Original subtitles

My name is Terrilyn. I spent many years�avoiding,

trying to forget, what happened to me in the house�that I grew up in.

I grew up in Upstate New York.

Our house was built on Native American burial grounds.

The land that we lived in, or lived on, I should say,

was about two acres, out in the country.

The neighbors were far and few between.

And so we were pretty secluded.

We didn't involve ourselves with anyone.

We had a lot�of secrets.

Dad would make my sisters and I roll oranges in the living room.

Mom always had her favorite spot.

She would watch from, I called it her "perch."

The orange had to stay in the playing�field.

And if you didn't play correctly, that's when we got the backhander.

Keep it rollin'.

We'd roll and, and our mom would sing.

I remember the... the "Like a Bird" song...

- Oh. - Over...

and over.

d Like a bird that's lost its wing In flight d

d I'm alone and also blue tonight d

d Like a piece of driftwood on the sea d

d May you never be alone like me d

That's pretty darn good.

It was a tremendous amount of psychological warfare in my household.

No one was allowed in the house unless you're approved.

Outsiders were dangerous because they�could spread stories.

But at the same time,

my father brought home, as he called them, "strays."

Strays meant strangers picked up at bars, or found on the... the road.

And remember, we... we lived in the country.

Strays meant someone without a family.

Someone with no home to go to.

Someone with no one looking for them.

You play well.

You play too well.

Hi.

Hi.

Hi. Oh, what is this?

What happened?

Oh, come on. Come here, baby.

Come here. It's gonna be okay.

And you knew the party was wrappin' up.

And you... closed your eyes

so you could hide yourself,

almost as if you could disappear from the rest,

like, "If you don't see me and I don't see myself, it doesn't happen..."

because you�didn't wanna know what was happening.

Terrilyn!

Next morning always came with a trip to�the woods.

You always knew not to look in the back of the truck

when my dad would leave for the woods.

Sam?

Sam was a good name for a dog,

but it was also my name.

That was my nickname.

We all had male names.

Sam?

Sam?

My father would brag a lot about killing the strays.

He would say,�"I choked the life out of them. I choked the son of a bitch."

And, you know, "Look at these hands.

You know how many people I've choked with these hands?

You know how many strays I've put down?"

Later on, he nicknamed the house "The Slaughterhouse."

Oh, boy.

There was quite a few people that came in and out of our life

that you don't see anymore.

They would just...

come into�our lives and be gone.

I was living under a roof with a father that was a serial killer

and a mother that... that participated.

So, both�parents...

- It was all...�Yeah. - ...were in it�together?

Yes.

Why didn't you guys reach out to people?

Why couldn't you tell?

Like, what�was the dynamics of that town? Were they afraid of him?

- Absolutely. - You couldn't tell anybody.

I mean, if you call the police,

you might be�giving your sisters and brothers death sentences.

The rule of the house was keep your mouth shut.

Point blank, keep your mouth shut.

He had many�ways to keep his children in line.

Do you know how easy it would be

to slit any or all of your throats?

How just the littlest pressure and slice...

and you'd bleed out?

And then this knife

cuts you up into tasty little pieces for the woodland creatures.

And then I just bury you up in the woodlot.

What happens in this house stays in this�house!

Forever.

Now smile, would ya?

I can't stand the look of a mopey face.

Smile!

That's a pretty frightful thing...

when you've got a knife to your throat

and you don't know if one of your... your siblings...

is gonna go.

I know, Jacob, you... you got that wrath as well.

- And I'm so�sorry. - Absolutely.

He bragged about...

friends of his.

You call them strays.

They were disposable.

My grandfather used to brag about it.

Human life meant nothing.

And that's what he tried to teach.

That people,

once you got what you needed from them,

the best thing you could do was get rid of them.

That way, it'd never come back onto you.

So as a kid, I learned how to dispose of things.

Here, hold this. Hold it.

Don't ever be afraid to kill somethin'.

And I was to keep his secrets...

and make sure that they didn't come out.

Harder.

Harder!

Harder!

He was grooming me.

That was his gift to me.

It's disturbing to think of that.

You knew there was a fine line with him that you do�not cross.

Come on, take�it out.

Because even though you're family...

Harder!

...you're still disposable.

Good boy. Good boy.

There's places up there that I will never�dig.

Waterholes I'll never drain.

And I'll never go to 'em.

Do I know there's a body there?

He's never told me that.

But he also told me not to dig there and stay away from it.

So, I won't do it.

I am so...

so sad to hear.

That's just... it's just�awful.

And as I grew up,

things just started feeling darker in the house.

They started feeling heavy in the house.

Like you couldn't... Almost like you couldn't breathe at�times.

Why is it just feel like, "I don't wanna be here. I'm afraid"?

Beyond being afraid.

