The Lamashtu

By Lillian K. Staats

I continue to think of ghost stories, but these others I have are not so comforting, in fact one was so frightening it changed my life.


The year that I turned 19, 1979, I had a job cleaning the largest private dwelling in Alaska. It was still under construction, but it was monumental, with vast outward jutting windows that looked onto Rocky Lake near Big Lake.


My tasks were simple and required little thought, just labor; washing clothes and bedding by hand,(there were no washers), cleaning up after construction crews, cooking, that sort of thing. My boss was Dana Sutherland, and, like a few men at that time, he wanted me in his bed. I was absolutely not going to do that, for anything, and to this day, I'd never had sex to get or keep a job. Like my neighbor Gene says... so you just give it away. Sigh, (not to you, you Bastard, I thought).


 I divulge. At any rate, this boss was snowed in at Anchorage, and couldn't get back. I loved it! The snow fell record feet that winter, and I felt safe in my snow cocoon, along with the five Doberman Pinchers, one being my puppy Inca.


This was a working holiday; I washed all the bedclothes, swept, mopped, etc. I stayed up quite late, reading in Dana's palatial bed, (my bed was a cot), and I'd change the sheets again.


Now, as a young woman, I had no form of religion, and was open to almost anything- eastern religion, yoga, herbology, Tarot cards, Urantia, what have you. But, for some reason, upon entering that house, I would not touch anything to do with the occult, and there were rows and rows of occult books. Then I found the black candles in a box by Dana's bed. I was not afraid, I was wary, and did not touch them.


 I found it hard to go to sleep that night, so it was four in the morning when I finally dozed off, or more correctly, closed my eyes, and could not move, though I could see the room perfectly, albeit grainy, like a bad film.


 To my left hand side was a double pane Pella window, and a creature, like smoke and....clear flesh, assumed a position in front of me, and (sifted?) down into form. It was a leopards body, a lion's head, wildly streaming hair, and bared breasts. 


I said,"I love God, God loves me, In the name of Jesus Christ begone from this house". I knew inately that it was a she, she was ancient, Egyptian, and a she-devil. 


Another thing- I had NEVER called on Christ in my life, but there were those words. She reluctantly gathered herself together, and departed exactly how she arrived. Why spirits would need windows is beyond me..


 Well, young people are resiliant, and altho my sweat made a sillouette on the sheets, I laughed everything off best I could and went to sleep.


 The next morning I fed the dogs, had tea, thought nothing of it. Just to get it out of the way, I was a health nut, and rarely drank, and rarely did any naughty thing to my body, and this was the case at the time, so all this happened stone cold sober as it were.


 Any way, as the day progressed, I'd find myself walking toward the occult bookshelf. I'd, as if in a daze, reach out my hand, pull a book out, and open it. Then I'd feel, this isn't the right book. Well, that's just very odd, and it happened twice. 


On the third try, I knelt down and my left hand went out to the shelf, second from the bottom, I pulled a book out, and opened it up the the very page. On the left hand side, second from the bottom it said this:

Lamishtu or Lamashtu;  an ancient she-devil, fierce and bloodthirsty, Egyptian. A leopard's body, a lion's head, wildly streaming hair, and bared breasts.

 Suffice to say, I stuffed garlic in my pockets, (forgetting that was for vampires), clutched a Bible, and ran to my best friends, Nick and Sheila, two and a half miles away, in the dark. Haha! 



Lily