Pints With Aquinas - The Infestation (a short story)

Episode Date: March 15, 2020

A different post than usual. Hope you enjoy. Fr. John Sweeney didn’t believe in demons until he answered a call from one of his parishioners to come and bless her home because “the devil was after her” and discovered through the guidance of an old “traddie” priest how evil should be handled when it shows its face. Listen to our other stories on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sibling-horror/id1483594858 or Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0skcwxdxAypCDny9oCh6zz  

G'day everyone, this is going to be a different post than usual. For those of you not aware, my sister and I write short horror stories that we post to a podcast called Sibling Horror. Now you might be thinking, goodness, I didn't know you wrote horror stories. Well yes, my wife was just as shocked as you, but we do. And anyway, there it is. With coronavirus in full swing, I put up a post on YouTube and Twitter and asked Joel if this is something you would like me to release early. We release a story every month, and so this one was supposed to come out in April. now are writing in and they're saying, yes, look, we'd like it. So that's why we're posting it. I hope you really enjoy it. If you do enjoy it, you could go and check out our podcast, Sibling Horror. What I like about our podcast is that it's just short stories and there's no intro or outro like

this one. There's no kind of, hey, give me money on Patreon, which is what Points with Aquinas is all about. It's just stories. And, you know, we're doing the best that we can. It's like a creative outlet for me. And I've been working on this story for quite a while now. I'm pretty proud of it. It's about an hour long. Here's what it's about.

It's about a priest, Father John Sweeney, who didn't actually believe in demons Sweeney, who didn't actually believe in demons until he answered a call from one of his parishioners who was begging him to come and bless her house. She said that the devil was after her. And he discovered through the guidance of an old traddy priest how evil should be handled when it shows its face. So I don't read the story because let's face it, there's nothing scary about this voice. I paid a red-blooded American to narrate it. So that's what you'll be listening to. It's about an hour long. I'd recommend that you listen to it when you know you're not going to be interrupted, maybe at nighttime in front of a crackling fire, glass of wine in hand. I really do hope you enjoy it. I'm really kind of putting myself

out here a little bit, I suppose, by doing this, but there you are. Please enjoy it. And in order to detox from this Australian accent, let me play some spooky wind music and then we will get underway. I'll put some more info in the show notes. Here we go. Here we go. From Father John Sweeney. At your behest, Bishop Kurt, I am writing this account of the events surrounding the Rodriguez home last winter, and the role I and the late Father Phillips, God rest him, played in them. This testimony is to the best of my remembrance, given the pace with which these events occurred and the personal difficulties I had overcoming my lack of faith

and disbelief in the true nature of what I was experiencing. I need to make a few things clear right up front. First, prior to stepping foot in the Rodriguez home, I did not believe in Satan or demons or what has been described as spiritual warfare or any of that. Like many of my brother priests, I was taught in seminary that the devil exists as the personification of evil in different structures,

not persons. I learned, and later taught, that the devil, in fact, was most definitely not a person. A year ago I would have told you that we live in a world of symbols, among which the devil exists as a representative reality, not a real and personal one. exists as a representative reality, not a real and personal one. I say all of this to my shame now. After what I experienced last winter, I understand what fools they made us in the seminary. They led us to think that we existed on some kind of superior plane from which we could look down on those simpletons who still believed in holy water and the reliability of the gospels. No, we were a new breed that had overcome the medieval foolishness of our predecessors.

We were comfortable with science, secularism, and the soul-leveling discoveries of modern psychology. None of that old nonsense for us. I mention all this because it has come to my attention that there are some, even among my confreres, who think I have lost it. I'm accused of hysteria, fanaticism, and superstition.

I'm held up as some kind of Judas who has betrayed the true faith, as a backward-looking reactionary who pines for yesteryear when a priest meant something. I even had one man come up to me after Mass to say that all I wanted was attention. If only he understood how much I desire anonymity, how at times I wish I had never gone to the Rodriguez home that first time or met that priest who had turned my world upside down. In response to my critics, I offer this testimony.

