Beware the Night

by Ralph Sarchie

  “Are you afraid of them?” she asked, and heard a brief, timid beep. Damned right, “Isabel” was afraid of us—if we came to that house, the spirit would be exposed for what it really was. Here was another parallel with the Westchester case, where the demon insisted that “holy ones must not come!”

  Not seeing the incredible illogic of a spirit who claimed to need help yet objected to getting it, the couple became consumed and enthralled by the events the “poltergeist” described. Communicating with it became such an obsession that Mike actually took a vacation from work so he’d have even more time to pursue his investigation of the spirit’s claims. The mystery fueled his cop’s curiosity. He and Donna began combing through phone books, trying to identify what town the two dead kids might have come from. The spirit beeped no to each possibility but remained strangely silent when towns that ended with the word “brook” were brought up.

  The couple’s confusion only added to the creature’s credibility. Using this clue, Mike combed old newspapers at the library, looking for stories about missing children from a town whose name ended in “brook.” Of course, he found nothing, but being a cop, this only intrigued him even more. He began keeping case notes of what he’d discovered so far. One entry he showed me read:

  Isabel, age 6. Comes from Brook? Broadbrook? Foster-brook? Potterbrook? Blue car; two males. Remains: located in swamp. Sexually molested, then killed. Deceased, 50 years. States that she had blond hair and green eyes. She also states that her brother has blond hair. It is my opinion that due to the age at which she was killed, she has a very limited vocabulary. We are dealing with the mentality of a 6-year-old. We have to speak in words she understands.

  Intensely curious about the spirit, Mike invited it to reveal more of its powers. “Isabel, can you move things?” After an agreeable beep was heard, Donna shouted in astonishment. A cloth heart she kept on her kitchen wall had just tumbled to the ground on its own! She picked it up and put it on the kitchen table, but when she turned around, the heart was back on the wall in its usual spot. “Isabel, did you put the heart back?” she asked in bewilderment, and the phone chimed affirmatively.

  On the other end of the line, Mike had more suggestions. “Can you turn the water on?” Nothing happened. “She can’t do it,” he said sadly. A kitchen faucet gushed in response.

  “The hell she can’t,” Donna gasped.

  To me, this was further proof that the culprit in this case was a demon: Ghosts are much weaker spirits and don’t have the ability to move anything but the lightest objects, so they couldn’t possibly turn a faucet handle. It’s also debatable whether a human spirit could make a phone beep: I’ve never heard of a case where this happened, but if several ghosts were in the house, they might be able to pool their spirit energy to accomplish this feat.

  “Isabel, can you touch Donna’s arm?” Mike asked twice, but got no response—until he heard a blood-curdling shriek from Donna.

  “Never do that again!” she cried, sobbing so hard she was choking.

  “What happened?”

  Unable to find words for the indescribably icy terror of that touch, she just sobbed. “Oh, shit! Never, ever do that again.” Angry and afraid, she finally caught her breath and railed at her lover for putting her through such heart-stopping horror. “What the fuck are you trying to do to me?”

  Mike reminded her that the spirit wasn’t out to hurt her and had helpfully warned them about the “big one” in her house. His remarks were punctuated by soothing single beeps of agreement, which calmed Donna considerably.

  Her kitchen was suddenly filled with brilliant flashes of light. Each of them appeared at the very edge of her peripheral vision, so she stood there, turning her head from side to side in astonishment. Although she didn’t know it, she was seeing what we call “ghost lights,” bursts of energy from either human or inhuman spirits. Hardly daring to ask, she whispered into the phone, “Isabel, was that you?” A long, triumphant tone echoed through the phone, and Donna hung up, too upset to talk further. The spirit, however, had something else to say; it gave Mike a quick beep of farewell.

  Once encouraged to get physical, Isabel intensified the attack. First, she started intruding into Mike and Donna’s phone conversations uninvited. In one call, Donna wondered what they should do. Should they contact psychic investigators about the strange events in her home? “I don’t even believe in this stuff,” she grumbled. Mike got mad. “How much more proof do you need? We know you have the spirit of a little girl who was six and a little boy who was eight. We know they came from a ‘brook’ somewhere, and were murdered. And we know their remains are in your damned swamp! Did we make all this up?”

