Listen carefully. You make a sound, then you must be quiet.
I am.
Upstairs, second door on the left.
I thought we were going to haunt the place up.
I would like to speak to Blaire first.
Okay.
I knock on the door.
Okay. The door’s opening...
“Hunter, what are you doing here?”
Let me talk.
Yeah, then talk... you’re not talking. She’s looking at me weird!
“Hey, I needed to get away from things.”
Blaire bites her lower lip. “And you chose me?”
“We’re friends. Where else would I go?”
Blaire opens the door all the way, and I notice that she’s in a nightgown. What time is it, anyway? It’s all the same day since this really started. It’s like I don’t even sleep anymore.
You do, but when you are asleep I am awake. Thus, we are constantly in motion.
“I don’t know. I figured Brad’s or Jon-Jon’s.”
“You are my only real friend.”
She blushes a little.
There’s always been some history between us. If it weren’t for Becca, we’d probably have ended up together.
It is never too late.
You’re right.
Blaire walks back into her room, sitting on her bed.
Where do you want to sit?
Let’s remain standing. For full effect.
Blaire starts brushing her hair. “How far along are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t be alone at this point. It’s probably with you right now.”
“Not an issue.”
“I didn’t say it was. Based on how you look, yeah, the demon’s definitely progressed and wearing you down.”
“If that were true, then why do I feel better than ever?”
Blaire yawns. “It just seems that way.”
“I simply need to know that I can come here if I need to hide.”
Blaire sets her brush down. “What are you hiding from?”
“I want to know that I can count on you.”
Blaire checks her phone. “Of course. You shouldn’t have to ask.”
“Oh, but I do.”
What are you getting at?
In time, friend, in time. We must be aware of whom we can trust.
Blaire lies down, pulling the covers over her body.
She’s not even a little bit afraid. Yeah, when everyone’s saying I’m possessed and going to die, seeing her act like I’m normal makes all the difference. It weirds me out, actually. I guess I got used to everyone just saying I’m messed up, you know?
Indeed.
Blaire says, “You can stick around if you want. There’s a guest bedroom that my parents never ever check.”
“That’s very kind of you to offer, but I’ve decided it would be best to leave. I simply wanted to stop by to see you.” To meet you.
“I bet. You came here to haunt me, right?”
Um...
She waves at something.
She’s waving at you.
Perhaps. No, she is.
“You... both can trust me. I already told you before, everyone deals with the possession differently. It’s not just about taking it as far as you can; everyone deals with change their own way.”
“I understand.”
“No”—Blaire closes her eyes—“I know you get it. But, well, I guess I’m just a little jealous.”
Another yawn.
“I just don’t really know if I can start from scratch. Friends and everything. It seems like an impossible thing, you know? Making a true connection. Everyone’s everywhere but you can’t really count on anyone.”
“You can always count on me.”
“Same here, but, um, that’s why I acted that way.” She shuts off the lights, turns on her side, facing away from me. Then she says, “Oh, and sorry I ditched you on the homework. Hope you didn’t fail.”
At this point, graduation will come and go without a hitch. A C-average will do nothing to prevent the future from happening.
“Good night.”
Blaire returns the greeting. “Night. Maybe I’ll see you in the morning?”
Perhaps we will return later, but for now let us leave.
Yeah.
We have remained here long enough.
I want to haunt someone, and I know who that someone is.
Becca is a totally different person when she’s by herself. She locks her bedroom door and keeps the music turned way high up, so that her parents hate her just a little bit more. I’m like, “Yeah, I totally feel you. I can’t stand her either.” Becca paces back and forth in her room and can’t sit still. She’s on her phone when she’s not on her computer. She doesn’t pick up after anything so clothes, old and new, go all over the floor. She steps on books and other things as she paces, which breaks most, but she can always get a replacement if she really cared about it. This is the person I know, the one that few do. She’s selfish and spends most of her time trying to make sure that she feels popular.
This is the person that people don’t see. I saw it before now. Now you see it too.
Would you like to perform the haunting or would you allow me?
I’m up for both, for whatever.
From up here, this balcony, I can see everything.
First it starts with a cold spot or something, nothing special. I tap on the window too, loud enough that she looks up and tries to figure out what it is. She doesn’t so I tap again, harder this time.
It’s starting to get cold in there.
Becca stops texting whoever it is she’s texting and goes to her computer. She searches for causes of cold spots. Really?
Another text message. She’s been texting people, talking about me, saying things like, “I really don’t know, like, if he can be helped,” and “No, he’s not doing so well,” and “You can see it in his eyes, they’ve changed color.” Maybe some of that is true, but what’s even truer than that is the fact that she’s going to freak out when she notices that her room’s been cleaned.
I’m still amazed that you can do all this.
If it can be visualized, it can be moved, marked, erased.
Becca looks up from the screen and then sees it. She shrieks, trembling like something out of a typical horror movie. She grabs for her phone like it’s going to help her.
