Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I Shouldn't Have Found An EXORCIST On Craigslist | Scary Stories

Episode Date: October 2, 2023

Big mistake.    Story from ervanlerpton Make sure to check out more of their work at u/ervanlerpton   Original Post: My Girlfriend Talks in Her Sleep : r/scarystories                                     Original YouTube link: I Shouldn't Have Found An EXORCIST On Craigslist              For more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube  Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | Patreon Merch: lighthousehorror.com  Music: Lucas King - YouTube Myuu - YouTube  Incompetech Darren Curtis Music - YouTube  Thank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this new creepypasta story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new episodes every day, featuring ghost stories, haunted encounters, mysteries, true stories, creepypasta, and anything supernatural and paranormal. Don't miss out on the thrill and suspense that await you in each episode!

My girlfriend talks in her sleep. At first it was cute and hilarious to tell her what she said. It was harmless nonsense. The sky is folding or we need to raise the ground. We'd talk the next day about if she remembered the dream, but she never did. I wish I knew what she meant by we need to raise the ground. Some context. Our nightly routine is for us to start out cuddling and then give it up once it gets

too odd. Then we're usually both on our sides back to back. She would fall asleep before I do, and so I'd hear the full range of her nightly musings. Honestly, at first I was eager to hear what she said. It was always funny to tell her and our friends what she'd say while deep in the throes of REM. But now I'm done. I'd prefer she not talk anymore. How am I going to sleep after what happened last night. Last night, around 11 p.m., she was asleep, and I was still up reading. Back to back, I hear her mumble something under her breath. I couldn't quite make out what she said, but I lean over from my book to peek at her face,

and she is sleeping soundly. I returned to my book, get absorbed back into its pages. At some point I fall asleep. Next thing I know, I'm woken up by my girlfriend talking about. at full volume. I open my eyes. And at some point in the night, both of us have turned to lay face to face. My girlfriend's eyes are wide open. She's staring right at me, mere inches from my face. But her eyes are vacuous, like she's looking through me. These eyes, man, it's like she was straining to widen them as much as possible. Those are the eyes I fell in love with.

And right now, they're scaring the absolute piss out of me. My heart rates sky-rockets and shockful of adrenaline, I throw off the covers and I jump out of bed. Looking at her, her eyes follow me like a painting, but her body stays still. For one second, I decided that my booklight was keeping her awake, and what she'd said was, Can you please turn that off? Now out of bed and looking at her, though. She's not right.

Her body hasn't moved, but her eyes dart from looking at me to looking around the room. I dare to ask her. You are right? No response. Those eyes look at me when I speak, though. They're now deadlocked looking right into my eyes. Her breathing hasn't changed. It's asleep breathing for sure.

And that's when, while looking right at me, she says in a too deep voice, Come back to bed, Deary. My girlfriend's never called me Deary before. We have pet name, sure, but they range from pumpkin, baby, to cupcake. Deary sounds like something my grandmother would call me. I decide I'll get more information before I climb back into bed with a potentially possessed girlfriend. Uh, you awake, sweetie?

No response. The eyes dart from me to the wall, to the door, and then the ceiling. I'm about to nope, out of the room, when her wide open eyes rolled to the back of her head. The white from those eyes stands out in the dim radiance of the booklight. No pupils in sight, she says. Of course I'm awake. Come back to bed. With a subtle tap of the fingers on the comforter, looking at her fingers now, maybe I'm starting

to come around. I mean, she's never sleepwalk before. Surely she's awake now if she's moving her hands? But looking at her fingers, it's as though she's pretending to have control. They're going in all different directions. one finger pointing straight down, and the others to the side. Those hands are not my girlfriend's hands. They're simulating normal movement as best they can, though.

I say, I'm going to get a drink of water, baby, be right back. Can I get you anything? Fully planning to run out of the house the moment I'm over the threshold. But my normally agreeable and sweet girlfriend, friend. Decides I'm not allowed to leave. As serious as cancer, she says in that too deep horror voice, Take one step out that door, and I'll rip out your throat and shit down your neck. Shocked, but understanding the importance of not letting this beast know I'm in trouble, I reply, As interesting as a proposition that is, I think I'm gonna...

