What happened next sent chills down Jill’s spine. It was one of those really beautiful winter days we sometimes have in New York—so nice, in fact, that she decided to let Timmy go out in the backyard to play and get some fresh air. The little boy was very excited and asked his mom to bring out his new toy car. Just big enough to hold a child, it was made of bright yellow and orange plastic, had doors that really opened, a driver’s seat, and was operated by foot pedals. Timmy climbed in—and was still in the car an hour later, when Jill came to the door to call him in for lunch.
Obediently, Timmy drove the car over to the house and got out, making sure to close the plastic door. What Jill saw then made her doubt her sanity: The door to the toy car opened by itself, as if some invisible child had just gotten in. It drove around the yard, stopping at the exact spot Timmy had parked it. Again the door opened and closed all by itself, much to the delight of Timmy, who was jumping up and down, so thrilled he was squealing. His new friend had taken a joy ride in the toy car. Seeing his mother’s jaw drop in terror and her wide-eyed astonishment, he calmly remarked, “It’s only make-believe, Mommy.”
Too shocked to speak, she beckoned her son to come inside. She couldn’t believe what she’d just seen. Dread washed over her, as she struggled to calm herself. There must be some logical explanation, she thought, but what? Deep down, she knew there was none. As soon as her husband, Bruce, came home, she told him what she’d witnessed.
“It must be the wind,” he said, knowing his wife was a practical soul, not given to imagination.
“But it wasn’t windy,” she insisted, getting upset all over again. “The air was completely calm, I tell you!”
“Still, there must be a reasonable explanation, honey. Maybe it was a vibration from a truck,” Bruce suggested.
Close to hysterics, she shouted, “No, that wasn’t it. How many times do I have to tell you: Timmy’s toy car drove all by itself!”
“That’s simply not possible,” he insisted. But it was possible, because Timmy’s new friend was older than mankind and evil beyond comprehension. Their family had been chosen by a demon and had just entered the infestation stage of diabolical activity.
Trying to push the unsettling episode out of her mind, Jill busied herself the next day with unpacking. As she put Timmy’s clothes into his bureau drawers, she suddenly smelled the unmistakable scent of cologne. A man’s cologne, but not her husband’s, the fragrance was so overpowering that it filled the room, as if someone had sprayed it everywhere. Just then a closet door was flung open with such force it banged into the wall, leaving a dent. Everything she’d carefully arranged in the closet came flying out. Scared and confused, Jill just shoved the mess back into the closet and slammed the door shut, unable to make any sense of what was happening to her in this house.
As an investigator of the preternatural, I’d heard all this before. I’m well beyond being shocked by what takes place in these cases, but what Jill said next really made me sit up and take notice. She explained that when she was living in her previous apartment, several miles away, she’d suddenly gotten the urge to move to a new building. “I’m not sure why I felt a need to look at this particular time, because everyone was telling me it was the middle of winter, and I should wait until spring. But I just had to move, and nobody was going to talk me out of it.”
Once she called a real estate agent, something strange happened. “Timmy said to me, ‘Mommy, don’t take the place on Fresh Pond Road, because there’s no room for my baby sister.’ I didn’t know what he was talking about, since I hadn’t looked at any apartment on Fresh Pond Road, but two days later, we did see a place on that street, decided it wasn’t big enough for the baby, and turned it down. I didn’t connect this to what Timmy had said. Actually, I’d forgotten about it.”
A few days later Timmy had another suggestion. “Mommy, take the apartment two blocks from Myrtle Avenue.” Again Jill didn’t pay much attention, since she hadn’t seen an apartment off Myrtle Avenue.
“I just needed to move, and that was all I was concentrating on,” the young mother emphasized. “A couple of days later I heard about this place. When I saw it, I told Timmy it was perfect. He was very happy, so I asked if he liked it too. ‘Yes, Mommy! This is the place I was telling you about.’ Although the apartment was two blocks from Myrtle Avenue, I thought it was a big coincidence, a little weird maybe, but I didn’t think a thing about it until creepy stuff started to happen. Now I really believe I was led here!”
