In the evening, members of the Skylar and Associates Paranormal Research Institute stood before Josslyn, Nathan, and David Osborn.
Eric Skylar led the introductions. He had founded his organization after a personal experience with the paranormal when he had been a college student.
His associates included: Robert, tech manager; Barbara, case manager and researcher; and Colleen, psychic medium with a PhD in demonology.
They all came from various backgrounds. Each of them also had had a personal experience with the paranormal at one point in their lives, ranging from experiencing cold spots to witnessing full-bodied apparitions. The investigators had something in common: to seek answers as to what happens after death and what it is like on “the other side,” as well as to gain more knowledge and understanding of the spiritual realm.
Eric, the lead investigator, glanced around the living room and admired the home’s decor. “So tell us the hot spots and what’s been happening,” he said as David interpreted. “Would you like to give us a tour?”
Josslyn and Nathan took them room by room as David translated to everyone. They reiterated all that had happened since moving there six months prior.
Colleen assimilated what Josslyn and Nathan had told them. “When you woke up with those scratches that one morning and your son’s smartphone showed 666,” she said to Josslyn, “that’s the devil’s way of mocking the Holy Trinity. You know, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The opposite is what we call the Unholy Triad—Satan, the False Prophet, and The Beast.”
She turned to Nathan. “That eerie dream you had with the robed people standing around the bed and your wife’s face turning into a demon is the devil’s way of instilling fear in the family. It’s imitating how the fear of God is instilled in people the way some overzealous preachers espouse the dangers of Hell and eternal torment. We need to understand that the devil mimics God. More importantly, this is God’s battle, not ours. We are just His little helpers in this spiritual conflict that has been going on since the beginning of time.”
Colleen turned to Josslyn once more. “About the pastors who came here, then fled afterward. They were afraid. One needs to understand that fear is a spirit, not just an emotion we feel. As it says in God’s Word, ‘For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of sound mind.’ That’s in Second Timothy, Chapter 1, verse 7, in the King James Version of the Bible. Also, those photos you e-mailed us, the series of snapshots with the bizarre light anomalies, they are definitely evil spirits, no question about it.”
Nathan nodded and thought for a moment. “What about when people see these spirits standing in front of them? They look like a mist or a dark shadow or some other indefinable form.”
“Their true form is never manifested to the human eye. What people see instead is a falsified form. That’s how they want people to see them. They project what they want people to see.”
“Well, I’ll tell ya what,” Eric said, “when we first walked in here, I could feel the oppressiveness in this house; it’s palpable. You could cut it with a knife.”
The other members nodded in.
“I felt the oppressiveness while on our way here, too,” Colleen said, “about an hour before we even set foot in the house.”
“All right, here’s what we’re gonna do,” Eric said. “We’re gonna get started on setting up the equipment and then go lights out.”