Neil shrugged his shoulders, ‘Whatever you think.’
I could see Neil was dubious. But he was held back by the fear the priest’s attendance would make things worse. I felt that we had nothing to lose.
We visited the Free Church that day. Despite the fact we were not members, they were very sympathetic and offered to visit our home to say some prayers. Their visit was scheduled for the following week, when I had some time off work.
CHAPTER NINE
Searching for Help
I busied myself cleaning on the morning of the priest’s visit. The children agreed to stay in their rooms upstairs when the priests arrived. The house was relatively quiet, and we planned for a simple house blessing to take place. Neil’s mobile phone rang, and I picked it up. ‘Unknown number’ flashed up on the screen. ‘I’m not answering that,’ I said, putting the phone on the fireplace. Seconds later the phone beeped to inform us the anonymous caller had left a message. Tentatively, I played it back. I flinched at the message.
‘What is it?’ Neil asked. I played the message again on speakerphone so he could hear. It sounded as if it was coming from our house, with our television and voices in the background. Halfway through the call, a high-pitched male voice screamed, ‘Fuck the priests!’ There were a lot of background noises, but there was no mistaking those sinister words. I sat on the arm of the sofa, unnerved by the feeling the visit was about to backfire. Minutes later a large silver car pulled into the drive. I licked the dryness from my lips as a nervous feeling fluttered in the pit of my stomach.
We welcomed the priests as they walked in the front door. They arrived casually dressed and made their introductions. A young dark haired man asked us to call him *Matthew. He was well spoken, and I guessed he was in his early thirties. The second priest shook hands and introduced himself as *Peter. He had a crop of blonde hair and appeared the more experienced of the two. The only sign of their vocation was a leather bound bible, which Peter carried in his hand.
Peter walked into the house with an air of authority and Matthew followed behind him. They seemed confident they could help, and we expressed our gratitude for their attendance.
Neil confided he felt like a leper as people were avoiding us for fear of ‘catching’ the entity, like it was some kind of illness. He did not blame them; it was just another example of how our lives had been affected.
I played the voice message back to the priests. Solemnly, they agreed the words appeared to be directed towards them.
Peter opened his bible and recited a short prayer, relinquishing any permission for the entity to be in our home. They explained that, by Neil first asking the entity to perform, he had inadvertently given it permission to come into our lives. It made sense, and Neil was very keen to revoke any perceived permission that he had given. The words had just left his mouth when Neil’s phone began to ring.
‘Look. The screen is reading home,’ I said, pointing it out. The priests exchanged glances as both our mobiles and the house phone rang persistently.
‘I’ll put it on speaker phone,’ Neil said, reaching for the home phone and handing it to them. Peter did not flinch. A rasping, exhaling sound could be heard on the other side. Peter said a prayer and the breathing continued. ‘You do not have permission to be here,’ the priest said with conviction. ‘In the name of Jesus Christ, leave this innocent family now.’ The line went dead. Peter prayed over the phone while walking into the kitchen, and then left it on the side. We walked to the hall to pray and returned to the kitchen shortly after.
I opened the kitchen door and stopped in my tracks. The home phone was in a standing position in the middle of the kitchen floor. Was this a message from the entity, demonstrating he was not going anywhere? The priest picked up the phone and examined it. He appeared at a loss for words. We all knew nobody had been in the kitchen in the short time we were gone. We returned to the living room and sat down. ‘Do you think it’s gone?’ I asked Neil, praying he would say yes.
Neil sighed. ‘No it’s still with me. I can feel it. I just hope nothing else happens.’
I tried to understand what Neil meant. ‘How do you know? Are you sure it’s not your imagination?’
Neil shook his head. ‘It’s hard to explain. It’s like a sick, nervous feeling that grows, from the pit of my stomach. Then it feels heavy, like it’s on me. I know when it comes and I know when it goes. It’s with me now.’ Again, the priests exchanged glances.
Peter slammed his bible shut and walked towards the door, keen to leave. ‘It’s best if you visit us at the church in future, rather than have us attend your home. I’m afraid we aren’t equipped to deal with it. You should give the Catholic Church another call about organising an exorcism.’
