Falter Kingdom (12 page)

What do I say to that? I don't really know what to say.

It says, “There's an end to the tunnel.”

I have to ask, but this time I just think the question instead of saying it: “Is that where you came from?”

It doesn't seem to want to reply.

More breathing, and then the room gets even colder.

It says, “You will wake up soon.”

I'm saying aloud, “What time is it?”

I should be getting more scared the longer I speak to it. Those pieces of information—stuff told to me by Father Albert and others—warn me not to make contact with the demon. Don't make contact. Don't speak to it. But does a dream count? What about a nightmare?

And then I'm thinking, “Can it hear my thoughts?”

It tells me, “Yes.”

Then I think, “What is your name?”

The name it gives, it's pieced together from a half-thought I had once, when I thought it would be cool to drop my name and just go by a single letter.

I used to think it would be cool to be called “H Warden.”

It calls itself “H.”

And I know it's only because it looked into my thoughts and picked out something as close to my own name as possible.

One thought keeps pulling me aside. It keeps telling me, the thought, to be afraid. Be so damn afraid. And wake up. Stop contacting it.

But H is right there, looking as close to human as possible.

I hear myself ask, “I take it you're all about causing shit, right?”

H doesn't seem to give an answer.

We sit there—the dream frozen, paused—but I find it still kind of awesome. It's nothing I've ever experienced before. It's like talking to yourself, but instead of just getting the thoughts you know and the words you've already said, you actually get something in return.

New information, new ideas, new feelings jump into the spaces between your own thoughts.

H then tells me, “You are going to wake up now.”

But before I do, I have one other question: “How is this possible?”

H says, “It's possible because it just happened.”

And then I wake up.

My sheets are damp. I touch and smell them. Nope, didn't piss my pants. It's sweat. I look around the darkened room. I check the time.

Three
A.M
.

I feel tired. That's nothing new. I yawn and sort of say out loud, “Does this feeling tired shit get any easier?” And then I hear a scratching noise coming from the other side of the wall, almost like I'm getting an active response.

I sit up in bed, wondering if I should be worried.

Out of breath and really kind of lost, I don't want that dream to stop. I want to sleep but I feel like it won't be possible. No matter what I do to try to sleep, it's that same sort of tossing and turning where I end up sort of asleep but not really anywhere close. And then it gets to be morning and, you know, back to school.

Another day, but I can't help but feel like I'm taking back some of what's changed since running the gauntlet. I can feel my grip on giving a shit really finally... faltering. And I'd like to think that it's a good thing.

6

HALVERSON DOESN'T EVEN LOOK AT FATHER ALBERT'S
note. Makes me think I could have folded up any sheet of paper and said I got checked out. He kind of just says, “Frankly, I'm just happy to see that you're going to be okay,” and then lets me get to class. I'm late to first period because of him though. After last night's dream, most of my day feels like one long stretch, like a high I didn't know I was having. It's all blurry and nothing I do really seems to mean anything.

In third period, we take a test that I didn't study for, but then again, I'm starting to think that everyone's given up studying this late into the school year. But during the test, I look at the questions and read them over and over again, but none of them make any sense.

I read question number one and I see my own question typed out: “Where do you come from?”

A, B, C, or D. D is always all/none of the above.

I answer D, none of the above.

Next question: “What's your name?”

A, B, C, or D. I can't read the options so I go with D.

Down the line, all thirty questions are a mixture of questions I want answered and answers that don't seem to ever show.

I catch myself staring into space, chewing a pencil. The teacher seems to notice too, makes a face. I shrug and go back to the test.

The last question kind of freaks me out:

“Are you good or bad?”

It's right out of those haunting flicks. There are so many of them. The documentary ones are the worst because they try to get real footage of possessions. It's always that question—are you good or bad?—when priests and other experts try to make first contact.

It's like they can be only one or the other.

I'm both scared and kind of interested. It's mostly because I know that H wouldn't answer that question. H. I almost don't realize that I'm calling it H now. Funny and weird how it feels like the dream wasn't a dream, was as real as anything else, but then I can forget about certain parts. I just take it as plain truth, reality, and then I start using the information—H—and I'm caught off guard by it. But just for a moment.

I hand in the test and the best I can probably hope for is a D.

Probably failed though.

Then it's lunch and Brad and all his stuff that today, of all days, I really can't take. I don't even try to be a part of the conversation.

Blaire shows up, asks me, “How are you feeling?”

I didn't know I was sick or something, but I say, “Fine.”

