Falter Kingdom (6 page)

I'm not so familiar with all this demon stuff, okay? I know what everyone knows, but none of the specifics. So when I tell them that it won't work, they ask why. I say something like, “It's back at home.”

“What is back at home?” Jon-Jon asks.

“You know...”

Brad's like, “What? What is it, bro?”

“The demon.”

Then there's laughter.

And then Jon-Jon talking down to me: “The demon's right here.”

“Yeah, bro, the demon is attached to you, not some house.”

Jon-Jon takes his phone back from me. “We're going to make a lot of money. And you owe me for that little fib.”

I guess he's got me there. I owe him a lot. Not just talking about the money I haven't paid him back yet.

“There's a party,” Jon-Jon tells me, “it's for the upper crust. Talking the heavy buyers, heavy hitters. It won't be just Meadows kids. You're going.”

“I'm going,” I say.

Brad asks, “Am I going?”

Jon-Jon clicks his tongue. “I think you'll sit that one out. Our friend here is going to help me out.”

I want to ask him what he's got in mind, and I start, but he interrupts: “We'll talk about it later.”

Reach for an excuse or something. Think, think, think: I don't want to be a part of whatever local ring Jon-Jon's got going on. Think...

“You know I'll have to bring Becca.”

Jon-Jon looks at me straight-faced. “Don't let the ball and chain know.”

I don't really know what to say. I'm speechless. And then the bell rings.

Brad says, “Bro, I... think we should go, know what I mean?”

Jon-Jon watches me.

Here's where I have to ask, just to get it out of the way, and in this moment, it's almost like I need to ask: “What's your deal?”

Jon-Jon blinks. “My deal?”

“Yeah, your deal.”

“I deal drugs. I deal vice. I deal what needs to be dealt to survive.”

“Why here, why to us?”

Jon-Jon clicks his tongue. “Every circle needs its line.”

I want to be like,
What the hell does that mean?
but Brad grabs me by the arm and says, “Bro, seriously, quit this shit.”

Jon-Jon says, “Listen to Brad. Brad isn't always stupid.”

Brad's like, “Man... that's low.”

But we got to go, he's right.

Jon-Jon says, “Remember—be fashionably late. Only way this works.”

There's a party—one that I would never be invited to if I was just Hunter. But I ran into a tunnel and I'm being haunted by something insane, and probably becoming insane all at once... and people love me for it. I can feel myself tensing up. I can feel myself snapping. It's so damn strange to see.

I can feel everything changing. The weirdest part is that, besides what makes me feel... what I can't even really explain...

I'm starting to like it.

There's this one video that I keep going back to. It's only a few minutes long and it's actually not an unboxing video or whatever. I'm not sure what makes it any different from the others, but after, like, four million views, people seem to have made it something totally different. In the video, there's a person in a rabbit costume flailing around like an idiot. At first you think the person's drunk, but then you see them cough up blood, like a lot of blood, and then you are like, “Okay, I know what's happening.” Lots of these videos online. Lots of people call it possession porn but I don't see anything pornographic about it. It's not even really shocking. It's sad. That's what it is. Sad.

The video is only a few minutes long but it doesn't really get good until the end, when the person holding the camera turns out to be the person in the costume. It doesn't make any sense, but sure enough, that's the case.

I've read some of the comments. One calls it an example of “late-stage possession,” while another comment calls it “hot.” The comment that caught my eye is the one that explains how this is “late stage, usually the last, when disembodiment is a common occurrence.”

So this is the kind of stuff I have to look forward to?

I end up watching it twice every time I go back to it. Not sure if the site counts repeated viewings into the tally of views. If so, I'm probably responsible for, like, three hundred of those views.

I have to turn the volume up so that I don't hear the scratching sound coming from inside the wall.

Even with two hoodies on, it's still really, really cold in my room.

No, you never get used to it.

I found these gloves in my parents' room. It makes it kind of hard to type but at least I can type. Before, my fingers would have trouble
hitting the right keys. Oh, and blowing into your hands and rubbing them together totally doesn't ever work. It's a waste of time. Hands don't get warm that way.

I watch the rabbit video a third time, mostly because the music drowns out the scratching noises really well.

It's kind of why I'm watching videos right now. I mean, I watch videos a lot. So what? But it's also really easy to stare at a screen and block everything else out around you.

I keep thinking about today at school and feeling strange because I know that they're all paying attention because of what happened, not because we actually know each other. I'm just a guy in the yearbook like everybody else. But it's like they'll remember me for being one of the people who ran and “won.”

I don't think I've won anything.

This part isn't fun. The cold. The fact that stuff in my room is moving around. I'll find things where I didn't leave them. Kind of like what happened with my phone, but yeah, that hasn't happened again. Fingers crossed it won't.

But I'll leave, um, like a book on the bedside table and I'll wake up and then I'll be at school, putting stuff in my locker, and the book will be in my bag. It happened with a
Penthouse
I had too. Actually, that happens a lot.

Hmm. Well, okay. What else am I going to say?

Porn's around. It's there. I shouldn't feel weird about it. But yeah, I do. I don't want anyone to know that I actually own issues of
Penthouse.
That's, like, really trying... next level stuff because everything's online now.

People, yeah, they text me a lot. It's like I got into the college I wanted to get into and everyone's happy for me.

Okay, it happened again.

I don't dig this. It's the worst part so far.

The footsteps around my bed and the feeling that I'm being watched—both of those symptoms combined make this really horrible. Make me almost not want this to go on. Make me almost question why I was stupid enough to let this slide for a few days.
The footsteps are loud and near, so even when I listen to full-album streams, I still hear it. And it's not even just “hearing” it, you know?