And quickly thinking, I grab my water bottle from the nightstand. This doesn't please my girlfriend as she decides to start screaming and moving towards me. It's a supernatural scream, so high-pitched and bird-like, I feel as though my neighbor's three houses down can hear it. As fast as I can muster, I unscrew the lid and I douse. her in water. Like I knew what I was doing. Her eyes close. Her garbled appendages normalize. And she's back asleep. I'm going to sleep on the couch for a while. Maybe forever. She'll understand when she's awake. My hands tremble over the keyboard. And I may have a concussion,

so please forgive any typos or brevity of my update. It's the morning after my typically amenable and kind-hearted girlfriend's body was possessed in sleep by some malicious entity. I've been distant this morning, so she knows something is amiss, but obviously still reeling from the experience. I can't tell her yet that she tried to rip out my throat and shit down my neck. You understand. I'm tired. Obviously I didn't sleep last night.

But I did stay up most of the night, with all the lights on, feverishly clutching my water-ball bottle in the living room. The demonic beast inside my girlfriend managed to creep its way back into control sometime soon after I exited the room and pinned it clothes with a dining room chair given her eye movements and the activation delay. My theory is that the beast is allowed control during REM. But what do I know? It spent most of the evening attempting to coax me back into the bedroom, This time, with a pinch more emotional intelligence, calling out to me in what was as close to my girlfriend's normal voice as it could manage. Come to bed, sweetie.

Why are you sleeping on the couch again? I decide I'm not going to validate this demon with a response. But moments later, the two deep, sinister voices back, If you don't open this door, I'll slip the cat's throat. Oh, shit. I forgot about the cat. He's still in the bedroom, probably cowering in fear, hissing in the corner to no avail. My guess is that the cat's already dead, but what do I do?

Let our beloved kitty be eaten alive by someone he trusts. I've seen enough horror movies to know that this is the moment I have to decide to do something dumb and heroic. or die on screen while everyone yells about how much of an idiot I am for opening the door. I may have a little more sympathy for these characters now. People thrust into impossible situations are forced to make impossible choices. Against my better judgment, I'm going to open the door. Get the cat out of the room. I'm staring at the bedroom door now and notice something damp and, notice something damp and

and muscally, poking and prodding its way out from under the door. I point my phone's flashlight at it, and I realize it's my girlfriend's tongue. I catch myself experiencing an intrusive thought, wondering if she'll want to know why her mouth is full of cat hair tomorrow. But this is perfect. I need to test out my new technique. A spray bottle full of sink water. I spray the tongue as it inchworms itself around the edge of the door, presumably looking

for purchase on my human flesh. It immediately recoils, and I hear the body inside collapse. Water is still a demon possession off switch, I decide, and immediately tear the chair away from holding the door locked. I don't even have time to think about whether I have holy water on tap. I need to act fast. Attempting to open the door now, my significant other's unconscious body is blocking me from entering. It requires quite a bit of force to slide her ragdoll body behind the door so I can squeeze through,

trying not to look too closely at her. I realize now that she's sweating a black, oily substance, and the bed and floor are totally drenched. I realize the reason it was difficult to open the door. The demon's sweat is sticky. Maybe she's stuck to the ground. Carefully avoiding stepping in the demon's superglue, I'm now inside the bedroom. To my dismay, I don't see the cat right away. It makes sense.

Frightened as hell, it must have crawled and hid under the bed. Yikes. I got to persuade it out from under there now, but that will mean I need to get down on my belly and reach under the bed, realizing the absurdity of my situation. I have one hand pointing a spray bottle at my deep asleep girlfriend, and one hand reaching under the bed to grab my cat. My eyes trained on my girlfriend. I reach blindly under the dark bed.

