Hell Calling (8 page)

“How’s the studying going?”

“Well, you know. A lot of work, and all that.”

Carlos asked her a few more questions, as if wishing to put off getting to the real reason for their discussion: as if trying to make that afternoon just a pleasant meeting between two friends. Just an everyday meeting between two everyday people. Although in the end, he made his decision.

“Look, I’ve called you because a series of strange things has happened since Alicia and Laura’s death.”

Ana looked fixedly at him, and he got the feeling that she had been waiting for this moment since time immemorial.

“What sort of things?”

“Well, perhaps it would be better if we spoke about Alicia first, then I can tell you about other things that have happened to me.”

“And why do you want to talk about Alicia now?”

“Ana, I think she was hiding some things from me. I believe that she knew things about Laura that she didn’t tell me, for whatever reason.”

The woman averted her gaze, and he knew straight away this meeting was by no means going to be in vain.

“It’s true, Alicia was hiding things from you.”

“And?”

“She wanted to protect you. And perhaps, she also wanted to protect herself, I don’t know...”

“Protect me from what? Protect me from who?”

“From Laura.”

Ana spoke those words with a conviction, in such a way that was almost like a judge passing sentence, almost with a hint of anger in her voice.

“From Laura...”

“You’re not surprised?”

“Like I said, some strange things have been happening to me over the last few weeks. Hardly anything surprises me anymore. But please, what could Laura have done to me?”

“In the beginning, it was a slow process, although it sped up progressively as the months went by. At first, Alicia didn’t want to talk about it, but then she began confiding in me about everything. Next thing I knew, she was having to take Laura to the school psychologist.”

“I know; I’ve spoken with her.”

She paused before proceeding. She passed her long and manicured hands over her face.

“Somehow, Alicia was afraid of distorting reality, and that’s another reason why she didn’t tell you. She believed Laura was going mad, and that’s very tough for a mother to deal with. In a way, she was going to extreme lengths to avoid you noticing anything.”

Carlos suddenly felt responsible, and in that moment he missed his wife with an intensity that he had only felt just after finding out about her death.

“I’ve been so far away from her; so far from both of them...”

“Carlos... Alicia was convinced that Laura wanted to kill the two of you; that your daughter had lost her mind and hated you both with all her soul... although not all of the time...”

“Not all of the time?”

“No. Initially, it was just every now and then, although it was becoming increasingly more frequent. Laura had bouts of hatred, and they were reflected in different ways, whether they be in terrible drawings, or words written in her diary, or with direct threats.

He immediately reacted to those last few words, because they would fit in with the dreams he had been having, and with the experience in his own car.

“What kind of threats?”

“I was never able to witness any of them, but Alicia told me that there were occasions when Laura had terrible convulsions that contorted her body and face. And then she spoke with a voice that seemed to not be hers, and she screamed out that the demons were going to take her to Hell...”

“But then she wasn’t threatening... she was asking for help!”

“Carlos, there were other times when she threatened Alicia directly, looking her straight in the eye and screaming that she was going to kill her; that she was going to kill you both.”

Carlos gripped his coffee cup tightly. For a moment, his thoughts moved away from where they were, and the conversation they were having, and for a few seconds his mind drifted.

“It’s not possible. Although everything fits, Ana; it’s all starting to fit.”

Ana looked back at him with severity, along with a certain affectation, before saying:

“Carlos, it
is
possible. I’m convinced that what happened to Alicia was no accident. In the end, her fears were valid. I’m convinced that Laura killed her.”

XXXV

He could not sleep a wink. He had spent almost five hours tossing and turning in bed, every now and then knocking into Elena, who was sleeping deeply.

‘This woman must be starting to get fed up of this.’

Once again, he appreciated having her close. Like a small child looking for the warmth of his mother, it made Carlos feel secure to feel Elena there, sticking by him, and sleeping right there just as if nothing had happened.

‘For her, it really is the case that nothing’s happened. She still doesn’t have a single shred of
evidence
: just a few little demonstrations, and nothing else.’

He contemplated the radio-alarm clock. He had made a conscious effort not to take the batteries out at all since the last time, but it had still not displayed the least sign of anything out of the ordinary.

He pressed the illuminator button so that he could see the time.

‘It’s so late... or so early.’

He spent a little while playing around with it, and every now and then his hand lingered for a long time on the switch, like he was looking to make an antenna out of his entire body, and increase the possibility of capturing some frequency.

‘This is all stupid.’

He turned to lie face up, looking at the ceiling. He didn’t know for sure if it was just his imagination, but he began to see a small image forming on its white expanse. The image was growing increasingly bigger, and increasingly clearer. His terrified eyes reflected the shining and reddish scene: his daughter was being dragged by some black spectres, in the middle of a place that reminded him of the images we always have of the planet Mars, and the spectres were dragging her towards some sort of crater that was emanating acidic vapours and lava. And then, he seemed to hear Laura’s voice, although very faintly: ‘Daddy... come to me... save me...’.

Bzzzzz... Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii... Bzzzz...

The noise from the radio made him jump, and the image on the ceiling disappeared as if it had never been there. He turned his head sharply back towards his right, but the device seemed to want to play games with him.

“What’s happening?”

Carlos looked at Elena. She was also awake, and perhaps for the first time she had heard that cursed noise.

“Didn’t you hear it?”

“Hear what?”

“That sound...”

“No, I haven’t heard anything. I just felt you jumping. What’s happened?”

Carlos sank heavily back down into the bed, desperate and beaten.

“It’s not important.”

“Carlos, everything’s important.”

Elena pressed her body up against the doubtful and disconcerted man, who was alone once more, and faced with his feelings.

