SECTION ONE – Opression

Los Angeles, Present Day

Excerpt from Good Morning with Josh and Jenny

Jenny Durso: “Tell me, Mr. Graves, what made this such a difficult case for you?”

Stone Graves: “I could name a dozen things, Jenny, but really what it came down to was information and interpretation. The Catholic Church actually has a list of signs, what they call symptoms, of possession. You can find it in The Roman Ritual of Exorcism.”

Onscreen behind Graves, a list appears.

Josh Black: “That’s some list!”

Graves: “It is. And usually it’s very accurate. But what they don’t take into consideration is that the presence of a supernatural being is a lot like getting sick in the winter.”

Durso: “How so?”

Graves: “Because you can’t always tell what you’ve got. A cold, the flu, a sinus infection. A lot of the symptoms are the same.”

Black: (points at list) “Ectoplasm and physical discomfort? Sounds a lot like my last flu!”

Audience laughter.

Graves: “Trust me, Josh. Having a demon or poltergeist in your house is no laughing matter. We learned that the hard way.”

On the screen, a picture of a covered body being taken away by two EMTs appears. The audience goes silent.

Durso: “When we come back, Stone Graves will tell us more about his new book, A Town Possessed.