I can feel its soft fur. I wrap my hand around it and attempt to bring it towards me. It wriggles free from my grass. with evidently zero intention on making this easy. It crawls deeper under the bed. Frustrated, I take my eyes off my girlfriend to look where it went. No sign of it. I make the call to put the spray bottle down and point my phone flashlight under the bed.

It's too deep underneath for me to get it from this side. I'm going to need to go around to the other side to capture it. Pulling my head back out from underneath the bed. I realize my fatal error. My girlfriend has woken up. She's standing over me, a dark tower as I lay vulnerable on the ground beside the bed. Her teeth look sharper from this angle in my phone's flashlight. Why didn't I turn on the bedroom light?

She's drooling that black, oily glue. Her hair, normally a gorgeous brown, is so glossed with black paste. that it slicked itself to her head like she just got out of the shower. Her eyes are menacing, wide open, bloodshot, and yellow. She looks tired. I'm tired too, but it's time to go. The cat heroics can wait. Just as I'm about to scuttle, an adrenaline-filled crawl around her legs and out the open door,

she grabs both ankles with both of her arms. I remember her typically gentle touch is nowhere to be found in this grip as her nails dig shallow wounds into my legs. With inhuman strength, she begins raising my entire body weight by my legs, plainly in an attempt to start eating me alive from the toes up. Little does she know, I've never. skipped a leg day in my life. I kicked my girlfriend square in the teeth with both feet. She drops me on my head, but I can't feel it. While she's stunned, I managed to get to my feet.

Carefully avoid the pre-natural spider web paste and exit the room. Hands shaking, I adjust the chair to the correct angle just in time to hear agitated knocking on the other side. Ah, baby, come back to bed. It's late. You're going to be so tired at work tomorrow. All of that. And I didn't even get the damn cat. And my spray bottle still in there.

What the hell am I going to do now? Okay, here's what I know. Number one. The possession ends when she wakes up. Number two. She has no recollection. of the previous night. Number three, water disables, but only momentarily, like two to three minutes. Number four, the black ooze she drools and sweats while possessed. evaporates? The bed

and floor were wet this morning from the water I sprayed. The rest had all disappeared by the time I checked. Number five. The cat is fine. And number six. I need to I need help. She's taking work calls in the other room. I'm doing my best to focus on my own work, but my mind drifts from the laptop screen. I can't focus. Agreeing to myself that I won't get anything worthwhile done today. I give up and start thinking about next steps.

I need an exorcist. I'm not the kind to call an exorcist, okay? I'm the kind of guy that scoffs at the idea. They're all scams, you can't have experience in something that doesn't exist. Clearly I am not the religious type, but I'll table my reservations for now. I'm not going to go through all of that again on my own. Feeling totally out of my element, but unwilling to call a church, I found an exorcist on Craigslist.

Price is no object. Let's get this thing out of my girlfriend. He says so come over tonight. He messages me and says it is of utmost importance that my girlfriend's waking body does not find out what we're going to do. If she does find out and is not able to fall asleep, no refunds. How much more could I expect from a Craig's List exorcist? I am certainly not thrilled with the idea of a stranger knowing my address, but I'm not backing

out now. As you can imagine, this is the slowest sloth. of a day I've ever experienced in my life. I'm anxious. I feel physically sick. I jump at everything my girlfriend says. I can't look in her eyes without imagining that eerie yellow tinge behind them. Around lunchtime, I hear her humming happily in the kitchen. She really has no idea, does she? A profound sense of certain death washes over me. As I watch her wheeled a night, to cut vegetables. Finally, the work day is over. My acting this evening was on par with any Oscar winner. Remembering what the actresses told me and failing to come up with an excuse,

I got into bed with her. I made sure to place the cat in a comfortable spot in the living room. We're reading side by side when she leans over, kisses me good night, and turns out her bedside table light. I'm going to keep mine on for now, thank you. My body tense with desire to bolt. We begin to spoon. She can't learn something's wrong, just a little longer. I figure I'm safe as long as I exit before she's asleep. She raises her head and asks, why is your heart beating so fast? Thinking quickly, I say, Oh, yeah, I just. freak myself out, you know, the book, reading horror before bed, it's not the best decision. Thankfully, she laughs at my obsession for the macabre and returns her head to the pillow.

