“Get dressed Sasha!” I shouted as I rushed in the front door and leapt toward the stairs. “We have to go now!”
There she stood in her doorway in her nightgown. She was squinting her eyes and gripping the sides of her arms. Clearly, I had woken her.
“Daddy?” she whispered wearily.
“Get dressed now!” I commanded. “We have to go!”
“Go where?” she asked as she closed her door to change.
“Just hurry!” I snapped. I impatiently whirled back toward the staircase, anticipating our descent. I knew I shouldn’t feel frustrated with her… she didn’t know the danger… Still… I had little tolerance for being made to wait.
After another minute, Sasha’s door swung open and she emerged. Maybe it was the shadows or my own exhaustion, but for a moment she looked much older than 12. She looked like her mother. I coughed in an attempt to reset my perception as she pulled her long dark hair out from the back of the sweatshirt she had clearly just pulled over her head.
“Where are we going?” she murmured softly. I cleared my throat.
“Away,” I said coldly as I turned to the staircase. I rushed down the steps toward the door that I realized I had forgot to close. I waited for Sasha and closed the large door behind her as she stumbled out in the direction of the Chevy Malibu I had parked in the driveway. She opened the passenger door and flopped onto the seat before fastening her seatbelt. I looked back toward the door of the house… our house… only now I wasn’t sure it could be our house anymore… I closed my eyes and began moving toward the car.
I looked through the windshield to confirm that my daughter was still in the vehicle, half expecting her to be leaning on her window trying to fall asleep again… after all… it was about 3 in the morning. To my surprise, she was wide awake. Her mouth was open, and she stared at me as though I were some kind of monster from a horror movie. I spun around, checking to see if there were something behind me, but I saw only the lights outside the garage that illuminated the area around the car. That’s when I realized that she hadn’t actually seen me in the light until that moment. She hadn’t seen the blood all over my clothing in the dark of our house. I was going to have to explain. I was going to have to explain everything.
“Where’s mom?” demanded Sasha in a very serious tone. “What happened to you? What is going on?”
“I’ll explain once we’re on the freeway,” I said as calmly as I could.
“No!” said Sasha. “Tell me now!” Something about the brazenness of her response made me snap at her again.
“Shut up Sasha!” I thundered. “I said I will tell you when we’re on the freeway!” I instantly regretted my tone as she cowered in her seat as far from me as she could, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. We had to get away. I started the car and backed out of the driveway. I took a deep breath, put the car in drive, and depressed the gas pedal.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you Sasha,” I said softly. “I owe you an explanation.” I turned toward her. Her wide eyes were red, and tears streamed down her cheeks. I cleared my throat in a weak attempt to assuage my guilt, or at least to diminish it, but it didn’t work.
“Where’s mom?” whispered Sasha.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“How can you not know?” she said angrily. “You took her with you!”
“I know,” I replied. “And we arrived at the hotel on Friday night, just like we told you. Yesterday started normally. We saw that dumb movie about vampires or demons or whatever, and we had dinner together. We had an argument on the way back to the hotel, and decided to go to bed.”
“I remember being tired and frustrated, and just sitting on the couch in the hotel room… I don’t know when I fell asleep, but I woke up on that couch, and it was still dark… I wanted to know if your mother was still mad at me, but I tripped on the way to the room…”
I took a deep breath and briefly checked the mirror to ensure we were not being followed. Satisfied with the darkness on the road behind us, I continued my explanation.
“It was a dead body,” I said.
“Mom?!” whimpered Sasha as fresh tears poured out of her eyes.
“No,” I said. “One of the hotel workers… it was a man who had been helping with our luggage earlier. It was scary… he wasn’t just stabbed… it was like a monster had done it… a demon…” I squeezed the steering wheel as I remembered the shock.
“I looked toward the bed,” I continued. “Your mom was there, but… but she wasn’t normal… It was like she was possessed by something… Her eyes seemed to glow and she spoke, but there was something off about her voice…”
“What do you mean?” asked Sasha in shock.