She dials a number.
It’s her mom.
Her mom is downstairs.
How is this reasonable?
“Mom, I need help.”
The mom says something and then Becca’s teeth begin to rattle. It’s getting real cold in there.
The mom’s not going to be able to open the door. It’s locked and it’ll stay locked.
The mom’s like, “Honey, open the door.”
“I can’t.”
“Honey, I can’t help you if you don’t open the door.”
Becca shouts, “I can’t!”
I think about doing this thing where she finds out that it’s me.
More tapping on the glass.
If I tap hard enough, the glass could shatter. Maybe she can catch a glimpse of me right before it happens. I think it’s a good idea. So when it happens, I know that she knows, and I know that you think I should be subtle, would maybe be better if it was. But it’s cool, right?
It is yours to choose.
Yeah, but now she’s not as scared. She’s saying my name.
Becca shivers and stands at the broken window, looking for me. I’m not there, not anymore. How about a little knocking on the door from the other side, but when Becca finally opens the door, no one is there? Yeah, that works.
By now she’s really shouting my name. She’s really pissed.
“Hunter!”
The mom didn’t notice that she never got that call from Becca. That didn’t happen; it was erased from the way this all happens.
I’m having
a hard time trying to figure out what I want to do. It’s like I can do anything I want, but at the same time there’s only a few options.
You can do precisely what feels right. If the moment passes, you run the risk of never being able to think of the idea again. Hence the reason for opening and closing doors, cold spots, and other means. It is the bare minimum of what can be performed. Yet it is often that the different performances are lost before they can be used.
I want her to really be afraid. It’s like revenge. This is like a revenge scenario in one of those international movies. An Asian film where the main character always ends up obsessed with revenge. That’s what this is.
“Hunter!”
She’s looking for me down the hall, but I’ll make it so that she thinks she’s really wandering downstairs, and when she gets there, the mom is gone. Everyone’s gone. She’s home alone. In a flash, the smell of dinner being cooked and the sound of the television on downstairs just... disappears.
Now she’s really scared.
Now she’s starting to wonder if she’s actually haunted.
But she pushes back too.
She runs upstairs and hides in a closet. She starts dialing 911 but then realizes that doing something like that would be stupid, so she calls Father Albert.
Father Albert picks up.
“He’s here,” she whispers.
“Calm down, dear. Explain what you are experiencing.”
“He’s here.” Becca has trouble slowing her heartbeat. “Hunter’s here. This needs to happen now. You, like, can’t wait another day.”
Before anything else can be said, let’s just say the battery dies.
Should have charged the phone.
She stays in the closet, not sure of what to do.
My name’s a whisper now, “Hunter...” but I’m standing on the other side of the door. I’ve got my hand on the doorknob.
I turn it slowly, opening the door an inch. Just enough so that when she looks up, she sees one eye, peeking in. She’s hysterical, screaming and crawling up against a back corner of the closet.
I stare at her for just one moment and then I walk away, making sure each step is really loud. Thump, thump, thump, slow, just like that.
It seems stupid to me but it scares her.
So it works.
It is often effective. It conjures up a familiar image of possession in those within earshot.
Her mom will find her. It’ll be like Becca imagined it all, but it’ll be so real. Because it really happened. It’ll be like the dreams I had. It’ll be like how things first started between us. That’s how it happens. And the mom will find Becca in the closet. She will have peed her pants.
It’ll be really embarrassing.
And then the broken window—her mom’s going to be really angry about that. Cold spot disappears and it’s back to normal.
But the fact that the room is clean will help lessen the mom’s anger. Then again, Becca is hard to get along with; her parents just do whatever she wants, get her whatever she wants, because if they didn’t, she’d make their lives a living hell. Like she did with mine.
No one sees the true side of Becca until they really get to know her.
That’s probably true about everyone.
By the time Becca’s able to do anything, I’ll be long gone.
Say the name “Hunter” if you want, but we’re not together, Becca, no matter what you think. Things have changed, and the sooner you can accept it, the better it will be for the both of us. Like, I know there’s better for me out there. I just know it.
Becca, I’ll be just fine.
Not that you really care.
12
I THINK THE ONLY THING THAT SCARES ME NOW IS THAT one day I won’t recognize myself. You know what I mean? Maybe you don’t—you’re mostly the same, right? You’ll do what you can to get people’s attention, kind of like what anyone else does, but most of the time you’re not going to have to fit into stereotypes and archetypes and all that stuff just to get by. I don’t really know why I did it. I’m definitely not doing that anymore. If it means they’re going to call me insane, then fine.
To be quite honest, the same applies to all. You are decreed “insane” and “possessed” for being associated with a demon. The definition of “demon” precedes anything you or I may do to reveal who we truly are.
I guess you’re right.
I mean, I don’t think anyone really wants to be lonely.
