Diary of a Haunting

by M. Verano

  But yeah, I guess it got back to him that I told Mom about our bizarre little interaction (or . . . noninteraction) the other night, so now he’s pissed at me and being a total brat—just, like, imitating me behind my back, and rolling his eyes at everything I say, and refusing to pass me the salt at dinner and stuff. Normal little brother stuff, thank God.

  I don’t know—I hate how annoying he is, but I love him. And I just want him to be okay. When I think of how he looked that night of the seizure, shuddering and drooling, his face like a mask, it was almost like it wasn’t Logan at all. I don’t ever want to see him like that again.

  FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 11:08 P.M.

  The website accepted our creepy photos! They made a whole post about it, and the title was “Idaho House Possessed.” Hahaha. I guess they thought it was pretty convincing.

  Chloe came over today to look at it with me. We were sitting in the living room, looking at my laptop, when Raph came to the door. It was strange because he really doesn’t get out much. I almost never see him leave his apartment, except if it’s to do some work on the house for his mom. But he must go out and get groceries or something sometimes, right? Although I do see delivery people come pretty often . . . I don’t know, is he a shut-in? Or is this just normal college (well, college dropout) behavior?

  Based on reality TV, I tend to picture shut-ins as, like . . . old. And weird. I guess Raph is a little weird, but shut-ins aren’t supposed to be really hot, are they? Or gay. I don’t think a shut-in would be gay. I don’t mean that offensively, just like . . . if you’re gay, you must like other human beings, right? And if you’re a shut-in, you probably have no sexuality at all.

  Anyway, we were looking at the website when there was a knock at the door, and I got it and there was Raph. Looking . . . well, looking like Raph, all chiseled jaw and cheekbones. And he was bearing an eggbeater. Actually, he was bearing two.

  But I was hardly even aware of that at that point, because all I could think about was how our last meeting went, and what a complete ass I made of myself, and what a jerk he must think I am. So I didn’t even say anything once I opened the door, I just sort of stood there and tried to fold up into myself and disappear. But that failed, predictably.

  So Raph was like, “Heeeeey, what’s up. Um.” And he seemed almost as awkward as I was, his shoulders hunched, his eyes darting nervously. We must make quite a pair. But at last he managed a lopsided grin and I got the sense that he at least wasn’t pissed at me. So I was like, “Uh hi. What’s with the, uh . . .”

  “Right,” he said. “These. Your mom lent me an eggbeater the other day. I was just, uh, returning it.”

  “She lent you two?”

  “No, she . . . she lent me one. I thought I didn’t have one, but then another one . . . turned up. And I’m not sure which is yours, so . . .”

  “Well, you should keep one, then. Then we each have one. Doesn’t that make sense?”

  “Yeah, I guess. But it’s cool. I didn’t have one before, and like . . . that was okay with me.”

  “But you did have one, obviously. You just didn’t know it.”

  Raph looked down at the eggbeaters in his hands and frowned. “No,” he said. “I really don’t think so. But then . . . yeah. You’re probably right. You must be.”

  “Could you guys try to be more awkward?” said Chloe from the living room. “Because I think there are people in the next county who can’t quite feel the waves of awkwardness you are giving off, and I’d hate for them to miss this.”

  Raph and I stared at each other for a few more moments before I got myself together and invited him in, taking both the eggbeaters from him. Raph hesitated on the doorstep. “Thanks,” he said, “but I really should—”

  “Raph, you have to see these photos,” said Chloe. “Come over here.”

  I watched a wave of anxiety sweep across his face before calling back to her. “I think Raph would rather—”

  “No,” he said. “It’s okay.” He smiled weakly. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

  “There are flies,” I said.

  “Right,” he said. “I remember.”

  He closed his eyes and winced a little, but he did manage to step through the front hall toward the couch. Reaching the living room, he let out a low, unsteady breath, then smiled as he leaned over the back of the couch to look at the screen. After a moment he let out a low whistle.

  “Those are some photos. I love this site, they have the weirdest stuff. Where did these come from?”

  “From here,” said Chloe.

  “What?” said Raph.

  “We took them,” I said, coming back from the kitchen with some snacks. “Up in Logan’s room, a couple of weeks ago. Chloe submitted them, and the editors just put them up.”

  Raph backed away from the couch. “Those were taken . . . in this house? Oh . . . oh, you shouldn’t have done that. You really shouldn’t have done that.”

  “What?” said Chloe. “Why not?”

  “Geez, Raph,” I said. “It’s just wood. I think they came out really—”

  He cut me off. “You just . . . you shouldn’t mess around with these things. You’re going to draw it out again, just when I—” He broke off.

  “Just when you what?” Chloe and I stared at him for a minute, but he didn’t say anything. His face looked damp, though, and he scrubbed a hand through his curls.

  “I shouldn’t have come in,” he said. “I need to go.”

  “What?” said Chloe. “Why? You just—” But I signaled to her to let it go and she stopped. Raph had disappeared from the room anyway.

  TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 10:48 P.M.

