Well, my family and I spent the day at home, and it was ultimately an extremely boring day. Father John and Paul were out doing their research while we essentially sat in silence all day. We had been advised to use as little electronics as possible, so that took out any kind of entertainment we had, save for board games, which to be honest, we’ve become too accustomed to technology to have that entertain us for any real length of time.

Father John and Paul got back to our house at around 3 in the afternoon, and they came with information. Our house was built in 1955, and no, the land was not once a cemetery or ancient Indian burial ground or anything. The problem lies in a past resident. When we got the house, we knew it hadn’t been lived in in quite some time. Nearly a decade. This was attributed by the realtor to the constant blackouts in the area. Apparently, houses in that neighborhood stayed vacant for quite some time before someone who decided they could live with the blackouts came across them. The last occupant of the house was a man named Lee Ruechell (pronounced Rickel) and his family, which consisted of his wife and daughter. Lee and his wife Georgia were elderly, and their daughter, Carrie Anne, stayed with them to take care of them in their old age.

With this information, Father John and Paul were able to dig into the occupants. Lee suffered from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, but was an active member in the church community. When there was an issue with his social security, other members of the church banded together and took over his mortgage for him for nearly a year. Lee was a very well-liked man apparently, but from what they read to me, it seemed as if he had a bit of a dark side. His wife and daughter were admitted to the hospital several times throughout their lives for what looked to be domestic abuse related injuries. On the outside, though, all seemed well, and his wife was a loyal one, and his daughter a caring one. It seemed as though even though they had their problems, they were still a tight knit family. Lee died from his disease, in the house, in 1992. It wasn’t revealed in which room or anything, but at least that was something.

Georgia and Carrie Anne spent the next year together in the house, and apparently they got heavily involved in the practices of seances and speaking with the dead, in an attempt to locate Lee. This information was found due to a small fire that had happened in the kitchen, which was the result of candles being used during one of the seances. The realtor had informed us of the fire, but didn’t reveal to us the cause, just that it had been caused by candles. We thought nothing of it; it had been fixed, so we didn’t give it a second thought.

In late 1993, Georgia passed away from natural causes in the city hospital. The house was inhabited solely by Carrie Anne for the next 6 months, and continued to be the site of many communications with the dead. For unknown reasons, Carrie Anne moved away, and the house sat vacant until we bought it in late 2013. Carrie Anne committed suicide last week, and was buried in the cemetery in a plot next to her parents.

Father John and Paul then gave their opinions on what they felt the issue was. They are under the impression that with the death of Carrie Anne, the Ruechell family is now back together, and they want their house back. We thought back to when I was spoken to for the first time with the phrase “you’ve been here long enough, it’s time to come home.”, and came to the conclusion that those were two separate statements, as in “[you and your family have] been here long enough. It’s time [for us] to come home.”. I know this is a long shot, but it would fit the scenario if this was in fact the case.

As far as them suddenly getting violent, it’s thought that it was due to my apprehension to let them in. They had smiled and waved, in a gesture of friendliness, and I had taken it the wrong way. When we left the house, they knew we would eventually come back, so they showed up at the hotel, and then the cabin to continue to persuade us to leave the house for good. When I shot the smiler through the window, it apparently angered them. So they broke all the windows and came in, and were prepared to attack. Our guess is that due to the limited energy being used at the cabin, they couldn’t defend against the knife attack, so they disappeared when I attempted to stab the woman smiler. As for what was said last night, the whole “you can’t keep him out of where he belongs forever.” is the angry side of Lee Ruechell coming out, demanding he get his home back. Our guess is that the large number of people are spirits that Lee has befriended in the afterlife to help in the effort to get his home back,

Mind you, this is all conjecture. All evidence of what we’re assuming this to be is circumstantial at best. For all we know, we could be totally off. I think that might be the scariest part. What we do know for sure though, is that the salt worked. It fended them off last night. Also, the smiler seemed to respond to Father John’s rosary, so that was a good line of defense too. The problem is we can’t control the power outside the house, which, if they are in fact energized by the electricity, which then causes the blackouts, we can’t defend ourselves in that way.

Also, we have no idea why the smilers approached my wife and daughter first. Our only thoughts on that, are that some of the smilers aren’t necessarily on the same mission as the rest, Some of them may have ulterior, more sinister motives. I have to say, it’s extremely frustrating not knowing what exactly it is we’re dealing with, and working only off of semi-educated hypotheses. But alas, it was all we had.

