The devil comes at night
In 1989 I was living on the couch of two older gay male friends. Michael and Tim gave me a spot to crash at when I was temporarily homeless at 17.
Both of them were at work that night, so I was sitting in Michael’s beige recliner in front of the television, snacking and dozing. Some time later I woke up in a terrified start; that kind of jolt you get when you’re half asleep in a hypnagogic state.
This time I was terrified, not startled. I reached over to turn the brass lamp on (the one with the white pleated paper shade). It was a mistake to watch TV in the dark, because A Face could get me. One of the Faces that flashes for just one frame on the screen during The Exorcist. The white, dead, toothful face.
I had just seen The Exorcist for the first time two weeks earlier (and being a masochist, I was reading the book). To say that it terrified me does not capture the level of fear. It made me feel the way a little kid feels when he has a horrible nightmare and he’s not yet old enough to be confident that it wasn’t real.
That film, and the book, left me unable to sleep with the lights off for almost three weeks. For years afterward, scenes from the movie popped up in my mind when I was anxious or spooked. But it wasn’t the movie or the story that “made me” afraid of things in the dark. That fear, a fear of the devil himself, was already there. The film merely put a particular era’s cover and branding on an existing fear.
Since I was a small boy I’ve been afraid of the devil. Satan, specifically. And I’ve been afraid of his familiars, his demons, the places and people where he allows himself to be glimpsed. The child possessed, even momentarily. The cloven hoof of the goat that looks at you in such a way that you know he knows.
Along with the devil I’ve been frightened by ghosts all my life. Stories like The Turn of the Screw scare me at a soul level. Serial killers, slashers, war mongers—they don’t frighten me. The unquiet dead do.
I’m writing this to try to start figuring out why and how I can be afraid of things that I don’t think exist. For the first time in my life I’m uncertain about what I think is and isn’t real when it comes to the spiritual and supernatural. Logically, I don’t believe in God. I just don’t see the evidence (yes, I know, religious readers, that I may be looking for God with the wrong binoculars. I do know.). My doubt is the same and no more interesting than the doubt of people far more brilliant than me throughout human history.
But a part of me—a fragment of my personality?—obviously believes in the devil and ghosts. This could not scare me as badly as it does if I didn’t believe it were true. Do you not think?
The interesting part is that I’m getting closer to believing in the devil consciously, but still having a hard time believing in God, the complementary side. This is going to take time to sort out.
Devils and haints only come to me at night, and only sometimes. They will be gone for months, then they will come back as they did two nights ago. As I got sleepy on the couch and thought about going to bed, I thought I saw movement at the end of the dark hall. I was immediately bolt upright and awake, heart pounding. There was a dead woman there in the dark, behind the curtain that separated the rooms, so I quickly went to my bedroom with a book.
There was no safe harbor. I knew there was a dead woman under the slats. A bathtub corpse lady with skin-slip. All she wants to do is touch my feet. That’s all. She just wants to touch my feet to let me know she’s there.
Yes, she’s a character from The Shining. But again, that’s just branding on an extant fear. The bathtub corpse lady is just one of the dead women who have lived under my bed these 50 years. Sometimes it’s been a witch who lives in the forest, or a Victorian mother who won’t rest in the grave. The costume hardly matters.
When these apparitions come (thank God I’ve never actually seen one with my eyes) I wonder if I’ve brought it on myself. Have I invited the devil into my home? I have had times when I seriously contemplated whether I was born of the devil, whether I carry his mark, whether I’ve been his all along.
Starting in childhood, the devil has asked me from time to time if I’d like to live deliciously. The details of these stories are, even for me, too personal to set down in writing, but I have answered “yes” more than once. In my childhood dreams, and sometimes in waking life, though I never thought of my actions at the time as answering Satan’s call.
The dose makes the poison, and the sweet life eventually turned bitter. I have lived deliciously many times. Now, I want to live sanely, normally, and with good purpose.
But the devil is still haunting me. He and his corporation. His ghosts, his demons, his factotums. His automata.
The night fears recede with the morning light, but they come back. Where do they come from? What are they telling me? Will I learn that it’s all been true all this time? Will I die and, as I fear, wake up in hell for eternity, the final destination that’s been printed on my ticket from birth?
Will the dead woman be back tonight? Will I regret writing this tomorrow?
Both are likely.
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I want to thank all of you for your thoughtful comments offered in a generous spirit, especially on such a touchy matter.
I also have had the same fears since I was a child and I still have them as an almost-39-year-old mother of 3.
