Slenderman, Slenderman, Take this Child

by McGeorge, Lee

  ----- X -----

  Jemima was led to a room with a desk, two chairs and a box of tissues. This was a bad room. “Hello, Jemima, my name is Lisa. I’m a social worker with the hospice.”

  Jemima tried to say, ‘hello,’ but barely made a sound.

  “Can you tell me how old you are?”

  “Twelve,” she croaked.

  Her mother’s arm was reaching to the sky from within a twisted wreck. A huge wheel was in her seat…

  “Jemima. It’s part of my job to tell people of difficult and upsetting news and also to help them with their feelings.”

  “My Mummy di… she d…”

  Lisa reached out and took Jemima’s hand. The moment they made contact the dam burst and she cried loudly and raised one hand to shield her eyes. She didn’t want this woman watching her. Mummy’s hand was reaching, she might still be alive. She was under the wheel and trying to call for help.

  “Would you like me to tell you what the police have told me?”

  Jemima nodded and shrugged her shoulders. “I want my Mummy,” she said with a cry, then backtracked and said, “I want my Daddy. I want to go to the toilet… Can I go?” Her eyes darted around the room, looking at everything except the woman in front of her. “Please let me go.”

  “The police said that a lorry coming towards you suffered a mechanical failure that caused it to shed its load. It was carrying steel pipes.”

  Jemima remembered that part and vividly saw it again in her mind. “The pipes came off,” she said, then lowered her head and brushed her hair forward to make a shield.

  “The police told me that although your father tried to stop, other vehicles behind yours didn’t stop in time and crashed into your car. One of these was a car transporter.” Jemima pulled her arms around her and gripped her elbows. “The police and paramedics tell me that when it happened, it would have been instant. Your mummy did not feel any pain.”

  Jemima purged. Her head rocked back and a strangled wail came from deep within as her arms crossed over her stomach to hold her sides.

  “Your mother didn’t have time to be scared, Jemima. It happened as quickly as turning out the light.” The social worker moved her chair closer and took hold of Jemima’s hand again. “When we face a sudden accident like this, the pain and difficulty is for us, not for the one we lost. For your mummy, there was no pain and there was no suffering.”

  ----- X -----

  A nurse helped her change into some pyjamas. It was dark on the ward and other children were asleep. “Where’s my Daddy?” Jemima asked.

  The nurse held a finger to her lips and nodded towards the sleeping children. She prepared an injection. “This will help you sleep,” she whispered. “Roll on your side and pull down your pyjamas.” Jemima did as was told but the nurse sniggered, “I only need to see the top, not a full moon.”

  She’d done as she was told. She’d exposed her bare bottom to a nurse who had laughed at her. Mummy was dead and the nurse was laughing at her.

  ----- X -----

  Early morning sun was breaking through the windows. A nurse had a hand on her shoulder to walk her. Daddy was leaning forward in his chair, his elbows were on his knees and his hands clasped tightly together. His head hung in utter defeat with his chin rested against his chest.

  There was a man talking with him. “It’s not unusual for children Jemima’s age to seek comfort outside of the family,” he said. “If she wants to talk to her friends or school teachers rather than you, don’t see it as a reflection on you or your parenting ability… Ah, here they are.”

  Jemima looked to her father and opened her arms to hug him.

  He wasn’t there. His body was there, but behind reddened eyes there was nothing left of the man. She hugged him and felt tears welling in her eyes. A noise came from further along the corridor, a door closed with a bang. Her father jumped, he began panting for breath. She held on and hugged him… but he didn’t hug back. He didn’t do anything.

  ----- X -----

  Germany

  Eberswalde

  The Karner Farm in Eberswalde was a place of natural beauty. Sixty kilometres northeast of Berlin, it was nestled in lush forests and rolling hills. Tomaz was in the sitting room watching a teenage boy riding a motorbike far in the distance, his open shirt flapping in the wind as he rode. It made him uneasy that a teenager had gotten this close to the farm. He had a vague recollection of doing something similar once, of riding a motorbike as a young man and feeling free. He couldn’t do it now. He was eighty six years old.

