Blessed Are the Wicked

by Steven A. LaChance

  “Daddy, what are you doing sitting out here on the porch?” Lydia seemed clearly puzzled as she saw me sitting there, and I am sure it might have looked strange to her. “Watching the sunrise,” I replied with a forced smile. “You are so weird sometimes,” she said, as she went back inside. She had no idea just how weird our lives were and how weird they could get. I couldn’t shake this feeling of danger ahead.

  You know that feeling you get deep inside that you just can’t seem to shake? That feeling that tells you all hell is about to break loose and you had better get ready for it? You know it is coming, but you are powerless to stop it. I looked over to my right, and I saw, just sticking above the grass, a can with something sticking out of it. I must have stared at it for a good couple of minutes, wondering what it could be. It was strange, because I had not noticed it there before. I got up, walked over to it, and picked it up. Inside the can was a dildo wrapped in a note. The note said, “Fuck you, Steven. I am coming for you and I am coming for your children.”

  I was in total shock at what I was reading. I thought it had to be some kind of sick joke someone was playing on the crazy, haunted guy. But for one moment in time, I could not move. Then I had to react. I hurried up and I buried it beneath a bunch of trash in the trash can, closed the lid on the can tightly, and went inside to wash my hands.

  Bill called me in the early evening. We had a case in Union, and from what he was telling me it sounded like a bad one, something about a child wanting to kill her infant sister. How in the hell do you deal with that? My first instinct was to say no and tell him to tell them to seek psychiatric care. I mean, that would be anyone’s first reaction.

  Then I remembered the calling card from the night before, which had sent me to the front porch until morning. I remembered my own children going through the nightmare they did. After what seemed like an eternity, I told Bill I would go check the case out. I could hear Zaffis in my head, telling me to be careful in everything I did. “Steven, it is very hard being in a case yourself and working cases,” he would often say to me.

  I knew that much of the emotional baggage I carried would go with me to this case, and I had to make sure that didn’t happen. Sometimes that is easier said than done when a small child is involved. Every time I look at a child who is going through hell, I see the faces of my children. It is a good thing and a bad thing, at the same time. It is emotional hell for me, but it is good for the child I am helping because I will go to great lengths to find a resolution. I have to deal with my own demons once again, after the case is over, and once again after everyone has gone home. Sometimes those are the worst of times. The memories and the guilt can be too much to handle.

  Bill called me back to let me know he had set up the consultation for the next night, He gave me the phone number and directions to what turned out to be a house in the middle of town. I told him I was going to take Preacher with me. We actually had a member of our team who was very close to becoming a Methodist minister, but he never finished fully. He was a tall, skinny man with piercing eyes and a good sense of humor. I always loved working with Preacher because he usually would get right down to business and to the point. He had a way about him that people seemed to respond to without question or argument, and if this was a case involving children, I was not going to have any patience with bullshit. The sooner we could get to the bottom of the cause of the happening, paranormal or non-paranormal, the better for the children’s sake.

  One thing I could always count on Bill for was detail. Detail is very important when you are going into a private case. You never want to go into a private case with your ass hanging in the wind. When Bill got a private case ready, I knew he had taken the clients through an extensive questionnaire that he went over with them, and which he would then go over with me. He would label any red flags he assessed during that interview so that I knew to be aware of these things. If at any point he felt there were too many red flags or there were danger signs involving the case, he would throw it out. He is an awesome case manager and it is an art very few people understand or can even do properly. I knew that when I walked into that house with Preacher, we were going to be ready for whatever came our way.

  The next night went precisely as planned. Bill’s directions took Preacher and me right to the front door of the house. The house smelled like someone was cooking dinner. All of these smells were mixing together, along with what I could swear was some pot mixed in, along with a strong odor of incense and Lysol. I knocked on the door. The husband opened the door, an average looking guy—white collar, I guessed by the way he was dressed. He seemed nervous as he asked us into the house.

  He offered us a seat on one of two couches in the living room, and he sat across from us on the other. Preacher immediately got down to business and started to question him. Now, things can go one of two ways with husbands from my experience. First off, there is the husband that believes that his wife and anyone else who tries to help are complete nut jobs. This is the guy I always feel sorry for because he doesn’t have a clue. However, we come across these guys quite often. Then, there are the husbands who have seen, heard, and witnessed something. These guys are the ones more than ready to talk. They will tell you anything as long as you can get the shit out of their house so their freaking life can get back to normal.

  This guy was a witness guy who wanted the shit out of his house. He had seen some shit, lots of shit. And this guy wanted to talk and talk and talk some more. The magic moment came when he asked Preacher what he could do to get his normal life back. I had to drop my head because we did not call him “Preacher” for nothing. And what Preacher had in store for this family was going to rock this guy’s world.

  “Well, what you need to ask yourself is, is my house in order? Would I be happy for Jesus to walk into my house today, or is there anything here that I would be ashamed of him seeing?” Preacher said firmly, looking him straight in the eye.