It's embarrassing but when I watched the first episode of Midnight Mass on Netflix, I couldn't sleep for 2 NIGHTS even though my husband was right next to me. I wonder how I was able to live alone for so long, I am incapable now, due to my scaring easily.
When I was in my 20s and early 30s I thought I was a scared child (and adult) because I had internalized the fear and anger in my home with a borderline mom. I think that's true to a degree but now I truly believe (sorry Josh) that the devil and demons are actually real. And not in the Jordan Peterson psychological sense. Like in the priest vs. demons sense and it was 2020 and the true evil I saw at work in the world that convinced me.
I've had a couple encounters with...something(s). The first was when I lived alone on the top floor of a little bungalow. I loved my apartment and didn't have any bad experiences except one time when I had a dream there was a little boy next to my bed staring at me. There was something very troubling about him even though he appeared normal. I couldn't wake up and when I did I was very scared. There was a police car outside with its lights on (unrelated) and I figured I had internalized something happening outside my window. I thought that until I spoke with my landlord, a very kind, sensible mom-of-2 who had lived in the upstairs in her 20s, like me. She told me she had been visited by a little boy...who was a ghost. Friends later told me they had a bad feeling.
There is the ghost that followed my 2 year old from our old house to our current house. She would talk to the ceiling as a baby and I had a creepy feeling. I would have nightmares about aliens in that house and refuse to look at the ceiling of our bedroom at night. My daughter at 1.5 would tell stories about this guy named Extra Dry (biblical name she couldn't pronounce?) who sounded like a jerk. We were so confused because we didn't know anyone like this and she was too young to just make up these elaborate stories. The creepiness always seemed to be around Oct/Nov too. One day she was walking with my husband after we moved and pointed to ghost decorations and out of the blue said "We had a ghost at our old house. He lived on the ceiling. I would call for mama to get me out of bed after nap. He came with me here." My husband was floored because it was unprompted and he didn't believe me. 2 weeks later on the Day of the Dead as I was putting her to sleep she started crying because "Extra Dry is on the ceiling and it scares me when he looks like that." I was furious and cursing at him and praying Our Fathers to get him out.The last straw was when I was putting away dishes a week later and a bowl EXPLODED in my hands, hundreds of glass pieces everywhere, and I was bleeding. We got our house blessed after that and didn't have any more issues.
Final one: recently I had been struggling to overcome a habitual sin that I felt was opening me up to supernatural influence and dread. When I decided to meet with our priest to discuss how to quit and to confess I had a nightmare(?) that night. A dark shadow of a being was waiting by my bed and as I fell asleep it actually shoved me down into my bed. I FELT it, though I was in the state between sleep and awake. I took it as a good sign that I was onto something that would lesson the devil's hold on me. I got rid of all occult stuff from my home (even though I haven't used it in years): Tarot card deck, evil eye, tantric books, etc. Went to confession, gave up that sin, had our house blessed and haven't had any more issues.
I hope you don't feel crazy about believing in the devil and demons and whatnot. They're real but they're terrified of Christ and of the Blessed Mother. Get yourself some holy water and say the Hail Mary or the St. Michael prayer to start with. The Exorcist Files podcast has good stories and practical advice. If you're afraid of Hell, like I was for YEARS, know that God wants you with Him forever. He made you to be with Him forever and He loves you. If you ask Him to help you trust Him ("Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.") He will. And if God/Jesus is too much right now, you can go through Mary. She brought me to her son, eventually. Xoxo
Edit: I should add I've had a positive supernatural experience as well. My rosary went missing (I believe it was stolen by a malignant entity, it happened just 4 days after deciding to pray the rosary every day of 2023) and my husband and I looked for it EVERYWHERE in our room, which it never left. Under the covers, under the bed, under the mattress, rocking chair cushions, etc etc. It wasn't there. One night a couple days later rocking my son to sleep and praying fervently to Mary about my dad, to the point of tears, I smelled overwhelmingly, the scent of roses (nothing rose scented in my room). Along with the smell of roses (which signals Mary's presence) I had the knowledge that my rosary would appear and I wouldn't need to look for it. The next morning my husband got out of bed and said incredulously "Natalie...what is your rosary doing here?" It was at the end of our bed, on top of the covers, in a neat little pile. It is the craziest thing that has ever happened to me. I adopted Mother Mary as my mother because I don't have a relationship with my borderline mother and I didn't know what a good mom was like. That's what she's there for. (Sorry for the long post but your post hit a nerve and I sense a familiar soul in you.)