Today's the first time I don't buy lunch. I sit there and sort of listen to Brad talking about how his team, meaning the baseball team that he decided to like and follow this season, is going to totally dominate. On no real grounds, of course. It's something to talk about. Brad's all into it. But then again, I don't know anything about the sport. I never really cared for it.

I find myself thinking about the dream.

The kitchen table part.

I analyze it like I wasn't actually a part of it: What did this mean? What did that mean?

It's not really about getting anything else from the dream. It's just fun to analyze it. To think about it, you know?

It feels like a totally different take on the world, a world that normally doesn't seem like anything but a plain truth, obvious and kind of dull. There's so much out there and it feels like it's all defined. Just like college. Just like careers. Just like networking. Just like society to be that segmented.

This is where I should go see Jon-Jon, but fuck Jon-Jon. I can't deal with his betting pool and opportunistic ways.

This is where I think about maybe going to the bathroom and just sitting in a stall for a whole period. It seems attractive. I really feel like everything's wearing thin, all the people being nice to me, all the people talking to me all because of H. All because I did something they all pretend to do and the only difference is I actually did it. I went through with something, and H happened to run after me on the way out of the tunnel.

I don't know.

I just feel like H is becoming the least of my concerns now.

Everything else feels like homework, like something that makes every day a bummer, because I have to do and feel and act in a way that I don't want to. But maybe it's always been this way and it's only now that I've lost any and all cares about it.

No, I'm not going to talk about Nikki. She's just another face in the crowd. A pretty face, but no doubt ten times shallower than most. She just wants what she wants and has a big enough ego to go through with it. And thinking about crossing paths with Nikki is enough to make this day end.

Forget the bathroom stall. I walk right back to my car.

I sit there sometimes staring at my phone. Becca texts me a few times but seems really busy.

I expect word to get out about my date with Nikki, but no one cares or it's really that Nikki doesn't say anything, although if she really were the cliché I know she is, a fucking stereotype, she would make up some story that ruins me.

Go ahead and ruin me.

It would get people to stop talking about me like they actually care about me. People who sometimes get my name wrong, calling me Hunter Warren or Hunter Walden like that book. I'd really dig just driving into the woods and just building a house there. Thoreau had it right. It was the one book I actually read a lot of when almost everyone else couldn't get past the first ten pages. That book is more than the words in it; it's all the ideas, the whole life outside of society, outside of all... this. It comes down to being different, I guess. Or something. That was my interpretation of the book, anyway.

Man, I'm tired.

But I can't sleep. Not in this car.

I look down at the phone, another text. Someone.

Then a text from Brad, who just says, “Bro we're going to party hard man.” And then that reminds me about the party. The one that is now at my house. The one that is now really happening.

And soon. Like
this
weekend, not next weekend.

Yeah, just want to sit in this car.

Then I get a text from Blaire.

She's thinking about skipping and I text back a two-word answer, “Do it.” Just not feeling up to chatting about anything.

She texts back, asking me again, “How are you feeling?” She knows I was lying before.

“Blah,” that's my response.

I watch the cursor blink. She must be typing something long. I sit there, eyes closed, until the phone buzzes.

“I understand,” she says, “first you think you're going crazy and that you shouldn't be annoyed at everyone. Everyone's paying attention to you, treating you like you're popular. I know you wanted this. You feel weird because now you're living for two. You're going to go through a lot of changes, maybe quicker than most. I just worry about you, Hunter.”

“Don't. I'm just tired.”

A few minutes pass before I get another reply. “It doesn't get any better.” Her message, it shouldn't annoy me the way it does. I can't help it.

”How would you know?”

But she doesn't reply. I text a question mark. I can tell that she's getting my messages.

“You don't understand, OK?”

Still nothing.

“You're just like the rest, wanting a part in this without actually being held accountable. You say you worry about me. Don't. I'm going home. Fuck this.”

I drive off just as the bell rings, signaling the end of classes for the day. It's like getting out before the flood washes me away or something. It's this adrenaline rush that I get leaving before anyone sees me.

It's kind of funny actually, looking back on it later.

And it's strange when I think, “Wonder what H is going to try today,” and I'm almost excited to get back home.

Really strange how that is, huh?

But that's my day. As time goes on, things start to change shape.

That's today, and tomorrow, it'll be maybe different or exactly the same. Only thing I'm sure of is that it'll be one step closer to that party.

Yeah, I'm really not looking forward to that party.

The weekend arrives quicker than I wanted it to. It feels like one second I'm driving home from class and the next thing I know I'm standing in my family room, the one room in my house that's never ever used, and people I barely know from Meadows are filling that space.

