Thursday, September 22, 2011

Incubus Attack in the Night

Author’s note: This is the story of a woman’s terrifying sexual assault by a demonic figure. Read with caution.

Snow fell outside Tsura’s Birmingham, Ala., apartment on the cold January 2011 night terror came to visit.

“I awoke to what I thought was my husband having a bit of fun with me,” she said. “I was very, very wrong.”

Tsura, just showing her pregnancy, and Adrian had been married a month and had only recently moved into the apartment. Tsura felt something was wrong there from the start.

“I was not alone in my apartment, even though my husband was gone,” she said. “I had the company of my kitten, and something else.”

Talking with other residents in the apartment building, Tsura found that people who moved into that apartment usually moved out shortly after. Long-time residents of the building hinted at something odd there, but Tsura could never pin down from them what it was.

It was an entity.

“I could never tell what it was, though it knew me well,” Tsura said. “It was mocking me by leaving standing water in my tub and sink. I would also feel it watching me.”

But not all the time.

“The strangest thing, sometimes it was gone. Just gone,” she said. “That was the worst sign. I knew of no spirit who could leave the shackles of its past. This entity was something else.”

On that snowy night in January, it showed itself.

“Adrian was working that night, which was unusual, but we welcomed the extra money,” she said. “After all, I was, and am, a stay at home wife. It had snowed several times, and I was mostly trapped indoors. How I loathed it.”

Tsura fell to sleep cradling the kitten she’d gotten for companionship when Adrian worked nights, and woke to someone pulling open her legs.

“I thought it was Adrian, but, there was no dawn light coming in from the window,” she said. Adrian didn’t come home from this job until the sun had already risen. “It was pitch black (outside).”

Tsura opened her mouth to scream, but the sight of her attacker in the dim light of the apartment stopped the voice in her throat – she knew it wasn’t human.

“He was ugly and beautiful, a strange mix of Adrian and something else,” she said. “Suddenly, he fell on top of me, knocking the air out of my lungs.”

Then this entity sexually assaulted Tsura, laughing as she screamed.

“Eventually, I became so weak I lost consciousness,” she said.

The chirp of a car’s electric locks from outside her window dragged her awake. As she got up, hoping to find Adrian home, she saw a large, red stain on the sheets.

“My stomach clenched,” she said. “I was calling an ambulance as Adrian opened the door.”

Adrian held his crying wife, trying to comfort her as she recounted the attack, tears streaming down her face.

“I lost my child,” she said. “I explained to Adrian what happened, but he just shook his head. He said it was just sleep paralysis. That I was just trapped, trying to make sense of what was happening as my body miscarried. But I knew.”

Tsura is convinced she was attacked by something unholy.

“My research has led me to believe that I was attacked by an incubus,” she said. An incubus is a demon, present in cultures worldwide, that sexually assaults sleeping women with the intent to father a child. “But why? I was obviously pregnant, and could not bear his demon children.”

Tsura never went back to the apartment.

“When I was released from the hospital, I moved back in with my roommate,” she said. “I refused to step foot in that apartment. Eventually, Adrian was swayed, and we moved.”

She hopes the demon, or whatever attacked her, stayed behind.

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s newest book on the paranormal, “Paranormal Missouri: Show Me Your Monsters,” is available at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

'From The Shadows' Is Asking, Um, A Little Help Here?

During the week of Oct. 15, I will have written this blog of original, true paranormal tales for five years. I appreciate each of you who visit “From the Shadows.” Your time spent reading my weekly offering, and your kind comments, mean a lot to me.

Unbeknownst to most of you, these stories appear in print before they make it to my blog.

I recently received notice the newspaper in which “From the Shadows” appears each week is cutting its paid columns – including mine. We all know the newspaper industry is suffering and I understand this business decision. Unfortunately, this was my main source to fund the research and time involved to produce “From the Shadows” (telephone expenses, travel, etc., ain’t cheap). I receive donations from time to time, but I can’t continue the blog on the occasional donation alone (I did receive a nice Christmas 2010 present from Australia’s amazing paranormal podcast “Mysterious Universe.” Thanks, Ben and Aaron. You guys are awesome).

I’m not begging for money (Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge), I’m asking for a print forum for “From the Shadows.” I work for a living, you know. If any kind reader would recommend this column (print gets first-run) to their local newspaper or magazine, that might mean I could still bring you these weekly strange, and sometimes down-right creepy, stories about the world around us – a world that is much more mysterious than it seems.

