FriendBurst Blog

*  This is something I wrote a while back for a memoir-based book that I’m working on.  I was going to keep this one under wraps for a while, but after talking to a friend of mine the other day (who is in this story) I decided to share it.

It was a cold and drizzly Halloween night, and we didn’t have shit to do. Things were usually pretty boring around Sleazeland, but this night was bursting at the seams with boredom.

I was sitting in the living room with my roommate Dean and his cousin Tank. For the life of us, we couldn’t think of anything to do. The only party we knew of was being hosted by our friend Ted, and he had specifically forbid us from attending. According to his lordship, Ted, we weren’t cool enough to partake in his elite Halloween festivities.

“Well fuck him!”, we said. “We’ll find some fun of our own.” One way or another, we were determined to make our own fun and do something that Ted and his fan club would never dream up.

After much brainstorming and cigarette smoking, we finally decided to go to a local “haunted” cemetery known as Angel Hill. Angel Hill was small country cemetery located on the top of an isolated hill on the edge of a cotton field. According to local legend, there was a large angel statue there that cried blood out of it’s eyes at the stroke of midnight on Halloween night.

Over the years, we had heard horrific firsthand accounts of the atrocious things that happened to teens that dared trespass Angel Hill on Halloween night. We had heard report of everything from phantom lacerations magically appearing on people’s necks and backs, to full blown demonic possessions.

Being the skeptical badasses that we were, we decided that Angel Hill was the perfect place to go. The intermittent drizzle, sheet lightning in the distance, and howling wind made the whole idea that much more irresistible. The ambiance was impeccable!

As we were digging out our flashlights and making preparations for our big adventure, our friends Shawn and Casey stopped by. We soon learned that they had each dropped a hit of acid about half an hour before they got there and it was just starting to take effect on them. Naturally they were totally gung-ho about our plan to go to a haunted cemetery. Our crew of crazies was filling out very nicely!

In short order, we grabbed our stuff, loaded all five of us up into the van, and got on our way. The wind rocked the van and a fine chaotic mist swirled in our headlights. Before we knew it, I was creeping the van into the muddy driveway that lead up to Angel Hill.

The moment we got out of the van, a wall of cutting wind and drizzle hit us in the face, forcing us all to stagger back a couple of steps. It felt like something was trying to push us away from the cemetery.

As we made our way along the driveway, we heard strange clacking sounds echoing from within the bushes on each side of the driveway. It sounded like hollow bones being knocked together. The two small flashlights that we had were hardly enough to see by, much less cut through the deep shadows in the bushes. We did our best to ignore the sounds and moved as quickly as possible toward the cemetery.

As we emerged from the overgrown driveway, we caught our first glimpse of the cemetery. A muddy pathway lead up the side of the steep hill ahead of us. A couple dozen tombstones peppered the top of the hill and a single large oak tree stood highlighted in silhouette by the moonlight. At the very peak of the hill, underneath the gnarled and claw-like limbs of the ancient oak tree stood a lone concrete statue of an angel.

As we made our way up the hill toward the angel, passing storm clouds blotted out the moonlight and a second wailing icy wall of wind hit us in the face.

“Ah, guys. I don’t think we’re supposed to be here.” Tank offered.

“Aw c’mon man!” I chastised. “We came here to do this shit, and I’ll be damned if some wind is gonna keep me out. I don’t give a shit who’s making it.” My bravado kept my fear in check, but deep down, I regretted being so harsh on dear old Tank. After all, he was only saying what the rest of us were thinking.

“Yeah, man. Come on. Let’s get up there and check it out.” Dean said.

I looked back at Shawn and Casey. “Are you guys alright?”

“Aw, hell yeah dude! Fuck going back!” they both chimed, looking as wild-eyed and electrically insane as ever. They had to have some balls of steel to be riding out a head full of acid through something like this.

So we continued up the hill, struggling against the wind the whole way. Once we made it to the top of the hill, the wind died down completely.

“Dude. What the fuck was that?” Dean asked, to no one in particular.

“I don’t know man, but that wind was fuckin’ freaky! Let’s split up and take a look around.” I said.

Dean handed a flashlight to Casey and we split up into two groups. Casey and Shawn went to look at the graves, while Dean, Tank, and I went to look at the angel.

