Читать книгу Falter Kingdom - Michael J. Seidlinger - Страница 9
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MONDAY. WHERE THE HELL DID THE WEEKEND GO? I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep. I mean I actually did—something like twelve hours last night—but I feel tired. It’s probably me. I’m doing this to myself. I’ve been fixating on what’s been happening lately. I can’t shake the fact that everyone’s right: it’s almost over. After that day at Falter, all I can think about is breaking up with Becca. I think about stuff I should have done a long time ago. Now might be my last chance. It’s now or never.
But, man, I never get used to these mornings.
Note to self: Don’t sign up for morning classes next year.
Can’t wait to be able to choose when my classes start. I’m going with the major made for insomniacs. What career paths involve working late into the night? Gravediggers? Um, doctors, nurses, mental ward psychos?
Man, I’m tired.
I drive to school the same way I always do: half awake. It’s out of the driveway, then it’s a left, right, right, stop at that annoying intersection with the really long red light that I always get stuck at, straight past that, two more lefts, and then I’m there.
Meadows. On time for once too.
I park the car in my assigned space and I look at the time on my phone: 7:40 A.M. Know what that means—ten minutes to sleep in my car!
Believe me, this adds up. It helps. Power naps keep me from turning into a zombie. But then again, it’s kind of hard to sleep when Brad taps on the glass.
“What, man? Go away.” I wave him off.
But he taps on the glass again.
“Fuck,” I grumble. “It’s open.”
He gets in the front passenger seat. He sits down and looks at me.
I look at him. He’s a blank stare. “What? It’s too early for this stuff, man.”
Brad shakes his head. “Bro...”
Of course I know what he’s thinking about. I haven’t been able to brush it off either. It kind of settles in the back of the mind, making everything I do a little plainer because I’m paying even less attention to the things around me.
“Yeah, I know.”
“So wild, dude,” Brad boasts, “we had to fucking run and get help.”
“Yeah,” I say, monotone, driver’s seat reclined back, eyes closed.
“But then Steve twisted his ankle like a pussy and we got lost in the fields.”
Can’t a guy get a few winks?
“And shit, bro, it sucked. Getting lost in that forest is no joke. Being buzzed makes everything look the same.”
I yawn. “But you weren’t out there as long as I was.”
“Yeah, bro, Blaire told me. She said you fell asleep.”
“More like blacked out.” I rub my eyes. “Did y’all end up copping it?”
“Naw”—Brad snaps his fingers—“texted Jon-Jon and he called it like it is, said, like, if we called the cops they’d be more about trespassing charges.”
“Jon-Jon knows what’s up.” Falter isn’t a place anyone’s allowed to access. It’s one of the places closed off for a reason. But we all know that. It’s kind of the point. And Jon-Jon, he always knows. Older than most, he’s got the wisdom to make money work for him. He stays at Meadows because it’s where the money is. He pulls in as much as he wants selling. He’s a good guy, Jon-Jon. Still don’t know him well enough to really get a good read on the guy. Then again I don’t think anyone does. That’s him. That’s Jon-Jon. He’s a businessman.
“Bro, he’s looking for you,” Brad says.
I groan. “I’ve got first period in, like, eight minutes and I still got to pass by my locker.”
“I thought first period was free,” Brad says.
“That was last semester.” I’d kill to get that free period first thing. But no, I’m supposed to be doing awesome at calculus.
“Bummer,” Brad says.
“Yeah.” I open my eyes, staring at the faded fabric ceiling of my car.
“But, bro, you know what he wants. Fuck, I got to ask too.”
“Nothing happened,” I tell him.
“You were running that long and you’re going to tell me nothing fucking happened?”
I put the seat back up, stretching. “Yup. That’s what I’m saying.”
“Jesus,” Brad says, and sighs, “real bummer.”
“World’s full of bummers.”
We leave the car and walk toward the main building. Meadows is made up of three buildings, two on either side of a big four-story main structure where most of us spend the bulk of our time.
Brad’s talking, something about “a bunch of people are going to be blasting it in the fields this Wednesday.” It’s another party in the middle of nowhere.
I’ll probably go. Becca will want to go anyway. Everyone will be there; even if I stayed in, people will notice. The next day at school would be all about how Hunter Warden was a no-show. It’s like that here at Meadows.
Everyone knows everyone, especially if you’ve never met.
I tell him, “Yeah, you know it. Anyway, I’ll catch you later.”
“Yeah.” Brad nods. “Yeah, hit me up at lunch.”