  At this point, the poor guy jumped up and stuff began to fly. He started filling Preacher’s arms with all sorts of things. Porn, alcohol, more porn, a bong, a pipe, more porn, another bong, more porn, more porn, a fifth of Jack, more porn, another pipe, and more porn. The guy looked around the room, exhausted. Preacher and I were in total shock.

  The guy looked around one more time and then suddenly dove for my feet. “Excuse me,” he said as he came up with more porn for Preacher’s already full arms. “There, that’s it,” he said, out of breath as he looked at Preacher proudly. “My house is now ready for Jesus. Is that it? Will the shit stop now?” Preacher, after asking for a bag and placing the non-Jesus items in it, began to explain to the guy it was going to be a little bit more complicated than that. The guy’s face turned white and he almost began to cry.

  “Listen, man, my wife isn’t acting right. Shit is walking around here. I had something attack me in my bed. And my daughter says her doll told her to kill her four-month-old sister. We need help here.” The guy was clearly crying at this point.

  Preacher set down the bag of items, went over to him, and put his arm around him. “Would you like to pray with me?” he asked. The man nodded yes, and they began to pray together. When the prayer was over, the man lifted his head and it seemed as if it had helped him. He appeared more composed and calm. Immediately, I felt a shift of energy within the room, which quickly drew my attention away from the husband. It was an almost instant coldness.

  The wife had entered the room.

  Preacher sat back down by me as she placed herself next to her husband. Instantly, I began to assess her. She looked horrible. She had sunken eyes, gaunt cheeks, and pale skin. There was no color to her skin other than gray shadows. I recognized her behavior the moment I saw it.

  She was cool, calm, and collected. She even admitted smoking pot without blinking an eye. “I need it to relax sometimes.” I was getting nowhere fast and I knew it. In the meantime, Preacher was setting up a time to go to church
with the husband, who was more than ready to throw himself on the altar at this point. We left the couple with the promise to return for further evaluation with equipment.

  I identified what the problem was. I knew the wife was possibly attached, and there was part of me that feared she might even be already under a possession, but I had no proof. If she was, the demon was playing a clever cat and mouse game with me. Part of me was also very worried because this house also was on the Cromwell addition of town. So, we could very well be dealing with the same type of thing we had dealt with at the Screaming House. I had the feeling she knew me, like she was looking through me. I was scared, because I was close to it and I also knew what it was capable of. I realized I was playing with fire. But in order to get the ball rolling, we needed evidence. We needed something to act upon. I decided to send Preacher back in a few days with a recorder to interview the wife without the husband being present. My thought was to shake up the game a little and to see what confirmation we could come up with. So, that is what we did. A few days later, Preacher and another male team member went to the house in the middle of the day to interview the wife alone. Preacher came back with the tape, and we sat down to listen.

  Recording Transcript

  Preacher: Can you tell me about your daughter?

  Wife: My daughter is four years old. I can’t keep up with her anymore. She is out of control.

  Preacher: Did your daughter say she wanted to hurt her sister?

  Wife: She did more than say it. I found her in the crib with her pillow over her sister’s face, trying to smother her. She said her doll told her to do it.

  Unknown Whisper: Do it.

  Preacher: How did you handle it?

  Wife: I panicked. I spanked her. I don’t think I am a very good mother.

  Preacher: Why do you say that?

  Wife: I don’t think I love my children.

  Unknown Whisper: Kill her.

  Preacher: You said, before we sat down here in the kitchen, that you don’t like it in here. Why don’t you like it in here?

  Unknown Whisper: Bitch. Kill her. Bitch.

  Wife: I don’t like the refrigerator.

  Preacher: Why the refrigerator?

  Unknown Whisper: I did it. I did it. Bitch.

  Wife: I find the door standing wide open all of the time, even after I just closed it.

  Unknown Low Voice: I opened the refrigerator.

  At that moment, I stopped the tape. Preacher was looking at me with his mouth wide open. “I told you, Preacher. I told you it was hiding from me,” I said, clearly excited. But who was I going to get to help solve the problem? I was not going to be able to turn to the Catholic Church for this one, for reasons that I am going to leave unsaid here. Some things should remain private.

  I had to think and I had to think fast. Then I remembered a friend of mine from Louisiana, named Rev. Martin Thompson. Reverend Thompson was a Southern Evangelist and an exorcist. I immediately got him on the phone and told him what was going on. I let him listen to part of the tape on the phone. He wanted me to send a copy of the tape to him through file sharing, which I did. Not even an hour later the phone rang, and he was on the other end of the line.

  “I am on my way, Steven. It is going to take me a day to get to you, but I am coming. Do not tell her I’m coming to perform an exorcism, but someone better have a serious talk with that husband of hers, because when I get there, it is going to hit the fan, the Lord’s fan, if you know what I mean.”