Casey and Shawn ran off amongst the graves, stumbling and giggling like psychotic toddlers. I flashed a questioning look at Dean and he busted out laughing. One thing was for sure: With those two running around, tonight was going to be a beauty to behold. We could already feel the chaos building in the air around us.

As we turned to make our way toward the angel, we heard Shawn suddenly yell out “Holy Shit, man!” We ran over and found Casey and Shawn standing next to a large concrete urn that had filled with rainwater.

Shawn looked up at us and said, “You’ve got to stick your hand in that water. It’s warm. Warm like blood!”

“Yeah man! No shit! Try it.” Casey urged.

I thought to myself, “These guys must really be wigging out pretty hard to think water feels like blood.” I stepped up to the urn and put my hand in the water. It was lukewarm and viscous feeling, just like blood. I shined my light into the urn. The water looked perfectly normal and clear.

“Damn man!” I exclaimed. “You guys didn’t piss in this, did you?” The skeptic in me had to at least rule out that possibility.

Both of them shook their heads and looked at me like I was crazy.

Tank and Dean both stepped up and felt the water. Both agreed that this was something bizarre. The water should have been ice cold to the touch, especially considering the cold weather we had experienced that day.

I looked at my watch. It was almost midnight. “We had better get over to the angel if we’re gonna hope to see anything.” I announced.

As we were walking over to the angel, we heard more hollow clacking coming from the bottom of the hill near the driveway. We stopped and threw a few rocks in the direction of the noises. We heard some rustling in the bushes, but other than that, nothing. We turned our attention back to the angel.

We kept a close watch on the angel as Midnight came and went. By 12:20 we had given up on seeing the angel cry blood and we decided to go back home where it was warm and dry. Our adventure was drawing to an end and we still hadn’t seen anything spooky. The water in the urn was impressive but we felt cheated out of the full experience of Angel Hill. At least that’s what we thought at the time.

When we got back home, Tank and I immediately kicked back on the couch and dialed up The Shining on the television. We had managed to get back early enough to catch it near the beginning, before Jack begins to lose his marbles.

Dean insisted that we watch some lame Halloween special on MTV, but the rest of us voted in favor of The Shining. Dean wasn’t happy with this decision and he stormed off into the bedroom to listen to Slayer and be pissed for a while.

Meanwhile Shawn and Casey had taken one of the glow sticks that they had been playing with that night and emptied its contents into a Mountain Dew that they were sharing. It made the bottle look like it was filled with some sort of luminescent radioactive waste.

It took me a few minutes to realize they were actually drinking the glowing mixture out of the bottle. I did a quick double-take when I saw Shawn take a big swig out of the bottle.

“Hey man! You don’t want to do that! It might poison you.”

Casey walked over and grabbed the bottle and took a big swig out of it. “Naw man. We’ve done this before and nothing happened.” He and Shawn then started laughing with big cheshire cat grins on their faces.

Tank shook his head and laughed, “Y’all motherfuckers are crazy! He he he!”

“You two can do whatever you want. Just don’t make me have to run you to the hospital and miss my show.” I muttered.

About that time, Dean’s mom, Rhoda, came home from visiting family out of town. She said hi and then quickly shuffled off to bed to catch some sleep. We promised to keep the noise down as to not disturb her.

Casey got bored with the movie and decided to go hang out with Dean for a while in the bedroom. After about five minutes, Casey came out and said, “Y’all need to check on Dean, man. I ain’t bullshittin’! He’s flipping out and cutting himself up and shit!”

I rolled my eyes and got up in a huff. One way or another he was gonna fuck up my show. “Well, we’ll see about that!” I thought to myself.

We all walked into the bedroom and found Dean sitting on the edge of the bed with his eyes rolled back in his head, and a knife in his hand. He was rocking back and forth and breathing in shallow growling gasps like a rabid dog.

“Look dude.” I said. “If you’re gonna throw a big fit and show your ass, you can watch MTV, but don’t expect any of us to watch that lame-assed shit with you.”

He just sat there rocking and breathing. Oblivious.

“Dude! I’m not lying. He sat there and cut his hands all up with that knife. He’s freaking out man!” Casey insisted.

Tank walked around to Dean and took the knife out of his hand. Both of Dean’s hands were perfectly fine without a scratch on them. Tank slapped Dean a couple of times on his cheeks. “Dean! Snap out of it man!”, he insisted.

