This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/CQ-Erickson on 2024-11-10 19:01:55+00:00.

The thing nobody gets right about the Satanic panic is that there were two phases. First Wave Dirtbags, (1978 to 1985) were victims of the panic. They never actually messed with the occult. Black Sabbath records, role playing games, and cutting gym class did not make you a wizard. Second Wave Dirtbags (1985 to 1992) however…we were created by the panic.

We heard that heavy metal and D&D led to black magic. We couldn’t wait to sign up.

Of course we got into Satanism. For like a week.

Then we found a copy of The Magus at Waldenbooks in the mall. Followed by someone’s older brother telling us why Jimmy Page bought Boleskine House, and suddenly kids who couldn’t pass freshman English were trying to decipher Aleister Crowley.

Magick is an oral tradition. We heard about Robert Anton Wilson from the weirdos at the record shop and Austin Osman Spare from the hippies who sold crystals in the flea market.

We were in our senior year when we heard about The Chattering Storm.

By that time my core crew was Inga, Dizz, Richard, and me. Inga got hired at the hippy shop and we would hang out there and visit her. That was how we heard about the Storm, from Creepy Craig, one of the regulars.

Craig was maybe 30, and way too excited to hang out with high schoolers. Anyway, he told us about the game, and when we were interested, he wrote down the directions. With his off-kilter block letters, the instructions looked like a ransom note written by a third grader.

Saturday nights were always a sleep over at Dizz’s house. His parents weren’t big on rules, and we were able to keep all of our band’s gear in the basement, which became our rehearsal room/clubhouse/occult science lab. Scattered among Richard’s drums and Inga’s and my amps were the remains of dozens of seances, rituals, and ouija board sessions. Candles, sigils, and beer cans littered the place.

We weren’t doing any of it with any real intention other than trying to scare ourselves. We fell asleep to slasher movies and woke up to Slayer, so that was increasingly hard to do.

The night that we summoned the Chattering Storm was the middle of January. There wasn’t much else going on. Creepy Craig’s directions were detailed. Too detailed. There was no way we were doing all these steps.

The entire first paragraph was rules. Burn sage in all four corners of the room. Pass. Draw two protective circles, one salt, one ash. No thank you. Red, yellow, blue and white candles burning in the four sacred directions. Nope.

The thing is, we had the stupid candles. But the thing about dirtbags (or heads, heshers, burnouts, depending on your region) is… if we wanted rules, we would have played a sport.

The one rule we followed was the music. The game needed instrumental music. We argued over whether to use Orion by Metallica or Transylvania by Iron Maiden. We settled on playing a demo of one of our (very long) original songs. I was not thrilled with this choice, as I secretly thought that the only thing our band had going for it was Inga’s lyrics.

Dizz went first, sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, blindfolded. The rest of us sat in a semicircle around him. Dizz did the singing chant, pitching his voice twice low, once high, then low again. We recited the same four words over and over. They looked vaguely Scandinavian written down, but spoken they sounded like speaking backwards.

According to Creepy Craig (and confirmed by some of the crystal shoppers) this should lead to the person in the chair automatically speaking in tongues… demonic gibberish that should last 30 seconds, tops.

That is not what happened.

Dizz’s voice was still his, but it was like he found a different gear in his vocal cords. The first few words were gibberish, but then in a clear, over enunciated voice like an old time radio announcer he said “THE REAL REASON RICHARD CANT HANG OUT ON MONDAYS IS BECAUSE HE GOES TO THE CHURCH YOUTH GROUP…HE CONFESSES ABOUT THE STUFF HE STEALS, INCLUDING MY LANDSCAPING MONEY AND INGA’S DELAY PEDAL…”

We were supposed to keep chanting the whole time, but we sat there with our mouths open. By the time I finally got up and paused the stereo Dizz had moved on to what Inga did at camp. As soon as the music stopped Dizz was back to normal.

Nobody was mad at him. We all just knew that was not him talking. We continued, like idiots.

I went next. Same thing: chair, blindfold, chanting.

Then I went away.

Where my mind used to be was a torrent of pure information. I could see my friends. Not just them, but their secrets, their histories… the real them, not who they presented to me. I knew i was talking but I also knew it wasn’t me. I was part of something else, and it was delicious.