It’s damn hard just trying to find someone with common enough interests. Like, I don’t think anyone would ever want to do this with me, haunting people and stuff. But I also guess it wouldn’t be possible in most cases.
People are able to haunt other people. It is yet another part of the stereotyping of the demon to suggest that only “unclean spirits” may possess and extensively influence others.
That’s a good point. Never thought of that. Like, I think Becca possessed me. She really made every decision and did everything and wouldn’t ever really listen to me whenever I wanted to speak. It was like she was a second mom or something. And Mom’s sort of the girlfriend, which is really strange to say.
Indeed. I see the resemblance of possession: the individual unable to control himself.
Then is what’s happened here, you and me, considered possession if I’m actually still myself?
I would think not, although conventional wisdom would deem the entire thing as an act of you being unwilling to understand the difference between choice and influence.
Huh?
Meaning I am influencing you to such a degree that you haven’t a clue how to tell the difference between suggestion and a true personal choice.
Oh, I feel you. Yeah, like I’m the one who wants to do this, to haunt that asshole Brad. I’m the one who wants to do any of this stuff.
I am enjoying myself too.
Yeah, but, like, you aren’t actually making it so that I am being led on or something. I made a choice and you’re my friend. That’s all there is to it.
Indeed. Might I ask about this fellow, Bradley Vola, and the reason for your distaste?
Oh, he’s just always been so much like the people I can’t stand. He’s loud, thoughtless, and we’re, like, exact opposites. I guess he stuck around just because it seemed like we were fast friends. I didn’t think so, but then again I didn’t think I’d still be hanging with him all the way to senior year.
Yet here we are.
Yeah, but see what I mean?
Devouring food and getting all excited about a sports game and drinking beer alone.
Quite a few people enjoy sports. I’m not saying it’s cool—just that it’s all he’s got. And girls, he goes wild about girls, talking about them when really he’s never been with one.
Brad is a lonely individual.
Yeah, but who isn’t? So anyway, how are we going to go about this? I don’t think he should see me. Think it’ll be better to just keep it all casual and ominous and stuff.
Indeed. I will follow your lead.
Okay, cool.
Brad takes in a mouthful of chips and then rinses it down with beer. It’ll wreck him later in life if he doesn’t stop, but he’s also the kind of guy that couldn’t care less. He’s got that nervous energy that keeps him active. He runs around the room whenever something happens in the game. Since there’s a lot happening, there’s a lot of running.
Didn’t expect him to be home by himself.
But that’s not really important. He’s home and he’s paying attention to the TV. So that’s how it starts. The TV shuts off.
He’s like, “The fuck?”
He uses the remote to turn it back on.
Wait a minute or so and then the TV goes back off.
This time he bangs around the remote against his palm, the coffee table, before it works again.
The third time the TV shuts off it’s going to stay off. He’ll be really annoyed. It’s a big game. Every game for Brad is a big game when he p
uts all of his emotions, good and bad, into it.
Indeed. Bradley Vola invests in the sport. The opposing team represents his insecurities. The favored team represents his sense of hope that his worries will wear away, turning into good rather than bad.
Yeah, he’s eating his emotions. He’s basically fixating on the game like it’s the only thing that matters. He’s, like, got nothing to look forward to. I always knew him as being fake, wearing all that enthusiasm and energy like he’d never burn out.
But he’s beyond that—totally burned out.
It’s kind of pathetic, seeing this. I mean, I know from being around him enough. He pretends that he’s okay even to himself. He’s not even honest with himself.
People have a tendency to project themselves onto others.
Yeah. And that’s back to the whole possession thing.
Indeed.
What happens to Brad when he can’t watch the game? He goes around the house royally pissed. He goes into the kitchen and kind of just stands there. Then he goes on his phone and tries to find the score.
But those round-by-round stat scores aren’t the same.
Phone pocketed, he runs upstairs, but there won’t be light up there.
Worse, there’ll be a stench.
That kind of symptom isn’t used as much. Probably because it can be easily made into just some kind of, I don’t know, dead animal or something.
I want Brad to really be Brad. I want to just, I don’t know, make Brad just not be fake, and be vulnerable for once. I really don’t care if I really freak him out, not like I did with Becca. Didn’t waste any time with her. She deserved it. I felt vengeful, you know? I just wanted revenge. But the way Brad can care so much about something as small as a game, I don’t know, it worries me. It kind of makes me want to stop and leave him be.
But we’re already here. It’s going. He’s on his laptop in the dark because the lights aren’t working and he’s online watching a live stream of the game. Will he notice if I stand behind him?
Will he notice if I get closer?
Will he notice if there’s a glare on the laptop screen and you can see me there, in the glare?
I said I wanted to keep me out of this. Just sort of keep it about the haunting, and not about the fact that I am haunting him. Sort of making it seem more like he maybe got a demon too.
Falter Kingdom Page 20
