Hell in the Hallway

This is a true story about what I had to do to get rid of the demons that were in my house.

Hell in the Hallway

            I grew up believing in ghosts.  Ghosts were merely friendly and harmless spirits of dead people, or so television, magazines, and books made me think. As such, I brushed it aside when I heard my mother, diagnosed with Alzheimer's talking to thin air in the fall of 2015.  She assured me that she was talking to the people in heaven.

            One Friday afternoon in late February 2016, she was hospitalized for pneumonia.  That evening, as I was preparing for bed, a ball of white light shot across the foot of my bed.  Stunned, I dropped my toothbrush.  I was just tired, I thought.   I had not had much sleep for the past few nights, and I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.  The following night, as I lay in bed, a white light shone out of my mother's bedroom, and I heard her voice calling my nickname, "Eve!"  But it was impossible for her to call for me since she was still in the hospital.  I fell into a light sleep and was jarred awake by a big, hard rectangle-shaped object that hit the foot of my bed.  I thought I felt my mother's coffin.  I looked at the clock; it was just past one in the morning.

            The next day, I mentioned the situation to my pastor.  He said, "If you see something dark, it is bad." Since I had not yet seen anything dark, I did not take the situation seriously.  The pastor's wife instructed me to read Psalm 91 aloud, which I did.

            For several nights after that, I could hear footsteps in the hallway outside my bedroom; they started at my mother's bedroom door and continued down to the end of the hallway.  At first, the footsteps would make only one trip down the hall and back, but over the next several weeks, the footsteps continued.  They went on through the night, often waking me from a sound sleep.  Moreover, the footsteps sounded exactly like those of my father, who had died when I was in eighth grade. 

            Following a third hospital visit, Mother was transferred to a nursing facility in March 2016.  Moreover, I lost my job on March 15, 2016.  Now that I was alone and broke, the footsteps escalated.  It was Dad, I told myself.  Maybe he was looking for Mother, or maybe he was concerned that I was home alone.  One night, I spoke to the footsteps, "Dad, I need to sleep now,” and the footsteps ceased for that night.  I then realized I was dealing with something intelligent enough to respond to my requests.  However, on subsequent nights, the footsteps returned.  On a few mornings, I woke up with scratches on my back. Since I have allergies, I blamed them on me scratching in my sleep.  Oddly, the scratches seemed to occur whenever the footsteps occurred.

            One day in late April 2016, I watched a television program led by Adam Blai, a Peritus (expert) of the Catholic Church.  Blai stated that demons often pretend to be ghosts.  Finally, this situation was starting to make sense.  I had a demon in my house.  That same day, I smelled a strong odor of urine in the house.  I did not know how it could be possible, since I had cleaned house after Mother went to the nursing home.  I cleaned the toilet and mopped the bathroom.  The urine odor remained, but now it was a sort of cloud that moved from room to room.

            That night, I went to bed as I normally do.  Even though I was alone in the house, I could sense that someone was watching me.  I heard the footsteps again, but this time, a dark gray shadow in the shape of a man wearing a large hat appeared.  The hallway was dark, and the shadow man was visible because a putrid green light emanated from the figure itself.  The body of the shadow man was no thicker than about six inches.  I did not see eyes or a face, only the outline of a long, hooked nose, a wide brimmed hat, and a trench coat.  Slowly, it took a few steps down the hall and stopped in front of my bedroom door to stare at me for several minutes.  Even though it did not have eyes, I knew it was looking at me.  It spoke without words, directly into my mind.  "You brought this on yourself with your envy.  This is your fault."  Then, it walked down the hallway toward the bathroom.  I got out of bed and turned on all the lights in the house.  All of the doors were locked, and the burglar alarm system was on, so no human being could have broken into the house.  I panicked and called my pastor.  Since it was now 1:15 AM, I left a message, "Help me, it's dark, it's bad!" I screamed.  I read Psalm 91 aloud and went back to bed.

            I had only been in bed for about two minutes when the shadow man returned.  I felt a fear such as I had never felt before.  This time, I jumped out of bed and ran to the china cabinet.  After several minutes of frantic searching, I found a plastic cross and put it by my bed.  The shadow man did not return that night.  This result convinced me that I was being tormented by a demonic spirit.

