Just over a month ago, my family and I moved back into our home after Hurricane Ida destroyed it and left us displaced for nearly a year. The day we moved back in was the day I believed we finally gained our lives back.
And now, thanks to the events of the past 14 days, the lives we thought we had regained are now gone once again.
I made my last update two Mondays ago, and while you’ll soon understand why there was such a lull between then and now, I am sorry for going completely dark. However, this will be my final post. We need to go try and rebuild our lives for a second time.
I had posted on the Fourth of July, so after doing that, my husband, Paul; my son, Robby; and myself all hopped in the car to head to Biloxi for a day-cation. And thankfully, due to the nice weather and the calm ocean breeze, we managed to completely distract ourselves from all of the happenings that had occurred just days prior.
But as the sun began to go down and the other beach goers began to leave, I started dreading the return home. Despite me and a priest blessing the house, we were still having problems. All I could do was just pray in that moment that nothing bad would happen until the psychic came by.
Within 20 minutes of the trip, Robby passed out in his booster seat. I was beginning to do the same in my seat when Paul’s phone began to ring.
“Could you see who it is?” Paul asked me. “I don’t want to take my eyes off the road.”
“Yeah, I got it,” I said as I pulled his phone out of the cupholder. My eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the brightness before seeing the caller I.D. It was Andre, our other next door neighbor.
“Put it on speaker,” Paul said.
“Robby’s asleep, though,” I said.
“Ehh, he’ll be fine,” Paul said. “That kid sleeps like a pound of rocks.”
I just nodded and answered the call.
“Andre, how you doing, man?” Paul said.
“Hey, Paul,” Andre answered. “Just wanted to let you know, I caught Louis doing stuff under your house.”
Paul and I exchanged a look of confusion before he responded.
“How long was he under there?” Paul then asked.
“Probably 15 minutes,” Andre said. “I was walking my dog to the end of the neighborhood and back, and both times I passed by your house, Louis was on his stomach inside the crawlspace. I asked what he was doing the second time I came round, and he said that he was trying to get a raccoon out from under there.”
“He did the same thing last night,” Paul said. “He couldn’t catch it, though. He said it escaped through another opening.”
“That’s what he said, too,” Andre said. “But I don’t know why he was under there for 15 minutes. Doesn’t seem like it would take much to catch a wild animal that had burrowed itself into a certain area.”
“Check to see if he is still under there,” I then said.
“Oh, hey Lily,” Andre said before chuckling. “Didn’t realize you had me on speaker. Anyway, yeah, give me one second.”
Andre went silent for about 20 seconds, his feet hitting his hardwood floor being the only sound we could hear.
“He just crawled out,” Andre said.
“Does he have the broom with him again?” I asked.
“Uhhhhhh…no, I do not see one,” Andre said. “What the hell is he doing?”
“That’s what we want to know,” Paul responded. “We’ll have to talk to him tomorrow. But thanks for notifying us.”
“No problem,” Andre said before hanging up. Paul put the phone down before pulling over to the side of the road. I asked him what he was doing, and he gave me the most serious look I had seen him make since this all began.
“You and I both know fully well who we saw in our bedroom last night,” Paul said.
“I know,” I said. “It was Gabriela.”
“She’s not currently separated from Louis,” Paul said. “She’s dead.”
I gulped at the idea, even though I knew it was reality instead of imagination.
“Do you think…he killed her?” I asked him.
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Paul responded. “But it couldn’t have happened recently. We hadn’t seen or heard her since we moved back in.”
“But why is she haunting our house?” I asked. “What did we do?”
“I don’t know,” Paul said as he turned back to face the road. “But what I do know is that we need to stay as far away from Louis as possible. If I catch him going under our house one more time, I’m calling the cops.”
“Let’s just call them now,” I said. “Gabriela is dead and he’s lying about it. He probably is hiding something about her death.”
“They won’t do anything,” Paul said. “There is no evidence, and I hate to say it, but they’re not gonna believe a ghost story.”
“What about a welfare check?” I then asked.
“That won’t…” Paul said before stopping. “Actually, shit you’re right. That could start an investigation. Let’s call them first thing tomorrow morning. Then, I want you to take Robby out of the house for the entire morning. Go to the zoo, the park, the arcade, whenever he wants to go. I don’t want any of us there when the police come by. We’ll all meet back up when Rachel comes.”
“Okay,” I said as he put the car back into drive.
