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By Chef SaraSmile416
I'm that asshole… You know, that asshole who moves the pointer while playing with a Ouija Board. I don't know why – I guess I just liked knowing I was the one responsible for scaring the shit out of people instead of something or someone I couldn't see. Or maybe I just didn't believe that a commercially made product could "talk" to ghosts. Who knows? But, I as found out, Karma definitely is a bitch.
One night in college, a friend of mine was over and we were studying. One of those ghost shows came on the tv and they were messing around with a Ouija Board. My friend, Liz, said offhandedly to me, "You know, I've never played with one of those." I was definitely surprised. Ouija Boards were such a staple of my childhood – hundreds of "sleepovers" with me scaring the crap out of little girls by the moving the pointer on the board and that whole "light as a feather, stiff as a board" thing. I couldn't fathom someone growing up and not experiencing it. I started talking about random "experiences" I've had with the board and tried to convince her it would be a good idea to run out to WalMart and buy one. Finally, I was successful and off we went, our studies abandoned on the table. College priorities at it's finest, I guess.
After our Walmart trip, we got back to my apartment and opened the box. We spared no expense – it was the "Glow In The Dark Special Edition." Talk about class. Liz looked like she was about to piss her pants as I explained how to put your fingers on the pointer. We lit some candles and turned off all the lights.
"Ok, so just ask whatever," I said, secretly smirking,
"Like what?" She asked.
"I don't know. Something fun, like 'when am I going to die' or something." This was always one of my favorite questions for people to ask because, while pushing the pointer, I could really freak them out.
"I don't want to know that!"
Damn. I was a bit disappointed, but went with it. I suggested just trying to "open our minds" and see who would come through. I was already planning to have JFK come through – not many of my friends know I am a huge JFK buff so I can usually creep them out with the amount of knowledge "the ghost of JFK" knows about his assassination and whatnot.
We put our fingers on the pointer and nothing happened. I was letting the tension grow before I started my pushing. It's always better to start slow!
All of a sudden, the pointer started to move… and I wasn't pushing it for once.
"You can't push it," I yelled at her. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. I didn't want her to ruin my plan.
"I'm not!" Liz shouted back.
"Well, obviously you are 'cause I'm not!"
"Aren't the ghosts supposed to move it?" She asked.
I guess she got me there. I just sat back, shut up, and watched the pointer move. I was convinced she was moving it. She had to be. There was no way a ghost was communicating with us through a glow in the dark "spirit board" that I bought for $17.99 at WalMart.
After a few minutes, we finally got a message: I-M-I-S-S-U-L-I-Z.
Liz was, understandably, a bit freaked out that the "spirit" knew her name. I was too, but I kept telling myself she was moving it, whether it be subconsciously or not. We kept going.
"I need to see you again soon? What does that mean?!" Liz asked, getting more and more freaked out.
"I don't know," I said, and honestly meant what I said. I had no idea what was going on. I hate to admit it, but I was starting to get freaked out. The Ouija Board NEVER worked for me before.
"You're moving it!" she yelled.
"No, I'm not, I swear!" and I did swear. I wasn't moving it for once in my life.
"Yes, you are!"
She keep insisting I was moving it, but we kept going. The pointer stopped moving for a few minutes. I was intrigued, yet scared – I wanted to see what else it would do, but I was afraid of what I'd find out. Finally, getting a bit impatient, I asked the first question of the night: "Who is this? What do you want?"
Liz looked like she was going to lose her dinner all over the board. "Who's Will?" I asked.
"Seriously… are you moving it?" Liz responded in a thin whisper.
"No, I told you I wasn't. Who's Will?"
"He's my ex-boyfriend who killed himself after we broke up. Really, are you moving it? Because this isn't funny."
I tried to convince her that I wasn't, but she didn't believe me. She just sat there looking like, excuse the pun, she had just seen a ghost. I suggested we quit. "Listen, Liz, obviously this is upsetting to you. Let's just stop now and–"
"No, I need to know if he's ok," she said with a determined look on her face. "But I have to make sure it's not just you pushing it and fucking with me."
After a bit of discussion, we decided that I would keep my fingers on the pointer, but keep my head down and not look. That way, I wouldn't know where to push it. I agreed and sat there, feeling more and more uneasy. I put my head down and closed my eyes, trying to focus all of my energy or whatever the hell Ghost Will needed to, maybe, bring some closure to Liz.
After about a minute of sitting there with my head down and eyes closed, I started to go cold all over. It was unlike any other feeling of cold I have had. The only way to describe it is that my bones were cold and it was chilling me from the inside out. I tried to brush it off – maybe there was a draft coming in from the cool spring air outside. Then, without warning, my head, for lack of a better term, exploded with all of these gruesome images I couldn't control. It was as if any single irrational or rational fear I had throughout the course of my life multiplied its intensity by a thousand and slammed into my brain at the same time. It only seemed to last for a second and a year at the same time, but, regardless of however long it was, every single image was burned into my head. I jerked away from the table, trying not to scream.
"What's wrong?" Liz asked, smiling at me. What the fuck was she smiling about?
"I don't know what–why are you smiling?! What the fuck is so funny?" I could barely contain myself. Deep down, I knew I was acting crazy, but I couldn't help it.
"Nothing's funny. I'm just smiling because I had the nicest conversation with Will. He doesn't blame me!"
"What the hell do you mean?" I snapped again. "It's only been like a fucking minute since we started."
Liz's face scrunched up in confusion. "What do you mean? I've been talking to Will for the last 2 hours…"
What. The. Fuck.
Needless to say, I was a bit creeped out. Ok, more than creeped out. I was terrified. I threw that damn board back in the box as quick as I could and blew out all of the candles. I shoved the box into the closet as far back as it could go – I didn't want to look at it anymore. I announced abruptly that I was going to drive Liz home and opened the door, trying to hurry her. It was definitely out of character. She obliged, however, and we got into the car.
The whole 5 minute drive seemed like an eternity. I could swear I'd see things on the side of the road but, at second glance, they weren't there. Images I had seen of my baby sister mutilated and whatnot from that weird trance-like dream I had started to shimmer in the corners of my eyes. I swerved about a million times, thinking I was going to hit one of these "things" but nothing was there. By the time we got to her apartment, Liz looked at me like I was crazy.
"Are you sure you're ok?" She asked.
"Yeah, just get out of the damn car already," I snapped back at her, almost surprising myself with how mean I was being. Though I fully admit to fucking with people while using Ouija Boards, I really am a nice person. I swear!
Liz did as I asked and I sped away, eager to get to the "safety" of my apartment.
When I opened the door, I noticed 2 things right away – it was about 30 degrees in the apartment and all of the blinds and curtains were wide open. I was confused but I tried not to let my mind wander. I shut all of the curtains and cranked the heat – it was April so it wasn't freezing outside, but it wasn't hot either. Normal spring time weather.
After shutting all of the blinds and whatnot, I sat on the couch and tried to turn on the lamp. The light went on and then popped off. I again tried to shake it off as a shitty coincidence. I changed the light bulb and went to turn it on again. POP. Out again. I went to go turn on the overhead light instead. POP. All three bulbs popped off at the same time. At about this point, I was basically pissing my pants I was so scared… but I tried to remain as calm as I could. It wasn't easy, let me tell you.
I grabbed as many blankets as I could and sat on the couch in the (dark) living room. I was going to light the candles we had used when we used the board, but I didn't want anything related to that fucking thing around me. I turned on the television and blared it, hoping that I could just attribute any noise and flash of something in the corner of my eyes to the television. You know you've done it too.
Unfortunately, it didn't work. I was just starting to doze off when this loud beeping woke me up. It sounded like the worst alarm clock ever. It was coming from the closet where I had thrown the Ouija Board. I slowly went over and opened the door… out fell an old alarm clock (I think it was my roommate's… I hope it was my roommate's…) blaring uncontrolably. I hurriedly shut the door so the Ouija Board would stay in there and I started looking at the clock to turn it off… Not only were there no batteries in it nor was it plugged in anywhere, but the time flashing on the clock was 4:16am. My birthday (hence the user name).
What the fuck?!
Needless to say, I threw that thing quite far and it broke into a million little pieces.
I wish it stopped there. I really do. But, little did I know, that was just the warm up so to say… the "opening act" to a three act shit show that has become my life.
After the initial Ouija Board fiasco, like I said, I went home and shit started getting real. That first night, the temperature in my apartment dropped to about 30 degrees, all of the blinds and curtains were open, every single light bulb burned, and a random clock radio with no batteries or plug started beeping for no reason with the time displayed as 4:16am, which is, coincidentally, my birthday. Ever since we stopped doing the Ouija, I kept seeing horrible, gruesome images flashing in my head and in my peripheral vision. I was uncharacteristically mean and angry to Liz, my friend with whom I did the Ouija Board with. It was really crazy.
So, starting with where I left off, I was sitting on the couch in my apartment with 10 blankets on and the TV blaring so I could attribute any noise or flash of light to that instead of the paranormal. The gruesome thoughts kept flashing in my head – things like my sister being mutilated, my mother hanging from the rafters, and all kinds of horrific things. I was starting to think I was losing my mind. After a lot of internal fighting with myself – Should I? Yes, I should. No, you shouldn't, you're imaging this – I decided to text Liz to see if I could come over to her apartment to hopefully feel a bit safer and get some sleep. I pulled out my cell phone and there, on the screen, was a text from Liz: "Can you come over? I'm really freaked out." Thank God!! I texted quickly as I threw on my shoes that I'd be right over.
The 5 minute drive was, as it had been right after the Ouija Board, scary as hell. I kept thinking I saw stuff on the side of the road and would swerve to avoid it, nearly going into the other lane of traffic. But, when I looked back, there would be nothing there. Longest 5 minute drive of my life, I swear. I got to Liz's house and went up and knocked. No one answered. I knocked again, getting a little nervous. With as crazy as that night had been, I didn't know WHAT to expect. Again, no one answered. I knocked again, louder this time. I was getting desperate. Finally, I heard someone walk down the steps to the front door and there was Liz, half asleep in her pajamas, looking very confused.
"Hey, what's up?" she asked.
"You told me to come over," I said.
"What? When?"
I showed her the text I received. She looked at it much more closely than I had. "This isn't my number," she said.
"This isn't my number. It's my name and picture, but not my number," she said.
"Well, who's number is it?" I asked, getting more and more nervous. Someone would have had to physically get my phone to enter in a number, save it under Liz's name, and find a picture to attach to the contact.
Liz looked at the number again. Then I watched the color drain out of her face. "What?!?!" I asked.
"No… it couldn't be…" she said as she pushed the callback button to, I guess, debunk who's number she thought it was. I pushed the speaker dial button.
"Hey, this is Will. Sorry I missed your call, but please leave a message and I'll get back to you soon. Thanks!"
Liz dropped the phone. I wanted to kick it out the door. We were both pretty much crying at this point. Well, crying isn't the right word. We were pretty much hysterical.
"What the hell is going on?!" Liz cried once she could regain some composure.
I just shook my head, too scared to speak. We went up the stairs to the living room area (weirdly laid out attic apartment) and sat in a pensive silence. Finally, Liz spoke. "I think we should pray."
Now, I was brought up Catholic but definitely wasn't practicing at the time, nor did I really know if I believed anymore. Praying was not my first answer in any situation but, I figured, why the hell not. Liz, on the other hand, was a pretty hard core Lutheran. She pulled out a bible and said that, sometimes, she just leafs through it and picks a passage at random and takes it, kind of, as a sort of "advice" or "comfort" from God. Whatever floats your boat, I guess. So she starts thumbing through the bible while muttering the Our Father. She stops, suddenly (moved by the Lord?) and reads: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour (Peter 5:8)." What. The. Fuck.
So, yeah, needless to say, her bible idea didn't really help matters. The rest of the night, we stayed awake together, huddling on the couch and jumping at every sound. At one point, we heard this weird scratching noise coming from the slanted roof. Liz said it probably was a squirrel or something… Yeah, no. As daylight finally came, I was tired as hell, but too afraid to go back to my apartment. Throughout the night, those "visions" would come and go, along with weird noises and bumps. Finally, I bit the bullet and went back to my place. Liz offered to go, but I could tell she was just saying that to be nice. I wouldn't want to go either if I didn't have to.
So, I get back to my apartment and stopped at the front door to grow some proverbial balls so to say. I took a deep breath and opened the door. Again, it was about 30 degrees and all of the blinds/curtains were wide open. I closed them and went back to my room, being careful to walk on the other side of the hall as the closet I threw the Ouija Board in. I wasn't going near that thing ever again.
As I walked down the hall, the flashes of those images started up again and I could hear whispers of conversations. At least I told myself they were conversations, though, to be honest, they sounded like people screaming in agony. Yep, just your average conversation…
As I opened the door to my room, my jaw literally dropped. I am a big theater buff and I had decorated my room with vintage theatrical posters. Because of the rental agreement, none were nailed into the wall – I had to use sticky tack. All of the posters were attached to the wall… but they were all upside down. All of them. They were in the same places, just turned upside down. I quickly shut the door, probably stupidly thinking that I was just so tired and delusional that, when I re-opened the door, everything would be the right way. I opened the door again. Nope. All upside down.
I don't know why, after all that had happened, I couldn't accept that something was fucking with me. I called my roommate who had gone home for Spring Break early and asked her if she had stopped back to the apartment and went into my room. She hadn't. Shit.
I spent about an hour taking down all of the posters and putting them back on the wall right side up. Towards the end of the task, I started getting angry. How dare "something" fuck with me? How dare "they" come in to my room and vandalize it!? I could feel my anger get out of control which was totally out of character. I am a pretty chill person, but in the last 18 hours, I had been acting like I was on steroids and had 'roid rage or something. As I put the last poster back up on the wall, I marched down to the closet and grabbed the Ouija Board out. It was a stupid cardboard plank… Just a stupid cardboard plank. I tried to break it over my knee. Nope. It didn't even bend. I grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen and started sawing into the sides. I barely scratched the surface. I took the stupid glow in the dark pointer thing outside and put it in the parking lot. I then started my car and drove over it. Then I hit reverse. Then I drove over it again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
No damage. It was plastic for God's sake! How did it not crush under the weight of my car?!
Later that day, I went back over to Liz's place because I couldn't stand being in mine anymore. We decided to cook some dinner and just "relax." We didn't once bring up the Ouija Board or anything paranormal. It was difficult, let me tell you, because the "squirrel" was busy scratching the whole damn roof off with about 10 of his friends. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard to me. Nonetheless, we tried our best to ignore it. When the pebbles started hitting the window, we had a bit harder time ignoring things were escalating. Like I said, Liz had an attic apartment that was 4 stories up. That's one hell of a throw. We finally got through dinner and the "images" started getting worse. I tried to ignore them, along with the scratching and the pebbles periodically hitting the windows. Now it was all of the windows, not just the one. Every few seconds a "pebble" would hit the window to my right. Then literally 2 seconds later, one would hit the window on the complete opposite side of the house. My head was pounding from all of the images, the sounds, and the lack of sleep. I went to go wash the dishes from dinner. I remember walking over to the sink in the kitchen. The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the couch with Liz standing over me, looking terrified.
"What happened?" I asked. My head was quieter, now, thankfully.
"You don't remember?" she whispered, visibly shaking.
It took me a while to get it out of her. Apparently, I was at the sink and turned to her with this, as she puts it, "creepy smile and dead eyes" and started splashing water at her, screaming "The Power of Christ Compels You" over and over while laughing.
I swear to God, I don't remember a damn thing. To this day, I still don't remember anything. It is completely gone from my memory.
I apologized profusely, obviously, and felt so ashamed and embarrassed. I told her I had to go and left – I couldn't believe I would do something like that and the fear in her eyes when she looked at me was hell for my guilt. I didn't know where to go after I left, so I ended up driving around for a few hours. Every once in a while, I'd see flashes out of the corners of my eyes and started swerving again. Eventually, a cop pulled me over. They thought I was drunk. I tried to explain I wasn't, but I couldn't very well tell them I was seeing random "hallucinations" of death and destruction out of the corners of my eyes. I told them I was just tired and apologized. They ended up breathalizing me but I, not being drunk (oh how I wish I were drunk), passed. The cop then said he would drive behind me to make sure I got home safely. Looking back, it was a very nice gesture and I appreciate his concern… but at the time, I was just pissed that I had to go back to my apartment from hell. Literally.