I count down for three minutes. That's 180 Mississippies. She must have been close to a sleep because she doesn't protest when I get up. I install the chair as my lock and wait. Where are you, Pumpkin? Can't you sleep? Now this is so close to my girlfriend's voice. I am certain for a moment that I made the whole thing up. I'll play it safe, I decide, and not respond. Again, it's cold without you, baby. Come back to bed. I am sure it is cold as hell where this thing is from. But I'm not opening the door.

There's someone coming up the driveway, she begins. It's late. Don't let them in. I stand up to answer the front door. Outside in the dim front door light is a tall man clad in traditional priest garb. He looks like Ethan Hawke from the movie first reforged, but clearly with a body covered in tattoos, as evidenced by the inked skin poking out from beneath his cuffs. Pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a Craigslist exorcist.

There's not much time to introduce ourselves as we hear an alarming scrape come from the bedroom. I take this moment to read the priest's face and check if he actually has experience with this. He seems to at least be brave, his face giving no indication that he's wearing a costume for a Quick buck. Outside of the bedroom door now, in hushed tones, he begins to explain what he's going to do. Brandishing a Bible and a small jar of holy water. I decide not to explain that sink water works fine.

We're about to open the door. Hands on the chair. I hear scraping again. This time I realized the sound was never coming from the bedroom. It came from the living room. To my left, I hear the stranger breathe out softly. Ugh, the cat. The cat has been watching us this whole time.

It's normally green eyes now bloodshot in yellow, no pupils in sight, poking out from around the corner, black paste drooling from its open mouth, leaving a snail trail of fluid behind it as it stalks out into the open. It attempts to hiss while making eye contact with the priest, but all that comes out is a bubbling gurgle as more fluid leaks onto the hardwood. Are the cat's legs longer than usual, I think? It looks like it's grown five inches in height, typically sitting around ankle level, but now right around standing at my knees.

I curse quietly to myself. How could I have been so stupid? Of course the cat managed to get itself possessed. It spent the whole night in the bedroom, presumably mopping up the viscous black oil with its mouth. All right, new plan. Cat first. I shit you not. The cat talks.

Its mouth doesn't move from its totally open resting position, but the voice comes out of its mouth. It's that same too deep nightmare voice. I'm all too familiar with. I told you not to let him in." Just then, my girlfriend decides she needs attention again. A consistent wrapping of knuckles on the door, Let me out, let me out, let me out! Let me out!

Now I'm triaging this situation in my mind, when I realize the moment I took my eyes off of the cat, it has rocketed itself forward, climbed the priest, tall by, and I realized the moment I took my eyes, whole body, wrapped its two long legs around his neck, and constricts him like a snake. It maintains dull eye contact with me. As I look on in horror, the priest drops his Bible and holy water on the ground, attempting to tear the cat's octopus-like legs away from his neck. He succeeds momentarily and cites what I assume is a Bible verse. The cat puts a stop to this with a quick navigation of its tail deep down into the priest's throat,

coughing and hysterical. He can't manage to escape its impossible grip, claws digging bloody fissures into his neck. My turn, as I grab the holy water from the ground and grapple with the cat's jaw, pouring the contents of the jar down its slime-obstructed throat. Immediately, the cat falls to the ground like a corpse. Legs splayed in every direction. It lays on the ground, defeated for now. Once the cat is safely inside its travel carrier, the priest and I share a grim look.

I ask him if he's ever dealt with this kind of thing before. Rubbing his neck, he says, Of course, a thousand times. It takes a great deal of conviction for me to not physically roll my eyes. Well, I'm glad to have you around, then, I say. Slime tendrils seek blind escape from air holes in the side of my travel carrier. As I explained to the priest not to swallow any of the black liquid.

