When Darkness Calls
When good luck comes our way, we are thrilled. We rarely question the origin of good fortune. When bad luck comes our way, well that’s a different story. Bad things seem to demand an explanation. But when something malicious enters someone’s life, there simply is no explanation. What follows is one family’s encounter with something beyond their wildest imagination. To protect the privacy of those involve, the names and location of the events have been changed.
WARNING: This story contains strong language and disturbing imagery. It should not be read by children.
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When I first read Lina’s email asking for help, it was clear that this would be no ordinary case. The email said:
‘There is a lot of paranormal activity going on in my home on a daily basis, so much so that we called in a priest because we were scared. While the priest was walking around blessing the house, he began to feel heavy in his chest and short of breath. He said there was something in the house, but that the blessing should help. It hasn’t. We have left the house for the summer because at this point we are scared to be there.’
I contacted my good friend Karen Darby who was more than happy to assist me in the investigation. Karen is an extremely gifted psychic and is phenomenal at clearing homes of negative spirit energy and at helping people in need of spiritual help. This family certainly seemed to be in need of spiritual guidance so I really appreciated Karen’s willingness to help me with the case. Little did I know, the activity described in Lina’s email barely scratched the surface. Karen and I were about to walk into a home where something malicious had paid a visit, and wasn’t about to leave without a fight.
When we arrived at the house, Karen and I both commented on what a beautiful place it was. The house is of newer construction and is set back from a country road on the Connecticut/Massachusetts border. Lina and her husband Jack greeted us at the door.
Although Lina’s email told me a little about the case I asked that she withhold specific information that might influence the investigation. But the couple were clearly agitated and anxious to tell us about their experiences.
As we sat down in the living room Jack said, “OK, I know you’ve investigated a lot of this type of thing, but this is not your typical haunted house. This is something entirely different. There’s something here. It’s not good. The priest who came to bless the house even freaked out.”
“We loved this house,” Jack continued. “We absolutely loved this place. Our friends used to be annoyed at listening to us always telling them how happy we were. Then just nine months after we moved in everything changed.”
“When did the activity start?” I asked.
“February 27th,” they answered.
“We were in bed talking,” Lina said. “It was about one in the morning and all of a sudden we saw these lights come on the wall. Then dark smoke just started billowing out of the wall into our bedroom. We were in our bed and we could see it and we were both like, ‘What is that?’ And then within the next second …”
“Just beautifulness,” Jack said, “like fireworks, literally fireworks, stars …”
“Translucent colored butterflies all around the ceiling,” Lina said. “Just like, colors. Beautiful colors coming in. Lights…”
I have to point out that Lina and Jack were telling this fantastic story to us at a rapid pace, finishing each other’s sentences, and adding details, all of which confirmed to me that they were recounting a shared experience and telling the truth. This was not one person claiming to have seen something incredible, this was a married couple who obviously saw the same thing at the same time.
“We thought we were like the most blessed people in the world. We thought we had seen heaven,” Jack said.
But bright colors and dark smoke weren’t the only thing the couple witnessed that night. An apparition of someone who appeared to be Lina’s deceased father materialized before to the couple, and Lina was able to converse with him for over an hour.
Lina described the conversation as coming to her in a series of images. “I could clearly hear his voice, and I could see pictures. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. Hours of conversation, and all the while we both could see the smoky mist going over the ceiling.
One of the things ‘my father’ said was, ‘Thank you, Jack, for bringing Lina the cat and allowing her to get these gifts.’ That’s what was said. Then, like a thousand what looked like white stars just came shooting and going inside of me.”
“At the time we thought it was a good thing, and we really thought it was my father,” Lina continued. “We thought the vision we had of him and the colors was Godly. We thought were were the most blessed people in the world.”
I asked the couple, “Did it feel good at the time? Did you get a sense that this was a good thing rather than something that was bad?”
“Yeah,” said Jack. “It felt good at first. It got overwhelming, though.”
