Slenderman, Slenderman, Take this Child

by McGeorge, Lee

  Jemima put the rabbit back in the hutch, returned to the house and went to bed.

  Sleep.

  Sleep.

  Wonderful sleep.

  ----- X -----

  Helen Mayhew checked over the social media release for Sabina King. It hit Facebook at three in the afternoon and had been shared rapidly since then.

  She made the call to the parents. “Hello, Mister King?”

  “Yes?”

  “Sir, it’s Helen Mayhew, we met at your home this morning.”

  “Is there some news?” Anxiety in the voice. Desperation with each word.

  Helen unscrewed a bottle of red wine with one hand as she held the phone with the other. “Not from me. If any news comes in the family liaison officer will be in touch immediately. I just wanted to let you know about the Facebook campaign we put out. In past cases, we’ve found this to be one of the most successful ways to locate missing children; and I wanted to let you know that in the last few hours Sabina’s photograph and details have been shared over ten thousand times. I just wanted to get back in touch and let you know that the message is getting out there and spreading rapidly.”

  She poured wine into the glass as she spoke.

  There were thanks and platitudes. The call ended without any progress, but the parents would be thankful for the contact. Desperate parents. They would be up all night with tears and worry.

  Helen switched away from Facebook to her online dating account and began flicking through the winks and flirts of strange men. Her profile pictures were all of her own legs and bum in lingerie. She never showed anything above the navel, but had developed a fetish for showing her legs in stockings. On better days she would buy lingerie and photograph her legs in the mirror. She loved the attention from flirty leg-worshipping men, but she never met them. She hadn’t been on a date or had a boyfriend in over two years. Her sex-life had degenerated to flashing her pants online and reading the attention of would be suitors.

  She drank her first glass too quickly. She looked to her watch, a little after nine in the evening. She’d drink the whole bottle before bedtime and wake up to another day like this. Day in. Day out. Abused children. Abuser children. Missing children. Men having sex with children. Women having sex with children. People snatching children and children running away.

  Sometimes the kids came back unscathed and sometimes they came back damaged but alive. Sometimes they vanished into thin air.

  She closed the online dating. Her heart wasn’t in it.

  “Where are you, Sabina King? Where are you right now?”

  ----- X -----

  Jemima found herself walking through a misted forest. There was a lake that joined the treeline as a swamp, with trunks protruding from the water. She was wearing her white dress and white socks. Mist swirled around her feet, carried in across the water.

  He was here.

  Slenderman was here.

  She could see him through the mist by the water’s edge. He was sitting on a tree stump with the knees of his impossibly long legs in the air. His head was white, like he was wearing a cotton bag over his face. Jemima watched him from the shadows. In his hands he held a black and white photograph at which he stared wistfully. Jemima could make out the picture as the portrait of a woman. Was it his woman? Was it she who disrobed for Max and crawled along the floor?

  Poor Slenderman… In love… but alone.

  Jemima heard crying. The sound of young girls. She slinked away and followed the sound through the forest to the water’s edge.

  Two teenaged girls standing up to their waist in the swamp water. It was dark, growing darker, making it hard to see. The girl’s hands were tied around the trunk of a tree that pressed their naked breasts and bodies against the bark. Slugs crawled up their backs as they cried for help.

  As Jemima watched she felt the presence of the Slenderman behind her but she didn’t turn. Hands rested on her shoulders. Black, almost skeletal fingers rested on her as the cold body of the Slenderman pressed against her back. Jemima relaxed and leaned against him as his fingers caressed her shoulders, sensuously, as together they enjoyed the spectacle and splendour of helpless, teenage anguish.

  “Do you like where I bring them?” the Slenderman whispered. “Look at them.”

  The first naked girl turned her head to reveal herself in the moonlight.

  It was Sabina King.

  “Do you enjoy her torment?” the Slenderman whispered.

  “Yes.”

  His hand lifted from her shoulder and returned with a length of birch. Springy, supple wood from a fine tree branch was placed in her hand by the Slenderman. “Torment her, for me.”

  Jemima stepped to the water’s edge and swung the birch without a moment’s hesitation to whip across Sabina’s buttocks. The girl shrieked, throwing her head back with the cry.

  It was power. Unmitigated power over another. To hurt them, to torment and torture them. To impose your will upon another without their permission… Power for the sake of power was... arousing.

  Jemima stepped to one side and swung her birch to the second girl, eliciting an equal response. A cry and scream that rocked her head back.

  It was Kerry Powell.

  Kerry was here too.

  “I brought them both for you,” the Slenderman whispered. “So we may enjoy them together, as we have done in the past… Do you remember?”

  The girls were crying in fear. Hurt. Humiliated. Shivering in cold filthy water whilst slimy creatures left sticky trails across their skin. Above them, Jemima could see the spider, clinging to the bark of the tree and guarding them like a sentry. “I remember feelings,” she said. “I remember the excitement, but I don’t know from where.”

  Sabina cried in a high whine as the slugs went over her shoulders and into her hair.

  “They thought it was fun,” the Slenderman whispered. “They put a slug in your mouth and laughed.”