No reaction.

I was out of patience and was missing my show. “Look. You all can sit in here and mess with him if you want. I’m going back in here.” I said as I walked back into the living room and plopped down on the couch. Shawn came out with me. He was either not convinced, or he was tripping way too hard to watch someone freak out like that.

A little while later, Casey came out of the bedroom and said, “Tank said to wake up Rhoda and tell her to call aunt Lucybell.”

I raised my eyebrow and gave him my best “Aw hell naw!” look.

“Dude! I’m serious! Call aunt Lucybell!” he yelled as he ran back into the bedroom.

I went to Rhoda’s bedroom door, took a deep breath, and knocked. She was gonna kick my ass for waking her up! As soon as she heard the phrase, “Call aunt Lucybell.” she came running out of the bedroom. Within moments, she had checked on Dean and was dialing up Lucybell.

Aunt Lucybell was a formidable woman to say the least. She was an older, stocky, cornfed woman who had spent most of her life working hard and praying even harder. She was a well-known power player in her church and was the area’s Pentecostal go-to gal whenever “shit got real” on a spiritual level. It was rumored that Lucybell had personally overseen some of the area’s most notorious exorcisms and had done actual physical battle with violent demons and spirits in the process.

Lucybell was a tough but loving old bird with zero tolerance for sin or bullshit. When she was younger, she suffered a disfiguring accident while working in a factory. Her hair had gotten caught in a piece of spinning machinery and most of her scalp, along with one of her ears had been ripped completely off of her skull.

I was told it was a miracle that she had even survived the accident. It evidently didn’t slow her down much either. It was never said, but I often wondered if her ironclad faith in The Lord had something to do with her survival through the unimaginable hell of being scalped. Her scalp had healed, but she was left wearing a curly haired wig with a prosthetic ear attached to it.

I didn’t know exactly what to expect from a visit by aunt Lucybell, but I knew it was bound to be intense and traumatic for everyone involved. I just hoped that Shawn and Casey didn’t do anything too crazy. I didn’t want her to think they had demons in them. I definitely didn’t want her to end up trying to exorcize them and accidentally drive their drug filled minds insane in the process.

I walked into the bedroom and found Tank and Casey holding Dean down on the bed. He was wrestling against them and foaming at the mouth.

“Damn. Maybe he’s not bullshitting after all.” I offered.

Tank and Casey glared at me like I was a total idiot. I couldn’t really blame them.

I sighed and rested my hands on my hips and I glanced around the room. “Oh shit!”, I exclaimed.

My eyes fell on the posters of half naked women that covered almost every inch of every wall in the bedroom. We had a running wager on exactly how long it would take to cover every square inch of our room with cheesecake. I looked down and remembered the homemade milk jug water bong on the night stand. I had to get rid of it all before Lucybell showed up, otherwise there would be hell to pay!

I spent the next five minutes or so ripping down dirty pictures and bagging up any possible evidence of our heinously sinful lifestyle. I even temporarily relocated our pet black widow spider (in her gallon pickle jar habitat) to the laundry room. I didn’t know what the Pentecostal view was regarding poisonous spiders, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

By the time I got done cleaning, Dean had settled down into a grumbling, rocking slumber on the bed. Right when it seemed like we might not need divine intervention after all, I heard rocks fly as Lucybell’s van skid into our driveway.

Almost immediately, Lucybell came charging in through the front door with a bible the size of a briefcase in one hand and a bag full of bibles, crosses, and anointing oils in the other. She was ready for battle!

Rhoda lead her into the bedroom where Dean was dozing fitfully on the bed. He was white as a sheet by now and his whole body was shivering. She tried to wake him from his stupor. All he did was growl and shiver.

That’s when Lucybell informed us that Dean was possessed by what she called a “Destruction Demon”. She said if we didn’t get it out of him, he would likely be dead by morning.

Casey, wide-eyed and grinning ear to ear, ran off into the living room to tell Shawn the exciting news while the rest of us got busy clearing space for Lucybell and her equipment.

Once Lucybell’s bag of holy weapons was unpacked, she anointed each one of us with holy oil and recited a prayer over each of us. She told us that she and Rhoda would get the demon out of Dean and that the rest of us needed to stay outside of the room in order to keep the demon from being able to use us against them.

