Blessed Are the Wicked Read online

  Sitting in a chair is someone all too familiar to me. I have seen this face before. This face, as it climbed through my bedroom window. This face, as it held me down. I know this face, the sharp white teeth and the white of those eyes. He sits in a high, winged-back chair. He sits there, holding a huge snake in his hands as it hisses, its eyes glowing with fire, entwining itself down his body, wrapping itself around his leg. I want to run, but instead of running, my body once more betrays me, and I sit in a chair directly across from him.

  He pets the snake as he begins to speak to me. “And the serpent said unto the woman, ‘Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’” He continues petting the snake, as his white eyes stare directly into mine. “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.” He stopped for a moment and then he leaned forward for effect. “Do you understand what I am saying to you?”

  “I am not sure,” I replied.

  “Women will always follow the bigger serpent, and in this case mine is bigger than yours.” Then he started to laugh uncontrollably. The room begins to spin with the sound of his laughter. The next thing I know I am falling and falling . . .

  My body hit hard as it fell on the floor from the bed. I lay there for a moment, not sure where I was or what I was doing. It took a good full moment to realize that I was looking under my bed. Lydia came walking into the room. “What are you doing on the floor, Dad?” I grumbled a few words and then got up to get the boys ready for school.

  December used to be my favorite month of the year. How did I go from being a Clark W. Griswold prototype from the Christmas Vacation movie to what my children affectionately called “The Grinch”? It’s not like I didn’t try to get into that kind of mood everyone was talking about. I did try. I tried, with every ounce of my heart. I tried for my kids, but everywhere I turned there was something to remind me of loss, something that was gone, that I longed for, and someone that I missed.

  I could relate to Scrooge every year when I would watch A Christmas Carol, wishing I could be visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past just once. Just one visit, so I could once more see loved ones who had passed, but of course my ghosts were demons and that would never happen for me. I would not be like Jimmy Stewart’s character in It’s a Wonderful Life, and there would be no visits from angels, whom I could help get their wings. The idea of Christmas had been depleted from my spirit at this time in my life. It was a time of sadness and regret. I did what I had to do in the best way I knew how for my children, and that is how I made it through. December was not a happy month for me. December was a dark month—the darkest month.

  The first week of the month that year, I heard from Father Paul, who was the priest who had lifted the demonic oppression from me just two months prior and was still in the process of helping Helen through her problems. Father Paul invited us to his church because he wanted us to meet Father Michel, the exorcist from the Vatican, whom Father Paul had turned to for advice on our cases. This is the priest who recommended the blessing that lifted my oppression. Of course I was excited to go to see him and hear him speak. It was also good news, because Kelly had been given leave for a long weekend to come home, and she would be able to go with us, as well.

  The evening came quickly, and we arrived at the church a few minutes before the Mass was to begin. I came with Marie, one of the investigators who worked on the Union case. She was very excited to get to meet an actual exorcist from the Vatican. Marie was still carrying around her many scars from the haunting and could not let them go. I was hoping that Father Michel would say something tonight that might help her, as well. I was not prepared for when Helen and Kelly arrived. Helen was looking fine for the evening, which was a huge relief, because at this time the pendulum could still swing to either side of the fence. One moment she could be as right as rain and the next, well, we will save “the next” for a little later. It was Kelly who shocked me that night. She was wearing a black sweatshirt with a hood pulled up around her face as she slid next to me in the pew. Helen slid in the pew behind her, putting Kelly in the middle between us. I tried saying a few words to Kelly, but I got no response.

  Shortly after their arrival, Father Paul entered and Mass began. The instant he began Mass, Kelly began to shake next to me in the pew. I mean the girl really began to shake. Her behavior continued as she held on to the pew in front of her. She began digging her nails into it and her breathing became uneven. She began to complain about the rise in temperature. She was shaking, digging, and her breathing started coming out in bursts. I looked at Father Paul, who saw what was going on and had an eye glued on the situation. This continued through the entire Mass, and I was grateful it was a short one.

  When Mass was completed, Father Paul stepped out for a moment and then came back and introduced a man whom he called his friend, Father Michel. I was instantly taken with the priest. Once Father Michel began to speak, Father Paul walked back to where we were sitting and took Kelly by the hand. He told us he would bring her back. And with this they were both gone, exiting out of the back of the church.

  I began to focus on Father Michel, and he was fascinating. He explained the steps of possession: the invitation, the oppression, and the possession. He explained the goal of the demonic force was pure and utter destruction of the possessed and of those around the afflicted. Then Father Michel said something that struck a chord with Helen, and I saw her start to cry. He said that the goal of the demon was not to possess a soul that was already damned, but a soul that was pure and good––a soul that was, in essence, up for the taking. I knew in that instant what was going through Helen’s mind, and why the tears came so readily, because the same thought hit me in the same way. We were not bad people at all. This did not happen to us because we were bad. This happened to us because we were good of heart. Good of heart were the words the priest used, and those words meant more to the two of us, sitting there in that little country church, than anything anyone in this world could have ever said to us. It was the right thing to say to us at that moment. We needed to know this happened to us because we were good of heart.