Let them interpret it as they will. I, however, know what it means, for I lift it. Though originally incredulous, I came to believe wholeheartedly, based on the evidence which I will here report, that the Rodriguez home was infested by an evil spiritual presence, and that the things that happened there were of supernatural and demonic origin. Last year, around the start of February,

I was at home in my rectory watching television when the phone rang. It was one of our parishioners, Maria Rodriguez. She was in quite a frenzied state and pleaded that I come immediately and bless her house because the devil was after her. Some background on Maria. She has been a parishioner of St. Ignatius ever since she was a girl, long before I became pastor eight years ago. Maria is a kind woman, but I had always found her to be overly pious. She is the type who prays the rosary and tells others to pray it, always obsessing over some new report of Mary appearing somewhere. She comes to daily

Mass, taking her place in the front pew from where she leads the other women present in the rosary. Sometimes I have to start Mass late because they haven't finished. I had spoken to her about this, but she never seemed to get the message. It wasn't deliberate, I don't think. She would just lose track of time. Maria had been asking me persistently for weeks if I could come to bless her home. And honestly, I just kept putting it off because I was already frustrated with her. It wasn't just the rosary thing. It was her constant over-the-top piety.

She was a sight to behold with her scapular and miraculous metal both around her neck over her clothes. She would pray for hours at the feet of Mary's statue, staying in this position long into the evening when I wanted to lock up the church and retire to the rectory. She lit every candle in the creches while praying through her book of the dead. So when she called that night, I told her I'd try to schedule a visit for later in the month. I emphasized that I was very busy at the moment and couldn't just drop what I was doing and come to her house. I did my best to reassure her that the devil was not after her, that we shouldn't go looking for Satan under every rock. I told her to trust in God and say a prayer, and I hung up the phone. The next morning after Mass, despite my best efforts at avoiding her,

Maria approached me in the sacristy. I could still see her in my mind, waddling over, her scapular and miraculous metal swinging in her neck, her gray hairs coming undone from the loose buns she wore. She begged me to come to her home that day. I told her I couldn't, but that I might have time the following week. Again, my intention was to put her off indefinitely, so I suggested we wait until all the snow melted. But she wouldn't take no for an answer. She kept interrupting my

refusals, pleading with me to come, telling me I didn't understand and that very bizarre things that's the word she used, bizarre, were happening in her home. I asked her what kind of things. She said that the temperature in her house would sometimes suddenly drop 10 degrees or more. She told me that she woke up one night and found the kitchen faucet running full blast. Sometimes she could smell something, something rotten. I asked her if that was it. She said no, that she could sense a bad presence in the old house, and there were noises she couldn't explain.

It is the devil, she concluded with a certainty I found almost comical. I looked at her as she stood there with her hands folded together, her gray head tilted slightly to the right, and her eyes, so youthful in such an aged person, fastened intently on mine. As respectfully as I could, I explained that there were perfectly natural explanations for the events she had described. A draft, a leaky faucet,

a bag of garbage that had made it to the outside trash, etc. I asked her what her husband thought was going on, and she said that he didn't come to church anymore and didn't believe the devil was in their house. That was all I had to hear. See, I said, if your husband who lives in the same house doesn't believe you, don't you think it's at least plausible that these things have some other explanation? I slowly began closing the sacristy door, indicating that the conversation was over. I shook my head at what I thought were merely the delusions of an old lady.

I mean, after all, who sees the devil in a leaky faucet? It was winter. Pipes contract and expand with cold and heat. And it's normal during cold weather for an old house to experience a sudden temperature drop. Nothing she had told me elicited any other reaction than incredulity and, frankly, irritation. But over the course of the following week, Maria did not let up on her requests for me to come over. To be truthful, she just wore me down. So maybe something was going on at her house, not something supernatural, but something Maria believed was supernatural. Even if the sounds she was hearing in her attic were

squirrels or bats, Maria truly believed they were of a supernatural origin. On realizing this, I decided to re-examine my motives for not believing her and I found that I had allowed my personal frustrations with her and my fear of being associated with her superstitions to turn me off from engaging her in the way she needed to be engaged if that were true then I was neglecting my pastoral care of her

it was hard for me to admit all of this to myself. Not that I was wrong, because I'm familiar with being wrong and owning up to it, but because I knew the consequences of my being wrong. In this case, it would mean I'd have to be present for Maria in the way she wanted me to be present, with an open mind to the reality that she was experiencing. I had no idea at the time what that would mean for me except a visit to her home for what would be, hopefully, a short tour and a shorter blessing. I said a simple prayer to God that if he really wanted me to go over there,

then he would find a way to give me the time such a situation merited. Later that very evening, I was making my rounds at the hospital where I served as a substitute chaplain and found that the man with whom I was supposed to sit that evening had died earlier that day. Returned to the Lord, the attendant said, crossing himself. The man's body had already been removed to the funeral home, and there was no family remaining on site to console. I was so relieved, honestly, about having a free evening that I didn't even think about Maria until I drove past her house on the way back to the rectory. Oh boy, I sighed as I braked suddenly and then backed up on the one-way street. No cars were behind me, which was good because it took a little work finding a spot