“I’m going to call some people who can help us.”

“Nobody can help me,” said Carlos, disconsolately.

“They can. I should have counted on them right from the very beginning.”

“And what are they going to do?”

“They have some really good teams, and they carry out EVP recordings. EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomena. Perhaps they can record what only you can hear at the moment,” she added, with a broad smile on her face.

Carlos didn’t know what to think anymore, although he did feel that there was an ever increasing number of people around him wanting to give veracity to his story.

“At the end of the day... there’s nothing to lose by trying it...” said Carlos.

“No, we won’t lose anything.”

“And perhaps...”

“I’m sure it’ll work. It has to work.”

Carlos doubted whether or not he should share with her the experience he had just had. Surely Elena would go quiet, but she would think that it was all in his imagination, a product of his injured and twisted mind, that was just playing another trick on him. And lamentably, at worst that would be right. No matter how much everybody focussed on the evidence, still nobody had confirmed that all those strange happenings befalling him were real, and not the product of insanity. The worst thing of all was that if what was happening were definitely true, then it surely just all came down to an issue
between him and Laura
; an issue in which nobody else could intervene. If that were the case, the message that his daughter was sending him was very clear, and it was his own fault that he was wasting time instead of facing the situation bravely, and head on.

“In any case, Elena, whether it works or not, I’m finding that what I have to do is becoming clearer and clearer.”

The tone of that sentence confused Elena, who doubted whether or not she should ask him to elaborate, and keep going along with it.

“I’m sorry... I don’t really understand you...”

Carlos looked at the ceiling on which, minutes before, had formed the image of his terrified daughter, suffering, and once more asking him for help, as he was lying comfortably in a bed beside a woman who wasn’t her mother.

“What I have to do is go with my daughter. I have to go there to save her, just as she’s asking me to. The only thing I have to do is find the damned way of reaching Hell.”

XXXVI

Padre Salas went around the house, scrutinising each and every corner, whilst Carlos waited in the lounge with an air of distraction. He had been there since first thing that morning, and before embarking upon his wanderings throughout the house, he had carried out a religious ceremony in the entryway.

“So what’s the verdict then, Padre?” cried Carlos.

Padre Salas appeared behind the door to what had been Laura’s room, with a furrowed brow.

“What sort of culture did you bring your daughter up in?”

Carlos did not know how to interpret such a strange and direct question.

“Well, the same as any other father would, if that’s what you mean?”

“Well, just like Elena did when she came here, I’ve been flicking through the drawings Laura used to do, and I’ve found various references to
inniyah
.”

“Inniyah?”

“Doesn’t ring any bells?”

“Not at all.”

“In Islamic tradition, it’s to do with lesser demons, that could also be good on occasion, which adopt the form of animals or people.”

“And where did Laura learn that?”

Padre Salas ran his hand slowly over his face, and went to sit down beside Carlos, who was watching him, perplexed.

“In the year 2000, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a series of guidelines to regulate exorcisms, to counter the abuse that has happened throughout the ages of this practice. In order to begin one, you need to have a special permission. And in order to get that, some tests need to be carried out, and I dare say that this case would be taken as valid.”

“But it’s a demon from another religion.”

The priest gently tapped Carlos’ leg.

“The most influential religions are intertwined. I myself have moments where I think that, in the end, it’s all the same story, just told by different people, in different cultures and disparate places.”

“Then it could be...”

“Wait. I haven’t said anything. I just put forward that to carry out an exorcism, the first thing necessary is for the possessed person to be in front of you, so you can carry out the procedure that way. Another, very different option is to bring somebody back
who is already in Hell
.”

“But you...”

“I’ve been well out of this game for a long time. But I’ll tell you one thing: I haven’t completely lost my instinct, and for your own peace of mind, I’ll tell you now that there’s something that doesn’t fit.”

Carlos felt something stirring inside him.

“And is that good or bad?”

“It depends what you understand by good or bad. It means that in the worst case scenario, you’re right.”

“But that isn’t bad.”

The priest looked at Carlos with his eyes wide open, before adding, with an air of reprimand:

“I’d rather you be crazy in life, in this world, than sane with a daughter who really is trapped in Hell.”

Carlos did not know what to say. He was so obsessed with demonstrating that what he said and experienced was true, that he very often lost the notion of what that intrinsically entailed.

“You’re right.”

“Don’t torment yourself. If I were in your place, I don’t know how I would be reacting. Like I already told you, I’m also afraid, and don’t know what we’re up against...”

“Are you still doubting my daughter?”

Padre Salas allowed a brief silence to come between them. Dealing with a father who was still hurting, and had serious doubts regarding his own sanity, was not the best situation in which to rush into expressing his own judgements. He needed to tread carefully, but without abandoning honesty.

“It’s premature to cast any judgement about that. And I just want to share my concerns with you, given that the course of events can go in any direction. You should also be prepared.”

Carlos thought that the man knew more than he was saying, and that any day he would assail him with a terrible truth; more terrible still if it fitted in with what he himself was already experiencing.

“Prepared for what?”

“Well... for any possibility...”

“I still don’t understand you.”

The priest was showing signs of being evasive, because time had demonstrated to him that, although he was good and obliged to tell the truth (to never lie), he was never in any hurry to disclose it.

“I told you that your daughter could
have been
bad, and be in Hell on her own merit.”

“Is it the case that there’s some new information to make you reaffirm that idea?” asked Carlos, with a certain desperation.

“
Inniyah
.”

“I know, I know. But perhaps it’s just that she was warning about those demons, and that’s why she drew those images.”

“The problem is that your daughter put
inniyah
beneath her own image, as if she recognised herself as a demon in life.”