“It felt beautiful at the time,” Lina added, “because it actually felt tingly and nice. But underneath it also felt heavy and oppressing, and just didn’t know. Now that we know the negative stuff, it feels very heavy and bad.”
“Tell me about the negative stuff. When did things start to get bad?” I asked.
“OK. Here’s where we’re at,” said Jack. “I’m going to tell you something serious and if you think we’re psychopaths or something, I don’t really care anymore. One night when I tell you we saw, what we visually were seeing was the crucifixion of Christ. It was reenacted and you could see it. You could see it, you could fucking see it. The whole thing. Mary holding Jesus. And it went on for hours.”
“Let me ask you. When you are describing these things that you’ve seen, did you both see the same things at the same time?” I asked.
“Yes. Together,” Lina said.
“Clear as day,” added Jack.
“The next morning we went to church,” said Lina. “At first we thought it was so godly. But the vision of the crucifixion was all dark shadows. I mean, you could see Virgin Mary holding Jesus and lowering him to the ground after the crucifixion, but it was shown to us in dark shadows. Black silhouettes of the crucifixion.”
Lina continued, “All of a sudden we were thinking, nothing coming from God is going to be dark shadows. That’s not good. We were so depressed. All the while we thought this was something that was so good, but we began to realize that it was just bad. So bad.”
“It’s making me fucking nuts man,” Jack said. “I’m scared shitless. We put the house up for sale. I don’t even care if we lose money. I’m ready to walk away from this house.”
After the vision of the crucifixion, the entity in their home finally revealed its true self — something totally malevolent. This happened the day that Lina had a second vision of her father, this time in the living room. She communicated with him as before, but something wasn’t right. Lina noticed that he was smoking cigarettes, and had a drink in his hand. She wondered why he would be showing himself to her in this way, as he was not a big drinker or smoker in life. At the end of the visitation Lina’s ‘father’ said to her, “You really should take care of your son, you know” and he walked over and put his hand on Lina’s son’s head. Suddenly, in her mind’s eye, Lina could see a vivid and unspeakably horrifying vision of her son literally being dragged down to hell. She was terrified, and she finally knew that this thing had lied to her about everything. This thing was pure evil.
After this, even more bizarre things began happening around the house. A grandfather clock that wasn’t in working order and hadn’t even been wound up started chiming at random times throughout the day and night. One night as the couple lay in bed, they watched in terror as an imp-like creature crawled up the curtain in the living room.
“It was hanging on the curtain. We could see it from our bedroom. Clear as day see it hanging and crawling on the curtain,” Lina said. “So much happens in this house. We lay in bed at night and watch our doors open and close. I actually had to put a pillow in front of my doors so they don’t open and close all night long cause it’s so freaky.”
The mysterious opening and closing doors didn’t occur only at night. It happened all hours of the day. One day Lina was talking to her brother on the phone. He was aware of some of the activity his sister and brother-in-law had been experiencing in the house, but Lina didn’t tell him everything. Most of it was just too fantastic and frightening, and she knew he wouldn’t believe her. When he asked what kind of things were happening Lina said, “The doors open and close by themselves sometimes, but we try to ignore it and keep our thoughts on God and good things.” As soon as she hung up the phone, she looked upstairs and one of the closet doors began to slowly open and close. It seemed as if the entity wanted Lina to know that it had been listening to her phone conversation.
Certain rooms of the house were worse than others. The upstairs bathroom not only felt oppressive, whenever the couple would go in there, the shower curtain would start moving back and forth, and the towels on the towel rack would start to shake. When taking a shower in that bathroom they could feel someone watching them. The activity in the bathroom became so frequent that the couple finally stopped using it and kept closed the door permanently.
The strange sightings in the house escalated. The smoky mist was frequently seen throughout the house, and things that looked like rods of brilliant purple light would appear out of nowhere. These light-rods would move up the walls, or move toward Lina and Jack. Sometimes these purple beams would actually disappear into their bodies.
