You have been led to believe that everything you have experienced isn't real, that there's
an explanation.
But what if they're wrong?
What if something reached out to you from beyond?
Let me tell your true stories.
Let me tell them until they all believe.
Hello everyone, welcome back to Paranormal and Supernatural True Stories.
Today's story is a mind bender, truly.
This story is absolutely terrifying.
All names have been changed to protect everyone's identity.
You'll soon see why.
Thank you, Julia, for sending this story.
So let's just, let's not waste any time getting into what I've titled, The Night Demons.
Hello, my name is Julia and my family's experience began in 2012 when my stepdaughter was 12
years old.
A little background of our family might be helpful to understand the dynamics.
My stepdaughter's mother, Olivia, died when she was only 30 years old.
At this time, my stepdaughter, Claire, was only three.
Unfortunately, she remembers very little about her mother.
She says she remembers her perfume and her smile, her laugh, but little else.
I came into Claire's life when she was six years old and I fell in love instantly with
this sullen little girl.
Unfortunately, she did not feel the same for me.
Claire was a very quiet child, mostly playing by herself, chattering away, playing with
her dolls and toys.
And if anyone tried to participate in playing with her, she would just simply quit the activity
and move on.
No amount of begging would change her mind.
One day, when she was about seven years old, I tried to join her in playing with her dolls
and she said, she doesn't want you here.
You can't play with me.
Who doesn't want me here?
I asked.
She said she and she pointed toward her bed.
I took this as rejection, but looking back, I have to wonder if this is when the activity
began.
Claire had no desire to be with other children, although she seemed fascinated just to watch
them.
Her dad and I moved in together about a year after we met.
Claire seemed indifferent to this and I figured indifference was better than anger.
I made every effort to include her in everything and yet she remained in her head.
We decided to get her some therapy, hoping maybe to open her up.
Her dad said she was outgoing before her mother died and then it seemed like a switch went
off and she was a different child.
He had tried therapy, but for reasons I'm not going to mention here, the therapy had
to stop and it just didn't seem to help then.
We were hoping now that she was a little older that she may respond a little better.
Also, we were trying to have a child too, so we were hoping that the news of a new baby
might brighten her life as well as ours.
The therapy seemed to help her communicate better with us about how she was feeling and
the therapist said that she was just simply a quiet child.
He did not find any serious reasons to worry, but at least there was more of an open dialogue
now and we were happy with that.
Will she use that open dialogue to express to me that she did not want me around, that
she would be happy if I left the house?
My mind was blown.
My husband said it's just a phase, be patient.
The therapist said that likely she was targeting me with all of her negative emotions of her
mother's death because she couldn't do that to her father.
The relationship remained cold through the years and my husband was not much help.
So fast forward to Claire at age 12.
She is now doing the typical self-expression that is expected at that age.
Claire chose to dress in black.
Every day.
She wore black makeup.
This was not allowed by us.
She would do this at school without our knowledge as makeup at age 12 would not have been allowed.
Her hair was already naturally jet black.
Her father was terribly upset by this change in her, but I kind of expected this.
Her social life improved, however.
She found a group of older kids that dressed like her.
We were not happy about that.
These kids were 16 years old and older while she was only 12.
There was another girl though that hung out with them that was 13.
So Claire would always say that Jessie will be there and mostly we know she would sneak
to see these older kids.
I just wanted to give that little prehistory because I think it's important.
Also my husband and I were extreme skeptics when it came to anything paranormal.
Notice I said we were.
As I write this, it's odd to me to remember thinking that way.
How small minded we were and how dangerously careless that was.
So the paranormal events began in the winter of 2012.
At first I began to have nightmares and not just bad dreams, but full on sweating, thrashing
and screaming until my husband would wake me.
I even injured him a few times as he tried to comfort me.
I would remember none of it though at first, only the absolute terror that I felt.
This would happen about three to four nights a week.
