Deliver Us from Evil (5 page)

DJ squirmed around, refusing to look his mother in the eye. “One time he talked to me at school, and I got in trouble with the teacher for not listening.” He paused again, then blurted out angrily, “I didn't really like Grandpa that much. It was very cold when he was around, and I felt funny inside.”

Although neither DJ nor his mother noticed any oddities about the apparition, I was certain this was another satanic impostor, trying to add to “Virginia's” credibility with its little plugs for her supposed goodness. Its uncanny knowledge of Gabby's childhood proved nothing, as the entire population of Hell has access to the events of human lives and can quote them when it serves the demonic purpose. Clearly this innocent child detected something disturbing about the spirit, even if he didn't have the words to explain exactly what it was. There's always some sign of the diabolic presence, even if it's not as obvious as a pair of cloven hooves.

Although the demonic can masquerade as anyone, even a saint, there's always some telltale sign—something wrong or out of place—if you know how to look for it. The Devil came to one of St. Francis of Assisi's followers in several guises, trying to destroy his faith. All of them failed, until Satan took the form of a crucifix. Pretending to be the Son of God, he told the pious man that his prayers and penances were pointless, as both he and St. Francis were already marked for damnation. The brother was deceived and lost his devotion to his spiritual leader until the saint reminded him the words of Jesus would never plunge a person into sorrow and despair but fill him with love and joy.

St. Francis then told the brother how to unmask the enemy of his soul. The next time he saw the false crucifix, he should command the figure of Christ to “open Thy mouth.” Since the Devil can't speak through Jesus' lips, he was instantly exposed for the foul liar he really was, and departed in such fury that huge stones rolled down a nearby mountain, striking each other with terrible force and igniting a blazing inferno. The brother begged God to forgive him for listening to the Devil. The real Son of God then appeared to him and said, “Thou did well, my son, to believe in St. Francis; for he who made you so unhappy was the Devil.” So sweet were these words that the brother became enraptured by God and never again doubted his salvation.

In a similar way, I advise people to ask spirits who pose as departed relatives, pitiful ghosts, saints, or even Christ Himself to say “I love God.” That's something the demonic will
never
do, so the satanic power is sure to be exposed. Or you can simply order the spirit to leave in Jesus' name—this command has power over the forces of darkness but no effect on human spirits. It's also important to remember the lesson St. Francis taught: Holy spirits make you happy, while demonic ones bring misery, conflict, terror, and hatred to your life.

That was certainly true here: After the grandfather's ghost appeared, the attacks on Luciana intensified from one assault a day to many, at completely unpredictable intervals. The future bride never knew when she'd be punched, kicked, flung on the floor, dragged out of bed, bitten, or yanked around by her hair. Her life became a living hell, as she was brutalized in every imaginable way. Earlier in the interview we'd seen how raw her nerves were, and now we knew why. Because she was attacked night after night, in order that the demon could feed on her fear and gain power over her mother, she was angry, exhausted, and on the edge of complete despair.

Put yourself in that house for a minute, and try to imagine what it was like for this young woman and her family. It's late at night, and you're in your own comfortable bed. But you know there's something evil in your home with you and lie awake, scared witless, just waiting for something to happen: Will you be attacked—or will a loved one be? Then you hear your daughter screaming. Your legs can't carry you fast enough, your heart is racing, and you can't breathe. That's exactly the horror this family endured, twenty-four hours a day, for nearly three hellish months.

So they stopped sleeping in their separate bedrooms and huddled together in the living room, in sleeping bags and makeshift beds. Even then rest was fitful and unrefreshing. Midnight screams punctured what little sleep they got, as the foul force clawed its bloody mark on Luciana and terrorized the other family members. Their possessions were flung around like trash: The future bride's cherished collection of clown dolls was repeatedly found on the floor, and her books kept flying off their shelves, sometimes striking nearby walls so violently that they left dents in the plaster. Stranger still, Gabby found that the silk flowers she kept on her dresser had mysteriously left their vase—and arranged themselves on her bed in the shape of a cross.