He goes his way and I go mine. And there’s first period, which isn’t worth talking about. I think I might fail the class. I won’t, but I would, you see—Blaire’s my eyes and ears. She’s got the stuff finished and all I have to do is not fuck up the pop quizzes. I fucked up today’s pop quiz.
But what are you gonna do, you know?
Calculus. Everyone, even the A students, are over it.
Miss Canaan needs a life. I want to just walk up to her desk and tell her what everyone’s been telling me: It’s almost over. You’ll never see us again. Why not cut us some slack? Some of us are fun people. If you’d stop stressing the curriculum so much you’d have a better time.
But that takes balls. Well, more than that, it takes effort.
And I’m low on that lately.
I bump into Blaire before fourth period to exchange homework.
“You look like shit,” Blaire tells me.
Yeah, I haven’t been able to shake the exhaustion. I yawn it off, make appearances. “Insomnia,” I say with a shrug. “What else is new?”
Blaire’s hands are all over the homework, checking it like I didn’t actually do a good job. I’ve got this stuff. I’m not an idiot.
English class, that’s my forte.
She won’t look me in the eye. “You’d tell me, right?”
But I don’t hear her until she seems to answer for me—“Yeah, you’d tell me”—and runs off. We don’t have any classes together, which is why trading homework works. I know what she’s talking about. She was there. But, um, I know she wouldn’t tell anyone. At least not until she was sure about it.
During lunch, the student body president, Chris something—I can’t remember his name, but really most people just know him as “Chris the Student President” (you know how everyone’s labeled something)—he makes a few announcements. It’s blah, blah, blah until he finishes with a heads-up stating that yearbook deadlines are in a week.
One fucking week.
It’s a wake-up call for most. It is for me. I don’t know what to write. This is more than making the most of the rest of the semester; the bio you write is what people remember you by. Every word counts. Some people pay extra to fit in another fifty words over the three-hundred-word blurb limit.
Being memorable.
People talk so much about being remembered and “the one thing you’ll be remembered for.”
I think about the prompt while standing in line for food. My mom packs me lunch but it’s embarrassing. I leave it in the trunk of my car and toss it on the way home. Been doing that since the middle of freshman year.
So it’s this junk they serve us, but it works.
The one thing people will remember me for.
I’m not sure I want to settle for just one thing like everyone else. I’m not sure about what I’d write, so I do what I typically do—I put it off for later.
Brad’s late to lunch. I end up at our table, sitting with a few others I never really talk to. They’re almost finished with their bios.
This guy, Mark, reads his bio aloud. He’s really thought it out.
Brad gets there and steals the page from Mark’s hands, ’cause he’s an asshole and you know he’ll never let you down. Brad reads some of it aloud for the entire cafeteria: “Mark Banes excelled at contemporary literature, earning himself an A- average—”
“Come on, Brad, lay off.” That’s me saying that. I’m the one who usually tries to keep things cool. Do you ever really question the guy who’s trying to keep things civil? Yeah, everyone likes that guy, even if they don’t really know him. It’s how I keep this from getting back to me. And today, I know Brad and a bunch of people are suspicious about what happened in that tunnel.
They have something on me. I’m an interesting topic, you know?
And I just want to make it to fifth period so I can take a nap in my car, get away from all this stuff. Lately, everything’s been, I don’t know, just too much. It’s not just graduation; it’s everything. I feel like the pressure is increasing and I’m worried that it might never release.
Kind of melodramatic, yeah.
But I guess it’s mostly the fact that I know what’s going to happen next.
Brad sits across from me, steals one of my chicken fingers, and starts people-watching. That’s how it always starts.
Brad leans in, whispering, “Bro, you see Jess today? Jesus.”
Testosterone-fueled annoyance, that’s Brad’s yearbook bio. He’ll be remembered as the dude with so much testosterone he drowned in it, meaning we all ganged up on him and drowned him for being such an asshole.
I don’t know why I hang around this guy.
But yeah, I do. I know. I’ve talked about this already.
“Yo,” Brad says.
“Yeah, what is it?” I’m acting like these chicken fingers are awesome, like they taste like more than salt.
“You hit up JJ yet?”
Shit. That’s right. I can’t leave the guy hanging. He’s my source for booze, blunts, and anything else I want. For cheap.
“Not yet, after I finish eating.”
“Bro, he’ll be pissed.”
I’m going, I’m going.
Push the food away and Brad takes it, always hungry.
I always leave via the back entrance of the cafeteria so that I don’t have to make eye contact with anyone. But I’m not always that successful, you see.
