel a sensation of eyes on the back of my neck. A quick glance reveals nothing, and when I turn back around, Craghorn is again focused on his fingernails. The pace of his breathing has increased, but he’s otherwise normal.

And, of course, I use the term “normal” loosely.

I tell Detective Thomas, “The other type of haunting is what we call an ‘intelligent’ haunt, and that’s where the person or thing is self-aware enough to respond to questions or communicate outright. Like if I’m using a digital recorder and I ask, ‘What’s your name?’ and upon review, I hear a response that says, ‘Steve Pendragon.’ And with all the research I’ve prepared beforehand, I know that a Steve Pendragon used to live in the location, then that’s an intelligent haunt.”

Without looking up, Craghorn mumbles quietly, “Episode three-oh-seven. Fort Lauderdale, October 2005.”

“Wow, yeah. Exactly.” It surprises me to hear that Craghorn knows the show so well.

Detective Thomas stands up and paces back and forth in front of the fireplace. “Sorry, I feel safer on my feet. So you said that a person or
thing
can be self-aware enough to communicate. What’d you mean by
thing
?”

I catch Craghorn looking over my shoulder again. Like a quarterback telegraphing a pass, his eyes follow something from left to right.

I have to look, too. I can’t
not
look.

Again, there’s nothing there, but damn if he’s not freaking me out. I answer, “I could give you an entire history of the paranormal world, detective, from demons to subdemons, to angels, to sprites, to fairies, whatever, but my guess is, you’d only like to know what in the hell it was that you saw, right?”

He crosses his arms and waits.

“Dark, full-bodied being, clearly humanoid in shape and size, glowing red eyes? That’s a top-tier demon, detective. What you saw, he’s not riding the pine on any of Satan’s teams; he’s out on the infield playing. Front lines. The starting first baseman.”

Detective Thomas snorts and shakes his head. “You’re telling me I saw a
demon
?”

If he hadn’t seen what he’d seen, right about now is the spot where he’d tell me that I’m a charlatan, that I’m a snake-oil salesman, and that I’m making all of this up for ratings in order to give people a thrill.

That’s the thing, see—when it comes to ghosts, aliens, demons, or, hell, even Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster, it’s easy to be a skeptic until you’ve actually witnessed it.

On one hand, I feel bad for the nonbelievers because they’re missing out on so much. If they’d only open their minds, there’s another world out there, so much more life to experience than breakfast cereal, sitcoms, and a comfortable recliner.

On the other, I feel even worse for the witnesses who are far fewer in number. They’re the minority. Some have seen, and they know, and yet they hide, because they’re afraid of the ridicule. They’re afraid of losing their jobs or having their communities label them a freak or a weirdo.

Man, I get that. I’ve been there my whole life. It’s not easy being an outcast. At least not until you head up the number-one paranormal show on the planet.

Then there are the brave souls who are willing to come forward and testify under the penalty of ridicule that they saw something. That’s courage right there.

Detective Thomas is in this latter category, simply by calling me in, bringing me here, and telling this story, but he hasn’t quite accepted that he saw what he saw.

Maybe it was my fault, his sarcastic snort just now. If I’d told him, yeah, that was nothing more than a plain-old, garden-variety ghost, he might have accepted it and moved on. However, by explaining that he witnessed something far worse, something made up of the blackest evil, a top-tier demon on Satan’s council, well, I’m pretty sure I just blew his mind.

That’s confirmed when he says, “I really don’t know what to say to that, Mr. Ford. A demon. A demon?” He keeps repeating the word in various states of inflection, as if finding the proper way to get it out would make it more acceptable. It’s only two syllables, yeah, but it’s kind of amazing how many different ways he’s able to pronounce it.

After roughly the eighth iteration, when he can’t possibly squeeze any more inflection out of those two straightforward syllables that hold so much weight, apparently Craghorn can’t take it anymore. He slings his hands up over his ears and screams, “Enough, enough, enough!” and stomps his feet on the ground like a child throwing a tantrum.

Detective Thomas freezes and turns to him. “Hey, now, ease up. I’m just trying to wrap my mind around—”

“Not you, idiot,” Craghorn hisses angrily. “
He
won’t shut up.”

The temperature of the room drops another five degrees. I stand up and immediately turn around, searching the kitchen behind me where Craghorn’s eyes had focused on something earlier. It’s empty. I understand whom he means, but Detective Thomas is confused. “Who, Craghorn? Who won’t shut up?”

Craghorn says in a childlike voice, “Him. There,” and points.

I don’t see anything. Neither does the detective because he asks, “Who are you talking about? It’s just the three of us.”

“No. You’re wrong. Dead wrong.”

I back up a step. Whatever Craghorn was pointing at is in my vicinity, and if we’re definitely dealing with a “Tier One” in this house, like the filth that inhabited the Hopper home, then I should probably keep my distance. I’m not prepared for this, not in the slightest. I expected to come in here and have Detective Thomas tell me that he saw the ghost of Louisa Craghorn. I expected he’d tell me about a full-bodied apparition and that I’d do a couple of EVP sessions, ask Louisa who murdered her, and, I hope, dig up another clue for Thomas to go on.

Naively, I assumed that this would be a fairly quick one-and-done kind of moment. There’s no wonder the detective was so hesitant to explain himself back at the station.

Craghorn says, “No, damn you. I will not.”

“Dave,” I say gently, trying to reach out to him. “Is it the demon? Do you see it?”