‘Thanks for coming anyway,’ I said, reaching out to shake their hands.
‘Say lots of prayers and attend church, have faith in God,’ Peter said over his shoulder as he walked out to their car parked on our drive.
Neil and I returned inside as their car drove away. I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. ‘What did you think of that?’ I asked.
‘Nice blokes, but they couldn’t get away quick enough,’ Neil said, flatly.
I stood staring out the front window long after the priests left. The shrill ring of our house phone interrupted my thoughts. Anger grew inside me. Neil’s phone lit up once again with the words ‘home’ flashed across the display. ‘Leave us alone,’ I murmured under my breath, covering my ears to block out the sound. Frustration built towards the unknown caller. My mobile phone began to ring insistently, stating ‘home’ was calling. I turned off my phone and shoved it back into my pocket. The calls persisted. On and on the phones rang, taunting us. ‘Right, that’s it, I’ve had enough!’ I shouted. I answered the call, and was greeted with a strange distorted noise, like someone playing a record and rubbing it back and forward on a turntable. The call went dead and I put the phone on the side, my hands trembling with anger.
‘What was it?’ Neil asked, putting his hand on my shoulder.
‘I don’t know. It was some strange rubbing noise. I can’t describe it.’
Neil’s phone rang and he pressed the speaker button as he answered. A gravelly voice abruptly blurted out ‘Neil!’
Furious, I grabbed the phone and clutched it to my ear. ‘Who is this?’ I shouted. Neil hunched over me, listening for the response. A demonic snarl ripped loudly through the phone. My heart froze, unprepared for the ferocity. The snarl ended in an inhuman vomiting noise. It was concentrated evil and directed solely at me. Ice-cold fear ran through my veins. I wanted to drop the phone and run, but I had to act. I began to recite the Lord’s Prayer down the phone. ‘Our Father who art in heaven…’ I continued, struggling to breathe. I was on a direct line to the entity and it took all my strength to continue. ‘Hallowed be thy name…’ My breath hitched as I broke into a sob. The line went quiet, but I felt an evil presence all around me. I finished the prayer and the line went dead. I heaved to take a breath, ‘Neil… get the kids out… we’re leaving.’ I ran into the hall, grabbing the children’s bags as I did so. I tried to shout for them to come downstairs, but it came out as a warbled scream. I knew I had to calm down, but I could not breathe. For once I felt what Neil felt.
Neil stood beside me and helped me out to the car. ‘Slow your breathing, you’re having a panic attack.’ The children jumped into the car without question. One look at my face was enough to tell them this was serious. What the hell are we dealing with? If the priests can’t get rid of it what hope do we have?
‘Where will we go?’ Neil asked.
‘Just drive,’ I answered between breaths, desperate to get away from the house.
‘I’ll drive to the Free Church, we can tell them what’s happened.’
I tried to calm down, not wanting to scare the children. We drove to the church, but our knocks went unanswered. Neil and I stood outside while the children waited in the car. I turned my mobile phone on and rang the church, bu
t there was no response. I left a message, trying to explain.
‘What now?’ Neil said.
I was spent. ‘I don’t know. I’m not going back there tonight. Let’s go to Clacton.’
We later realised we fled the house leaving our doors and windows open. Neil briefly returned to secure it. That night I understood why Neil had difficulty sleeping. I never truly appreciated just how horrendous the calls were until I heard one for myself. I turned and twisted in the sofa bed, counting the hours to dawn.
We returned to the house a couple of weeks later, in the hope of staying the night. Neil’s parents were missing their own space, as well as peace and quiet. I felt torn, but willing to give it a try. I hoped the entity would give us some respite as it did in the past. The children clambered upstairs to reacquaint themselves with their computer games and toys. I busied myself cleaning up in the kitchen. I stiffened upright as the home phone rang in the background.
Neil joined me in the kitchen as he answered it. I knew he rushed to answer the phone to protect me from the noises.
