A Name in the Dark Read online

  My foray into rebellion didn’t elicit much attention from my parents. Aside from issuing the occasional grounding when I skipped school or forcing me to attend counseling sessions with our Baptist minister, my parents remained focused on their favorite child. And then, in Bennet’s junior year, he suffered an elbow injury that threatened to derail his athletic career—the kind of injury no doctor wanted to risk with surgery.

  That changed everything. Neither of my parents coped well with setbacks, especially ones like this. My father turned his attention to his work and his cars. My mother put even more effort into the community. They threw their energy into anything but staying home to confront my brother’s pain and depression.

  Actually, to say Bennet was depressed would be an understatement. He was destroyed. My brother and I weren’t particularly close at that point, but it killed me to see him like that, not just because his dreams were ruined but also because of the cruel way my parents were behaving. They treated him like some dark secret they wouldn’t acknowledge, like a burden, like a disappointment… like me.

  So I started to take care of him. When he couldn’t go to school, I brought him his homework. I cooked his meals and made sure he ate well. I even did his laundry—which, because he was a seventeen-year-old boy, required a firm constitution. We started spending so much time together that I found less and less time for Vivien, which she did not appreciate. She cut me out of her life and found some poor freshman girl to corrupt.

  After much research, I found a physical therapist the next county over who was willing to treat Bennet. Three days a week after school, I would drive him back and forth. Those long drives in the car gave us some quality one-on-one time. Over the next few months, he and I would share our deepest secrets and our greatest hopes. We became as close as a brother and sister could be.

  And by some miracle, Bennet got better. When he finally returned to the baseball field, I was his most enthusiastic and vocal cheerleader. Things started to return to normal for the Caine family—they were better, even, than they’d been before the injury. Bennet’s future was once again looking bright, and I was no longer the family’s black sheep.

  Until I ruined everything. It started slowly at first. I felt ill—fever, nausea, dry skin. My mother believed it was because I drank too much soda. When I started vomiting toads, my parents thought it would be a good idea to take me to the doctor.

  The hospital didn’t help. If anything, the situation grew worse. Levitation, speaking in tongues, physical contortion… the medical staff was baffled by what was happening. My father was horrified by the trauma my body was going through. My mother was convinced I was just trying to get attention. Bennet was worried sick.

  One good Christian doctor at St. Samaritan Something-or-Other instructed my parents to take me home and contact the church. Even with all his medical and scientific knowledge, he correctly believed I was possessed by a demon—an honest-to-God denizen-of-hell demon.

  There was nothing else the hospital could do. Under the cover of night, so as not to alert the neighbors about my disgraceful condition, my parents brought me home. My mother called the pastor of our church, but he could do little to help. When it came to demonic possession, it turned out there was only one group out there who knew their shit: the Catholics.

  That was a bitter pill for my Baptist mother to swallow, as she couldn’t stand Catholics almost as much as she couldn’t stand Methodists. Rumors about my situation began to spread around town, and my mother became increasingly resistant to reaching out for help. She didn’t want anyone to know what was happening in her home.

  So Bennet made the phone calls. He was the one who sought recommendations and lobbied the archdiocese for evaluations from priests. With no help from my parents, he succeeded in getting two exorcists to come to our home.

  They performed the Rite of Exorcism in an attempt to rid me of this demon. At that point, I was completely unaware of what was happening. The demon had control, and I was in an oblivious slumber. Later, I was told that it was unlike anything the priests had ever seen. The demon would not let go of my body.

  Two days after they began the ritual, things went from bad to worse. I was never given all the details of exactly what happened. They’d bound me in my bed for the exorcism, but at some point during the rite, I was able to break free of my bonds. I attacked the priests then escaped the confines of my room. I rampaged through the house, obliterating everything in my path. My father and brother tried to restrain me, but I had grown too powerful. I turned my attention from destroying the house to attacking my assailants.

  Eventually, they were able to restrain me again, and the priests resumed the rite. It took another two days before they were able to subdue the demon and I could regain consciousness. But the damage was done.

  Bennet was dead. And I had killed him.

  I was devastated. My brother with the bright future ahead of him… my brother who’d fought to help me… my brother whom I’d come to love more than anyone else in this world… had died by my hands. No matter how much the priests tried to convince me that it was the demon who had committed this act, I could not shake the guilt.

  Then they gave me more bad news. The demon was not completely exorcised. I remained what the priest called a demoniac—a girl possessed.

  Just as the demon had kept control of my body while my mind and soul were subdued, I now had control of my body while the demon lay dormant within. They had done everything in their power to rid me of the evil spirit and had managed to suppress it, but it would return. The episodes would be shorter, only lasting a few hours, before I would resume command of my body. But during that time, there was no telling what kind of destruction and terror I would dispense.

  Before he left, one of the priests gave my parents information he believed might help me purge the demon from my body. As part of an exorcism, priests would attempt to learn the name of a demon to drive it out of a victim’s body. My particular demon never revealed its true name. If I could learn it, another Rite of Exorcism could be performed to successfully drive this evil spirit from my body. The priest also warned us that this entity had grafted itself to my soul. If I were to die before casting out this demon, it might very well carry my soul with it to the depths of hell, where I would burn for all of eternity.

