This Present Darkness (12 page)

“Jesus!” he heard his mind cry out. “Help me!”

His next thought, a tiny, instant flash, must have come from the Lord: “Rebuke it! You have the authority.”

Hank spoke the words though he couldn’t hear the sound of them: “I rebuke you in Jesus’ name!”

The crushing weight upon him lifted so quickly Hank felt he would sail upward from the floor. He filled his lungs with air and noticed he was now struggling against nothing. But the terror was still there, the black, sinister presence.

He sat up halfway, drew another breath, and spoke it clearly and loudly. “In the Name of Jesus I command you to get out of this house!”

Mary awoke with a jerk, startled and then terrified by the sound of a multitude screaming in anguish and pain. The cries were deafening at first, but they faded as if moving off into the unseen distance.

“Hank!” she screamed.

MARSHALL ROARED LIKE
a savage and raised the bat high to strike down his attacker. The attacker screamed also, out of stark terror.

It was Kate. They had unknowingly backed into each other in the dark hallway.

“Marshall!” she exclaimed, and her voice quivered. She was close to tears and angry at the same time. “What on earth are you doing out here!”

“Kate. …” Marshall sighed, feeling himself shrink like a punctured inner tube. “What are you trying to do, get yourself killed?”

“What’s wrong?” She was looking at the baseball bat and knew something was up. She clung to him in fear. “Is there someone in the house?”

“No …” he muttered in a combination of relief and disgust. “Nobody. I looked.”

“What happened? Who was it?”

“Nobody, I said.”

“But I thought you were talking to someone.”

He looked at her with the utmost impatience and said with steadily building volume, “Do I look like I’ve been having a friendly chat with someone?”

Kate shook her head. “I must have been dreaming. But it was the voices that woke me up.”

“What voices?”

“Marshall, it sounded like a New Year’s Eve party in there. Come on, who was it?”

“Nobody. There wasn’t anybody here. I looked.”

Kate was very flustered. “I know I was awake.”

“You heard ghosts.”

He could feel her hand squeezing the blood out of his arm. “Don’t talk like that!”

“Sandy’s gone.”

“What do you mean, gone? Gone where?”

“She’s gone. Her room’s empty, she’s not in the house. She’s poof! Gone!”

Kate hurried down the hall and looked in Sandy’s room. Marshall followed her and observed from the doorway as Kate checked the room over, looking through the closet and some of the drawers.

She reported with alarm, “Some of her clothes are gone. Her schoolbooks are missing.” She looked at him helplessly. “Marshall—she’s left home!”

He looked back at her for a long moment, then around the room, then rested his head against the doorjamb with a quiet thud.

“Nuts,” he said.

“I knew she wasn’t herself tonight. I should have found out what was wrong.”

“We didn’t hit it off too well today …”

“Well, that was obvious. You came home without her.”

“How’d she get home, anyway?”

“Her girlfriend Terry brought her.”

“Maybe she went over to Terry’s for the night.”

“Should we call and find out?”

“I dunno …”

“You don’t know!?”

Marshall closed his eyes and tried to think. “Naw. It’s late. Either she’s there or she isn’t. If she isn’t, we’ll be getting them out of bed for nothing, and if she is, well, she’s okay anyway.”

Kate seemed a little panicked. “I’m going to call.”

Marshall held up his hand and leaned his head against the doorjamb again as he said, “Hey, don’t get all spooked now, all right? Gimme a minute.”

“I just want to see if she’s there—”

“All right, all right …”

But Kate could see something was very wrong with Marshall. He was pale, weak, shaken.

“What’s the matter, Marshall?”

“Gimme a minute …”

She put her arm around him, concerned. “What is it?”

He had quite a struggle getting it out. “I’m scared.” Trembling a bit, his eyes closed, his head resting against the doorjamb, he said again, “I’m really scared and I don’t know why.”

That scared Kate. “Marshall …”

“Don’t get upset, will you? Keep it level.”

“Can I do anything?”

“Just be tough, that’s all.”

Kate thought for a moment. “Well, why don’t you get your robe on? I’ll warm you some milk, okay?”

“Yeah, great.”

IT WAS THE
first time any demons had ever been actually confronted and rebuked by Hank Busche. They had certainly come with an arrogant brashness at first, descending on the house in the dead of night to raid and ravage, screaming and swooping through the rooms and leaping on Hank, trying to terrify him. But as Krioni, Triskal, and the others watched from their hiding place, confused and scattered flocks of demons suddenly came thundering and fluttering out of the house like bats, screaming, indignant, stopping their ears. There must have been close to a hundred, all the usual demonic pranksters and troublemakers Krioni had seen at work all over the town. No doubt the great Ba-al had sent them, and now that they had been routed there was no telling what Rafar’s reaction or his next plan would be. But Hank had proven himself very well.

In a moment the coast was clear, the trouble was over, and the warriors came out of hiding, breathing easier. Krioni and Triskal were impressed.