I pulled into the parking lot and waved at the cop. He just sat there, waiting for me to get out of the car and into my apartment. Great. So I begrudgingly went up the walk and opened the door. Cold air greeted me, as did open blinds and curtains. Welcome home. FML.
I went through the new ritual of shutting all of the blinds and curtains and headed back to my room. I was so tired. I just wanted to sleep. I walked in and all of the posters were upside down again. I was too tired to fix them. I just wanted to sleep.
I threw a sweatshirt and sweatpants on and threw a million blankets on me. I just wanted to sleep. I put the TV on again so that way all the noises could come from that and finally shut my eyes. The images were burned on my eyelids but I did my best to ignore them. Finally, exhaustion won and I must have fallen asleep.
When I woke in the (very) early morning (around 5am), my whole body ached. I felt like I had been in a fight all night. Hell, even my hair hurt. I rolled out of bed and noticed the temperature was somewhat normal. It gave me a little bounce in my step as I walked down to the bathroom. I did my business and then went to go brush my teeth in the mirror.
I couldn't hold back the scream.
There were hand shaped bruises on my neck. My eye was black and blue. I had a split lip. I lifted up my sweatshirt and there were bruises all over my chest and stomach. There were two "grab" marks on each arm, as if someone had been holding me down. There was blood under my nails.
What the hell happened?!!?
Shit was definitely getting real. I woke up with bruises all over my body. My head would fill with the most gruesome images imaginable and I would see similar images out the corners of my eyes. My apartment temperature wouldn't go higher than 40, even with two space heaters and the furnace at full blast (in April). All of my posters would "magically" turn upside down on the walls. The blinds and curtains would be wide open. I would "black out" and say creepy things to my best friend totally out of character… And it all started with the Ouija Board.
Night after night, it was the same. I would wake up terrified, feeling unseen hands holding me down. Sometimes, the "bumps in the night" and the screams would be too distinct to blame on the TV I always kept on. When I could sleep, nightmares would be a constant presence. Many of them would just be the horrible images I'd see when I was awake, but sometimes they were a bit more "real."
One night, I dreamt about my friend, Liz. In the dream, she was laying in her bed and I saw this creepy looking man sitting in the chair next to her bed, just watching her sleep. His features were very distinct – dark hair, dark eyes, dark goatee, and a very angular, sharp face. He just sat there, watching her like a creeper. He then turned his head towards me and stared right at me. His eyes turned red and he let out this bone chilling scream which woke me out of the dream. As usual, I had new bruises on my arms and legs.
The next day, struggling to stay awake, I went to go visit with Liz. Before I could say anything, Liz started talking about a dream that she had the night before. She said that she dreamt that she heard her front door open and someone walking up the steps. In her dream, she was paralyzed and couldn't even open her eyes to see what was going on. She heard the person turn the corner and creep into her room. She could hear him breathing deeply. Then she heard him sit down on the chair next to her bed. She said it seemed like hours just laying there, listening to this stranger breath. Then, all of a sudden, the person started screaming and she was able to open her eyes. The man sitting in the chair had red eyes, dark hair, and a dark goatee.
It was the same guy from my dream!
We tried to figure out what it all meant and pretty much came up with nothing. I mean, obviously, something paranormal, perhaps even demonic, was screwing with us. We decided that we would go to church that following Sunday and see if that helped at all. We also decided to go to the Christian Bookstore in town to get a couple of crosses to put around. Though I wasn't religious, I was open to anything at that point.
The next few nights, it got so bad in my apartment that I started sleeping in my car. I still had horrible dreams and flashes, but at least I was warm(er) and didn't wake up with as many bruises. That Saturday, we drove into town to the Christian Bookstore. We decided I would get a crucifix necklace and we'd both get crosses for our apartments. I also wanted to get a bible. Liz already had a crucifix necklace at her parents that she was going to get later that day. We gathered our purchases and went up to the cash register. The lady at the register kind of looked weird, but, being a small college town in the boonies, most of the locals looked weird. She took our items and seemed to study them, then stared at us with this unblinking crazed look.
"Oh, such pretty crosses. Here, I'll hide them in this wrapping paper for you… nice and tight. Oh, and a bible. I'll hide that in here too."
Ok, I know it doesn't seem all that creepy, but we were definitely spooked. One, she looked crazy. Two, why did she say "hide" instead of "wrap" or something like that? Yes, our nerves were shot, but she just creeped us the hell out.
We decided to take the cross back to my apartment first. As soon as we stepped onto the front walk, Liz doubled over. She said she felt like she was going to throw up. I had some Tums/Rolaids up in my apartment so we kept going. Of course, as we went in, it was freezing and the blinds were all open. Liz looked green. She ran to the bathroom and kept dry heaving. I grabbed the antacids and waited for her to come out. Finally, she came out and we put up the cross in my room. I secretly wondered how long it would last.
As soon as we walked out of the apartment, Liz felt 100 times better. She wasn't sick at all.
The following day, we went to church. The previous night, I had, once again, slept in my car. I was tired, drained, and pretty damn depressed. I have to admit that, in light of everything that was going on, I was a bit apprehensive to go to church… Stupid things went through my head like what if I get hit by lightning or something…? Needless to say, nothing happened while we were there.
I dropped Liz off and went back to my apartment. As soon as I shut the door, I felt my necklace go tight around my neck. I pulled it back down and tried to convince myself it had gotten caught on my hoodie. I knew very well it hadn't, but it kept me calm when I was delusional. I turned on all of the space heaters to try (in vain) to warm it up and shut all the blinds. I went into my room to get some of books to take to my car to study when I realized the cross wasn't where we had left it on the wall. I looked all over the room. All of the posters were there, albeit upside down, but the cross was no where to be found. I kept looking and looking and right when I was about to give up, I heard a huge bang coming from the closet in the hall where we had thrown the Oujia Board.
I walked slowly to the closet, telling myself I was stupid for even going near it… but it was like I was compelled to look. I slowly opened the door and there, sticky tacked to the inside of the closet door was the cross, upside down. I went to go grab it and it was as hot as fire. I couldn't hold it in my hand it was so hot. Just then, my necklace got pulled again and all of the blinds shot up at once. (I had never actually seen them open on their own, they'd just be open when I got home or woke up.) I could barely breath. I kept clawing at the necklace, trying to get it to loosen. All of a sudden, the chain broke and fell to the ground. I could hear someone or something screaming. The closet door slammed shut. Then opened. Then slammed again. The door to my room slammed and I could hear paper being ripped – my posters on the wall. The images started up again but they seemed to be right there in the hallway, not just in my mind.
I ran out of the apartment without even shutting the door. I flew over to Liz's house. I think she took one look at me and knew shit was going down. She ran upstairs and called up a friend of hers who went to a nearby Catholic University. She recommended a priest who was about an hour from us that specialized in demonology. Liz called him up and explained what was going on. She told him all about the Ouija Board and Will and me and the apartment. Everything. He said he could make it to our town in about an hour.
That was the longest hour of my life. We waited in her apartment, not really talking. The "squirrels" were on the roof and in the walls, digging their way to freedom, apparently. It was so loud! The pebbles on the windows started up as well. There also seemed to be a lot of bees buzzing around her windows. We just sat there, her silently praying and me trying not to completely lose my shit. We both jumped when we heard a thud – the cross we had put near her front door had just fell to the ground. Neither of us made any attempt to go and put it back.
Finally, there was a knock on the door. Fr. Bob came in and he didn't really say much. He nodded to both of us and started right away with holy water. He then said a few prayers and preformed the anointing of the sick on the both of us. I know I was probably paranoid, but I could feel him watching me very closely with furrowed brows. He gave us both St. Michael medals to wear for protection. I remember thinking, "I hope this one doesn't try to strangle me too."
He then asked to go back to my apartment to bless it and to get rid of the board. He told Liz to stay at her apartment for some reason and followed me back to my apartment. I think Liz was relieved she didn't have to go back there – she was convinced (and so was I) that it made her sick.
As we walked up to my apartment, Fr. Bob proceeded to vomit all over the walk way. I rushed over to see if he was ok and he just held up his hand and kept going. He threw up one more time right near the door. When I opened the door, I could barely breath… but when I did breath, I could see my breath. The outside temperature was in the 60s, but the apartment was freezing. He immediately put on his stoll and started splashing holy water all over the place, murmuring prayers in Latin. The horrific images took over my mind and it was all I could do to stay somewhat aware of what was going on. I could see Fr. Bob stop near the closet with the Ouija board as if he knew it was in there, but kept walking around the place, splashing holy water everywhere. I could hear distant screams and wails. It was terrifying.
Finally, after going through 3 bottles of holy water, he came over to me and prayed over me in Latin. I can't say for sure it was an exorcism, but it was some definite hard core praying. He went on for about an hour, his hands over my head and Latin spilling out of his mouth. Sometimes, when the images in my head would get worse, I could swear he somehow sensed it and would talk louder, with more authority.
Finally, he finished praying over me and asked if the Ouija Board was in the closet. I nodded, scared to go in there again. He went over to the door and threw it open. He took the board out of the box and started to pray. All of the blinds came crashing down, blocking out the afternoon sun. It didn't seem to faze Fr. Bob, but I pretty much pissed my pants. He then pulled out a forth bottle of holy water and started splashing it on the board. Everywhere the holy water hit the board turned red. I am not going to say for sure it was blood or anything like that – I was on the other side of the room – but it was definitely red. This was the only time Fr. Bob seemed to falter… the only time he was surprised so to say. But, he kept going, praying and splashing it with the water.
After about 10 minutes, he stopped. He turned and looked at me. "This isn't working. I am going to have to take this with me to dispose of it."
"Please! Please take it! I don't want it here anymore!" I basically sobbed.
He wrapped his stoll around it and put it in his bag along with the pointer thing and the box. As he went to leave, he turned to me and blessed me one more time. He then looked me straight in the eyes and grabbed my shoulder tightly. "Sara, sometimes when I come out to do a blessing like this, things get worse before they get better. This is going to be one of those times. But have faith that it will get better."
And with that, he was out the door.
How the hell could things get worse?!?!
My grades were complete crap. The show I was working on (I'm in theater) was slowly becoming complete crap. My health was complete crap. Everything was one big crappy shit show.
Fr. Bob was right. Things DID get worse. And I wasn't sure I had the "faith" to believe it was going to get better.
I wanted to die. I wanted to just end it so it would stop. The flashes in my head were getting more and more frequent. I would just be sitting there in class and bam the images would hit me and I'd have to run out of the room. Thankfully, my professors didn't immediately fail me… though there wasn't much they could do about my work and test scores. Though it may not be as evident here (I am just writing to get my thoughts and memories out, not actually trying to write a novel), I was a pretty damn good writer. Term papers and the like were my specialty. I used to write papers for people in my class for $10 a page and make a shit load of money.
Now, my papers sounded like a 2nd grader wrote them. I guess writing papers in a car was not conducive to basic grammar and thought.
I lost about 20 pounds. I had bruises everywhere. My eyes were constantly bloodshot from lack of sleep. I'm sure I looked horrible. No, I know I looked horrible. I've since deleted and untagged all photos of me from that time on Facebook because I don't want people thinking I was in some sort of abusive relationship or some weird sex trade.
My roommate at the time eventually came home from break but was never at the apartment. She stayed at her boyfriend's place every night. We weren't that close, but we were still decent friends and lived together well. I tried to talk to her to see if she had experienced anything at the apartment. She refused to talk to me. It came time for us to renew our lease and she refused.
I guess Liz, my friend who did the Ouija Board with me, realized that I was "sleeping" in my car. She invited me over to her place one day and, there on the living room floor of her tiny attic apartment was an air mattress. She had asked her parents for one for her birthday (we share the same birthday, 4/16, the same number that was frozen on the clock the night of the Ouija Board) and told me I was welcome any time, day or night. I nearly cried from happiness and gratitude.
I couldn't help but feel responsible for everything. I was the one who convinced her to do the Ouija Board. I was the one who seemed to be the catalyst for all the shit to happen. I was the one who would randomly black out and say creepy things to poor Liz. I was the one who would go from a normal temperament to a raging bitch in 2.2 seconds. I was the one who would stop talking mid sentence because I was overcome with horrible images. I was the one with no faith. I did this. I caused all of it. And there Liz was, asking only for an air mattress on her birthday so I could stay whenever I wanted. Liz is an amazing woman.
Whereas my apartment got worse after Fr. Bob visited, Liz's got better. I actually felt safe there and found myself at her house every single night. I'm sure she got tired of me (and, for that matter, was scared of me at times as well), but she never wavered in her friendship.
One night, for my 3D art class, I had to make a chair out of cardboard that was sturdy enough to bear my weight. (It was one of the only times I was happy to have lost all the weight I did lol.) I decided I would layer cardboard so it would have the strength it would need. Here is what I was going for, but it didn't turn out like that at all…
I couldn't do the chair at Liz's apartment because it was too small and I knew it was going to be messy. She offered, bless her heart, but I told her I would be fine. Liz demanded that she come and keep me company at my apartment while I did the chair. After some convincing, I agreed. Unfortunately, she couldn't get through the threshold without puking her guts out. I sent her home.
I turned on the TV and the space heaters and got to work. Things were actually going well – nothing was happening, with the exception of the freezing cold temperatures making my fingers numb. I would stop every few minutes and put my hands in front of the space heater, but I was more than willing to do that instead of whatever alternative that could happen.
The chair wasn't turning out as cool as I had wanted it, but I was still extremely proud of it so far – it was a personal victory, so to say, to be able to do ANYTHING in my apartment, let alone a massive undertaking like a cardboard chair. Though I am very artistic and very crafty, exacto knives were my enemy. I can't cut a straight line to save my life. Nonetheless, it was close enough for my purposes. I was going to have a chair! I was going to have a chair that I could sit in! I was going to get an A and bring up my grade for at least one class!
Then, suddenly, I woke up. I was on the floor in the living room. It took me a minute to get my bearings. The chair wasn't even started; there was a stack of cardboard up against the wall. I looked down. There was blood. Everywhere. There were cuts all over my right hand and both legs. In my left hand (I am right handed) was a bloody exacto knife. None of the cuts were deep or life threatening, but there were enough that there was a decent sized puddle of blood on the floor. The closet door was open… the same closet we had stored the Ouija Board in… I was afraid to look in there incase the board magically reappeared (Fr. Bob had taken it).
I ran into the bathroom to wash out my cuts so I could get the fuck out of there as soon as possible. I turned on the light. Nothing. I, like an idiot, started flipping the light switch on and off like it would help. Nothing. I kept doing it. Finally, the lights blinked on but then, abruptly, off. Hopeful, I kept doing it. The lights flashed on and I stopped flicking the light switch… but the lights kept going on and off, on and off, on and off, faster and faster until it resembled a strobe light. I stood there, surprised, though, looking back on it I have no idea why I would be surprised by anything that happened in that damn apartment. Finally, I just said fuck it and started washing my hands and legs so I could get out of there. Stupid, I know, but thoughts don't come too clearly when shit's getting real like that. I also didn't want to acknowledge it… to give it that power over me.
I remember glancing up at the mirror and I swore I saw something behind me in the strobe light. I turned around. Nothing.
I kept scrubbing.
The blood didn't seem to wash off. I kept scrubbing.
I looked up. There was definitely something behind me.
I turned around.
I kept scrubbing. The blood didn't seem to wash off.
I kept scrubbing.
I looked up.
There was something behind me again. Instead of turning around, I threw my body back into whatever was there. I half expected to hit my head off the wall.
I landed on something soft-ish. I say soft-ish because there was a bit of give to and the first inch or so was squishy, but then it was harder than a rock. It was freezing to the touch but burning hot at the same time.
