James Swain - Shadow People

“What photos?”

“Your father took photos of the things you’d done. I’m not exactly sure why. Perhaps he needed evidence to convince men like myself what you were capable of. I still have them.”

“Are they bad ?” Peter choked on the word.

“Yes, I’m afraid they are.”

He glanced at Liza. She nodded as if to say it was okay.

“Show them to me,” he said.

Sierra produced a faded envelope from his jacket pocket, pulled back the flap, and removed a stack of photos. “I want you to know something. Up until now, I’ve shown these photographs to no one except Richard. I protected your family’s privacy, and will continue to do so. Your family’s secrets are safe with me, despite what you might think.”

“Thank you,” Peter said.

The stack was handed to him. Taken on a Kodak Instamatic, the color had faded but not enough to hide the horror of the images. The top photo showed Peter’s bedroom in the family’s apartment in Murray Hill. They had lived in a third-floor walk-up with rattling pipes and noisy neighbors. In the photo, there was shattered glass on the floor that appeared to be swimming in a substance that resembled catsup.

He stared hard. Not catsup. Blood. And there was a lot of it. Had someone died in his bedroom, and he’d not heard about it? It didn’t seem possible, yet the photo said otherwise.

His eyes shifted to the broken window in the photograph. There was a hole in the glass big enough for a man to slip through. The hole led to a fire escape outside.

“I don’t understand,” Peter said. “What happened?”

“Look at the rest of them,” Sierra said.

Peter laid the photos in a row on the table, and let his eyes drift over the disturbing images. After the bedroom came the narrow hallway, where bloody handprints covered the walls. Next was the kitchen, where the furniture had been turned upside down, leaving more bloodstains. Then came the study, where his parents held séances with their psychic friends and talked with the dead. This photo was the most troubling of all. In it, Peter sat in his father’s chair dressed in his Batman pj’s. His eyes were half open as if in a trance, his mouth twisted in a menacing snarl. The front of his shirt was soaked in blood, as were his hands. He looked more animal than human.

Peter looked across the kitchen at Liza. If she saw these photographs, things between them would never be the same. But if she didn’t see them, things wouldn’t be the same either. Whatever was left of his relationship with Liza was about to go up in flames.

Stacking the photos, he went to her, and placed them in her hands. “Here.”

Then he poured himself more coffee.

Liza shocked him. After she’d finished studying the photos-which she spent over a minute doing-she dragged a chair up to the kitchen table, sat down beside Peter, and placed her hand on top of his, clasping it in the process. She was going to go down this road with him, no matter where it took them both. What was the expression from the country-and-western song? “Stand By Your Man.” He wanted to hug her.

“Who did I kill?” Peter asked his two guests in the calmest of voices.

It was Sierra who replied. “You didn’t kill anyone. At least your parents didn’t think so.”

“But I hurt someone pretty badly.”

Sierra nodded gravely. No wonder he’d asked Peter if the demon inside of him had come out the night his parents had been murdered in Times Square. Sierra had already seen the demon, and knew the carnage it could wreak.

“Any idea who it was?” Peter asked.

“Your father said that the apartment house where you lived had been burglarized several times,” Sierra replied. “Late one night, a burglar broke the window in your bedroom, and tried to enter. That was when the burglar encountered you. He managed to get away, but only barely. Your father said there was a great deal of blood on the fire escape and also in the alley below.”

“Did I stab him?”

“You used the sharp edge of one of your toys.”

“Wow. Talk about a little demon.”

No one laughed. Peter picked up his mug and drained it.

“Your parents were torn over what to do,” Sierra went on. “Your mother was fearful that your demon was out of control and might strike again. The night of the burglary, your parents went over to a neighbor’s for a few minutes to see her new baby. This was when the burglar chose to enter your apartment. When your parents returned, it was your mother who found you.”

“Did seeing me covered in blood scare her?” Peter asked.

“Very much. She told me that she had this same demon inside of her, and explained how difficult it had been for her to keep it contained all her life. It upset her that the demon had come out in you at such a tender age. She was fearful it might take control of your soul.”

“Is that what she said?”

“In so many words, yes.”

But it hadn’t taken control of my soul, Peter thought. The demon went back to its dark hiding place, and he’d gotten on with his life. End of story.

“Your father viewed the matter differently,” Sierra continued. “He was fearful that if doctors started examining you, the demon would be unleashed, and never go away. He wanted to treat you with tender loving care, which he said was the only cure.”

“Who won out?” Peter asked.

“I did, actually,” Sierra said.

“How so?”

“Your parents brought you in, and I examined you. I tested your reflexes to make sure you didn’t have any neurological damage, which is not uncommon in violent children. You know when a doctor hits a patient in the knee with a rubber hammer? Well, I struck you in the knee with my hammer, and the next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor in a pool of blood.”

“I hit you?” Peter asked incredulously.

“Knocked me right across the room. I never saw the blow. To be honest, I’m not certain you actually threw one. You did it with your mind. That’s when I convinced your parents that Richard needed to be brought in.”

Peter looked across the table at the sickly man dressed in black. “You’re an exorcist.”

“I am a priest who on occasion practices exorcisms,” Hunsinger replied.

“Same difference. Did you perform an exorcism on me?”

“Yes, I did.”

Peter took a deep breath. “And?”

“Nothing happened,” the priest confessed. “We performed the exorcism in my chambers at the church. You lay on a couch with your parents sitting to either side of you. I wore an alb, a purple stole, as prescribed in the Old Testament. I made the sign of the cross over you, doused your body with holy water, and invoked the words ‘ Ecce crucem Domini! Fugite, partes adversae ’ while placing my right hand on your forehead in the same manner in which Jesus healed the sick. I followed the procedure exactly as it was written.”

“How did I react?”

“You looked up at me and let out a little laugh.”

“I laughed?”

“Yes.”

“Was it demonic?”

“Not at all. It was a little boy’s laugh. The demon inside of you had receded. I don’t know if I sent it away, or if it left on its own accord, but it was gone. What remained was a precious seven-year-old boy.”

Liza squeezed his hand as this last sentence was spoken. It made Peter feel like there was still hope. “Thanks,” he whispered.

“Anytime,” she whispered back.

“Now you understand why Dr. Sierra and I wanted to see you,” Hunsinger said. “We wanted to know what had become of you. To see how you turned out, if you will.”

“You wanted to know what had happened to my demon,” Peter said.

“That, too,” the priest admitted.