Lina and Jack continued to see the dark smoke materialize in various parts of the house. This vaporous fog would ooze out of the walls and sometimes form into animal shapes. Often, these dark shapes would crawl up the walls and shrink down in size, finally wriggling into the wall and vanishing. Other times the dark shapes would take on human form.
Some of these humanoid sightings were not only disturbing, they were downright grotesque. Jack explained, “One time I saw two people in hoods walk up the steps, walk down the foyer then up the steps. Then I saw a huge snake (makes a crashing sound) jump up out of nowhere and eat them both like that. Just like that, then it became nothing. Like shit like that and … it’s just insane, but it’s real.”
For a while, getting away from the house was their only escape. Then something happened that proved that this malicious entity had a hold on them even at a distance. One day Jack, Lina and their four young children took a short drive to a nearby town. There were hiking trails just on the outskirts of town, and Jack wanted to take a short hike while Lina and the kids did some shopping. They parked their car on the side of the road where the trails were supposed to be, but they were unable to find the entrance. Just then, a woman dressed entirely in black came walking down the road.
As Lina described her, “She was creepy as can be. Creepy, creepy, creepy. I have chills just talking about her. She was very pale, dressed all in black and she was walking like this, with her hands stiff down at her sides. She walked kind of jerky and stiff. She walked up to our car, looked in and said, ‘Oh, look at all your children. You have so many.’ Jack asked her where the trail was and she pointed up the hill and said, ‘Oh yeah, go up into that’, which I thought was an odd way to point the way to the trail. Then she just walked away.”
As soon as Jack started walking on the trail, things began to get strange. A smoky mist similar to the kind seen in their home seemed to be leading him on and on down the path. It almost seemed to have control of Jack’s will, as he was compelled to keep walking even though it was beginning to get dark. Jack found out later that he was being lead straight to the edge of a steep cliff that overlooked the river. By now it was totally dark and Jack was heading straight for the cliff. Then out of nowhere, a man appeared.
As Jack described him, “He was just a regular looking man in his 30s wearing a green coat. But I think he was my guardian angel because I would have died had I kept walking. I knew I should turn back, but this black smoke kept pushing and urging me forward. This man came out of nowhere. He literally just appeared in front of me and kept trying to convince me to turn around. It was as if he couldn’t tell actually tell me to turn around, but he kept encouraging me to. He wouldn’t walk away, just kept encouraging me. The man said to me, ‘I would turn around if I were you. I remember one time I got lost in these woods like this and I stayed, I wouldn’t go any further.’ He kept encouraging me to follow him. So I walked back with him. Even though it was totally dark by this time, he got me back. When I got back to the car, he just walked away without saying another word.”
The family finally called in a priest to bless the house. Jack and Lina loved their church, and loved their parish priest. But they were obviously reluctant to reveal to him all of what was going on. They didn’t want to come across as mentally unstable, which they weren’t. They just wanted help. They told the priest that they felt uncomfortable in the house and mentioned some of the less alarming activity such as the doors opening and closing by themselves.
The priest was happy to bless the house, but as he began walking through the various rooms it was obvious that something was wrong. He finished the blessing and the couple walked him outside to his car. He turned to them and said, “I didn’t really want to tell you this, but as I was doing the blessing I got short of breath and my chest felt very heavy. There’s definitely something there, but the blessing should help.” As he drove off, the couple held on to one another and prayed that he was right.
The power of prayer is very strong and the blessing did help. The alarming sightings of strange creatures and human shapes stopped, but the house still felt oppressive and there was still bizarre activity from time to time. Jack and Lina decided that enough is enough. If a priest can’t stop this, they’ll just have to leave.
Even though money is tight, the couple rented a small house for the summer about an hours drive from their home. Although they can still feel this corrupt presence trying to influence them, it is much better than it was at home. They put the house up for sale for a ridiculously low price. Because there are laws that require homeowners to disclose such information, Jack and Lina told the real estate agent that they thought the place was haunted. He laughed it off, but at least they had let him know.
