“It’s fine, Daddy. Don’t worry… let me finish this.”
----- X -----
Slenderman, Slenderman, take this child. The writing was difficult. She had no easy way to use the ink and had to use a small paintbrush. Carefully and delicately, she painted the words onto paper from an ink mixed with toadstool and salt. She wrote six letters just as the spell book commanded.
The book asked her to collect ingredients, to mix them and write her letters.
It asked for something else… something that excited her…
It asked her to take the notes to a forest at night and meet the Slenderman.
Was Slenderman another name for Maximilian, the handsome man? They felt the same, somehow related and intertwined. When she thought of handsome Maximilian there was a creeping danger about him. They say it’s a bad boy who makes a girl’s heart beat faster and handsome Max was certainly that. The power he exuded was palpable. Many times she had visualised the scene of the woman dropping her robes to reveal herself. Such eroticism. Such sexual excitement. This was a power Maximilian had; and what a power to have… what excitement to have the authority to command someone disrobe for your pleasure. What power to place another in a state of sexual subservience.
There was a powerful eroticism to Maximilian, but also something unknown. There was a part of him that was pure mystery and darkness and, if the spell book was true, she would meet him tonight.
----- X -----
The doorbell rang late in the evening. “Hi, Jemima, how are you doing?”
She ignored the question and held the door open for Rebecca to enter. “My Daddy is in the kitchen,” she said.
Rebecca leaned close to her, “How is he?” she whispered.
“I think he’s drinking,” Jemima replied. “He’s feeling sad.”
“He was quiet at work today, I’m just going to go and talk with him, make sure he’s alright.”
Jemima went to her room and lay on her bed. She had a few hours to wait until she should go out. She couldn’t explain how she knew that, but again, like the ritual from the book, she sensed that she was being guided. She would wait until darkness then go out and search for the Slenderman.
----- X -----
“Hey, Jay. Rebecca wants to get some food. She wants to get a pizza. Do you want one? Do you want anything?”
Jemima was sat at her desk slowly turning pages of the spell book. “No. I think I’m going to go to bed. It’s been a long day and I’m tired.”
Her father nodded. “Okay. I’ll be back soon. I guess you’ll be in bed by then?”
Jemima nodded. Her father came in and leaned across her to kiss the top of her head, he cast his eyes over the spell book for a moment then left without saying another word. Jemima waited until she heard the front door close behind them, then got her Slenderman letters and put on her coat.
She left the house by the back door and practically ran to Parkland Walk. It was blindingly dark and, like when searching for a spider, she had to use the light from her mobile phone to see. Her usual trepidation of being here in the dark was diminished. Her usual fear of muggers or sex attackers or drug addicts prowling the old railway line was superseded by the thought of meeting the Slenderman. It was the worst place for a twelve year old girl to be, but she didn’t care. She had to find the Slenderman.
She headed along the trail towards Highgate. A bright flashing light appeared ahead of her. In complete darkness she could see only the blinking light and knew it was from a bicycle but could see neither the rider nor the bike until it was up close. A strong looking man in a helmet and hi-visibility vest glared at her as he rode past.
“Get lost,” she whispered to the cyclist. Slenderman wouldn’t appear with witnesses. She needed to be alone.
She made it to the railway platforms and walked between them and under the bridge. The dark so endless her phone light barely made out the edge of the platforms. Still she was drawn forward without any idea of where she was going, only sensing that it was the right direction until at the end of the walk.
In her ear she heard the voice of Max. “Keep going, my love,” he said.
He was here. He was here somewhere but this place was no good to meet. She could sense his presence and somehow understood that they could only meet when there was no chance of them being disturbed.
“Where shall I go?” she whispered back. “Where is the best place to be?”
As she spoke she felt hands on her body, soft warm hands under her clothes, stroking her. “Keep coming, my love.”
The sensation was so powerful it made her want to run. She exited Parkland Walk and headed along the road towards Highgate Underground station, thick traffic driving by, headlights cutting into a London fog. She went past the unused station at Highgate and turned onto Muswell Hill Road feeling a new surge of excitement. This road had two forests. Highgate Wood on one side and Queens Wood on the other.
“Yes, my love. Yes… keep coming,” came Max’s voice, stronger than before. It almost felt as though she could feel the breath in her ear.
Muswell Hill Road dipped down and back up steeply, the wooden park fence too high to climb. She made it to the iron gates. They were locked but easier to scale.
“Yes. Yes. Yes,” his voice whispered.
“I’m coming,” Jemima whispered breathlessly. “Please wait, I’m almost there.”
She dropped into the park and quickly made her way into the darkest woodland. Further, she must go further. She had her mobile phone back out to use the light, the beam picking out a pathway between the trees until she was deep inside.
She stopped.
She turned off the light and put the phone in her pocket.
She waited.
She closed her eyes and tried to calm her mind so that she could hear the voice again, but she didn’t need to hear it, for when she opened her eyes, there was a black shape moving in the trees beside her.
“Jemima,” it hissed, drawing out her name. “Je-myyy-maaa.”