I think there may not be much hope for him now that my cat's tail has penetrated deep into his throat. But we can discuss this later. My train of thought is interrupted by the sobbing harassment of a a girlfriend possessed in the bedroom. You don't love me. You never loved me. The doorknob shakes with dreadful force, tremors ringing through the hallway.

Fingers emerge at the bottom of the door. Viscous oil dripping from under splotched fingernails. Open this door or I kill the girl. The fingers vanish. A pause. Breaking glass from inside the room. Is it planning to jump out the window? Surely it's bluffing.

We're on the third floor. Like any parasitic creature, I mean, it wouldn't gravely harm its precious host, right? There's a renewed sense of urgency at this threat. But I'm at a loss. We poured holy water down the cat's throat, but its body has already turned into an abomination. I can only describe as the alien from the thing. I wonder to myself if one of those squirming legs is going to detach, sprout a blinking eyeball, and hide in the vent.

I feel helpless. I can't stay up all night misting my girlfriend like she's a damn pet chameleon for the rest of my life. Still out of breath from being choked by my cat, the priest manages to wheeze. We need to open the door. What do we do? I ask. Water stops her, but only for a minute. It's too dangerous to perform the rights while she's in this form.

We'll get her in the shower and then restrain her. He says, This is a good idea. Why didn't I think of that? Feeling a touch more brave, as the priest increasingly proves him, self as an asset, I begin to remove the chair. My girlfriend starts to speak again. Oh, thank you, baby. Why'd you lock me in here? I've been so scared.

My subconscious will forever be unwilling to separate the pleas of a demonic beast from the genuine pleas of my loving girlfriend. I hesitate. But with effort, managed to shrug off this false appeal for normalcy. Chair in hand. I take a step back from the door. For a single beat, there's silence. The latch clicks. She's opening the door. Shining black slicked hair emerges, covering her face in totality through the crack in the door. She seems to have gained several inches and height as her full form comes into view. Then a single ringed yellow eye reveals itself through her long hair. I search in that eye for some sign that she's still in there, somewhere, anywhere. She's wielding a broken shard of glass and holding it to her own wrist.

There's no time for protest before the priest has already sprayed her down. Her frenzied dodge is thwarted. As a second jet of water dampens the pajamas, my mother bought her for Christmas. I will never forget the powerlessness I felt in the next few moments. With only a few seconds left of control, the demon cuts my girlfriend's hand cruelly at the wrist with a shard of glass. That not being enough, she gnaws the rest off with her mouth. Completely dismembered. Her hand splashes to the ground in a grotesque murky puddle of blood and oil.

Stunned, I witness a transformation of the human body before me. Her body shakes globally and erratically on the ground as her skin regains its color. I remember a classmate from school who had seizures and that we needed to protect her head. But I'm incapacitated. The priest doesn't take time to emotionally reckon the fact that my girlfriend just lost her non-dominant hand. He scoops her up, rushes her to the shower, and turns on the water. A mixture of shell shock and maybe a concussion, leave me standing idle, while I stare in slow motion from the severed fist to the shower, back to the bedroom. The beast has been proficiently turning our bedroom into some kind of nest.

The walls, windows, and ceiling are painted in black as night paste with a consistency of spoiled milk. Dripping from the ceiling fan onto the bed, our furniture is unrecognizable in the spider web of fluid coating the rum. The priest is washing his hands in the bathroom sink. He comes and stands before me, shaking me at the shoulders, evidently having been demanding things of me for the last few seconds. Hey, anybody home? We need to act. I need your help now. I come back to reality. The priest, now gritting his teeth and manic at my seeming inability to cope with the fact that life will never go back to normal, says, All right, you got any rope, handcuffs, anything to restrain her with? I have some bungee cords down in my car, I say.