On the way out, I cross paths with Nikki. She’s got this guy, Luke, with her, and he’s handing over her purse. As she looks back at the door, I happen to be the one walking out. We exchange glances. That smile, one I’ve seen before. Strand of red hair brushed with her hand back over her ear. Blue eyes on me. This is where I’d trip and fall if I let it get to me, but I don’t. But so what, she smiled at me? So what? She says hello. She says my name. She slows down and waits until I’ve gone.
So what?
It’s not a big deal.
But Brad makes it a big deal.
Goes on and on: “Bro, there’s no way you didn’t see that...!”
I play it off the way I know how things should be played: “Yeah, I saw.”
“You know you have to talk to her now,” Brad says.
I’m thinking, “What makes anything mandatory if I don’t want to?” Yeah, I want to talk to her, and yeah, I like her—so what? But just because we looked at each other doesn’t mean now I’m supposed to let go of my own problems.
What problems?
No, I’m pushing that aside. Not thinking about that.
“Don’t be stupid,” Brad’s saying, as we walk around back, where the theater kids smoke because it’s near the auditorium stage.
Jon-Jon and a few others hang here.
You can hear barking from far away. That’s Jetson, his corgi. He always brings the dog to school. It’d be a problem if he went to class, but he’s got all that covered. Rumor has it he pays off the principal. Halverson gets a cut from sales. It’s just a rumor. Gossip.
But that’s like all things at Meadows.
Everything’s gossip until it’s naked truth.
Brad tells Jon-Jon. Of course he tells Jon-Jon. “Dude, Nikki Dillon’s got a thing for our bro here!”
Some days I can almost see it happening: I’ll start by punching Brad in the gut. He’ll wince in pain and I’ll wrap—I don’t know, sometimes it’s rope, other times it’s piano wire—around his throat until his neck snaps. I’ll say something clever and then walk away. The next day people will know what I did and everyone will be happy. Brad’s body is brushed under the floorboards.
Jon-Jon tugs at Jetson’s leash. The dog runs up to Brad, hyper and seemingly happy as always. Corgis. Happiness is a corgi.
“Brad,” Jon-Jon says without looking up from his phone, “enough.”
“Yeah, sorry, man.” Brad works on finishing the chicken fingers.
I’m watching him until Jon-Jon asks, “Hunter, how are you feeling today?” Jon-Jon’s eyes are almost always glued to the phone in his hands. Guess it’s the way he conducts business. But he looks at me like he’s concerned. Is he really? You know, I never know what’s real or fake with the guy.
“Yeah”—I fake a yawn—“just a little tired.”
Jon-Jon leans forward. “That so? How tired are you, on a scale of one to ten, ten being chronic insomnia?”
Uh, I go with an eight, which means I really tell him, “About a five.”
Jon-Jon clicks his tongue, looks up at one of the girls, kind of cute, brown hair tied back, red lipstick—no one knows any of Jon-Jon’s girls, their names or anything else; I’m pretty sure they don’t go here—and the girl hands him a notebook.
Brad with his mouth full: “Is that...?”
It is. It’s yesterday’s betting pool.
See I kind of started betting on football, baseball, basketball, whatever everyone around me was betting on, because it kept things cool. If I won, I get some cash. If I lost, then whatever. I don’t have a stake in any of these teams. I don’t even really find it all that interesting. Watching Brad as he flips through the book quickly, for him it’s more than just money.
“Hell yes,” Brad shouts, “you owe me! Pay up, pay up!”
This is how it goes. Then there’s still all the talk about stats, which player to pick, who’s got the better team. I just want to make it until fifth period so I can get some sleep.
I lean against the wall while Brad and Jon-Jon talk sports, then about this rapper who’s supposed to be in town soon, how Jon-Jon can probably get tickets for cheap, which gets Brad excited. “Get me a few. Perfect bait for landing a date!”
I glance over at Jon-Jon’s girls, or assistants, or whatever. I know they find this as dull as I do. Or maybe they don’t.
What’s the big deal?
I used to feel kind of bad about not being interested in sports or music or that kind of stuff. Culture, I guess. I mean, I still do. I can see how learning about the stats and predicting how ball games will turn out could be really cool. I bet it’s satisfying. But before I can really get used to it, they’re talking about other things. Never really been into hip-hop or the stuff I hear coming from people’s cars. At least at the parties they blast it so it’s all bass.
But I guess I never got into it.