I screamed.
The lights went out.
The door shut.
I heard a laugh. A sinister laugh.
I screamed again and started clawing at the door.
The laughing got louder.
I felt like my torso was being burned alive, but my arms and legs were freezing, to the point of numbness.
I screamed even more.
The bathroom door opened, throwing light in the room that made me shut my eyes.
The laughing stopped. I opened my eyes.
There was a man at the door. He looked at me. He looked peaceful. He reached out his hand to help me. I reached up and let him pull me up. I looked behind me in the now lit bathroom.
I looked back at the man.
Nothing. He was gone.
First off, thank you to everyone for reading so far. To answer some questions that keep popping up, this whole fiasco happened a few years ago when I was in college. It eventually slowed down and wasn't as scary, but weird things have happened ever since. It's been slowly intensifying lately, hence why I started writing down what happened at the beginning. At first, it was just a nice way to finally get my story out there without people looking at me like I was insane. Now that it's getting bad again, I hope that telling people how it all started could potentially help a bit more in maybe getting advice on how to stop it again. Also, to answer another question, yes, I completely lost my shit many many times. I will get into that a bit more with this update.
The guy was just… gone. Nothing was there. And the peaceful feeling associated with him was also gone. I kind of snapped out of it and realized I was still in the bathroom and that I had cuts everywhere. Welcome back to reality, I guess. I grabbed my phone and ran out of the apartment. I guess the chair wasn't going to happen – oh well, yet another failed class.
I went over to Liz's house and tried to explain what had happened. Though the experience of all of the blood and the laughter and whatever the hell I backed into was terrifying as hell (literally), the mysterious man who randomly appeared and made everything stop for a moment gave me some small inkling of hope… maybe he would come again? Maybe he could stop all of this?
Even though I felt remarkably safer at Liz's apartment, I could still hear the "squirrels" scratching all night and the pebbles hitting the windows in increasing intensity. I tried to brush it aside as we continued to talk about what had happened.
Liz was pretty convinced the man I saw was an angel sent from God to protect me. Now, as I've said before, I was not very religious before all of this happened whereas Liz was religious (not in a crazy, Bible Thumping kind of way… just very faithful). I didn't give a shit who it was, I just wanted him to come back.
The scratching and pebbles hitting the window were getting worse and worse. I also started hearing a buzzing type sound. Liz didn't seem to hear anything. I shushed her and listened. Yep, there was definitely a buzzing sound.
Now, keep in mind it was about 2 in the morning in April. Not really a popular time for bees to be buzzing about… but, I guess that night it was. I went over to the window I kept hearing the buzzing noise and lifted the blinds – the whole window was covered with hundreds of bees. I was terrified. I am highly allergic to bees but didn't have my epi-pen with me. It was at my damn haunted apartment. I guess I kinda half screamed and backed away from the window. Liz looked at me like I was insane.
"Bees," I was able to stutter out. I pointed at the window. She looked. Then she looked at me. She didn't see anything. There were a fucking hundred bees swarming her window and she didn't see them!?
"What the hell are you talking about?" she asked.
"There. Are. Hundreds. Of. Bees," I managed to get out. I was super freaked out. I kept pointing.
"I don't see any bees, Sara," Liz said.
She eventually convinced me I was just hallucinating. I wasn't sure which was worse – hallucinations or the real thing. On one hand, hallucinating made me certifiably crazy. On the other hand, hundreds of "ghost bees" or whatever the hell I was seeing made this whole demonic adventure something that could literally kill me.
The next day, I skipped my 3D art class (what's the point? I hadn't finished my chair) and went to my apartment to clean up in the light of day; since things weren't going well with my roommate, I didn't think 100 sheets of cardboard, glue sticks, and blood everywhere would be a good thing to come home to. Liz tried to come to keep me company, but got sick at the side walk. I told her to just wait in the car.
I cautiously went up to the front door and went to swipe my key in the lock (they were brand new apartments and had a hotel like key swipey thing) but the door was not latched. Shit. My roommate saw the mess. Great. Yet another strike against me. I opened the door, prepared to apologize for the mess and was instead greeted by an empty, cold apartment… and when I say empty, I mean empty. Sure, the pre-furnished living room furniture was there, but none of our personal effects. It looked like the day I moved in. No lamps, no coasters, no paintings, no pillows, no blankets, no throw rugs. Nothing. Also, all traces of the 3D chair were gone as well.
The temperature was, as usual, freezing and all of the blinds were up. I just kind of stood there, in awe. My brain couldn't compute what was going on. I know I was losing it. Did my roommate move out? Did some unseen force move it all? If so, where?
I kept moving through the apartment down the hall. My room and bathroom were on the left and my roommate's room and bathroom were on the right of the hall. I peeked into her bathroom. All of her stuff was there. I kept walking to her room. Everything was still there.
Ok, so she hadn't moved out. So where was the stuff?
I think, in the back of my mind, I knew I would not be happy with what I would find in my room and bathroom. Let's be real – my luck wasn't that great. I couldn't decide which door to open first – my bathroom which should be a bloody mess – or my bedroom which will, at the very least, have posters upside down and a cross in some weird place. Based on the previous night's terror, I opted for my room. I went to open my door but couldn't open it. It was locked.
Now, I have never locked my door before (both rooms come with a padlock but, up until all this happened, my roommate and I were on great terms and we never needed the extra privacy/security). I didn't even carry the key on me… I just kept it on top of the breaker box… in the closet… where we had stashed the Ouija Board before Fr. Bob took it…
So, begrudgingly, I walked back down the hall to the closet. Right before I put my hand on the doorknob to turn it, the doorknob turned by itself and the closet door creaked open in classic horror movie fashion. I jumped back and shut my eyes. I didn't want to see what it was trying to show me.
I felt a huge gust of freezing cold air hit me… and when I say hit me, I mean it hit me. It slammed into and thru my body with such force I stumbled backwards. I opened my eyes to try to catch my balance… and that's when I saw it.
The Ouija Board.
The fucking board was back.
The mother fucking god damned board that a fucking Catholic Priest personally took out of the apartment was back.
And it was glowing in the dark as if it had been exposed to light recently (we had bought a cheesy glow in the dark board).
And the red marks from the holy water still stained the board.
I think I screamed. I'm pretty sure I screamed. Who wouldn't scream when something you thought was gone just reappears in your fucking closet.
I think it was about then that I "lost my shit." I remember just sitting on the couch, sans blankets and pillows, and sobbed. I couldn't stop sobbing. The gruesome images started flashing and I swore I heard the bees again, but I didn't care. At that point, I would have welcomed the bees. I just wanted everything to stop and it seemed to me, at the time, that the only way it would stop is if I died. Nothing else was fixing it. Holy water, a Catholic Priest, crucifixes, sage (we had tried that a few days before calling Fr. Bob), nothing. I saw no solution but death.
I could hear Liz knocking on the front door between dry heaving but I didn't want to get up and get the door. I didn't want her to come into the apartment and get her life ruined like mine. I didn't want help. I wanted to die. I just wanted to die and accept any fate that came my way… because I was pretty sure if there was a hell, I was already living it so what did I have to lose.
The buzzing got louder but I didn't give a shit. I started to hear the laughter like I heard the night before. It seemed like it was coming from my bedroom. I didn't care. Let the bees attack and the ghost/demon/whatever laugh while I died. Whatever. I half stood up and started screaming, "Come and get me, fucker! Do it! Get me already!"
I was ready. I wanted to die. I wanted it to end. There was no light at the end of the tunnel, no joy or happiness left in the world, no hope… There was nothing.
The laughter and the buzzing got louder and louder. The temperature started dropping significantly. I could barely hear Liz pounding on the front door – it sounded muffled and far away. I kept scream crying intermittently, trying to shame or anger whatever into just finishing the job. I was done fighting. Though the sounds and the cold kept intensifying, nothing else was happening.
Fine, if yelling at them/it didn't work, I was going to up the ante.
I grabbed the Ouija Board out of the closet and threw it onto the coffee table. I went back to the closet and started looking for the pointer thing. I reached into the closet to find it. The coat sleeves that were hanging in there felt as if they had arms in them. Good, I thought. Maybe they'll choke me. I guess it wasn't my lucky day because the unseen arms didn't try to grab me. Instead, they seemed to push my arm in the right direction to find the pointer on top of the little shelf. Once I grabbed it, I headed back over to the board. I could barely see because I was crying so hard.
I put the pointer on it and faltered as to what to do next. Luckily(?) I didn't have to figure anything out.
The pointer started going in quick little circles over the board without my hands anywhere near it. Around and around it went. Faster and faster.
I just stared at it… Part of me wanted it to spell something out, but another part of me was scared shitless at what it may say.
"What do you want from me?" I asked… Cliched, yes, I know, but I can't say I was thinking very clearly at the time.
The pointer just kept going around and around in circles. "What do you want?" I asked again. Circles.
I kept asking over and over and got nothing. I changed tactics. "Who are you?" Nothing. "What are you?" Nothing. "Why are you here?" Nothing. I asked every question I could think of. I started to get angry again. I went to grab the stupid pointer and throw it against the wall or something when I felt this electric shock go through my arm. It nearly leveled me. I got even angrier. "If you're not going to let me touch the fucking thing, then tell me what the hell you want!" I screamed.
The pointer stopped on the letter A. It moved to B. Then back to A. Then to D. Then it stopped.
"A bad? What the fuck does that mean?" I screamed.
The pointer moved again. O. N.
"What the fuck does that mean? A Bad On? A Bad One? What the fuck?" I tried to grab the pointer again and got shocked again. The laughter was ear piercingly loud at this point. I put my hands over my ears and was almost surprised they weren't bleeding from the volume. My bedroom door suddenly started banging back and forth in the door frame… not opening and closing but definitely moving. The closet door started doing the same thing. The bathroom door was flung open and the light came on. The sounds got louder. The pointer started going in circles again. It went faster and faster. I didn't know what to do. I hoped this was the "big one" and that I'd just die of a heart attack or something.
No such luck. I felt another cold rush of air hit me and I fell back onto the couch. I must have screamed because I could hear my voice screaming like an echo underneath the sound of the laughing. It was the strangest sound I'd ever heard. Suddenly, my whole body felt frozen and I couldn't move. My heart was pounding, but I could barely hear it over the sounds of the laughter and my echoing screams. I could barely breath. Each breath felt like fire.
The front door flew open in a huge bang. Everything stopped. I looked up to see Liz at the door with a frantic look on her face. That man from the bathroom was right behind her.
The man from the bathroom had the most angelic face. I focused on that as Liz rushed in and tried to snap me out of it in between dry heaves. I vaguely remember her saying the Our Father, but I was too focused on the man's face to pay any attention.
Every time I looked away from him, I would see the flashes and hear distant laughter. I could feel Liz trying to shake me out of it, but I didn't want the peace to stop. The man smiled a comforting smile and started walking away.
"Wait!" I cried, but he was gone. His exit snapped me back to reality. Liz looked towards the door, but didn't see anything. I could still vaguely hear the laughter and it was still cold, but at least it had stopped for a moment.
Liz took one look at the Ouija Board on the table and broke down crying. "Is that…?"
I just nodded my head. Yes, the Ouija Board was somehow back in the apartment. How, I have no idea… but it was back.
Liz immediately wanted to call Fr. Bob to come and get the board again, but for some reason, I didn't want him to come again. The scary part about being in a situation like this is that you don't know what thoughts are your own and what thoughts are being inserted by whatever was haunting us… My gut told me to keep the Ouija Board but I had no idea if that was me or it talking. Liz pretty much looked at me like I was insane… maybe I was. Who knows?
But I didn't want to talk about the Ouija Board, I wanted to talk about the man that could make it all stop. Liz said she hadn't seen anyone behind her at the door. She was turning more and more green as she stood there in my apartment. I grabbed the board and threw it back in the closet and we left.
Later that day, I was recouping in Liz's apartment while she did some homework and checked on Facebook. Well, mostly checking Facebook. Let's be real. We were in college. I was trying to forget the events of the day by reading a book when I glanced up at the computer screen.
It was him! It was the man from the bathroom! The "calm man!"
I knocked over the coffee table as I scrambled to get to the computer. "That's him!" I shouted, "That's the guy who can make it stop!"
Liz just looked at me with a mix of fear, awe, sadness and disbelief. She scrolled up to the name. "Will Sanderson." It was her boyfriend! The dead one who we tried to contact with the Ouija Board!
I sat back, trying to figure it all out… Talk about questioning your belief system. Here I was, faced with potentially the devil fucking with me and an angel, so to speak, that was once a real person. 4 weeks ago I was completely agnostic… and now… I had no idea what to think.
Liz didn't want to talk about Will and I didn't want to push her but I wanted to, desperately. What was he like? Why is he here? Is he an angel? A good ghost? A weird figment of my imagination? A ploy by whatever was haunting us?
I made up some excuse to leave and got into my car. I just needed some time to sort out all of my thoughts. I seriously considered going back to my apartment and pulling out the Ouija Board, but I figured I had enough excitement for one day.
Instead, I went to the local coffee shop to sit, relax, and read. It was a quaint little place, located in a renovated house on Main Street. They had couches and big comfy chairs that were perfect to snuggle up with a good book in. I grabbed my coffee and bagel and tried to figure out what was going on.
Before I could really wrap my head around anything, I felt this weird tingling on my scalp. I turned around to face a blank wall. There was nothing there. Attributing it to paranoia from the tiny bit of stress I was under, I went back to questioning my complete belief system. About 2 minutes later, the tingling feeling was back but it was spreading down into my shoulders and chest. I touched my head. Nothing. I looked around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I tried to convince myself it was just the start of a panic attack or something… and then secretly hoped it was a stroke and that, finally, it would be over.
I tried to ignore it but the feeling kept creeping lower and lower. The tingling got stronger, before I could realize what was going on, I realized I couldn't move. I was completely paralyzed in the middle of a busy college coffee shop. My mind was racing – what the fuck was going on?
I could still move my eyes, but that was about it. No one else in the coffee shop seemed to know anything was going on. The tingling got stronger and stronger until it started to burn. Still, I couldn't move.
I am going to take a minute to digress here… my childhood was a nightmare in and of itself. My mom and dad divorced when I was 4 and when my father actually found the time in between his drug runs to bring me up for a visit (he stayed in Canada and my mom and I moved back to the States), he and his family did some sick and twisted things to both me and my female cousins. With that said, what transpired next was even more terrifying to me because of that background. To this day, I don't know if this happened because "it" knew what buttons of mine to push or if this was a residual thing from the house the coffee shop was in… There was a rape in the house years before I was there as I learned in the local archives, but I don't know specifics.
I then felt a horrendous amount of pain… I am not going to be too descriptive here, but I am assuming you all know what I am talking about. It was an unmistakable pain that I felt when I was a child… in a place where a child shouldn't experience that type of pain. I could feel tears come to my eyes and my breaths come in short bursts, but I couldn't move a muscle. I tried to plead to someone, anyone with my eyes but no one was paying any attention to me. But, really, what the hell could anyone do? To anyone else, I was just another college student, sitting in a chair with a coffee and a book… albeit not moving, but nothing looked out of the ordinary.
But what I felt was out of the ordinary. My God, it was excruciating. I started getting flashbacks of my childhood intermixed with the "new" flashes of all things bad in the world, compliments of the Ouija Board.
It was the longest 6 minutes and 12 seconds of my life. I knew it was 6 minutes and 12 seconds because, in my line of vision, I could see a clock on the wall opposite of me. As soon as it started, it stopped. My body slumped over and I spilled my coffee everywhere. It was all I could do to suppress an anguished cry. I could barely breath – my panic attack was in full force. I think, as I ran out of the building, I left my coffee spilled all over the floor and my book in the middle of the mess. I don't remember. I am assuming because, the next day, the book was returned to me completely saturated with coffee.
I couldn't get out of that place fast enough. I made it to my car and completely lost my shit. I screamed, I cried, I hyperventilated. Hell, I even prayed. I couldn't calm down. I can usually calm my panic attacks by concentrating on my breathing or, as stupid as it sounds, singing the ABC's or Row Row Row Your Boat (because it's mindless), but nothing was helping.
