“Why are they . . . distressed?”
“There are a couple of reasons. Some of them haven’t realized yet that they are dead.” He paused again. “And some of them want to impart information to the living.”
It was my turn to pause. “And you resolve this problem . . . for them?”
“It depends.” He shrugged.
“On what?”
“Well, on whether it’s a demon, or whether it’s a ghost or, in your case, whether the things you created—these tortured entities—have somehow manifested themselves into your reality.”
“But I don’t understand,” I was saying. “What’s the difference between a ghost and a demon?”
By the time this question was asked the diner had disappeared. It was only Miller and myself in a booth suspended outside of whatever the real world now meant to me.
“Demons are malicious and powerful. Ghosts are just confused—lost, vulnerable.” Miller abruptly reached into his denim jacket and pulled out a cell phone that had been vibrating. He checked the incoming number and then clicked the phone shut. During this movement he continued talking as if he had given this information a million times before. “Ghosts draw their energy from any number of sources: light, fear, sadness, anguish—these are the things that make the spirit precedent. Ghosts are not violent.”
You have demons, the writer whispered.
“Demons are a manifestation of evil, and they haunt people who have carelessly let them into their lives. Remember what I said about antagonism? A demon appears when it feels it has been antagonized, and what it wants to do, its purpose, is to return this antagonism. Demons are angry.”
“You have to help me,” I was saying. “You have to help us.”
“You don’t need to convince me that you’re a frightened man anymore, Mr. Ellis,” Miller said. “I know you are.”
“Okay, okay, okay, now what?”
“I’ll come to your house and determine the nature of the haunting.”
“And then what?” I asked hopefully before saying, “Thank you.”
“If a demonic presence is in your house—and it sounds like it—then you’re in for a battle.”
“Why?”
“Because whatever this is draws on your fear. They draw on the collective fear that is in the house. And depending on the amount of fear, the damage some of these spirits cause can be catastrophic.”
“Why did this happen to me? Why is this happening to me?”
“It sounds as if you’re being haunted by a messenger.” Miller paused. “By your father and by Patrick Bateman and by something you created in your childhood.”
“But what is the message? What does it want to tell me?”
“It could be any number of things.”
The world no longer existed. I was just staring at him. I didn’t feel anything anymore. Everything was gone except for Miller’s voice.
“Sometimes these spirits become whoever you are.”
Miller studied me for a reaction. There wasn’t one.
“Do you understand that, Mr. Ellis? That these spirits might be projections from your inner self?”
“I think . . . that I’m being warned . . .”
“By what?”
“By . . . my father? I think my father wants to tell me something.”
“From the information you’ve supplied, this might be very likely.”
“But . . . something is . . . seems to be stopping him . . . like the . . .” I trailed off.
Miller paused. “Who brought the doll into the house, Mr. Ellis?”
“I did,” I whispered. “It was me.”
“And who created Patrick Bateman?”
In a whisper: “I did.”
“And the thing you saw in the hall?”
Another whisper: “Me.”
I was brought back when Miller pushed his pad across the table.
There was something on it he wanted me to see.
I noticed a word spelled in capital letters: T E R B Y.
Below this, the word spelled backward: Y B R E T.
Why, Bret?
I finally hitched a breath.
“What’s your birthdate, Mr. Ellis?” I heard Miller asking.
“It’s March the seventh.”
Miller tapped the bottom of the notepad with his pen.
Miller had drawn a slash between two numbers.
In red ink: 3/07 Elsinore Lane.
“Could we just move to another house?”
I was panting.