Unfortunately, the couple still has to go back to the house from time to time, and if it doesn’t sell by the time school starts they will have to move back in so their children can go back to school. Jack had to visit the house recently and was reminded that something is still in the house.
“The other day I was so scared I ran out of the house. Lina was at the rental house, and I had to come back and pick some things up. While I was up in the bedroom, a basketball sized and shaped thing came up the steps. It was make out of dark-white smoke. It was solid, and you could really see it. It came up the steps and I nearly fuckin’ shit in my pants. I grabbed my stuff and ran out of the house. I drove for like 20 minutes, then remembered that I left all the things I had gone there to get. I came back, ran in, got the stuff, threw it in the car then just drove off.”
The Investigation
As I said at the beginning, this is no ordinary case. After hearing the details of Lina and Jack’s experiences Karen and I knew that we were not dealing with the activity commonly found in a haunted house. We were dealing with something vile that had attached itself to the couple. This entity started out by disguising itself as something good in order to gain their trust. Beautiful colors and shining lights emanated from the wall, but the actual source of these phantom lights was the dark smoke that accompanied them. The entity also used their own religious beliefs and background to fill them with a sense of awe and wonder. However, when we look closely at the religious scene that was played out for them, it was actually mocking Christ and the crucifixion. The most sacred of all Christian events, the crucifixion, was depicted as a silent pantomime made up of dark shapes. Darkness was the form the vision took, not light.
Karen and I did a walkthrough of the house with Jack and Lina in tow. I carried a small digital recorder and an EMF meter. Karen held a second digital recorder and a digital camera. We walked through the main floor, which felt fine. But when we climbed the stairs to the landing just outside the couple’s bedroom, we were hit by a precipitous sense of foreboding. As I stood there my body began to tingle as if I was in an electrical field and Karen felt heavy, negative energy in this area. My EMF meter, which had read zero while we were downstairs, now had a reading of 19. While this is not an extremely high reading, the change from absolute zero is significant.
As an experiment, I walked away from this area and the meter went back to zero. The area where the reading was high measured approximately four feet in diameter. I was baffled by the fact that it only registered high in the center of the space. The reading near the ceiling and near the floor was zero. This meant that something was actually hovering in the hallway outside of the couple’s bedroom. Before we left this area I left a sensor in the hallway. This sensor is sensitive to any light touch or vibration, and it makes a shrill beep if it is disturbed. I was hoping that this device would go off at some point during the investigation.
We continued the walkthrough and and didn’t come across any other ‘hot spots’ until we entered the lower family room. This space felt bleak and oppressive. Karen and I commented that it felt as if something was in the room with us. I began asking questions out loud hoping to pick up EVP on my digital recorder. ‘Is there anyone in the room with us?’ ‘Is there a message you have for us?’ ‘Can you tell us your name?’ Just then, a loud bang erupted from the wall behind the couple’s head. We were all startled, as the sound was totally unexpected and was quite loud. Jack had done extensive work on the house. He pointed out that there was nothing behind this wall that could have made that sound. It was sheetrock over concrete.
As we sat talking on the couch, my digital recorder captured the first of two EVP. I said out loud ‘The sensor in the hallway; can you make that make a sound? Give it a good whack?’ Upon playing the recording back later, a male voice was heard answering, "Uh-huh”. The entity was once again lying to us. The sensor never went off the whole time we were in the house.
The second EVP was captured right after the loud banging sound. I said, “‘Can you make that sound again that you just made before?’ There were no further sounds in the room, but a few seconds later the recorder picked up an odd, metallic sounding voice. The voice said, "Don't leave". (The EVP is posted at the bottom of the "EVP Examples" page.)
Obviously something wanted the couple to stay. But why? Since leaving the house to live in the rental cottage, Jack and Lina reported that the activity lessened considerably. It’s possible that this entity originated in the house, possibly as part of a ritual that someone performed prior to their buying the place. It may get its energy from the house and it may need the couple to be in or near it in order to have full control over them.