Inga went next, and the storm sounded different through her. Her voice was high and clear, like a song. I don’t remember what she said, I only know that it was cruel, and beautiful, and for those few minutes I was in terrified of her. That face that I had known since first grade and had a tiny crush on since fifth grade was unrecognizable… the set of her jaw, the way her lips moved… this wasn’t Inga.

Whatever she said broke Richard. He ran out of the room and out of our lives. He never spoke to any of us again.

Monday morning I had an oral report in Spanish class. Normally I would blow it off, but I was trying to graduate, so I put AC/DC in my Walkman and psyched myself up.

I hate people looking at me. Which should have been a red flag considering i was planning on being a rock star. But I wasn’t big on thinking things through.

As I stood up to face the class, the normal panic wasn’t there. In the back of my head the chords from Dirty Deeds kept playing. Something like adrenaline flooded my body and I felt…good? I didn’t have to think about the words, they just flowed out.

In perfectly accented Spanish, I explained how Mexico is a country where they love soccer and boxing and dancing, and how our teacher recently relapsed after three years sober.

Lo siento, Senor Gottlieb.

The adrenaline was gone and I was terrified. I tried to see my friends. I found Richard first, his locker was right by mine. He wouldn’t talk to me, the look on his face made my blood run cold. He was scared of me.

I saw Dizz in the cafeteria. He was not at the dirtbag table. Somehow he was the center of attention at the wrestling team table. Whatever he was saying must have been fascinating, where they were laughing and hanging on his every word.

Seeing Dizz as the newly crowned jock mayor freaked me out more than getting possessed in Spanish.

I headed for the girls gym, it was fifth period, so Inga should be there. In the hallway two girls that were sure of in our social circle were beating the crap out of each other. Motley Crue t-shirts were torn, hair sprayed bangs were ripped. Inga was in the crowd, with a smile that I didn’t recognize.

My first thought was: she did this.

My next thought was: it did this.

A thought in a voice that wasn’t mine said: we did this.

I left school out the emergency door, my heart racing, and headed home. I could barely drive from the adrenaline shaking my hands. I was scared of my only friends. I was scared of how good I felt Saturday night. Most of all I was scared of how that voice started murmuring in my head the second I turned on the car stereo. It was like it was feeding off of the music. Or how the music made me feel.

Mom was in the kitchen when I got home, and it took all my willpower not to tell her all the dirty details that I suddenly knew about dad. The Storm wanted to be heard. I kept my head down and made it into my room. Barely.

I tried to clear my head with the only thing that ever worked. I plugged my guitar in and forced myself to practice scales for twenty minutes before opening up and improvising.

My head didn’t clear. It filled up again. The Storm came calling again and suddenly I was in it.

I am Apollo, in Delphi they praise me and I give them music and prophecy.

I am Brigid, granting poetry to the Celts on the banks of the River Barrow.

I am u/CQ-Erickson, five years from now, playing to a stadium of adoring fans. This is the future if I just relax and…

No.

Trying to snap out of it was like a combination of sleep paralysis and amnesia. My mind didn’t want to remember who I am… finally one last burst of sheer panic jolted my body and I shook it out of my mind. I forced myself to remember: I am not a god. Gods don’t have back acne. I am a 17 year old dirtbag who will be taking Spanish in summer school.

I never picked up my guitar again.

It probably looked, from the outside, like we just drifted apart over the next few months before graduation. It wasn’t gradual on my part. I loved my friends, but I didn’t recognize them. The look in Dizz’s eyes scared the hell out of me. The look in Inga’s eyes broke my heart.

Richard never spoke with us again. I think he is a priest now. Dizz started a conspiracy theory show on public access television when he was 18. I watched it once. It wasn’t his voice. It was the storm. I assume it still is, but I can’t bring myself to listen, even though he is tough to avoid these days.

Inga never played stadiums but she sold her first song right after high school and hasn’t stopped quietly working in the industry since. She has a place in Malibu on the cliffs.

I’ve never heard her songs. Or anyone else’s.

That is what it cost me. Not only my frien…

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