  Kerry cried out as a new wave of slugs crawled from the water over her bottom and began sliding upwards. She was twisting and turning to look back over her shoulder and jarring her body to try and snap the bindings of her wrists that tied her to the tree.

  Jemima noticed an egg sack the size of a football beside the spider. It burst and hundreds of tiny spiders began crawling out. They walked onto Sabina and Kerry’s arms, using them as bridges to cross from the trunk to their shoulders.

  A fat, bloated slug of yellow-green came out of Sabina’s hair and slid over her cheek. The baby spiders walked into her hair. Then Jemima heard Kerry shout, “Help me!”

  Suddenly Jemima was awake in the scene; snapped out of her dream world to see things as they really were. She was alone, the Slenderman had vanished. She was wearing her white dress and socks, with her hair pushed forward to cover her face and show only her scarred eye. She was stood on dry land looking down at the two girls in the water… and, Oh, God... it was wonderful to see. Erotic. Never had she imagined such thrill and excitement could be gleaned by imposing pain upon another. The girls were stripped naked and humiliated by their nudity. Frightened by their bondage. Pained and shivering with the cold. Repulsed by the slugs leaving trails across their skin. Frightened by the spider watching over them... Good God, it was perfect.

  “Jemima!” Sabina called out. “Help us… Save us…”

  ...and then

  …and then, for them to beg for her help. It was eroticism without boundary.

  “Save you?” Jemima said. “Why should I save you? You put a slug in my mouth.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sabina cried as she said it, her eyes looking to the side as the yellow-green slug touched her lips. “Please, Jemima… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  Kerry made a shriek and jerked her body as something moved against her under the water. “Jemima,” she yelled. “There’s something on my leg. Help me. Help it’s crawling between my legs. Help me. Please… Oh, my God. Please… Help me get out!”

  Jemima crouched down to be closer to the girl
s in the water. “Why would I help you get out?” She hissed her next words with pleasure. “I’m the one who brought you here.”

  ----- X -----

  “What’s this?” Helen asked as the desk clerk handed her another dossier on arrival. She’d just walked through the door and already work was being pushed on her.

  “Another missing girl,” the clerk said. “Donovan said to give it to you as it’s connected to the one from yesterday.”

  Helen took the folder. “Connected?” She opened to see the picture. It was the girl she’d spoken with yesterday, Kerry Powell, the best friend of Sabina King.

  This was going to end in anger. Two girls vanish. Best friends. Helen skimmed the report. Kerry had vanished from her home overnight. No doubt in collusion over something. They were in huge trouble when they were found. Two young girls leading the police on a merry song and dance, wasting time and resources.

  It made her feel a little easier about Sabina King. Kidnappers don’t take one girl then return the next day for the best friend. She wouldn’t waste too much time on this. She would inform the school and have them bring it to the attention of the children. Somebody would know something.

  ----- X -----

  Helen arrived at the home of Kerry Powell an hour later. She knocked on the door sleepily. “Hello, Mrs. Powell? I’m Detective Mayhew.”

  Kerry’s mother, was wearing a pink tracksuit and carrying a miniature poodle that was yapping and snarling at Helen. “Come in, please,” she said. The dog yapped in her arms. “Shush, you. I’m sorry she doesn’t like strangers. I’m Charlie, I’m Kerry’s mother.”

  Helen stepped in and spotted something important. On a table by the front door was a lilac coloured piece of notepaper with spidery writing. “This,” Helen said pointing. “What is this?”

  “I wanted to show you, it was on Kerry’s pillow this morning.”

  ‘Slenderman, Slenderman, Take this Child.’ The note was the same as the one yesterday. “Am I right in thinking Kerry left the home overnight?”

  “Well, yes,” her mother said. “But she can’t have, it’s impossible. She can’t have vanished like Sabina.”

  “Do you know Sabina?”

  “Yes,” the mother said. “Kerry was very upset yesterday, she was crying with worry and I spent some time on the telephone with, Nicola, Sabina’s mum. But it was impossible for Kerry to leave last night… I can’t explain it.”

  “Why do you say it’s impossible?”

  “Because the house is alarmed. We use a monitoring service. My husband travels a lot, he’s in Hong Kong at the moment and he insists I use the alarm whilst he’s away. I activated it when we went to bed and Kerry was here. In the morning she had vanished but the alarm was still on. I contacted the monitoring service and they said it had not been deactivated overnight. It is impossible to open any door or window without triggering the alarm. So Kerry should have still been here.”

  If what was said about the alarm was true, it made it even less likely the girls were truly missing. It was unlikely that somebody took a teenaged girl from a secure home. Kerry had gone somewhere, she would know how to slip out undetected. These girls were in a lot of trouble.

  ----- X -----

  “Everybody settle down, I need to tell you something important.” The teacher’s tone of voice said it was genuinely serious. “As I know many of you are aware, a girl in our year, Sabina King, went missing from her home the night before last… Then last night, Kerry Powell, also in our year went missing from her home.”

  There were murmurs in the class.