I sought medical attention for this, but nothing helped me.
I went for several sleep studies and during those I slept peacefully every time.
My doctor gave me medicine to take before bed, but this medication made it so that I
couldn't wake from the terrors as easily as before, so I stopped taking it.
My husband began traveling for work and this was the worst time for me as now there was
nobody to wake me.
One night I woke myself from the dreams and there was Claire standing in my bedroom doorway
just watching me.
I turned the light on and she just stared at me, kind of smirked, then turned and walked
away.
This was a disturbing encounter.
So Claire was going to be away for the weekend and I decided to clean her room, like a deep
clean, walls, closet, everything.
During this cleaning I found some upsetting things in her room.
These weren't just kids are curious about the paranormal things.
These were rituals, conjuring techniques, sacrificial methods, black magic and spells,
Satan worship and a devil's Bible.
Like serious stuff.
There were vials of different liquids, packets of dried herbs, several types of what I guess
were animal bones, black candles and just so many other dark objects.
Hopefully this type of thing wouldn't really frighten me.
Like I said, I was a serious skeptic, but then I saw a handwritten, in Claire's handwriting,
paper about how to summon a sleep demon.
My world felt like it stopped when I saw my name written on the face of this black drawing
of a scary shadowy figure.
What the hell?
My mind was racing.
I wasn't sure if I should wait for her father to get home next week or to confront her Sunday
when she got home about all of this.
I'm not even sure why it scared me at the time.
I think mostly it was the sleep demon.
Like a little tickle in the back of my brain said, this is what's happening to you.
This is the root of everything you have suffered.
Then my sensible side said, come on, really?
It's simply a coincidence.
Even so, Claire should not be led astray with all of this negative influence and she would
need to be talked to about it.
I decided to let her father deal with it.
I put it all back.
I stopped my project of cleaning her room and my nightmares continued.
Only now I was really remembering parts of them anyway and they were beyond anything
I would think my mind could imagine.
Cannibalism, murder, sacrifice.
Just awful things that I was taking part in willingly and awakening in absolute terror.
When her father got home, he discussed all the things that I found with her.
She laughed.
She said, it's stupid stuff.
She said she didn't really believe in any of it.
It's just something her and her friends were playing a game with.
He seemed convinced and that she would outgrow it and the subject was dropped.
I had lingering doubts.
He had not seen her face that night as she watched me struggle through a nightmare.
I believe this is when my shield of skepticism began to crack.
About a month later, I began to see a shadowy figure in the hallway at night.
It would walk past our room, stop, look inside, then move on.
My sleep pattern changed as well.
Now I could not get to sleep and when I did, I could not stay asleep.
So I would lay there and wait for the shadow to come.
I woke my husband several times to see it, but he never saw it.
He said that likely I was dreaming.
This went on for a few months then abruptly ended with a nightmare.
A dark figure in my dream said, you shouldn't be here.
A little while later, there was a terrible stench in our home.
We could not find the source, but it was like rotting flesh and sometimes it was like a
sulfur smell and we all smelled it.
It wasn't constant though and it was usually only late at night.
One day when I was home alone, I heard a knock at my front door.
When I opened the door, of course there was no one there.
Instantly I heard a knock at the back door.
Again, nobody there.
Now at the front door.
And as I opened the front door, the knocking came abruptly from upstairs, like on the floor
above my head.
I went to my neighbors, Shelley and Jake's house, and they came over to help search the
house, but we found nothing.
Being exhausted from my erratic sleep, I sat down and just cried right in front of the
neighbors.
Shelley sat next to me and hugged me.
I explained everything that had been happening, including the stuff in Claire's room.
She asked if she could see the stuff, so I showed her.
She looked terrified.
She said, and you think this is all harmless because you don't believe in it?
I shook my head tentatively, yes.
So she then asked me, do you believe in God?
Yes, of course, I said.
And do you believe in the power of prayer?
Yes, absolutely, I told her.
