Memories of a past Investigation

It was a Wednesday afternoon and i was helping dad sort out a few things, old books, papers etc, when we came across one of his many old diaries. It was weired, because all of dads diaries were kept, in the house, in the same place. He pondered to why this one might be amongst all of this and came to the conclusion that he must have thought he lost it, and just moved on. We began flicking through it and found out that it was a diary from 1980. Some of the note were bleak, just your average diary really but then we flicked into something long forgotten.

On the 25Th of January 1980, just 20 days before i was born my father was asked to investigate a family home in Battersea. It was the home of the Faulkner family, Mr and Mrs Faulkner and their three children, Molly, Charlie and Kelly. He was asked to investigate when the parents had gone to their church minister and discussed the possibility of their eldest, Molly, being possessed by some sort of demon.

In the night time, it was not uncommon for Molly to get out of bed, walk into the hallway and begin banging frantically on the far wall, screaming for help and asking to leave. In fact, on many nights the parents were so distraught that it had not become an uncommon practice to strap Molly to her bed. Molly had also began cutting herself with any sharp object she could find, tearing away at her skin. At any time, Molly would explain that she knew nothing of her actions and that she felt as if she were asleep. In a time of desperation, they sought the advice of the only person they could trust.

My Father was recommended to them, the local minister could do nothing for them, he was not in that line of work for the church, but he knew my father and would recommend him to the, literally hundred who all have similar problems.

My Father visited the house, open minded and skeptical as usual, to see what he could find. He bought no equipment with him on the first night, something that would soon become a routine, and he just sat in the living room, getting a "feel" for the place.

He sat in the hall for most of the night, just waiting as he remembers. It must have been four in the morning when what he was waiting for happened. Molly walked out of her bedroom - eyes wide - but he could see that she was asleep. He had seen sleepwalkers before and said that even though their eyes are open, you can look into them and see nothing. Molly walked over to the wall that she has been known to bang on and stood there in front of it, but she did nothing. She waited for a moment, as did my father - he didn't want to move a muscle, so as not to disturb or wake her. He said that it lasted a few moments, but felt like hours, she just stood there, doing nothing - as if - she had fallen back to sleep right there and that's when she turned to him - walked over - and sat down. She sat right in front of him and looked him in the eyes. He could see that she was still asleep, but he explained that he felt something about this girl, it would soon come to light that she was not asleep, she was possessed, by what - to this day my father still doesn't know for sure. She sat, he watched and waited. "Why are you here?" she asked him. He explained that he was there to try and help. She said that help was not needed there. She told my father to leave.

Now, the one thing about my father is that if he was ever faced with an entity, ghost, spirit or demon and is given a clear warning to leave, he takes it.

He returned the next evening and spoke to Molly about the night before, she remembered none of it as usual. He explained to the family that he would return to the house after his son - me - was born as he didn't want to miss anything, but he was sure that even though bad things happened - the cutting in particular, it seemed to be random, he was sure that nothing worse was going to happen.

Twelve days later, the house burned down in the middle of the night, everyone inside died. The cause of the fire was a supposed candle left overnight in the living area.
My father felt responsible for their death, he felt that it may have not been an accident, but no one will ever be able to tell. To this day, every year he walks by what was that house and thinks about how it may have been, my father's a big fan of IF.

Anyway - on a lighter note - I'm heading to the open call for the TV show 'I Want to Believe' on Saturday, I've been given a 3pm time slot - hope to see some of you there.