  His brother Fritz and sister Oksana entered the room. “Tomaz, wir mussen reden,” they said. ‘We must talk.’

  “That boy is too close,” Tomaz replied. “There is a boy on a motorbike. Do you see? We must send him away.”

  The younger brother and sister looked to one another, then Fritz sighed. Tomaz knew he was in trouble again. Something done wrong again. The oven left on. The door left open. Some minor gripe to chasten him with. Oksana pushed her grey hair back and straightened her wire frame glasses.

  “Tomaz, do you remember Anke? She is Odelia’s daughter. Anke… Anke...” Oksana brought out a family photograph and pointed to a woman with short blonde hair.

  “Ah yes, Anke… I remember, yes… she lives in… in…”

  “In England,” Fritz said.

  “Yes, I would say England. Stop speaking for me Fritz. I’m not gone yet.”

  Fritz and Oksana looked to one another again and took a deep breath. “Tomaz, there has been an accident... and Anke has died.”

  There was near silence in the room. The only sound the ticking of a clock above the mantelpiece.

  “But she is young,” Tomaz said, holding out his hand to signify the height of a little girl.

  “No, Anke was forty, it is her daughter Jemima who is young.”

  “Arhhh, yes. Anke and Steven and their little girl, I remember.”

  “Steven and Jemima are coming here on Friday. We are going to bury Anke at the cemetery and they will stay here with us for the weekend.”

  “Yes, okay,” Tomaz said. Then he seemed to remember something and called out, “Not the little one? Not the child is coming here?”

  “Yes, Tomaz,” Oksana said. “Anke’s daughter is staying here.”

  For an eighty six year old man, Tomaz could move when he was agitated. He was out of the chair in a flash and pacing the room, bellowing with a voice that came from deep in his lungs. “Never!” he yelled. “Never children here. Never to this farm it is unsafe. She must not come here… He wants a child and he can get a child if she comes. No! No! No!”

  “Tomaz, they are on their way,” Fritz said, but Tomaz was already leaving the room, his heavy footsteps stomping up the stairs.

  In his bedroom, Tomaz rushed to his desk and opened the drawer to take out what looked like a folding pocket compass. It was a relic of antiquity, made from whalebone and inlaid with elaborate carvings and designs. There was a piece of cord between the two sides of the dial that cast a shadow when used as a sundial or moondial.

  “You shall not have her,” Tomaz whispered. “Do you hear me?”

  The device was called a Nuremberg dial and the needle point of the dial was rotating very slowly. It was inscribed IOHANN AXEL - ANNO DOMINI MDXLVIII, listing its maker and the year of manufacture as 1548. It was almost five hundred years old and for all of that time it had been used for one purpose. This dial did more than tell the time from the sun and moon, more than point from North to South. This dial had a terrible dread purpose. When set correctly its compass needle didn’t point to magnetic North. It pointed to a force of hell that, right now, was slowly circling the farm.

  “You won’t have her,” Tomaz muttered. “I’ve stopped you before and I can stop you again.”

  He had stopped it before.

  He’d been stopping it for almost fifty years; but that was when he was young. Now, at eighty six years old and with early stage dementia, he was not the man to be fi
ghting supernatural forces. He wasn’t that man anymore. He couldn’t fight at his age, not in his condition.

  He would have to stop Anke’s child from coming. Yes. Stop the little girl from coming here. Because if she came close, ‘Der Gross Man’ would seduce her in a heartbeat. He was out there, circling the farm, looking for a way to escape.

  Tomaz looked to the Nuremberg dial again and watched as the needle slowly rotated.

  “You can’t have her,” he said. “You can’t have her… Do you hear me? You can’t have her.”

  Tomaz lowered his head as though finally worn out with the burden of such thankless and special work. He shuffled from his chair and went back downstairs. Oksana approached as though to speak with him but before she had the chance he went lower in the house, down into the cellar.

