Chapter 11

Way back in 5th grade or so, I discovered a glorious Pokemon themed chat room through the wonders of Yahoo. Within this chat room, there were maybe 15 regulars, generally between the ages of 12 and 16 or so, and we had a great time role playing various anime characters and storylines.

Anyway, I got to know a few people from there well enough to chat with them on AIM or by phone and a few of those friendships lasted a good four or five years. One of these guys was a little eccentric- he LOVED creature/monster models and stories, stuff like Godzilla, Spawn, whatever. He believed in things like chupacabras, which I thought was silly, but didn't really care, and he lived out in the boonies in some midwestern state (which all seemed like hick-land, to my young west coast mind). After getting to know him pretty well and having a good 100 hours of phone conversations over the years, he finally revealed this lovely story.

He told me that sometimes he would black out and wake up to discover that he had, or was still in the process of, hurting or torturing animals and children. He had quite a few cousins and neighbor kids who lived nearby, and apparently had killed some animals. When he revealed this to me, I felt sick inside- I love animals, and this information chilled me to the bone. It was really hard for him to tell me this and he confided that I was one of the only people he had ever been able to tell. Then, it got weirder.

Some one in his family, or maybe a family friend, decided that he must be possessed by a demon, and that they had to perform an exorcism. They did it at night (of course) in a dark room lit by candles, and he tied to the bed because they didn't know how the demon would react. He was choking up as he described this part, I could hear his voice quivering because he was so emotional and terrified at this part of the story. He described a pretty creepy process, but the worst part was the end: he said they heard something hit the floor under the bed when the "demon" left his body, and then something scrabbled across the floor and out of the room in the darkness, leaving claw marks in the wood floor.

He was totally and completely serious about this, and how it cured him and he didn't hurt things any more. I, as any sane person would do, noped right the fuck out of that situation.