The rest of the ride was filled with silence, outside of Robby’s deep inhales and exhales. I just couldn’t stop thinking about Gabriela. I knew that poor girl was no longer with us, and that Louis was most likely responsible. And there was literally nothing more we could do about it outside of calling a welfare check.
All three of us hit the hay as soon as we walked inside. When I hopped into bed, it was 10:05 p..m. When I opened my eyes again, the clock read 1:04 a.m. I knew immediately why I had woken up.
There was the sound of footsteps coming from the front of our house.
“Paul,” I whispered as I began shaking him. “Paul, wake up.”
“What is it?” he said groggily.
“Paul, someone is walking around in the front,” I said.
That sentence immediately jolted him awake as he immediately sprang out of bed and slowly approached our opened bedroom door.
“Follow me, and once we get Robby’s room, get inside and shut the door,” Paul said. “I am not taking any chances of you two getting hurt if someone is inside.”
“Okay,” I said. Just as he began to walk out, I grabbed and kissed him.
“Please be careful,” I said.
“I will,” Paul responded as he began leading me out of the bedroom. But we couldn’t even make it five feet into the hallway before we looked up.
Standing dead center in our hallway, just inches from Robby’s open door, was a shadowy figure. This time, I didn’t wait to let the fear continue setting in. I immediately turned on the light, revealing Gabriela, looking in Robby’s room. I had already seen her wounds the night prior, but seeing them more up close made my heart sink almost out of my body.
“Gabriela?” I asked aloud when she didn’t react to the light coming on.
She turned to us, her right eye covered by her hair, leaving only the dark, empty left socket peering back at us.
“What happened to you, my friend?” I asked calmly as I took a step forward in a sign of friendliness. But she didn’t respond. She just continued staring at us intently.
“Gabriela, we just want to help you,” I asked. “What do you want us to do?”
“It’s his fault,” she said in a coarse, drawn out manner as she pointed inside Robby’s bedroom.
“What…what do you mean?” I said.
“It’s…his…fault!” she then screamed before darting into Robby’s room. Instead of letting fear get instilled in my body, my vision turned red as I stormed after her.
“Do not hurt my baby!” I screamed while flicking the light switch, only to see that she had disappeared. The sudden sign of light immediately woke up Robby, who was completely oblivious to what had transpired. Paul, who had followed suit, was resting his head and arms against the wall in an attempt to compose himself.
“Where the hell did she go?” I said sternly but quiet as to not scare Robby.
“I don’t know,” Paul said. “But what the fuck, Lily? Why did she say it was his fault? What is going on?”
Paul was actually beginning to hyperventilate, which began to scare Robby. Thankfully, I was able to calm both down quickly.
The second the sun came up, I took Robby to get breakfast at IHOP while Paul called the police to perform an anonymous-tipped welfare check. After he left for work, I took Robby to New Orleans for a day at City Park. Rachel, the psychic, would be at our house for 3 p.m. Paul got home at around 2 p.m. I dropped Robby off at Andre’s house, who was more than welcome to watch him, before pulling into our driveway to find Rachel waiting for me. She was a relatively young woman, which surprised me. I had always thought psychics were always on the older side.
“You must be Lily and Paul,” she said sweetly as she went to shake both of our hands. She then looked at us before sighing in concern. “I’m guessing these spirits have been rough on you three?”
“You can say that,” I said rather condescending, though I didn’t mean for it to come off that way.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” she said. “But I hope my presence will finally help these spirits be put to rest.” She then turned to Paul. “You mentioned on the phone with me that there are at least four spirits in this house?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go inside and take a look.”
Rachel took her time walking around the front of our house, taking in…well, something. I didn’t know if anything was reaching out to her, or if she was waiting to discover them. Eventually, she stopped.
“I feel her presence,” Rachel said.
“I don’t see her,” I said.
“You can’t,” Rachel responded while putting a finger up at me. We waited a few seconds before she continued. “She knows who you are and where she is, but she’s trapped. She’s not angry at everyone, but she does resent him.”
She said this while pointing at Paul before pointing at a photo of Robby hanging on the wall.
“But why?” I asked.
“She blames him.”
I immediately turned toward Paul, whose face had visibly drained of color.
“But she won’t say why to me. All she is saying, however, is that she wants to leave with her baby.”
“Wait, she had a child?” Paul asked.
“She was going to,” Rachel replied. “But she died before it could be delivered.”