to park amidst the snowdrifts. I looked at the clock on the dash, 8 p.m. I could see the tower of my rectory over the treetops. Were I to just drive away, I'd be back at my desk by 8.05. I looked at the Rodriguez home and killed the engine. So I was there, my breath foggy from the cold. Maybe my coming this late in the evening would spare me a long visit, at least. I grabbed my blessing kit from the seat next to me, the one I'd taken with me to bless the old man at the hospital, and stepped out of the car, resolved to get it over and done

with so that maybe Maria would have some peace. Being honest, what I wanted was for Maria to give me some peace. Seeing the lights on in the house assured me that someone was home. The walkway leading from the sidewalk had been shoveled, but the four steps leading up to the house were thick with ice. I had to hold the guardrail rather tightly to keep from slipping on it. Maria's husband, Jose, entered the door. I could tell from what he was wearing that he was working on the house. I told Jose I hoped I hadn't come at a bad time, but that Maria had been asking me to come and to bless the house. I was surprised by the look of

relief on his face, especially after what Maria had told me about him not going to church anymore. especially after what Maria had told me about him not going to church anymore. He said he was glad that I had come. I asked him if Maria was home, and he said no, that she'd left to his mother's house in Franklin, a two-hour drive away. I asked him if everything was okay. He pursed his lips and waved me inside. He had found some things under the floorboards of the kitchen.

What kind of things, I asked, stomping the snow off my feet before stepping across the threshold. I'll show you, he said. We walked down the hallway toward the back of the house where the kitchen was. I set my blessing kit on a table on my way through,

keeping a vial of holy water on hand for the blessing. The kitchen was brightly lit and filled with power tools, extension cords, and the like. I noted that part of the floor had been removed. It was possible to see down into the dirt crawlspace underneath. We walked carefully across some floor joists until Jose stopped me. He pointed down into the space where I saw five small dresses.

Old-fashioned children's dresses with frills, lace, that kind of thing. They were laid out flat in a circle. Even from a few feet away, I could see that they were stiff from what looked like dried blood. I dropped the vial of holy water into the top pocket of my jacket and jumped down into the crawlspace. I picked up one of the dresses, turning it over slowly. The dried blood made it feel like cardboard. The dress would have fit a young girl of maybe two or three years of age. All five of the dresses were similar in size and in a style that hadn't been worn in many decades. Jose started pulling up some adjacent floorboards as he gave me some backstory on the

house. Maria had lived here as a child. They'd moved away after getting married, not far, to another house in the parish. They had returned here after her mother had died the year before. Her father had passed away many years earlier. She'd inherited the property. Jose looked around and underneath the remaining floorboards of the kitchen. Satisfied that there was nothing else, he closed up the area, except for the gap over the dresses. We stood, looking into the hole at them. Do you want me to call the police? I asked.

If there had been a crime here, it had happened a long time ago. Not yet, he said. He wanted to discuss the situation with Maria first. Maybe she knew something about what had happened, or who had lived in the house before her family. Would you stay here tonight, Father? he asked me. While I drive to Franklin to be with Maria, I would feel more comfortable leaving the house with someone in it. I didn't understand why you felt the need to have someone in the house, and my rectory was just a few blocks away. Couldn't we just lock up and deal with it all in the morning? I said.

No, Father, he replied. I must see Maria, and I don't want the property to be soulless. That was the word he used, soulless. I thought about it for a moment, my eyes falling upon the small, blood-stiffened tresses. Some crime, or something more than a crime, had happened in this place many years ago. A bloody ritual, perhaps. Maria might know what it was. She may have been a little girl living here at the time. Maybe she'd heard stories from her parents or neighbors about what had happened. Only Maria could tell us. Sure, I said, I'll stay.

I gave Jose my cell phone number so that he could call me when he connected with Maria. She herself didn't have a cell phone. Are you taking the dresses? I asked. Oh no, he said with a conviction that surprised me. They should stay here, where we found them. A few minutes later, Jose was gone. Evidently, he already had a bag packed. I watched his back as he headed out the door.

A black leather satchel swung over his shoulder. I followed behind into the doorway as he headed down the porch stairs. One hand holding tightly to the railing to keep from slipping on the ice. I came back into the house and shut the door and locked it. At this point I felt nothing other than the solitude of being alone in a strange place. Why had I agreed to this? I could be back in my rectory, winding down for the day. I sighed. There was no point backtracking. Here I was, and here I would remain for the night.