‘It’s OK, it’s Lee,’ he said, taking his pack of cigarettes from his pocket. I fought the urge to join him, and hoped Lee was not planning a visit. I liked him, but it seemed like every time they were together things got worse.
Neil stood at the back door chatting to Lee about meeting up in the pub. He paused mid-sentence. ‘Lee, can you hear that breathing noise?’
I stared at Neil, listening in to their conversation.
‘Can’t you hear it? It’s very loud,’ Neil said.
Curious, I walked over and put my ear to the handset to listen in. Instead of hearing Lee’s voice, a loud gravelly voice snarled, ‘Get ouuut.’ I backed away from Neil and rubbed my ear. I felt invaded. The voice was much louder than Lee’s, and sounded nothing like him. Was this the voice of the entity?
‘Lee did you hear that?’ Neil asked, searching for answers. It appeared Lee did not. ‘I’m going now, I can still hear it breathing.’ Neil abruptly ended the call and put the phone back in its cradle. ‘This is getting way too much,’ Neil said. ‘If this thing can speak, what’s it going to do next?’
I shuddered. If this thing comes from a different time in the past, how could it use technology? It was one of the many unanswered questions that spun in my mind. I walked upstairs to check on the children. Joe was out walking the dogs. Sarah looked at me uneasily. ‘Please Mum, can we stay for another while, at least until it gets dark?’ she said, pre-empting my suggestion to leave. I shrugged, not knowing what to do anymore. Later that day a picture fell over on the mantelpiece. It could have fallen over of its own accord, but I could not relax. The voice on the telephone was playing in a loop in my mind, and I was constantly on my guard. I was too scared to go to the bathroom in our house. The thought of being alone in a confined space scared the hell out of me. Neil was also uneasy. We settled the dogs, decided against sleeping at home, and returned to Clacton.
The following Sunday we went to church to see Father Luke. There had been no word back from the church, although we attended the Catholic service regularly. At the end of the service I shook hands with the priest. ‘Things aren’t very good Father,’ I whispered.
He smiled and placed his hand on mine ‘Ah well, at least it has brought you back to the church,’ he replied. He removed his hand and extended it to the next person in line.
I was flabbergasted. He truly did not appreciate the seriousness of the situation. I opened my mouth to reply, but was ushered out the door by the sea of people behind me.
We returned to the house a few days later and tried to be positive. The television was turned on, we played music in the kitchen and did everything we could to lift the mood. The day passed smoothly with no unusual occurrences. I unplugged the house phone and pulled out the children’s mattresses onto our bedroom floor. Everything was done with military precision as I planned our escape route. The light was left on in the landing, dressing gowns were close to hand, and our bags were packed at the front door in case we needed to make a quick escape.
Lying in bed staring at the ceiling, I remembered my childhood, when I worried about the bogeyman under the bed. I grew up with my family living beside a canal. My mother used to say there was a bogeyman there so I would not be tempted to mess about in the water. I was not a very good swimmer, and the unguarded canal was deep in the middle. The only problem was that the bogeyman would also play on my mind when I went to bed. My concerns ended when I started school and common sense prevailed.
I rubbed my eyes. It’s funny what goes through your head when you can’t sleep. I wished I had a fast forward button I could press to bring on the dawn.
The next day a few small things happened in the house and we tried to ignore them as we watched TV. My mobile phone delivered its familiar ringtone, which stated my husband was calling. The problem was Neil was sitting right beside me, and his mobile phone was lit up on the fireplace ringing all by itself. I silently turned the phones off, afraid if I acknowledged the incident I would somehow encourage more. Our plan of ignoring it seemed to be working reasonably well, but I was dreading the night and asked if we could sleep in Clacton one more time.
There was more heartache to come as we were forced to rehome the dogs. I tried without luck to ask family and friends to foster them until the situation improved. Unfortunately, I did not know how long that would take. Nobody had space indefinitely. We could not afford to leave them in kennels for weeks on end, and I knew I had hung on to them too long. We made the difficult decision to rehome them.