It then hit me: the baby spirit I had seen was the same one I had seen in the arms of Gabriela. That’s now two we identified.
“She can’t leave,” Rachel continued. “There’s something holding her here, but she doesn’t know what.”
Rachel then walked down the hall before stopping right outside Robby’s room.
“There’s more children here,” she said as she walked inside. She walked in a small circle, looking all over the place. “They haven’t been popping out lately. The angry lady is scaring them. All they want to do is play with her child and your son. Heh, they’re twins.”
“There’s the other two,” Paul said before turning to Rachel. “Are they evil?”
“Not at all,” Rachel responded. “They actually like being here. They’ve been here for years.”
“Years?” I then said.
“At least 15,” Rachel responded.
“What?” Paul said drawn out. “How is that possible? We never saw them.”
“They only felt comfortable coming out when another child was here,” Rachel said before looking straight at me. “Your son.”
I felt the chills go down my spine when she said that. If they had been here all this time, how did neither of us ever notice?
“They’re upset I am here because they don’t want to leave,” Rachel said. “You came here after them. Robby only wants to protect them. That’s why they told him to be mean to you on Sunday, and why they threw the toys everywhere. They wanted to dissuade my arrival.”
If there was any doubt in my mind that she was a psychic, it dissipated after she said that. At no point did she ever bring up a certain event that had occurred in the house, yet she accurately pinpointed the date and events of Robby saying the spirits hated me before all the toys were thrown. I could literally feel the sting in the back of my throat from how much I wanted to vomit. Paul remained silent, his face still ashened from the earlier comments.
“But other than that, all they want to do is cause mischief,” Rachel then said. “Like any little troublemaker would.” She then saw the drawing Robby had made after being scared in his bed. “Oh, so that’s who they drew out.”
“Wait, what?!” I basically shouted in disbelief. “There’s a fifth?!”
“There was a fifth,” she said. “It was a very negative entity, but the twins drew it out. They were fearing it would hurt Robby.”
She proceeded to go through the rest of our home, but she didn’t find anything of note. Once we arrived outside, she began speaking.
“I think it’s best to describe what is occurring inside as a power struggle,” Rachel said. “You have the woman and her baby who were snuffed out far too soon. Your son is part of the reason why she died, but she’s afraid to say why. The twins just want to be kids and play with her son and your son, but it seems like the mothers are keeping their sons away from doing so.”
“That’s why they scared me, huh?” I said, not even trying to be scared anymore.
“Well, yes,” she said. “But they didn’t think you would be that terrified. And the baby was there because he managed to get away from his mother. Speaking of her, if you blessed the house twice and she still hasn’t left, then something else is holding her hostage. I don’t know what it could be, though.”
“Did she say where she died?” Paul then asked, to which Rachel shook her head.
“She doesn’t remember, but she recognizes your home,” Rachel responded. “She claims to have been inside it numerous times while she was alive, and that some time recently, she and her baby were displaced.”
“Displaced?” I asked.
“She was in another home at one time, but somehow she and her baby got moved,” Rachel said. “Natural disasters can sometimes displace spirits, just like humans do when they evacuate. The murky waters can put them anywhere. And for those two, the ‘where’ is your home. As for the twins, they’ve been here for 15 years.”
She then began walking to her car.
“I told all four of them that it’s time to rest, and that if they wish to remain, then to at least not terrorize you three,” she said. “The twins understood, but the woman still seemed agitated. If she can be removed, she will finally be at rest.”
She then handed me a small little necklace.
“I, like you, am a Catholic,” Rachel said. “This medallion has been blessed by several priests to keep me safe as I attempt to speak with the departed. I wish to give this to your son in the hopes that it will protect him for the foreseeable future.” She then looked back up at us. “Please let me know if any more things occur. If so, I will come with a spiritual healer I know to try and purge these spirits out.”
And with that, Rachel left as we headed over to grab Robby from Andre’s house. While walking, Paul began talking.
“Why would Gabriela be mad at Robby?” he asked me.
“I don’t have the slightest idea,” I said. “Gabriela adored Robby after he was born. She kept raving about how cute of a child he was and that she wished to have a child one day. What the hell happened before she disappeared that could have led to this?”
“Wait, remember what Father Jackson said about that nightmare creature?” Paul then said. “The cauchemar? What if the disobedience was that he saw something and was instructed by Louis to stay quiet? We always told him lying or holding secrets was bad, so what if that’s the case now?”
