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 people 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.”
I snap at him, “What am I, a prostitute?”
Jon-Jon laughs. “That’s good. Be just like that.”
He leaves me at this table. I stare at empty plastic cups. I could really go for something to drink right about now.
I don’t look around the room like I probably should. If I do, I’ll end up making eye contact with people. I find it kind of strange that I’m overwhelmed by this kind of reaction, but at the same time, it’s still very flattering.
I am flattered.
This is all fake flattery but it still hits. It still sticks.
And I want that attention like anyone else.
A guy named Jeff sits next to me. He has a drink for me. Now this really does feel like some kind of prostitution thing.
I’m getting really nervous.
“Be cool,” Jeff says, “figured you wanted a drink.”
“Thanks,” I say, and then, “So what’s this party all about?”
Jeff takes a sip from his cup and I sip from mine. The beer is kind of lukewarm and tastes watered down — bottom-of-the-keg beer.
“The guy that’s hosting it is being all Great Gatsby about it.”
“Huh?”
“Never read that book?”
I shake my head. “I guess not.”
“He’s into a girl that he can’t get. They have a history. That’s what this party’s about.”
“Oh,” I reply. I’m really not doing well at this. I think it’s because I’m being forced to hang out with people.
“Anyway,” Jeff starts, “how’s the demon thing going?”
“It’s… going,” I say in a surprisingly monotone way.