            At church the next day, I described the situation to my pastor and his wife.  The pastor gave me a wooden cross to wear around my neck and said, “Leave it on."   His wife gave me the following Bible verses to read aloud:  Psalm 91, Psalm 121, Philippians 4: 4-7, Isaiah 12:2, Proverbs 35:6, Psalm 3:5, Psalm 4:8, Psalm 34: 4-7, John 14:27.  Both the pastor and his wife prayed with me.  After I got home, I read all of the Bible verses aloud, and the pastor's wife prayed with me again over the phone that evening.  The situation in the house seemed to calm down after that.  I continued reading aloud the Bible verses, and for three nights, I saw no more of the shadow man.

            On the fourth night, the shadow man returned and brought with him a second shadow man.  I then knew that more than one demon was tormenting me.  I needed more help than I was getting.  I found a second cross in the china cabinet and placed it in the hallway.  I also put a night light in the hall, so that the shadow man would have no place to hide.  Later that week, the pastor came out and prayed over me and performed a house blessing.

            For the next few days, all was quiet, and I saw no more of the shadow man.  My cat gave birth to three kittens, and the new feline family reclined on the couch on my closed-in back porch.  When I went to check on the cats, I heard a loud scratching sound coming from within the walls of the porch.  I turned to face the noise while wearing the cross around my neck, and the scratching abruptly stopped.  To me, this was further confirmation that I was being plagued by a demon.  I then went downstairs to build a fire in the fireplace.  On the wall, a dark shadow in the shape of a two-legged cat or weasel moved.  It was about one-third of the way up the wall and simply vanished. Later that evening, I could hear a voice in my mind.  "You can't support yourself.  You can't earn money. Commit suicide so your mother can have your life insurance money. Take all of your mother's pills and put them in three pudding cups."

            I replied back, "No, I will not commit suicide.  I can earn money.  I will work and support myself.  I write for a magazine.  My magazine will not pay for my articles after I am dead."  Little did I realize at the time, but I opened up a door for the demonic.

            I called the pastor's wife, and she prayed with me over the phone.  Later that summer, the pastor who had been supporting me received a promotion to District Superintendent, and my church got a new pastor.  A neighbor who had been a sex offender died, and the demonic activity came to a temporary stop. During the summer months, my boss gave me a new job, and life at home was serene.

            In early October 2016, the weather forecast called for a sudden burst of cold weather.  Autumn was approaching rapidly.  After an afternoon of moving plants from the front porch to a back bedroom, I was very tired.  However, heavy footsteps in the hallway and loud thumps in the basement disturbed my rest.  The heavy footsteps returned for a second night.  Kathy who is a registered nurse and my dentist's wife, had experienced something similar, and she suggested that I dip my finger in olive oil and make crosses throughout the house, which I then did.  I had a peaceful night, and had peaceful nights for about a week and a half.

                        The week leading up to Halloween was difficult.   On Wednesday night, I heard footsteps in the basement.  At 2:20 Thursday morning, the demon ripped the covers off the bed.   My extra blanket was crosswise at the bottom of the bed.  In the wee hours of Friday morning, the demon hit hard on the bottom left side of the bed, causing it to skid.  On the day of Halloween, I received two phone calls where nobody talked, the first at 9 AM, the second at 12 noon.  The demon seemed to be doing things in threes (Adam Blai suggested that demons often mock the Holy Trinity).  When I went downstairs to do the first of several loads of laundry, I heard the first of two thumps in the basement; I was the only person present at the time, and there were no cats.  Later that day, Blossom, my four-month old kitten, came downstairs to watch me.  The second thump occurred while the cat was sitting there.  Again, I dipped my finger in olive oil and made a row of three olive oil crosses.  The one in the center was smudged within minutes.  When I returned to the basement later that evening, all three of the crosses were gone; they seemed to have been erased without a trace. 

                        Kathy suggested that the demon would have to be removed in layers and recommended spraying both the house and myself with Holy Water.  I called a local Catholic church, and the nun I spoke with suggested spritzing Holy Water on my face at bedtime.  My boss picked up some Holy Water for me from a Catholic church.  For months, the only way I could sleep at all was to spray Holy Water on my face before going to bed.  In early November, the new pastor came to bless the house and suggested that I call 911, but I told him this was not a problem for 911.  The house was serene for a few weeks.

