[Short Story]
[Short Story]
Slender Man
It has been over a week since I have had any sleep. While that stops me from seeing him in my dreams, I am beginning to lose my wits. It all started out just talking with my friends during our free period after lunch. John was telling us about this tall skinny figure he’s seen on his back porch every night this week. He told us that for some reason he felt drawn to it. Naively, I just laughed it off, thinking he was crazy. But then it started happening to Max, and Connor, and pretty soon my entire friend group was seeing him at night. I will never forget the first time I saw him. I had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room, right under the long rectangular window showing the back yard. I woke up around 3:33 in the morning, which I found to be a bit odd. As I walked up the stairs to my room I glanced back towards the couch and there he was. Just standing there, in the window. I don’t know what he wanted or how long he had been standing there. His face was dark, and I could not make out his eyes or any other features. He seemed to be wearing a suit, which I later thought back on as strange, considering I live in the woods of New Hampshire. In the moment, however, I just stood there, kind of paralyzed in fear until in a moment, he vanished.
The name Slenderman started to be said more and more around school as more kids began to see him. This was around the same time when the disappearances started. First it was James Campbell. I did not know him very well, but I will never forget his mother frantically sobbing on the news. He had gone to sleep in his bed, right down the hall from his parents. When they went in the morning to wake him for school he was gone. No signs of a struggle, no note, no missing belongings, not a trace. Later that week Sally Aubrey went missing. What at first had seemed only to be an urban legend, was now the main focus of this small town with a mandatory curfew being put in place at dark for all children. That didn’t help, children continued to go missing. And those of us who hadn’t yet, were no longer the children we used to be. Nothing seemed to be able to keep us children safe, not our parents, not the police. We had almost reached the point of hopelessness.
As the summer progressed, I had seen him a few more times since my initial encounter. Once again in the living room window, as I sat watching tv late at night, and another time from my upstairs bathroom window, as he stood in my lawn just watching me. One night in late June, a large storm rolled in and we lost power. I remember sitting awake in my living room listening to the rain pound on our tin roof. With no light outside of the house, and only a small kerosene lantern to light the few feet surrounding myself, I began to feel as though I was not alone. I began to hear noises which I did not recognize. I crept up to the window, holding the lantern beside my face. With its dim glow, I could barely see a few feet outside of the window. As I stared out the window, I was almost sure I could make out a figure in the near distance. My heartrate began to race, while sweat poured from the pores in my hands. As I sat there, my vision focused on the darkness, he appeared. Paralyzed by fear, I remained pressed against the window. As he moved closer, I felt my heart pounding out of my chest. The next thing I remember is feeling a hand on my right shoulder. I turned, ready for anything, and to my surprise and relief it was only my mother.
“Did you see him?” I exclaimed.
“See who? What are you talking about?” I could hear the confusion in her voice.
“You really couldn’t see him?” I said defeatedly.
It was that night that I realized if I were going to take on slender man, that I would need to do it myself. So, I did what any 13 year old kid would do, and Googled everything I possibly could about the legend of Slender Man. In any movie I have ever watched the bad guy always has a weakness, so I simply need to find his weakness. The only problem was, the only people to have ever actually seen Slender Man are children. And unfortunately, most of them are dead or missing. A fate which I would soon meet if I could not find a way to destroy him. It then occurred to me that maybe I can’t do this alone. I decided to make a post on one of the blogs where I’d seen kids talking about their experiences with him. The post was simple, it stated that I was looking to put together a team capable of putting an end to this terror once and for all. I made the post and went to sleep. Part of me didn’t even think anyone would read it. When I woke up, I was very surprised to see that I had received four different responses from kids in the area.
I arranged to meet them at the Dairy Queen in town around 3 pm that day. First, there was Ben Johnson. He is basically a blackbelt in karate, and I know that we are going to need some muscle if we are going to take him down. Then there’s Jack Healy, the smartest kid in our entire middle school. If anyone could find a way to take him down, it would be Jack. And Finally, there was Susana Baker, but we just call her Suzi. Suzi had watched as her younger sister was taken by Slender Man one stormy night last October, and no one had more reason than her to want revenge. As we sat there eating our burgers and shakes, we all shared our encounters. Even Ben, the tough guy, was crying by the end of Suzi’s story about her sister being taken. It was clear that we had all been affected in some way by Slender Man and the disappearances, and that we all shared the common goal of putting an end to this. We talked for hours about potential plans and ideas, but could not come to any kind of agreement. I noticed that Jack had been quiet for a while so I asked him,
“What are you thinking right now?”