  It was empty save for a few old suitcases of stored clothes that nobody would ever wear again. In many years gone by the cellar had been a coal store and a well. The well was dry and filled with concrete. He’d filled it himself in nineteen fifty nine to cover a piece of occult history. That’s what he’d come to look at. The capstone to a well.

  Somewhere at the bottom, in a tin box under many meters of concrete, was a diary, a book that kept the demon locked to this location. Of course, the demon didn’t need the diary to escape. All he needed was a child to invite him to leave. For years Tomaz had been fighting to keep children off the farm, but time is the true strength of the supernatural. The immortality of evil means it can always run down the clock and win the long game. Tomaz had held Der Gross Man at bay since he was a teenager, he’d trapped him here on this farm for decades and kept him isolated, but sooner or later Tomaz would weaken and die; and after years of waiting, Der Gross Man would find a child and a means to escape.

  ----- X -----

  The road changed to a dirt track a few kilometres from the farmhouse. Jemima noticed the signs, crudely painted on wooden boards many years ago. The first said, ‘Kinder Verboten’, which she knew meant ‘Children Forbidden’.

  Jemima turned in her seat to look through the back window of the taxi. The hearse carrying her mother’s remains was following closely behind and a fine dust plume came from the wheels.

  The farmhouse was visible from some distance across the fields. From the front seat of the car she heard her father mumble, “I can’t do this.”

  Jemima reached her hand through to him and touched his shoulder. He held her hand for a few seconds then brushed it away. He still wasn’t talking. It had been a week.

  As the taxi stopped, the relatives began coming out to greet them. There were a lot of them. It was a big family and they were all now in their sixties or older, all living on the farm like it was an old people’s home.

  Jemima saw Grandma Odelia. She was smiling to greet her but her face looked haggard, her silver hair lacking its sparkle. Jemima realised that whilst she had lost her mother, Oma Odelia had lost her daughter and the pain was written into her fractured smile. “Hallo, Jemima,” she called. Jemima couldn’t find words, so instead she walked straight to her grandmother, wrapped her arms about the old lady’s waist and sank into her embrace. Jemima kept her eyes closed for a moment, she felt Oma holding her head and stroking her hair. “Hallo, Steven,” she said softly.

  Jemima let go of her grandmother and allowed Oma Odelia to hold her face and tilt her head up to look at the wide white plaster covering the stitches in her forehead. “We will be alright, Jemima,” she said. “Things will be alright with time.”

  Behind them, the hearse pulled up and the driver in his sombre suit began asking questions in German. The plan was her mother’s remains would stay here overnight.

  There was a kitten, by the side of the hearse. White with spots of black and ginger; it had a black spot on its pink nose. Jemima went to it and lifted the sickly looking animal. “Ah, Nein,” one of her great uncles called. “Der fuchs hatte es.”

  Jemima looked to her grandmother to translate. “You need to put it down, Jemima. It’s sick. A fox attacked it.”

  She put it down and wiped her hands on her dress. They were frightened of rabies, but the poor kitten was weak and thin and needed to be nursed. “Can we feed it?” she asked.

  Before Grandma could answer, a man came from the house shouting with ferocity, striding with vigour despite looking old. “Take her, Steven,” he yelled in English. “Take her from here. It is not safe.”

  “Tomaz!” Oma cried back. “Stop this!”

  “There is monster here,” the old man continued. “There is monster to take little girl. Go back to England.”

  Immediately, the other old folks rounded on the old man, calling to him, admonishing him in rapid German. Great Uncle Fritz tried to block his way and push him backwards but Uncle Tomaz was like a man possessed. He grappled with Fritz, their shoes kicking up clouds of dust.