Heavy furniture began to move on its own, shaking up and down as if from an earthquake or levitating off the floor. Large chairs—or on one occasion, Luciana's bed—started flying around, smashing into walls, and knocking the family's pictures to the floor in a hail of glass. The demonic also used other terrorist tactics: One of the most unnerving was the way the TV or stereo would suddenly blare to life in the middle of the night, at full blast. Horrible moans and growls were heard in the basement, and on some mornings, creepy messages would be found on the bathroom mirror, Ruth said. “Several times we found the word ‘help' written backwards on the glass.”

Too scared to be alone, even when using the toilet or standing naked in the shower, they took to visiting the bathroom in groups. There was some safety in numbers, Ruth explained. After she was twice menaced by flying objects—a box of tissues that struck her in the face when she was in the basement by herself and a can of peas that levitated off a kitchen shelf and just missed the back of her head—she asked her future daughter-in-law to stand guard as she took a shower. “I was drying myself off when Luciana shouted ‘Watch out!' I ducked and a heavy soap dish came flying over the shower door and smashed into the wall behind me. If she hadn't warned me, I'd have definitely gotten clobbered! Whatever this thing is, it has a lot of power!”

Ruth also noticed that the infernal force had a peculiar effect on her body. “When it's around, I'm one of the first people to get cold and start shivering uncontrollably. If something is starting to happen to Luciana, I feel like needles are poking my thighs, and my leg muscles go crazy. Several times this happened when she was in another room, and I didn't have any way of knowing she was getting scratched or bitten. The time she was pulled from her bed by her hair, just before the attack, I saw a white bullet—or a white ball—streak by.”

There was only one pattern to the violence, the bride-to-be added. “When stuff happens to my mother, I usually get hit.” Seemingly worn out by the effort of getting these words out, she sagged wearily back in her chair. I could see what a toll this waking nightmare was taking on her: The circles under her eyes were as dark as bruises, and she spoke haltingly, like an old person with a chronic illness. Her fiancé gave her a comforting squeeze, only to have his hand brushed away as if it were an annoying insect.

Although he seemed a bit stung by the rejection, Carl didn't remark on it. Instead, to give us a better idea of Luciana's suffering, he showed us a handwritten diary of the attacks he'd started keeping right after Dominick called the exorcist, hoping a written record would help with our investigation.

Here's how his tormented fiancée and her family spent Halloween night:

   6:20 P.M.
Luciana slapped twice in face.

   8:03 P.M.
Ashtray flew across bedroom.

  11:28 P.M.
L. scratched on stomach, in the shape of “N.”

  11:31 P.M.
L. pushed into wall.

  11:39 P.M.
Circle scratched on L.'s face.

  11:46 P.M.
L.'s head slammed against the table.

  11:48 P.M.
L. dragged off chair.

  11:52 P.M.
Heard growling.

  11:56 P.M.
Chair moves across dining room.

 12:05 A.M.
L. knocked into Ruth.

   2:14 A.M.
L. yanked out of bed.

   2:16 A.M.
L. punched in stomach.

   2:17 A.M.
L. pushed off chair again.

   2:18 A.M.
Flash of light, rotten egg smell.

   3:15 A.M.
L. hit on head with a shoe.

   3:56 A.M.
L.'s fingers pinched.

Sitting up from the near stupor she'd fallen into as we were reading this, Luciana said that yesterday had been even worse. “I got really scared. The mattress I was sleeping on was lifted a foot or two in the air, and I was thrown to the floor. I saw something horrible, sitting there laughing at me. I'd seen it once before: a white creature that was hairy all over, with no eyes, just awful black eye sockets that stared and stared at me. I tried to kick it away from me—and it gave me the finger! Then it vanished!”

The monster, now invisible, laughed again—a horrible snicker that raised every hair on Luciana's body in dread. “Then something forced my legs open. I was trying to scream ‘Help!' but no words came out of my mouth. It was like a nightmare. My father, Carl, and Ruth all tried to push my legs together, but they couldn't. Then it let go.” Knowing how incredibly bizarre this sounded, she turned to her boyfriend in tears. “Carl—you saw it too! Right before it disappeared.”