Well then, she said, if you believe in all of that, you are foolish to think that this
stuff has no power.
All of this stuff has power just like prayer.
It's like the opposite of prayer, the negative side.
And you realize there are demons in the Bible.
Think of it this way, if praying to God has power and brings miracles, then prayer to
Satan would be like trying to invoke a curse rather than a miracle, since the devil conducts
mockery of the Christian faith.
At that moment, the stench came strong, and it was the last thing either of us remembered.
We awoke a few hours later, on the floor in my kitchen in a puddle of stinking water.
Shelly said we needed to do something right away.
And she looked angry.
She helped me up and went to the door to leave and angrily said, burn all those things in
Claire's room, and I wouldn't let her hang out with those people anymore.
I mean, what the hell just happened to us?
And what the hell is that filthy water we woke up in?
For Christ's sake, open your eyes and see this for what it is.
Well, what the hell is it, Shelly?
I yelled back and she said, you have been cursed by your stepdaughter.
I just stared at her.
She's lost her mind, I thought.
Well, it was about a week later I found out I was pregnant.
Our joy slightly overshadowed by our diminishing relationship.
Claire seemed to welcome the news in a complacent manner.
Congratulations, she said, half smiling, which was more than usual.
The pregnancy distracted us to Claire's behavior and activities, I suppose.
Maybe it was a welcome distraction.
I don't know.
I could still hear Shelly saying that Claire cursed me and thought how ridiculous that
seemed now.
I was about three months pregnant when my husband had to leave for work for about a
month.
There was big money in this trip and we needed it to prepare for our child.
The first week he was gone, my nightmares came back with an intensity that I cannot
describe.
One night I awoke and was covered in sweat.
I would have to change the sheets, I thought, as they were saturated in sweat.
I turned on the light and what I saw nearly made me vomit.
My entire side of the bed was saturated, but not in sweat.
It was blood.
So much blood.
I was losing my baby.
I tried to get up, but I felt so weak, dizzy.
At that moment, I heard laughing.
It was Claire in her room, laughing and talking to someone.
The voices began changing and now it sounded like a crowded room of voices all around me.
And then it all went black.
I had lost my baby.
My husband replaced our mattress while I was in the hospital and Claire never even came
to see me.
After I got over the initial stage of grief, I began to get angry at Claire.
I remembered her laughing that night and something in my soul was telling me that her activities
caused this tragedy.
One day while she was at school, I burned all the books and symbols she had.
Anything I could find, I burned it.
And she come home in a rage.
She screamed that she hated me and that she has always hated me and that her dead mother
hated me too.
She admitted that she had cursed me with a sleep demon and now she would curse me with
worse.
She said she had sacrificed my unborn baby as an offering and then she stormed out of
the house.
I felt as if I had been slapped hard.
My head was spinning and trust me, I know how all this sounds.
It sounds absurd.
Like a bad movie.
I mean who in their right mind would believe any of this?
But I can tell you, I believe that she believed it and I could hear the echoes of what Shelly
had said.
A prayer to Satan would invoke a curse.
At this point, Claire would not come home.
She was at her friend's house and her father said, maybe it's good for a few days until
everyone cooled off.
While she was gone, I couldn't think why she would hate me so much.
I was never nothing but good to her, never overstepping boundaries, always loving her.
And even now, my concern, through my anger, was for her well-being.
One evening, Claire still gone, my husband at his office.
I relaxed with the book on the couch, reading along quietly and then...
From the kitchen, I jumped from the couch.
I ran towards the kitchen to find...
Nothing wrong.
Nothing's crashed.
Then, as I began to relax again with my book...
Was that a window?
And then...
What the fuck was happening?
Then it occurred to me that it was probably Claire and her friends, so I ran outside.
It was near dark and I ran around the house, but I saw no sign of anyone.
I ran to the back field.
And there, I saw, far out in the field, what appeared to be a deer, but not really a deer.