  “They’re best friends, Miss,” somebody called. “They’ve probably gone somewhere together.”

  “Yes, we know they are friends, but there is something important that many of you will not know… Sabina is diabetic and requires medication. When she went missing, she did not take her insulin or her glucose testing equipment, also neither of the girls have taken their mobile phones.”

  “Were the police here, Miss?” another voice called out. “I heard they were interviewing people yesterday.”

  “They were here yesterday and have been here this morning. It is very important that if you know anything, or even if you suspect something or have overheard something, then you must tell me, or another teacher… Without her insulin, Sabina will become very sick, she will slip into a coma and eventually she could even die; so if you know anything, even a slight scrap of information that you think may help, you must tell someone as soon as possible. So I’ll ask once in public. Does anybody know where Sabina King or Kerry Powell are?”

  The class went silent.

  Jemima lowered her head to hide her smirk. “They’re in the swamp,” she said in her own head. “They’re being slowly dissolved by slugs in the swamp and they’re screaming and crying.”

  “The lesson now is going to be cancelled,” the teacher continued, “and instead we’re going to have a special assembly. If you can all make your way to the hall, please.”

  ----- X -----

  Hoxton took the stage of the school hall and invited Helen Mayhew to the podium.

  “That’s who I met yesterday,” Jemima said to Danesha. “She’s the one who asked what I argued with Sabina about.”

  “Yeah, right before you started kissing William Warwick… Are you going to kiss him again?”

  Jemima whispered her response. “Kiss him? I’m going to strip him naked, put him on his back and sit on his face.” Danesha snapped both hands over her mouth to stifle the laugh. “It’s what he wants…” Jemima mused on this for a few seconds… It was what he wanted, she was certain… but how could she know that?

  “Thank you,” the policewoman said to Hoxton. “Good Morning, everybody.”

  In unison, the school pupils gave their conditioned response and two hundred children said, “Good morning,” back; much to her surprise.

  “My name is Detective Helen Mayhew. I’m attached to a branch of the police that works closely with ‘see-ops’, which is spelled C.E.O.P, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command.”

  The room went deathly silent.

  “You should have been informed by now that two girls from your year, Sabina King and Kerry Powell, have gone missing. Kerry went missing from her home overnight and Sabina the night before… You should also know that Sabina King requires medicine and without it could lead to her death…”

  “Good,” Jemima whispered. She felt Danesha turn towards her but she didn’t look back.

  “What I’d like to talk with you about today is online protection for young people. I’m sure you all know not to go with strangers, but what I’m going to tell you are the more sophisticated rules to keeping yourself safe, both in the real world and online. As I explain this, I want you to think if you had seen either Sabina or Kerry break any of these rules. We want to know if they were talking to anyone from outside school, or if they had friends, especially older friends who were not known to your usual social groups. If they’ve been seen in cars that belong to different people, or if you know of them using drugs or drinking alcohol. Have they had older boyfriends, have they received gifts like a new mobile phone, or did they suddenly have money.”

  Jemima thought back to the dream. As the police woman on the stage talked and talked, all Jemima could hear were the enjoyable cries and screams of Sabina King and Kerry Powell. The Slenderman had taken them and that was the end of it. The police could search all they liked, but they’d never find where the Slenderman kept his children. It was impossible to bring them back now. They belonged to him forever.

  ----- X -----

  At home that night, Jemima felt the compulsion to wear her white dress again. It was a powerful sensation and an almost physical pull. She felt that if she didn’t put it on, she would get a headache and feel uncomfortable.

  She put on the dress and faced the mirror. She brushed her hair forward to hide her face, leaving only the gap in her hair to show the scar above her eye and was suddenly hit w
ith a flashing light in her mind. It was like lightning. Electrical energy cascading and blasting in a flash to bring forward an image.

  “What is it?” she whispered. “What are you showing me?”

  She felt weak and stepped back to sit on the edge of the bed.

  The flash came again and she saw a house. It was in darkness and it had begun to rain. The house looked familiar, under moonlight, trees by either side of the gate and…

  Oh, God!

  It was Danesha’s house.

  Rain poured down on the home and a bolt of lightning lit up the air. The spider was there and it had grown even larger. Raindrops rolled off its huge abdomen as it sat silently in the dark.

  “Danesha!” Jemima screamed. She ran for the door, throwing it open and jumping down the stairs two at a time. Oh, God, she had to stop him, she couldn’t allow Danesha to be taken to the swamp with Sabina and Kerry.

  She ran out of the house, leaving the door open and ran as fast as she could but somehow it was like she was running through treacle, her actions moving in slow motion.

  Danesha lived close, only a five minute walk, two minutes if running and Jemima sprinted as fast as she could along the centre of the road as the rain fell in a deluge, soaking her hair and clothes. There were no cars around her, no people, only rain and mist.

  She reached Danesha’s front gate. The home loomed ahead of her under moonlight. The front door was open. The lights were off. She ran towards it and entered the hallway. The spider was there, at the foot of the stairs with four legs on the staircase and four on the wall. It looked at her with eight ink black eyes that were now the size of tennis balls.