  “Maybe the little girl did,” replied Donna, closer to the truth than she realized. Beep, beep, denied the spirit, then went into a frenzy of tones up and down the scales.

  “Don’t worry, little girl,” Mike said. “We believe you.”

  That wasn’t the only time the spirit sparked a lovers’ quarrel. In subsequent tapes, it showed a real talent for stirring up trouble. No strategy was too petty, if it helped drive a wedge between Donna and Mike. In one call Mike, who was extremely health-conscious, innocently asked his girlfriend if she’d taken her vitamin pill that day. Yes, she lied, only to have the ghost tattle on her with two beeps. “She’s giving you up, babe.” Mike laughed; he thought the whole thing was pretty funny. Donna didn’t—and they got into a heated argument about it, much to the delight of the spirit. Divide and conquer—that’s the favorite M.O. of the demonic.

  Soon, however, they both started to suspect that the allegedly friendly ghost had a dark side. When Donna mentioned contacting the Warrens, the spirit revealed a creepy new power: The woman was immediately hit with a blinding headache. Within days she was a virtual hostage in her own home, since every time she tried to go out, she’d suddenly feel extremely tired and get an excruciating headache that sent her straight to bed. These killer headaches, marked by a powerful feeling of pressure on her temples, never let up, and her whole body ached right down to her bones. Donna began sleeping more and more, as the demon drained her of energy.

  The next time she called Mike, there was a lot of static on the line but no beeps, until she said she’d like to go over to his house. That provoked a frenzy of shrill tones—clearly Isabel wasn’t pleased with this idea. “I think she has a mean streak,” Mike remarked, while Donna complained that her heart was pounding. “Is that your doing, Isabel?” With a firm beep, the spirit said yes.

  “I really want to leave here, and come to your house,” Donna pleaded. Before Mike could say a word, two more beeps followed: Donna wasn’t going anywhere if the spirit could help it.

  Mike, however, still didn’t want to blame the little girl he called “cutie” for this. “Is the big one around today?” he asked. Three long tones followed, implying that the evil force had made three appearances so far. That number was yet another clue to the spirit’s true nature, since, the demonic love to do things in threes, to mock the Christian trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

  Isabel was quick to offer an alibi, a little later in the tape. Again, Mike asked the questions.

  Do you love Donna? YES

  Then why are you hurting her? N/R (NO RESPONSE)

  You don’t hurt people you love. N/R

  Will you make Donna’s headache go away? N/R

  Is there some reason why you want her to stay home? YES

  Do you feel you are protecting her? YES

  I can protect her. NO

  Is somebody in the family in danger? YES

  Is there going to be an accident? YES

  Will somebody die? YES

  Is it going to be Donna’s brother? N/R

  Donna’s father? N/R

  Her mother? N/R

  Is it going to be Donna or me? N/R

  Do you know who? YES

  If I guess, will you tell me? NO

  If Donna stays in the house, will she be okay? YES

 
; When Mike begged it to please cure his girlfriend of her horrible headaches, within seconds the pain vanished. He began bargaining with the so-called little girl: Would the spirit stop giving Donna headaches if she’d agree to stay home? Okay, it beeped. And how about lifting the relentless fatigue she was afflicted with? Absolutely not, Isabel replied. It was essential to keep Donna tired, for her own good, and that meant her body would keep on hurting. This was obviously another demonic tactic to isolate the young mother, by keeping her apart from her friends and lover.

  Nor could Mike come to her house, as Donna’s parents, who lived upstairs, had taken a mysterious dislike to him and invariably started an argument with him whenever he dropped by. Clearly, the evil spirit was doing its utmost to separate Donna from her support system, all the better to break down her will.

