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welcometotheosworld-blog · 6 years ago

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My first story, “Say Your Prayers.”

Prior to the summer of 2012, if I were to hear the term “spiritual warfare,” I most likely would have conjured up a darkly humorous image of ghosts dueling with rusty pitchforks, or perhaps associated the term with a cheesy, supernatural-themed video game. However, after existing for nearly two decades in this strange world, I have come to the terrifyingly lucid conclusion that paranormal threats are as real as the more tangible (and less taboo) forces that plague mankind. What triggered my rather extreme transformation from a “I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it” atheist to a hardcore spiritualist with a rosary in his pocket? The first edgings of my enlightenment (if you could call it that) emerged during a barbecue, of all places.

Six years ago, my family lived in a large, New England saltbox-style house near the ruins of a once-decadent plantation. Surrounded by miles of wetland and the constant smoky haze of chemical refineries, my life in the dreary town was sheltered to say the least. My friends often joked that I lived on a raft in the middle of the swamp and complained about the long drive from the big city to the isolated suburban development. Prior to the events that lead to my unwanted enlightenment, opening the screen door to find a small alligator basking in our plastic kiddie pool seemed to be the most fearsome thing my twon had to offer. Until a certain someone decided to crash my cousin’s birthday barbeque.

On a balmy July night, while my family gathered around a picnic table under the Spanish moss and scrolled through the silly pictures we had taken with my brother’s phone during our celebration of my cousin, Olivia’s, birth, my mother, a no-nonsense sort of woman, noticed something...odd. In the corner of a photo of Olivia and I, there was a distinctive figure that resembled a little girl, around six or seven years old, with a particularly large nose. Upon closer inspection, Big Nose (as my family had christened her) seemed to be watching us, frowning, through a window in the background. Though slightly blurry, it became obvious to us that the figure was, in fact, a small girl and not a freakish trick of the light or a reflection. To add to the growing paranoia of my mother, there were no small girls that we knew of who lived near our property and the girl in the photo didn’t look quite...normal. We had never seen this mysterious girl before, and my mother suspected that due to her unnervingly inhuman appearance she may have been a spectre, or as Catholic superstition would have it, a demon or an evil entity of sorts. Everyone besides my mother found the picture creepy, but we laughed off the unexpected "photo bomb" and mused that she was a plantation owner’s daughter who had died during the Antebellum days and decided to haunt us since she wasn’t invited to the party. Olivia joked, “I don’t care if she’s a demon or whatever-she better have brought me a present!”

Though we were all pleasantly spooked, we eventually forgot about the odd event until a few months later, when my mother received a disturbing phone call from Ms. Farrah, a family friend. Ms. Farrah was a kindly Persian woman with an even-keeled temperament and slight accent who never seemed to get angry. She was more of a listener than a talker, and always offered mints and peanuts to my brothers and I whenever we visited her home. Ms. Farrah was the last person I would have expected to make such a phone call. My mother said Ms. Farrah called to report an unusual sighting; when she stopped by to retrieve some tupperware my mother had lent her, she caught a fleeting glimpse of a man dressed in 19th century clothing wandering through woods behind our house. When Ms. Farrah joined my family for dinner later that week and told her story again, my parents joked with her. She insisted, “the guy looked at me, turned around, and vanished like he didn’t want to be seen. I have no idea where he went. I’ve never seen him around here, and I’ve lived in this town for almost fifteen years. He didn’t look like a normal man, either, but it wasn’t only because of how he was dressed. He looked a little blurry, even though he was only about 50 feet away from me” she recalled, only to be mocked. “So, who’s the lucky guy?” asked my father, alluding to Ms. Farrah being single at the time. She wasn’t amused in the slightest. She stuck to her story, solemn as an Medieval executioner, and she was obviously quite perturbed by what she had seen. After our previous encounter with Big Nose, we were reluctant to believe her, but eventually did. After all, what motivation did she have to lie about such an unusual and random event?

