text: Being haunted As my husband Ben lay on the couch, I was filled with only bitterness and anger towards him. I had watched as he fell further and further into depression. At first, I had been sympathetic, but as time went on, it got worse and worse. As far as I was concerned, he was busy ruining my life too in the process. He lay on the couch, sleeping, sad and miserable. He stopped being a husband and a father. He said things like, “Why can’t I just die?” and it would piss me off. I wanted to shake him and say, “Hey, I want to live here! Get over being depressed will you!” So, when he complained about the demons, I was truly annoyed. Really, now, demons? It that the current excuse we are going to use here? Many nights, 3am on the dot, he would stop breathing. He would tell me a black demon was sitting on his chest trying to kill him. That there were several of them. They were black, slouched over but at least seven feet tall, with long faces, gangly arms and long talons. The talons were claws with sharp fingernails. And they had wings. And were very, very ugly. Sometimes, he would walk into the room, and they would all be there. They would look up and notice him and then disappear. They were shadowy, dark, specters that lived in our house. “Must be having bad dreams dear” I said. Or “Guess you should start going to church with me and the kids then.” I didn’t really believe him. Even as he began showing me the scratches. The scratches began to appear on his legs. Then his belly and arms. Long scratches that went all the way down. I reasoned, He scratched himself at night? But I wasn’t really sure. That night was towards the end of our marriage. I was ready to pack up the kids and leave him. I couldn’t deal with the sadness anymore, the darkness that infested our home. I threw all our problems squarely on him. It was all his fault! Ben knew what I was thinking. We didn’t fight really, we just had long strings of silence with unspoken tension. He was the saddest I had ever seen him. I felt pity for him that evening, so I sat with him on the couch and put my arm around him. I hadn’t shown affection for him in months, so he immediately responded. He hugged me and we talked about benevolent things. It was the first conversation we had in long time in which I wasn’t instantly angry with him. It was such a nice conversation that we agreed to get dressed and go out somewhere. I went into the bedroom to get dressed when it went into me. The demon. Suddenly I wasn’t in my room anymore. I was in a deep, dark canyon in hell. The canyon was immense. So tall it seemed never ending. All around me were black lost souls of the dead. And that thing was inside me. I could feel its shape. It looked like a bald goblin, hunched over and radiating evil thoughts. Ben came to the room and laid his hand on my arm me. I freaked out. “Don’t touch me!” I screamed at him. “It’s in me! It’s in me! I’m in hell!” I screamed. I was in hysterics. He brought me into the living room to my chair. Bending down, he tried to try to calm me down. Ben didn’t understand. He asked, “Um, do I call 911?” “NO!” I screamed. “I’m in Hell! With YOUR demon! This is your fault! I hate you! I hate you!” I was not the sort of person who screams or goes hysterics. I am usually calm and even when angry I don’t yell. But not today. All that pent-up anger and frustration, all the months of not saying how I felt, was amplified by this demon thing I now had. Ben left me alone for a bit, as he didn’t know what to do. As I began to calm down from the initial shock, I tried to take stock of what had happened. I wasn’t hurt in any way. I was still me. But suddenly I had another intelligence living inside me, a complete mind. I knew its thoughts. It knew my thoughts. It controlled my body and actions. They were no longer mine. And somehow, I was in two worlds. I could feel my soul was in hell. But I was also sitting on a couch, in my living room. The demon picked up my arm amazed and looked at it. It moved my fingers staring. One, two, three, four, five. Five fingers it counted. As if it was not used to having real hands and arms. It looked at my feet and how they worked. It looked around my house as if it just now had new eyes. It blinked. Real eyes, it thought. It began to show me things as I sat in the chair. Mathematical equations and geometry popped up into the air, lit up with a yellow light. They were all around me. I touched one of the equations and it moved. The equation completed and I understood a scientific secret. It began another equation to be answered. It was like a 3D supercomputer. I felt the demon was searching for something. It was waking up as if from a long slumber. It wanted to understand some deep cosmic question. I was amazed. What did this mean? Finally, satisfied that it knew what to do, the demon began to talk to me. “Oh, you poor thing!” It said to me, “I feel so sorry for you. You live in a dirty little hovel with a dirty little peasant. I am ancient god. I have been here since the beginning of all creation. I have been to marble palaces, eaten with emperors and queens, been worshiped. I’ve been dripping with gold, surrounded by beauty and culture. I am immortal. You, you have nothing but a petty little life. And it is all HIS fault. (meaning my husband). I can show you the world and its wonders, only if you leave him and let me kill him. You have to let me kill him.” I attacked Ben then. Or the demon attacked him. I don’t really know who did the attacking actually. I flung my body at Ben, who