  After the exorcism, my eyes took on a vivid yellow color, a constant reminder to my family that there was still evil dwelling inside me—a demon that had murdered my brother. My mother, in particular, was unable to cope with my presence. She resented what I had done to Bennet, to the family, and to her. She claimed it was my fault for opening my soul to the powers of the devil during my goth phase. To this day, the knowledge that this might possibly be true sickens me.

  While my mother wanted to hide me from the world, she also didn’t want me in her home. Her conflicting desires developed into hostility. She hated me and every day made it a point to let me know. My father, despite all his machismo, did nothing.

  So I left. I bounced around the country, visiting different churches and priests in an attempt to research my demon’s name. I eventually made my home in Los Angeles.

  I promised myself that I would learn this demon’s name and drive it out. I would rid my body of this evil. In the meantime, I decided to give it a temporary name, something I could call it whenever I looked in a mirror and stared into my yellow eyes.

  So I named it Dudley.

  Chapter 3

  ____◊____

  I WAKE ON MY hardwood floor. My head pounds from either a migraine or a small hamster playing trance music in my skull. Fortunately, I’m still in my bedroom.

  There’s a reason Paige and I moved into a loft converted from an old battery factory. Its high ceilings, oak flooring, and concrete walls are perfect for containing a demon. We installed a grid of iron bars in my windows, and the sliding bedroom door is secured from the outside with a T-shaped iron crossbar that locks into brackets.

 
; I lift my wrist and cycle through the displays on my watch to check last night’s maximum heart-rate reading. Two hundred three beats per minute. That’s not good. If I have too many nights like last night, I’ll die of a heart attack before I’m thirty.

  I slowly rise to find my room a complete mess. The bed is askew, with blankets and pillows in piles on the floor. Books are everywhere. My bedside lamp lies shattered on the floor, which sucks because I don’t have the cash flow for a Target run right now.

  A broken photo frame of Bennet and me is at the foot of my metal dresser. I crawl over, carefully pick away the glass fragments, and pull out the photo. It’s the last photo I have of the both of us, from when I was sixteen and he was eighteen. His thick arms are wrapped around me as I struggle to get away. We are laughing. Even at that age, he looked like a man. But he would never become one.

  Since this photo is the original print I took from home, I decide to put it away for safekeeping. I pull on the top drawer of my dresser, only to discover it’s jammed because of a large dent on the side. I say dresser, but it’s actually a filing cabinet. All my bedroom furniture is metal. I’ve broken too many pieces of cheap particleboard to keep buying that crap. Instead of an armoire, I have a series of lockers. My bedside table is steel. My bedframe is iron. Not exactly girly.

  I retrieve the mallet I keep around for post-possession cleanup and use it to hammer the metal back into place, and I slip the photo into the drawer. Then the cleanup begins. Books are restacked according to genre. I shove the bed back against the wall. The broken glass gets swept up and dumped in an empty wastebasket.

  I lift an old jean jacket from the floor to check if there is any more glass underneath. Instead, I find something else. A snake. A black viper, specifically.

  It whirls its head in my direction, hissing, ready to strike. I throw the jacket back over the serpent and shuffle away. I’ve been in this situation before—too many times to count. It still grosses me out to think that thing came out of my mouth in the middle of the night.

  I reach beside my dresser and grab a pair of snake tongs and a burlap bag I keep for just such occasions. I lift the jacket slowly and use the tongs to snatch the serpent. These guys can be venomous, so I’m careful, gentle, and quick. I deposit the offending creature in the bag, which I then cinch up.

  Now I have to get rid of another stupid snake. I can feel myself getting anxious and realize the Xanax Paige fed me last night has worn off. It’s early, and I have a long day at work ahead of me, so I rifle through my bottles of benzos. I opt for Klonopin to calm me down for the day.

  I’m not an addict, by the way. I don’t take these for recreation or to tranquilize myself against first-world problems. I do this to keep Dudley from getting the best of me. If I get too worked up or angry or generally lose control, I become more susceptible to one of my “Satan spells,” as Paige likes to call them. So I have to remain calm and totally Zen.

  Half a milligram of Klonopin twice a day usually does the trick. If I need faster relief, I take six milligrams of Xanax, crushed, under the tongue. The medication also helps shorten the spells and minimize the damage.

  Last night’s aftermath is way too much to deal with before my first cup of coffee. I knock on the wooden door that barricades me inside and wait for Paige to answer.

  She calls through the door, “Darcy or Dudley?”

  This is our routine after incidents like last night. She’s never personally witnessed an entire episode, just the teaser. When my heart rate hits one hundred sixty beats per minute, we know we’re moving into dangerous territory. At one hundred ninety BPM, I’m in full fight-or-flight mode. There’s no going back, and she has seconds to either contain me or escape.

  I’ve made her promise not to linger for the whole show. It’s too dangerous. Her instructions are to keep the door locked until the next morning. She can’t open it until she can confirm it’s me and not Dudley.

