Falter Kingdom. Michael J. Seidlinger

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 wasn’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.

      A bunch of us go here just to feel the change in atmosphere. A lot of Meadows students go here to prove a point.

      But see, when we arrived here that day, we just wanted to be alone.

      I wanted to get drunk. I was willing to listen to Brad if it meant getting a head start on the weekend. I didn’t think I would have to run the gauntlet.

      But I’ll get to that.

      We arrived at Falter Kingdom and the first thing that happened was our cell phones all lost signal. Again, that’s part of the fun of the place.

      Blaire hadn’t been before and Brad was being a dick about that.

      “Know what that means, bro?” He nudged me in the arm.

      I finished my second beer, took the unopened can from Blaire, and said, “You know she won’t go through with it.”

      That kid, Steve, stood at the opening looking in.

      Brad shouted at him, “Careful or you’ll be dragged in!”

      Blaire snickered, “You’re a walking cliché.”

      Brad signaled to me and I tossed him a beer. “Yeah?” He cracked open the beer and took a gulp. “You know what they say about being judgmental?”

      This went on—back and forth—for longer than it should have. I listened and I observed the conversation from where I sat, on a flat rock, drinking the beer probably way too fast.

      Blaire wouldn’t let up.

      Brad was too oblivious to care about anything Blaire could say.

      Eventually the conversation made its way back to me. Brad saying something like, “Why the fuck do you keep this chick around?”

      But that really wasn’t a question. Brad’s good at acting like an asshole because he is an asshole. I can’t stand the guy. But he’s there. He’s around. We were freshmen when we met. I think it was biology. Yeah, that was the one. We both sucked at the subject. We were failing and quickly facing summer school. We got assigned to some peer group for people who suck at science. We had to be tutored by substitute teachers, meaning we had to take the class twice in one day. It was horrible. Brad being around made it a little less horrible but only because he knew how to get the answers. He knew people.

      He still knows people. I don’t think anyone really likes the guy but they see value in how he can slack his way through anything.

      Brad gets his way. Brad always has beer.

      I guess we’re friends because I’ve gotten used to him being around.

      Sort of like most people, I get used to them and, in time, it’s all the same.

      This is as close to getting along as I’ll probably ever know.

      But yeah, Brad can be a real asshole and I was the one to break up the argument. It was easy—all I had to do was tell Brad to shut up and catch up.

      “I’m on my third.” I dangled the can. “Which one are you on?”

      That was enough to end it, but nothing would change the fact that Blaire wouldn’t end up having much fun. Not that she would have. This is what Blaire always does. She spent most of the afternoon sitting on some far rock working on homework assignments for next week. I let her do her thing. We all did.

      She was doing my homework too.

      Steve, Brad, and I stood at the opening of the tunnel.

      Brad went on about all the girls he wanted to try to get with before graduation, like it would be that easy. “I’ve known the girl since, like, second grade. No way she’ll turn down a strapping young lad like me.”

      Steve sipped from