A line in the sand.

Looking back at May 2016 it's was a blur.  We could feel the heaviness in the house getting thicker with each passing day.   Before any of the crew arrived, we had a call with Steve DiSchiavi.  One of things he asked was if the activity had increased.   We told him yes, it had and it seemed to be getting stronger.  I still remember his response, "Yea, it's like they know we're coming."  The truth of that statement just caused my mind to race.  I thought to myself, "if they know they're coming, how to I protect my family until Steve & Amy get here?"

Protecting my family was my top concern at that point.  It's very frustrating when you feel helpless and unable to protect the ones you cherish the most.   However my thought process then changed.  I was more angry than scared, I was move combative and stood my ground, I only responded when I felt the activity warranted a response.  However, changing to this method came at a price.

Making myself the center of the attacks in order to protect everyone meant I had to open myself up.  Suddenly I remembered things from my childhood as well as things from when I was a young adult.  Opening up those memories opened up my senses.  I knew the crazy woman had opened up a door to bring in reinforcements, she needed help to stop Amy from coming.   I also knew at some point she would figure out a way to allow them to come inside.  I wanted to stay on the offensive so I proactively granted them access.  My thought was that I would have more control over them if I did that.   I was the only thing standing between them and my family.  I was literally the first, last, and only line of defense.

My head was spinning and I had a very difficult time controlling the voices.  They would yell and scream; talking over each other.  It was exhausting as well as terrifying.   The voices started to manifest themselves into shadow figures.   If I went outside, they would rush me causing me to step backwards and lose my balance.   One time as I was about to walk through the doorway to the barn, I was pushed to the ground from behind.  The barn door slammed behind me as laid there.  I gathered myself and angrily yelled, "Is that all you can do?  That's it?  You're a coward!  Let's make this a fair fight!"   My response suddenly cleared the air as I felt an feeling of calmness.  I finally scared them.

In the back of my mind I knew that I had only pushed them back temporarily.  The crazy woman was talking to me constantly now;  I couldn't tune her out.  I was getting headaches and I wasn't sleeping well.  I would hear her whisper, "You are almost mine."  When I would ignore her she would scream at the top of lungs for all to hear.

One afternoon while a young family was picking up their new puppy, she made her presence known.  She kept asking who are these people were but I didn't answer.  She grew angry and frustrated and finally screamed.  Thankfully the parents didn't hear it but their children did.  "What was that!?!" one said.  "Nothing", I replied.  "Just the TV in the back of the house."  Luckily, they were young enough to believe that's what happened.

Now that the pathway was opened, others started to arrive.  Some benign, some curious, some angry, and some hell bent on causing terror & chaos.  We started hearing children laughing at various times of the day.  We heard the laughter of one child and thought it was Emi coming home from school.  When we noticed the time, it was too early for her to be home and when we looked in the mud room no one was there.  In my mind hearing the laughter of children was a good sign.  I knew if children were there then they would alert me to anything threatening or bad. 

The crazy lady decided that screaming repeatedly was her best way to not only scare us, but others as well.  One late afternoon she become frustrated with some customers who were picking up a puppy.  She felt threatened by them and wanted them to leave.  She kept asking me, "Tell them to leave, tell them to get out!"  I ignored her just as I had done in the past.  So she decided to take matters into own hands and screamed loudly about 10 times!  Everyone heard it...everyone.  I could see the fear on the people's face and they quickly decided it was time to go.  After they had left, I sat at our dining room table eating.  The crazy woman whispered in my ear, "I control this now."  I whispered back, "no you don't & you never will."   As soon as I finished saying that, I was slapped in the face.  Jennifer turned and looked at me and she knew exactly what happened.  My face was red with a hand print.

I had drawn a line in the sand and she crossed it.  She had moved to another level.

Picking Up The Pace...On Both Sides.

Late April 2016 found us excited, nervous, and anxious.  It also found us scared because it became very obvious that the activity in our house was increasing and whatever was torturing us had figured out exactly what was happening and who was coming.  Filming was scheduled to start on May 25, 2016 and we weren't even close to ready.

The crazy woman seemed to be getting more and more unstable.  She was frantic, angry, and demanding.   I couldn't keep her or her voice at bay any longer.  One night while I was sound asleep, I woke up to a breathing on my neck.  It was cold, like someone was holding a block of ice over me.  It was so cold that it burned.  When I opened my eyes I saw what looked like a shadow but my eyes hadn't focused enough yet so I couldn't tell exactly what it was.  All the sudden a woman's voice yelled so loud it echoed in my head.  "STOP THEM!"

I jumped out bed terrified and looked back to find Jennifer sleeping peacefully.  I thought maybe it was just a bad dream but I then felt a cold wave push through me and I became freezing cold.  I was so cold that I was shivering uncontrollably and I started to feel sick.  My nausea came on quickly and I made it to the bathroom just before I started to vomit.  As I was cleaning myself up, I noticed my fingertips were blue and I had a mark on my neck where I felt the cold breathing.  What I thought was just a dream actually did happen.  Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep the rest of the night.

The spoon had started traveling quite a bit now.  It would be gone for days and it would come back a little more violently.  It would slam down on the floor, hit a wall, or come back bent and mangled.  One time it came back wrapped around one of our own spoons.  We would never question the spoon's actions but the fact that it was wrapped around the other spoon had us nervous.  We placed it back on the counter and about an hour later it was gone again however our other spoon was still there.  It apparently unwrapped itself and disappeared.  This replaced our nervousness with fear.  I was starting to also feel Charley Reynolds again.

Female footsteps were now following the screams of the crazy woman.  Even though she was the most active, others were starting to make their presents known.  One morning while Emi was getting ready for school, she came into the kitchen telling us she saw a little girl in the hallway.  She said she was dressed in an "old timey" dress and her hair was messed up.  She looked sad like she was lost.  Emi said she tried to talk to her but she just disappeared.  Emi seemed more confused than scared.  I think it's because children sometimes see things differently than adults.

I could hear more voices than ever before and none of them were friendly at all.  Blocking out the voice of the crazy woman was now getting harder and the other voices, although faint, were nearly impossible to silence at times.  I could make out names sometimes-Johnny, David, & Jim.  They were angry, talked of violence, injustice, and tragedy.  However, sometimes they spoke of remorse but they never spoke of why they were remorseful.

Shadows and voice are now a part of our everyday life.  Each one of us see something different and it makes it hard to piece the events together because nothing is making sense to us.  We are walking around in a daze while trying to get ready for filming.   Painless Productions were moving fast and furious on the production schedule, however they were always respectful of our situation and what we were going through.  It felt like daily questions, updates, calls, and emails were coming at us everyday.  Trying to do both was turning us inside and out. 

It felt like the crazy woman opened a door to another realm.  It was reinforcements to help her in her twisted mission to keep Amy, Steve, and The Dead Files from helping us.