The Unnamed Press
P.O. Box 411272
Los Angeles, CA 90041
Published in North America by The Unnamed Press.
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © 2016 by Michael J. Seidlinger
ISBN: 978-1-944700-22-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016947150
This book is distributed by Publishers Group West
Cover and interior art by Alycea Tinoyan
Design and typesetting by Jaya Nicely
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are wholly fictional or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Permissions inquiries may be directed to [email protected].
“You get the invitation, man?”
“No, but you’d think I’d get one. It’s my exorcism.”
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
PROLOGUE
Everyone I know is already talking in the past tense, going on and on about how this is all going to end soon. I hear it in the halls before class. I hear it when we should be trading homework. I hear it in the invites I get to graduation parties. I hear it from Becca whenever we do anything.
“You can’t forget, Hunter. This is way serious.”
Like I’m really going to forget.
It’s all I can think about anymore.
I’m told everywhere I turn that these years were the best years of my life. Our reign as seniors coming to an end, and here we are. But the way everyone’s saying it, it sounds like this is the best it’ll ever get.
It can’t be that serious.
But the more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense. Maybe I’m underselling it.
Give it enough thought and I can basically warm up to any idea. Even if I don’t really feel like it’s serious, thinking about it a lot will make it stick. It will make it real serious.
School is almost over.
In the fall, I won’t be walking up the narrow steps to Meadows; I’ll be walking up the narrow steps that lead to the student union building at State. Think about that. Really try to let it sink in.
Yeah, I guess it’s pretty final, huh?
“I can’t believe we’re graduating. Like a month from now.”
I’m chatting with Becca. We’re always talking online.
She’s my girlfriend so it shouldn’t be weird. But sometimes it is. Well, not weird. It’s just kind of annoying. I like to sign out for a few minutes, just to cut out, and then sign back in. Becca thinks my house has shitty Internet. It’s an excuse that’s held and, man, I want it to hold on tight.
But we’ve been going since almost the beginning of high school. Nothing’s changed since she asked me out toward the middle of freshman year. It’s been good. And it’s been a while, yeah. She’s gotten used to me and, really, I’ve gotten used to her. Even the things I can’t stand.
Same as anything else:
If I think about it enough, I get used to it.
“You never did ask me to prom...”
“It’s like a few weeks away right?”
I watch the little icon flicker once, twice. It means Becca typed something but deleted it and started again. It also means she didn’t like what I said and now I’m going to have to be the one who fixes things.
“You’re still going to ask right?” She adds an emoji, a teary-eyed cat.
I look at the paused unboxing video, wanting so much to just watch the rest of it. Kind of ruins the enjoyment factor when I’m interrupted.
I look at myself in the mirror hanging above my bed. It takes a second for me to realize that the person I’m seeing in the mirror is me. With time and aging, I can almost grow a full five o’clock shadow. Know what that means?
That means a full beard. That means whatever it means.
Becca won’t let me grow a beard, just like she won’t let me grow my hair out. I thought about letting it grow long, earlier this year. I’m a senior, I should kind of look older than I am, you know? Give my plain brown hair/brown eyes look a little face-lift.
But yeah, I keep my hair short and face shaved. Becca’s preference.
I look away from my reflection, plain looks and all, and push that thought aside. Get to fixating on that stuff just makes it harder to deal with life.
Life is constant.
It won’t let me just kick back and watch unboxing videos online.
I send her an emoji, a winking dog wearing a suit.
She replies, “?” and then “WTF.”
I guess it doesn’t make much sense. I thought it looked like I was holding back a secret. Like saying, Never know when I’ll pop the question. “Pop the question.” Sounds like we’re getting married.
That’s another thought to push aside.
I type, “Surprise. It’ll be a surprise.”
Becca types, “It better,” winking smiley where the period should be.
I stare at what she just typed, fingers light on the keys.
The winking smiley. Can’t stand the winking smiley. Becca uses it a lot.
I go back to the tab with the unboxing video. I stare at the paused frame. I look at the time on my phone.
Three A.M. It’s the weekend. Tomorrow’s—well, technically today’s—Sunday. Don’t have school, but that wouldn’t change much.
I’m not much of a sleeper. I’ll stay up as late as I can when I want to. I stay up even later on the nights when I need to get the most rest.
Go figure.
But that’s my cue to exit. It’s my go-to excuse, “Got to go.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of late.” And then she types, “Can’t believe it’s really happening. We’re graduating.”
I tell her, “Yeah. So crazy. Night.”
“Love you,” she types, with the heart emoji added.
I do the same, from practice. I don’t even need to think about it. It’s typed, right there on-screen.
Then I sign out and go back to the video clip.