I don’t really know what I like. Music can be fun to listen to, but sometimes I just like sitting back and listening to podcasts, people chatting about, I don’t know, new technology, space, time travel. Weird stuff that doesn’t come around often. I guess that’s kind of insane.
Jon-Jon didn’t bring me here to listen to them talk business.
He asks me, “Too tired for one on me?” He holds up a bottle of vodka.
This guy, there’s no way he’s getting away with this stuff just by being careful. I say yes and we both take swigs from the bottle, Brad included. We take enough to ease off a little, but right before Brad and I walk back for class, Jon-Jon calls me out: “You ran, huh?”
Back turned, I kind of freeze, feeling the more powerful lull of liquor, how it kind of feels heavier than a beer buzz. Brad nudges me. “Bro...”
I know.
I tell him the truth, the lie I’ve practiced enough for it to be truth. Trick is to believe it yourself.
“Yeah, man,” I say, playing it smooth, “I did.”
Jon-Jon stares at me. “Why wasn’t I invited?”
Brad chimes in: “Wasn’t really planned, like, we got in each other’s faces, this guy and Steve... you know Steve? Steve the creep?”
Jon-Jon nods his head once. “I do.”
Brad continues: “Well, our boy here got in dweeb’s face and then just fucking ran Falter like it was nothing.”
Jon-Jon puts his phone down on his right knee and claps five times, slow, like this—clap, clap, clap, clap, clap.
“Yeah”—I sort of smile—“yeah, you know.” I laugh.
“I could have made some money. We all could’ve,” Jon-Jon says.
See that’s what’s been happening with Falter and Meadows students. You go there and run on a bet. No one talks about it and no one really makes any bets, but whenever people plan on actually running, more than a few people show up. They show up and Jon-Jon’s always there.
I can see why he’s disappointed.
Jetson barks at me.
Jon-Jon looks at the dog. “And?”
Jetson growls. I’m not doing anything. I take a step forward and the dog charges at me. Jon-Jon tugs the leash back.
We all look at the dog.
We’re all thinking the same thing, but only I really know the real deal.
Still, I’m not telling. I don’t want the last thing people remember of me to be that I caught one, showing symptoms and all.
Jon-Jon glares at me. “Didn’t catch anything?”
Brad tries to speak for me, but Jon-Jon raises a hand like he’s some mob boss and a single gesture commands the entire scene.
Then again, it’s kind of like that, actually.
“No,” I say, “unless you call insomnia demonic.”
“It should be!” Brad laughs. Brad is so fake.
I want to say it—I don’t know why I hang out with you—but I won’t. I won’t.
Enough’s enough.
Jon-Jon doesn’t laugh. No one does.
He says something like, “Fair enough,” right as the lunch period rings out in the distance. I give this kind of weird, awkward gesture—“It calls”—and then I burst out of the scene too quickly, like I’m trying to tell Jon-Jon that I’m hiding something. I manage to say, “Catch you later, man,” as casual as I can.
Jon-Jon says something like, “Yeah. We’ll talk later.”
The way he said it, it sounded insincere, like a mob boss who’s already read a victim’s future. He knows. Or he doesn’t know. Maybe no one knows. Even I kind of push it aside. It’s easy when there’s so much stuff going on.
It isn’t until after school that the activity continues.
Like it waited patiently for me to return home.
Last thing I want to do is have to sit and eat dinner with the parents. Mom’s cooking is all Shake’N Bake, out-of-the-box premade stuff. She’s got all those clients to worry about, and when you’re lawyering it up, dinner and family and all that stuff isn’t top priority. And Dad, don’t get me started on Dad.
Even when he’s pretending to care, in the back of his mind he’s thinking about the latest cancer patient of his.
It’s not just money with them. It’s like, well, it’s like what I’ve seen in so many movies. The job becomes you.
So when I get back from school and all I want is to crash for a few hours, Mom calls me into the kitchen like a home-cooked meal is a surprise.
“Son, dinner’s almost ready.”
I watch her pull out meat loaf from the oven.
“It’s four thirty.”
“Early bird special,” she says, and chuckles.
I head up the stairs, but she’s not letting me get away easy today.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she says from the foot of the stairs. She’s still wearing those oven mitts. Makes her look ridiculous.
“Getting a hoodie, Mom.” I point in the direction of my room. “It’s cold in here.”
“Are you feeling all right?”
Enough with that—but she won’t stop with the questions. Like she really cares. Whenever she’s around, she tries to be supermom. Whenever she’s around, it’s usually because she lost a case, so she’s feeling depressed. Feeling depressed for my crazy mom translates to: smother Hunter. Turning up the parenting to 150 percent hurts everybody.