We'd gotten there just in time. This sickeningly perverse fiend was planning an incubus attack, the rape of a human female by a demon! This young woman had no idea of what a grotesque violation she'd so narrowly escaped! Had we not arrived when we did, there's no doubt in my mind that she eventually would have been molested in an unspeakably vile manner.

Carl confirmed everything she had said, then added that there had been other Halloween horrors. Turning to the next page in his diary, he described how he and his fiancée had gone out for cigarettes around 4:00
A.M.
, since Gabby had run out. No one in the house could sleep, because the attacks were going on twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. That's the M.O. of the demonic—when sleep is virtually nonexistent, the victims are constantly on edge, making it easy for the evil spirit to stir up discord between the exhausted family members. These strategies also help break down the will which enables possession to take place.

While he was in the store and Luciana was waiting in the car, a rubber ball hanging from his rearview mirror spontaneously burst into flame. Luciana tried to put the fire out, then beeped the horn frantically until Carl came running out, threw the burning ball on the ground, and stamped it out with his feet.

Back at house, he settled uneasily down to sleep. Just as he was finally drifting off, Carl had the chilling feeling that someone—or something—was lurking nearby. “I tried to ignore it, because I was really tired and needed rest. My body got paralyzed and I couldn't move at all. I heard Luciana scream ‘What's it doing to you, Carl?' It released me, and I nodded off again. It came back later that night, and the second time was much worse. I felt something crawling on my right leg, then it ‘entered' me. I was shaking all over, especially my hands, trying to fight it off.”

He actually felt an alien presence inside his body. I've heard several descriptions from people about what this feels like. Some victims say it becomes difficult to breathe, as if someone were pressing a hot rag over their face, while others feel heavy pressure on their chests, paralysis of their entire body, or electricity coursing through them. Some people have a combination of these sensations. The one thing all of their descriptions have in common is the utter fear the demonic presence evokes, which is what these evil spirits thrive on.

As Carl described the attack, I realized he'd experienced the very thing the ancient Druids dreaded on Halloween: becoming possessed by one of the ravenous spirits that roam Earth, looking for human bodies to inhabit. “For a second, it slipped out of me and I relaxed,” he said. Too soon, as it turned out: “It came back in and lifted my whole body off the bed. The next thing I knew, I was talking in different languages—and fighting with everything I had. I passed out and don't remember anything else, except that it was gone when I woke up.”

Shaken to his very soul, he asked Gabby to see what light “Virginia” could shed on this ghastly invasion. Predictably, the diabolic force had an ominous answer: There were now five demons in the house, it warned the mother. “She said they wouldn't leave unless blood was drawn! Supposedly, they'd gotten rid of the ‘good poltergeist' and now they wanted the ‘girl child'—my daughter Luciana!”

Even my normally impassive partner was shocked. With uncharacteristic anger, he thundered, “Nobody's going to get Luciana, so there's no problem there!”

But where were all these evil spirits coming from? As we conducted the interview, we kept hearing doorknobs rattling in empty rooms. Each time the entire, exhausted family seemed to come alive, offering further proof that this wasn't a case of mass hysteria, as skeptics might argue, but a house where no one escaped demonic attack—not even the family dog, who jumped at the eerie noises, whining and barking.

Joe asked if anyone present had played with a Ouija board. The two teenaged sisters both confessed that they had experimented with this practice at a party, asking silly questions about whether certain boys liked them. “The board answered us ‘yes' or ‘no' but didn't say anything else interesting, so we put it away,” explained the middle sister, a slender brunette named Monica. “That was the only time, I swear!”

With a stern look, my partner explained that that was once too often. “There's no guarantees when you cross into the psychic dimension. I don't blame you for not knowing this, but when you play with a Ouija board, you open a door—and could meet pure evil on the other side.”