My night begins when there’s no one else who I need to talk to. Don’t have to keep up appearances; it’s just the glow of the computer screen and me. It’s just this room and me. Being here is sort of a sanctuary, late at night.
I like watching the unboxing videos the most. But other videos—especially video game walk-throughs and retro stuff—work just as well. Most popular videos on the site are music videos and other trending pop culture stuff. But I skip even the recommended viewing clips. I just like the simple stuff.
Kind of wish I got ahold of some beer earlier. Mix these videos, beer, and the quiet of a darkened room and that’s about as close as I can get to feeling calm.
But yeah, there’s something medicinal about unboxing videos. The best are the ones where they take their time, cutting through the cellophane all carefully, meanwhile treating even the inserts and thin brochures that come with the camera, or phone, or game system, as equal as the fragile new device.
This is one of those videos. I’ve watched it before.
Watching the guy pull the phone out from its factory-sealed bag, I can almost forget about graduation. I can almost forget about all the insanity that’s getti
ng around at school.
But there are some things I can’t quite push from my mind.
Like, okay, I could really talk, and I mean really talk, about the stuff I find so fascinating, the stuff I won’t even talk about here. I can do that, but whenever I do it’s kind of like seeing people’s eyes glaze over.
I’m not even saying anything insane, at least I don’t think I am, but it happens. I talk a different kind of talk and suddenly no one’s listening.
That’s society. That’s life.
That’s what I think about at three A.M., when sober and streaming videos instead of sleeping.
It’s best to just keep to things that work, things that everyone can relate to and talk about. With so many views on this unboxing video, I think it’s pretty smart to say that I’m not the only one watching unboxing videos. I’m not the only one vegging out on streamed videos.
We’re all doing it. Some of us just aren’t getting the most out of it.
Everyone’s enamored (I love that word), but no one’s making the most of what these videos can do. No one’s really connecting with the existential (another word I love) power of these videos. It’s not just the opening of a brand-new phone or game system; it’s a glimpse of the future. It’s like every single thing that’s being opened is the first in what’ll be one long life of ownership and possession. And, man, there’s something so compelling about being there for that first look. Okay, now I sound like I’m insane.
My eyes half open, I bring the laptop with me to bed, under the covers, and I can almost forget about graduation. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the kind of stuff I’ve been trying to ignore all day. I see the kind of stuff that started this morning.
This time it’s the bedroom door opening by itself.
It started with one of my mom’s vases found shattered to pieces in the hall. Mom thought it was me, stumbling half asleep at night, who broke it. I’m not that clumsy. Still, she installed night-lights in the hallway like they would help.
The door cracks open, maybe three inches, just enough to see one of the night-lights: no one at the door.
The door closes as gently as it opened, the sound of the door clicking back into place.
The whole thing lasts maybe ten minutes. But yeah, some things I can’t just push aside. Some things make it harder to veg out on videos.
Stuff’s been happening all day. It’s all so exhausting to think about.
What’s causing it, well, yeah, about that...
I’ll get to it. Just let me watch one more video.
1
IT WAS AN HOUR OR SO BEFORE SCHOOL LET UP FOR THE weekend, but Brad, Blaire, Steve, and I were late for final period so were like, Fuck it, and walked the trail that led from Meadows through to the southern tip of the city and beyond. Walk far enough and you’ll see all the buildings let up and some sense of a forest pulling in, taking over.
The spring weather in full effect, I felt pretty good. Getting out of final period made this work for me so damn well.
The fact that Brad always has a cooler full of beer in the trunk of his car didn’t hurt either. I usually wait until someone cracks one open before cracking into my first, but that day, it was different.
“You guys hear?”
Brad was driving me crazy, spreading gossip like an attention whore, a walking tabloid.
Brad brought along some dude I don’t really know named Steve, and they were going on and on about the latest on Nikki.
Nikki Dillon. She’s the “hot” girl—has been since sophomore year.
Nikki Dillon—the one who seemed to have a new guy every week. Not because she slept around; the world knows it’s more like she just lets guys audition to play that role. Doubt anyone ever gets in her pants, which makes the whole world only want to know more, everyone talking about the latest.
Like clockwork, I’d hear about it just like I was hearing about it now.
Brad with the “Yo, so I heard from Kev who heard from James who heard from Greg,” and then it goes on like that, a stepped-on piece of gossip that I shouldn’t care about.
But it’s Nikki.
Everyone is at least somewhat interested in hearing about the latest on Nikki. And Blaire is no different. Blaire’s been a bud of mine since sixth grade. She and I might have given it a shot if: 1) I hadn’t met Becca, and 2) Blaire lost that thing I can’t stand. She has this way about her that makes it so that we never get along. Let me make better sense of it.