“I don’t know,” I replied as I struggled to find a way to describe it. “It was like she was speaking, but without moving her mouth the right way for the words she said… I don’t know…”
“What did she say?” whispered Sasha in shock and horror.
“She threatened to kill you Sasha,” I said. “She said that we could never escape, and that she would destroy both of us… that she would destroy our family!”
We drove for several more minutes in complete silence.
“We have to call the police,” said Sasha at last.
“No!” I shouted. I squeezed the steering wheel as I struggled to maintain composure. I lowered my voice as I continued.
“They can’t protect us from a demon…” I said.
“Daddy do you really think that mom was possessed… that she was some kind of demon?” Sasha asked.
“I…” I started. “I don’t know.”
“Where are we going?” she asked. There was something off about her voice. I turned to look at her, and for a split second, she looked like her mother. Her eyes seemed to glow, and a feeling of shock rushed over me, as though I had stepped into a shower before the hot water had gone through the pipes, subjecting me to a paralyzing icy blast. I jerked the steering wheel and braked hard. Sasha screamed as our seatbelts locked and the vehicle skidded to a halt at the shoulder of the road.
“Daddy!” she said. “You’re scaring me!”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m just… it’s been…” I took a deep breath and we started driving again.
“I’m just a bit tired,” I said weakly.
“Where are we going?” she asked again.
“We need to go somewhere she can’t get us,” I said resolutely. I checked the rear view mirror and saw a pair of headlights behind us. I accelerated slightly, hoping to increase the distance between the Malibu and any potential danger.
“So we’re running away?” she asked softly. I furrowed my brow. Had she not understood what I was saying? Had she not realized how I was motivated to keep her safe?
“Yes we’re running away!” I said.
“I didn’t bring extra clothes,” she said in a frustrated voice. “I didn’t bring anything… all of our stuff… we left it all…” Of course we left it all! Did she think that it would be better to get mauled by a monster if she had a different outfit? Did she think that running for our lives would be more fun if she had a tablet and WIFI?
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We’ll get more stuff…”
“If we’re on the run, how are we going to pay for it?” asked Sasha. I didn’t know the answer to her question, but I needed Sasha to understand how dangerous our predicament was.
“We’ll deal with it when you’re safe, not before!” I said sternly. She cowered back into her seat and sobbed. It shouldn’t have, but it made me angry. I should have been able to understand that it would be difficult for a 12-year-old girl to have to leave everything she had, but she needed to understand it was just as hard for me. I had to leave everything I had, and to flee from the woman I had loved! Why couldn’t she see it from my perspective?
I looked back into the rear-view mirror, but the headlights I had seen earlier were closer now. I pressed the gas pedal and accelerated to 80, then 90 miles per hour. The headlights seemed to diminish in the mirror, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
The way the dashes in the lanes whisked toward us at a regular interval had a hypnotic effect, and in spite of all I had been through, my eyelids grew heavy over the next few minutes. I rolled the window down just a bit, and the cold air rushed inside.
“It’s cold outside daddy,” whispered Sasha. I wanted to tell her to deal with it, but I bit my tongue and rolled up the window.
I yawned as I checked the rear view mirror. The headlights had reappeared. I looked at my speedometer and confirmed that I was still going 90 miles per hour. I clenched my teeth as I accelerated to 100. The light of the headlight behind us diminished, and I returned my attention to the road.
After several more minutes of driving, my eyelids again grew heavy. I rubbed the back of my neck as though I could massage vitality or caffeine into myself by doing so. The steady hum of the engine and the way that my perspective of the dingy lines on the road seemed to point to a distant spot on the horizon made me yawn again.
“How much further?” said Sasha. Her voice sounded off. I whirled toward her, and her eyes were glowing with unnatural light. I slammed on the brakes. Sasha reached toward the wheel, but I slapped her hands back as we skidded to a halt.
