"_" "I don't believe in demons." "I don't believe in evil spirits." "But I was desperate." "_" "_" "The Conjuring did tell some of our story." " _" " I want us all to hold hands." "But let me tell you, the reality..." "Was much more horrifying." "Boom!" "I just couldn't believe my eyes." "My leg." "Oh, my God!" "Andrea!" "Help me." "You've got the devil living in your house." "You killed her!" "I have never been so terrified." "_" "♪ Jack and Jill went up the hill ♪" "♪ to fetch a pail of water ♪" "♪ Jack fell down and broke his crown ♪" "♪ and Jill came tumbling after ♪" "We're almost there." "_" "The moment we pulled into the yard," "I was absolutely taken by the heartstrings." "The place was lovely." "Carolyn told me that she had already put a $500 deposit down." "I says, "what the heck did you do?" ""I mean, you took all of our funds, everything we had left to live on?"" "But it was beautiful." "I just looked at Carolyn, and I says," ""yes, yes, yes." "You did the right thing."" "Being the eldest of five girls, of course that was a lot to keep up with." "Andrea, can you grab a box?" "I was mom's little helper." "It's really big." "There was Nancy," "April," "Cindy, the little tomboy." "It was us against the world." "We stuck together like glue." "Let's go." "Then finally, Christine." "We just kind of scattered like little mice, you know, this one running off here, and, "I want to go see this," and, "let's go over here,"" "and it was crazy." "Thanks, Andrea." "I was so happy." "One day we were all gathered in the bedroom, and someone came up with the idea..." "Let's play hide and seek." "One, two, three, four, five..." "Cindy bolted." "Six, seven..." "The house was so big." "It was like a maze." "11, 12, 13, 14, 15..." "The cellar door just..." "Kind of opened." "Well, that would be perfect." "They'll never find me here." "So I grabbed a flashlight and went downstairs." "27, 28, 29, 30, 31," "32, 33..." "I had a feeling of anticipation." "I thought I was on a little adventure." "And then I noticed there was something over in the corner." "So I shined the light onto it, and saw that it was an old box." "There was no hook, no latch." "Nothing." "I lifted the lid." "I was thrilled." "I thought I found the best hiding spot." "Ready or not, here we come!" "And I just squeezed down into the box." "Cindy?" "We were looking everywhere." "But we just couldn't find her." "Cindy?" "Where could she be?" "Immediately, I knew something was wrong." "The box wouldn't open." "And it was very hot." "I started to get scared." "Help!" "Andrea!" "Help!" "Cindy?" "She was nowhere to be found." "Where could she be?" "Help!" "I just started screaming..." "Help me!" "And punching and kicking..." "But something was trapping me." "I could feel it." "It was absolutely holding me in." "Where are my sisters?" "Please, God, send my sisters." "You don't she would've went upstairs, right?" "Christine!" "I could feel myself running out of air." "Nobody's gonna find me." "I am gonna die in here." "She was ghost white." "Cindy, are you okay?" "And she said..." "The box wouldn't let me out." ""The box wouldn't let me out."" "I was on dish duty one night." "I always hated that we didn't have window coverings, and I was always kind of..." "Out the window, because I didn't know what was there." "All of a sudden there was this sound." "It scared the daylights out of me." "There's no reason for that door to have opened from the cellar." "And I could feel this draft around my feet and my ankles." "Just this cold feeling." "I saw the reflection behind me..." "But when I turned around..." "Wasn't there." "There was nothing there." "There was nobody there." "I was upstairs in my room one afternoon just doing my homework on my bed." "And I heard a baby crying." "I was a little confused." "There were no babies in the house." "It seemed to be coming from downstairs." "But I was the only one in the house." "It was very distressing." "It was wailing, like, screaming in pain." "And then it stopped." "All of a sudden I heard..." "I could see this stream of mist coming out of my mouth, and realized that the temperature had dropped." "Boom!" "The door slammed shut." "I heard a baby crying, and the door opened by itself." "She was frightened, there was no doubt." "It's okay." "So I decided to check and see what was happening." "I looked at the door." "You cannot open up that door unless the latch is raised." "But there was no broken latch." "It's okay." "I didn't know what to think." "I felt this hand go across my back..." "From right to left, and I go, "whoa."" "I thought it was my wife Carolyn." "Oh, that feels good." "And then it