I mean, Blaire’s great. She does my homework and I do hers for the subjects where we falter, the stuff I’ll never need and the stuff she’ll pledge, later in life, to be against (she thinks extracurricular activities are a waste of time).
Blaire just, I don’t know, seems to see through the front I put up. And by “front” I mean I’m usually not really listening to people.
It’s okay.
It’s true... I’m really not.
I kind of do this thing where I listen, but I’m also paying more attention to how the conversation works. There’s a sense to every conversation, even the ones that are nonsense. There’s a rise and fall to everything said, and there’s momentum that I pay attention to all the time, watching where it’ll go next. And on that day, hearing Brad tell us about Nikki’s latest guy, I listened but I also sipped from a can of beer. And beyond that, I walked the trail, my gaze to the ground, listening to how Brad and Steve traded gossip that couldn’t be true with this sort of mutual enthusiasm that I almost felt jealous about not having.
But I had the beer so I had a perfectly good excuse.
Blaire looked at me, that judging look.
I offered a can. “Want one?”
“Um, yeah, okay.”
I knew what she was thinking. “What?”
Blaire shook her head. “Nothing.”
Here we go again. Either I kept asking or she’d just tell me.
I took another gulp.
She didn’t even open her can.
Blaire sighed. “I’m just saying, when are you going to tell her?”
Why now? But then why did I even need to ask? I already had the answer: because it’s Blaire. She brings up whatever she wants whenever she wants. It’s probably why she’s stuck around. Persistence makes for someone who isn’t easy to ignore. It’s complicated.
“I figure it’s almost graduation,” I told her.
“That’s disgusting.” Blaire made a face. “Ugh.”
“She’s going up north and I’m staying here going to State. It’ll work itself out naturally.”
Blaire rolled her eyes. “I don’t get you, Hunter. I really don’t.”
There probably wouldn’t be a whole lot to get if we really got along. But Blaire has always been sort of my opposite. If she were in my shoes, she would have ended things with Becca weeks after going steady.
Where am I? I’m years in, putting in time.
But, you know.
Maybe you don’t.
That’s kind of why I’m going on about what happened on this day.
Yeah, well, we walked the trail to the point where it ends and it’s all just trees and, even at high noon, you get, at best, an inch of light before it’s all shadows. This is where we all used to go to get scared. All the grade school kids hung around this forested zone back when shadows were all we needed to get our thrills. But little do the kids know that if you keep walking south, you’ll end up in a clearing that really shouldn’t be there. You don’t really see it coming until you clear the last patch of trees. It’s a muddy pasture pockmarked with rocks and beer cans and other garbage. Footprints in the mud all over the place.
I couldn’t tell you how often this place becomes the scene of a killer party. We’re talking some of the best I can remember. I can’t really remember any one party in particular, but yeah, it’s usually half the school, bonfires and plenty of what we need to get mellow.
During those parties, everyone can almost be the same person.
But the clearing was
n’t where we were going that day. We had somewhere else far more secluded in mind.
You keep walking south, pushing past a water tower and that one abandoned car without wheels or axles, totally shot to shit, full of bullet holes—eventually you’ll get there.
This is the place.
Falter Kingdom.
I’ll try to explain it. It’s kind of a simple picture, nothing really wrong with it. You might see it and think, “So? Just another place where high school kids chill and smoke.” But the first clue is how it should be a sewer tunnel but it’s too big to be one. The concrete opening is the size of a car tunnel, and looking in you see nothing but darkness.
That darkness, it doesn’t let up.
Someone painted a crown around the opening of the tunnel. You can see the black paint, the spikes of the crown, from really far away. It has something to do with the lore, what people say about it.
I’ve been here a number of times but I’ve never taken part.
The thing about Falter Kingdom is that it’s not just any tunnel. The tunnel is full of darkness and it goes on and on and on, without end. People say that initially it was supposed to be part of the city subway system, but the mass transit authority discovered that, a couple miles in, there was a weak point, a sort of fissure. The fissure released all sorts of frequencies and energies and stuff. That’s what you get when people turn spirituality into hard science.
People used to play around with the thought that there was another plane of existence, probably because ours was too much of a bummer to be the only one. Everyone knew ghosts existed; they’d speak to you if you dared to listen. But demons want what people want, whatever that means.
Nearly half of the employees working on the tunnel attracted demons. Like anywhere else, the demon chooses you and you’ve got no choice. It latches on to you and you don’t have a whole lot of options.
Back then, it was really expensive to get rid of them. You couldn’t just call up a priest and get exorcized. You had to fill out a ton of paperwork, go to a number of experts and stuff. By the time they could get rid of it, there was basically only the demon left, the person gone, fully possessed.
So that’s how the legend goes. The legend of Falter Kingdom.
Falter Kingdom Page 1