  During Father Michel’s sermon, he looked straight at us when he wanted to make a point that he wanted to stick. There might as well have been no one else in the church that night. He was obviously speaking to us, and some of the other people there started to pick up on it. They would occasionally look our way, to see who he could be talking to or looking at. Then it was time for the question-and-answer period to start. Now, there was this one woman there who seemed to make a point to notice Kelly’s reaction to the sermon. She also noticed when Father Paul took Kelly away. She also seemed a little shocked to see a black girl in her church when she arrived. You know the type. You can read them like a book. They don’t even try to hide their disdain through their righteousness. Well, she had question after question. By the fifth question, I could tell Marie was getting a little fed up with her by the way she shifted in the pew. Marie is a kind and gentle soul, but it is sometimes very hard for her to hide her feelings. She can wear them on her sleeve, and in this case there was a flashing sign on her forehead indicating that she wanted this woman to give it a rest and let someone else ask a question.

  Finally the talk was over, and people got up, ready to leave. We walked to the back of the church where Father Paul was waiting with Kelly. To my surprise, her jacket hood was down and Kelly stood there, happy and smiling. People were putting money into a collection plate, and there were blessed medals there you could take, if you wanted one. To all of our surprise, Kelly took five dollars out of her pocket and asked Helen if she could give it to the church. I looked at Father Paul with a shocked look on my face, and he just smiled. Kelly walked to the collection plate, dropped her money in, picked up a blessed medal, and put it into her pocket.

  T
he woman who obviously had a problem with a black girl being in her church in the first place saw this, and in a loud voice said, “Did you see what that black girl just did? She took money out of the collection plate. I saw her do it. She took money out of the collection plate and put it into her pocket.”

  Father Paul saw everything that had happened, because he had been watching proudly with me. He turned to the woman and said, “That is not what happened. She put money into the plate, and you should be ashamed of yourself for standing in false judgment of another.” The woman hurried out of the door with a shocked look on her face, and was gone.

  But the damage had been done. Kelly stood there, shocked and embarrassed, and she put the blessed medal back and told Helen she would wait for her in the car. No words needed to be said, but it was clear to me and to the priest that we had just witnessed the demonic at work one more time. Whatever blessing the priest had done for Kelly was tainted by the demon at work within that disdainful woman.

  We stopped and we talked with Father Michel for a few minutes. He asked questions about how we were doing. He told me to keep watch on everyone and to be aware that things were far from over. Again, those words of advice, that the demon was still afoot. Father Paul walked with me out of the church, and he asked me how the investigation team was doing.

  “Oh Father, I left that behind me.”

  “Maybe you should reconsider that. Maybe you have been given this second chance to help others. God doesn’t give third chances, Steven!”

  That is the night I decided to go back into investigation in order to help others. I called Bill, who had promised to keep Missouri Paranormal Research, the group I started in 2004, safe for me until I was ready, and I told him, “I’m ready to come back right after New Year’s.”

  When you live with three guys and one girl, the job of decorating the Christmas tree usually gets forfeited to the girl. In years later, we would find out this was for a good reason. So the business of putting up the tree always went to Lydia. This meant we always had to have an artificial tree, because Lydia was deathly allergic to anything resembling a real Christmas tree. A real Christmas tree would cause horrible hives and put her straight into the ER with an asthma attack. So, I always supplied her with an array of artificial Christmas finery, the centerpiece was an eight-foot, artificial pine, which was way too large for any living room we ever had.

  The reason the tree was so big was because I picked up the wrong size during the purchase process, and, to our surprise, once it was put together, it would have been fit for the White House lawn. But it was our tree. It fit. It had a story behind it, and no matter how large it was and how hard it was to make it fit into the house every year, it fit because it was our story and once you lit it up, it could be seen from space; you have to love that. Really, I had no clue how Lydia managed to put it together every year, but somehow she managed, and she would get really mad at us if we got in her way. Some years, it would just miraculously appear. But I would always make a point of telling her how it was the most beautiful tree we ever had, and for some reason every year it seemed that way. Well, it seemed that way to me. You need to take notice when your child does something like that for you out of love. It was important to her, so it was important to me.

  Once the tree was up, the cat wars would start. Now, this could either be your favorite part of Christmas, or your worst nightmare. The point of trying to keep two young cats out of the tree is beyond me, because it is a hopeless cause. That year, though, Lydia got smart and let the cats find a branch for themselves in the tree. And you know, for some reason I would find those cats sleeping in that tree, and there was no war and no one screaming and no one getting squirted with squirt bottles. Lydia seemed to have this tree harmony thing going on, and for once it looked like the whole tree thing was going to work. To my surprise, it did. There were a few deviations from the whole harmony system, mind you, but for the most part, everyone seemed fairly happy with the new Christmas integration thing General Lydia had going on.

