How in the world did they get in here without setting off the security system? How? What is it, do these demons possess some sort of supernatural powers where they’re not picked up by electronic sensors? The thought of that has me trembling right now. I can’t believe this. This is too much. Oh God.
I’m better now. I had to stop again to take more slow, deep breaths, and I’ve been doing that for the last several minutes, and it’s helped. I’m not freaking out that much anymore, and I’ve calmed down enough so that I can at least think straight. Demons can’t just slip in through walls and wander houses undetected by a security system. I know they can’t. If they could, Hanley or one of the other demons would’ve visited my room months ago.
Yes, they got inside our house, there’s no denying that, but they didn’t do it through supernatural means. It’s not like we’re the Pentagon. Somehow they figured out how to bypass the security system we use—which probably isn’t all that hard if you know what you’re doing. I’ll do some research later, but not tonight.
Still, no matter how they got into our house—demon power or sheer ingenuity—it’s not good news. But it’s not worth freaking out over, at least not yet. At least not until I know whether they found my journal. They didn’t get into my Mac—I know that. I had the screen password protected, and I can see the most recent login, which was before I left for Quebec City. So at least they didn’t get onto my computer. If they had, they might’ve found the message board where I met Virgil.
I’ll get up early enough tomorrow and check the windows and outside door locks and see if they were tampered with, although I’m not quite sure what to check for. Maybe I can find a website that will give me some ideas.
I’m kicking myself for not thinking ahead and buying spy cameras for my room. If only I had, I’d have Hanley dead to rights—or whatever demon he sent in his place. First chance I get I’m buying some spy cameras. I would order some over the Internet right now, but I can’t afford for my parents to somehow beat me to opening the package. If that happened, they’d be questioning me relentlessly on why I need spy cameras, and as I’ve mentioned before, my dad’s a lawyer. When he gets his hooks into you, he doesn’t give up until he’s satisfied that he has squeezed every drop of truth out of you.
Anyone reading this can clearly see that I’m writing this entry on loose sheets of paper. That’s because I haven’t retrieved my journal yet from where I hid it in the basement. Three thirty in the morning before we left for Quebec City, I snuck down into the basement. I had set my alarm for then, so I’d be sure my parents were asleep before I attempted to smuggle my journal out of my room. All I can do now is hope that that precaution paid off. God help me if the demons found it down there.
I can hear the showers running, so my parents must be in their respective bathrooms. We got back from our trip only twenty minutes ago. We would’ve been home earlier, but after flying into Logan Airport, my parents wanted to stop in the North End for dinner. I didn’t fight them on it. I was hungry, and any Italian restaurant would give me plenty of vegetarian options. Besides, the North End was one of the places I’d like to do more demon counts. In the past I’ve spotted two demons there. This time none.
While I probably could’ve gone down to the basement already and retrieved my journal, I don’t want to risk running into my parents and having them see how shaky I am. Even now I’m way too shaky to risk it. If they saw me in my current state, they’d question me every bit as relentlessly as if they’d caught me buying spy cameras. Even though I’m not freaking out as much as before, I’m still scared to death, and I’m not going to give them a chance to see me like this. It doesn’t much matter if I wait. If the demons found my journal, I’m dead regardless. There’s no way around it. I accept it. For the record, I’ll be attaching these sheets in the proper place in the journal so anyone finding it can be assured I didn’t write any of my journal out of order, nor did I at any time go back and rewrite or change anything. I’m determined to maintain the integrity of my journal, and it will remain an accurate accounting of my struggles with these demons. No fudging, no rewriting.
Okay. I’m taking another deep breath.
If you’re wondering about my family’s trip to Quebec City, not much of interest to report there. No demon sightings. Not much of anything other than a lot of forced quality time with mom and dad. A lot of walking around. A lot of museums. A lot of eating out. A lot of old buildings, which we have plenty of in Boston. I can’t believe I wasted valuable time with this stupid trip when I could’ve been doing more of what I needed to regarding these demons. I didn’t even have that much time alone at night because of all the running around my parents made me do. But I was able to finish my translation of Daemonologie. More about that later.
Tuesday, September 6th 12:35 AM
I HAVE MY JOURNAL BACK NOW. I WAITED HALF AN HOUR AFTER the lights went out in my parents’ room before sneaking down into the basement, and I found my journal where I had hid it—inside a box of old books, the ones I had as a little kid, well BSD. I can barely remember what it was like to be the carefree kid who read Dr. Seuss and Curious George and Make Way For Ducklings. The box also has books I read later, like The Black Cauldron; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; my Harry Potter books; and the Freddy the Pig books that had originally belonged to my dad and were his favorites—maybe mine, too. My journal was exactly where I’d left it, buried among them, and the safeguards I’d set showed that neither the box nor my journal had been tampered with. All the tension and anxiousness that had been building up inside of me bled out in a rush when I realized my journal was safe. I just sat on the floor and started crying—I couldn’t help it. I was so terrified that the demons had found my journal, and I was equally relieved when I discovered they hadn’t.