I nearly slammed my head through the moon roof in my car when I heard someone knock on my window. It was Liz. Thank God for Liz. I couldn't form words. I couldn't do anything but just look at her and sob. She helped me move over to the passenger seat and we just drove around, not saying anything. She just let me sit there and cry and curse and cry some more. We drove for a good hour, only stopping because my car needed gas. After pumping the gas, Liz sat back down in the car and looked at me. At this point, I had stopped crying as hard and was just kind of sitting there, whimpering like an injured animal. Liz just grabbed my hand and started driving. It was nice knowing I wasn't alone in this. I shut my eyes and tried to calm down some more… until I felt the car stop. I opened them. We were in front of my apartment!
I started screaming and crying again. I couldn't go in there. Not then. I just couldn't. Liz just grabbed my hand harder and told me to give her my key card to the apartment and to stay in the car. I shook my head but she insisted. I watched as she went up the walk, pausing to throw up once, and then entered the apartment. After what seemed like an eternity, Liz emerged looking a bit green and ran back to the car. In her hand, she had my childhood stuffed dog, Floppy. I know, some of you will chuckle that a 20-something woman still has her childhood stuffed animal, but I don't give a rat's ass. Fuck you. Floppy got me through my childhood and he has always brought me a bit of comfort when I needed him.
I couldn't find words to express my gratitude as I curled up with Floppy in the front seat of my car. Liz gave one final dry heave before she pulled out of the parking lot. I cuddled with Floppy, putting him near my face… and then I realized – there was a huge hole in his chest with stuffing coming out of it.
I looked at Liz, confused. She just shook her head and stared straight ahead. "Don't ask," she said.
A tide of rage washed over me. What kind of fucked up bastard, dead or undead, fucks with someone's stuffed animal!? I know it sounds stupid, but that is just crossing a fucking line. I still get livid thinking about it now. You can beat me, rape me, scare the shit out of me. Whatever. But a fucking stuffed dog?! Seriously?! How fucking pathetic.
We got back to Liz's house and she offered to sew Floppy up for me. I agreed, but I was still seething inside. I know, some people are going to think that I am insane for this being my breaking point, but it was. Just the senselessness and malice behind it sickened me and it made me want to fight. Fuck waiting for "the big one" and hoping to go quietly into that good night… I was going to make someone or something pay for this.
I sat there on Liz's couch as she carefully sewed the hole in Floppy's chest and I plotted my revenge.
Screwing with my stuffed dog crossed the line. That's just pathetic. In a way, I kind of felt sorry for Abaddon or whatever it was that was trying to make my life a living hell. If He/She/It had to resort to screwing with a stuffed animal in order to strike fear into the hearts of many (or just me) then they seriously need some pointers. Sure, He/She/It still scared the hell out of me, but a part of my fear was broken, so to say. I would initially get frightened but then think of Floppy and would immediately get more angry than scared.
I still didn't have any ideas on how to get my revenge, but I knew if I bided my time long enough, I'd figure it out. I just had to be patient and try as hard as I could not to let the thing get to me anymore.
The next supernatural part came directly after a very funny story… one of my favorite memories with Liz. Yes, I know this is "no sleep" but this is too funny not to write.
So, a few days later, Liz comes up to me and says that she hasn't been able to get any sleep because of a woodpecker outside her window. I had heard the "pecking" and knew it wasn't a woodpecker, but who am I to shatter someone's delusional rationale for demonic activity? Liz (and my intense anger) was the only thing giving me a fighting chance and I wanted to protect her from as much as possible. So, we sat in her living room, trying to come up with some crazy MacGyver-esque way to get the "bird" to leave. Pretty soon, it was time to go to church. It was Liz's idea to go to church at least once a week and, though I still wasn't very religious, I went for the hell of it. There we were, sitting in the middle of church, listening to the Catholic priest tell us about how much money they needed for some project or something, when Liz turned to me out of the blue.
"I've decided I don't want it to fly merrily into the sunset. I want it dead," Liz whispered with the most serious face she could muster. I almost burst out laughing right there in the middle of the homily.
"Fair enough, friend," I whispered back and tried to stop the giggles. It felt so good to giggle after everything… and I knew it just pissed He/She/It off when I giggled. (It also pissed off the Catholics unlucky enough to sit around us.) So, after Church, we tried to figure out how we could kill the "woodpecker." Liz didn't agree with my plan of a spear gun for some reason and, instead, suggested a BB Gun. Off to Walmart we went dressed in our Sunday best.
So, there Liz and I are, in the middle of the sporting goods section at a country Walmart, looking at BB guns and ammunition. One of the employees comes over and asks us if we need any help.
"Yes. I have a bird. I want it dead. What BB Gun would do the job?" Liz said very matter of factly. I had to walk away to hide my laughter.
"Well, this here BB Gun…" the employee rattled on and on.
"No, I don't want to maim it. I want it dead. I want this bird to be deader than dead. I want the most powerful, most accurate BB gun you have."
We finally decided on this "super powerful" BB gun with all the bells and whistles. Also, because the "woodpecker" was near her window, Liz said she wanted to do a little target practice before the big kill so she didn't accidentally shoot out the window. Soon, our cart was filled with cammo hats and shirts, face paint, targets, 20 CO2 things, and 10,000 rounds of BBs. We were't kidding around… haha.
Anyways, we went up to the check out line. Liz agreed to buy the BB gun and I agreed to buy the rest. The Walmart cashier didn't really look up at us when we got to the register and mindlessly asked Liz how she was today…
Just as the employee grabbed the gun off the conveyer belt, Liz replied, "Oh, a little sad today. But not for long!" The Walmart employee finally realized what she was holding in her hand and looked up at Liz with a horrified expression. Liz didn't even crack a giggle. She just stared at the employee with this sad smile. I had to walk away to another register to hide my laughter.
After laughing until our sides hurt in the car, we decided to drive into the woods for some target practice. Being in the sticks, finding some remote woods was not a hard thing to do. We started driving and passed this creepy, old abandoned house. We kept driving, but something about that house seemed to beckon me. I tried to ignore it as we finally found a place off to the side of the road about 4 miles from the main road. We painted each other's faces and put the cammo gear on and started shooting. It was the best fun I had had in a long time. We went through at least half of the BBs and the CO2 things. We were both confident either one of us could accurately shoot the "woodpecker."
Driving back to the main road, we passed the abandoned house again. I slowed down. Was it my gut telling me to stop or he/she/it? I couldn't tell, but then realized that even if it was he/she/it, I was hell bent on not letting it run my life. Liz turned and looked at me. "Want to explore?" she asked. I nodded. Hell yes! I was fucking invincible! My life was my own again! I can do whatever the hell I want, even go into a creepy old abandoned house!
(Yeah, I know I'm stupid.)
So we pulled over and grabbed the BB gun just in case (we decided to name it Pat Benetar… "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," get it?). We carefully climbed the overgrown hill to the open front door of this place. The outside of the house was painted a slate blue but was extremely in ill-repair. In some places, the paint had peeled so much we could see the wood siding underneath. As we walked into the open front door, we noticed the house seemed to have just been abandoned… there was old furniture still chilling in the living room, dust covered photos on the wall, etc. There were also holes in the floor where the wood rotted away. As we went through the living room toward the kitchen, I started getting one of my flashes… but this one was different. Instead of seeing my friends and family in a mutilated flanked by equally as gruesome creatures, I could see flashes of people I didn't know being hacked to death with a hatchet near the same furniture I just saw in the living room. I tried to shake it off as we went into the kitchen. I know this is going to sound very cliched, but the table was definitely set for breakfast when we walked in, albeit a very dusty breakfast. It seemed like someone had set it up but never got to eat. God only knows how long it was sitting there for. Based on the dust and cobwebs, I am going to venture to say AT LEAST 10 years but probably more. Again, I got flashes of a mother type figure in a checkered apron setting out breakfast and being interrupted by screams coming from the living room. I got another flash of the hacking of bodies and could literally feel my heart drop as if I was seeing it as the mother. It was surreal.
We kept walking around and Liz wanted to go upstairs. I snapped out of my flashes and looked up at the 2nd floor… and could have sworn I heard my name. Nope. Not going up there. I started to let my panic attack show (I had gotten very good at hiding my panic attacks as to not worry Liz) and asked her if we could leave. Liz, being the best friend in the world, agreed and we walked out of the nonexistent front door. I nearly sprinted to the car, trying to ignore the overwhelming feeling that I needed to go back in.
We sat in the car, catching our breath. Liz didn't look at me, but said in this calm voice, "The mom had a checkered apron on, didn't she…" I was shocked! Liz got flashes too?!
Turns out she didn't necessarily "see" anything like I did, but instinctively knew, to an extent, what I saw. We both looked up at the house through the windshield and something in the upstairs window caught my eye. I strained to see what was up there and once I did, I felt my heart skip a beat – it was Will! Liz's dead ex who made everything stop! Maybe he could help me take control of this situation and plan my revenge!
I hopped back out of my car and started running to the house. Liz was calling after me but I didn't care. I wanted to see if I could communicate with him… to maybe understand what the hell was going on and figure out a plan of attack. I ran back into the house, barely missing the hole in the floor as you walk in the "front door." I bolted up the stairs and tried to reorient myself as to which window I had seen Will at. I turned left down the hall and passed a pile of dirty laundry that had to have been sitting there for years. As I approached the bedroom I believed I saw him in, I heard Liz enter the house, calling my name. I yelled that I was upstairs and kept walking into the room. I saw Will in the corner, smiling. I skilled back and went to get closer. All of a sudden, he disappeared. I was crestfallen. I heard Liz coming up the stairs. I kept staring at the place I saw Will standing. I heard Liz in the hallway. Suddenly, the air in the corner where he was started to "shimmer." That's the best word I could I can think of to describe it. Suddenly, there was an image of Will with a noose around his neck. His eyes bulged and his face was red and grey and bloated. His legs twitched, his toes scraped the floor, and I could hear a muffled gurgling sound – probably one of the worst sounds I have ever heard. I heard Liz walk into the room. I tried to hide the sight from her, but thankfully she couldn't see it. I don't know what I would have done if she could see him – I would be so guilty.
She asked if I was ok and "what the fuck was wrong with" me. I just shook my head and wanted to leave. I didn't know if this was just a ploy to make me more depressed or if he/she/it had really "re-killed" Will. Either way, I was pretty upset. I just wanted this all to end.
We got back to the car and started driving back to campus. Liz wanted to stop for a coffee, but I wasn't exactly a fan of the coffee shop at that point so I waited in the car. I was still trying to figure it all out in my head when Liz got back with two cups of coffee. "Liz, how did Will die?" I blurted out.
"He hung himself, why?" she asked.
"No reason…"
"Yeah. He had to have been hellbent on killing himself. It's not easy to hang yourself when you're 6'7″," she said with a sad look on her face. No, no it wouldn't. My heart broke for her.
A few days later, I had to go to my apartment to get some more clothes. I was basically living full time with Liz at that point. I hated my weekly trips back to the apartment but it had to be done. I walked in and was incredibly shocked to find that the apartment was a normal temperature and the blinds were all normal. I almost wanted to go pick up Liz at her house to see if she'd throw up, but decided against it. I walked past the closet with the Ouija Board inside and didn't hear any weird noises. I was cautiously optimistic. I continued past the bathroom and saw nothing amiss… What the hell? I continued to my room and braced myself for all of my posters to be upside down because I had stopped trying to rearrange them after the 20th time.
The posters were all right side up… and the Ouija board was on my bed. What the fuck? Seriously? Again? I started to walk out. Fuck that. Then I heard the pointer thing (or Planchette as I've been told) scrape the board as it moved around. My head whipped back around and I saw it circling the board.
H-E-L-P-M-E it spelled out. I wondered if it was Will, but I was also scared it was just he/she/it fucking with me. I said "no" to the empty room.
P-L-E-S-E-H-E-L-P-M-E it spelled out again. "Hell no," I replied, but I was glued to the spot… if on the off chance it was Will, I definitely wanted to help him. "Will?" I asked, tentatively.
YES-H-E-L-P-M-E. "How?" I asked.
B-R-I-N-G-L-I-Z. Oh, fuck to the no. "I'm not bringing her," I yelled defiantly and tried to ignore it as I hurriedly grabbed all the clothes I could ever need from my dresser and closet. I could hear the planchet continue to move but I was too pissed to look at it. "You're fucking pathetic. Go away. You're not welcome here. I don't associate with losers who fuck with stuffed animals," I kept saying in as much of a sing song-y voice as I could muster. I didn't want him/she/it to know I was terrified. I wanted to maintain control. I also started saying the Our Father very loudly. "You must think I am as stupid as you are if you think I am going to bring Liz here just because you asked, dousche bag." Looking back, it was not the most eloquent "fuck you" speech I have ever given.
The next thing I knew, I was on the floor of my bathroom in the pitch dark. I could feel the freezing cold tiles under me and knew that if the lights had been on, I would be able to see my breath. I couldn't hear anything but that didn't mean much. The cold was enough to alert me I pissed something off or, at least, the calm before the storm so to say was over. I was still pissed, though, and I tried to focus on my anger rather than my intense fear.
As I struggled to get up (my body was very sore and, in the cold, hard to move), I started singing "Jesus Loves Me," loudly but I would switch the "me" to "you" every other line. I got to the door and wasn't really surprised to find it locked. I tried the light switch and, again, wasn't surprised to find that the lights weren't working. "Jesus loves you, yes I know! For the bible tells me so, mother fucker," I kept singing at the top of my lungs. I went on for a good 5 minutes, intermittently checking the door to see if it was unlocked. Nope. Fine. I kept singing. And, for anyone who has heard me sing, this is like hell itself. I hope both my words and my voice were torturing he/she/it.
I heard some movement on the other side of the door like furniture scraping. I kept singing. Finally, I got tired of singing and started to pray aloud again. Every time I finished an Our Father or a Hail Mary, I'd scream something to the extent of, "I'm not scared anymore, asshole. I'm not scared of someone who has to fuck with stuffed animals to get their rocks off. Still not scared!"
After I'd say about 20 minutes of that, I got even angrier. I had shit to do and I wanted out of the damn bathroom. I started praying again and after each prayer I'd shout, "This is my house and I want you out. You are not welcome here. Get out of my house." I did this about 5-6 times. The sounds of furniture moving intensified but I didn't allow myself to get scared. Finally, I yelled, "If you don't let me out, I am going to start singing again!"
I would have laughed really hard if the door opened right then and there. Hell, instead of fucking with my stuffed dog, he/she/it should have just held me down and made me listen to myself singing on a loop. That would have gotten the point across. But, nothing happened to the door. It was still locked. But I started hearing a distant moaning coming from outside the door and it started to get colder in the bathroom. So, true to my word, I started singing. The moaning turned slowly into the laughter I had heard the last time I was in the bathroom. I kept singing. It got colder. I kept singing. I was starting to get scared, but I tried to just focus on my anger. Floppy. Hole in his heart. Floppy.
Suddenly, there was a huge bang against the door which made me jump backwards and fall down. I smacked my head pretty hard on the floor. I have no idea if I lost consciousness or not. I could see "stars" swimming in the darkness and felt my head pound with every breath I took. The laughter got extremely loud and just made my head pound even harder. I tried to continue to sing but the effort was killing my head. I still wasn't scared, per se, just really annoyed and hesitant as to what the hell to expect next.
What happened next I couldn't have expected. As I listened to the laughter, I tried to sing "Jesus Loves You" in a whisper that wouldn't kill my head… but then I stopped because my ears picked up another sound… an unexpected sound…
There was a buzzing sound coming from the shower stall behind me to my left. It was very faint but I definitely heard it. Because it was pitch dark in there, I couldn't see anything and started to freak out. What the fuck was that buzzing sound?