The figure stepped on impossibly long legs as a white mist began to flow around her feet. “Slenderman?” she whispered. “Are you the Slenderman?”
“I love you, Jemima,” the voice said and with it she felt fingers touching her again, stroking her neck. “I love you, Jemima. I love you.”
Jemima closed her eyes as she felt the Slenderman close in on her. Somehow she felt it was rude to look at him, too soon, too inappropriate to see him. “I have the letters,” she said. “I have the letters that I wrote.”
In a hollow whisper a voice different from Max spoke that asked, “Who has hurt you that you wish Die Kraft Der Sieben?”
“Sabina and Kerry,” she said with her eyes still clamped closed.
“Do you have a friend, a girl friend?”
“My best friend is Danesha,” she said.
The hollow voice said her name back, drawing it out over several seconds, “Dan-eshhh-aaa.
“And tell me about a boy? Who do you like Jemima? Tell me a boy who excites you.”
She took a breath and blew it out as she said his name. ”William Warwick is nice.”
“How does he make you feel?” asked the whisperer.
“He makes my heart beat faster.”
“And who are his friends? Boys, Jemima, tell me the names of two of his boy friends.”
“Owen and Christopher.”
The voice took on a darker tone but still whispered. “I watched you today... The woman. The woman with the pearls who hurt you?”
“She is my head teacher Mrs Hoxton.”
“And the man who abused you today?”
Jemima thought on this for a second. “No man abused me.”
“Oh, he did Jemima. He did… And he angered us… The man with the grey moustache.”
“I think you mean Mr Wilfred?”
“Yes, Jemima,” the whisper said. “Yessssss.”
“I will grant Die Kraft Der Sieben and will take Sabina and Kerry away from you. I wi
ll need the help of your friends, Danesha, William, Christopher and Owen. Then I shall come back for you, my beautiful Jemima. We shall enjoy them together… Do you have your letters?”
Jemima pulled the six pieces of paper from her pocket, her eyes still closed. “Yes,” she said holding them out. She felt them taken from her grip, then there was a sound from the Slenderman like a deep inhalation. Was he smelling the letters? After a moment she felt the letters returned to her hand.
“You must hide these notes in the clothing of Sabina and Kerry; and of your friends, Danesha, William, Christopher and Owen. This is how I will find them. I will take those who hurt you, Jemima.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Do you remember our meeting in the Fatherland?”
“Yes,” Jemima said picturing the Stickman in the forest.
“And do you remember what I showed you?”
There was a drifting away for a moment as Jemima’s mind flashed back to the handsome man in the room. The details were richer this time. Max sat in his armchair wearing his suit. A clock ticked on the mantle. She looked down to see her body as a fully developed woman as she slipped off the shoulder straps and allowed the dress to fall away. This time, Jemima turned her head to look in the mirror sooner and saw the body of a woman who was perhaps in her mid-twenties. She stood naked for a moment then lowered herself to her knees, opening her legs. She was seeing through the eyes of this woman. When she looked down she was surprised to see she had developed a thick and wiry bush of black pubic hair. The woman went onto all fours and began crawling towards Max as he turned in his chair towards her.
The vision ended.
“No…” Jemima said. “I need more…”
“This is our old memory. This is who we used to be… Now show me who you are now. Show me what Jemima likes to do. Entice me with the fantasies of a teenage girl and show it to me, Silke… Arouse me with Jemima’s innocence.”
Jemima felt her body drift away again, as though she was being lifted and transported. Although her eyes were closed, she could sense the mist around her feet had now engulfed her. She was breathing it in and falling into a dream like trance. She saw William Warwick on the school sports field alone on a misty day. He was walking back towards the school and Jemima was following. He entered the building and went to a locker room that smelled with the sweat of a hundred teenaged boys. He pulled off his shirt and tossed it aside. He stepped out of his shorts exposing his bare buttocks and went to the showers. Thick steam billowed from the shower block and William vanished into it. For a moment Jemima hesitated in adolescent fear. It was too intimidating to go further… then, her imagination took over and began walking her forward. She entered the shower block to find William naked, cleaning himself with soap under falling water and engulfed in clouds of steam. The feelings it produced were just as exquisite and pleasurable as the fantasy of disrobing for Max. The voyeurism of watching this boy smearing himself in a soapy lather was as exhilarating as it was forbidden and in her imagination she stepped into the shower with him. She was dressed in her school uniform and the water soaked into the fabric. She pulled her blazer aside to let her undeveloped breasts and nipples become visible through the wet cotton shirt. William Warwick smiled at her. She put her hands on his naked hips and pulled him towards her so they could slow kiss under the shower.
----- X -----
“What am I doing here?” she asked herself quietly. Jemima was looking at the back door of her home. She could remember walking, but couldn’t remember the details. How had she gotten back? Had she even gone anywhere? It was like staring into space and suddenly snapping out of it.
The Slenderman. She had met the Slenderman… or had she?
It felt like a dream. Her body felt in a state of sexual exhaustion that she couldn’t understand. It was like she’d had the most intense experience but couldn’t remember any of it save for fragments.