Thanks for reading.

Jason

Monday, September 05, 2011

There's Something In Our House

The house in Metropolis, Ill., felt heavy. Rod Morgan and his wife moved into the house in 2007 and soon realized they’d made a mistake.

But it was a good deal.

“We rented from a friend so we cleaned it up and painted for the deposit and a break on the rent,” Rod said.

Shortly after moving into the house, the Morgans found they were going to have a baby. Joyous news, to be sure, but not in that house.

“The house had a very close feeling,” Rod said. “It was kind of depressing no matter what we did for decor.”

The Morgans lived in the house about three weeks when Rod began to hear and see things he at first tried to ignore.

“Little noises and knocks around the rooms and see darker shadows move and hear what I thought to be footsteps,” he said. “Especially late at night – I sit up late.”

Not wanting to alarm is pregnant wife, he kept quiet about the sounds and the shadows, but the tension between him and the house grew.

“I started to feel things around the house, especially in the basement where the washer and dryer were,” he said. “I would do laundry late at night, and after putting clothes into the washer and dryer I swear I could feel something trying to overtake me as I walked up the stairs.”

Rod would stop and look over his shoulder, but nothing was there. Nothing visible.

“Later, it got to where I would race up the stairs jumping two or three at a time and gain the top and shut and lock the door behind me,” he said. “There was a very heavy presence in that basement. I am getting goose bumps rethinking it again, no joke.”

He knew his wife felt it, too. The heaviness. Especially down the stairs.

“My wife would not go into the basement at night and didn’t go by herself anytime,” Rod said.

The Morgans lived there three months when the oppression became physical.

“My wife worked days and I worked nights so I slept late,” Rod said. “Sometimes my wife would come home for lunch and bring me food. One particular morning really got my attention.”

Rod had woken up and lay in bed, stretching his arms and legs before relaxing onto his side, facing the wall. Then he heard the door to the living room close.

“I know this because it had an old plate glass window in the door and it made a distinct sound,” he said. “Then I felt my wife sit down on the side of the bed.”

“Home for lunch?” he asked into the room. “What did you bring me?”

She didn’t answer.

“I turned over and no one was there,” Rod said. “No one.”

He sat up, looking around the room for his wife that he knew – he knew – sat on the bed next to him, but she hadn’t.

“I was not asleep, nor was I in between sleep,” Rod said. “I had been laying there stretching out.”

Rod didn’t tell his wife about the incident. He didn’t want to alarm her.

“The coup de grace happened one night when I was in the backyard, late,” Rod said. “I am a kung fu practitioner and did a lot of my training outside at night.”

Rod’s wife, now five months pregnant and often sick, had gone to bed early with a stomachache.

“It was about 11 p.m.,” Rod said. “I had finished and I saw a person I thought was my wife walk by the kitchen window and go into the bathroom.”

He stood in the yard, looking toward the house, but his wife never walked out of the bathroom.

“I went into the house to check on her,” he said. “She wasn’t in the bathroom so I went into the bedroom and she was laying on the bed facing the wall.”

Rod sat on the bed.

“Sick again?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. She didn’t move.

“Sick again?” he asked again.

Nothing. He poked her.

“What?” she mumbled groggily. “I’m sleeping.”

“I saw you go into the bathroom and wanted to check on you,” Rod said.

“I haven’t been to the bathroom,” she told him. “I’ve been asleep.”

Rod got up and searched the house. No one else was there.

“That was the last straw for me,” he said. “The next day I told my wife everything. She then told me she had been hearing things since the first week but didn’t want to tell me because she thought I wouldn’t believe her.”

The shadows, footsteps, knocking. She’d experienced everything, too.

They soon found a place to rent in Kentucky and they left. But the house wasn’t finished with them.

“My last experience with that house happened after getting everything out,” Rod said. “I was going back into the basement one night to make sure we didn’t leave anything.”

His wife stayed in the car. She was finished with that place.

“I opened the door to the utility room just above the basement and I heard a deep raspy breath, audible and kind of loud breathing out,” Rod said. “It actually startled me and I expected to be confronting someone in an instant.”

No one was there.

“I slammed the freaking door, ran out and never looked back,” he said. “My wife asked what was up and I told her, ‘we don’t own anything that is worth another trip to that basement.’”

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s newest book on the paranormal, “Paranormal Missouri: Show Me Your Monsters,” is available at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.