About five minutes after Jose left, I was standing in the hallway drinking a glass of water when I heard three loud knocks on the front door. The sudden sound startled me, and I dropped the glass on the floor, spilling the water but thankfully not breaking the glass. My first thought was that Jose must have forgotten something. I walked over to the door and opened it. In front of me was a fair-haired boy, about eight years old. He was overweight and not dressed for the weather, red shorts, a white plain shirt, black converse sneakers. Assuming him to be a neighbor,

I told him that the Rodriguez's weren't home. He looked up at me and said, very matter-of-factly, you haven't come to let her out, have you? perfectly. You haven't come to let her out, have you? I'm sorry, I said. I have no idea what you're talking about. Let who out? He smiled as if he thought I was hiding something from him, but was happy to let it slide. It's very important to us that you don't let her out, he said. Are you talking about a dog or something, I asked. I don't live in this house, so I... He cut me off. Dogs, cats, swine, he said.

No swine to be sent into this time. Just you. He then wished me a good night, turned and made his way down the stairs and across the yard. I stood there watching him leave, utterly perplexed by the strange conversation. I closed the door and locked it. I headed into the living room and turned on the television. The furniture showed many years of use. Some yellow stuffing came through the tears on the couch. The recliner was made of leather, and the warren looked like a better bed.

I stretched out on it and eventually fell asleep during one of those late, late shows. Sometime after midnight, I woke up feeling stiff. What I needed was a bed. I turned off the TV, went to the bathroom, and then found a twin-sized bed in what I thought must be a guest room. There were two twin beds in there. I chose the one closest to the door. I was expecting an uneventful remainder of the night.

I would get some sleep, I thought, and then make an early start the next day. We were so close to the rectory in the church. I could head over in the morning, make a quick change in the sacristy, and then preside over the 6 a.m. Mass. Obligation fulfilled, I could then continue with life as normal. But something happened during that night. It began with the worst dream I've ever had in my life. I was lying awake on a bed somewhere in an unfamiliar room.

It was the middle of the night. Above me on the ceiling, or perhaps coming through it, was a long, black, indiscernible thing. It looked at first like an animal of some kind. It was moving, twitching, and it was whispering something that I couldn't quite make out. From the corner of this room, then, I became aware of something else. A person, maybe. It was larger than the thing in the ceiling. It seemed to be sitting awkwardly on a chair, its knees raised to its chest.

I felt it was looking at me with complete and utter disgust, the way a man might look at a nest of cockroaches he finds behind his fridge. The thing, whatever it was, began to stand up slowly. In my dream, I got out of bed and opened a door, which led into a sort of cave. I looked past the entrance into a silent black interior. I was desperately seeking something. I didn't know what. I plunged into the dark, desperate to find it. I became frantic as I searched for it.

The dream was so real that I could feel the sweat trickling down my face and neck. And then all of a sudden there it was, a golden cup, a chalice, filled to the brim. It was sitting on a small rustic wooden box. Relief came like a wave over me. I knew somehow that this chalice was the answer to everything, that it was the thing to fix the world and put everything right side up again. I started toward the chalice to take it up, but then a very strange thing happened. A small black dog with a crooked tail and no whites in its eyes rocked, it didn't walk, it rocked from side to side, making its way in the strange manner to place itself between myself and the

chalice. Standing there on all fours, it looked at me. I was taken by its fixed stare, mesmerized into stillness. But then the dog's eyes widened and its mouth fell open as if the joint holding it together had suddenly turned liquid. And I heard its scream, a human scream, that tore into me like claws tearing the flesh from my body. That's when I woke up. I sat up in bed, breathing fast and feeling the heaviness of my sweat-soaked clothes. I glanced quickly at the bedside clock. It was just after 3 a.m.

The house was quiet. It was only a dream. Okay, a nightmare, but not like any nightmare I'd ever known before. There was no way I was going to lay down and set myself up for another. I'd had enough time to go home. I grabbed my things and headed out the front door, enough time to go home. I grabbed my things and headed out the front door, pausing only long enough to lock it and pull it shut. I was about to descend the icy porch stairs when I heard the door lock turn and looked up just in time to see the door swing open. I had locked that door. I was certain of it. I stepped back onto the porch. I walked up to the door, and without looking into the house, felt for the latch on the doorknob inside. I turned it and slammed the door shut,

just to make sure I turned the knob. The door was locked tight this time, no doubt about it. I turned and headed down the frozen front steps again. Just as I reached the bottom step, I heard three clear knocks on the front door that seemed to be coming from within the house. I turned somewhat stiffly on the slippery ground and looked up. somewhat stiffly on the slippery ground and looked up. In the oval window of the front door, I thought I could make out the torso of a fat boy.