Once we left the bedroom, Lucybell opened one of her small bibles and began to read aloud. Dean quaked violently and curled up into a ball on the bed. His breath became a seething rasp and foamy spittle drooled out from the corner of his mouth.

She told Rhoda to hold onto him and she began reading in a louder, more powerful voice. Dean’s reactions intensified in response to her urging incantations. The louder she spoke, the more violent his spasms became. The entire house felt as if the air was bursting with electric energy.

The energy in the room kept building until finally Lucybell became siezed up in “the spirit of The Lord”. Bizarre and unearthly words spurt forth from her mouth. “MEELA-TOLO-NIKA-YAMAY-TO! MIKA-NATA-YO-TO-NIKALEEKA!” She bellowed forth in a shrill commanding voice.

The hair on the back of my neck shot to attention and an electric charge shot down my spine. Casey, who was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, bust out laughing and hollered “Yeah!” in encouragement.

I involuntarily grimaced and slapped my hand against my forehead, trying to shut out the insane scene unfolding before my eyes. There was no way in hell that I was going to be able to maintain a straight face through this. I was doomed.

Lucybell was going full force now. The words were dancing out of her mouth with a strange otherworldly rythym that was hauntingly staccato, yet melodic and flowing with downright creepiness. Her words were like relentless, holy brainworms.

By this time, Casey had started headbanging and stomping around in rhythm with her chanting. The entire area outside the open bedroom door was now his personal one-man mosh pit. I struggled with all of my willpower to keep my laughter bottled up inside myself.

Lucybell picked up her large bible and began to really lay into her chanting. Somewhere along the way her wig came loose from her scalp and the prosthetic ear attachment slid around to the side of her face. It gave her entire head and face an almost melted, alien appearance.

Somewhere in the course of his enthusiastic moshing, Casey glanced up and caught sight of Lucybell’s bizarre new look. “Dude! What the fuck is wrong with her face?!”

“Shhhhh!” I frantically cautioned while my hands flailed around in a mad bid for any gestures that could encourage him to shut the fuck up.

Casey ran into the living room where Shawn was sitting He was clutching the glowing drink bottle and staring wild-eyed out the window into the darkness. “Shawn! You’ve got to see this shit! C’mon man! You gotta see her face! Ha ha ha!” He was laughing so hard he could barely stand up.

“I don’t want to, man!” Shawn insisted. I could tell the chanting had put him in a bad way and he was trying to keep his shit together. He refused to leave his chair.

I looked back into the bedroom just in time to catch the climax of the exorcism ritual. Dean was laying slack on the bed and Lucybell had her giant bible held firmly against his chest. She lunged her weight forward onto the bible with each successive stanza that came out of her mouth.

Gradually, her shrill incantations calmed and subsided. Dean appeared to be asleep. She read one final prayer over him and then started putting her arsenal back into her bag.

“He’ll be O.K. After he gets some rest.” She said. “The demon is gone. But just to be safe, I should bless the house and everyone here.”

Rhoda heartily agreed. So Lucybell went from room to room, praying and splashing anointing oil. Then she came to each of us and placed anointing oil on our foreheads and said a brief prayer over each of us. Once she was done, she hugged Rhoda, cast a chastising look at Tank (who happened to live with her at the time), and left.

We all sighed a collective sigh of relief. It was almost 4AM by this time and we were totally exhausted. It wasn’t long before we each found our way to various sleeping nooks around the house. Sleep was welcome, but it was fitful.

Over the next couple of nights, Dean and I heard strange scraping sounds in the walls of our bedroom. It sounded like someone dragging their fingernails down the inside of the walls. Once again, Aunt Lucybell came and blessed the house and everyone in it. This time she went the extra mile and blessed the entire yard too.

After that, we didn’t experience anymore paranormal activity in the house (or anything that could be mistaken as paranormal).

Going to Angel Hill had turned out to be a bit more trouble than it was worth. In the end, we came away with our own little story to add to the local legends. No one believed us, but we knew what we had witnessed, and that was enough.

Sometimes I find myself doubting what we all witnessed on that night. I’ll probably spend my entire life wondering exactly what happened. I think the attraction of supernatural phenomena lies in it’s enduring uncertainty. Taking that into consideration, you could say we had one of the best Halloween nights we could have ever hoped for.