  Everything seemed to be going fairly well, for a Christmas season. I actually felt like I was making it through without too much incident, and for once I would find myself listening to the Christmas station on the radio and even having fun going Christmas shopping. Things began to change the night of Lydia’s Christmas dance at school.

  Around here, the Christmas dance is a big deal. It is something the girls plan for a whole month ahead of time. Of course, there is the question of what to wear to the Christmas dance, which is important when you are a teenage girl. Lydia’s grandmother would always step in on those occasions and save the day. On this particular night, Lydia’s date had to go to work right after the dance, and she needed me to pick her up, which of course I had no problem doing at all. Actually, I was relieved the young man had to go to work. As a joke, the boys and I had given this young man a questionnaire to fill out on how fast he could run from gunfire. Lydia did not find it amusing, and we all were in trouble for that one for a good week or so afterward. He actually wasn’t a bad kid, but it was our place, as the men of the house, to tease her just a little.

  That evening, Matthew was the only one home with me. Michael was staying all night at some friends. We were playing video games on the PlayStation when Lydia called and told me to come and get her. I looked at the clock, and was pleased at the time, but a little disappointed that she hadn’t stayed out a little longer for a night she had planned for so long. I told Matthew to get his coat and come on. We walked outside and got into the van, and as I put the van into reverse Matthew screamed for me to stop. I slammed on the brakes, thinking I had just hit something. I was hoping it wasn’t the goofy kid next door.

  “I need to get a snack before we go,” he said.

  “What? You need a snack just to go across town and pick up your sister?”

  “I’m hungry,” he said.

  I am sure Matthew was hungry, because he always was. I had a hard time keeping food in the house because his growth spurts had become enormous and, as a matter of fact, he had become enormous. He wasn’t fat; he was already standing at six feet, five inches tall, at 14. I told him to hurry up. While I waited, I listened to a Christmas song playing on the radio. Then I heard him scream and saw him running out of the front door.

  “Dad, it’s in there!” he said frantically.

  “What’s in there?” I asked.

  “The black shadow thing. It came after me.”

  “Matthew, that has all been taken care of. It can’t be in this house,” I said, trying to reassure him.

  When I went inside to look around, I got that all-too-familiar feeling and a shiver went through my body. I walked into the kitchen. There stood open a cabinet door and a Pop-Tart, still in its package, lay on the floor. I bent over to pick it up and the light bulb blew in the fixture above me. I stood up quickly and walked out the front door. Matthew was waiting for me in the van.

  “Did you see it?” he asked.

  “No. I didn’t see anything. By the way, here is your Pop-Tart. Try not to get crumbs all over the freaking place.” My thought was to keep things as normal as possible, without overreaction.

  I climbed back into the van and put it in gear. As we began driving, Matthew, shoving the Pop-Tart in his mouth, blurted out, “It scared me to death, Dad. It came rushing at me and I just ran outta there!”

  “Keep it to yourself for now. We’ll talk about it later.” I stared forward, trying to concentrate on the road ahead of me. Suddenly, something strange caught my eye. “Hey, do you see that light in the sky?”

  There was a strange light in the sky, which I assumed was a helicopter, or something along those lines. I pointed it out to him to get his mind off what had just happened. I knew the more he focused on it and built his fear, the more likelihood of something taking hold, and I could be dealing with a haunting all over again. I would get out the holy water and the blessed candle,
and bless the house after everyone was in bed. This was not the first time I had done it, and it wasn’t going to be the last.

  “That is a really strange-looking light, Dad.”

  “Yeah, most likely a helicopter out looking for something,” I replied. We were headed down a dark stretch of a two-lane highway at this point.

  “Stop the van, Dad! Stop the van now!”

  I slammed on my brakes, thinking someone must have been on the side of the road hurt, or he was hurt, or something horrible was happening.

  “What’s wrong? Where in the hell are you going?” I asked.

  Matthew had climbed out of the van and was standing at the back, looking at the farmer’s field across from us, slightly elevated from our view.

  “There,” he said, pointing his finger toward the field and the sky.

  “Wha—” I never got the word fully out of my mouth. There, hovering above the field, were three lights. They were just there, stationary.

  “Is that the light I told you to watch?” I asked him.

  “Yeah,” he whispered back quietly. Come to think of it, we were standing on the highway in the middle of the night, so I was not sure what all of the whispering was about in the first place.

  Now, this is where your rational mind kicks in. I told the kid to follow this light to get his mind off the fact that we are haunted, and this thing follows us and now we are standing beside the road in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, looking at the sky. This strange light was hovering in what appeared to be a triangular shape, from what I could tell by the placement of its lights. Then, all of a sudden, from the center of this thing, a bright white light shoots straight to the ground. At this point, I was done, over, cooked, and baked.