The Devil Walks Among Us

If you ask most people in North Carolina, it's not a ghost or a haunted house that scares them. It's the Devil. Especially for church going folk. They tend to shiver at the mere mention of the word Devil. And it seems to me that while most people are not fans of Ol' Scratch, there are parents out there who tend to use him as a way to scare their kids back on the right track.. Mine included. if I had a nickel for every time I heard "The Devil's going to get you for lying." I'd be a well off man. But what if the Devil showed up to do just that?

The story I am about to tell you was told to me, and I believe it. I was not there when it happened but the girl who told me about it was there and I could tell she believed it with all her heart. In her mind, the Devil DID come to get her one night.

When I was around 14 I was a bit of a wild child and was hanging around with the 'wrong crowd'. Among them was a girl a little older than me, maybe 16, who was a true 'goth' chick. A shy, quiet girl who smoked more than any 3 people should ever do in their lives. The very definition of a chain smoker.

Anyway, one night we were hanging out at the school, 5 of us. 2 were off trying to find a place to get some action, 1 was trying to smoke ALL the dope in the world and Katherine and I were just sitting, talking. The conversation drifted towards Ouija boards and how one person always seems to be responsible for making the planchette move. After a few seconds of quiet She turned to me with her face dead serious.

"Do you believe in the Devil?" I tried to break the somber mood by saying yes, it was me, but she didn't laugh. I asked her if she did and with a straight look said "Yes, and he came for me one night." Well, I couldn't let it go with just that, so i made her tell me the full story.

It seems that when she was 8, her parent sent her to stay with her Aunt in Cameron. She was ok with it because she had 3 cousins about her age to keep her company. The 4 girls had to share a pull out couch bed in front of a kerosene heater because the family wasn't well off and that's all they could afford.

One night, while playing, they found an old Ouija board. So they spent the evening trying to call out old spirits of dead relatives and celebrities. Apparently, all the dead people were out partying because none of them answered.

One of her cousins decided to try and contact the Devil. So the girls gathered around and placed their hands on the planchette. They called out the fallen angel but it seems he too was unavailable. It was then that her aunt came in from doing laundry. When she found out what they'd been up too, she fussed at them saying "The Devil will come for you if you are not careful".

As they lay on their bed that night, Katherine said she woke up in the middle of the night and looked on the wall. There, dancing in the light from the heater, was the shadow of a person. Katherine told me her breath stopped in her throat. She said without looking at the being she knew it was him. She stared at the shadow, not daring to look at him, when she swears she saw a smaller shadow come from behind him.. kinda like a tail swishing back and forth.

She stared at that shadow for what seemed like hours before closing her eyes shut tight and saying a short silent prayer over and over again. She said after a while she opened her eyes and the shadow was gone. The next day she asked her cousins if they'd seen anything, but they had not. She said she never saw the figure again and it wasn't long after that she moved back in with her own folks, never telling the mother what she'd seen.

Shortly after telling me this the other members of our merry band of outcasts returned and we went to get something to eat. I never asked her about it again and eventually she moved to Charlotte and we lost touch.

Like I said from the start, I wasn't there. But I can say without a shadow of a doubt (No pun intended) that she believed the Devil came to get her... And I haven't touched an Ouija board since.