At this point, my mother was not planning on hosting any more otherworldly visitors. According to an ancient Sicilian Catholic tradition, she inscribed a protective Latin prayer above our door with chalk, hoping to deter any evil entities from intruding. My mother was a devout Christian and believed in the presence of demons and angels on earth. “Spiritual warfare is real,” she told us that night, “and the only protection is to stay close to Jesus.” Although I had mocked my mother’s musings about demons and spirits in the past, even naming my pet fish Beelzebub to simply get a rise out of her, I wasn’t so sure that our world was free from visits from some other spiritual dimension. A horror movie enthusiast, I suggested that she put salt around the doors, a little trick I had seen in countless cheesy films to keep the demons from making a guest appearance. My mother complied. My brothers laughed and reminded her that this wasn't The Exorcist, and, forever the die-hard capitalists, jokingly suggested that we should turn the house into a museum to milk these so-called specters for as much cash as we could, but my mother didn’t find anything about our situation funny. To add to her woe, the Latin inscriptions and salt did not work. Instead, our weak defenses against these odd spiritual going-ons only seemed to only make matters worse.

A couple of weeks later, my mother told us that she had a feverishly frightening dream in which her great-aunt (long-dead at the time) appeared to her and warned her, "Kira, you best take caution-dark times are ahead." She woke up in a cold sweat, and told us that the next day she had suffered a throbbing headache. My mother decided to add a new weapon to our pitiful arsenal. She insisted that we say a rosary with her every night, thinking this practice, the useless salt, and the failed inscription were “caution” enough. After telling us about her dream, my mother claimed, “This is it, guys, this is spiritual warfare. The devil has his tricks, and Aunt Celeste warned us. Don’t try to summon the spirits or upset them, it will only make things worse. Ignore them. And say your prayers.”

However, about two weeks after the eerie dream and her speech about our family’s call to a sort of a paranormal battle, my mother was plagued by yet another night terror. She woke up at 3:30 A.M. to an old, haggard woman in her bedroom, who screeched hellishly and suddenly coughed some yellowish, phlegm-like substance unto her nightgown. Traumatized and angered, my mother preserved a sample of the substance, disposed of the tainted nightgown, and ordered me to accompany her to show the sample Father Joe, a respected priest whom my family had known for decades, to recount the strange events that preceded this experience and ask for spiritual guidance. Despite being a jovial man, Father Joe didn't find our ordeals the slightest bit funny. I was admittedly shocked that he claimed to have dealt with this sort of thing before. "This is very serious," he said, his expression grave. "You've been slimed." My mother and I almost laughed. It sounded like something from a B-rated horror movie. Even I wouldn't see that movie. "I'm not kidding," said Father Joe, "this is spiritual warfare." There was that ridiculous term again, that despite my slipping grip on denial of our situation, was proving itself to be a grotesque reality. Father Joe continued, "There is something evil that is trying to take over your family's house. It is trying to call attention to itself, and it knows the more attention you give it, the longer it can stay. Malevolent spirits tend to be invited in. Does anyone in your family play with Ouija boards?" he asked. "No!" replied my mother, who refused to buy my brother a Harry Potter wand in Disneyland (much to his dismay). She was right; aside from the going-ons at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, my brothers and I were truly terrified of the supernatural and openly expressed our disdain for supposedly supernatural rituals popular amongst kids our age, such as the “Three Kings” and the “Charlie, Charlie Challenge.” Father Joe then said, "The strongest form of protection you can take is having the house blessed." Desperate and confused, my mother agreed. The following weekend, Father Joe paid a visit to our household and chanted Latin prayers while dousing our house with sage, a common defense against unwanted spirits. My brothers and I looked on in a glazed sort of helpless horror, the way a doctor might look as the last light of life slipped from his patient's eyes. "Pray every night, and remember the devil tries to deceive us in whatever way he can," Father Joe instructed us. Even though we haven’t had any paranormal experiences since Father Joe’s visit and it seemed we emerged victorious from our spiritual battle, I no longer laugh at those who claim to believe in ghosts. And every night, my family gathers in the living room to pray, but from time to time, I still sometimes catch fleeting glimpses in the corner of my eye of a small female figure...

#short fiction #short story #ghost stories #horror #fiction #scary #creepypasta

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