  So the young mother became a prisoner. One morning she tried to escape, calling Mike to say that she felt better than usual, was getting dressed, and would be over to visit him soon. Two furious beeps interrupted her. Putting down the phone, Donna headed out to her car, only to find that the battery was dead. A kindly neighbor came out in the pouring rain and tried to jump-start her car, with no success. Soaking wet, she trudged back to her house in defeat—and was struck by the worst headache ever. “Mike,” she said, weeping into the phone, “Isabel has killed my car.” A long, gloating beep echoed over the line, followed by a dial tone.

  Mike quickly called back and began hinting around that he’d be by with his car. He was afraid to actually come out and say this, for fear he’d be disconnected again. Can you imagine a grown man and woman, each with children of their own, unable to see each other and too intimidated to talk plainly on their own phones? While the demon was finally showing its true colors, amazingly, this couple still thought they were dealing with the spirit of a six-year-old girl! Donna was reduced to asking Isabel’s permission to speak to her boyfriend in privacy. No, beeped the spirit, you can’t. “But I miss Mike,” she whined. “And I lo—” It seemed that the spirit could read her mind, since a soft tone signaled that it too “loved” Mike. “I need to be with him,” Donna pleaded. Two much louder beeps signaled that no trysts were allowed.

  “That’s it,” shouted Mike. “I’m coming right over!”

  The phone went berserk, letting out a mad cacophony of deafening tones, then disconnected. He tried to call back, dialing her number over and over, but got a busy signal each time. Just then his phone rang. Hesitantly he lifted the receiver—and was blasted by a long, furious tone that seemed to stretch on forever. “Okay, okay, I’m not coming!” he shouted. The wail immediately ceased. Again Isabel put a benevolent spin on things, telling Mike that if he came over, the “big one” would hurt him. Being only a little girl, the spirit contended it wasn’t powerful enough to protect both of them.

  The last tape Mike made was the most disturbing of all. A series of up-and-down beeps that sounded like mechanical laughter answer his call, then Donna picked up. “Guess who just greeted me.” Mike chuckled.

  “I’m not talking to her,” his girlfriend insisted. “I’m sore all over, feel sick to my stomach, and don’t want to talk on the phone anymore.”

  Mike was so in awe of Isabel’s powers that he couldn’t resist going into a long question-and-answer session with the spirit anyway. “Am I going crazy?” he wondered. Two beeps assured him he was not. “You’re real?” That elicited louder beeps, as Donna’s breathing became slow and steady, as if she were in a trance. What an amazing power, he thought. She can make Donna go to sleep just like that! I wish I was over there, Isabel. I want to meet you, see your miraculous powers, feel your touch.

  A moment later, at his request, the spirit woke up the young mother. “What’s happening?” she asked groggily. When Mike told her that she’d been fast asleep a moment before, she refused to believe it. “No way!” she argued.

  As the tape played, Mike encouraged the spirit to show off its tricks. “Turn on the water,” he said, and the water went on. “See, if she can do that, Donna, she can put you to sleep.”

  Sounding like she was about ninety years old and weary beyond imagining, his girlfriend implored him not to do this. She’d barely finished the sentence when Isabel thought of a new game. The spirit threw open a kitchen cupboard and made a box of saltines float over to her. Although Donna protested that she wasn’t hungry, the next sound Mike heard was his girlfriend obediently opening the cracker box and munching away.

  It was as if Mike had been hypnotized himself; only now did he wake up to the full horror of the situation. The little girl or whatever was lurking in the phone was moving the woman he loved around like a marionette, opening and closing her eyes, forcing her to eat on command. Could Donna be possessed?

  “What are you doing? Let her go!”

  Three thunderous crashes resonated through the phone—and Mike found himself screaming at a dial tone. Engulfed with fear, he called Ed Warren, nationally renowned due to frequent newspaper and TV coverage of his cases. After hearing about “Isabel’s” terrifying powers, Ed instantly agreed to take the case.

  Later that day Mike’s phone rang. “I just looked at it,” he told me. “Fear was building inside me. It was Donna”—or was it? “It didn’t sound like her at all—the change in her voice was incredible. I told her everything Ed had told me: This is no little girl—it’s a devil. No human spirit had the power to do these things. This creature has been keeping you prisoner so it can feed off your energy—that’s why you’re so tired!”