He seemed to be leaning on the window, his forehead and nose pressed against it. I didn't stop to think through what was going on. I made a hasty, if somewhat slippery, retreat down the icy path to my car. As I got in and turned the ignition, oh, what a happy sound, I deliberately kept my eyes averted from the house. I pulled swiftly away from the curb and headed to the rectory. I spent most of the next day trying to shake a feeling of doom that greeted me the moment I woke up. This feeling followed me throughout the day until I couldn't contain it anymore. I ended up unburdening to a friend who, to my surprise, listened with utter seriousness. Without my knowledge, that friend contacted the diocesan exorcist, Father Joe Phillips. Honestly, I didn't

even know we had an exorcist. I would have thought the job dissolved after the Second Vatican Council with all the other superstitions of the Middle Ages. In any case, Father Phillips called me later that day and asked me if we could set up a time to talk. I said yes, and we agreed to meet the following morning. I had known Father Phillips before this incident. To be truthful, I thought he was kind of a quack. In my view, he had the cut of a 1950s movie priest. His clear blue eyes were set in a rather flat face with a high forehead.

His hair was pure white, close-clipped on the sides and straight up an inch on top. The black cassock he always wore, what a throwback, was always impeccably clean and pressed, and you probably could have balanced a vase on his shoulders. He was old, but a remarkable energy surrounded him, as if he were always on the verge of a sprint. On top of all this was what I considered his antiquated religious practices. He was a traddy, as they say, who celebrated the Latin Mass at a parish where such people gathered each Sunday. The Beretta, the rosary that was always in his hand,

and the paternal air he exuded all rubbed me the wrong way. After what I had been through the night before, however, I was strangely glad to see him. We met up the following morning in the rectory kitchen. I set out some sugar and cream as the coffee bubbled in the percolator. In the light of day, the story I had for him felt absurd, and I was a bit ashamed to tell it. He waited as I poured him some coffee and slid a plate of cookies over. I was on the verge of backing out of the conversation when I looked up into his blue eyes. I started into my tale weakly at first, but then with the abandon of someone, dropping a heavy burden. It certainly is an interesting experience you've had, Father Sweeney, he said.

Many of the things you've mentioned are familiar elements of demonic activity. Many of the things you have mentioned are familiar elements of demonic activity. Have you ever studied the Church's teachings on oppressions, hauntings, exorcisms, that sort of thing? Well, just the stuff they give you in seminary, I told them. You know, Father Amorth, chief exorcist at the Vatican, claims he's had many such experiences. But at the seminary, they had us read Father Amorth as an example of how superstition can be an obstacle to a true and rational experience of God. We also learned that the moral of both fall stories, Satan's and man's, is that we should be humble and not allow pride to persuade us that we are our own creators.

not allow pride to persuade us that we are our own creators. I looked down at my coffee mug, somewhat embarrassed by the admissions I'd made about my seminary education. Suddenly being the new guys on the block didn't seem so great. Father Phillips looked at me and raised an eyebrow. Father Sweeney, he said, do you or do you not believe in Lucifer? I'm beginning to, I said. Well, he said, standing up, it's about bloody time. He placed his mug in the sink and told me to follow him. Where are we going? I asked. To work, he replied simply.

I reached for my coat as we passed through the hallway and went out the door. Clearly, Father Phillips was a man of action. As we headed to his car, he began to speak of the need for an open inquiry into whether a deliverance of the property from the demonic presence would be needed. I'd been so wrong about him, he was certainly no quack. He told me that of the hundreds of investigations he'd done during his priesthood, almost all of the disturbances turned out to have a natural explanation. Only a few had required him to act as a priest, fewer than two dozen in fact. But you know all of this already, Bishop Kurt

I simply write it here for the record I could tell he was preparing me for what was to come I had a lot to learn in the brief drive over to the Rodriguez house Father Phillips explained that demonic activity can manifest in a person, an object or a place demonic infestation is the most common way the devil shows himself, by making loud noises, moving things around.