It was heartbreaking explaining it to the children, and I strongly resented being put in such a position. I made enquiries and reluctantly rehomed our dogs on the same day. It was a plaster – I had to pull it off quickly to endure the pain in one go. Lara was left until last, the most loyal of all our dogs. I dropped her off and strode back to my car, her whines still ringing in my ears. A pang of guilt hit me; she would find it hard to settle without us. I sat inside the car and bowed my head against the steering wheel of the car. What have I done? Resentment cut through me like a knife.
I returned to Clacton, and went back online to find help. My nerves were shattered, and I was desperately tired. I found Mike Hallowell, an investigator in Newcastle. He seemed very knowledgeable about poltergeists and his website stated he had been investigating hauntings for decades. ‘I know he lives far away, but maybe if I email him he might know somebody local who can help,’ I said to Neil as my fingers clacked furiously on the keyboard. I wrote the whole story to date in the email.
Neil glared at the screen. ‘You’ve written loads.’
‘He might as well know everything,’ I said.
Neil bit his thumbnail. ‘It might be too much information, you might put the man off.’
I pressed send. ‘It’s gone now. Let’s just wait and see.’ Neil need not have worried. Mike replied instantly and asked if he could follow it up with a phone call. As the phone rang I passed it over to Neil ‘You know more than I do Neil, you talk to him.’
Neil went to the kitchen and sat at the table beside the open window, trying to light a cigarette as he chatted with Mike on the phone. I took the cigarette from his hands, lit it and passed it back to him. I lit another cigarette for myself and inhaled deeply, giving into the craving I had fought for so long. As the story unfolded I heard things Neil had not disclosed to me. He was bearing the brunt of the attacks in order to protect his family. I toyed with Neil’s cigarette lighter as we both sat at the kitchen table, my gaze on the streets below. Holidaymakers walked past, laughing and joking with each other as their children tagged behind. What I would give for an ordinary life I thought as Neil recounted the physical injuries he suffered to Mike.
CHAPTER TEN
The Investigators
Neil and Mike kept in contact and several phone calls passed between them during the week. We stayed in Clacton, and I was helping Valerie make dinner when Neil walked into the kitchen, looking please
d with himself. Lately he did not seem to have a lot to smile about. I eyed him curiously. ‘Everything alright?’
Neil nodded. ‘Yep, I‘ve just got off the phone with the investigators. It’s all arranged, they’re coming next week.’
A nervous feeling fluttered in the pit of my stomach as a mixture of relief and apprehension spread through me. ‘I don’t know if we’re doing the right thing. What if they try and blame you for it all? We’ve been through enough without having suspicion cast on us.’
Neil shrugged. ‘We’ve got to try. Isn’t that what you have been telling me?’
‘I know, but if we find it difficult to comprehend, how can we expect strangers to believe us?’
‘We won’t know if we don’t try.’
I watched him slowly amble into the living room. Neil was a shadow of his former self, and I did not want him to suffer any more. I had to measure that against our desperate need to get rid of the cause of our misery. People I barely knew approached me to ‘Come and have a look,’ for their own entertainment. I hoped the investigators’ priority would be to help. Our house was not a Disney Haunted Mansion. It was our home, and our privacy was being invaded. Not least of all by the worst intruder, the paranormal kind. I thought of when I attended burglaries at work. I sympathised with the householders who, through their tears, would tell me how they felt so invaded, to know a stranger had been in their home as they slept. It was not very different from what was happening to our family, except we had little support. Our intruder was unwelcome, uninvited, and always there.
The arranged day came quickly, and we returned home to wait for Mike and his team. It felt strange visiting my own home, the comforting familiar smells were gone, and without the children’s laughter it seemed like a cold empty shell. Even the kitchen was stale and downcast. The family moments we shared seemed so far away as a feeling of oppression took its place. I put the kettle on for tea and coffee, and tried to make the house as welcoming as I could. I wondered what they would have up their sleeves. It was not as if they had a Ghostbusters’ type trap that they could open, entice the entity inside and contain it.
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