The last room we visited was the basement. As we descended the stairs from the main floor to the basement we were met with an unusual sight. One of the concrete walls was entirely covered with graffiti. Although the writing and symbols seemed innocuous, Karen felt very negative energy coming from that area of the room. Lina had already begun painting over the graffiti prior to the move to the cottage, but Karen was adamant that she finish the job as quickly as possible. Lina said she hated going down into the basement and felt horrible every time she had to go down there. Because of this she was struggling to finish painting over the graffiti and was only able to do so by playing loud gospel music in order to flood the area with positive energy. Karen suggested she hire someone to paint it immediately. It’s possible that a ritual of some sort was performed in this room, and that the graffiti had something to do with it however innocent it may appear to be.
After the walkthrough we spent the next hour doing a thorough clearing of the house from top to bottom. Jack and Lina followed us and helped by holding the incense. I used a clearing spray made of sage and holy water. We said prayers and envisioned that every room was flooded with God’s love and light. During the clearing, Jack became visibly agitated. He could feel the negativity of the entity working on him as we moved through the house, but he was able to complete the clearing with us without incident. By the time we were finished the house felt clean and energized. Even the highly charged negative area at the top of the stairs felt clear, and the EMF reading in this spot subsided.
The hands-on portion of the clearing was finished, but Karen and I promised to continue the work remotely by saying additional prayers and visualizing God’s light in and around the house and family. We instructed Jack and Lina to stand strong with their faith, and to take back control of their home and their life by standing up to this thing. I reminded them that the living are infinitely stronger than any spirit, and that God’s power is absolutely supreme. Nothing is stronger than God’s love, and God is always on our side.
Epilogue
As of the time of this writing, the house is still for sale. In spite of the ridiculously low asking price there have been no offers. Although Jack and Lina are reluctant to do so, they have decided to move out of the cottage and go back to live in the house. The cost of paying the mortgage and renting the cottage is just too much for them to handle financially. Because they have not been back since the clearing, time will tell whether our work and the priest’s blessing was enough to finally rid the house of the dark spirit that came to call. Even if it is gone, Jack and Lina will be relieved when they leave the house for good. Some nightmares are impossible to forget, and living in the house would be a daily reminder of a time they are anxious to put behind them. I ask that anyone reading this story please say a prayer for Jack, Lina and their family.
A Demon in Upstate New York
What follows is an absolutely harrowing tale of demonic assault. The women who experienced the activity first-hand have edited and approved the writing of this case file, but be warned – it is truly frightening reading, and not for the faint-of-heart.
Of all the cases I’ve investigated, the following is one of the most disturbing; not only because of the bizarre and frightening nature of the activity reported, but because I quickly discovered that this was not a haunting – this was a demonic presence. The women who contacted me were not mentally disturbed or just imagining things. Both are highly educated women; one is a former nurse, the other a psychotherapist.
After discussing the details of the case over the phone, it was clear that the women were clearly in need of a demonologist. Demonologists specialize in ridding a person or place of demons; non-corporeal beings who have never been alive and never will be. I was eager to help so I agreed to take down the details of their case, conduct an investigation, and to seek the help of a trained demonologist.
When Claire and her sister Linda moved into the senior living facility in Upstate New York it seemed like the perfect place for them. Both sisters were chronically ill. One had respiratory problems, the other had a variety of health issues related to Lyme disease. Their poor health left them unable to work and in need of low income housing. They felt safe when they first moved into the small apartment which had a back lawn and was surrounded by serene woods.
As the months passed everything was fine, until one day a new resident moved in down the hall, a man in his mid-50s named Carl. The sisters learned that Carl was schizophrenic, but he tended to stay in his apartment and was rarely seen by anyone in the facility. However, as soon as Carl moved in all hell broke loose in the sister’s apartment. It seems that the man brought something with him when he moved in – something evil that was bent on plaguing the two women.