I made myself get back up and head towards the door. Still locked. I turned back around and tried to squint in the darkness. Couldn't see a damn thing but the buzzing continued to get louder and louder. The buzzing started to echo in the bathroom and my head throbbed along in time. I thought I felt something on my arm and brushed it off. The feeling returned to my other arm. Then my face. Suddenly, it felt like there were thousands of bugs crawling all over me making this ear piercingly loud buzzing noise.
Now, I know some people asked me if these "bees" were locusts. I honestly don't know. I didn't study them when they "attacked" the window at Liz's and I definitely couldn't identify them while I was in the pitch black bathroom. Because for the last 5 years I have referred to them as bees in my head, I will continue to call them that but, again I have no idea what they were… and hope to never again have the chance to find out.
I started trying to swat them all off me and I felt a pinch. Then another. Then about 5 more. The "bees" were stinging me and I was deathly allergic to bees! I started hyperventilating and could swear I felt my throat start to swell. I clawed at the door. Nothing. It felt like my skin was on fire. The buzzing got louder and louder. I could feel them in my ears and my eyes and my mouth stinging away. My throat started to close and my tongue was thick in my mouth. It felt like the bees were crawling through my ear canal into my brain. Everything was being stung. In one last ditch effort, I grabbed the door knob on my way to the ground as I prepared to lay down and die ala "My Girl." It opened! I stumbled out and immediately the buzzing and stinging stopped. I glanced quickly back into the bathroom and couldn't see anything. I looked at my arms. There was nothing there. I tried to take a deep breath – my throat was still slightly constricted. I ran over into the kitchen and grabbed my Epi-Pen. I slammed it down into my thigh and rushed out the door to go to the hospital. When I pulled into the ER parking lot, I realized I had absolutely no symptoms whatsoever… Sure, the Epi-Pen helps when I get stung, but it usually only buys me time and thats when I am stung by just ONE bee, not thousands…
This shit was getting weirder and weirder…
I was still pretty angry at "it" but fear started creeping back into my consciousness… While most things I had experienced up until then were unexplainable, being "attacked" by "bees" and then all symptoms and signs of anaphylactic randomly disappearing had me questioning my sanity. Did I imagine it? Is it trying to wear me down to get in my head? Is it already there…?
A few weeks went by with the "normal" crap happening – the flashes, the blinds, the cold, etc. It got to the point where it was just common place to see my naked grandmother on the side of the road being ripped apart by demonic dogs. It's funny how the human mind can desensitize itself. Instead of being horrified, I'd just think to myself, "Oh, it's a brown demonic dog this time. Last time it was that pretty grey color. Huh."
I knew I was depressed. I knew I was losing hope… fast. I knew I had to figure out some way of kicking the shit out of 'it' soon or else I would either completely lose my shit or be completely overtaken by it. If given the option, I'd rather lose my shit and spend the rest of my life in a nice padded cell making beautiful macaroni and fruit loop necklaces with Floppy rather than giving 'it' control, but I was apparently too stubborn for that.
It was around that time I started doing some research. From the 'safety' of my car and Liz's apartment, I searched for Ouija Board stories and the like. I was flooded by information about how we "did it wrong." There was no silver on the board. We only had two people. We didn't say "good bye." I initially had the intention to fuck with Liz. We let it go in circles. We left the planchette on the board when not in use. Etc. Etc. Etc. Well. We had managed to pretty much break most of the rules. Great.
I then moved on to the name that was spelled out on the board when I was alone… Yeah, no… Definitely shouldn't have looked that one up either. Well, this research was going swimmingly.
I then started looking up ways to deter a demon. I read about sage, crystals, and all kinds of other things. Because we went to college in the middle of no where, I couldn't run to the local mystic shop down the road and get sage and crystals. I ordered it online and depleted most of my bank account to overnight it to me. I tried to fix the chain to my cross necklace I had bought at the Christian Book Store but it was tangled within an inch of it's life. There was no fixing that. I couldn't even get the cross off to put onto another chain. I contemplated going back to the Christian Book Store but the lady there was creepy. I didn't need any additional creepiness to my life.
I then realized I had never called Fr. Bob back after I realized the Ouija Board had magically returned to my apartment. I remember thinking to myself in this weird, devoid of emotion-like voice, "Damn. Well, I hope he's not dead. That'd be a drag." I was confused by my desensitized nature, but shrugged it off along with everything else. I looked up his number and gave him a call. No answer. Well, hell. That sucks. I left him a message, something to the extent of, "Uh, hey Fr. Bob. It's Sara. You know, Sara and Liz? The dumbasses with the Ouija Board? Shit, sorry. Ignore my language. Um, yeah, I have a bit of a problem and I hope you're ok and not dead or anything and can help. The board is back in my apartment and it's spelling out some scary shi–crap by itself without me touching it. Things have really been escalating too. I'm kind of losing it and I think I need some more help. I don't know what else to do. I just ordered some Sage and some protection crystals and shi–crap like that, but it's not coming until tomorrow. So…. Yeah… anyways, if you're not dead or whatever, could you call me back? Thanks." (I'm not very good on voice mails…)
I hung up the phone and went back to my research. I decided to look up Will. I started by stalking him on Facebook. His page was still active with a lot of people posting about how much they missed him. It was a real drag. I started looking at the pictures of him and Liz from when they were together. They looked so happy… weirdly mismatched because of their height (he was 6'7″ and Liz is 5'3″) but extremely cute in their mismatched-ness. I tried to figure out how he fit in to this whole mess but the only thing I could come up with was either he's involved because we tried to contact him on the Ouija Board or because he's Liz's "guardian angel" or something of the like. I still had no idea if I believed in guardian angels or not, but, at this point, I was open to anything. With all the crap I've seen and experienced, I wouldn't have been phased by a fucking flying saucer dropping down in front of my car. 99% of people go through life without realizing the full gravity of the world/universe in which we live. They float through life without realizing we are constantly surrounded by a fight between good and evil and that there is SO much more to "life" than just us. Their blissful ignorance was definitely something I missed and still miss.
I stopped looking at Will's Facebook page because it was making me sad. I wished I could somehow communicate with Will the next time I saw him (whenever that was… I hadn't seen him since the incident in the abandoned house) and maybe give Liz some closure. I know she thought she may have gotten some with the Ouija Board, but I wasn't certain that was him talking. Who knows? I had no fucking clue. Nothing was certain. Everything I had ever believed or not believed was up in the air, constantly being juggled… and I wasn't a good juggler.
In the morning, my sage and crystals arrived. I decided, like a big fucking dumbass, to go back to my apartment and try to communicate with Will or even to give 'it' a piece of my mind. I am not going to blame this on 'it' controlling my actions, but I like to think that's why I decided to do this. I'd like to think I am not that fucking stupid… but who the hell knows? Maybe I am. Even though my necklace was twisted beyond help, it was silver so I put that on the coffee table. I lit a candle and lit the sage. I probably looked like an idiot prancing around my freezing cold apartment burning the sage but I wanted to get every single nook and cranny. I opened drawers, closets, cabinets, the refrigerator… everything got a little bit of sage smoke in it that day. Thankfully, I am not THAT much of a dumbass because I thought to unhook the fire detectors. It was a bit smokey.
After going through 4 bundles of sage, I put the crystals around the room and started pouring salt around as indicated in some of the posts I read. I also grabbed the cross from the last place 'it' put it (for those of you keeping track, it was in the toilet this time) and put that on the coffee table as well. I took a deep breath, said a prayer, yelled that no evil spirits were invited, and put my fingers on the planchet. I knew I shouldn't be alone doing it, but I didn't see any way around it. I wasn't going to ask Liz – that's just mean. I wasn't going to involve anyone else… why ruin another life? I tried focusing on Will's image in my head.
"Will?" I asked. "Are you there?"
I waited around for a few minutes and still nothing moved. I went back to the computer. I typed, "How to contact a spirit by yourself." There were a few hits, mostly about some sort of mirror deal and something called spirit writing/automatic writing. I didn't have a mirror I could easily access so I started reading about this spirit writing rigamarole. Sounded simple enough. Sit there in a semi mediative state with a pen and paper and have at it.
I went and grabbed a sketch pad and a sharpened #2 pencil. I sat directly in front of my space heater and said another little prayer and said that nothing evil could come through and I started sitting there. The flashes got really bad so I started to pray again to hopefully quiet them. I tried to focus on Will as much as I could. The flashes were getting worse and worse. Even now, thinking back on it, I can't even put what I saw into words. There is no language known to man that could adequately describe them. Ripped, burning flesh. Lots of stuff with eyeballs and knives. Insides on the outside. People I love being torn to shreds, raped, tortured, burned alive. Their screams still haunt me.
I sat there for as long as I could stand it. I'd say I sat there for about 20 minutes or so. I could feel sweat pouring down my face and nearly freezing against my cheeks from the cold surrounding me. I was holding the pencil so hard I was afraid it would snap. Finally, discouraged at my lack of endurance, I opened my eyes.
It was pitch back, both inside and outside.
It was late morning when I started.
What the fuck?
I reached over and tried, stupidly, to turn on the lamp.
The light popped off. Burned out.
I searched the couch for my phone. Finally, I grabbed it and turned it on.
6:56pm. 22 missed calls.
I think I screamed. I probably screamed. I probably cursed up a storm. Fuck this shit.
I started scrolling through my missed callls. 21 of them were from Fr. Bob. The other one was from Liz.
I threw the stupid board back in the closet, grabbed my sketchbook and ran out to my car. I just started driving… anywhere… I had to get away from that stupid apartment. The flashes were pretty bad but I just wanted to get somewhere so I could call Fr. Bob back in peace. Liz was at rehearsal by that time so I couldn't go to her house. So… I kept driving.
And I ended up at the abandoned house Liz and I found…
I didn't realize I was there until I was there, if that makes sense. Not really my ideal place to be honest. I looked up at the pitch black house, it's blueish siding looking grey in the blackness of the night. I could have sworn I saw a soft glow of a light in the upstairs window, the same window I saw Will standing in.
Nah, I was just imagining things. I grabbed my phone and went to call Fr. Bob back when, suddenly, I saw a flash of light, similar to a camera flash, coming from the house. I looked up again. There was definitely some sort of soft glow coming from the upstairs window. It was a yellowish/orangish light and the light source was coming from the far side of the room, near the corner I saw Will standing if my memory was correct. I took a minute to try to figure out what to do next. On one hand, I wanted to talk to Will again – that was the whole reason I did the stupid "spirit writing" that ate up my whole day. On the other hand, was I really that stupid to go into an abandoned house with definite paranormal activity alone while a demon is stalking me?
Yeah, I was stupid enough.
Again, I really want to think that 'it' made me do this, but I will never know. For those who have been tormented mentally and physically by some sort of demonic presence, you start questioning all of your motives. You have no sense of self.
I started up the dirt hill to the house and walked in the open front door. I was using my phone as a flashlight, but it really didn't do any good. I tried to remember where the holes in the floors were… that's all I'd need – to fall through the floor in an abandoned house in the middle of no where with no cell phone service with a demon trying to eat me. I carefully navigated until I found the staircase upstairs. I could see a bit of ambient light from the top of the stairs and went in that general direction. As I neared the top of the stairs, I heard something whispering my name. I turned around to the blackness of the downstairs area behind me. Nothing that I could see was there, but I really couldn't see much so who knows. I stepped onto the last step when I heard it again. I spun around with my cell phone, trying to see. Again nothing. I brought my second foot up to the top of the stairs when I heard my name being screamed. The shock almost sent me tumbling down the stairs. I grabbed onto the poor excuse of a banister to steady myself and felt it rip from the wall.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I felt the banister splinter from the wall. I felt the inertia of my body falling backwards, banister still in hand. I felt each foot leave the safety of the floor. I saw the silhouette of my feet against the pale light coming from the room fly into the air. I heard my name again. I saw the horizon line of the top stair start to move up as I started to fall further and further back. I felt the sharp pain of my shoulder hitting a corner of a step. I felt the stabbing pain of my head hitting another step. I could see the arch way of the top of the staircase get further and further away as my body slid down the stairs. I smelled the dust that my body was kicking up. I felt the walls sliding past my fingertips as I searched for something to grab on. I felt my head hit another step and stop the sliding momentum of my body. I felt my legs start to flip over my head.
And then I felt hands on my legs, stopping me from flipping over. It was a warm feeling which was quickly forgotten as I dangled upside down. I felt my feet being softly put down on the next step down. I felt hands on my back as I tried to stand up without falling backwards down the rest of the steps. As soon as I was sure my footing was secure, I whipped around as fast as my throbbing head could stand. There was nothing there. I whipped back around and looked at the top of the steps. Will was standing there against the pale yellowish light.
"Will!" I yelled, but he just looked at me smiling and wiping dust from his hands. I started to run up the steps but he put his hand out to stop me. He pointed downstairs in the general direction of the front door. "You want me to leave?" He nodded and pointed again. "But I have so many questions!" He shook his head and pointed to his wrist as if there was a watch. He pointed again in the direction of the door. I shook my head and started up again but Will started waving his hands to stop me. I complied. "I need you to help me stop this!" I pleaded. He nodded his head but, again pointed to the door. I wasn't having any of it. "Can't you just answer one question?" He shook his head and pointed to his wrist again. I was starting to get angry, but the anger was muddled by the throbbing of my head from my fall. "Were you the one who stopped me from falling?" He nodded and pointed again. "When will I see you again?" He seemed to ponder this for a moment and then just smiled. Aggravated, I started up the steps again but was stopped dead in my tracks by my name being whispered again. Will got an urgent look in his eyes and pointed towards the door.
I finally took his advice and, with one last look, ran out of the house and into my car. I looked at the clock on my dashboard – it was 10:50pm. I had been there over 3 hours! What the hell was up with this loss of time thing???!!
I drove back into town and parked outside of the Walmart. 10 more missed calls, 8 of them being Fr. Bob and 2 being Liz. Liz must be out of rehearsal. I decided I'd text her that I'd be there in a few minutes. That would buy me some time to call Fr. Bob. I hit the send button and finally looked down at my clothes as I listened to my phone ring. I was filthy!
Fr. Bob answered after about 4 rings. "Sara!"
"Fr. Bob! I'm glad you're not dead! Look, I'm sorry about–"
"Sara, do you still have the Ouija Board?" he asked in an urgent voice.
"Yeah, it's in my closet again."
"Does Liz know?"
"Yeah, she saw it the other day," I said, confused.
"Ok, just tell her I gave it back to you."
"What? Why?"
"Because I don't want her to know it just randomly showed back up at your house," he said and seemed out of breath.
"Ok," I said, "Why?"
"We need her to maintain her faith in all of this. The less she knows, the more strong her faith will be. I've been doing some research and have prayed a lot on it and I think that the entity is really after Liz. It is using you to get to her because you were an easier target with your lack of faith… kind of a stepping stone," he said. I tried to process it all.
"But why does it want her? I don't understand. And why is the Ouija Board back in my apartment?"
"I don't know yet, but I will be over in about an hour to get it if that's ok," he said and I could hear him turn his car engine on.
"Yeah, sure, I can meet you there," I said, still confused. "Why didn't you just get rid of it?"
"I thought I did," he said in a very low, sad voice.
"Well, there's been other incidents in all of this," I continued. "When I found the board was back, it was sitting on my coffee table and the pointer thing started moving by itself. It spelled out what I thought were random letters but then I Googled it and it had spelled out the name–"
"DON'T SAY IT!" Fr. Bob shouted into the phone. "Whatever you do, don't say it."
"Ok…" I said, even more confused. "Well, it spelled that. I also think Liz's ex-boyfriend is involved. He killed himself about a year ago and every time I see him, things stop for a moment. It's hard to explain, but I tried to communicate with him this afternoon and–"
"Just don't do anything until I get there," Fr. Bob said sternly. I agreed and hung up the phone. I didn't think it was possible but I was even more confused than I had been before.
