THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO HOPKINS GROVE


Polk: Father Alcott, of All Saints Episcopal Church in Hopkins Grove, had his prepartions for Christmas Mass rudely disturbed by the terrified pleadings of one of his parishoners early in December. Germana Bruner had called on the phone and begged him to make a house visit, the reason for which she absolutely would not communicate over the phone. Father Alcott, becoming uncomfortably accustomed to being summoned away at a moment's notice to attend to strange and diabolic dealings in the little town, packed a small bag and hastily left the rectory.

     When he arrived at the farm house owned by the Bruner family he was shown to the bedroom of two small boys, Joe and Ted Bruner, 8 and 10 years old. The boys had painted strange sigils on the walls, images of Satan and devils, and were engaged in playing with and speaking to the pictures as though the drawings were actually interacting with the boys. The frightened parents told the priest how the boys had evidenced a growing facination with the occult after becoming involved in fantasy role playing games where they assumed the parts of monsters and wizards. They had recently refused to attend church, and had a deep aversion to anything of a religious nature. They told the good Father that the boys had rightly predicted the deaths of several persons, uncannily describing the details of the deaths as they were occuring, even though they had never met the people in question, and the deaths occured miles from the farmhouse.

     Joe and Ted broke off their discussion with the wall paintings, then, and faced each other on the floor. They entangled their arms and legs in such a contorted and intricate knot that it was impossible for the parents and Father Alcott to pull them apart. The youngsters remained in this unnatural condition for almost two hours and then suddenly untangled with lightning speed. They immediately stood on their heads, arched backward so as to be supported by head and feet simultaneously and again, no amount of pressure could bring the boys to a natural position. By these and other bizarre manifestations, Father Alcott concluded, as the parents supected, that the brothers were under the influence of demonic possession.

     When a rosary was produced, the brothers summersaulted to their beds and covered themselves in blankets shouting for the removal of the object. Father Alcott began the ritual of exorcism.

     "Stop, cretin, for I am come in a rage, and will fall upon you with great fury!!" shouted Ted, the youngest boy.

     "And who are you?" replyed Alcott.

     "I am the Lord of Darkness!"

     Alcott pulled away the covers and the boys were inexplicably covered in foul smelling yellow feathers. As the ritual progressed, the boys continued to shout obscenities, vomit grotesque yellow foam containing yellow feathers and what was later determined to be seaweed. Joe began to float four or five feet in the air, but when sprinkled with holy water he drifted back to the bed, whereupon his entire body took on an serpentine flexibility, and he writhed like a snake on the bedsheets, bending impossibly where there were no joints, as though he were made of rubber. His neck elongated and his tongue darted in and out of his mouth as though tasting the air around him.

     After sixteen dedicated hours, the priest was successful in his dismissal of the posessing spirits, whose departure was signaled by an incomparably foul smell and a thick yellow viscous film which coverd the room and all its contents.





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