Krioni commented, “Tal was right. He’s not so insignificant.”

Triskal agreed. “Stern stuff, this Henry Busche.”

But as Hank and Mary sat trembling at their kitchen table, she preparing an icepack and he sporting a welt on his forehead and a great many bruises and scrapings on his arms and shins, neither one of them felt entirely stern, powerful, or victorious. Hank was thankful to have escaped with his life, and Mary was still in a mild state of shock and disbelief.

It was awkward, with neither of them wanting to relate his or her experience first for fear that the whole thing was nothing but an excess of pickles and pastrami before bedtime. But Hank’s welt kept growing, and he could only tell what he knew. Mary bought every word of it, scared as she was by the screams that had awakened her. As they shared their not-so-pleasant experiences, they were able to accept the fact that the whole night of madness had been very frighteningly real and not some nightmare.

“Demons,” Hank concluded.

Mary could only nod.

“But why?” Hank pleaded to know. “What was it for?”

Mary wasn’t ready to come up with any answers. She kept waiting for Hank to do that.

He muttered, “Like Lesson Number One in Frontlines Combat. I wasn’t a bit ready for it. I think I flunked.”

Mary gave him the icepack and he placed it against the welt, wincing at the pressure.

“What makes you think you flunked?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I just walked into it, I guess. I let them clobber me.” Then he prayed, “Lord God, help me to be ready next time. Give me the wisdom, the sensitivity to know what they’re up to.”

Mary squeezed his hand, said amen, and then commented, “You know, I might be wrong, but hasn’t the Lord already done that? I mean, how are you going to know how to fight Satan’s direct attacks unless you just … do it?”

That was what Hank needed to hear.

“Wow,” he mused. “I’m a veteran!”

“And I don’t think you flunked, either. They’re gone, aren’t they? And you’re still here, and you should have heard those screams.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t me?”

“Quite sure.”

Then came a long, troubled silence.

“So what now?” Mary finally asked.

“Uh … let’s pray,” said Hank. For him, that option was always easy to jump to.

And pray they did, clasping hands at the little kitchen table, having a conference with the Lord. They thanked Him for the experience of that night, for protecting them from danger, for showing them a very close glimpse of their enemy. Over an hour passed, and during that time the field of concern continued to grow outward; their own problems began to take a small place in a vastly wider perspective as Hank and Mary prayed for their church, the people in it, the town, the people that ran it, the state, the nation, the world. Through it all came the beautiful assurance that they had indeed connected with the throne of God and had conducted serious business with the Lord. Hank grew more determined to stay in the battle and give Satan a real run for his money. He was sure that was what God wanted.

THE WARM MILK
and Kate’s company had a soothing effect on Marshall’s nerves. With each swallow and each additional minute of normalcy, he gained more and more assurance that the world would still go on, he would live, the sun would rise in the morning. He was amazed at how bleak things had looked just a little while ago.

“Feeling better?” Kate asked, buttering some fresh toast.

“Yeah,” he answered, noticing that his heart had retreated back into his chest and returned to its normal, everyday pace. “Boy, I don’t know what got into me.”

Kate placed the two slices of toast on a plate and set them on the table.

Marshall crunched off a bite of toast and asked, “So she’s not at Terry’s?”

Kate shook her head. “Do you
want
to talk about Sandy?”

Marshall was ready. “We probably need to talk about a lot of things.”

“I don’t know how to start—”

“You think it’s my fault?”

“Oh, Marshall …”

“C’mon, be honest now. I’ve been getting my behind whipped all
day. I’ll listen.”

Her eyes met his and remained in place, denoting a sincerity and firm love.

“Categorically, no,” she said.

“I botched it today.”

“I think we’ve all botched it, and that includes Sandy. She’s made some choices too, remember.”

“Yeah, but maybe it was because we didn’t have anything better to give her.”

“What do you think of talking to Pastor Young?”

“Case in point.”

“Hmmmm?”

Hogan shook his head despondently. “Maybe … maybe Young’s just a little too cush, you know? He’s into all this family of man stuff, discovering yourself, saving the whales …”

Kate was a little surprised. “I thought you liked Pastor Young.”

“Well … I guess I do. But sometimes—no, a lot of the time, I don’t even feel like I’m going to church. I may as well be sitting at a lodge meeting or in one of Sandy’s weird classes.”

He checked her eyes. They were still steady. She was listening. “Kate, don’t you ever get the feeling that God’s got to be, you know, a little … bigger? Tougher? The God we get at that church, I feel like He isn’t even a real person, and if He is, He’s dumber than we are. I can’t expect Sandy to buy that stuff. I don’t even go for it myself.”

“I never knew you felt this way, Marshall.”

“Well, maybe I never did either. It’s just that this thing tonight … I’ve really got to think about it; there’s been so much of it going on lately.”

“What do you mean? What’s been going on?”