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.
I’m kicking myself for it because I sort of knew it would happen. I mean, I remember thinking about taking it, like I subconsciously knew something would happen if I left it here. So it’s sort of my fault. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s gone.
My laptop. Where the fuck?
Here’s what I’m talking about when I say it’s exhausting.
I have to look everywhere. There are so many places where the laptop could’ve gone. Then I think about the possibility that it broke the laptop or banished it into the ether of some kind of hell or something.
My life is in that laptop.
I can’t live my life without it.
Just thinking about all of it...
Okay, I sit down on the bed. I take off one of the hoodies because I’m legit sweating now. I maybe close my eyes and maybe fall asleep.
Whenever I start searching for it, like a half hour’s gone and I’m exactly the same: tired, just really tired. Also a little afraid. Definitely confused.
I keep thinking about what the demon might look like. I’m surprised that the more I think about it, trying to form an image out of the bits and pieces I’ve seen, I’m more interested than scared.
That’s normal, right? I really don’t know.
I want it to be normal.
I start from the basement. I hate the basement. Not because it’s scary—it’s really not—but because it’s where my mom has all of her whatever-you-call-them, collectibles, I guess. They’re so stupid but she loves collecting them. They are all figurines of different fantasy and science fiction characters. She doesn’t read and she doesn’t watch any movies, but she buys all the memorabilia. It’s all in this basement. But not my laptop.
I check the kitchen; the dining room; the room some people call the “family room,” which is dusty and has a very cool TV that we never use; every stupid closet (there are too many closets in this house); all the upstairs rooms, including the drawers jammed full of stuff I don’t need to know about; and not the bathroom because fuck that bathroom.
I go back to my room. I go online via my phone and just kind of try to think about something else.
When something like this happens, it’s not like all the movies where the character fights back and everything just falls into place. The laptop is missing and I’m out of options. I’ve looked everywhere and it’s gone.
I start thinking about what to do next. Did I back up my files? Any very personal data on there that I don’t want anyone, or anything, to know about? I think about stuff like that, and it makes me really, really tired.
I sit in bed and then I lie down in bed and then I’m remembering where I’m supposed to be. I’m remembering the party, Jon-Jon’s thing, and I’m remembering something else.
I check my phone. There’s still plenty of time.
Back out in the hallway, I keep the lights off because it’s creepier that way. Actually, I keep them off because I’m too lazy to feel around for the light switch. I go down the stairs and out the door to the recycling bin shoved to the side of our garage.
I pick my laptop up—nope, not wasting any thought on how this could have happened or how I could just know where it was all of a sudden—and I look to see if it’s been scratched, messed up, broken. It’s like it just flew here.
Back in my room, it’s cold again.
Where’s my hoodie? There. Okay.
I open up the laptop. It looks like the screen froze, but no, actually it hasn’t, hmm. Tap a few keys, click around, and the window starts playing a video I’ve never seen before. It’s not something I was watching.
Two guys in a skit, both of them overreacting and freaking out over the simplest things. It’s actually kind of funny.
I pause it a moment but the pause button isn’t working.
The video’s got a mind of its own.
The two guys in the video seem like great friends. I like this video. I hover over the subscribe button and figure, “Why not?”
They practice their secret handshake and it soon gets out of control, one of them being punched in the face. The punch goes right through the other, and that’s where I definitely laugh out loud. Almost no one ever actually does that when they type “LOL,” but in this case, I did. I didn’t even need to type out the acronym.
When the video’s done I try playing it again but it won’t work.
Then the browser crashes.
“Fuck,” I mumble, but thankfully my session is restored. But that tab’s—go figure—missing. It all makes sense even though it also kind of doesn’t. But right about now, I don’t want to be alone with a demon in this house. I know it’s early, not time for that party yet, but I think I’ll just go to a coffee shop or get food somewhere.
I suddenly can’t stand being here, alone with it.
I shiver and am confused by the fact that I can go from being curious to completely afraid just by the way everything feels around me. It’s like... the weight of the air shifts, and at the same time my senses are all out of order. Not like I can feel what I taste, not that sort of thing. Um... it’s more like I can just feel everything more, and my nerves are extra sensitive to anything that happens. My mind is racing too, and that’s really why I want to leave.
It feels like something’s sorting through my thoughts, rearranging them.
I want out. And I guess, this is my opportunity to do just that, even though I won’t really know anyone at the party, and they really want to hang around me only so that they can know more about the demon. What do you tell pe
ople if you, yourself, don’t even really know what it is?
Then I get scared again, by the lone thought that lingers like it was handed to me, dropped right in my brain:
You will.
4
JON-JON WASN’T JOKING ABOUT BEING FASHIONABLY late. When I walk in, everyone’s already watching. They’re like, “Hunter, holy shit, look at you!” And I’m like, “Yeah, you’re looking right at me, what’s up?” But that’s the extent of most of our exchanges. The place is pretty swank for a high school party. But then Jon-Jon said it’s more than that. A lot of people, yup. There’s no way I’m going to be comfortable here. You know that it’s a bad sign when the first thing you think about when getting to the party is how you desperately want to leave.
Ha, and I want to even more when Jon-Jon spots me.
“Hunter, excellent,” he says, and gestures for me to sit with him at a table.
What is this place, I mean really? That’s what I want to know. It’s a ballroom but it’s also a club. It’s a club but it’s in someone’s house.
“Money, isn’t it?” Jon-Jon asks me.
I’m like, What? But really I say, “Yeah.”
What else is there to say?
I’m still thinking about the laptop thing that happened.
I’m thinking about that video.
I’m thinking about the way the two guys acted all genuine, cool, like longtime friends, and for some reason I think about it as fiction instead of it being something real. Those two guys are definitely real but I can’t take it as that. They might as well be comic-book characters or something.
Jon-Jon tells me, “It’s okay. This will be easy money for us. I’ll get people to hang around us, and you just keep them entertained.”
Falter Kingdom Page 6