stopped." "I'm... oh, my God." "What is that?" "_" "_" "Oh, boy, that feels good." "Thought maybe it was my wife Carolyn, so I turned around." "Carolyn wasn't there." "Nobody was there." "What the hell is happening here?" "I knew that something strange had just happened to me, so I closed the door, whacked nails in it, and that was the end of that." "One night I remember, I was asleep..." "And I was having a nightmare." "It was as if I was just standing in the corner of my parents' room..." "And watching this thing..." "This woman hanging over my mother." "She had wood protruding from the end of her sleeves." "There were no hands." "My father was laying right beside her." "It looked like a wild animal had attacked him." "She could obviously see me." "I was paralyzed." "I could not move." "And finally, it was over and she was gone." "The next morning, I went downstairs, and there's my mom, frantically scrabbling with her pencil." "What is she doing?" "I picked up her cup of coffee and I looked down." "Mom..." "I saw what my mother was drawing." "She was drawing what I had dreamed..." "Exactly." "And she started to express what I had just witnessed." "A woman on my bed." "Her arms were like sticks." "She had no hands." "And then I said, "mom, please tell me the truth." "Did that actually happen to you?"" "And she said, "yes, honey." "It really did."" "I'm a tough customer, and I don't scare easily..." "But this was serious." "And I saw again what I had seen in my dream." "Roger!" "Your back." "What's wrong?" "So I told him what happened." "It scared the hell out of me to begin with." "But I didn't accept it." "There must be a rational explanation of it." "So I didn't believe at that time that the kids were in any danger." "One night we decided we were gonna have a sleepover in Ani's room." "I woke up in the middle of the night." "I don't know what time it was." "The temperature just dropped." "And I could see my breath." "And I got goose bumps." "So I sat up a little bit..." "And I could see this thing hovering over Andrea's bed." "I just..." "I kept blinking my eyes, like, what am I seeing?" "What is that?" "I was dragged across the floor." "My gut instinct was to grab the rail." "I thought I was gonna die." "_" "It was an old woman." "She was trying to drag me down the stairs." "I was trying to scream..." "But nothing would come out." "I knew..." "She was dragging me towards the cellar." "I didn't think I could hold on much longer." "All I could do was pray." "And then she was gone." "As fast as she came, she was gone." "We all had problems at that house." "Everybody was affected in different ways." "Everybody." "This was our dream home." "We just wanted to live happily ever after." "That's what we wanted." "We just wanted to make it a place where we didn't have to worry about who was going to get hurt next." "We all hoped that that time would come." "But it never did." "I smelled smoke." "It was the smell of smoke that woke me." "There were these tall men, just standing there." "I was frozen with fear." "Suddenly, a woman entered the room." "And she started..." "To bang her torch on the floor." "Boom, boom, boom, like, rhythmically." "And then she spoke." "It was this incantation." "It was as though they were trying to conjure up something." "My heart was pounding." "Oh, my God." "And suddenly, something pierced my leg." "And I threw my covers back like that." "Gone." "The smoke, the people..." "Everything gone." "I looked over, and I says, "what in the heck happened?"" "And she says, "look, look."" "And I saw blood coming out of her leg." "Oh, my God." "Just hang in there." "Hang on." "I had been stabbed." "Deliberately stabbed with something sharp, like, a needlepoint." "That was the beginning." "You okay, mom?" "It was very upsetting to watch my mother really going downhill." "It seemed like she had aged by decades." "Something was feeding off me." "_" "You okay, mom?" "_" "I came to the conclusion that whatever was going on at that house needed to be researched..." "And I needed to find some answers." "I hate to say it, but I think it's haunted." "I read some of the early records of who lived in the house over the centuries." "There was so much tragedy in that house." "Suicides, drownings, and people freezing to death." "It was as though this place had been cursed." "And then I finally found something." "I read of a woman called Bathsheba Sherman." "_" "She was, at our farm, left in charge of children, and an infant died." "The rumor was she was in league with the devil..." "And that she had sacrificed this baby for her own beauty and eternal youth." "I read the medical report." "The