One night, Claire woke up in the middle of the night with a feeling that something just wasn't right. Then she looked over at her window and her blood ran cold. Thick, red blood was dripping from the shades. She stared in amazement at the horrifying sight, then watched as it slowly faded away. The vision left her frightened and confused. She had never had an experience like this before, and she was wide awake so she knew it wasn't a dream.
During that week and the months that followed, the women were regularly woken out of their sleep to view violent objects like bloody knives and axes floating in the room. A few weeks later they began seeing a hooded figure dressed in black standing next to their beds. This figure also appeared as a man without a hood, and sometimes even took the form of a large animal. One time it showed itself as an animal that had a trunk. Although it had a trunk, it wasn't an elephant in shape, but more like a conglomeration of different types of animals.
The sisters would see these things separately at different times during the night. In the morning they would compare notes and were shocked to discover that the same visions were appearing to both of them.
The demon also tormented them through creating dreams which he entered, and where they had to fight him off. He showed them bizarre images of death when they were trying to go to sleep with their eyes shut but fully awake. He also would enter their bodies when they were sleeping, and they would wake to being held down and in a paralysis in which they had to fight him to get out of and open their eyes. These kinds of attacks were the worst type for them to endure since they were particularly frightening and draining.
“He's is very aggressive," Claire said. "He shows us murders, bloody objects, or large spiders and insects. Sometimes these are as big as a dog! A few times he has held us down and has gone inside of us for brief moments as if we were being possessed. Mostly he wakes us up to show us images of objects floating in front of us, or he gives us nightmares which he is in. He has growled, and we’ve also heard the sound of dogs.”
Things were to continue in this manner for Claire and Linda for the months to come. The demonic, black hooded figure continued to harass them nightly and to keep them up by waking them over and over again in order to show them images in the room. He had the ability to do this; to actually force them awake to see these things. So they began losing sleep and their already weakened bodies began to deteriorate. This is the method that demons use in the first stages of possession; to weaken the body of the person and then the mind in order to try to overpower them and cause their demise. Demons are not ghosts. Demons are evil entities whose ultimate goal is the destruction of their host.
One night, Linda was awoken in the middle of the night and saw her sister Clair slumped over in a chair in the room. Her body was riddled with gunshot wounds. The vision quickly faded, and Linda was relieved to look over and see her sister sleeping peacefully in the bed next to her.
The women told me that the demon sometimes took the shape of a huge spider-like shadow that would crawl up the wall and slowly melt into it. The scenes of horror and visitations by the hooded man continued nightly for over a year, wearing down the sisters and affecting their health. These visions included scenes of people who were murdered, laying dead on the ground, and the bloated bodies of drowning victims.
Toward the end of the year Claire saw a black shape hovering over her sister's bed. A few nights later, both sisters said that they were being held down in their beds at night. The demon continued to show them horrifying images. One was a ghoulish looking little creature with fangs all along its mouth. The demon seemed to be growing in strength.
A Catholic priest was called in to do a blessing of the apartment, but it did no good. In fact, the activity increased. Attempts to use holy water or prayers only made the demon retaliate, as he would litter their dreams with even more disgusting images. Attempts to clear the apartment of the entity the way I would normally clear a house of an unwanted spirit were also met with strong resistance. The demon had no intention of leaving that easily.
I conducted a brief investigation at the facility in October 2015. After doing a walkthrough of the apartment, I was able to pinpoint an area that felt very negative, and very strong. It was against one wall of the spare room, which is used as an office. This disturbing force can be felt coming through wall and extending out approximately 4 feet into the room. Other than that area, the apartment felt clear. This didn’t surprise me, as demons don’t necessarily stay in one place. They come and go at will. I have a feeling that it retreats to Carl’s apartment during the daytime. If this is the case, then I am certain that it plagues him as well.
After nearly a year of trying to find help for Claire and Linda, a professional demonologist is scheduled to rid the sisters of this demonic presence. He is scheduled to arrive in late November (2015). I will post an update after the demonologist pays them a visit. I pray for the sisters nightly, and ask that you do the same.