At the dinner table, I can’t sit still.
Mom asks me if I feel okay.
“Just cold, Mom.”
She doesn’t seem to be having a problem.
I look at the placemat she set for Dad.
“He showing up?”
Mom makes excuses: “Dad is busy saving lives.”
Yup, saving lives, like some kind of Superman. I take a bite of meat loaf, dry and bland like any other store-bought thing. But I know what’ll happen if I don’t eat it.
Mom asks me about school.
“It was like any other day.”
“Getting close to graduation!” Mom grins, bringing a piece of food to her lips.
“Yeah.” I pick at the food. Watch as even Mom pretends to like the food, that small piece going in her mouth and back out into the napkin. She does it when she thinks I’m not looking.
I look down the hall, the one leading upstairs, expecting to see something. I don’t know what, but my eyes keep floating back to that focal point.
Meat loaf, eat another piece of meat loaf.
“Refill, hon?”
This is the kind of stuff that bothers anyone. I can get my own water. I can pick up after myself. I’m eighteen and she’s treating me like I’m ten.
I get up from the table without saying a word.
As I do, my gaze floats back to the hall. I do a double take when I see it. It’s not really, um... let me try to explain. It’s still the hall, and the stairs, and the little side table thing my mom put there for decoration. But what I saw was something else. Kind of like a blotch where evening light should pass.
Course, I could have just said it was a shadow.
Shadows are one of the symptoms. But it’s more than that. When I look, I feel something looking back. It’s you, isn’t it?
It’s got to be you.
But I don’t want my mom to suspect anything, so I refill my glass with water from the tap, which is nasty but I’m not really thinking straight right now, and I sit back down to eat.
A chill runs up my spine.
I chew, looking at Mom while I’m sure you, whatever you are, look on at this pathetic scene. It’s really sad, you know? No dad and some depressed mom about to take enough pills to feel fucking fine.
I zip up the hoodie.
It’s a different kind of cold. You’d think “cold spots” means what it sounds like, but it’s kind of different. My mom isn’t cold. But I am. My mom isn’t shivering. But I am. My mom isn’t being watched. But I am.
My inner stupid’s excuse is that I’m just really, really tired. It’s common to feel more sensitive to temperature when you’re tired.
Yeah, but this is different.
This is the start.
It’s not just broken vases and doors opening in the dark.
I focus on the meat loaf because it’s all I can do to block out what’s happening. You kind of just want to ignore things when they’re so intense, you know? You just want it to go away.
Mom looks down the hall. “Son?”
Stop calling me “son.” I have a name.
I don’t say anything. Another chunk of dry-as-hell meat loaf. I point to my mouth: Can’t talk. Eating.
Mom asks me about Becca. Oh, shit—Becca.
We were supposed to meet up before classes started today. We do that every day. I was supposed to meet her at the water fountain after school. She needed a ride home...
So you know how it feels to have lost track of time? That’s totally how I feel. I’m kind of scared, not because Becca will be mad—she will—but because I didn’t even notice. The entire day passed by and I didn’t even notice.
Another shiver.
Never even thought about her all day.
“Son?”
“Huh?” I’m staring and stabbing at my plate. “Yeah?”
“I was asking about Becca. She hasn’t been to the house lately. Are you sure you’re all right?” Mom being Mom.
“Yeah, I’m fine, really.” Another mouthful. Like she’d know the difference. Becca was here the other night. But Mom wasn’t. This isn’t anything new. It’s a fact that I’m the one who got used to Mom and Dad being so fake about how our family works and they didn’t. Years and it’s all still the same.
It’s beyond annoying.
I look down the hall, eyeing the area near the stairs, like it’s impossible to look away.
Mom maybe says more, but next thing I know, I’m bringing my plate to the sink and Mom’s saying from the table, “Just leave it in the sink.”
The sponge in hand, I tell her, “I’m washing my own dishes, Mom. Like I do every single day.”
Turning the faucet to warm, it feels so damn good, the hot water on my freezing cold hands. I let the water run through my fingers. Feels so good. The best. I close my eyes and get lost in the feeling until Mom shuts the faucet.
She has her hand on my forehead. “Oh my, you’re freezing.”
“Mom”—dropping the plate in the sink—“trust me, I’m fine.” Mom follows after me, but I stop her. “Don’t.”
It’s easy to see why she acts the way she does, but the last thing she needs from me is another problem.
“I’ve got a lot on my mind, Mom,” I tell her. “If you want to help, give me a little space.”