There could be a stench of rotting garbage or a sudden drop in room temperature. Infestation happens usually because someone in the place had been involved in the occult or practiced satanic rituals. Evidently, the same kind of phenomena could also indicate the appeal of a soul in purgatory. Such a suffering soul will manifest in an attempt to win prayers so as to get out of purgatory. Despite myself, I grew more and more interested in what Father Phillips was telling me. Demonic activity, he explained, gets personal with vexation or oppression. In this case, a person can be physically attacked and even suffer bodily pain, injury, or death.

Satan's friends suffer such abuse, but also those who are in combat with him. Father Phillips laughed as he told me the story of St. Teresa of Avila being awakened in the night by a belligerent demon looking for a fight. Oh, it's you, she said, and went back to sleep. He liked that story a lot. He went on to describe how demonic obsession attacks the mind, manifesting as racing thoughts or persistent notions. And of course, there was full-blown possession of a soul by Satan. As I listened to Father Phillips, I could feel the battle within myself between belief and skepticism. How could any of this be true?

When we got to the house, Jose was there. As he opened the screen door, he let us know that Maria was on her way back from Franklin. I introduced Father Phillips, and Jose greeted him warmly. He invited us both to have a seat in the living room. I looked around. Everything seemed normal in the light of day. I turned my attention back to the conversation. Father Phillips wasted no time asking Jose about the strange happenings in the house, and I briefly shared with Jose what I had experienced. Jose confirmed the stories his wife had told me and added a few of his own.

He looked over at me as he described finding the bloodied dresses under the kitchen floorboards. Father Phillips asked if we could see the dresses, but Jose had burned them in the backyard as soon as he'd returned that morning. I could tell he was glad to be rid of them. Maybe he thought this action would dispel the evil from his home. Father Phillips then asked if he could see the place where the dresses had been discovered.

Jose nodded and led us into the kitchen where he pointed to the very spot. The floorboards were still up and leaning on the kitchen wall. In an athletic move for a man of his age, Father Phillips walked along the wooden ribs of the floor and then lowered himself between them onto the ground underneath. He kneeled down and took up a handful of the dirt where the dresses had lain. he kneeled down and took up a handful of the dirt where the dresses had lain. Suddenly, I felt the air in the kitchen drop at least ten degrees.

I looked at Jose to see if the same chill had come over him, but he seemed oblivious. Father Phillips, I blurted, my heart pounding. He looked up at me from between the floorboards, the dirt he'd gathered falling between his fingers. He brushed his hand on a handkerchief and then worked his way out of the hole. We have work to do, he said, looking grave. I'm ashamed to admit that I almost laughed at him. His words seemed melodramatic, like a line from a cheesy movie. Even though I was experiencing this phenomena firsthand, there was still something in me that wanted to reject the whole thing as some kind of mass delusion or strange game played by ignorant people. But I didn't laugh. His eyes and posture were all business.

Father Phillips moved to the kitchen table that had been pushed over to a wall. As he laid out his kit, I felt more resistance rise in me. Sure, I knew about this kind of priestly work, cleansing places of evil spirits, but I didn't really believe in it because I didn't believe in evil spirits. So when Father Phillips reached into his black bag and pulled out first a crucifix, then a wooden case containing a variety of rosaries, a half-dozen relics, blessed salts, holy water, a ritual prayer book, and finally a golden pyx containing a consecrated host.

I felt like I was in a scene from a movie. For his part, Father Phillips was either blind to or unconcerned with my issues. He carefully arranged the items side by side on the kitchen table. Seeing the seriousness with which he did this drove home to me that this was not a movie and certainly not a game. For the first time in my priestly life, I was about to experience a genuine encounter between the power of Satan and the power of Christ's church. encounter between the power of Satan and the power of Christ's church. Before beginning the deliverance prayers, Father Phillips told Jose to bring him some of the ashes from the dresses he'd burned. Jose disappeared for a few moments out the back door and then came back

with a small Dixie cup filled with some dusty remains. Father Phillips took the cup, thanked him, and told him to keep watch for Maria from the living room window. If she were on her way home, she shouldn't walk into the middle of what he was about to do. Jose nodded solemnly and headed to the front of the house to take his position. I didn't know how to do any of this, but I had a good teacher. I followed Father Phillips over to the sink,

where we both washed our hands as he prayed the Hail Mary. He said it in Latin, and I mumbled along in English. He motioned for me where to stand, and I obeyed. And as we continued praying, he sprinkled the ashes from the cup onto the floorboards where the dresses had been found. He then began the rites of exorcism. After the first prayer, he sprinkled some salts on the ashes. He then changed location and offered the second prayer, again following with the salts on the ashes. He did this several times, eventually encircling the whole area where the dresses had lain.