What was this thing?
It was standing like a human and it had a fully antlered head.
This had to be those kids in costume.
I ran towards the deer person and it never moved.
As I got closer, I literally saw it fade away into nothing.
And then...
It was gone.
This, I could not rationalize.
This was near insanity for me.
My husband and I would fight terribly now, mostly about Claire.
And sometimes, after a fight, she would shoot me a sneering glance.
A knowing glance.
A much older glance than any child her age should be capable of.
I wanted her to see a priest.
My husband called me a fool.
I no longer wanted to be in the house with her there.
And I realized something.
I feared her.
It was now about a year later, my marriage was all but dissolved.
I had no relationship with Claire.
And I basically avoided her.
My sleeping had improved some, but not much.
But mentally, I was at a breaking point.
I decided it was time for me to leave.
Sadly, there was just nothing here for me anymore.
I told my husband I was leaving, but he was a step ahead of me, as he had had an attorney
draw up divorce papers.
He handed them to me and said, get these signed soon.
Let's just be done with this.
This would be my last night in this house, and it felt like a weight had been lifted.
Except I didn't know what she had in store for me that night.
I was sleeping in the den downstairs, when in my dream, that shadowy figure came and
said, you don't belong here.
Leave now.
I tried to wake up, but I felt as if I could not open my eyes like I was conscious but
physically unable to open my eyes.
You don't belong here.
I struggled to get to my feet, and then my eyes opened finally, then I ran out the door
into the night.
I stood there, in the dark, staring back into the dark den.
Then movement approached me.
It was the shadowy figure, and it slammed the door in my face.
I collapsed to the ground, mentally and physically exhausted.
Now we will fast forward about six months.
I was living about two hours away now.
I got the urge to call my husband.
My ex-husband now.
I just wanted to check on him.
I was feeling better, well rested, and I had not felt this good in years.
I missed him, and I just wanted to see how he was doing.
So I called him on my landline, and when it picked up on the other end, there was static.
Like a bad connection.
I could hear Claire saying, it's for you, and then that voice came on the line, you
don't belong here.
So that's my story.
I know how it sounds, like the ramblings of someone who needed sleep, maybe someone who
needed medicated.
I completely understand why anyone would feel that way.
But I can swear to you that it's all the truth, and I might even have discounted everything
myself, if it weren't for that last phone call, when I heard its voice again.
This entity was real.
It terrifies me to think of what else is out there that we don't understand.
What else is out there that can stalk us in our sleep, and cause physical harm to us when
we are awake?
Well, thanks for listening.
I wish you all well, and everyone have a good day.
Well, wow, I mean, this story was so intense and so horrible.
I am sorry you went through this, and I appreciate you sharing it with us.
A couple thoughts come to mind here.
I am wondering, though, if this entity was Claire's mother?
Does anyone else think that?
At least in the beginning, when she said she doesn't want you here.
Or if somehow she was involved with bringing this other, darker being to get you away from
her family.
There are so many questions that this story invokes.
It makes my head spin.
I would love to hear from Claire, to hear her side of the story.
But for now, we will have to come to our own conclusions.
Well, again, thanks, Julia, for sharing this with us.
And if anyone wants to share their own story, please send it to My True Story at MyYahoo.com.
And I am not going to be having a Christmas or New Year's episode, I'm going to be building
up my bonus episodes for our members, the Shadow Files collection, so that I can offer
more tiers of membership.
Please sign up at Patreon.com so you don't miss out on the bonus episodes.
You guys have a great holiday, and it doesn't matter to me how you celebrate or why you
celebrate this season.
Just remember to be sweet to each other, and I'll see you all next year.
Love and peace, guys.
See you next time.
Thanks for being here today.
I hope to see you next time on Paranormal and Supernatural True Stories.
Will your experience be the next one I tell?
Send all communications and stories to My True Story at MyYahoo.com.
In the meantime, leave the lights on.