She needed to sleep now.
The back door was locked. As quietly as she could she unlocked it and stepped into the darkened kitchen. Empty pizza boxes were on the table. She tiptoed through the home heading for the stairs but heard noises from the lounge. The door was open to a tiny crack. She heard her father and Rebecca talking. She pushed it slightly, expecting to go in and say ‘hello’, but the moment she opened it to just a crack she saw her father and his secretary writhing on the floor naked.
It was barely one week.
Her mother had been dead barely one week.
On the coffee table was an empty bottle of whisky and two glasses. Plates from where the pizza had been.
Her father was lying between his naked secretary’s legs.
Jemima stepped back and tiptoed to her bedroom. She undressed completely and began putting on her pyjamas, then tossed them aside and got into bed naked.
Her mother had been dead barely one week.
It didn’t matter. Max had helped her overcome things. He had shown her how to have pleasure in place of horror and grief. At a time when she could be so overwhelmed by sadness he had put the idea into her head of William Warwick naked, kissing her under the shower; and if her own father could lay between his secretary’s legs then she would allow William Warwick into her imagination to lay between hers.
This was the pleasure of Max. He was a ghost, but he was a kindly ghost who was introducing her to the most exquisite pleasures of the flesh.
Her mother had been dead only a week, but the Slenderman made her feel wonderful about it.
CHAPTER THREE
Adalbert found Silke Althaus on the porch of a cheap hotel and describes meeting her as love at first sight. “The girl, Silke,” he writes, “is far different to the other creatures. Whilst of equally limited means and as desperate for food, she is as natural to her shameful profession as a fish to a brook. Indeed, she attacked her work with such relish, with such enthusiasm, I found myself unprepared to believe a woman could enjoy being debauched in such fashion. In particular, her relish at shaming another woman as my personal theatre was of such erotic power I barely contained. She asked if I enjoyed with such directness that I averted my gaze as I conceded this truth. She confided she enjoyed it in sympathy. Never would I have imagined finding a woman who shared my appetites. Silke Althaus is as beautiful as she is outrageous and I lay awake thinking of her, desiring to spend time with her, imagining new ways to command her. I have fallen in love with a harlot.”
Excerpt from The Dark Handshake
by Tomaz Karner
--- CHAPTER THREE ---
“Oh, my God. Your eye looks awful.” Danesha was making a fuss, looking at the exposed wound. “Don’t you have to keep it covered?”
Jemima shrugged. “It feels like it needs air. It felt squishy and moist under the plaster.” The bruising had faded in strength but developed into a purple and yellow black eye that stretched over her forehead. The gash through her eyebrow was scabbed and the sutures looked like the legs of dead flies knotted in the wound.
At the school gates, William Warwick approached them. “Oh, look,” Danesha said. “He’s coming for you.”
Jemima shook her head to say, ‘no’, but wore a slight smile. What pleasure she’d had in her dreams last night.
“Hi, Jemima. How are you?”
She looked down to avoid eye contact. Last night she’d imagined him naked under the shower. She’d dreamed of him holding her down and tying her wrists to the bedstead with his school tie and ripping open her blouse. “Hi…” she managed to say.
“I know this is indelicate and there is no easy way to say it, but we’re connected through an awful shared experience… I lost my mother in a car accident four years ago.”
Danesha pulled one hand to her mouth and put the other on Jemima’s shoulder. She made a small gasp. “There were times when I went through a rollercoaster of emotions,” William continued. “I would try and explain how I felt to people, but couldn’t because I couldn’t find the words. It was frustrating because there w
asn’t anybody who understood what I was feeling. I wanted to talk about it but I couldn’t find the words.”
“I can’t find the words,” Jemima mumbled whilst still looking away. “There aren’t words… I have feelings sometimes… but mostly I’m, without, empty…”
“Numb? Like the volume to the emotions is turned down?”
Jemima looked up at him. “Yes... I feel hollow.”
William stepped forward to look at her wound. Jemima turned it to face him. “It’s my beauty mark. I’m going to have a scar. I’ll be ugly.”
William shook his head and smiled. “No. You’ll always be pretty.”
Jemima felt Danesha squeeze her shoulder and knew without looking what expression she had on her face. It was the expression that said, ‘O.M.G. William Warwick just called you pretty.’
The bell rang. Time for form class.
“I’ll see you around, Jemima… But if you would like to talk, I’d be happy to spend time with you.”
----- X -----
“Slenderman, Slenderman, take this child… Slenderman, Slenderman, take this child.” Jemima was mumbling the words all morning.
First lesson was French, during which she mostly stared through the window, tuned out from the lesson. She could see the vagrant woman, Crazy Mary, prowling the school fence to watch the girls playing sports… Jemima completely tuned out of the lesson until her teacher, Madam Quilfen, stopped by her desk as though she was about to ask a question. Jemima looked up to reveal her wound along with the most pained puppy dog expression she could act. Madam Quilfen chose to ignore her and Jemima went back to looking through the window.
Slenderman, Slenderman, Take this Child Page 7