I drove back to my apartment to meet Fr. Bob. I figured I should go upstairs and clean up a bit from my "contact session" so I didn't piss off the priest… I figured that would not be a good idea. I walked into the freezing cold apartment and threw the board back into the closet. I started sweeping the salt off of the floor and windows and opened the door to get the overwhelming smell of sage to dissipate a bit. After I was done, I went outside to wait for Fr. Bob. I took a seat in my car and figured I would start sketching some ideas for my upcoming set design (I'm in theater) while I waited. I opened the sketch book that I had used during the "spirit writing" that only served to make me lose an entire 6 hours of my life.
All over the pages were pictures and words I had no recollection of drawing. In my mind, my hand hadn't moved at all…
I have the hard drive and am looking through it for the pictures. It's a pretty big one (5 TB) and I have no idea what it's saved under so just give me a bit of time to sort through all of the crap I have on there. If I find something, I will definitely share! In the meantime, I drew a really shitty floor plan of my apartment because so many people had asked me. Sorry I didn't describe it well enough! This is the floor plan.
My stomach dropped to my feet. The sketch pad was covered with all kinds of weird symbols, scratches, and sketches that I had no recollection of ever doing. There wasn't really any order to them – shit was all over the page in what appeared to me to be an arbitrary scattering of crap.
Imagine, for a minute, if you were me. You (stupidly) tried to "spirit write" for about 20 minutes and you didn't feel the pencil move one inch. Then, you open your eyes and not only is it a few hours later, but there's shit all over the sketch pad that makes absolutely no sense to you… and the intensity of the sketches and the amount of pencil lead on the page doesn't really add up to what a pencil can do without being sharpened. (Though, who knows what happened in those hours… I certainly could have gone to my room and sharpened the pencil. I have absolutely no idea what happened in that time.)
For the most part, I couldn't make heads or tails of what I saw. All I knew is that it was freaky as shit and that I probably DIDN'T want to know what all of the symbols meant. I didn't want to know what came out of my own hand, if that makes sense. I didn't want to know what had taken over my body to write this. I definitely didn't want to know what kind of message was being sent, either.
I tried really hard not to be as freaked out as I wanted to be. I didn't want to give 'it' the satisfaction of knowing it successfully freaked me the fuck out. Though I was scared shitless, I was still angry and ready to take a stand. As hard as it was, I tried to look at the sketch book as a piece of art, albeit a fucked up one. I forced myself to appreciate the lines and the composition. I know it sounds crazy, but it gave me a bit of leverage over my fear.
I nearly shit my pants when there was a tap on my window about a half hour later. Fr. Bob had arrived. I may or may not have used the Lord's name in vain with that one… but Fr. Bob didn't acknowledge it, thankfully. I got out of the car and he seemed to shy away from me. I don't know if it was just me being paranoid or not, but he definitely took a step back from me. Maybe he was just trying to give me room to get out of my car? Who knows. We didn't really exchange pleasantries. He just asked if the board was still in the apartment. I nodded and off we went, skipping merrily to the wonderful world of hell, aka my apartment.
As per the usual, Fr. Bob started dry heaving on his way up the yellow brick road – I mean my walkway. We both pretended it wasn't happening. As we neared the door, we found it wide open. I could have sworn I saw Will standing inside, but when I looked to see if Fr. Bob saw him too and then looked back, he was gone.
"Did you just see him? Will? Did you just–"
"You didn't see anything," Fr. Bob seemed to growl. Uh, yes I did.
We got into the apartment and the board was exactly where I left it. Fr. Bob immediately went to work after dry heaving a second time. He didn't look so good. He had sweat pouring down his face even though it was as cold as ice in my apartment. He looked almost grey and his hands were shaking pretty badly. Out of his briefcase, he pulled out his book, a different one he had used the last time he had visited with Liz and I. He started going at it in Latin again, though this time he was nearly screaming at the top of his lungs. I remember thinking to myself that he had better be careful because the vein in his neck was so big I was afraid it would burst. I could see it pulsating with his quickened heart beat.
Next, out came the holy water again. He told me to sit down on the couch while he basically drenched me and the board with 2 bottles of holy water. Every time he splashed the water, I could hear something that sounded like thousands of people and cats (yes, cats) screaming in agony. I don't think I personally screamed, but it was so loud that I can't be sure. For those of you who will be asking, no, the water didn't burn me or anything like that, but the volume at which I heard the screaming in my head definitely made my head burn from the inside. I kept telling Fr. Bob to stop for a minute but he kept going, emphasizing each phrase with a forceful flick of the holy water in my (and the board's) direction.
After the second bottle was empty, he took out a third and started going throughout the apartment again. I went to follow him, but he yelled at me to stay where I was "if I was able." The "if I was able" phrase kind of stopped me in my tracks. What the hell did he mean, "If I was able?" Did he think I was being possessed? Did he think I was going to hurt him? Was I possessed? Did I not have control over myself? I mean, yes, I had "blacked out" and wake up a few hours later, but did that mean I was possessed during that time? Just when I thought I was taking back control over my life and my fears, he went and shattered that sense of control with 4 simple words. I broke down. All I had done, all the fighting was for nothing??? Why fight anymore if all that happens is that I piss 'it' off and it controls my body without my knowledge??! What the hell was there to fight for if it had already taken possession of me??!!
My heart and mind were shattered. There was no hope. Everything I did was in vain. Everything I had fought against, endured, suffered through, and put up with meant absolutely nothing. The bruises, the bees, the flashes – all of it. Why, if I was actually possessed, didn't I just succumb to the damn thing at the beginning? It would have been so much easier. I wouldn't have had to deal with all that I had gone through. I just sat there, on the couch, and sobbed, adding my cries to the sounds of the screaming in my head. I just kept thinking in my mind, over and over, "Please God, just let me go. I can't help you anymore. I can't fight anymore. You won't miss me. Please, God, just let me go. Don't make me fight anymore…"
But then, a fleeting thought popped into my head… What if Fr. Bob had just said that to break me down? What if he was part of 'it'? What if he was sent by 'it' to give me hope and completely shatter it with one phrase? It was a bitch move, for sure, but I didn't really expect less of 'it' at that point. What better way to exert power and manipulation than to hijack a Catholic Priest? Fuck that. Fuck it all. It got me angry again. First my stuffed dog and now a Catholic Priest? It took all I had to give in and let Liz call Fr. Bob because, at the time, I saw it as admitting failure… and now 'it' was using him against me? Fuck that.
I got up from the couch and ran back to my room where Fr. Bob was blessing my bed. "Just so you know, I could have stayed on the couch if I wanted to, but I need to know what the fuck you meant by that?" I yelled and, yes, I said "fuck" to a priest.
Fr. Bob nearly jumped a foot in the air and spun around in a defensive position with what I perceived to be fear in his eyes. I doubted myself again. Did I get up off the couch and come in here because I wanted to or because 'it' wanted me to?! I could feel myself cracking – what was real and what was 'it' just fucking with me? I had no perception of self. And, as I have said to a few of you, this was the scariest part of this whole fiasco… Everyone has a sense of self. No one doubts the source of their own actions. Sure, you doubt whether or not you should do or say something, but you always know that you yourself did what you did and you alone. No one has a puppeteer controlling their movements. What you decide to do you do and there is no questioning it… well, that wasn't the case for me. I had no idea if I was in control or if 'it' was in control and that was fucking terrifying.
"Go back in the living room, Sara," Fr. Bob said, with his hands outstretched, holding the holy water and a cross… He was holding them like, as stupid as it sounds, someone would hold them out to ward off a vampire. The fear in his eyes scared me and I retreated back to the living room. I didn't really have any tears left. I was numb. Me. Nice, shy, funny old me terrified a Catholic Priest. I could hear him move on to the bathroom. I could tell because not only was his voice a bit closer but it echoed differently. In the distance, I could hear the sound of bees and I remember thinking that I hoped the bees would come and kill me.
It was then, for the first time, I seriously thought of ending it all for good. I had had suicidal thoughts throughout the ordeal but I still had hope. Now, I had none. I glanced over into the kitchen and saw a block of knives. If I didn't have control over myself anymore, fuck it all to hell. The last decision/action of my life would be on my terms, not "it's."
Again, time seemed to slow down for me and I had very distinct, stream of consciousness thoughts and conversations with myself with every move I made that I can still remember very clearly to this day. I don't know if that was just me imagining it, 'it' controlling time, or God trying to buy me time. Who knows? I certainly didn't.
I got up off the couch. I remember the feeling of the pillow on my finger tips. It was so soft. Was this the last time I'd feel it? Would I be able to feel them "after"? And, speaking of "after," would I go to hell because I allowed myself to be possessed or would I go to Heaven as a reward for fighting as hard as I had?
I remember my knee locking up when I stood. I had always had knee problems, ever since I was a little girl. I remember thinking that at least I wouldn't have to deal with that pain and annoyance for much longer, unless I did go to hell and, in hell, you had the same medical problems as you did when you were alive. Maybe they would even be magnified because, after all, it was hell.
I took a step towards the kitchen and stumbled a bit on the transition from carpet to tile. Oh, how I had stumbled in life. Look how far I had fallen.
I stepped into the kitchen and turned toward the knives which we kept near the refrigerator. I looked at the pictures on the refrigerator. I wondered what my little sister would do without me to keep her out of trouble and on the right path. But then, I realized, she was pretty smart on her own and I'm sure Liz would take care of her if I wasn't around. Liz was an amazing friend like that.
Then I started to think about how Fr. Bob had said 'it' was using me to get to Liz. Well, maybe with me gone, she'd be out of danger. She didn't deserve all of this. It was all my fault. Everything started because I thought it would be funny to fuck with her with a Ouija Board. Maybe even let her talk to JFK. Hmm, JFK. Maybe, if I go to heaven, I'd finally find out who shot him.
I neared the knives and I wondered how much it would hurt. Of course I knew the "right" way to do it on my wrists but would that be quick enough? Would Fr. Bob intervene? Should I just go for the gold and slit my own throat? Surely that would go faster. Maybe my femoral artery too just to be on the safe side.
I reached the block of knives and debated as to which one I should use. The serrated one? The big butcher knife? Damn, I'd probably have to sharpen the paring knife.
Just as I reached my hand around the butcher's knife (go big or go home), I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around. It was Will. He looked sad and kind of shook his head at me. I turned back around, ignoring him. Maybe if I was dead, I'd be able to talk to Will and, if so, maybe I could come back and give Liz some messages from beyond the grave. I mean, I knew it was possible, obviously. Will grabbed my arm tighter as I tried to pull out the knife. It was stuck on something.
I turned around again to face Will and gave him an angry look as if to say, "No, this is my choice." Somewhere, in the depths of my completely burned out mind, I heard a deep voice saying, "No. It's not. Believe me, it's not a good idea. Your mom and family will be devastated." I thought about this for a moment. Yes, my family would be devastated but, really, would they rather want to remember me as who I was or know me as some possessed shadow of my former self? I continued to yank at the knife, trying to get it free. Will's grip tightened. Again, I heard the voice in my head. "If you do this, it will shatter Liz's faith and they will go for her. You're the only thing that's standing between her and them. Do you want to do that to her? Stay and fight!"
This stopped me. If it was true that I was the only thing standing in the way of Liz and 'it,' then did I really want to assume even more responsibility for ruining her life even more? Perhaps, even, taking it in a very roundabout way? Did I want to go to Heaven or Hell with the knowledge that I knowingly was the catalyst in the ruining of such a wonderful person and friend's life? Did I wish upon her what I had been going through? Was it bad enough to completely disregard everything Liz had done for me and to pass the reigns off, so to say, to her?
No. Definitely not.
I took a deep breath and tried to let go of the knife. I couldn't open my hands. I heard a noise behind me and whipped around. This time, the knife slid out of the block with ease and it was firmly implanted in my right hand. It was Fr. Bob and I think I may have given him a heart attack. He put his hands up with the cross and the holy water and started talking very loudly, Latin prayer intermixed with English phrases like, "Sara, you don't want to do this." I wanted to tell him that I didn't mean him any harm – just that I couldn't let go of the knifes, but no words were coming out of my mouth.
I looked towards Will, pleading for help. He kind of closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate very hard. Very slowly, the air around him seemed to shimmer, similarly to when I saw it shimmer in the house. There, behind him, appeared two figures. The first one was a dear friend of mine from high school who, unfortunately died in a car accident. The second was my grandfather who had died when I was 11. Very slowly, I felt the grip on the knife start to ease up until, finally, it dropped to the floor. I kicked it away from me ala every cop show I've ever seen and put my hands up in the air.
I tried to explain myself but Fr. Bob didn't want to hear anything. He kept telling me to be quiet. In retrospect, I can only imagine how he perceived the evening. First, he gets a call that something he had thought he had destroyed was back in its original place. Then he gets a call that this semi possessed girl is rambling about dead ex's and demons naming themselves. Then he gets there and sees this girl who, I'm sure, looks like she just went through a hurricane or, at the very least, looks like she's possessed, studying demonic symbols in her car. Once he gets inside after puking, he sees the Ouija board, the same one that he thought he had got rid of, sitting on the coffee table, ready to go. Then he blesses her with holy water and it appears to burn her (though it didn't, at least not how it is assumed to hurt). Then he tells her to stay put but is afraid she is going to come after him. She does. He freaks. She goes to get a knife. She comes at him.
Poor guy.
I did. I felt bad for him. I felt bad we had involved him in this mess. I understood he didn't really want an explanation of why I was yielding a large butcher knife… but, at that point, didn't really care because I had seen what I did. My grandfather, who I love and miss dearly, and my good friend were on my side and ready to help. At least that's how I perceived it and that's all that really matters. You take hope whenever you can get it when you are halfway possessed by a demon.
Fr. Bob made me sit back down in the living room and started blessing me again. The screams started up again, but weren't as loud. I tried to stay perfectly calm while he prayed so he knew I was back in control, but the opposite effect happened. He thought that 'it' had completely taken over and was stronger than he had anticipated. I knew that was what was going through his head because I could see the fear and there was a change in his voice. He flipped some more pages and started reading a different text, this time with English mixed in. I heard a few "Begone, Satan"s and "The Power of Christ Compels You"s thrown in there and I immediately thought of how I said that to Liz and how terrifying it must have been.
I don't know if it was the exorcism/prayers or just the knowledge that someone, obviously sent from God (because my grandpa and my friend were two of the most amazing people I had the pleasure of knowing and, therefore, had to be sent from Heaven and not hell) was on my side. For Fr. Bob's benefit, I went back to pretending like the water helped, let my "agony" come to a grand crescendo, and then acted like everything was better. It's not that I didn't believe in the Exorcism or whatever he was doing, I somehow innately knew that I had the power to do this on my own, without the religious ritual. Sure, the extra prayers always helped, but whatever "resolution" Fr. Bob was waiting during the ritual for wasn't going to come. It had come when he was still in the bathroom when I saw my grandpa and my friend. I don't think Fr. Bob was stupid or dumb or anything like that, I just knew that he didn't have a full grasp of what was going on… (maybe because he wouldn't listen to me lol.)
After my "saving," Fr. Bob finally "allowed" me to talk about what was going on. I gave him the abridged version, all the while trying to figure it out in my head. We started discussing why 'it' may be going after Liz.
"I really think that it is trying to go after Liz because of her faith," Fr. Bob said. "She and her family are very religious and do a lot through their church to enrich people's lives. Their ministry is successful and I bet that doesn't sit too kindly with those who oppose God."
I could see the logic behind that. Liz's mother and father worked for their church in the small town in which she lived. Because the major industry in the area had literally dried up, many people were without jobs. Liz and her family, within their church, put (and still do!) on community dinners once a month to try to help out in any way they can. They organize lots of clothing and food drives. They opened up a tutoring service for industry workers who want to go back for their GED or go back to college. They opened up an after school program for kids who's parents had to work odd hours just to survive. They really were touching many lives and, as a result, most of the people they were helping were starting to come to church more often and had a more positive outlook on life.
I wasn't sure if that was the only reason, but Fr. Bob was adamant. Ok, whatever you say.
By this time, it was well past 2 in the morning and Fr. Bob said it was time for him to go home. He wrapped up the board again with his stoll and told me that, as long as I continued to pray and to have faith, the worst was over. He planned on getting rid of the board as soon as he got back to his place.