  Donna laughed at this. “I feel fine,” she insisted in her strange new voice. “And my car is working perfectly. I think I’ll take my son to the beach.”

  “Are you nuts? Get out of that house while you still can,” Mike yelled, then realized what was happening. His girlfriend had dreamed up a ruse to escape Isabel. He called the Warrens, who arrived at his office shortly before Donna and her son pulled up in their car. How did she escape? The demon had achieved its goal—possession—and no longer found it necessary to keep the woman trapped in her house. The sudden, chilling change in her personality was conclusive proof that the evil spirit had entered her, after using its terrifying powers to break down her will.

  Other than looking exhausted, the mother seemed fine when she arrived, but she went into a trance during the meeting and said nothing. Finally Lorraine suggested that Mike take Donna to a motel for the night, while she and Ed reviewed the tapes he’d made, but Donna refused.

  “She gave me a very evil look,” Mike recalls, a haunted glare of overpowering hatred. No longer under the sway of “Isabel,” he was finally starting to wake up to the truth. “I knew I wasn’t looking at Donna, and whatever was inside her knew that I knew. After about fifteen minutes, the real Donna came back—happy and full of energy, and I thought everything was okay. Boy, was I wrong!”

  That night Mike’s doorbell rang. “When I saw Donna at the door, the caution flags went up immediately, because she had that scary look again. ‘Hi, baby,’ she said flirtatiously. ‘Glad to see me?’ I said I was glad to see Donna, but we both knew that only her body was there. ‘Why the dirty looks, baby?’ she asked. ‘You don’t love me anymore?’”

  Mike just stared, too appalled to say anything, as Donna entered his home, sashayed right by him, and plopped down in his favorite recliner. Not wanting to be in the same room with her, he retreated to the kitchen, shouting “Go to hell, Isabel!”

  “Why don’t you go to hell?” Contempt dripped from her voice. Just as she spoke, a thunderbolt of staggering pain hit Mike in the head, and he clung to the kitchen sink so he wouldn’t fall to the ground.

  At that very instant, Donna laughed harshly from the next room. Although she was sitting in a recliner facing away from the kitchen and couldn’t possibly see Mike reeling with pain, he shouted to her—or whoever was inhabiting her body, “You know what you just did, don’t you?” Donna only laughed harder, as Mike staggered into the room and looked right into a pair of eyes that didn’t
look like his girlfriend’s at all. “You’re trying to take me over, aren’t you?” he accused.

  With that, Donna cackled more maniacally than ever. “Have a little headache, Mike?” the woman he’d loved for the past two years taunted in her strange new voice. “Fuck you!”

  * * *

  Since the Warrens were about to leave for England, Ed asked me to handle the case for them. After hearing the whole story, I was amazed by the demon’s power and cunning. In just two weeks it had managed to break down Donna’s resistance and enter her. While successfully keeping Mike away, it had also gotten him so thoroughly on its side that he only grasped that he’d been conned after his girlfriend was already possessed! This was a crucial element of the evil spirit’s strategy, because it needed to separate Donna from her source of strength: the tough cop you couldn’t push around without getting a face full of fist. While we don’t know all the factors that made possession possible at this time, it’s clear that Donna had no power to resist without Mike at her side.

  Luckily, a light had finally gone on in Mike’s head while Donna was still in the earliest stage of possession. Had he called the Warrens sooner, she might have escaped invasion entirely. But at least the demon hadn’t had time to really dig in. That made it important to hold an exorcism for the young mother as soon as possible, before the evil spirit could gain complete control.

  My priority now was to prepare her for the upcoming ritual. Being a Catholic, that meant she had to make a full confession of her sins and get into a state of grace. (For people of other religions, I tell them to do whatever their faith prescribes to get them into a righteous relationship with God.) Prayer is extremely important, but some possessed people, including Donna, can’t pray, because the demon won’t allow it. Whenever she attempted to pray, she became violently ill.