More salts, more holy water, and then a third prayer, followed by some kind of herb. Then we waited. I thought briefly that Jose must have left the front door open, because I started seeing my breath. I turned to look down the hallway and noted that the front door was closed. Jose was still in the living room watching for Maria. It was getting colder inside than it was outside. Father Phillips wrapped one of the rosaries around his hand, dropped more salts,

more holy water, and more herbs onto the kitchen floor, and offered a fourth prayer. Here is part of the prayer Father Philip spoke. Holy Lord, Almighty Father, Everlasting God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who once and for all consigned that fallen and apostate tyrant to the flames of hell, who sent your only begotten Son into the world to crush that roaring lion, hasten to our call for help. After this prayer, and it was much longer, of course, than the excerpt I just shared, Father Phillips appeared to be very tired.

He sat down in one of the chairs near the table and rested his book on his lap. He spoke a fifth prayer in that sitting position, holding the crucifix in his hand. More salts, more holy water, and another prayer that began with the following line. Depart then, transgressor. Depart, seducer, full of lies and cunning, foe of virtue, persecutor of the innocent. Father Phillips then took up the little golden picks, opened it, and took out the consecrated host. I knew enough to sink to my knees.

As I did so, I noticed that his face had lost its vitality. He suddenly looked much older, weaker, and I realized that what to me were mere words were to him a complete self-donation. He looked spent, but he wasn't finished yet. He stood up slowly. Then, holding up the host as he would at the celebration of the Eucharist, he prayed again for about five more minutes.

And that was it. He sat back down and returned the host to the pigs. His head bowed and his eyes closed as he cradled it in his hands. I pulled the chair up next to him. Now what? I asked. Now, he said, we wait. Some commotion startled me, but it turned out to be Maria arriving at home. Jose stopped her in the living room. Father Phillips called Jose into the kitchen and suggested he and Maria find a hotel for the night. We priests had to remain to see if the rites had worked. If not, we had more work ahead of us. It would be better if he and Maria were elsewhere. Jose seemed more than happy to exit the house.

We heard the crunch of his and Maria's footsteps on the porch stairs as they headed to their car. All I wanted was to be right behind them. I tried to back out of Father Philip's plan. After last night, I really need some rest, I said. You're fine, he replied emphatically, directing his blue eyes at mine. And I have protection. He held up the golden picks and smiled. How is that going to help, I asked rather abruptly,

regretting my words even as they came out of my mouth. His demeanor saddened as he bowed his head again over the pigs. We sat for a while in the kitchen. It was the dinner hour by now, but neither of us were hungry. Around 9 p.m. we moved to the guest room and lay down on the twin beds. We stayed on top of the covers like people prepared to rise at a moment's notice. Father Phillips pushed his pillow around a bit, uttered one final prayer in that ancient language I did not understand,

and then fell asleep. Just like that. Effortlessly. He told me that we'd have to be rested for what came next. I had no idea what he meant. Around four in the morning, I understood. I woke to the sound of shuffling outside the room. At first, I thought that Father Phillips must have gotten up and was moving around the

kitchen, praying again. But a glance to my left revealed that he was still lying on the bed next to me. Asleep or awake, I couldn't tell. I wondered if Jose and Maria had returned. I strained to hear and make sense of the sounds in the house. The situation escalated quickly. I tried to sit up. I couldn't. I was wide awake, but I couldn't move. My body was locked in place as though a heavy weight were pressing it down. I have learned since that doctors call this sleep paralysis. But would they admit what I was starting to acknowledge? I was the prisoner of some infernal agent. I could at least turn my head toward Father Phillips. I saw his bed start to shift back and forth, its posts scraping against the wooden floor.

Then it climbed several inches toward the ceiling. This activity woke Father Phillips, who appeared to be completely unfazed. Waving his hand in a quick motion, he commanded, Down! The bed hit the floor hard, and in the same instant I realized I was free to sit up. hard, and in the same instant I realized I was free to sit up. My attention was drawn toward the door as the brass knob started jiggling violently. The door had been open when we turned in.