He looked up at me with a somewhat troubled look on his face.
“Bait” he said.
“what?” I replied, as I sat back in my chair.
“We’re going to need to use one of us as bait.”
We all looked at each other with a shared look of terror. No one spoke for a few minutes. Don’t get me wrong, I want Slender Man gone as much as the next kid, but I don’t know if I’m willing to use myself as bait. Then, Suzi broke the silence.
“I’ll do it, him and I have unfinished business” she said.
As embarrassed as the three of us were that the only girl in the group had more balls than the three of us boys combined, we did not question her. We were all grateful that she had volunteered. I then turned to Jack to lay out his master plan. He grabbed a napkin from the holder in the center of the table and a pen from his front pocket and began,
“I think we should use the cornfield behind your house Ben,” he said. “We will cut a ring in the center of the field where we can lure him in. Does your dad still have those bear traps? He asked me.
“I think so” I replied.
“Good, we will have Suzi stand in the center of the ring, and we can lay the traps in a circle around her, hidden under some leaves. Myself, you, and Ben will be hiding on the edge of the circle with molotov cocktails ready to light. Once he takes the bait and gets caught in the trap, Suzi will then run out of the way and we will light him up” Jack said, smirking as he finished.
It was a pretty good plan, I have to admit. We agreed to wait two days to make sure we are prepared, and then attempt to end this once and for all on Friday night. Our plan was almost ruined, when my dad caught me taking his bear traps on Friday morning. Luckily, he bought it when I told him Ben and I were trying to kill a raccoon that had been stealing from his trashcans at night. We spend the day gathering supplies and cutting a circle out of the cornfield. We agreed to dress in all black, and even got black face paint so that us boys would remain hidden until we had Slender Man trapped. The four of us regrouped at Ben’s house at 9 pm. We checked out set up one last time to make sure everything was perfect. We then prepared our Molotov cocktails and got into position. We agreed that it would help if Suzi made noise, so we gave her a speaker to play music through. Then, we waited. The hours ticked by, yet we had not seen or heard a thing, and we were all having trouble staying awake. Ben whispered out from across the circle,
“Should we call it a night soon? I don’t think he’s coming.”
In that very moment, we all felt a change in the air. As if, in an instance, the air became thicker sending shivers down our spines. I was terrified, but as I looked at Suzi standing in the middle of the corn, she showed no fear. She had been waiting for this moment.
I heard a rustling in the corn behind me. From a prone position, I did my best to look behind me without giving away my position. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a dark figure coming closer through the corn. I buried my head, praying that I would not be seen. As he walked past me, I felt the air go cold as the breath in my lungs seemed to disappear. Then, I heard Suzi.
“You finally came back for me” she said, in an unwavering tone.
We waited transfixed, anticipating the moment we would spring into action.
“You want me? Come and get me” Suzi yelled.
The anger in her voice was now apparent. I lifted my head enough to see what was going on. This was the closest I had ever been to him. He never made a sound, he just continued towards Suzi. As he moved within inches of the traps, we got our lighters ready. What happened next is somewhat of a blur, but I will do my best to recount it. When Slender Man stepped on the trap, all hell broke loose. We lit our Molotov cocktails, as Suzi attempted to flee the circle while avoiding the traps as well as the monster, which was now going full on ballistic. He caught hold of Suzi’s arm as she made her escape. The three of us, now holding our liquid bombs, stood in terror, not knowing what to do.
“Just do it! Kill him!” Suzi cried.
Out of nowhere, from across the circle I see Ben in a full sprint running at Suzi and Slender Man. For lack of better words, Ben tackled Suzi out of the grips of Slender man, throwing his cocktail at the same time. Upon seeing this, Jack and I did the same. In an instant his entire figure was engulfed in dark blue flames, and for the first time he made a sound. The high-pitched shriek was unlike anything I had ever heard, and I will not likely forget it. As the screech died out, so did the flames. When the smoke cleared, nothing remained but a small pile of ash. We had actually done it, we had killed Slender Man. We embraced each other laughing and shedding tears, knowing that this ordeal was over.
We all became very close that day. Though I did not know any of those kids particularly well before meeting at the Dairy Queen that day, we all shared an unbreakable bond now. We knew what each other had seen and been through, and we also knew what we accomplished. It has been over two years since that night in the cornfield, and to this day Slender Man has not been seen again. Instead, he lives on as an urban legend invading the thoughts and dreams of young children all across America. Though I watched him disappear into the flames, part of me refuses to accept that he is gone. I guess that is just something I will have to live with.