“Shit, you’re right,” I said. “And the twins must have driven it out. Wait, how is that even possible?”
“What?”
“How could a spirit draw another spirit away?”
“Honestly, at this point, nothing would surprise me. I’ll just take what Rachel said and move on.”
I just sighed acceptingly at that as we knocked on the door. Within minutes, all three of us were back home. I was very tired and was basically at the point of accepting that these spirits were stuck in my house. But then a thought occurred to me. It was an idea that came to mind during the early days of this madness but it had completely slipped until I got a private message from a fellow user recommending this.
I quickly looked through my contacts until I found the name I was looking for.
“Hello?” Theresa answered.
“Theresa, it’s Lily Gibbs,” I responded.
“Lily!” she said excitedly. “How is my old house holding up?”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Hey, I wanted to ask you something. It’s gonna sound crazy, but I figured it’s worth a shot.”
“What is it?” she asked curiously.
“Did the previous owner before you lose two sons?”
Silence filled the other end for about 10 seconds but what felt like hours.
“How did you find out?” she asked.
I briefly explained the ghosts my son had been seeing, and that I had already spoken to a psychic who claimed they have been here since well before she had lived here.
“That poor family,” she finally said. “Timmy and Tommy were such good kids.”
“What happened to them?” I asked.
“They were killed in a drunk driving accident,” she responded. “They had just gotten back home from a vacation when they and their mother went to the grocery store. On their way home, an inebriated man crashed into them head on. The mother barely survived but both children perished.”
“Oh my God, that is horrible,” I said.
“It is,” Theresa said. “They moved out after Hurricane Gustav damaged their home. It was just too much for them. They had to get away from all the bad energy left behind.”
We talked a bit more on the phone before saying goodbye. Now we know why these two are here, I thought to myself. But Jesus, losing both of your kids like that. That is absolutely heartbreaking.
I left the bedroom to see Paul talking to Robby in the living room.
“Listen, you’re not in trouble,” Paul said. “I just want to know what happened.”
“Nothing did, Daddy,” he said. “I didn’t know Gabriela left.”
Good choice of phrasing, Paul, I thought.
“Did Louis tell you anything about her?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t talk to him at all.”
Paul then noticed me.
“He isn’t lying,” Paul said. “I can tell.”
“It’s fine,” I said before turning to Robby. “Have Timmy and Tommy come out yet?”
“No,” Robby said. “But they are happy they weren’t caught.”
“Caught for what?”
“The lady that came by. They thought she wanted to kick them out.”
“No, not at all. She just wanted to know why they were here.”
“Ohhhh. Well, then they’re okay with that.”
I smiled a bit, which was surprising for me to do. I didn’t think anything involving these spirits would make me crack one.
I wish I could say the rest of the night went peacefully, but around 8:30 p.m., while Paul and I were in the front watching TV, we both heard something coming from below us.
“Louis,” I said, to which Paul nodded.
Without hesitation, we both got up and went outside to check under the house. But upon looking inside, we didn’t see him, or anyone for that matter, inside.
“Maybe it was an animal this time?” Paul asked aloud.
“I doubt it,” I said as I got on my hands and knees. “Go inside and grab the flashlight. I’m going under.”
“Let me check, Lily,” he said.
“No, I’ll handle it,” I said. “I am not letting anything scare me. I am done with being scared. If there is a diseased raccoon under the house, I’ll fight it head on.”
Paul just sighed as he said, “All right,” before hurrying inside. After about 10 seconds, he emerged back out with the flashlight and handed it to me. I quickly scurried under the house, pointing the flashlight around frantically for any living thing under there. A few of the support blocks obscured my view, so I began to crawl further in to peer around them. But as I tried to do so, I felt slightly stuck due to dirt. I gripped at the ground to force myself forward, causing some of the dirt to move.
That’s when my hand hit something hard. Thinking it was just a few rocks, I moved back and pointed my flashlight at it, and that’s when all the air escaped my lungs.
It was a skeletonized hand jettisoned out of the ground like a spire.
I immediately scampered out from under the house and back towards Paul. He saw my panicked face but when he got no response from me, he grabbed the flashlight and headed under. He only made a foot inside before also noticing the bones, which made him also scream.
“Get inside!” he yelled. “Call the police!”
Despite my panicked state, I made my legs move up the stairs and into our home. But before any of my fear could even slightly disappear, a new sound filled me with even more dread than possible.
It was Robby loudly crying.