That was a half hour ago. Now I’m back in my room writing this entry. So why did I hide the journal in a box of children’s books? My parents have a service clean the house weekly, and they go over it top to bottom dusting everything, so I didn’t have to worry about a lack of dust on the box giving me away, since there isn’t any dust buildup anywhere—not in the basement or elsewhere in the house. I knew my parents wouldn’t be opening up that box unless I was dead—so if something happened to me in Quebec City, they’d find my journal and maybe do something with it. As far as any demon looking inside that box of children’s books, I had a gut feeling that the wholesomeness of those books would repel them. Maybe that had nothing to do with it. Maybe whatever demon broke into the house didn’t have the time to search the basement. Maybe it was just dumb luck that my journal wasn’t found. But I can’t shake the feeling that it was the wholesomeness that kept the demon away from that box and my journal.
So about Daemonologie. Now that I’ve finished my translation, my verdict is mixed. There were a lot of places in Schweikert’s book where he was clearly passing on superstitions and old wives’ tales as fact; or, as my dad likes to say, where he was talking out of his ass. But there were other places where he genuinely seemed to know what he was talking about—like the way dogs and demons are mortal enemies and the strange odor that demons give off—he described that odor exactly as I’ve smelled it. Schweikert also writes about L’Occulto Illuminato as the one true source about demons. He doesn’t mention the book—or even the author—by name, but he describes how this mythological book that was given birth to in Florence (where Galeotti was born and lived his entire life) does in fact exist and says that he procured a translated copy of it. He writes that after reading several passages, Schweikert recognized it instantly as the truth. According to him, this unholy gospel from Florence was stolen from him before he could read more. The last fifty pages of Schweikert’s book chilled me. In these pages Schweikert theorized that after the new millennium, demons disguised as human beings would start to appear in major population areas in the New World for the sole purpose of opening the gates of hell. He didn’t know exactly how they would accomplish this, but suggested that Ga
leotti described their plan in great detail in his L’Occulto Illuminato. Or as Schweikert says in his book:
The dark Oracle, from the same birthplace as the Medici and Leonardo Da Vinci, foretells in his secret book how Satan’s minions will bring about the apocalypses.
When I read this I had no idea who the Medici were, nor where Leonardo Da Vinci was born, but I guessed it was Florence, and a couple of quick Internet searches showed I was right. There’s no doubt about which book Schweikert was referencing. I found it both interesting and disheartening that even in the eighteenth century, L’Occulto Illuminato was only rumored to exist (even if Schweikert claimed to have once seen a translated copy). If the book was that rare and hard to find then, how would I get a copy now?
It’s almost one o’clock in the morning. In five and a half hours I’ll be getting up for my first day as a sophomore in high school. The way I’m feeling right now, I can’t imagine sleeping for even one second, and it has nothing at all to do with being nervous about starting tenth grade.
I should also report that I haven’t received any new private messages from Virgil, which makes me think he’s either a fraud or a demon. He should’ve been able by now to verify the demon I gave him in Revere. There also haven’t been any new developments in the Ginny Cataldo case.
Tuesday, September 6th 10:15 PM
TONIGHT’S ENTRY ISN’T GOING TO HAVE MUCH TO DO WITH demons, but somehow my first day of tenth grade seems significant enough for me to write about it, if for no other reason than to give anyone finding this journal a better picture of my state of mind. First, let me get the formalities out of the way: no demons sighted at school (you could argue that some of the upper-class dudes were almost big, ugly, and hairy enough to qualify, but none of them came close to approaching the sheer repulsiveness of the average demon, except perhaps Ralph Malphi). No news on Virgil or Ginny Cataldo. From this point on I’ll only mention when something does happen—if I don’t mention any demons, it will be because I didn’t spot any. Same will be true about Virgil, and as for Ginny Cataldo, I’m pretty much convinced at this point that demons had nothing to do with her. There just doesn’t seem to be any evidence to the contrary.
But first things first. I got out of bed this morning at four thirty. As I expected, I couldn’t sleep. My mind was racing, and I was too much on edge after finding out that a demon had searched my room while we were gone, so instead of tossing in bed for another two hours, I got a flashlight and checked the outside door locks and windows, and if Hanley or one of the other demons had tampered with them I couldn’t tell. After I gave up on that, I came back inside and watched Spider-Man for about the thousandth time. It helped calm me down. At six-thirty I washed up and dressed and was going to grab a granola bar and an apple on my way out, but my mom surprised me by having breakfast ready for me. Oatmeal with blueberries and maple syrup. I can’t complain, though it was the first time in over two years that she’d had breakfast ready for me on a school day. I can’t imagine that this new kick of hers will last long—soon enough, I’ll be back to being an afterthought as far as she’s concerned.
Newton North is about three miles from my house. An easy bike ride, but instead of riding my bike I took the school bus, which meant taking a detour through several yards so I wouldn’t walk past the demon Hanley’s house. I just wasn’t up to seeing him this morning—not that I’m up to it any morning, but especially not these days. Not only do I have to pretend that I think he’s only a perv, and not a demon, but I can’t let him know that I think that he (or one of his minions) broke into my house.
