The Possession of Jim Lonnigan - Volume 2 of The Ghost Hunter Chronicles.

The Possession of Jim Lonnigan -Prologue.

If not for our Angels, we would all be lost in the carnival of the damned.

Shadows deepened, the clock in the hall ticked, the priests slept. Well, two of them did.
In the small rectory in rural Philedelphia, one priest was wide awake and climbing the walls.
Jim Lonnigan, was this rectory's resident Exorcist. After a particularly taxing case in Devon England, and an extended stay at the Vatican to be treated for the effects of the case upon him, he could not sleep. While he and two of the Vatican Cardinals were assisting to help free a stately home of demons and a very powerful witch spirit, his friend Shania Longwood had been abducted by the spirits of the damned, it was whilst rescuing her, that a demon had temporarily - or so they thought had taken taken possession of Jim. It was a filthy creature called Abadonne. Cardinals Snell and Ambrose had come to his rescue while Aiden Turner had vanquished the witch and her minions and saved Shania.
The Cardinals had been sure they had seen black smoke erupt out of Jim after the demon fled, but Jim knew there had been more than one rotted soul residing within. Something smaller, but far more powerful had piggybacked onto Abadonne and had quietly hooked itself into the darker parts of Jim's soul. The parts nobody knew about. The parts he had squashed down and told nobody about, the trauma and shame of his childhood. Of an insane and alcoholic father who delighted in taunting Jim and his mother. Locking Jim in closets and in the tiny bathroom with the lights out and big field rats bumping and scuttling around in the dark. What Jim didn't know at the time, but was beginning to realize was this, Jim's dad, Big Pete Lonnigan, dark Irish and strong, was also possessed. As a child, this thought had never crossed his mind, he didn't even know about demons back then. Even with all the Sunday mornings at Church with his mother and grandmother, and his hero Father Westaway delivering stirring sermons each Sunday about the defiance of evil of casting out of demons, young Jim didn't understand. And Uncle Rob, always said Pete had his demons, but according to his grandmother, those demons were to be found in the bottom of dark glass bottles not very well disguised in brown paper bags. Pete was a drunk, a drug addict, and he was mad to boot. And all of it got taken out on Jim and his mother, until finally Father Westaway had spirited them away one day while Pete was at work or the local dive. He had driven them, Jim's dog Rockie, and a couple of hastily packed suitcases to a shelter in Baltimore, and they had gotten Jim's mum a good job as a court stenographer, Jim was enrolled in St Stephen's Academy, where he became interested in joining the Preisthood, he wanted to be just like Father Westaway, the Priest who had saved their lives. Jim never stopped to ask what had a happened to his father, he was afraid that if he even spoke his name, he'd suddenly appear, like an evil genie unleashed from it's bottle. So Jim firmly corked up all the memories of Big Pete, and got on with his life.
However, now as he sat huddled on the cold floor of his bathroom in Philadelphia, listening to a storm walk and talk over head, not daring to look at the mirror, lest he see something else leering back at him, memories came rushing back at him with the speed of sound. One, more disturbing than all the others, the night the bad thing came and daddy wasn't daddy anymore.

All Saints Day, 1995.
Ten year old Jim Lonnigan awoke from a disturbing dream where something nameless and faceless pursued him throughout the walls of the tiny house where he lived with his parents. Upon waking in a lather of cold sweat, young Jim needed a pee and a glass of water. Sleepily he made his way down the hall to the bathroom. He peed, washed his hands like a good boy, then made his way down the hall to the kitchen. To get to the kitchen he had to pass by the living room. A room that should have been dark silent at midnight, was relieved by a lamp burning and someone was in there, talking. Jim silently peered around the door jam, daddy was in there, on his knees clutching the sides of his head and crying. "Leave me alone God damn you! Shut up! Shut up! " his father sobbed. Jim looked around the room, they were alone.
"Dad?" Jim asked, and his father jerked up and yelled at him, "Get out of here Jimmy! Run!"
What? Is was then a sound issued from the darkest corner of the room a scillibant hissing and scratching, then the voice, a voice Jim had drowned out for years until it spoke to him again. "Boyyyyyyyyy!!!!" Followed by a delighted but sickening chuckle.
"No! Stop! You can't have him!! Take me! Okay? Just take me!!" Jim's dad yelled.
"As you wish!" Replied the scabberous voice from the shadows.
It was then a dark mass erupted up off the floor, and poured straight up the wall like lava. It wheeled and churned like a tornado and then made straight for Jim's dad.
"Daddy!!!" Screamed Jim.
"I love you Buddy, don't ever forget that." Pete sobbed, and then the whatever it was hit him, knocking him back off his heels onto the floor. The mass funneled straight down big Pete's throat, chuckling and and mewling in demonic delight.
Jimmy fled and disappeared under his bed. He remained there until dawn, and the next day when big Pete came stomping in for breakfast, Daddy wasn't daddy anymore. He was something else. It was after this the drinking and the beatings started, it was after this daddy stopped attending Sunday service with them, and it was after this Jim convinced himself the whole thing was a nightmare and his dad had been a bad bastard all along, that the memories of playing baseball and picnics and movie nights with his kind and loving father were all just fantasies Jim had concocted in his own imagination to stop himself from hating his old man too much. It was after this Jim almost superstitiously had attached himself to Father Westaway, right up until the good father spirited himself and his mother away while Big Pete was elsewhere.
Now, coming back to himself sitting on cold tiles in the middle of a stormy night all these years later, memories writhed around in his mind like the monster that had buried itself there. His dad wasn't a bad man, he wasn't a drunk, nor was he insane, his dad was like him. He had been possessed by something nobody at that time was equipped to understand. Now, having performed several Exorcisms of his own, and now with a beast riding shotgun on his own soul, Jim knew, his dad had been taken by a demon. The demon had wanted Jim, and daddy had sacrificed himself to save his son. Now almost thirty years later, it had found Jim again and it had taken him. It lead to a lot of unanswered questions as well. Did Father Westaway know a demon had taken his father? If so, why hadn't he tried to help him instead of spiriting himself and his mom away? And what happened to Big Pete? Had he died? Was he now walking around in circles confused after the beast left him, when it rediscovered Jim? And if the Vatican couldn't flush the damn thing out, who could?
Shania and Aiden were coming from Seattle, they would be here tomorrow, he just had to try and keep his sanity until then, stay awake least it take him completely over in sleep. At this thought he was aware of something unfurling dirty wings, stretching and scratching about in the back of his mind. Chuckling at him, and waiting.
Jim began praying to his angels, and to God, the Father and the Son, and the thing sitting patiently inside him, started to laugh.