Surely Father Phillips had closed the door during the night. In the brighter light of the hallway, something was moving on the other side. I could tell by the flickering shadows on the floor underneath the door. As I watched in horror, the door opened, and a thin woman walked in. She was about seven, maybe eight feet in height, and had to duck significantly to enter the room. As she did so, a thick mass of long, tangled, black hair covered her face. I couldn't make out much else because she was backlit by the brightness in the hallway. Her dress, however, looked like an adult version of the children's dresses Jose

had burned. She shuffled across the room past the foot of my bed, apparently oblivious to my presence. Then she walked through the wall. This took place so quickly that I barely had time to register what was happening. For a moment, the room seemed to return to normal, but I was frozen in expectation. Whatever had walked through the wall could walk back the same way. Would this happen? Would she come back? I strained to hear any sound pick up any indication that the woman was returning. I sat so still that I wondered if I was still living or had somehow passed over into the spiritual realm. I was jolted back into my body by a loud crack. In an instant,

I was hauled onto my feet and backed up against the wall by some invisible force. I hit my head on something hanging there, a lamp maybe. I felt a searing pain and became aware of the warm spread of blood on the back of my neck. My thoughts went out to Father Phillips. I turned to look at him. Father Phillips! I cried. Father Phillips! He didn't move. In the gloom of the early morning light, he was just lying there.

Had he gone back to sleep? Why wasn't he responding to me? Then I realized he wasn't merely laying flat. He was levitating several inches above the bed. Father Phillips, I said. I tried to make out if his chest was rising and falling, if he were still alive. I heard a moan. Suddenly he sat up, but not in a natural way. It was as if something had pulled him powerfully up by the head. He turned pained eyes toward me and held out his hand. In it was a crucifix, which he then clutched hard to his chest.

He said something I couldn't make out, and as he did, he fell backwards and became still. I believe that this was the moment he died. The autopsy would show later that he had suffered a coronary infarction. In an instant, I was out of the bedroom and in the hallway. I rushed out the front door, heedless of the cold. The first icy step slid out from under me and I fell backward, hitting my head for the second time and widening the wound. Blood gushed over my shoulders.

Was she out here? She'd walked through the bedroom wall. Was she in the yard right now? Half running, half sliding, I made it to my car and into the driver's seat. My frozen fingers had trouble getting the key into the ignition. The hum of the engine was like a calming tonic. I put the car into reverse and stepped on the gas. In the rear-view mirror, her hair-covered face stared at me from the back seat.

She was whispering something I couldn't make out. Taking my eyes off the mirror, I turned to look behind me, but the back seat was empty. I whipped my head to the front, and there she was, inches from my face, like she'd crawled around onto my lap. My memory gets fuzzy here, but I heard these words come out of my mouth, words I don't remember intending. Eternal rest grant unto her, my lord. I guess I blacked out because the next thing I knew

a patrolman was tapping on my window with something metal I'd backed into the car behind me with my front end jutting out into the street I'd been there long enough for the sun to rise to its noon position and my muscles to be stiff

with the cold later that same day the report of what had happened reached you, Your Excellency, and you came to see me. One priest in the hospital, and one lying dead in a parishioner's home. You had a lot to investigate before giving a definitive explanation to the press. When you arrived, I was just waking up from the sedative that the hospital provided. I had a bandage on my head and, per doctor's orders, was in for a night's observation in case I had suffered a concussion.

After listening to my story, which I admit was probably very incoherent at the time, he told me to try to get some rest. When we met in your office the following week, the entire incident had been put neatly away. I don't know what I expected, really. You assured me that the fall on the ice had caused hallucinations. No strange woman had been in the house or followed me to my car. What had happened to Father Phillips was most unfortunate, of course, but he was an old man, and the whole ordeal had simply been too much for him.

At least, you offered by way of consolation, he died embracing the cross. Surely he was enjoying his eternal reward. As you walked me to the door of your office, you took my hand warmly and recommended I put the whole affair behind me. I was a good priest, you said, and a good pastor, whose discretion promised a bright future in the church. When I left you, Your Excellency, I wasn't feeling like a good priest or a good pastor. I didn't even feel like a good man. Could I have done something to save Father

Phillips? He was the good priest. He was the good priest. He was the good pastor. I wouldn't lie to myself anymore about what I had witnessed. Father Phillips had taken on the devil and paid for his victory over him with his life. Yes, victory. Maria and Jose reported to me that all strange phenomena ceased in their home. Whatever had happened in that house in the past was now put to rest.

Whoever that strange, tall woman might have been, she did not make another appearance. Maria and Jose continued to live in the house to this day. For my part, I keep in mind what Father Phillips taught me about suffering souls pleading for our help. I pray for this strange tall woman, just in case she needs my prayers. In this way, I believe, I can honor Father Phillips's memory. Yes, by doing this, and by never again denying the existence and intervention of the devil in this world. I'm a priest of God. I have work to do.