Usually I always ride my bike to school—at least when it’s not raining or sleeting out. I like the freedom of it, and it saves time when I’m going into Boston or Cambridge after school for demon hunting. I didn’t realize at the time why I had decided to take the school bus this morning—or if I did realize my true reason I lied to myself about it. But I guess I did it hoping I’d run into Sally Freeman. Thinking about seeing her again was part of the reason I didn’t sleep last night. It was all for nothing, though. I didn’t see her waiting at the stop or on the bus. Her parents or someone else must’ve given her a ride.
Wesley and Curt were both at the bus stop. Wesley still must’ve been mad at me over our last bike ride because he gave me this cold, aloof nod while mumbling hey, just like he used to do during those years when our friendship had drifted apart, and otherwise he kept his distance while we waited for the bus. I was too anxious about both demons and Sally Freeman to worry about him being upset with me, and also too busy listening to Curt tell me how he had officially converted to worshipping Yog-Sothoth. Of course, Curt was just being his usual suburban Goth self. Yog-Sothoth isn’t an actual religion, but instead an ominous deity that H.P. Lovecraft created in The Dunwich Horror. It had been over three weeks since I had last seen Curt, and he looked pretty much the same as he has every time I’ve seen him over the last two years; as heavy and shapeless-looking as always. As usual he wore his rich-kid suburban Goth uniform, which consisted of a black T-shirt and black pants—which didn’t help matters as far as his general blob-like shapelessness went. Part of the reason I hadn’t seen him in three weeks was that it would’ve been pointless to have invited him along for one of my demon spottings, since he would never have been willing to ride a bike any distance, or even walk around Boston or Cambridge if we were to take the subway. Curt was allergic to any physical activity, especially the voluntary kind. Not that strenuous exercise would necessarily send him into anaphylactic shock, but it would come pretty close. Every week for the last two years, he’s found a way to conjure up a note excusing him from gym class.
Curt’s naturally yellow hair was dyed ink black, and he was wearing black eye-liner and black lipstick. He’d drawn some strange little symbols on his knuckles, which he said were related to the Cthulhu mythos, which was also created by Lovecraft. While I never read Lovecraft, or really any Goth or demonology fiction (I’m too involved as it is to want to spend any additional time immersing myself in any fiction on the subject), I tried to pay attention to Curt as he told me about Yog-Sothoth. Some of what he was talking about reminded me of Schweikert’s book—Yog-Sothoth’s connection with the old ones, his being the guardian of the gate that lets them back into our world. This was similar to Schweikert’s warnings about the demons trying to open the gate to hell. I’d been working on a theory that many of the mythologies that work their way into fantasy and supernatural literature—like from H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard—originate from a universal consciousness and have a greater level of truth to them than anyone realizes. That’s why I like listening to Curt when he tells me about these weird-ass books he reads; it keeps me from having to spend my time reading these same books.
When the bus came, Wesley got on quickly without waiting for me and Curt. Wesley and Curt were more friends through me than any sort of organic friendship that might’ve formed between the two of them, and when Curt saw Wesley getting on the bus without us, he assumed Wesley was doing it to avoid him and his Goth appearance—not me. Maybe he thought Wesley was trying to make a clean break from him in an attempt to become more popular in high school. Whatever he was thinking, his mouth squeezed into a hurt, tiny oval, but otherwise he didn’t comment. Wesley took a seat in the middle of the bus, and Curt and I sat together four rows back.
The bus had only driven two blocks when Ralph Malphi got out of his seat to put Wesley in a headlock, all the while taunting him, saying stuff about how faggots like Wesley weren’t allowed to take seats on the bus without his permission. Malphi was two years older than us. It was a pleasure not having to see him while we were in middle school, and last year when we started high school, Malphi would pick on Wesley, and occasionally on Curt, but would leave me alone. Even when I was in third grade and he was in fifth, he was this big, ape-like kid, much bigger than the rest of us, and now it was worse. He was enormous, much hairier and uglier, with a wide face that had almost no forehead. Instead of
two eyebrows, he had a thick connecting unibrow, and there was a cruelty shining in his eyes as he leered at the rest of us and played up the torment that he heaped on poor Wesley. This must’ve been exceptionally galling for Wesley, especially since there were now younger kids on the bus that Malphi could’ve targeted, and I felt sorry for him as he begged and pleaded for Malphi to let go of him, his voice near tears, which only made Malphi tighten his headlock on him. At that moment I spoke up, telling Malphi to let go of him. Malphi opened his eyes wide to give me this exaggerated look of surprise, as if he couldn’t believe anyone on the bus would dare to speak up to him.
“Fuck, you’re ugly,” I said. “Maybe not the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen, but you’re damn close.”
He let go of Wesley and stared at me with this angry, puzzled look as if he were trying to remember who I was. I noticed then that his hands were thick and massive, almost the size of baseball gloves, his knuckles every bit as hairy as his unibrow. The fake puzzled look in his eyes faded as he played up his act of remembering who I was, since I couldn’t possibly be important enough for him to bother knowing. What was left in his piggish eyes was something cruel and malicious.
The Boy Who Killed Demons: A Novel Page 7
