If you ever want to see the worst that society has to offer, check my email.
Each morning, I read countless subject lines like "Growing Paranormal Horror (in my pants)" or "Help! Demon is Making my Wife Divorce Me." This morning, I clicked on a subject header that said "PLEASE HELP" and found a convincing letter about a woman having a mental breakdown over a ghostly encounter at her local gym. It directed me to a video of a guy blowing his ass out trying to lift something over his head. And I don't mean he shit himself—I mean he shit out his ass. I had to witness a total anal prolapse at five in the morning because some stoner thought it would be funny to send in.
Then there are my favorite reads, straight out of the hospital: detailed letters from bros who peaked at the age of seven, telling us how we could have better handled the whole Waterfront thing. It's real easy to critique a shaky livestream of the rowing competition from half a mile away; it's another thing to be swimming in the mouth of hell with nothing but a rusty pipe and paddle as a defense against horrific ungodly abominations.
Irene's the person to talk to about all that by the way. Not me. She's obsessed with the event. She's watched every shitty recording from every imaginable angle that's been uploaded to the internet. She sends me ten-minute-long voice memos at four in the morning to inform me that a death could have been avoided if we had just looked behind us at this moment, made sure people were out of the water before that happened, or swam a little faster right here so a girl could get past us before she was dragged under the water. Irene even has a Google Doc where she actively lists all our mistakes from that night. She's hyperlinked timestamps to clips that highlight our mistakes so we can "engage in a little reflection."
I added a link to a YouTube video titled "6 REAL TRAILER PARK HORROR STORIES." At the 4:09 timestamp, you can see the full crack of her ass while she attempts to pull a 200-pound seizing old man back onto the pier. She stopped asking me to look at the thing pretty soon after that.
I think Irene's under the impression that too many people died that evening. I'd argue we could've done with a few more. Like the group of marathon runners whose heads were so far up their bony vegan asses they didn't see the blood and viscera spilled on the shore to their immediate right. Or maybe the spectators who filmed me desperately dragging myself to that shotgun, unable to get a good grip because my burning dislocated shoulder made the arm it was attached to so stiff. Death to all of them.
If you thought this was going to be an apology letter, tough shit. The only thing I'm sorry for is still enjoying Kanye West's discography with no intention of stopping. If it isn't clear by now, I hate you. Not individual people—you're fine—but people together are the worst. You only really feel good when you know there's someone beneath you and only really do good when you think someone is watching. So no, this book isn't an apology. It's an instructional guide.
See, for every twenty-some dumb emails we receive, there's one from someone who actually needs our help. A dude describing this unexplainable feeling that some kind of otherworldly force is preparing him for something awful and he doesn't know how to stop it because he doesn't know what it is. His pillows smell like his dead ex-girlfriend's peach body wash, his dog whispers Latin incantations down the stairs at night, and there's this growing patch of crimson in the middle of the living room that won't go away no matter how many times he scrubs it.
He doesn't need a friend to tell him he's okay or a doctor to tell him he isn't. He just needs someone to set things right so he can go on living again, and that's where Irene and I excel.
We've seen the things responsible for the thoughts in your head that make your search history a fireable offense. We've met the reason behind that disconnected look in your mom's eyes when she watched your dad beat you so badly you pissed yourself. We've nut-punched the monster in your closet, tore the nips off the demon under your bed, and verbally abused the lady who mixed all her shit with your shit at the laundromat so she could covertly steal some of the name-brand clothes you worked your ass off to buy.
We're good at kicking evil's ass. Really good. Like, professionally good. No training either—this is all raw talent. But we know it can't last forever. Everybody dies, and if we choose to keep doing this shit, it'll probably happen to us sooner rather than later. We have like two more years, tops. So it might be important for one or two of you to start planning to take the reins, figure out what makes us so good at what we do, and start doing that shit for yourselves. Teach a man to fish, and you'll become immortalized in his memory as the guy that taught him how to fish, or however that saying goes.
The odds are slim to none that Irene and I will be alive to save the earth from another apocalypse. Evil already has our numbers, our addresses, our worst fears, and one of our limbs. So when the devil makes a return—and the guy's a total dick, so you know he will—it will be long after our corpses are on the wrong side of the grass.
My hopes are low. I'm only thinking about five of you will be motivated to try and keep the planet safe from biblical horrors and only one of you will survive your first paranormal encounter. I've made it impossible for you to disappoint me. Take that, assholes.
I realize this story jumps all over the place. That's because it's real and time is horrible. I don't exactly know what's important for you to know, so I'm including it all—our first encounter that (arguably) started this whole thing and the subsequent encounters that led to the Waterfront. And because we're dealing with literal hell, this isn't a fun read. It's kinda graphic. Maybe scary? There's a lot of skinning, weirdly. Expect drugs. Raw beef. Rich people. Boofing.
Look, there's a lot here, and my tolerance is pretty high, so I can't tell you exactly what to expect. If you're uncomfortable at any point while reading this book, then please write me an email detailing possible trigger warnings I could include in this forward. Make sure the subject line reads "WAAA, MOMMY! TITTY BABY SHIDDED!" so I can immediately file it into the trash can.
If you're still reading after all of that:
Hey.
My name is Ted. You might know me from school, or work, or the bus stop, or the S&S Minute Mart, or number four of "6 REAL TRAILER PARK HORROR STORIES." I'm going to teach you how to beat the shit out of Satan's ass.
Watch this space, the first lesson drops Friday.
