Incubus Attack in the Night

Author’s note: This is the story of a woman’s terrifying sexual assault by a demonic figure. Read with caution.

Snow fell outside Tsura’s Birmingham, Ala., apartment on the cold January 2011 night terror came to visit.

“I awoke to what I thought was my husband having a bit of fun with me,” she said. “I was very, very wrong.”

Tsura, just showing her pregnancy, and Adrian had been married a month and had only recently moved into the apartment. Tsura felt something was wrong there from the start.

“I was not alone in my apartment, even though my husband was gone,” she said. “I had the company of my kitten, and something else.”

Talking with other residents in the apartment building, Tsura found that people who moved into that apartment usually moved out shortly after. Long-time residents of the building hinted at something odd there, but Tsura could never pin down from them what it was.

It was an entity.

“I could never tell what it was, though it knew me well,” Tsura said. “It was mocking me by leaving standing water in my tub and sink. I would also feel it watching me.”

But not all the time.

“The strangest thing, sometimes it was gone. Just gone,” she said. “That was the worst sign. I knew of no spirit who could leave the shackles of its past. This entity was something else.”

On that snowy night in January, it showed itself.

“Adrian was working that night, which was unusual, but we welcomed the extra money,” she said. “After all, I was, and am, a stay at home wife. It had snowed several times, and I was mostly trapped indoors. How I loathed it.”

Tsura fell to sleep cradling the kitten she’d gotten for companionship when Adrian worked nights, and woke to someone pulling open her legs.

“I thought it was Adrian, but, there was no dawn light coming in from the window,” she said. Adrian didn’t come home from this job until the sun had already risen. “It was pitch black (outside).”

Tsura opened her mouth to scream, but the sight of her attacker in the dim light of the apartment stopped the voice in her throat – she knew it wasn’t human.

“He was ugly and beautiful, a strange mix of Adrian and something else,” she said. “Suddenly, he fell on top of me, knocking the air out of my lungs.”

Then this entity sexually assaulted Tsura, laughing as she screamed.

“Eventually, I became so weak I lost consciousness,” she said.

The chirp of a car’s electric locks from outside her window dragged her awake. As she got up, hoping to find Adrian home, she saw a large, red stain on the sheets.

“My stomach clenched,” she said. “I was calling an ambulance as Adrian opened the door.”

Adrian held his crying wife, trying to comfort her as she recounted the attack, tears streaming down her face.

“I lost my child,” she said. “I explained to Adrian what happened, but he just shook his head. He said it was just sleep paralysis. That I was just trapped, trying to make sense of what was happening as my body miscarried. But I knew.”

Tsura is convinced she was attacked by something unholy.

“My research has led me to believe that I was attacked by an incubus,” she said. An incubus is a demon, present in cultures worldwide, that sexually assaults sleeping women with the intent to father a child. “But why? I was obviously pregnant, and could not bear his demon children.”

Tsura never went back to the apartment.

“When I was released from the hospital, I moved back in with my roommate,” she said. “I refused to step foot in that apartment. Eventually, Adrian was swayed, and we moved.”

She hopes the demon, or whatever attacked her, stayed behind.

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s newest book on the paranormal, “Paranormal Missouri: Show Me Your Monsters,” is available at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.

'From The Shadows' Is Asking, Um, A Little Help Here?

During the week of Oct. 15, I will have written this blog of original, true paranormal tales for five years. I appreciate each of you who visit “From the Shadows.” Your time spent reading my weekly offering, and your kind comments, mean a lot to me.

Unbeknownst to most of you, these stories appear in print before they make it to my blog.

I recently received notice the newspaper in which “From the Shadows” appears each week is cutting its paid columns – including mine. We all know the newspaper industry is suffering and I understand this business decision. Unfortunately, this was my main source to fund the research and time involved to produce “From the Shadows” (telephone expenses, travel, etc., ain’t cheap). I receive donations from time to time, but I can’t continue the blog on the occasional donation alone (I did receive a nice Christmas 2010 present from Australia’s amazing paranormal podcast “Mysterious Universe.” Thanks, Ben and Aaron. You guys are awesome).

I’m not begging for money (Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge), I’m asking for a print forum for “From the Shadows.” I work for a living, you know. If any kind reader would recommend this column (print gets first-run) to their local newspaper or magazine, that might mean I could still bring you these weekly strange, and sometimes down-right creepy, stories about the world around us – a world that is much more mysterious than it seems.

Thanks for reading.

Jason