Desperately, I struggled to free myself from my seatbelt, but with some kind of odd power, she prevented it from unhooking.
“What’s wrong Daddy?” she said in an eerie tone. Though her mouth was moving, it didn’t seem to fit the words she was saying. I reached into my pocket desperate to find my pocket knife. I needed to cut myself free of my seatbelt.
Sasha slowly began reaching her hands toward me and gave a shriek that seemed to pierce my head and dulled my senses. Somehow, my fingers wrapped around the handle of the folded blade, and pulled it out of the pocket of my blood-stained jeans. Sasha’s cold clammy fingers reached my face, and the horror of her unnatural touch startled me such that the knife fell down at my feet. I pushed Sasha back and reached down to retrieve my knife. The sharp slicing pain of the edge against the tips of my fingers stunned me for a moment, but I managed to grab the handle and attack the seatbelt with a quick sawing motion.
Reacting to my attempt to escape, Sasha grabbed her door and began shaking it back and forth. Another stunning shriek escaped her mouth as the car rocked back and forth.
Ignoring the throbbing pain in my lacerated fingers, I gripped the handle of the lock-back knife tighter. The fabric of the belt had frayed as I sliced through it, and although the eerie screaming, the glowing eyes, and the shaking vehicle had horrified me, seeing my progress with the belt gave me a new kind of focus. I clenched my teeth as I sawed back and forth, frantically slicing it apart.
It was close now… so close… The sound of the knife tearing back and forth through the belt seemed to drown out the shrieking… See-saw-see-saw-see-saw… The fibers of fabric burst outward like I was freeing them from the prison of their weaving. I ignored the burning feeling of the muscles in my arms as I pulled the steel back and forth faster and faster…. See-saw-see-saw-see-saw… There was only a bundle of threads left. The pain, exhaustion, and weariness had completely left me as the knife finally tore through the belt. I laughed with weary relief as I pulled the belt that had trapped me loose.
Suddenly something made me freeze.
I turned over to where Sasha had been sitting. The passenger seat was empty, and the door had been flung open. I stopped and listened for some sign of Sasha. The cold air that had flooded the car made my breath puff out in small clouds as I thought about where she might have gone, and for what purpose.
She had trapped me in the car, why run away? Why? I realized at once that my horror and panic had prevented me from asking that question since escaping the hotel. Why? Why had my wife been possessed? Why had she killed that man in the hotel? Why did she threaten me and Sasha? How did Sasha become possessed? Why had any of this happened?
A tapping on my window made me gasp and jump. My window had fogged up with my breath, and all I could see was the light of a flashlight creating a soft yellow glow. Probably the police. Maybe Sasha had been right… As supernatural as my experiences had been, perhaps it would have been wiser to involve law enforcement from the beginning. I cautiously pushed the door open, allowing the flashlight beam to shine on me.
“What the?!” shouted a male voice.
“That’s my daddy!” came a familiar young feminine voice. It was Sasha. Not demonic possessed Sasha, just normal Sasha. I smiled with relief.
“What is he?” gasped the man. What did he mean, I wondered.
“He tried to kill me!” cried Sasha. Tried to kill her!?!?! That was a lie! I was trying to protect her. I wanted to keep her safe. The officer lowered his flashlight and drew his handgun, pointing it at me.
“What’s going on!?” I demanded. As the words left my lips, I could hear an unnatural echo. I looked down at my hands, and to my horror, they were not the hands of a man… they were the claws of a monster. I whirled toward the rearview mirror, and angled it toward me. Like the headlights of a vehicle following, my eyes had an otherworldly glow. This sight… this honest look in the mirror… it brought everything I had done back to my recollection.
I had become angry as I quarreled with my wife about something that now seemed trivial. The shouting had prompted the hotel worker to ask us not to disturb their other guests. In a rage, I had brutally attacked him.
