Deliver Us from Evil by Ralph Sarchie Read Free Book Online Page A

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.”
    When Luciana heard this, she flew into a rage at her sisters. “How could you play with that! You did this to us!”
    I can hear some of you out there saying “Hey, I used a Ouija board and nothing happened.” Consider yourself lucky, then.