I watched him go and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw another flash of light, similar to the abandoned house. I turned in that general direction and was hit with one of my flashes.
Fr. Bob was wrong – the worst was not over – but at least I had more strength to keep fighting it.
In my head, I started to figure it out. There was something that connected Liz, Will, and I. If I could figure out what that was, then I knew I could figure out how to stop this. Plus, if Liz was as strong as Fr. Bob (and, honestly, 'it') led me to believe, I think she would be a great asset to have around to keep me grounded. I think Will had the answers but it was a matter of figuring out how to get it out of him.
I texted Liz and told her that I would be over soon. As I drove to her place, I glanced in my rear view mirror and saw Will sitting there, smiling at me.
Ready or not, here I come mother fuckers.
If Floppy was the last straw, this was the complete annihilation of the camel's back.
By the time I finally got to Liz's house, it was 2 in the morning. I walked up the 8 bajillion stairs to her attic apartment and saw that she had left the door open for me. All the lights were out but I figured she'd just be on the computer, downloading some kick ass songs for us to listen to in our insomnia. Liz has the absolute best taste in music. If she ever gets tired of winning millions of awards for acting, I constantly suggest she become a DJ. I hoped that she had downloaded some "pump up" music for our impending "battle" with whatever 'it' was because I was on the war path. I wanted 'it' dead… and not just dead… I wanted it completely and utterly destroyed and to dance on 'it's' ashes while singing "Jesus Loves Me" at the top of my lungs.
I walked through the door and up the other flight of stairs, pausing briefly at the cross in the doorway. Unlike mine, hers had only fallen that one time. Pretty soon nothing would be falling. I was pretty excited.
I got to the top step and looked to my left, expecting to see her at the computer. Nope, no Liz. I looked to my right, towards her bedroom. Nothing. Liz's attic apartment was a pretty small studio type place so there wasn't much room to hide. I glanced at the bathroom door – it was open and no one was in there.
Well, this is odd, I thought to myself and grabbed my phone to call her and see where she was. I tried not to let the sinking feeling creep into my stomach. There is a perfectly logical explanation of this. I kept telling myself that over and over again. I made one more visual sweep of the room while I waited for Liz to pick up. Not only was there nothing in the apartment, but she also didn't pick up. It went to voice mail. "Uh, Liz, I'm at your place. Where the hell are you? Call me."
I took a deep breath and tried to keep myself calm. She probably went out with some of her cast mates or something. No big deal. I tried to put on my detective's hat. I went over to her computer to see if she had been talking to anyone about plans. As the screen buzzed to life, I saw an open chat window (gotta love AIM). Torn between prying and worrying about where Liz was, I decided to read just what was in the window and not to scroll through the whole conversation.
Liz: Are you sure?
Liz: Ok. How do I get there?
Liz: I can do that but its going to take me a while just walking. Is it a right or left after Main Street?
Liz: Ok! I can't wait to see you! I love you!
Liz: Sure, I can bring that! Love you, can't wait to see you!
For a second, I was relieved that she was just going to a friend's house or something in town. And then I realized that there were absolutely no replies from another person chatting with her. Nothing. I looked at the top of the chat window to see who she was talking to and it said "Blank Message." What the fuck? I scrolled up through the conversation – fuck privacy at this point – and it was all Liz and no one else. It was like she was having a full on conversation with someone but I couldn't see any replies. I kept reading.
Liz: I am so sorry. For everything.
Liz: I love you so much.
Liz: How is this happening?
Liz: I get that part of it, but how? Like how does this work?
Liz: Ok, I can kinda see that I guess.
Liz: What really happened with the Ouija Board?
Liz: I didn't think so! It seemed like it but it didn't at the same time.
Liz: I can't believe I get to talk to you.
And so on. From what I could gather, Liz thought she was talking to Will… and Will was responding in a way only she could see. I was scared. I scrolled back down to the bottom to see if I could figure out where she was supposed to meet him. Aside from the "Main Street" comment, I had absolutely nothing to go on. Actually, the Main Street comment was unbelievably not helpful either because there were quite a few intersections on Main Street and she could have meant any of them.
I found myself back at square one and incredibly scared. I thought about calling Fr. Bob to come back and at least help me look for her, but decided against it for some reason. I honestly didn't think he could help. It had developed beyond his capability to help. I racked my brain for another friend or someone that could help me that would either A) believe me or B) just not ask any questions.
But then I had a sudden burst of brilliance. I clicked on the settings button and figured out how to add time stamps to the IM chat window. Score! She had sent the last message only 15 minutes ago. On foot, she couldn't have gotten that far. Main Street was at least a 10 minute walk from her place. There was a good chance I'd either see her on Main Street or be able to figure out which intersection she turned down.
I raced back down the stairs and got into my car. I turned the key. Nothing. I turned it again. Nothing. You've got to be kidding me. I don't do cars. I don't understand cars. If it doesn't work when I put the key in, I have no idea how to fix it. I usually cry when that happens and then yell at AAA to come and get me. I sat there in the drivers seat, defeated. For some reason, I glanced up and saw Will sitting in the back seat through the rear view window. I turned around but didn't see him. I turned back to the front and looked in the mirror – he was back! He smiled at me with a sad smile.
"Do you know anything about cars?" I asked, not expecting to get any sort of answer. He motioned for me to try it again. I did and the engine turned over! We were in business! "Do you know where Liz is?" I asked. He just pointed straight down the road. I started driving. I reached Main Street and he motioned to turn left. I did. I kept looking in vain for Liz on the side of the road. She couldn't have gotten this far. I looked back at Will who was pointing to the right. I turned onto a side street and kept going at a snail's pace, trying to catch a glimpse of Liz. The houses started to get further and further apart. I remember noticing how inky black the night sky was. It was creepy but I was determined to find Liz.
Pretty soon, I had driven 3 (very slow) miles on the side road. There was no way in Hell Liz could have gotten this far on foot in the time frame. I glanced back at Will but he wasn't sitting there anymore. Shit. I looked around and I didn't recognize anything. The trouble with going to college in a town in the middle of BFE is that you take a wrong turn and you are smack in the middle of nowhere. That's where I was. Up ahead, in the distance, I saw a house in the distance. I decided I'd go up to the house and turn around. As I approached, I saw a light in the downstairs window, but the house looked like it had been abandoned for years. Great, I thought, yet another abandoned house. Super.
I slowed down as I tried to turn around in their circular driveway when I saw a flash of a person in white to my left, near the house. I strained my eyes. It was Liz!
I threw my car in park so fast that the transmission (or whatever the hell handles the gears in cars… like I said, I know how to pump gas and put windshield wiper fluid in. That's the extent of my car knowledge.) made a whining noise. I flew out of the car and tried to make my way through the weeds and overgrowth of the place. I was stopped in my tracks by an overgrown rusty wrought iron fence. I hadn't seen it in the dark. Great. An abandoned house and tetanus. Oh, and a missing best friend. Best night ever!
I followed the fence until I finally found an opening about 20 feet or so down the yard. I had lost sight of Liz. I contemplated calling out for her but something told me not to make my presence known. I doubled back on the other side of the fence and went to the last spot I saw Liz. I didn't see her. I tried whispering Liz's name but it was like no sound could travel in the thick darkness surrounding me. I crouched there, silently wishing I had angled the car's headlights toward the house so I could see.
There was some movement to my right. My head snapped over and I saw Will standing there, pointing to the back side of the house. He almost looked angelic lit up by the tiniest bit of light coming in from the moon. Oh, a full moon. My luck was freaking awesome!
I kept low as I creeped through the weeds toward the back of the house. The house was huge, like someone had put on multiple additions at various times throughout the last century. I'm sure, in it's heyday, it would have been a beautiful house. With all of the weeds and overgrowth, though, it just looked creepy as hell. As I rounded the corner, I saw Liz standing near the back door to the house. She wasn't moving at all, just standing there.
"Liz!" I called out, trying still to be quiet. She didn't respond. I tried again. Nothing. I started to move closer and was nearly knocked over by one of the most powerful and horrific flashes I had yet gotten throughout this whole ordeal. (Someone asked me if I could feel the flashes along with seeing them. Yes, most of the times I could feel something too, but it was never that severe.) My head screamed in agony as flash after flash assaulted me. I tried to keep my eyes focused on Liz… tried to find the strength to call out to her but my whole body was being held down by something I couldn't see. In my agony, I saw her take a step toward the door. Again, I tried to call out to her. Something, anything! Nothing would work. I tried to look around for Will, but I couldn't see anything but the flash and about 15 glowing eyes in the bushes around me. It scared the shit out of me to be honest. I had never seen something like that before.
Finally, my foot found some leverage on the ground to somehow push me into a kneeling position. I finally thought I would be able to stand up and get over to Liz. I saw her take another step and I put all of my energy into my foot to try to propel me forward. My foot felt like it had broken through something and I fell back down. Whatever I had gained traction on had basically cracked under my foot.
It was only a few seconds later when I heard the sound of bees. Aww hell, not the bees again.
Suddenly, my body was on fire. It felt like I was being stung by a million bees. I couldn't scream. I couldn't move. I was face down in the weeds with a million bees tearing my body with their stingers. I couldn't see any bees, however, though I couldn't see much from my vantage point with my cheek on the ground.
In my head, I debated whether or not to just give up. I wanted to. Believe me. But then, all of a sudden, Will was there and he was lifting me off the ground. Where his hands were touching me, there were no bees. I tried to scream out Liz's name. This time, a semblance of sound came out of my throat. I saw her turn towards me confused.
"Liz!" I was able to croak out, "Help!" She started to rush over to me. As soon as she got within 2 feet of me, Will completely vanished.
"What the hell? What the hell happened? Where am I?" she yelled. "Are you ok?"
The stinging had started to subside and the flashes weren't as severe. I didn't answer her; instead I just grabbed her hand and led her to the break in the gate.
"No, where are we going? I think I figured it out!" she said, but I didn't really listen. I just kept going. "Sara, stop!" she screamed. I didn't pay any attention to her. I just wanted to get the fuck out of there. She stopped dead in her tracks.
"Seriously, Sara, stop! I need you to listen to me!"
"No, we have to get out of here, Liz. Please. Do you trust me?"
"Yeah, of course, but–"
"We need to go. Now."
We finally made it back to the car. I gunned it back towards town. Once we had hit civilization again, I pulled off to the side and looked at Liz. She looked extremely confused.
"Where were we? What the hell just happened?"
Turns out, Liz had prayed to talk to Will to see if he could help us figure out what was going on. She had yet to see him as I had and wanted to see him for herself to kind of prove that he was who he said he was. As she was praying, "Will" IMed her and they chatted for quite a while online. "It was just like the Ouija Board, Sara," she said. Towards the end of the conversation, "Will" asked her to meet him. However, the place "Will" asked her to meet him was not the same one that she had ended up. "Sara, I honestly don't remember walking that way. I remember getting onto Main Street and passing some drunk guy being pulled over by the cops because he was weaving his bicycle back and forth. I was supposed to meet him in the park, not 3 miles down the road."
I started asking her some more questions. It turns out she was there but wasn't really there. She saw a house but it definitely didn't look like the same house I saw. Something was definitely fucking with her. I explained the abridged version of what had happened with Fr. Bob and how we thought 'it' was coming after her. Poor Liz looked terrified. I would be too. I didn't want to tell her about how I almost killed myself. Let's keep her faith restored for now.
We got back to her apartment around 4 that night and went straight to bed. Before we both "fell asleep" (I use that term loosely because who in their right minds would sleep after something like that) I said I had a plan and we could talk about on the way to my mom's house for my sister's graduation party. We had had plans to go and party, then stay the night at my mom's house. Hopefully, it would be a respite for us.
We "woke up" that morning and Liz ran to the coffee shop to get us coffee. I didn't really want to set foot in that place ever again. When she got back, I hopped into the car and we started driving the 1.5 hours down to my mom's house. We started discussing our game plan. "Something connects me, you, and Will to whatever 'this' is," I said. "I don't know if he's your guardian angel, if he's just a regular ghost looking out for us, or what, but there's definitely a connection there. He is the only one that has been able to stop things. He was the one who pointed me toward that house you were at last night. If we can get him to talk, we can maybe get some answers."
I didn't really want to think of the alternative – that Will was really sent by 'it' to keep our spirits up. I mean, something posing as "Will" had convinced Liz to go to that random house in the middle of no where. Could the Will I've been seeing been just a tactic to screw with me? I didn't really have any option though – I had to believe he was there to help, not hurt us… and that 'it' knew about him and tried to use him against us. I hoped I would know the difference if the time came.
We started discussing ways to get Will to talk to us. Ouija Board was definitely out. Spirit Writing was definitely out. IM messages were out. We were kind of at a dead end. I didn't want to try to "summon" him for fear that I wouldn't be able to control who came through. We were quiet for a moment.
"There's always his phone," Liz said softly.
I was confused until she reminded me about the "original" Ouija Board night way back when. I was hesitant. Was that a stupid idea?
The depute over whether or not it was a stupid idea lasted until we pulled into my mom's driveway. We just couldn't really weigh the pros and cons of the idea. It's hard to do that when you don't know the pros and cons…
The party was a fun distraction for the most part. All of the adults got super drunk and the Karaoke machine may or may not have come out. Liz, as usual, put them all to shame when she sang, "Someone to Watch Over Me." How fitting. Haha.
The last drunk guest grabbed a cab around 2 in the morning and Liz and I went up to my room. I wanted to talk strategy some more but I was a bit more than buzzed and so was Liz. I figured talking about our spiritual fates at 2 in the morning while drunk was not the best idea in the world. I grabbed some blankets and got comfy on the ground next to Liz on the bed. We started talking about stupid drunk stuff and were laughing pretty hard until I felt the floor under me start to vibrate every couple of seconds.
"Did you feel that?" I asked. Liz asked what the hell I was talking about. I tried to dismiss it. It continued, however, and started to get more and more strong. "Are you sure you don't feel that?" I asked. Before Liz could answer, the door to my room was thrown open. We both screamed and I nearly dove into the bed with Liz out of pure shock.
I realized I had my eyes clenched shut and willed myself to open them. There was nothing at the door. What the fuck was going on?
It took me a few seconds but I finally made myself get up and go to shut the door. As soon as I turned back around, it flew open again. This time we didn't scream. I may have sworn a blue streak but I didn't scream. Seriously? This shit had followed me 100 miles?
Liz was right behind me as we crept into the hallway. I could hear my step dad drunkenly snoring in his room. My sister's door was shut but the light was on. We went and tapped on the door. She answered and we asked her if she had heard anything. She hadn't and, not so nicely, told us to leave her alone… my sister wasn't the most pleasant high school student…
We returned to my room and both sat on the bed. We started bouncing ideas off of each other as to what the hell we could do. Suddenly, it hit me. "When shit gets really bad, Will shows up. He shows up and he is able to help or to stop whatever is going on. Shit's obviously followed us here. If we can get it to get bad, maybe I will see Will and get him to talk."
We kind of agreed that, while a completely stupid idea, it was the only one that we could come up with. Liz insisted on praying before we started. I went along with it. I then started "provoking." "Fuck you and the horse you road in on," I yelled as loud as I dared as to not wake up my drunk parents. We giggled and I tried to get more serious.
"Seriously, you're fucking pathetic. Preying on two girls like this… I mean, aren't there more important people in the world you could gain something by bothering them? Oh, that's right, you can't because you're a fucking pussy!"
I tried to come up with the meanest stuff I could think of. As you can see, I am not a really mean person. I just used as many cliches that I could think of. Looking back, it was almost laughable.
I kept going, though. I was getting angrier and angrier. I could feel the edge of a flash and hope started to soar through my heart. I think I had pissed it off! I think it's going to get bad! Will's going to have to come to save us again!
I could see Liz out of the corner of my eye, ready to help in any way she could. I felt bad for her – things were a lot better at her apartment. She had never really saw how bad it could get. I probably should have warned her a bit better. The door ripped open again and then slammed shut. My bedroom window opened and a gust of wind came in. It was freezing cold, even though it was June. I could hear Liz muttering the Our Father under her breath, her eyes wide in fear. I kept truing to piss it off. "Jesus loves you, yes he does!"