My wife gave me a look of shock and horror, and went to call the police. I couldn’t let her do that… so I… stopped her. And then I went to sit and think about what to do. Somehow, part of my mind had created the idea that it had been my wife who had become monstrous… it was her fault that the man was dead. I had come up with excuses for being angry with Sasha in the car. It had never been my daughter that trapped me… I had trapped myself. Her cold hands on my face was never a demonic attempt to stop me, it was to push me away and escape herself.
The demonic threat that I had perceived from my wife… that she would destroy me and my family… it had come from an actual demon… and it did destroy me, and my family… but it took too long to realize that the demon was not possessing others… The demon had been within me from the beginning. My anger, pride, and selfishness had fed it, and when it emerged, I had been powerless to stop it. The worst problems in my life might have been prevented, if I had had an honest look in the mirror sooner.
The idea:
There is a demon inside everyone. The impulse to be selfish, and to indulge in impulse rather than exercise restraint, has gone by many names. The book of Proverbs in the Bible calls those who give into these lusts "fools." King Benjamin calls it "the natural man." Jesus himself taught the importance of "losing" oneself in order to find salvation... of denying oneself and taking up the cross (Matthew 16:24-26).
Whatever the concept, the idea is the same. There is a demon that is within each person that persuades them to do evil. It hides in darkness, and assures us that it does not exist. Frequently, it does this by distracting us with the faults of others (real or manufactured). It whispers that our selfish actions are justified... that someone else is the source of our problems... that being provoked justifies lashing out... that seductive apparel or behavior justifies lust... that desirable attention justifies degrading apparel and behavior... that the intolerance of others justifies our intolerance for them... or that because we want to be tolerated, we should accept practices that are dishonest and cruel.
At some point, nearly everyone attempts to have an honest look in the mirror. The realization that you might be responsible for many of your problems is uncomfortable at best. At worst, the horror that a demon exists within you can cause a kind of mental paralysis... the fear that because you have made mistakes you cannot change, or are not worthy of help. The demon will augment these worries and doubts. The demon will tell you that you cannot change, and that no one can help you... and just as before... the demon can be very convincing.
While some guilt can be a healthy consequence of immoral and unethical behaviors and attitudes, recognizing that there is a demon within should prompt additional introspection. Why?
Why is there a demon? What does he want? Why is he within you?
Also... if it is true that nothing can be done to remove the demon... that you are beyond hope or help... then why was it so important that he deny his existence? Really, if you were stuck with a demon, what would it matter if you knew its existence before your honest look in the mirror?
An honest look in the mirror reveals the demon is a liar.
The demon is trying to control you. He is using your impulses and your nature to manipulate you. He needs you... but you do not need him.
That is not to say it is an easy thing to get rid of him. He is not only persuasive, but tenacious. You will need help to get rid of him. Serious introspection can help you to recognize the problem... it will not solve it... but without it, who would try to solve a problem they do not believe exists?
The honest look in the mirror reveals:
- That there is a demon within you
- That he is a liar
- That you need help to get rid of him
The real solution lies in the power of Jesus Christ. Casting out evil spirits is something in which he proved to be expert... even succeeding where others had failed (Matthew 17:14-21). His ability to change people for the better extended in more ways than healing physical sickness, disability, or even the symptoms of mental illness... He has power to remove the demon inside you.
The proof of this power can be seen in the lives of Saul of Tarsus, who became the Apostle Paul... in Alma the Younger, who went from trying to destroy the church of God to spending his life building it... in parents who sacrifice sleep, substance, and selfishness to better the lives of the children... in the lives of Christians who have had the faith to repent, and walk in the footsteps of Christ.
Ultimately, each individual must have an honest look in the mirror... the sooner, the better. Don't pretend there is no demon within... there is. Don't pretend you are stuck with him... you don't have to be. Don't pretend that you can ignore him or that he will go away on his own... turn to Jesus...
Jesus has the power to make bad men good, and good men better. Jesus has the power to save us all.