                        I had been reflecting on how the demons could have entered.  When I was about eight years old, I asked my mother if she had ever seen a ghost.  She said, "Listen up.  I am only going to say this once.  There was a big black shadow in the basement right before my father died in 1973."  This made me wonder if there was a problem with the property itself. 

                        I remembered when I was a child and stayed at my grandmother's house.  I went to the back bedroom to select a game.  I looked at the checkers and dominos games, and then I saw another: an Ouija board.  Joyfully, I grabbed it.  "Grandma, let's play this."

                        My grandmother was horrified.  "Put that back! It's very dangerous!"  I rushed to put it back and got the checkers instead. I never touched the Ouija board again.

                        During the first week of December, both the senior and assistant pastors visited. It was sort of a confession, and I mentioned the Ouija board to them.   Also, when I was a small child, I remembered something I heard frequently: "We did not love you before you got here, but we love you now."

                        When I was in my teens and cleaning up at home, I found a map to a health clinic in Pittsburgh.  Then, when I was a senior in high school, my brother and my mother were arguing because my brother wanted to mother to give his friends hunting permits.  When I said something to defend my mother, my brother said, "I can say something that will knock you to your knees.  Your mother wanted to abort you.  I talked her out of it."

                        Later, my mother and I talked about what happened.  Mother said, "No, it really was not your brother who talked me out of the abortion.  Your father talked me out of it.  Your father said, 'If you do this, you will never know what she would have been like.'" When I asked about the map, Mother told me that on the day she found out she was pregnant with me, the doctor gave her a map to an abortion clinic in Pittsburgh.  I forgave my mother and appreciated my father more after that.  When both the senior pastor and the associate pastor came for a visit in early December, I discussed my reflections with them.  They sat in my living room, asked me how the statement 'We did not love you before you got here, but we love you now' made me feel, and offered a quick prayer. The pastors informed me that I was "playing with the demon by sprinkling Holy Water" and instructed me to stop sprinkling Holy Water. The pastors also informed me that since I had been baptized as a child, I could not be baptized again.  They offered a Renewal of the Baptismal Covenant, and I accepted.

                        For a few days, life was calm.  Then, the situation began to escalate.  One day in mid-December, I returned from a business trip to find one of the kittens dead.  Since the kitten had not been sick, I grew more suspicious that something supernatural was going on here.  I was feeding the cats on my closed-in porch when a loud whistle startled me.  No human being was around to make that sound.  Another day, I was feeding the cats on my enclosed porch, when I heard a loud wolf whistle.  Even the cats appeared startled at this. 

                        Later that week, while I was in the basement adding wood to the fireplace, I heard footsteps upstairs.  I had locked all of the doors, and had the burglar alarm on, so it could not have been an intruder. When I looked upstairs, there were no cats that could have made the sounds.   

                        That night, when I was in the shower, something was pounding the bathroom door.  I thought one of the cats had gotten upstairs.  Dreamsicle, my orange cat, liked to watch the shower spray water. "Hey Dreamsicle, stop playing, I said."  The pounding intensified.  The demon was beating the door so hard that I could see the door moving.  I called out, "Jesus, help me."  The pounding slowed down.  I kept it up.  "Jesus, help me.  Jesus, help me."  The pounding stopped.  I got out of the shower and looked around.  There were no cats, but there were two cloven hoof prints in the upper right corner of the bathroom door. 

                        The next day, I phoned a friend who was also a pastor and explained to him what was happening.  While I was on the phone with him, small clouds of a urine odor floated by my head and down the hallway.  "It is a demon," he said.  "The fear you feel is demonic oppression." He said that he was somewhat familiar with demonic oppression, but did not feel comfortable coming to the house to confront the demonic force.

                        After the first of the year, I called the wife of my dentist, who offered to perform a deliverance ministry. The deliverance ministry team offered to come on Friday, February 3, 2017. By that time the activity began to escalate again.  One evening while I was on the recumbent bicycle on my enclosed porch, white lights began flashing at me and only went away when I said the Lord's Prayer aloud.