That feeling was correct. Jill and her family were led—or lured—to the demon’s lair. Incredible as it sounds, satanic powers can draw someone to a particular place by influencing the person to make a decision he or she wouldn’t ordinarily make. The peculiar thing, I immediately noticed, was that this apartment didn’t have a room for the baby either, yet Jill had found it “perfect.”
And how did this four-year-old know in advance what apartments they’d see? And was it really he who was so eager to live by the graveyard? I believe Timmy, for all his youth, was a very special kid, and the demonic had singled him out for his strong psychic abilities. While there’s no special personality trait that defines who will be selected as the prey, generally this person has some weakness or point of vulnerability that can be exploited. I’m convinced that if we hadn’t intervened when we did, Timmy ultimately would have become possessed. It’s extremely rare, but satanic spirits can—and do—take over children.
I could feel my blood starting to boil. Looking at this little red-haired boy, who was now scampering around the apartment without a care in the world, still certain it was “all make-believe,” and his adorable six-month-old sister, with her fuzzy bald head and big blue eyes that followed every move I made, I thought, How dare the demonic pick on these innocent little kids? Although I try not to get emotionally involved in my supernatural cases, knowing that strong feelings make me more vulnerable to demonic attacks and manipulation, I just can’t help it when I see a kid being mistreated.
It’s the same way when I walk my police beat: I’m still haunted by the time I was called to a tenement in East New York and found a desperately ill one-month-old baby lying still and blue on the kitchen table, because the creatures who called themselves her parents were too damned lazy to call a doctor when it would have done some good. The paramedics and I did our best to revive the tiny girl, but she was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. The mother cried a bit, but the dad just got up to leave. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” I demanded.
“Home,” he replied matter-of-factly. “I’ve got to get ready for work.” He had eight other children with various women around the ‘hood, so apparently losing this one didn’t mean much to him. One less mouth to feed, I suppose. It was all I could do not to rip his head off, as he coldly turned his back on his dead baby and walked off into the night.
Jill, however, looked extremely upset as she concluded her story. “I have never felt the anger, the hostility, the hate I’ve felt in the few short days I’ve been here,” she said. “I don’t know what’s come over me since I moved in—I’m frightened of myself and feel like I might go on a rampage at any time. This just isn’t me at all.”
I got there too late to save that baby in East New York, but I’m right on time for these kids and Jill. “No,” I told her. “It’s not you but what’s in this house that’s making you feel this way.” I could talk for hours about the demonic, but before I got another sentence out, the baby’s loud wailing suddenly interrupted us. The wail stopped as abruptly as it started when Timmy suddenly slapped the baby. I immediately thought of Kathy and her warning “Somebody’s going to get hit!” Her prediction had come true!
“Look at that!” her mother exclaimed. “Timmy’s never done that before.” I could tell she was wondering if the evil spirit was to blame, but to tell the truth, I wasn’t quite sure. From what I’d seen so far, Timmy was a rambunctious boy who clearly hadn’t experienced much discipline from either of his p
arents. Whether it was sibling rivalry or dark forces that provoked the slap, however, it was clearly time to begin the ritual. Since no one here was possessed—yet—we’d do an exorcism of the house rather than of the people living there.
Looking around the room, I noticed that someone was missing, the other single tenant. “Where’s Bill?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Jill replied. “I told him you’d be here at eight, but I haven’t seen him all day.”
I couldn’t help but get annoyed. We’d agreed to take the case—and to come here in the middle of an ice storm at that—only because we’d been promised the cooperation of everyone in the house. To expel the demon, we needed access to every area of the house, so there would be nowhere for the fiend to hide. I’d also like to hear Bill’s story, but that wasn’t crucial to my investigation, since the sinister events had begun before he moved in. Obviously, he’d had no role in attracting this demon, but I was still curious to hear what he had to say.