Mom knows that she’s crossed a line.
I wipe my hands on the sides of the hoodie. “Okay?”
Mom sighs, starting on the dishes. “A shower might help, dear.”
“Yeah.” I start up the steps. To myself, I whisper, “It just might.”
It would be cool if I could just get a little hot water, but no. It’s always like this, and Dad should have gotten it fixed already, but maybe I don’t complain enough because I have trouble caring. That’s probably how a lot of stuff doesn’t end up happening: everyone gets caught up in putting it off. Put it off long enough and you have to take cold showers. This is not going to be fun.
I mean, I can get some hot water.
Wait a minute. Let me try something.
Okay, see? Now there’s hot water.
If you just turn the knobs left and right, hot and cold at once, you get hot water. Dammit. Okay, I think if I just give it a little more...
This should be on a test.
If I get it right, do I get some points?
I need as much as I can get, really.
How about extra credit?
Ah, there.
Under the shower, I can almost let the hot water knock me out. I hear that it’s actually kind of common for people to fall asleep in the shower. I think the trick is to be ready to stick your arms out in front of you so you don’t crack your skull on anything when you fall down.
So I do that. I mean, why not?
But dammit—I get maybe a minute of hot water and it’s back to cold. That means I need to jump away from the shower stream. That means I have to mess around with the water again.
It’s usually not this bad.
I bet I look like an idiot. I’m the idiot who got in the shower naked before I even checked to see if there’s hot water.
I mess with both hot and cold but nothing works. The water is ice cold.
I think about shouting for Mom, but then I’d be proving that something’s wrong, that I can’t do this myself. I’ve done most things myself; why would I need Mom’s help now?
I watch the water. Maybe if I just wait it out a moment it’ll warm up. The pilot light might need to warm up, whatever the hell that means. I reach for my towel and wrap it around me.
It’s probably funny to anyone not in this situation, seeing someone in the shower afraid of the water.
I test it again, sticking two fingers under the jet stream. Nope.
It’s getting colder in the bathroom too. I can see my breath.
But it’s not hard to push it aside, paying it no mind.
I probably wait a few minutes, which seem like forever, and then I try it again. The water isn’t as cold this time, which is enough to lean in and try playing with the shower knobs again.
I toss the towel back on the rack.
Yeah, okay, so in the corner of my eye, I saw it.
I saw it from the moment I got in the shower. It was kind of like a shadow, a mass or blotch that you can barely see; but it’s also not really either of those things. Behind the shower curtain, I thought of it as just something I made up, something I imagined.
But you see, my towel didn’t make it back on the rack. It slipped off and hung in midair, forming a shape that waited for me to see it.
Chilled, you care most about getting warm. Getting warm is, like, the only thing you need when you’re fucking freezing.
I’m shivering.
I look at my hands—they’re shaking.
I’m really shivering.
This isn’t cool.
I have trouble taking it all in. I see it happening but, you know, it’s happening and I keep myself out of it. I’m like, “Oh, okay, cold spots now, great.” But I’m not like, “Help me. I’m being haunted.”
It just doesn’t come off as totally true.
So then when I’m under the water with my eyes closed, I get a shower going. Not really hot water but not cold either. It feels good enough, and I stand there, letting the water run down my shoulders. I like the way it feels on my penis. I wouldn’t ever mention it to anyone, I’m not a pervert, but it really does feel great, the warm temperature just dripping off the tip.
But it doesn’t last long. I start to feel the water changing. Going to be cold as hell so I reach for the towel but it isn’t there. I feel the air around where it should be and then—
Well, I still don’t know how to really explain it. But it got my attention.
Eyes opening, this is what I see: my towel draped over an area of space, forming the shape of a human figure, but that isn’t really right either. It looked off. I—I don’t know how to explain it. The head was too small and the shoulders too broad. But it lasts only as long as it takes for me to see it. Then the towel falls and gets drenched in the water, and I’m stuck without a dry towel.
I stand there, in the shower, shivering for a long time.
I’m still not able to get warm.
I keep thinking, “So that’s it, huh?”
But it carries its own weight. It isn’t as simple as saying that I’ll think about it later. I guess seeing it, seeing something that shouldn’t be there, kind of changes the way I perceive everything else.
You know how it’s never a problem saying you believe in something, but you really don’t accept or believe it because it’s never anything more than some random concept? That’s kind of how this is. I’ve heard about it since I was a little kid—people being haunted by demons—and about how it’s gotten to be so common that there’s a whole industry around getting rid of them. But it all comes off as fake.
