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did happen when you got home?”
    â€œIt seemed like Mom was always ragging at me,and the kids were nonstop screaming and quarreling and bugging me in every way possible. Even Dread Red Fred, who had become a wimpy dog, hated me and spent more time romping with my creepy sisters than staying in my room listening to the new Metallica tape I’d bought. I couldn’t figure out what had changed everybody. I didn’t know them anymore. They were like hateful, distrustful strangers.”
    â€œWhat happened when you went back to school?”
    â€œMy so-called friends had all become snots, snobs, self-centered, conceited, uncaring, unconcerned ignoramuses, jack asses all! I couldn’t stand their guts. They seemed like protected little babies, only interested in their own sissy cotton-cushioned lives. They had no idea about what was going on out there in the real world. The thoughts made anger flame up inside me, hot and red as an out-of-control forest fire, wasting everything in its path, with me on the sidelines enjoying every minute of the disaster. My anger seemed like the only thing I could relate to and actually, in a way, enjoy. The rest of life was colorless, tasteless, odorless, drab and blah and not worth living, completely meaningless.
    â€œAfter a few days I started wondering about the ‘home boys’ who sauntered up and down the halls. They seemed so secure and self-confident and protective of each other that in a way I envied them. They were not just single kids fighting their way through life alone; they were a solid, unified force. I wanted that kind of a support system. I needed it!” Sammy sat silent for a while.
    â€œBefore all the crap I had liked, really, really liked Harmony Harmon. We were close. Now she seemed like a holier-than-thou bratty bitch, always telling me to stop being so moody and so sarcastic and everything else. I didn’t need her to swipe at me. I got enough of that at home.
    â€œOne day when we were out behind the school bleachers, she tried to snuggle up to me, and I was repulsed. It was scary because her touch had always been like electricity before. I pushed her away. Actually I…not just pushed her away…I shoved her…more like hit her…actually… really punched her hard three times! It was like someone else had done it. Someone else I didn’t know, didn’t want to know, couldn’t stand. She felt it, too, because she ran away crying, ‘You’re not you anymore. I don’t know who you are, except you’re a pig, and I don’t care if I never see you again. In fact, I don’t want to ever see you again ever! ’ I knew she meant it, and I didn’t blame her. She was right! Someone, or something, had taken over my mind, my body, my soul. I began to think I was possessed, taken over by devils, vampires, ugliness, evilness.
    â€œOn the way home I stopped at the bookstore and bought a vampire book and a ‘possessed by demons’ book. I was totally stunned by the number of books there were on the subjects. They disgusted me, but they fascinated me, too.
    â€œA couple of weeks or months or something passed, and the supernatural became my natural. I combed all the bookstores for works on witchcraft and devil worship, convincing myself that I was just seeking information. Gangsta rap became my music of choice. One night I had a horrible experience that I can’t even tell you about. It was real! More real than the experience I am having right now. I still get goose bumps when I think about it, and the hair stands up on the back of my neck. I knew I had to get out.”
    â€œDid you?”
    â€œYes, but then I was sooooo alone again, so empty. It was almost like being filled with blackness and evil was better than being filled with nothing at all. Life was so painful that it couldn’t have been worse if I had been covered with boils in a solid mass from my head to the bottoms of