coroner examined the baby and found that a needle..." "Had been embedded into the base of the child's skull." "I couldn't believe it." "It called back memories of being stabbed with a needle myself." "Ow!" "And I wondered if..." "Bathsheba had stabbed me with the needle and had planted a curse on our property and on me." "I asked myself if this was why I was aging so rapidly and my health was breaking down." "One evening..." "There was a knock on the door." "Hi, honey." "And there was a man and a woman there that none of us knew." "Is your mom home?" "Mom?" "They introduced themselves as Ed and Lorraine Warren, as paranormal researchers and investigators." "They had gotten wind of our family having some problem..." "And that they were there to help us." "Mrs. Perron." "Might we take a look around the house?" "It won't take long." "I was willing to take all the help I can get at this point." "I was cynical." "I was skeptical." "But I was hopeful." "Thank you." "We had no idea that they were the most famous paranormal researchers on the planet." "Lorraine would pause in each room, taking in whatever energy was there..." "And then she would move on to the next and the next." "Everything was quiet in the house." "You could hear a pin drop." "Lorraine Warren, and she started shaking." "She was clearly upset." "You okay?" "And she said," ""I sense a malignant presence in this house."" "And her name..." "Is Bathsheba." "Bathsheba?" " Bathsheba." " Bathsheba." " _" " You okay?" "Her name..." "Bathsheba." "It was as though somebody had slapped me." "How the hell did she know that?" "Does that name mean something to you?" "Okay, girls, how about we go into the other room and you guys can tell me what's been going on here, okay?" "Come on." "Clearly, she was affected by what she felt in the house." "Carolyn, please." "Listen to me." ""You got the devil living in your house."" "We would like to perform a seance." "I was dead set against any kind of a seance." "I didn't know how much harm it would do, but in my heart I knew that there was something wrong with doing that." "They had a medium with them." "They had someone to film the event." "They were my last, best chance." "We were banished to the top floor." "Let's just sneak down and see what's going on." "And there was a crack in the door, about that much." "I want us all to hold hands." "The medium started calling the spirit," ""if you're here, please come forward and tell us what's troubling you."" "Total quiet." "The seance had not been going for more than two minutes at the very most..." "Before all hell broke loose." "The whole house shook." "It just trembled." "The table lifted off the floor..." "And I just couldn't believe my eyes, what was happening." "Boom!" "My mother started caving into herself." "She was shutting down." "I saw pain on her face." "Her whole body..." "Drew up." "Her knees were right here at her chest." "Her facial features started to change and twist." "Her whole body started to go like this, all contorted." "What the heck is going on here?" "She was possessed." "I have never in my life been so terrified." "She shot backwards and flipped over." "Her skull hit the floor." "Carolyn!" "And I thought my mother was dead." "_" "Carolyn!" "_" "You killed her." "He was screaming, "you killed her."" "It was horrible." ""Get the hell out of the house."" "All of you, now!" "I didn't know what had happened to her." "I didn't know if she was dying." "I didn't know what to do." "I just went and I bent over and I held her hand." "Carolyn!" "I couldn't take it anymore." "He grabbed her by the shoulders and he shook her and he said," ""you come back to me!" "You don't leave us!" "You don't leave your children!" "You are not leaving us!"" "I felt..." "That she wasn't gonna make it." "Mom!" "So I just begged her." "Please come back!" "Mom..." "Please come back." "We know you can come back." "Oh, my head." "Carolyn." "Oh, my God, Carolyn." "It took every ounce of my strength, my heart." "It was the pull of my children, I'm sure, that brought me back." "But I was so gone." "We knew she was strong willed, and I think that's all it takes." "I finally realized that I had to do something to protect my family and her." "So I sold the house." "I was so happy." "If we stayed, I think the house would've killed us all." "Okay, you win." "You have the house." "We're going." "It... the war's over." "It was never just our house." "It was her house long before it was ours, and it still is." "When I finally left the house," "I felt happiness." "I couldn't wipe the grin off my face." "I wanted to forget everything that happened there." "_" "_" "_"