It doesn’t seem real until it’s staring right back at you.
And it’s watching. It really is.
It’s watching me right now.
It’s always there, this feeling that I’m not alone.
It gets me thinking about everywhere I’m not looking. If I’m looking straight ahead, is it watching me from behind? If I’m looking everywhere for it, is it everywhere I’m not, watching?
That’s the kind of stuff I think about.
And I sort of fixate on this, because it’s a problem, a real problem. And I’m—I guess it’s fine admitting it now—I’m getting a little worried.
Not afraid. I’m not, I swear.
But something, everything, is starting to feel different. Everything’s changing and I’m not sure I understand what that means.
I’m still shivering, damn.
It takes getting under the blankets, napping for, like, an hour—or at least trying to nap—to stop shivering. I want to get online and read about people’s experiences with demons, but I can’t type. My fingers keep hitting the wrong keys. So yeah, I get under the covers, keeping the lights on even though it really doesn’t matter if they’re on or not, I hear the haunting continues no matter what. If it needs to, it’ll zap the lights. But it feels, you know, reassuring.
I pull the sheets over my head, just enough so that it’s kind of hard to breathe. I don’t really sleep though. I just listen to the sound of my breathing, the sound of my voice, but I’m not talking. I’m not saying anything, which takes all the comfort out of being under the covers. I try not to think about anything, but that doesn’t really work.
So I make a run for the other side of my room, secure my laptop, making sure it’s plugged into a power source, and get back in bed.
Before I really do anything, I get a message.
Becca. I’m actually a little relieved. This takes me away from what’s been happening since I got home.
“I’m like so angry at you right now you have no idea.”
I read the message twice before replying, “I have some idea.”
“Then you know that I had to walk home. Walk home.”
“Becca, I’m... sorry?”
“How sincere, ugh.”
Fess up, Hunter. Admit that this isn’t going to just go away. And I’m not talking about Becca.
“Look I am sorry, okay? Lots going on. It’s crazy.”
Becca types and erases and types. I watch the cursor flicker. I look around the room. I don’t see anything wrong, but the feeling is still there. I wish it would just lay off for a little bit—just a little fucking bit.
Becca’s reply: “I’m still angry. I want you to know that I’m angry. Things are crazy yeah but that’s not an excuse for leaving me at school.”
Either I tell her or I don’t. She isn’t going away.
“It’s not that.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Something happened, okay?”
Becca types, “Oh my god...”
I know she’s thinking I got with someone. That’s how Becca thinks.
“No. No it’s not that.”
“Then WTF are you saying????”
Say it. Just fucking say it.
“I ran the gauntlet the other day and...”
“No...”
“And yeah. Things have been happening.”
“You”—Becca’s cursor flickers—“you’ve got to get this gone ASAP.”
Just say that you know.
“I know.”
“When did you go? Hunter, you’re so stupid sometimes. Why would you go to Falter?”
She’ll pick you apart if you talk about it.
Becca blasts me with messages, many of them about how stupid I am for running and that it’s even worse because I didn’t tell anyone.
Then I tell her I went on Friday.
“Last Friday???”
“Yeah.”
That sends her over the edge. Well, she’s already fallen over the edge, so it sends her over another edge, somewhere. The edge after all the other edges.
“Hunter. Hunter...”
“I know.”
She’s worried. I’m sort of worried too.
I think the lights in my room have dimmed.
Here comes Becca with all her so-called wisdom: “You have any idea what a demon is?”
It goes on for paragraphs. I think she copy-pasted them from other sites. I was going to do this anyway, so it works, but Becca’s not going to let up now. But I needed to tell someone. I already feel better for having told someone. It’s kind of like, “Why didn’t you tell anyone?” But at the time, knowing what would happen, as in what’s going to happen from this point on, it makes you dizzy. Like you want to faint. It’ll be easier to just faint than having to see it all pop.
Becca tells me that demons aren’t people. They never were people. They’re unclean and dark masses. They look for hosts and try to make the host theirs. They populate the earth and maybe come from other planes of existence. No one knows about that part, but demons can take the shape of you or something else who’s close to you.
Then she lists out the symptoms.
She lists out the symptoms, and I swear:
They happen right as I read them.
Becca says it’s common to see doors opening and closing.
My door opens but no one’s there.
It remains open until after she lists out “cold spots” and “noises.”
My room gets really fucking cold, so cold that I can’t really type, so I go and get another hoodie—I have a lot of hoodies—and put the hoodie on top of the hoodie I’m already wearing. Zip the fucker up, hood over my head. I feel like I’ve gained twenty pounds, everything’s so tight and packed in, but I’m still going to get under the covers. I’m sweating but at least I’m not that cold.