While we waited for him, Brother Andrew conducted a psychic scan of the two apartments, walking from room to room with his long, thin arms outstretched to help him feel the spiritual vibrations. He detected two areas of intense chill—“psychic cold,” we call it—one in the parents’ bedroom and the other in the room the little boy shared with his sister. “Can you see it?” I asked him.
He was silent for a moment, as if listening to a sound I couldn’t hear. “It’s masking itself; it doesn’t want us to see it. It’s trying to hide.”
“Definitely demonic?” Tommy queried, although we were all sure of the answer.
“Yes, it’s inhuman. It’s scared, but its hatred is stronger than its fear.” Although I can’t explain how his psychic powers work, any more than I can explain how little Timmy knew what apartments his mother would see, I’ve seen the brother’s sixth sense in action often enough to know it’s real. On some cases he’s told us the layout of an apartment he’s never been to or identified where the “portal,” or opening, the demonic force used to gain entry to the home was located.
Once he even read my mind. I was visiting the St. Paul Society and brought some pastries with me. Brother Andrew tore into the Linzer torte I offered him with surprising gusto. I was standing behind him as he ate and couldn’t help thinking, Don’t they ever feed these guys? He turned around as if I’d spoken out loud and said, “Fuck you, Ralph!” We were laughing about it all night.
Sometimes Brother Andrew reminded me of Father Martin: They were both worldly men and spoke in everyday language, including some vulgarities. That made it easy to be with them: You didn’t feel like you were in church but with a friend. Each had remarkable psychic powers and a real gift for empathy. In Brother Andrew’s case, the gift was so strong that it was almost a curse: He couldn’t walk into a 7-Eleven without the cashier blurting out all her troubles to him. I also confided a great deal in him, but if I’d ask him what the future held for me, he’d say, “Just let it happen, Ralph.”
He once told me about a marvelous vision he had of a big golden cube that gave off a strong feeling of love. Next to it was a big black hole—a spirit portal—that gave off such overpowering evil that he felt he’d be engulfed, disappear, and die. That’s when he made the decision to go into religious life. He’d felt the force of God’s love and the absolute evil of the demonic.
While he couldn’t actually see the evil spirit in this house because it was hiding itself, he could feel its fear and hatred.
“Command it to leave,” I urged.
In a loud, assertive tone, Brother Andrew gave the order: “In the name of Jesus Christ I command to you to go where the Lord sends you, harming no one along the way!” He repeated these words twice more, even louder and more forcefully, then shook his head. “It won’t go—it doesn’t want to leave!”
We gathered up our supplies for the exorcism: holy water; St. Benedict medals for everyone in the house, including the cat; blessed salt and blessed incense. We were just setting the video camera up when the missing tenant strolled downstairs—with a can of Budweiser in his hand. Taking a noisy slurp, this overweight, disheveled man reeked of both beer and bad attitude. I was talking to Jill when I heard Joe say, “Could you put the beer away, please? We’re having a religious ceremony here.”
Predictably, since I’ve met a million idiots like this while on patrol, Bill started getting in Joe’s face. “It’s my home and I’ll drink beer anywhere I damn well want,” he said in a nasty tone. I could feel my temper rising, but since I was here to pray, not mix it up with some wiseass, I let the other tenants try to reason with their neighbor. Ignoring their cajoling, he continued to stand there, guzzling his beer, as if waiting for the show to begin. Well, there was nothing in the Bible to prevent me from subduing him with a hard-eyed cop stare, so that’s what I did.
“Listen up, buddy,” I told him. “If you don’t put your beer away, take it back to your apartment and deal with your problem yourself.”
He looked me up and down, then said in a surly tone, “Fine. Good-bye.” Letting out a loud belch, he slowly retreated to his apartment.
“Have a good night—if you can,” I called after him, knowing that what was in that house was likely to head straight for that man’s apartment—and it would be extremely pissed off when it got there. He didn’t seem too worried—and actually had the nerve to turn on his stereo and play the rock band Black Sabbath at full blast.