I'll get them. I sprint to the stairs and bellow down them three to time. Grabbing the keys off the hook, I run to the car, locate the bungee cords in the trunk, and rush back upstairs. The priest has torn apart our medical cabinet. looking to apply first aid to my girlfriend's arm, and is applying pressure as I approach. I frantically tie a single bungee cord as a makeshift tourniquet to slow the bleeding. We carry her lifeless body to the bed and restrain her to the frame, both legs and one arm.

Her head hangs limp. I wonder how long it'll be before she turns back into that monster, but then she's wakes up. She looks up at me, totally disoriented, then cries desperately as the pain sets in. It's okay, baby, it's okay, I say. I know this is bad. Believe me, we're working on it. There's a lump in my throat as I sit down on the bed, repeatedly kissing her on the forehead. She's in so much pain. I almost want the monster to take back control. troll so that she can't feel it anymore. Mercifully, she faints. Eyes still open, I point her chin up towards me, and I watch as that hollowness returns. From brown to yellow, her pupils go opaque

in their descent into madness once again. Tears and blood still on her face. She smiles, It's over. You've failed. That too familiar deep voice reverberates through a sinister grin. How is this winning in the eyes of this creature? It's restrained more so than before. It knows something we don't. Something moves in my peripheral.

It's my girlfriend's severed hand, fingers patting across the floor like a spider. A trail of sludge follows it as it reaches its destination. The spray bottle. It senses that we've seen it. It's form turning to look at us with no ability to see. The hands leap, tackling the spray bottle and tumbling awkwardly down the stairs. I am speechless.

We have to go after it. We can't let it get out. outside the house. The priest says, All right, the nuts are holding. You go after the hand. I will perform the rights. Running down the stairs, I hear the distant murmurings of the ritual. Lord above, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us. It's just a hand, I think. Couldn't have gone far. It could have let the cat out. It could be It could be worse.

It could be worse. I turn on the lights as I go. It's on the first floor. I tiptoe over black slime, extra cautious, so as to not get any on me. I'm reminded of the time my pet snake escaped and my girlfriend and I spent an entire afternoon looking for it. But looking for a snake isn't like looking for a cat. Cats can get underneath and above objects.

Snakes can get inside of objects. A hand could be anywhere. In between the couch cushions, inside the laundry machines. It could already be outside. I have it cornered. It's behind the refrigerator. I act like I haven't noticed the trail of slime leading right there, and I walk as casually as possible to the cabinet to fill a glass of water.

My weapon is at the ready. I walked to the side of the refrigerator and peek behind it. Nothing. Suddenly, a pronged silhouette covers the kitchen light. Pouncing like an insect, the hand leaps from the top of the refrigerator, the perfect height to land right on my face. The hand, still wearing my girlfriend's class ring, attaches to my head, pulling my hair until it clenches a vice grip. with a thumb behind my top layer of teeth, pressing pointer and ring finger into each eye socket. I dropped my glass on the ground. It takes both hands to remove the hand from my face and throw it as hard

as I can against the wall. My vision blurred. I picked my girlfriend's disoriented hand up from the ground and run water over it in the sink. I splash water in my face and I wash out my mouth. mouth as best I can. I fill the cooler with ice and water, and I throw the hand inside. I run back upstairs, hoping, maybe praying that the priest did his job. It's silent, except for the demonic meows of the cat in the other room. The priest is hulking over my girlfriend, muttering something under his breath as he cradles the Bible in one hand, and his fingers point. in all directions in the other. Noticing me, he hurriedly shuts his Bible.

But seeing one of the pages, I note that it is not a Bible at all. Inside are what I can only imagine demonic scrolls and symbols look like. But the priest has done his job, he says. The demon has left her. carefully placing my girlfriend in the back seat, I yell back to the priest, I'll pay him when we get back. Putting on my seatbelt, I look out the window and note a tattoo on his arm, similar to a symbol I saw in the false Bible. Driving to the hospital, like a husband would if his wife had gone into labor, I wonder if you can surgically reattach a hand like a can

finger and then I wonder if the hand even should be reattached.