We both heard a creak of my bed. We looked over and I heard Liz gasp. There, on the edge of the bed, was an imprint… as if someone had sat down on the edge of the bed. As a kid, that was one of my biggest fears in life. I had heard of a ghost story where a kid was in bed and felt his bed sag as if someone was sitting there. Scared the shit out of me. My other fear as a kid was looking in the mirror and seeing someone behind me… I didn't want to look at the large mirror over my dresser. I had a feeling I'd see something I didn't want to.
I turned the opposite direction of the mirror and happened to glance at the television. Like an idiot, I hadn't turned on my TV and, in the darkened, reflective screen, I saw someone sitting on my bed that, most definitely, wasn't there. The harder I looked, the more details I could see. It looked like the same guy from Liz's dream! Shit was coming full circle, or so it seemed
I could hear my heart beat thump faster and faster in my ears. It kept getting louder and louder until my ears were full of the rush of blood and I couldn't hear much of anything. Then, all of a sudden, the roar of blood was replaced with the screams I had heard when Fr. Bob was at my apartment blessing me. The flash hit me with all the force in the world, it seemed. My body was on fire. I couldn't hear anything. I tried to keep my focus but it was extremely hard. I felt myself drop to the ground.
Somewhere, in my semiconsciousness, I could feel Liz next to me, trying to snap me out of it. I couldn't focus at all on her. I tried to look around to see if I could see Will, but he was no where in the room.
I felt myself roughly thrown onto my back. I felt my arms go out to either side and seemed to be sucked into the floor. My legs went straight out and had the same feeling of being pulled into the floor. My vision seemed to flicker in between my actual room and the flashes like an old TV set with a bad signal. It had never been this severe before. One second I could see the terror in Liz's eyes and the next I would see her hung up by her neck, just like Will, bleeding through her eyes.
What happens next, I do not remember to this day. All I can remember are all of the horrific things that slammed through my head. I vaguely remember Liz grabbing me and pulling me down to the floor, screaming at me to look at her and pray, but that's about it.
The only thing I do remember is the moment I felt everything go quiet.
And, that, folks, is a story for Liz to tell you… the story of how we made it go quiet. She is currently working on it and we will update it when she is done.
So this is "Liz". I feel like an introduction is kinda necessary and polite. I have been reading all of the "Ouija Board" reddits, helped remember stories from that time period in our lives and remembered a lot of crappy ass shit that I had purposefully blocked. We didn't talk a lot about this stuff until recently because we were afraid that it would bring it back in force, so it faded into the echelons of my brain. That's why this took me so long to write – I had no one to help me remember this and this is definitely the one I blocked the most. Now, I just look back and think, "Wow! I can't believe we lived through this! This is some badass shit." Not tooting our (mostly Sara's) horns, but it's the truth. Hell yes to us!
I grew up SUPER Lutheran. My parents were religious studies majors that met in college, and my parents worked in the church my entire life. Ouija Boards were just not on my radar until I met Sara. When we decided to do it, I didn't think it would work. I wish it hadn't. Though through all the shit we went through, it did strengthen my belief that there is good and evil out there and that good always wins when you want it to.
And this is the story of our win.
I'll start where Sara left off. She was writhing on the floor, but her limbs were pretty stiff. That's not a good description but it was the weirdest thing I have ever seen. I tried not to be scared shitless because I knew she needed me. When you see your best friend basically fighting for her soul on the ground in a mock crucifix-like positioning, you sober up pretty quickly. Believe me. Those beers and shots disappeared.
I didn't know what to do. I knelt down beside her and tried to shake her awake. As soon as I touched her arm, her head snapped over to me and her eyes went black. Honest to God, they were black as night. She had this creepy smile on her face similar to the one time in my apartment with the water and the whole "The power of Christ compels you" thing… but this time it was scarier if that's even possible. Imagine a serial killer, serial rapist, terrorist, and sadist rolled all into one, sitting on an electric chair, waiting to die, and being asked if they had any last words. Now imagine them turning to the one victim who got away, the one who brought them to justice, and saying, "See you soon," with a creepy smile right before they pulled the switch. THAT'S kinda what it looked like. It wasn't Sara. I had no idea who it was but I knew it wasn't Sara.
I'll admit I recoiled a bit. Wouldn't you? But then I got my shit together. How dare this thing think it had the right to do this?! Sara was a great person and no one messes with my bff, especially because it wanted to get to me. You want me? Then come at me! If this is our fight, fight me, not her.
I grabbed "Sara's" (I use her name loosely here) arm again and started praying. I am not well versed in demon fighting. As religious as I may be, our primary focus is learning about God and shit, not about fighting demons. Praying is all I had in my arsenal until I could gage the situation. I shut my eyes so I didn't have to see the creepy smile and black eyes again and just kept praying. Any prayer I could think of. I just kept saying it over and over and over. Nothing was going to stop me. At least I thought nothing would stop me.
Over the sound of my voice and Sara's growling (best way to describe it, sorry), I heard a third voice in some language I recognized but didn't understand. I was a bit surprised to say the least. I briefly opened my eyes and saw Sara's mouth moving along with the words I was hearing. So, to recap, she was not only making these groaning noises but, on top of it, was speaking in some tongue. What the hell? Literally.
I also noticed that she was about 3-4 inches off the ground. Off the freaking ground, people! There weren't 10 girls around her with fingers stuck under her, she was levitating right there in front of me. I pushed her down and tried to continue to pray as forcefully and confidently as I could. I could feel her skin go cold and hot, back and forth, under my hand. Again, weirdest feeling ever. I caught a few words of what Sara was saying and recognized the language as some sort of old Aramaic that I had heard my dad speak a few times when he was doing his religious study projects but I still had no idea what was being said. I didn't think to brush up on my Aramaic before coming to Sara's sister's grad party.
I kept praying. What else was I going to do? I had to buy time so I could figure out a plan. I wished I could see Will like Sara. For a lot of reasons, but mostly because I thought he could help me figure out what to do. I wasn't really jealous, per se. I didn't want to see the crap Sara saw or experience all that stuff, but I did want to see Will like she did. That's when an idea hit me. If I could get a small bit of Sara back from wherever she was and could get her to see Will, maybe he could tell me what to do.
I noticed Sara had started levitating again. This time I had to put my body weight on her to get her back down. I had to go up on my knees and push her down to the ground. When I got her there, I stared point blank into the black eyes and creepy smile. I smiled back. I smiled like I would smile at Sara when she would be upset. I made myself stare and smile while I quoted the most comforting and reassuring scripture I could think of. Intermixed, I started telling funny stories of our escapades together. Pat Benatar, Walmart, and a lot more she didn't mention here. That's the best thing about our friendship – we had it really good and we had it really bad. When it was good, it was really good and the best times of my life. When it was bad, well, you know how bad it was. I kinda saw it like I was talking to a friend in a coma. Maybe something I would say would wake her up.
I kept praying and quoting scripture and just plain talking to Sara. The smile started to crack. Yes! I kept at it. Her face started to contort in anger. I just kept staring at "her" eyes and even brushed some of her hair out of her face so I could see her eyes better. "Sara" recoiled at my touch. Ok, something was working. I kept at it. Soon, I realized that her eyes were just a really dark poop brown, not black. I'd take poop brown over black any day. The Aramaic stopped. She was still groaning but at least she wasn't speaking in tongues. I kept at it.
I saw her eyes go wild and fear fill them. Yeah she was terrified but she was back. She started hyperventilating and her eyes were shifting all over the room. I didn't think she could move yet but I tried to be as calming as I could. I don't really remember what I said but it was something reassuring, I'm sure. I just had to get her to calm down enough to listen to me. She kept looking at something in the corner. I looked back but I didn't see anything. I kept talking to her and asking her if she could see Will. It was like it was going through one ear and out the other. I shook her again to get her attention. As soon as I saw her eyes focus on me briefly, I kept asking about Will. It was starting to get frustrating but I didn't want to scare her by getting angry. I kept at it and I think grabbed her face to force her to look at me.
I (Sara) just wanted to interject here. I do remember this vaguely. I felt Liz pulling me down and remember looking at her and being hella surprised at how calm she looked. The flashes had completely overtaken me but now I could kind of see my room again. Nonetheless, there was that guy from Liz's dream in the corner… or at least it looked kind of like him. He had the same face but his body was totally distorted. It was terrifying. It also looked like there was some sort of window behind him but, in my room, there was no window in that corner. Outside of the window was hell personified. I won't say that it was "THE" Hell, but it was what I would perceive to be hell. It scared the living shit out of me. I tried really hard to focus on Liz, but it was so hard. 1) I couldn't move and that was terrifying. I could kind of tilt my head and move my eyes, but that's it. I was afraid that the guy would come over at any moment and I wouldn't be able to run. 2) My whole body felt like it was burning from the inside. 3) I could hear so many screams and terrifying sounds in my head that I couldn't really react to. It felt like if I could just shake my head, the screams would go away but I couldn't do that. Fucking terrifying. 4) It felt like I was being pulled both into the floor and into the air by really cold hands. I just wanted to shake them off. I wanted to get away… but I couldn't. I wanted to focus on Liz but so much was going on that I couldn't. I started to get angry because I was like, "WTF!? I'm trying to move and need to focus on that, not on your bible passages, crazy lady. No, I can't see Will. I can't move! That's more important, don't you think!?" But, every time I felt myself get angry, the guy in the corner would move closer.
When I saw that she could focus on me more than for 3 seconds, I asked her in my most calm voice if she could see Will. She shook her head slightly. I asked her, begged her, to try. I just needed to talk to Will. She looked a few more times in the direction of the corner and I kept looking too. I swear I saw something, but I have no idea what it was. It was only a flash. Maybe I kept my head turned to long. I don't know. But when I looked back at Sara, her eyes were wide with fear and turning black again. I started with the Our Father and kept at it. No way was she going back to wherever she was. Not if I could help it.
All of a sudden the TV turned on to some fuzzy station. I guess it scared me. Well, I know it scared me. It broke my concentration and when I looked back at Sara, her eyes were black again and the creepy smile was back. I tried to smile back but she/it/whatever started talking. This time in English. Or at least I think it was English. I could understand it, but who knows. We could have been conversing in ancient Greek for all I know. The words coming from my best friends mouth were the lowest of low. All of my deepest, darkest insecurities were spewing out. Anything that I had once doubted about myself was out in the open with a creepy smile and laughter to boot. I tried not to listen but how can you not. Its not like I haven't heard it all before in my head when I've been sad but its different to hear it coming from the body of your best friend. It ran the gamut from the generic "You look fat in that outfit" to more personal stuff. I'm not going into it here but the next time you think something self deprecating about yourself, imagine your best friend saying it to you with a smile. It sucks.
I will admit I started to cry. I don't think you'd blame me. But to my credit, I got over it a lot more quickly than I thought I could. I stopped listening and just got pissed. She had risen off the ground again so I tried pushing her down. It was harder this time but I managed. I prayed some more and then just said screw it and started talking to it directly. To my surprise/horror/disgust, it started responding. I'm not going to even try to remember the conversation but it was pretty screwed up. It was like a test. It was never explicitly said that it was a test. But I had this overwhelming knowledge that if I said the wrong thing, if I wasn't 5 steps ahead of it, that I would lose Sara. And that was not happening. Period. We bickered back and forth quite a bit and I must have said something to piss it off because I could see the smile falter and a scream that sounded remarkably like Sara's come from somewhere in her body. It wasn't really through her mouth but it was from the general direction of her body. Sorry, I can't adequately explain it. I took that as my in to start praying again and talking directly to Sara.
Her eyes started getting brown again. Finally. I was tired but I kept going. The smile faded completely and Sara's wide eyed fearful grimace replaced it. She kept looking at the corner again. This time I know I grabbed her face and stopped her from looking that way. I tried to be calm but firm and tell her she HAD to see Will. I could tell she couldn't see him. So I tried changing tactics. I'm not a liar and especially not a liar to Sara but I thought if there ever was the time for it this would be it. I told her that I had summoned Will and that he was standing behind me. "Can't you see him behind me?" I kept asking? "He's right there!" He wasn't, or at least I didn't know if he was but something just told me to say that.
I saw her eyes "connect" with something behind me. Then they'd go back to the corner. I'd grab her face again and try to make her focus. "Did you see Will?" I asked. She nodded. Thank God. "Ask him what I should do." It went back and forth a lot. Her staring at him and then breaking her gaze and trying to look into the corner. I kept making her focus on Will behind me and started asking questions. Questions that would really only require yes and no answers. One blink yes, two blinks no. Stuff like, "Does praying help?" "Should I make it mad?" "Should I get the bible?" Stuff like that. There was a hell of a lot of other stuff too. This honestly took 3-4 hours because I'd keep losing her as soon as we got to the good questions and have to start all over.
Finally, I kind of understood what needed to happen. I still don't understand it to this day. I really don't. I wish I did because then I could help others but I don't. What I gathered from Will was that I had to basically meditate and pray and that he would do the rest. That seems simple just writing it out but imagine getting that from just yes or no answers while the room temperature fluctuated and the tv turned on and off and your best friend levitated. It wasn't easy. So I tried. I had never meditated before. I just tried to wipe my mind clear and focused on God and on the prayers coming out of my mouth. I won't get all religious on you. That's not what this is here for. You wanted to know the ending and the ending just happens to have a religious connotation for me. I cleared my head and kept praying and I had my hands on Sara's shoulders so she wouldn't float away again. All of a sudden, I felt this overwhelming calm sensation come over me and my hands seemed to buzz and glow. I felt the buzz go through my hands and into Sara's shoulders. Her eyes burst open and she stared at me with this confused look. If she could have tilted her head in confusion, she would have. As my hands tingled, I could feel a burning sensation come back through. It was like one side of my arms/hands tingled toward Sara and the other side burned coming back to me. I started seeing what Sara has called "flashes" in my head. I got pretty scared but I kept praying. I almost stopped. It almost stopped me. But I didn't. I don't know how I didn't. The only way I can describe it is that something more than myself made me continue to pray.
This went on for a few more minutes until the burning seemed to let up a bit and the tingling increased. In whatever circuit I had created, most of the "bad" fire stuff was gone… but it was in my head. The flashes got worse and worse. Its strange because I know I was saying stuff to Sara but I have no idea what I was saying. I could consciously feel my mouth moving and sound coming out, but I wasn't controlling it. At first I was scared that I was now possessed but realized the speaking was not a bad thing. The flashes were but whatever was coming out of my mouth was something that was good.
The words coming out of Liz's mouth were not hers. She had a different cadence to her voice and she said things that she normally wouldn't say if that makes sense.
All of a sudden, the "flashes" kind of exploded in my head. I could feel my body fall backwards and as hard as I tried I couldn't sit back up. I was terrified. Was I possessed now? But then I saw Will. I only saw him very briefly but he put his hands on my shoulders just like I did Sara's. And then I felt the flashes leave. I wish there were better words to explain this. As soon as the flashes were gone, so was Will. I couldn't see him any more. I looked over and Sara was there, curled up on the floor sobbing, but I could tell it was a good sob, not a bad sob. I went and joined her. We both just held each other and sobbed.
Over the sobs, I heard her say, "It's quiet, Liz. It's quiet."
We sat there for a very long time. We cried out years worth of pain and suffering, terror and fright. We cried until we couldn't cry anymore. We watched the sun rise. It was beautiful.
And then we made mimosas. We did it. It was over.
And that is our story. At first I was mad at Sara for telling this story because I was afraid to give the demon any power or credit for our misery. But I realized telling this could potentially help people and figured that was how we could spin this to make it a positive thing. So for God's sake, don't screw with a Ouija board.
So, that's it. Some residual stuff lingered after this "big fight" but nothing we couldn't handle. It seems to be getting a bit more frequent as of late, but after talking with Liz I think it's just because we told our story and it's pissed. If anything big happens, I will let you know. Thanks so much for reading and all of your feedback!