We were raised Catholic, but at the same�time,

my father, uh...

had his own set of religion... his own set�of rules with religion.

And if the weather wasn't what he wanted�it to be on any given day,

then he would, uh... he would pray to the devil.

Sam!

Get in here! Get in here!

Sam!

Sam!

Get in here! Get in here!

Sam!

Get in here!

There was no doubt in my mind

that he was possessed.

There was no human in that... that body.

You said he�was growling? Was it... did it sound like a human growl?

It was�so deep that you almost didn't know where it came from,

because it was... it was so belly-driven, if that makes sense, so...

low.

That's not my dad. My dad is crazy and nuts,

but this is not him.

This is... this is not him.

Things changed�shortly�after that.

There was a darker energy that was starting to come into... into play.

Things were getting loud and noisy in the house.

I would hear footsteps in my room

all the time.

We had the lights flashing, the phones going dead.

The strangest thing...

happened one day, out in the backyard.

My mom was watching.

We both see this, this big, black thing come over the lumber pile.

And it felt evil.

And I look over at my mom and she said, "You know,

your father's conjuring up spirits."

What does that mean?

What do you do with that?

I was scared to death.

My sister, being brave or foolish, I'm not sure which one it was, she said,

"Let me take you out of the house for the night."

You invited me camping.

And you were so careful that we were gonna...

"We'll go in the evening and we'll come back early in the morning."

Oh, my gosh. It was...

It was near magical, 'cause there's so much out there.

And there was this big lake.

And it was like, "Wow.�This is...

I'm making my way to normal here. This is really gettin' good."

And so, we have a magnificent evening.

You know, then of course, the crack of dawn. Um...

Get me home, �cause I'm gonna be in a lot of trouble.

Never know which one's gonna smash the nose, do ya?

Which one's�gonna finish you off.

Don't!

Aah!

And it was that moment where I knew it was the end.

And I didn't... I didn't know, I couldn't put my finger on it,

but I knew

he and I, it was our end.

It was... We were done.

I got out of The Slaughterhouse, I left.

And I thought...

no one would ever, ever believe any of this.

How can I tell the world someday...

How could I tell the world someday what this was,

and have anybody understand it at all?

It was the house.

My father passed away about nine years ago.

It was the house made me do it.

It was the�house.

My mother had said that the voices in the house told her,

"Get rid of him."

It was the house made me do it.

- It was the... - And then...

you know, admitting that she had taken care of him

with a pillow over his face.

He's gone.

He's gone.

When he passed away,

I get a phone call in the morning from my grandmother.

I go race down.

He's unresponsive, I start CPR.

And...

my grandmother proceeds to start hitting me

through the�course of it.

She didn't�want you to bring him back.

Absolutely.

We got the ambulance there. They took them away, and... He'd passed.

So...

then we had to move my grandmother up into my mom's house.

And later that week, I ordered a dumpster

and started cleaning out his house.

I'd move into his house and... take over.

My grandfather kept little trophies.

I found hundreds of 'em.

I went in and threw everything out that I could think of,

tried to make it livable.

I'd hear footsteps out in the living room.

All of a sudden, in the middle of the night, that door would open up.

And that was my life for months on end.

I thought I was nuts.

You can't talk to people about this.

Nobody's gonna believe you to begin�with.

And if you do talk to somebody, well...

Guess what? I'm in for a psych referral.

- I understand. - I might lose my job here.

I finally started to talk to my mother about what was going on.

And she made the phone call to you.

And you showed up at the house.

I got the phone call from Jacob that said,

"Aunt Terri, you don't know me, but my mom�tells me

that you know some of the going-ons here,

and I'm having a lot of trouble."

Jacob had mentioned to me, he goes, "Aunt Terri, there's a hand print."

We looked�and there's two more, forming.

It validated everythingthat I had seen,

that somebody else

sees this, and I'm not crazy anymore.

And that was a turning point.

I can never repay you for that.

We have endured a lot, and to be able to sit here

and to... to discuss it

is healing.

And that's what's so important to me about this.

So, thank you.

Jacob, I know that the house is yours,

but there's something...

evil that didn't leave when he died.

It just didn�t leave.

I hope and I pray

that at some point, when the time is right,

you'll call me and you'll say, "Today is the day."

And we'll call the fire department,

then we'll let the fire department burn it down.

And never let something like this ever...

ever affect anyone ever again.

We just need

to burn that fucking house down!

Yeah.

Actually,

I don't think the house is gonna be yet rid of the evil.

Fire is not as strong as, uh...

the evil.

If you ask me, it's never gonna go away.

If you ask me, you'll be dealing with it the rest of your life.

But you're dealing with it at such a... You guys were�meant to deal with it.

What do we do? There's no rules for this.

- There's nothing in the rule book. - I've got no�answers.

I would burn�the damn thing down.

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