“He’s here. He’s with us now.”

Detective Thomas whips his head left and right, looking for it. He retreats to a rocking chair in the corner, close to the light of the windows, and yanks his sidearm out of his shoulder holster. Even with the barrel aimed at the ceiling, I don’t want this guy to get spooked and fire off a round, possibly hitting one of us in the process.

I tell him to put it away, that a bullet isn’t going to stop this thing no matter what. The fact that his weapon, his shield, his security blanket, isn’t going to stop what’s in the room with us sends his bottom lip to quivering.

Nearly blubbering, he says, “Make it go away, Ford. You know how these things operate, right? Get it out of here.”

“I wish it was that easy.”

Craghorn is standing beside me now, whimpering and whining. The sounds coming out of his mouth aren’t words—at least not English ones—and it takes me a moment to realize that he may be muttering in an ancient language, powerful words that died thousands of years ago. I’ve heard it before, but only a few times, and only in the presence of something like this.

Craghorn also attempts a pathetic escape. He stumbles and falls back onto the couch, trying to shove himself deeper and deeper into the cushions, pushing farther away from this invisible entity that’s stalking him.

I can’t believe that something this mighty hasn’t manifested yet. Perhaps it’s using the available energy to communicate with Craghorn.

Every inch of my skin prickles, and I feel the humming, vibrating sensation coursing through me. I feel weakened, as if it’s stealing my energy. I’m dizzy, exhausted, like I haven’t slept in days. My chest is heavy. I have an emotional anvil sitting on my heart.

“Ford?” Detective Thomas tries to get my attention. “What’s going on? You okay?”

I’ve been in this situation before, hundreds of times, and normally I can handle this.

But when it rolls past, I know I’ve never encountered something as … as
strong
as this. Like a wave slinking toward the shore, the pressure, the sensation of death pushes by me.

Craghorn shoves his body away with a foot planted firmly on the hardwood floor, the other leg pathetically moving up and down, trying to gain a foothold and failing. He arches his back and turns his head sideways, whimpering, “No. No, please. Don’t.”

And then I watch as a handful of his shoulder-length hair is lifted and his head yanked to the side, pulling him from one side of the couch to the other.

I am goddamn terrified. Why? The smallest explanations often carry the most weight.

This is bad.

Very, very bad.

Mike Long is like a brother to me. Or he was until the night I went through with exposing Chelsea Hopper to that thing in the attic.

We built
Graveyard: Classified
up from a few piddling online videos years ago to the international powerhouse that it was before the network ripped it from primetime. We met in a junior-college film class, bonding over horror movies and the mutual adrenaline rush we got when we were trying to film our own in places where we didn’t have permission. The night we sneaked into an abandoned mental hospital with six cheerleaders who were half-naked and drunk, was the last night we would ever work from a poorly written script.

When we captured that full-bodied apparition, a woman in a white nightgown, who seemed to be pleading with us to help her, that’s all we needed to go back again and again, giving up on fictional stories and trying to capture real ones on camera.

We never saw her after that night. Perhaps it was enough for her to know that someone had received her message, and she passed blissfully on to the next phase of the afterlife. We, too, moved on to other decaying insane asylums and old factories, homes, churches, antique shops, and lighthouses. Anywhere that was supposedly haunted, we would ask permission and perform an investigation, then upload our videos online. Hundreds of thousands of followers would flock to them, and it wasn’t long before a group of producers from The Paranormal Channel came calling, offering better equipment, an actual film crew, and contracts that promised more money than we had ever thought possible from a weekend hobby.

Mike and I, we were inseparable. He was my best man when I married Melanie from wardrobe. He made David Letterman and Ellen laugh. He was the straight man to my crazy, gung-ho attitude when it came to paranormal investigations.

We’ve only spoken once since the show was cancelled. His end of the conversation consisted of three words: “Go to hell.”

If he sees my number on the caller ID, he might not pick up.

But, Jesus, I hope he does. After what I saw inside the Craghorn place, I don’t just
want
his help, I
need
it. There’s no one else in the world that I would trust with this level of evil.

Outside the house, it’s 104 degrees here on the sidewalk, but I’m shivering. Detective Thomas paces back and forth, snorting like a dragon, mumbling empty, macho threats about going back inside because he never backs down from a fight. I notice he’s not in a hurry to go back up the stairs.

Dave Craghorn sits on the bottom step, hunched over, cradling himself. There’s a small patch of hair missing on the side of his head. I can see it from here.

My hand instinctively goes up to the back of my neck when I feel a burning sensation, but then I realize it’s just the sun beating down. There’s no demon out here clawing me. That’s how it usually starts, though, with the scratches. You feel like a patch of your skin is on fire, it’ll take on a subtle pink hue like it’s a superficial burn, then the marks will gradually show up. I’ve had angry spirits claw me more times than I care to recall, but I’ve never seen anything powerful enough to rip the hair right out of someone’s head.

Well, that’s not necessarily true. I can think of one other that was just as strong.

Two years ago. A faded pistachio house in Cleveland.

I stare at my phone, Mike’s number is sitting there on the screen, almost as if it’s pulsing, throbbing, alive and waiting on me to take the chance. I have to; Mike needs to see this. I press “Send” and hold the cell up to my ear, air caught in my lungs.

A warm breeze whips through the space between the homes to my right, pushes my hair to the side, yet offers no relief. With the temperature and humidity combined, it feels like a steaming column erupting from a kettle.