  It’s finally getting nice here! At last I can step outside without three puffy layers. And the view out my window . . . wow, I can’t believe how different it looks from when I moved here. All those ugly, stubbly brown hills are green now. But not just green, they look like a freaking postcard. The other day the sky was so blue, and the fields were so green, it was almost otherworldly, like an illustration in a storybook, or an Instagram pic with all the colors supersaturated. Except it’s not a filter, it’s just my *window*. I think I’m finally starting to understand why people would build a house up here on this ridge.

  What else is new?

  I know I said I was going to stop keeping track of the spiders, because there was no point to the data I was collecting. But I just looked over it again and graphed it against the time elapsed between recordings (yes I *know*, when did I become such a dweeb??? but bear with me, it’s kind of interesting), and it is noticeable that there has been a steady increase in visible arachnid activity. At first I thought it was just coincidence, and the data set is still too small to really be sure, but it does look like I am witnessing more spider-related events as time progresses.

  What does that mean, though? Is this like a “tip of the iceberg” situation, where more visible spiders means proportionally more invisible ones? (Oh God, let it not mean that.) Does it mean that I am just becoming more aware of them? That seems like an undesirable result, but it’s hard to imagine I could possibly be less aware than I was at the outset of this project. Does it mean they are becoming bolder, and more willing to venture beyond their usual lairs? And if so, why? Are they hungry? Bored? Looking to mate? Planning an attack on me?

  Probably the last, all things considered.

  Oh, and about the flies: My observations there continue to be qualitative, but not uninteresting for all that. I noted last time that they seemed louder. I’ve been wondering whether there’s a connection between their buzzing and that annoying buzzing in Logan’s room. In an effort to be scientific, I went and stood in Logan’s room for a while, gritting my teeth against the vibrations. I feel like the quality of the buzzing is different. The one in Logan’s room feeling more mechanical, the one in the foyer feeling more organic. But I’m not at all settled on that conclusion because the more I moved between one and the other, the more alike they sounded.

  No, that’s n
ot quite accurate. It’s more like they got mixed up together. Like the buzzing of each was infecting the buzz of the other, so that they intermingled in my brain.

  I hope this vital data about the precise quality of my teeth-rattling will be of use to Science someday.

  TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 3:15 A.M.

  Logan is still not sleeping. Dr. Clyde really wants to avoid putting him on sleeping pills of any kind because he’s so young, and they can be addictive, and it’s hard to say exactly how his body would react, especially with the seizure and everything. But it can’t be good for him to just be awake all the time.

  I’m up in the middle of the night too, but only because I’m studying for a history test. It’s 2 a.m., and Logan just wandered into my room again. At least he wasn’t so weird this time, but he is annoying. Mom won’t let him play video games or watch TV or even go online, because all that stuff is “stimulating,” but that means he is ridiculously bored, of course. So finding me awake, he was all excited to have a late-night playmate. But I have work to do. I can’t hang out with him.

  So I tried to get him to go read a book, but he says he has read every book in the house. I’m pretty sure that can’t be true. He should read my history textbook, that would put him right to sleep. Too bad I need it.

  Okay, I guess our bickering woke Mom up. She just came in and told us both to go to bed, but obviously that is not going to happen. And she was in no state to insist. Finally she just gave me an abbreviated lecture about how I need to prepare earlier because all-nighters are NOT effective (we’ll see if she stands by this advice when she makes it to *her* exams), then told Logan to leave me alone so I could study.

  When he whined, she told him to handwrite a letter to his dad. Ha! She must be pretty desperate to be encouraging that relationship. Anyway, I think Logan was so shocked at the idea of handwriting anything that he didn’t even answer back.

  TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 4:00 P.M.

  So I guess Mom’s advice wasn’t so bad. When I went down to breakfast this morning, Logan was asleep on the couch in the living room, and the letter he was writing to our dad was sitting out on the coffee table. I haven’t seen him asleep in ages. It’s so weird. But he looked really peaceful, at last.

  I know it’s an intrusion, but I couldn’t resist picking up the letter. I was just going to glance at it to see if he had finished, but then I wound up reading the whole thing. Don’t worry, it wasn’t anything scandalous. Just a really sweet letter by a lonely, mixed-up kid, reaching out to his overly distant father. God, poor Logan. Not gonna lie, it made me tear up in a few places. Since we moved here, I’ve hardly thought about Dad at all. I was so mad at him, I just pushed him out of my head and focused on our new life here. But I guess that’s not how it was with Logan. I think me and Mom never realized how hard he had taken this whole thing.

  I only hope Dad replies. If not by snail mail, at least an e-mail or a phone call or something. It might break Logan’s heart, if he doesn’t. Hell, it might break mine.

  Dear Dad,

  Mom’s making me write this letter. I mean, not that I mind writing to you, but she’s making me write the letter by hand. The shrink has decrede that I’m not allowed to have screen time, so I have to email you the old fashioned way. I’m a little surprised to learn that the postal service isn’t dead yet, but there are still people who will physicly bring paper with writing on it to your front door.

  I’m getting excited about my science project. Have I told you about it? I’m trying to show what happens when you look at a really bright color for a while and then look at a white wall like what the rods and comes are doing and stuff.