There’s sort of a banging noise, but I can’t be sure where it’s coming from.
“Hunter,” Becca types.
I haven’t been responding, whoops. “What?”
“Are you having trouble sleeping?”
“You know I’ve got insomnia,” I reply.
“No, like, do you wake up at three A.M. every night?”
I think about this, but I don’t really know. “I wake up a lot at night. That tossing and turning deal.”
“Think about it. Three A.M. Are you waking up at three A.M.?”
Shit. I don’t really know, but the fact that she’s stressing it is getting me worried. I ask her, “Why?”
“Because...” but she doesn’t finish.
“Don’t get stuck in other tabs, Becca. Tell me.”
“I’m reading about it. It’s like three A.M. is significant. Dead time, they say.”
I watch as my bedroom door closes. “Do you believe in this stuff?”
“In what, demons?”
“No, not demons, but where they really come from, the whole spiritual thing?”
“I do, Hunter. I have to.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“You have to get this taken care of. We need to call an exorcist.”
I feel dizzy. And cold. And I hear footsteps. Listen to how they seem to go from somewhere near my desk to the foot of my bed and then stop.
I think, “Okay, that’s kind of scary.”
But again, it’s hard to take this as real. It’s hard to take it as really happening to me.
I type out whatever comes to mind: “I’m just really tired all the time. Like more than usual. It’s like I can’t stop thinking. But I’m not really thinking about anything.”
Becca doesn’t reply for a long time. It shows that she’s seen my messages, but she just doesn’t reply.
I start searching for stuff on my own. There’s a lot of stuff out there.
There’s this one guy who had three demons competing for his approval. And another person—she’s kind of hot—who is haunted and documenting the entire thing. She’s already gotten a film option for it.
I watch an interview with her. She’s pale as hell and keeps forgetting the questions they ask her. Her agent or whoever, the person with her, answers for her more often than she can. She looks like shit.
The agent says that the demon has already begun infestation. It’s only a matter of days now. And the interviewer asks if they plan on full possession.
The woman speaks up: “It’s too late for Suz now...”
Kind of weird how she says it too, there’s a sort of monotone way about her voice.
I search for the term “infestation,” and I get thousands of results. No way I’m going through all of them. I click on the one at the top, the wiki entry for the term. It goes on about how infestation is only the first in three “prominent” steps in the circle of demonic possession.
It’s what’s happening to me right now. The haunting part.
Symptoms: the cold spots, the footsteps, the...
What literally just happened: a whisper that sounds like my voice saying my name. Kind of like, if I can explain it, “...unterrrrrrr...” Where the “H” in my name is missing and the end of my name, the “r” runs out long. Like a growl, maybe.
I click around, ending up on a wiki overview of the entire circle.
Three main steps—the first is infestation, which I know. The next is oppression, which is where “the host is broken down” and it looks like a lot of crazy and really scary stuff happens. I start reading about it but—
“Hunter, I left a voice mail with Father James, the best in the entire parish.” Becca goes to church. She goes to church every Sunday. I think she’s gone to a bunch of exorcisms too. Religious people like exorcisms; apparently at the end, after the demon is gone, there’s a feeling of unity in everyone there. I only know this because Becca tells me about it a lot. Never thought much of it until, you know, this started happening to me.
“That’s good,” I reply.
“What else are you experiencing?” Becca asks.
I skim the article about oppression, but maybe it’s better to not read it. I scroll to the top of the wiki entry, reading the last word, “possession.” Three big steps and the final is, like, final. It’s all over by then.
The article says exorcizing the demon is best during stage one, but it is possible up until the end of stage two. But by stage three, the human body is so run-down that an exorcism, “though possible,” ends with “the host in a critical state.” Damn. How do you take that information?
I’m having a hard time even making sense of it.
Demons. They’re all around us. Happens all the time.
But never to “you.” Until it actually does.
And then you’re...
I...
A cold shiver runs through my entire body.
“Hunter?”
I watch Becca blast me with more messages.
I sense it somewhere, watching, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
In bed, I’m able to feel a little bit safe, but three A.M. will arrive, and even if I do sleep, I’ll probably wake up.
Becca says, “Keep chatting with me. I’ll stay up all night.”
And she would and I tell her how much it means to me, but in fewer than a dozen messages, I think I fall asleep because everything goes blank and I don’t wake up until it’s morning.