We reinforced the salt barriers and relit all the candles throughout the house, in preparation for whatever the night brought. We then just waited, each taking turns sleeping while others kept an eye out. Nothing happened until about 3:30am. Father John woke me up, and told me he had heard something upstairs. We looked out the window, and from what we could see, all the power was on on the street. Myself, Paul, and Father John made our way upstairs, each armed with a holy relic. We searched the upstairs but found nothing. As we were heading back downstairs, the door the attic, the kind that swings down and drops a ladder, did just that, sending the ladder down with a loud crash. We nearly jumped out of our skin as we turned around. An angry looking smiler (oxymoron, I know) bobbed his way down the attic stairs. Father John started saying a prayer, while Paul and I held up our rosaries.

This smiler did not seem to be wholly phased by the holy relics. It was as if he knew they would hurt him, so he wasn’t so quick to advance on us. Instead, he almost tiptoed towards us, backing us down the stairs. I finally spit out “what do you want?”, and it just started whispering incoherently. Just then, two more smilers came tumbling down the attic steps, like they had fallen. They got to their feet and moved ahead quickly behind their angry friend. Suddenly, the smiler behind the one that was slowly approaching us, pushed the one closest to us directly into us. It hit Father John’s cross and let out a shriek, and before it disappeared into thin air, it knocked us backwards down the stairs, and we all tumbled on top of one another as wel fell, step after step. The two remaining smilers threw themselves down the stairs, tumbling just like we had, but voluntarily. They landed at our feet and got back up as if nothing had happened. They ignored us as we were at the bottom of the stairs writhing in pain, too shaken up to even notice what was happening. Once in the line of sight of my wife, she screamed. One smiler made a beeline for the front door, and the other went for a side window in the room opposite the living room. They both stopped before the salt, inhaled deeply, and blew the salt away, effectively opening the barriers between us and the rest of  them.

It was then that I noticed every light in the neighborhood was out. Every street light was out, and every other house for as far as we could see were completely pitch black. What seemed to be an entire night sky of stars worth of bouncing, glowing eyes was making its way towards our house from every direction. Father John quickly got up and ran to the smiler at the front door, pressing the relic against it, causing it to dissipate. I followed suit and lunged at the one by the window, doing the same thing, successfully. Father John put his back to the door, but was sent flying forward when the door was broken off of its hinges. The woman smiler I had come to know and hate so much stood there before me, actually smiling. I don’t know what I hated more, the smile or the angry face.

Paul asked what the smiler wanted. She simply replied “uninterrupted access to our home.”

“Are you Carrie Anne Ruechell?” Father John inquired.

“No, I am Georgia Ruechell.” The smiler retorted.

“This is no longer your home, be gone!” Demanded my brave priest.

Georgia let out that shrieking laughter that could have shattered all the windows. Suddenly, Paul lunged forward from behind me in an attempt to hit Georgia with his rosary. She simply side stepped which resulted in Paul falling forward onto his face, into the outside. In an instant, he was swarmed by smilers, whose flailing limbs and falling bodies quickly made it unable to see Paul; all we could hear was his screams.

“We came in peace” said Georgia. “But you’ve left us no choice. The only way you get to reside here any longer, is as one of us. And that is only if my husband allows you to. He is simply tired of your selfishness in this matter and demands you be dealt with in the most mortal of ways. If you had just given us our home back in the first place, you could’ve gone on about your life.”

I didn’t know what to say. I could only live here still if I was dead and had my soul moved into somebody else’s body? And regardless I was gonna die? This was so far beyond any realm of knowledge I possessed.

“We will be back tomorrow evening, and it will be your last chance to accept your fate peacefully. Otherwise, you will be responsible for whatever pain my husband decides to impose on you and your family.”

And with that, she was gone. The candles in our house blew out, and the lights in the neighborhood went back on. Had she basically told me that tomorrow night, we were going to die, one way other the other? Father John was honest with me, and told me that an exorcism probably wouldn’t do anything, because they weren’t necessarily haunting anything, they just had a specific goal in mind. They would be doing this to whoever was in this house, and would be doing it to whatever house they wanted. Father John did say that he assumed they had done this sort of thing before, but probably hadn’t been met with such resistance. Paul was gone. He had vanished with the rest of the smilers. That is something that’s going to weigh heavily on my conscience for some time.

Then, I had an idea. Since I’m essentially out of options, and am more than likely going to die tomorrow night anyways, I decided to finally be more than a little proactive for once. Father John insisted against it, my wife hates the idea, and my daughter is terrified, but, I’m just thinking fuck them, I’ll do what I have to to keep my family safe. I’m on my way back home with 5 gallons of gasoline. I will let you know what happens tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Part 6