They all want me to say something like, “I know all you people.”

Really what I'm thinking is “I don't know any of you.”

But that's kind of wrong to say too. It's mean-spirited and it makes me feel like shit. Maybe that's my problem; I'm becoming withdrawn. Over the past few days, I've thought back to the dream. I've thought back to what happened, and I have started to look forward to the next dream because part of me just knows that it'll happen.

It hasn't happened yet.

I'm starting to tell myself that the reason for being so withdrawn is because I have started to look somewhere else. Where? That's kind of the problem. I'm looking around for something that even I'm not sure of. I'm not finding whatever it is I want to find in the people who look at me like I'm exactly what they are looking for.

No, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

I only know that this isn't going to work. I mean, look at this. Check it out:

Jon-Jon charges ten dollars at the door. Brad lingers around me at all times. Becca, who tells me what to do via text message, is too busy hanging out with people she never gets to hang out with; it's because she's in the same room as them—guess who drew in the popular crowd? yup—that she gets that chance.

She's making the most of it.

Blaire isn't here. She'd never show up for something like this. It goes way over her head. Also, she's sure as hell still holding a grudge. The other day, when she stopped by the lunch table to ask how I was doing, she left before I could really say anything. She goes and texts me later like I'm a charity case, like she knows something I don't. I haven't bothered to text or call—figure she wouldn't answer even if I did.

Brad speaks for me: “Yeah, bro, here's the man, the main man!”

Jon-Jon takes bets for the big séance or summoning that's going to happen later.

People walk up to me, usually one by one, but also there are times when it's a whole group. By now they aren't even remembering the running part. They're all focused on H. Well, to them it's just “the demon.” They are all fixated on the demon. They start by saying stuff like, “What's it like?” Some flat-out ask me stupid stuff like, “Can you get it to slap me in the face?” One girl who said we were in a class together last semester keeps asking me whether demons are like people and have all the same organs, limbs, and, yeah, “genitalia.” Sick, I think, but I say the one thing I say to everyone: “Yeah.”

“Yeah” to the question about experiencing a cold chill.

“Yeah” to the person who asks me if it's true, that being haunted means things go “bump in the night.”

“Yeah” to the one who asks if they can get drunk around me (i.e., the demon), hoping that being drunk or something will make it easier for the demon to mess with them.

After all that, some stick around making “conversation.” But since we don't have anything in common, and they don't really have a lot to say, it usually ends up with a bunch of gossip or talk about hobbies and news.

This one guy wouldn't go away.

Brad would leave after introducing me to a person, and this guy just sort of latched on and started giving me a lesson on poker—not just any kind of poker, but Texas hold 'em. When he asked me if I'd ever seen a game, I said, “Yeah,” and that launched him into a long, really energetic sort of explanation of this one time he made almost a thousand dollars playing.

Here's where I could've questioned if it was true, because he's young and probably couldn't get into casinos yet. What's the age requirement, anyway?

Here's where I could've helped the conversation by actually saying something else, but instead I sipped from a glass.

But I chose the glass, and that's what I end up thinking about the most.

I think in distant commands—listen, listen, take a sip, listen, listen, look around the room, nod, take a sip—and it's all I can do to keep from walking out on the entire party. This is supposed to be my party, you see, but it's really none of that. It's a number of things, but at the very bottom of the list is me.

I catch Nikki Dillon talking to some guy I don't know.

When I look over at her, she catches me and looks away. So that's how she's decided to treat what happened between us. Nikki's going to ignore me. Makes it easier on me, I guess. I could go over there and strike up a conversation, but that's not me. That's never been me, especially now when I know why she even bothered.

At some point, Becca texts me, “Where are your parents? Should we be worried they'll show?”

I look at the screen blankly, longer than I need to, but it's good because for as long as it looks like I'm texting, I don't have to pretend that I'm interested. I type slowly, “They aren't here. Work.”

I'm not lying. It's true. My parents are at work. They have their own lives. I'm just a small part of it.

Brad runs around the house once, shouting, “Everyone, attention please!” And I know what's about to happen.

Jon-Jon wanders over to the coffee table. Along the way, he grabs my arm, says to me, “How excited are you to make money, on a scale of one to ten, ten being a future millionaire?”

But he doesn't give me time to reply, because he sets down the board on the coffee table. He gets Brad to do all the talking, but Jon-Jon stands there, next to me, all smug and cool and people know him as exactly that: a smug and cool guy. People seem to think it's still all Jon-Jon's thing even though I'm the one haunted, I'm the one who is “hosting” this party.