  Tomaz began screaming loudly and grabbed Fritz’s hair, pulling him over to a stooped position. Great Aunty Oksana rushed to help, crying, “Tomaz, halt! Tomaz, halt!” She tried to get between them, fighting with her two brothers to separate them. Aunty Steffi, who was younger by some years managed to turn Tomaz around and lead him towards the house whilst Oma Odelia began speaking rapidly with the undertakers. The men nodded at whatever instructions they were given and got back into the car.

  “Where are they going?” Jemima asked.

  “I asked them to take your mother straight to the chapel rather than to be here tonight.”

  Jemima stepped away from her grandmother to watch the hearse turn around and begin heading back along the dirt track.

  The kitten limped from one side of the road to the other and mewled in torment.

  It was hell. The family were fighting, her mother’s remains were being taken away and a kitten was crying for help. There was nothing Jemima could do about anything. She was powerless. She was utterly helpless.

  ----- X -----

  “Are you hungry, Jemima?” her Grandmother asked. “Would you like a sandwich? I was going to have one of cheese and salami. I have a special one, here taste this.” She held out a piece of pale cheese with green flecks.

  Jemima tasted it. “It’s nice.”

  “I bet you can’t guess what the green is in the cheese.”

  “Herbs?”

  “Almost,” Oma Odelia said. “It’s nettle. I bet you didn’t know you can eat nettle like this.”

  Jemima shook her head and took a seat at the kitchen table. Grandma came and sat with her bringing one big sandwich. She cut it down the middle and shared it between them.

  “Oma… why did Uncle Tomaz want me to go?”

  Grandma tried to smile. “He’s not very well. For a few years his mind has been going. He is very old and he isn’t thinking properly.”

  “He said there was a monster.”

  Grandma nodded, the burden of another man’s dementia weighing on her. “You know your Uncle Tomaz was a writer for many years. He wrote books about ghosts. Did you know that?”

  Jemima nodded. “Yes.”

  “He thinks his books are real now.” Oma suddenly laughed at a recollection. “A few months ago he put his slippers in the sink to wash them with the dinner plates, can you imagine? He was washing his slippers with the dishcloth then put them on the floor, stepped into them and walked around the house making the floor wet.”

  “That’s silly,” Jemima said with a false laugh.

  Grandma nodded with a smile but as she did a tear rolled over her cheek, “It is silly, you are right… He is a silly old man, so don’t worry about what he says.”

  ----- X -----

  Fritz was blocking the doorway to Tomaz’s room; his trouble making older brother sitting on the bed. “For God’s sake, Tomaz. Don’t make the girl’s life any harder.”

  “Der Gross Man is here,” Tomaz said. “You don’t know, you don’t understand.”

  “Just stay in your room and leave the girl alone. She is here only a few days.” Fritz voice croaked at the end of hi
s sentence; emotion creeping in. His head lowered and his voice softened. “You’re making this hard, Tomaz. You’re making my life unbearable.”

  “You don’t understand. We need to get that girl away from here.”

  Fritz wiped his eyes with the balls of his hands then pushed his grey hair back over his head. “She is here for two days. Then she is gone. While she is here you will behave yourself.”

  “She must go,” Tomaz hissed.

  “Two days. That is all. Two days and then she is gone.”

  Fritz left the room.

  “She can’t be here,” Tomaz whispered to himself. He opened the Nuremberg dial and adjusted the sliding ring around the compass until the brass pointer aligned to the symbol of the tall man. The device made a slight click and the compass needle swung from pointing north to pointing east, out of the window. Der Gross Man was stalking the forest. “You can’t have her,” he said. “I will stop you.”

  ----- X -----

  A joint of ham and vegetables were put onto the long kitchen table. Jemima sat between her father and her Grandmother. The whole family was there. Aunty Oksana, Great uncles Tomaz and Fritz, Aunty Steffi and Grandma Odelia. The family members dove for the food and carved the ham joint. They were practiced in the ritual of family mealtime and to Jemima’s eyes they were all quick to the food. Grandma helped by slicing some ham and placing it on Jemima’s plate then her father’s. “How have you been coping, Steven?” Grandma asked very quietly.