It's like I can sense the footsteps.

They feel like shivers without the actual shivering.

Doesn't really make a lot of sense, I guess. But that's how it feels.

Hey, look, a new unboxing video for that new video game console. This is something to savor. I kind of don't want to watch it right away. I want to save it, open it up in a new tab and leave it there for later. Like there might not be another good unboxing video, I just want it to be there, something to look forward to, something that isn't more footsteps.

But the footsteps start walking toward the door.

The footsteps sound like they are coming from above.

The volume's as loud as it's going to go. My ears should be hurting. I think they are. Maybe. But I'm really focused on ignoring the symptoms.

Sure, I know, demon, you're there. But you can't keep me from living my life. And I have a life. There's a fuck-ton of videos I haven't viewed yet.

Like this one here that I couldn't care less about but I'm going to watch it because it's going to be really, really loud.

This haunting stuff is so annoying that it's making me deaf.

But okay, the video isn't any good.

And I'm kind of curious, actually. I crack my knuckles and think about it, think about if I've ever been up to the attic. I don't think so. I didn't even know the house had an attic. The footsteps are in twos, one-two, stop, one-two, stop... I pause the video and listen with my headphones still on.

Are you hearing this, Mom? Dad?

But no, they probably aren't, because they're not even home. Go figure.

The footsteps continue until they stop. And where do they stop...?

Takes a second to get it right. Put two and two together, or whatever the saying is. When I figure it out, I wish it wasn't true, or that I even paid any attention to it. The footsteps stop right above me,
above my bed. I look up and it's like it's looking down at me from above. It's trying to get me to go up there, like a dare or something. What's in it for me? I mean, really?

Beyond everyone suddenly paying attention to me.

Beyond everything strange and confusing that's happening.

I want to still be me. Not that anyone around me would understand what that means. I just want to be able to sit in my room and watch videos. I want to be able to jerk off without the door opening and closing. I want to be able to take care of myself without my parents or Becca telling me what to do. I just want to be me, you know? And that might not be very cool or interesting, but then I kind of think that most people aren't really very interesting when you break them down. They do the same couple of things and that's it.

But yeah, I have to go up to the attic.

I have to because I just know I'll keep thinking about it, wondering about it, until I do. I mean, it's right above me. How am I going to sleep? I already have trouble with that, and now I've got something, like, I don't know, looming from above.

Next question then is if I should take my laptop with me. I feel like I should, but then I think about how bad it'll be on the battery if I unplug it for, like, the ten minutes it'll take me to check the attic only to end up plugging it back in. That's how battery life dies.

So then I think maybe the phone. Yeah, the phone because I'll need light up there. Attics probably don't have light, especially at night.

Okay, so I'm heading up there.

Living my life.

I am. I'm heading up there. I keep all the lights on in my room, in the hallway, every room. The house is lit up like Christmas but it's still dark in the attic. Random thought: Why is every ladder to every attic made of cheap, creaky wood? It creeps me out. I'll admit it. It does.

Living my life.

There's nothing in the attic.

I shine the light around and see nothing, shining it quick, like a once-over, because deep down I don't want to see anything. Worse
is I don't want to feel anything. Still, I make each step and I end up in the attic.

Apparently I'm not alone.

There's something in here.

The creaky floorboards match the creaky ladder.

Each step echoes out, not like a usual echo but like there's something taking a step forward whenever I do. It's coming from behind me, the steps.

I won't look. I won't look. I won't look.

The area above my room, my bed, is right over there. But that's where Dad dumped all the boxes of old VHS tapes, movies, albums, and other junk no one uses anymore. Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe it's over there...

No, but then shining the light across the dark attic, I start to see things.

I'm going to say that it's my imagination messing with me, but that's a bunch of bullshit because it's obvious what it is.

I've seen it as a shape out of the corner of my eye, seen it in the shower. Now I see it standing not three or four steps away from me. I shine the light in that direction, thinking I'm fearless, but when I do that it's gone. It was a shape though. Some kind of dark mass.

Living my life.

I'm leaving the attic.

That's enough; there's nothing here.

No more, no fucking more.

I'm hating myself right now. I'm really hating the situation. It's messing with me, that's what it's doing. When I leave the attic, the lights are off in the house. All of them, every single one, except for the lights in my bedroom.

I mumble, “You're messing with me,” because I don't want to shout it out. I read somewhere that demons feed on your energy. If it's negative, they feed on the negativity and turn it into their own counterattack.

I'm not up for a fight. I just want everything to stay the same. But I also like that things are different. I'm confused.

I stand in the hallway for a long time, gripping on to my phone.

It's just... well, I know something's going to happen if I walk into that room. The lights are on for a reason. In the dark of the hallway, I feel safer than being in my bedroom. But then again, I can't just not go into my room. It's
my
room. If I let it scare me out of my own room, then I'm not really living my life and everything's changed. My future involves going back into this room.

I know I will, but right now, it's just so hard to step inside.

I'm letting it all get to me. The symptoms are at their worst when I'm home alone. Being home alone is the most frightening thing imaginable.

I'll say it. Might as well say it.

That's the truth. Better to be lost in some big crowd or something than to be in a house all by yourself.

Then it makes a sound. Sort of a whisper, but I don't know what it's saying.

I'm not alone. I'm not alone in this house.

It's in my room, isn't it? I know it's in there, but I'm not going to lose it. I'm going inside like it's just another night.

Living my life.

First thing I notice when I finally stop being a wuss and I walk inside: it's not cold in my room anymore. The cold has shifted. Don't know where it is, but it's not here. Also, my laptop.