  We set the plans in motion, and I hung up. Preacher looked at me, as if to ask if everything was okay. “Everything is all right, Preacher. He is on the way. He will get into town tomorrow night, and we will go over there the next morning. You need to get ahold of that husband and school him on the ways of the Lord, because help is coming in the form of thunderous Holy Ghost power.” Preacher looked at me even more puzzled. “Just wait until you meet Reverend Martin Thompson. “

  Reverend Thompson hit town the next night, right on schedule. He checked into the local hotel and rested up to gain his strength for the next day. We were going to meet at Preacher’s house first, to say our hellos and to partake of Holy Communion before going to the apartment. To my surprise, Reverend Thompson called to ask me for directions to the Screaming House so he could get a look at it before meeting with us. I gave him the directions. I waited at Preacher’s and sure enough, right on time, Reverend Thompson pulled up and jumped out of his car.

  “That darn house you lived in, Steven, is about the spookiest place I have seen in a while. I pulled up to it and the darn front door opens up. Now, I am not sure if it was letting something out or if it was inviting me in, but I tell ya, I would like to take a crack at that one, if I ever get the chance.” There was no doubt in my mind that I was sure he would. There was also no question that it would be a fair fight. You could just feel the energy coming off of this man, and instantly I knew I had made the right choice.

  After we visited for a few moments, we got down to business. We discussed what we were going to do and how things were going to be handled. Then, the last thing we did was gather around the kitchen table, where the reverend administered Holy Communion. I have taken Communion many times before in my life, but this moment, in this small kitchen, it meant something. There was power in it. It was the raising of our armor before battle. At that point, it was the closest feeling to what it would be like to go off to war—just maybe a small inkling of how that might feel. At that moment, we were being fortified.

  When we got to the house, everything was seemingly quiet and actually serene. The husband had been instructed to tell his wife we were bringing in an investigator from out of town who was a specialist with this type of haunting. She seemed to be buying that idea. We were also instructed to refer to the reverend as Martin. The first thing Martin did when we arrived was turn off all of the power within the house at the power box. He then placed different gauges in different rooms. In the girls’ bedroom, he placed a temperature gauge, which we could read from the living room. While someone was talking outside with the wife, Martin came up to me and said, “Watch that temperature gauge and I will show you something real cool.” He was holding a crucifix in his hand as he headed into the girls’ bedroom. I was watching him on a monitor as he placed the crucifix on the “evil doll,” with a huge smile on his face. To my surprise, the temperature in the room started to rapidly drop. It dropped over twenty degrees in under a minute and then held steady.

  “See, looks like something ain’t right with that doll. We need to get it outta here. Either I get rid of it, or you send it to Zaffis for his museum.” He went into the bedroom and grabbed the doll. As soon as he left the room with the doll, the temperature immediately went back to normal. I sat there in amazement.

  The wife immediately saw what was in his hands. “What are you doing with that? Put that down.” Then the screaming and crying started. This went on for about an hour. The husband finally intervened. He removed the doll himself and put it in Martin’s car.

  We were now sitting in the living room, Martin beside me on the couch and the wife glaring at us from across the coffee table. She was pissed at both of us. “Will you hold this for me?” Martin calmly handed her a Bible, which she took without thinking about it. She didn’t even take the time to observe what she had been handed. She looked at the Bible in her hands and then looked at Martin, and it was clear at this point that the war had started. She drew her arm back with the Bible in her hand, and she slammed the book on the floor. “Now why would you throw a perfectly good book like that on the floor?” he asked her calmly, picking up the Bible.

  “I don’t like religion. I don’t appreciate it. And I don’t think I like you,” she said to him in total disgust, with eyes glaring.

  “That’s okay, but would you mind holding my crucifix?” The first thing that went through my mind was why in the hell would he give her
a sharp object to hold?

  “Keep it!” she said to him, immediately.

  It was about eight in the evening when the exorcism began. The ritual was very emotional at times. There was one critical moment when I knew the tables were turning. She began to cry and when she began to cry the whole room began to cry with her. I myself cried uncontrollably, and I am not sure even where it came from. Some will tell you it is when the Holy Spirit has entered the room, and that is when I noticed some sort of an energy shift had taken place. You could feel evil exit and God arrive.

  Call me crazy and say what you will, but I am just telling you what happened. At this point, the woman collapsed and we laid her down on one of the couches. Everyone left the room except for Martin and myself. Martin looked at me with the tears rolling down my face, and I looked at him with the tears rolling down his face, and he said, “Cool, isn’t it?” Then, all of a sudden the woman jumped up from the couch, pushed past everyone, and rushed for the front door. Martin yelled, “Catch her, Steven!”

  When I eventually caught her, she was doubled over outside on the front stoop. She was going to be sick and she was having trouble standing. I leaned down and I put my arms around her waist and I held her up as she began to vomit. She began to vomit up a black substance, continuously. I have never seen someone vomit so much in my life and I have never seen anyone vomit up this blackness that was pouring from her body. While she was doing this, I could feel the bones in her body begin to move. Her vertebrae, her ribs, everything was readjusting itself. She was cracking and popping beneath my arms and chest. I was completely blown away by the whole thing. When it was over, she collapsed like a rag doll in my arms.