            The night before the deliverance team came, I had a hard time sleeping. The demon hit the side of my mattress in the middle of the night, waking me from a sound sleep.  The team was composed of Kathy, another woman, and one man who was a pastor of a church.  As soon as I opened the door, the smell of death and stale urine confronted them. I described my experiences to them. Then, I said, "I have never played with a Ouija board, but my grandmother played with one many years ago," The pastor said, "There's your problem.  Your grandmother opened a spiritual door to evil."   The team and I had Communion.  Then, there was laying on of hands. As Kathy placed her hands on my shoulders, the other woman began singing.  The pastor began to pray.  At the beginning of the singing and praying, I could hear none of the words.  Instead, I could hear the demon saying, "She's mine, she's mine, she's mine," in my head.  The woman clasped my cheeks in her hands and held my head steady.  "It's not your fault," she said.  This was the truth, and the demon stopped trying to get in my head.  The pastor then prayed some more and began walking throughout the house. He went in the hallway and wrote things on his hand, then prayed the words:  "Spirit of death, you have been trying to claim her since before she was born.  You tried to claim her thorough abortion.  You are trying to claim her now.  You have no right to her. Leave this place. We are closing the door.”  

                        Suddenly, the room became lighter, and the house smelled fresh.  The deliverance team anointed the whole property with oil from the Holy Land.  The pastor explained, "There were four demons: the spirit of death, the spirit of torment, the spirit of torture, and the spirit of intrusion.  The demons are gone and the doors are sealed."

                        That night, I dreamed that the devil threw the four demons into a giant cauldron.  Red and orange flames leapt from the cauldron, and there was a huge fire burning under it.  The demons melted away.  I awoke the next morning with muscle pain all over my body, and I coughed up blood.  The bleeding stopped later that day, and the pain subsided by the next day.

                        One night in early April, I turned in early because I had to go to work the next day. As I was sleeping, something smacked the bed and scratched me. Another night that week, something pulled at the covers around my face. When I yelled, "Jesus, help me!" the activity stopped. I again showed Kathy the scratches. She said, "It is new demons. I will contact the deliverance team." As I left her office, I felt perfectly fine. I went out to lunch and to the library. I planned to go from the library to the church for dinner and an informal service.  About 30 seconds after leaving the library, I began to feel dizzy. I asked a passerby to help me walk to the church. After I got into the church, I felt fine.  I called Kathy again and informed her of the situation.  "This thing did not want me to go to church," I said.  The deliverance team prayed for me.

                        I arranged with my pastor to have a Renewal of the Baptismal Covenant.  The renewal was performed on Easter Sunday 2017. As I was leaving the church, the Holy Spirit urged me to touch the Holy Water and to make a cross on my forehead; I did so. I felt peace and joy.

            My thinking and way of life have changed because of this experience.  I no longer believe in ghosts.  Instead, I believe in the awesome power of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.  God allows corrective experiences to enlighten and teach His children.  What I thought was a ghost, were actually four demons.  The shadow men may have been tall, but the God I serve is bigger! I have grown closer to God and deepened my relationship with Him because of this experience.

            I wish now that I had done things differently.  I wish I had never spoken to whatever produced the footsteps.  In Deuteronomy 18: 10-12, the Bible says that the living must not seek to interact with the dead.  Saul died because he consulted a medium for guidance (1 Chronicles 10: 13).  

            Yet much of mainstream media appeals to our curiosity about interacting with the dead, with numerous television series focused on such attempts, sometimes using Ouija boards, sometimes using electronic devices.  Moreover, children want to experiment with the occult, most recently, with "Charlie, Charlie", a game that only includes two crossed pencils and a piece of paper with the words "yes" and "no" written on it'; simply by saying the words, "Charlie, Charlie", players summon a demon.  One should not attempt to engage in any such practices.  To this day, I continue to wear the cross around my neck, and crosses are displayed in my home.  I do not watch any "ghost" programs, or those that feature attempts to communicate with the dead      I write about this experience in the hope that it will help others.  Hollywood tends to focus on demonic possession, in which a demon enters and controls a person's body.  However, the demonic infestation of a home happens frequently, but one hears about it less often.  Demonic oppression, in which a demon infiltrates a person's mind, making them feel afraid and encouraging them to commit suicide, is also rarely discussed.  Demonic oppression is exactly what happened to me. To all others suffering with this problem, Christ offers hope.  I urge you to reach out to others who have had similar experiences and to contact a deliverance ministry team.  Above all else, remember to develop or deepen a relationship with God. 

Author's Note

I would like a good review of this because I am trying to get it published. Please be critical! Am I being overly preachy or trying to tell people what to do?