Resistance is all part of the demonic’s M.O., so none of the investigators really expected the case to go smoothly. Satanic forces are always looking for ways to screw up our investigations, and this fool was playing right into their hands. If he’d been the only person in the house, I would have packed up and left then. We’d all risked ourselves—for no pay, since we don’t take money to do this Work—to deal with his problem, and now he was giving us a hard time.
Although I knew that conducting the ritual at this point would be like putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg, two kids were counting on us, so we forged ahead, with Black Sabbath blaring overhead. First, we lighted blessed incense and let the sweet smell fill each room, making sure that no dark space went unpurified. Brother Andrew and I took turns reading prayers, while Joe and Phil did the same thing in the basement apartment. Over the years we’ve discovered that it’s best to hold simultaneous rituals on the different floors of the house, so the demon can’t flee to another floor.
As I read the Pope Leo XIII prayer, I also held up my relic of the True Cross. I always keep it over my bed, except when I need it for a case. You might say it’s the equivalent of a cop’s gun, since there’s nothing more powerful against Satan’s forces.
We were about to start the next step, sprinkling holy water in every corner of the room, when the Black Sabbath music suddenly stopped. The second-floor tenant came downstairs, pale and shaken. Not only was there no beer can this time, but his entire attitude had done a complete 180. He was now eager—even desperate—to cooperate in any way he could. When my partner questioned him about his dramatic change of heart, he refused to say what had happened. “Let’s just get on with it,” he muttered.
That was OK with me; we were happy to finally get full access to the rest of the premises. Quickly, in case he changed his mind again, we resumed the ritual, cleansing his apartment with incense and prayer. Then it was time for the holy water. We hit all the corners to consecrate the room, then sprinkled it in every enclosed space, no matter how small, so no demon could hide there. Holy water is part of the Pope Leo XIII prayer, but we take it one step further. As the final coup de grâce to Satan and his henchmen, we used blessed salt in the same way we had used the holy water.
It was around midnight, when we finally finished the entire house. Brother Andrew said he could see a black shape moving around the house at a high rate of speed. The demon was looking for a hiding place, but we’d done our job well: There was none. Repelled at every turn by the holiness with which we’d anointed the house, the black shape moved faster and
faster, until Brother Andrew discerned that it had disappeared.
Once Brother Andrew told us it was gone, I spoke to all the tenants about what they could expect. “In a few days you may experience some supernatural phenomena as a residual effect of our ritual tonight. Sometimes a demon will return just to harass you, but if this happens, you’re to use the holy water and blessed salt we’re about to give you. Most important, you must pray and bring God into your lives. I must also ask you not to discuss what you’ve experienced here, because talking about these events gives the demon recognition—and could draw it back to your home.”
They all thanked us, even Bill. Walking outside in the clean, frigid air was wonderful after being in that house for four hours, but now we had to travel on icy roads after dealing with a demonic spirit. Since Tommy and Brother Andrew had the longest ride, I prayed they’d make it home safely.
That should have been the end of the story, but there was a curious sequel. The next day Brother Andrew got a call from a close friend who lived three thousand miles away in California. Around 9:00 P.M. Pacific time (midnight in New York), just as Brother Andrew completed the exorcism, this woman was asleep on her couch and had a chilling nightmare. In her mind’s eye, she saw Brother Andrew surrounded by evil. The dream was so vivid that she woke up shaking and went to her kitchen to make some soothing herb tea. While she was pouring water into a cup, she had the unmistakable feeling she was being watched.
She whirled around and saw a very hairy creature, about five feet tall, glaring at her and gnashing its horrible yellow teeth. The feeling of hatred the beast gave off was frightening beyond anything she’d ever experienced. But she had the presence of mind to do what Brother Andrew had taught her: command it in the name of Jesus Christ to leave. It immediately vanished, but she was so distraught she didn’t sleep at all that night, and called Brother Andrew first thing in the morning to see if he was all right.
Deliver Us from Evil Page 9