“Shut the fuck up!” I heard a familiar voice say from beyond the door.
I ran inside to see Louis, holding my son at knifepoint in my own living room. Paul was about a second behind me and he noticed him as well.
“Woah, woah, woah,” Paul said as he put his hands up in an act of surrender.
“I knew it was you two,” Louis said. “Why couldn’t you just believe the coon story? Y’all had to investigate.”
“Louis, we know what you did to Gabriela,” Paul said.
“Yeah, that filthy fucking whore,” Louis said. “She’s burning in hell now.”
“Louis, Robby has nothing to do with this,” I pleaded. “Please just let our son go.”
“Why should I?” he retorted. “He is exactly what she wanted. She fawned over him, begging for a son. I couldn’t give her one, so she threw her body around like a basketball in hopes of getting one.”
“Why didn’t you just divorce her if she was cheating on you?” Paul asked, taking a step forward. “You didn’t have to resort to this.”
“Her dad is the most cutthroat attorney on the planet,” he responded. “They had planned a whole ruse to make a surrogate be the reason why she had a child, and then she would divorce me for all of my money.” He then looked back down at Robby. “If it wasn’t for him existing, she would have never wanted a child. It’s his fault.”
“Momma, please help me!” Robby cried out as he tried forcing himself out of Louis’ grip, only for Louis to tighten his hold on my son.
“I can’t let you leave,” Louis said while directly at me. “You know everything. I am not gonna let some paupers ruin my life. No one will!”
He was crazy, I could see it in his eyes. I knew we outnumbered two to one but I could tell Paul and I did not want to risk messing up and letting our son get killed. I was praying for a miracle to occur.
And I got one.
Just as Louis was pushing the knife more toward Robby, I watched as one of our vases sitting on a nearby table flung across the room and hit Louis square in the face. The vase shattered as a stunned Louis fell to the floor. Without a second of hesitation, Paul ran over and tackled Louis to the ground as I grabbed Robby, who immediately clung his arms around me.
The rest of the night was a blur. The police came and arrested Louis before sealing our home off as a crime scene. The three of us spent hours at the police station, where Paul and I told them everything. Louis ended up being charged with attempted murder among other charges.
Investigators dug up the rest of the body under our home. It was the skeletal remains of a female, and right next to it was the skeleton of a baby. Using dental records, the body was determined to be that of Gabriela. Louis was then charged with two counts of first degree murder.
It’s been nearly two weeks since everything occurred. We have since moved out of that home and back into the apartment complex where we had stayed prior to our home being remade. Robby has been meeting with a child psychologist, and he’s beginning to recover. Paul and I plan on finding new jobs and moving back to North Carolina after the trial.
I still don’t know the whole story, and to be honest, we probably never will. But from what I have managed to piece together, this is what I think happened.
Gabriela became pregnant. Although she and Louis did have a sex life, Louis claimed to be infertile. By the time she was eight months pregnant, he was confident the child wasn’t his, and after discovering she had numerous flings, he was ready to divorce her. However, she threatened him with supposed evidence that she was impregnated by a surrogate and would take all of his money. So, he killed her, and buried her body under his house.
Yeah, the two bodies were under his house. I asked one of the officers who arrived on scene, since he is actually a good friend of Paul’s, how the bodies could have been moved under ours. His answer shocked me.
“In this state, a hurricane can move anything buried underground. Back during Katrina, bodies in cemeteries popped up and floated down streets and ended up in yards. If anything, their bodies shifted underground to yours, and the construction covered it up.”
I couldn’t believe it at first, but after showing me photos of caskets that had once been buried now floating in the hurricane water, I believed him. My only guess was that after some time, Louis guessed the bodies were now under our house, and he was trying his best to get them out before we noticed.
I am still struggling to fathom that all of this happened in such a short period of time. What we had thought was our grand return home ended up being a nightmare of the worst variety. I still don’t understand why she targeted Robby, even though she only scared him one time. But maybe Louis was right. Perhaps Robby was indeed the catalyst for everything that had occurred between Louis and Gabriela. It makes me nauseous just to think about, but as long as my son is okay, then that’s all that matters now.
But nevertheless, my heart breaks for Gabriela and her unborn child. A young woman had her life taken away, and a child never got the chance to live a full life. All I could hope is that she and her child are now at rest.
Now that their bodies have been found.
Now that their killer is behind bars.
Now that the secrets, once hidden beneath the murky waters, have been finally unearthed.