was just standing next to the bathroom smoking a cigarette. My fingers went straight for his eyes and I tried to gauge them out. Ben grabbed me and physically carried me into the bedroom. The demon fully manifested then, screaming, fighting, spitting, clawing at him, attacking with all its might using my body. But Ben’s physical strength and mine were very different. The demon had miscalculated in that sense. Ben was able to pin me down and hold my hands down. I could not get up. Ben didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t let me go. He tried to talk to me, but by now the demon was fully in control of me and I couldn’t release it. He began to pray. “Jesus,” he prayed, “Jesus, please help my wife. I don’t know what to do. Please, Jesus, please help us” The demon mocked him, “Jesus isn’t coming! He doesn’t even like you! You’re an idiot!” Suddenly, the entire room lit up. All around the ceiling was covered with white, glowing lights that hovered and floated around the room. I could feel that these were bright souls that had come to help me. And then a man of light floated down. He was full of beauty, wearing clothing of bright light, tender eyes and face. My soul and the demon recognized him at once. “You came!” I cried. Even the demon was overjoyed, and felt full love for this light being. He talked to me first, “I love you so much Grace. You have a beautiful, sweet tender soul that wants to cherish and help everyone. You, however, need to love your husband. He needs you. This is why the demon has been allowed to take you. Love Ben with all your heart and stop being angry with him.” I felt complaint rising in me. I didn’t want to love this man I married. I wanted to leave him, be free of him. I wanted to do what I wanted to do. He had heard my thoughts. So he said it again. “This is not a request. You need to love your husband. He has been chosen for you for a reason.” Then he spoke to the demon. “This woman is mine. She is not yours. Go back to hell where you belong.” I could sense the demon was furious. “NO! I want her! She is mine! She is mine now and you can’t have her back!” The man in white sighed. It was going to be a fight then. He said to me, “I am going into your husband now. I have to teach him how to fight this demon. It’s going to be a long fight.” I watched the man in white go into my husband Ben then. It was like seeing a double person in a film, two people on top of one another. I could see Ben felt it too, for he completely changed. Now he was confident. He was no longer afraid of the demon. He spoke to it. “In the name of Jesus and all that is holy, I order you to leave my wife and go back to the depths of hell.” The demon tried persuasion at first. “I’ll be good. I promise. Don’t send me there. It’s dark and scary and horrible down there. I like this body. Please let me stay. I’ll be good.” “NO!” commanded my husband. “Go to hell and be gone evil spirit. Go back to where you belong. You are evil and have been condemned.” It fought then. It cursed. It screamed unholy screams. My body had more strength than I had ever known. And still Ben held on for dear life, commanding it. When I calmed, I confessed all the hurt and anger I felt inside. The hooks the demon had on me began to fall away. I was incredibly thirsty because I was in hell. My body was wracked with thirst. Ben brought me water, blessed it and told me I needed the sacred living water of Jesus to refresh and cleanse me. We fought demons for three days. As soon as one would leave, another one would enter. Each one was different, and had a different personality. All were evil manifest. We did not sleep or eat in all that time. All demons, however, belong in hell. They are not supposed to be here on Earth. They get invited to live on Earth, however, by us. We humans have hurt feelings. We have jealousy. We have anger and bitterness and fear. Each emotion has a demon attached to it. They grab onto these hooks and drag us into hell with them. And then they get to have experiences outside of hell. They have already been condemned for the evil they have committed, so they now only want to bring as many souls with them as they can. We cannot see these hooks, however, because they are invisible. We cannot feel the hooks but we can feel the moods it makes us feel. My demons originated by an ancient curse from my family blood line. My family was cursed from murder, suicide, ancient satanic practices, blood sacrifice. These curses had weighed upon my soul. As all the demons left, weight from my soul left. I could feel it turn light, like the light beings floating inside my room. And then, in that dark cavern of hell, I saw the dark souls brightening. It was as though when I was fighting, the souls captured were being released by their captors. The souls floated up and I watched as they all floated to heaven. It was an amazing sight. There were thousands of them. They passed through to thank me. Thank you! They said. Jesus rescued us. You helped us. Thank you! I was filled with love from the bright light surrounding me. It was so beautiful I could barely contain it. When I was young, I believed in ghosts as haunting a place because they are sad. But now, I have come to realize ghosts live in a dark cavern in hell. They are waiting to be freed to be able to go to heaven. My marriage now is in a healthy place. My husband left his depression behind and we began again our journey of life on the road again. But I will never forget the day when the demons all came to haunt me and our family.