Episode Recap: Demon House

After years of living with her parents while they got on their feet, Jeanine and A.J. had finally found their dream home. The floor plan was perfect for a family with two sons. It was a foreclosed home and needed a little fixing up, so the price was much cheaper than they would have expected to pay. Since there was a lot of work to be done before they could properly move in, A.J. bought a camper for them to live in while they did the renovations.

While A.J. worked his day job, Jeanine tried to do some of the work on the house herself. The unusual activity began innocently enough. While she was alone in the house painting one of the rooms, something kept turning the radio off. As Jeanine had a heart condition, the fright was not good for her health ... it could've even killed her.

About a month after they moved in, it was time for their eldest son Gage's birthday, who wanted to have the party in the house. Jeanine's mother came over to help with the decorating. When Jeanine realized that she'd forgotten the soda for the party, she left her mom alone in the house while she went to the store. Jeanine's mom heard something else in the house with her, which caused her to flee. Jeanine had never seen her that frightened, but there was no sign of anything else there. A.J. thought Jeanine's mom had just been watching too many horror movies on TV lately.

One night, Jeanine was in the kitchen washing dishes when things started getting strange. A gust of ice-cold air on her neck turned into something she could not see poking her, which caused her to drop a dish. Her heart was racing, and that was enough to cause her heart condition to kick in. Out of nowhere, something yanked her hair. Jeanine sprinted out of the house ... but left her heart medicine behind. She had to quickly dart back into the kitchen to retrieve it. When she told A.J. what had happened, he thought the incident was all due to her being home alone in a large old house that was still new to her.

A few days later, Jeanine was folding laundry when she heard her other son Hunter talking to someone in another room. She could see Gage outside playing, so who could Hunter have been talking to? She slowly approached the doorway where Hunter was playing and asked who he'd been talking to. Hunter said he'd been talking to his "friend." When Jeanine asked what his "friend" had said, Hunter told his mom that he said that he had to be a friend himself, otherwise the friend would hurt his mother. Jeanine was floored but tried her best to hide how frightened she was from her sons.

When it came time to get the winter clothes out of the attic, Jeanine called her father for help. While he was there, he witnessed a rosary on a door handle swing like a pendulum and then stop cold. Within moments, a giant stomping sound filled the house. Pictures fell from walls, plaster rained down from the ceiling, but there was nothing either of them could see to be causing it.  Jeanine's father yelled at the presence to show itself, and it certainly did: Jeanine ended up with three deep claw scratches on her back.

Jeanine sent the kids to stay with her parents for a couple of days. She showed A.J. the marks, but he thought she must have brushed against a couple of nails while working on the house. It wasn't until a door near him opened and slammed shut by itself that A.J. began taking Jeanine's claims seriously.

A.J. thought that perhaps hanging some crosses and other religious items around the house might calm the spirit, so he and Jeanine went to work. She brought her Bible with them from room to room. When they reached the door in the kitchen, she put the Bible on the kitchen table. As soon as A.J. came down the ladder after hanging a crucifix over the door, the lights went out and the Bible began to vibrate on the table. They sprinted out of the house when the Bible slammed shut.

Believing they had a ghost in the house, Jeanine thought perhaps a cassette recorder might pick up something. Mustering all of her courage, she ran into the house, put a recorder onto the kitchen table, and ran back out. A half-hour later, she ran back in to get it. She listened to recorded silence for a while until she heard a low growling, which soon turned into a snarl of "She will die." Is this a ghost ... or something else?

About a week later, while Jeanine was hanging up the laundry to dry and the boys were playing in the yard, she heard a very unsettling silence. The boys had disappeared. When Jeanine went looking for them, she heard their voices and it sounded like they were playing upstairs in the house. She didn’t want to go in, but they were her kids, and she wanted them away from whatever was in the house. She followed the voices but never found the boys.

Jeanine ended up in one of the upstairs bedrooms ... and she couldn't leave it, as something held her in place. It slowly lifted her from the floor and then pinned her down. It felt as though an enormous weight was on top of her and hands were on her. A dark voice told Jeanine to "look under," and she managed to grip a corner of the carpet. She gave it a yank and suddenly the entity released her. Carved into the wood flooring under the carpet were symbols that she could only describe as "Satanic." She sprinted from the house, relieved to see A.J. with the boys outside. As she tried to stop her racing heart, she told A.J. to go upstairs. When he saw some of that carpet pulled up, he tore up the rest and found a large circle of symbols. Had someone really tried to summon a demon in a bedroom?

A.J. called the local minister to see if he could help. When the minister arrived, he could sense the presence in the house. They began going through the house with a Bible and Holy Water, cleansing the place. As they worked, Jeanine began to feel ill. Thinking that her heart was acting up, A.J. took her aside and found her a place to sit while he helped the minister finish the cleansing. Jeanine's chest was tight and she could barely breathe. Finally, Jeanine no longer felt like she was even herself anymore and blacked out.

An hour later, the minister finished his work and left. When A.J. checked on Jeanine, she was still pretty out of it. He helped her to the car so they could go to her mother's house. As they drove, he asked Jeanine how she was doing. Suddenly, a deep voice said, "I'm fine." Jeanine's eyes were pitch black. A.J. floored it until they got to her parents' house.

A.J. and Jeanine's father got her inside. Her pulse was good but she was cold. Her mother asked her what was wrong. Once again, the deep voice said, "I'm fine." Jeanine's family began reading Bible verses to her until the minister arrived, and it was enough to allow her to regain her consciousness just long enough to tell her father that the entity had taken her over.

When the minister arrived, he immediately knew that the demon was inside Jeanine. While A.J. and her father held Jeanine down, the minister performed an impromptu exorcism. It was a battle, but eventually Jeanine regained control and the entity was gone.

Jeanine and A.J. packed their kids and belongings into the camper and moved off the property, staying at her sister's while they tried to sell the Demon House.