  Do you think there’s any chance you might be able to come for it? I don’t know if you’d want to, but I think it will be interesting. I know you’re busy, nut I bet Paige would be really happy to see you. And I would be too.

  By the way, have you been getting my gaming magazines. I don’t know what happened to the subscription when we moved but there’s a review of the new Aeon of strife that I want to check out. It’s supposed to be sick.

  Sorry if my handwriting is hard to read, it really never occurred to me that penmanship was going to be an issue in my life. I can’t wait to get back to a keyboard.

  Well, it’s almost morning and I’m starving. The banana in the fruit bowl is calling to me. Write back soon!

  Love,

  Logan

  THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 4:17 P.M.

  I’m wishing now I had kept better notes on the flies. I feel like they are acting different now, but I can’t be sure. When I started out, I was focused on how many there were—if the swarm seemed to be getting larger or smaller. But I realize now that was the least of the information I could have been collecting.

  Were the flies always this dumb and lazy? Is it a function of their getting bigger (which I am pretty sure they are, despite lacking a comparison sample)? I think that when we first took down the flypaper and that big cloud appeared, they at least behaved more or less like normal flies. Well, no they didn’t, because they stuck together in a cloud, hovering over a spot with no rational reason to attract flies, so that was already weird. But beyond that, they did, you know, normal fly things.

  They flew around. They occasionally landed on things, then took off again within a few seconds. Sometimes they landed for longer, but the minute you approached them, they zipped back into the air and away from you.

  Now they just don’t seem to care anymore. It used to be that, as gross as they were, you could walk through the swarm and it would part for you. The flies were as uneager to touch me as I was them. But more and more, I’ve noticed as I leave or enter the house, I stride through the cloud as confidently as I can manage, and I get hit in the face by flies. Not just the face, all over. Like they just can’t be bothered to move out of the way. It’s disgusting, and it’s also a bit disturbing. It’s just so . . . un-flylike. Are they lazy? Or have they become . . . fearless? That’s an ugly thought.

  I need to think of a way to make my observations more conclusive.

  THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 4:39 P.M.

  Dad wrote back! I’m so relieved. It was just a postcard, but still—it’s something. Never mind that I suspect the New Girl picked it out for him. I hope that hasn’t occurred to Logan. I’m fairly certain it has occurred to Mom, but she’s keeping quiet at least.

  Logan was so excited. I’m not sure he’s ever gotten mail, like actual mail before. Of course, he wanted to write back right away. What a goof! Seriously, though, he’s a good kid. I love the little brat.

  SATURDAY, MAY 2, 6:15 P.M.

  I’ve done it. I’ve crossed over into complete madness.

  This is all Logan’s fault. People like me should not be trusted with science. But now it’s like, I really want to know the answers, and I am willing to do gross (and maybe ethically questionable?) things to get them.

  I caught some flies. It started out innocently enough, I swear. Well, sort of innocently. I was sitting in the kitchen, watching the flies buzzing around in the front hall, looking all slow and stupid and huge. And I thought, boy, if I had a flyswatter, I bet I could do some serious damage to those idiot flies. I wouldn’t even have to aim. I could just sweep the thing through the air and flatten five or six at a time.

  But then I immediately felt guilty because I know what Mom would have to say about that. All life is sacred to the Goddess, even *obviously* evil bugs. Fine.

  So instead I had a different idea: What if I got a net of some sort and just caught a bunch of them like they were butterflies? Then I could release them into the wild, and solve the problem without any death or destruction.

  I didn’t have a net, but I thought a plastic grocery bag might do in a pinch, so I grabbed one and set about my little project. And it worked shockingly well! I think it definitely qualifies as proof that these are no ordinary flies, that I was able to just sort of swing a plastic bag around in the room and catch a whole bunch of them.

  So, that done, I s
ealed up the bag and carried it outside and around the house to the back, where you can see out over all those rolling fields. They wouldn’t bother anyone there. So I released them. Fly, little beasties! Grasp your freedom in all six hands!

  But I guess the suckers were not so interested in a life of open-air liberty, because as I stood there, I watched them buzz around for a few moments, and then one of them made a loopdiloop and headed back toward the house, with the others following close behind. Six or seven flies all flew around the house, back to the front door, and hung out there, buzzing impatiently, until I opened it and they could go back in.

  I may have to revise my theory that they are stupid. Evil is looking more likely right now.

  Anyway, that failed experiment gave me an idea for another, so I traded in my plastic bag for a glass jar, caught a few more, and brought them up to my room. That, at least, should help me figure out if the flies are changing their behavior.

  It just occurred to me that I better feed these guys. Guess I have some pet flies now.

  (Sorry I quit updating about the spiders, but other than seeing more and more of them, there isn’t much to report. I will let you know if that changes.)

  MONDAY, MAY 4, 4:12 P.M.

  I don’t know what is going on anymore. Okay. Okay. Deep breaths. There . . . well, there has to be an explanation for this. What, like the bag of veggies? There wasn’t much of one for that. No, but this is different. That was just one of those weird things that seems totally inexplicable, except there must be a perfectly reasonable explanation. But no one cares enough to look for it, so you just sort of shrug your shoulders and go, that was weird.