  “It’s Darcy.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  I sigh. “Can we skip it just this once?”

  “Hey, it’s your rule.”

  I clear my throat. Then with absolutely no enthusiasm, I start singing.

  “Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame,

  “Wake up the echoes, cheering her name,

  “Please don’t make me sing the whole thing in shame.”

  No self-respecting demon would ever utter those words, let alone sing them.

  I can hear the iron hook scrape out of its latch. The pocket door slides on its track and disappears into the recess of the cinderblock wall. Paige Whitaker stands there in shorts and a gray Dodgers T-shirt. Her blond hair is tied in a ponytail and soaked with sweat. As with every morning, she has already burned a thousand calories before I’ve woken up. Meanwhile, I’m a disheveled mess and look like a public-service warning.

  We stand there facing each other, and I’m reluctant to speak. I want to apologize for sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. I want to apologize for leaving her alone last night when I should have been there. I want to apologize for losing control and putting her in a potentially dangerous situation.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, beating me to the punch. “I should have seen what a scumbag he was.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t handle it right. And I never should have left you alone with him.”

  “No. I shouldn’t have let him inside. That was my fault!”

  “Men,” I mutter.

  “Boys,” she corrects me and brings me in for a hug.

  Paige is the closest thing I have to family now. I never want to see her hurt, and I never want to be the cause of her pain. Which is why I don’t say anything about how sweaty and smelly she is right now. “Did he ever come back last night?”

  She shakes her head. “No. I don’t think we’ll ever see Brock again.”

  “Good.”

  “Darcy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s in the bag?”

  I forgot about the bag in my hands and its contents. “Laundry?”

  The bag squirms, flopping against her back. She wriggles away, her body contorting. “Gross!”

  Paige twirls on her bare toes and heads to our dining table, reaching over her shoulders to brush away the lingering sensation from her back. I step into our long, narrow living room and walk toward the front wall. From the coat closet, I pull out a portable terrarium. Fortunately, nothing is inside this time, so it’s fairly easy to dump in the new guest and quickly close the blue plastic top to seal it shut.

  “I’m going to call him Sir Hiss,” I call out across our loft.

  “Don’t do that! You’ll get attached.”

  “Sorry,” I say to our new houseguest in a quieter voice. “Paige doesn’t like reptiles.”

  Well, not reptiles per se, just the hell spawn that emerges from my stomach.

  I decide to take an extra-hot and extra-long shower. After, I wipe the fog from the mirror and take a moment to appraise myself. Despite whatever resentment I still hold for my mother, I count myself lucky that I inherited her high cheekbones and smooth skin. My long black hair helps me look youthful, but I wonder how much longer it will stay black before the wear and tear of demonic episodes turns it white.

  Eventually, I find myself staring into my eyes. Only my irises are yellow, so people don’t notice the color until they get up close. Once they do, they usually can’t look away. Some people are unnerved by the color. Others are fascinated by it. I’m long past the charade of constantly wearing sunglasses, so when people ask about my eyes, I say I wear colored contacts as a fashion statement. I still haven’t figured out what that statement is.

  They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, and as I stare at my own reflection, I suspect the adage is true. However, in my case, I don’t see my soul—I see Dudley. I see a stranger’s eyes glaring back at me—a vile, malevolent demonic spirit that hates me with the burning fury of a thousand suns, a creature u
tterly pissed because he’s subdued in the body of a twenty-six-year-old woman.

  “Good morning, Dudley.”

  My stomach churns, so I know I’ve pissed him off. I do this from time to time to remind him who’s winning this battle. Or maybe I do it to remind myself.

  Being possessed feels a lot like being sick—or more accurately, like that day before you get sick. My throat is scratchy. I suffer from aches and chills. Ever since Dudley came along, I’m constantly cold. I guess compared to the thousand-degree heat of an eternally burning hell, eighty degrees might feel a bit nippy.

  I choose my outfit for the day from the various lockers in my bedroom—jeans, boots, and my thick black field jacket. Even though it’s going to be a warm spring day here in Los Angeles, I know I’ll need to stay bundled. Plus, my jacket has plenty of pockets, so I never have to carry a purse.

  When I emerge from my room, I can hear Paige taking her turn using the shower in our shared bathroom. On our dining table, I find a bowl of oatmeal with fruit and a hot cup of coffee waiting for me, courtesy of Paige. She’s always looking out for me, which includes making sure I eat well.

  I take a seat at our table—a repurposed barn door on wrought-iron legs. This was our first joint purchase at the Rose Bowl Flea Market after we signed our lease, and it now provides a place for us to eat and work. Paige’s corner is adjacent to a large metal shelf unit that houses her various computers, gaming consoles, cameras, and other electronic equipment. To say she’s a techie would be an understatement. Anything with a transistor and a circuit board is catnip for her. During the day, she works from home as a freelance web designer, building websites for small businesses and organizations. It’s mostly just retooled WordPress templates, and she could easily charge eight hours of work for two hours of effort. But that’s not Paige. She has too much integrity for that.