The Slender Man Game of Myths

by J. Ernest Kallendrine

  Kate’s Dad nods, ‘Yea, that her name, Rachael.’

  Kate picks the glass back up, ‘Rachael is not my friend.’ Kate’s dad sits down on the sofa next to Kate.

  ‘You guys aren’t friends anymore? But…you two used to be so close.’

  ‘No Dad,’ Kate snaps, ‘Just because she invited me to one birthday party in the 3rd grade doesn’t make us friends.’

  Kate’s Dad leans back on the sofa, ‘Hmm, but still, it was heartbreaking watching her on T.V. When I saw her, I was thinking about you and all the other kids at the school.’

  Kate shakes her head, ‘Yea Dad. You should have been there. The funny thing is, somehow, she managed to cry harder when the cameras were on her…strange huh?’ she says sarcastically.

  Kate and her Dad sit on the sofa in silence watching the news. A reporter is walking around Rachael’s room and asking her questions. Rachael hands the reporter a photo album,

  ‘I’m so happy I kept these. These show the amazing times me and Jessica had together.’ The camera pulls in close and shows a picture of Rachael in her homecoming gown, standing in front of Jessica. ‘She was so helpful in helping me pick out this dress. She stayed with me in the shop for 3 hours until I found the right dress. And look how beautiful I look in it!’

  Kate jumps off the sofa, ‘I can’t look at this anymore.’ She walks to the closet and grabs her bag. Kate’s Dad tears his attention away from the T.V.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘What’s wrong?!’ she yells, ‘What’s wrong is that this is ridiculous. How can YOU watch this! That little self-absorbed bitch will say anything to get a crumb of attention.’

  Kate starts to stomp up the stairs. Kate’s dad gets off the sofa and follows her.

  ‘Kate, she’s just talking about her friend’s life. It’s important that in this time of grief…’

  Kate stops, ‘Talk about whose life? It looks like the Rachael show to me. But hey, go ahead and enjoy your program. I’m sure you don’t want to miss the segment when she juggles apples or makes her cat jump through a hoop of fire.’

  Kate storms up the stairs and down the hall to her room. She slams the door behind her. She throws her bag in a corner and lies across her bed. There’s too much to think about, yet she tries to sort through her thoughts to make sense of the day. As she lays on her back, she feels a small tear run from the corner of her eye and stream down her face. She wipes it away.

  ‘Oh God, I’m not going to do this right now.’ she says as she sits up.

  She looks at her bag. The folder Simon gave her sticks out the top. Kate rises from her bed and walks over to the corner. She bends down to pluck the folder from the bag, but stops when the grainy paper touches her fingertips.

  ‘I’m not in the mood for that right now.’ she says to herself.

  She walks over to her desk and pulls last year’s yearbook from the drawer. She opens it up to the last page. The signatures of her friends are scribbled and etched everywhere. Her eyes furiously look over the names and notes left on the page until she finds the one she wants.

  “Kate, if I were a lesbo, I would totally bang you! Seriously signed, Jessica”.

  Kate closes the book and puts it back in the drawer. She walks to her bed and gets under the covers with her back to the sunlight beaming through her windows. Her eyelids are heavy from exhaustion. She sheepishly blinks a few times.

  ‘Whatever I’m feeling now can wait until later.’ She thinks to herself. The warmth of her bed and the softness of her sheets comfort her as she slips into sleep.

  Chapter 6

  Kate wakes up to the orange glow of the streetlights. She looks around in the dark as she climbs out of her bed, still groggy.

  ‘How long have I been asleep?’ she wonders.

  She stumbles over to her table lamp and switches it on. She looks around her room for a minute, standing still until she can get her thoughts together. She walks over to her bag and digs around for her phone.

  She clicks it on, ‘5 missed calls, and they are all from Linny.’

  She puts the phone in her pocket and looks at the folder. She picks the folder up and opens it to the first picture. Jessica is walking down the street, on her last night alive. She notices there is a couple more under the first. She closes the folder and picks up her bag.

  ‘I’ll look through this while doing my homework.’ She opens the door and makes her way downstairs.

  The house is completely quiet. The blinds are closed and the only light in the house comes from the ceiling fan in the living room.

  ‘Dad?’ she says. No response.

  She walks into the kitchen and sits her bag on the island in the middle. ‘Mom? Dad? Anyone home?’

  Kate pulls a stool up to the island. She takes out her trigonometry book and opens it to the assigned page. She stares at the page blankly, ‘Ugh, I really don’t feel like doing this today.’ she says to herself.

  She gets off the stool and walks over to the refrigerator door. As she reaches for the handle, she sees a pink note pinned under the magnet shaped like a fruit basket. She sees her name by the fruit basket magnet and takes it from the door.

  “Kate,

  Me and Mom went to Aunt Lucy’s house. There’s some pot roast in the stove .Just turn it on to 350 for 10 minutes. Be back soon, Dad”

  ‘I’m guessing this is the same pot roast from last night.’ She says with a sigh. Kate walks over to the oven, opens the door and sees a plate wrapped in foil. She sets the oven to 350 and goes back to the stool.

  She rests her head in her hand as the timer slowly counts down. He eyes slowly climb down from the timer to the oven and lands abruptly on the folder. She wonders why she’s so reluctant to open it and thoroughly go through it. The more she puts it off, the more she feels she must find reasons to do so.

  She takes the folder and flips over the cover. She takes the first picture out, Jessica walking down the sidewalk after the party. She can tell it was taken from a distance.

  ‘I wonder why Simon was following her?’ she thinks. She looks over the picture and sees the shadows from the trees stretched across the road. She sees the debris frozen inside of the picture being blown by the wind. ‘It’s kind of artistic when you think about it. But…I don’t know. It’s still weird.’

  Deep in the cluster of trees in the distance, she sees a grainy white orb that seems to be hovering in the dark. She brings the picture closer to her face. She squints to see exactly what it is.

  ‘Is that a light?’ she wonders, ‘Maybe someone was waiting for her to walk by before they killed her. But how could they know she was leaving the party? Unless…they were there too.’

  Kate picks up her phone. She quickly types a message to Linny.

  ‘Linny, do you have any pics from the party last Saturday? If you do, hit me up.’

  Kate takes one last look at the picture and puts it aside.

  Under it is a photo of the large oak tree outside of the school. The sunbeams blazing through its leafless branches makes the tree look like it’s on fire. In the corner, Kate sees her and Jessica sitting on the step of the school eating from a bag of potato chips.

  Kate smiles, ‘I remember this.’ She sees how offset the two of them are from the center of the photo and how Jessica is partially cut out of the picture. The two of them in the picture was unintentional. But for Simon to give her this beautiful picture is kind of sweet of him.

  Kate puts the picture aside and sees one more photo in the folder. She glances at it and her stomach knots.

  She’s sees Jessica, looking miserable. It was taken the night of homecoming, she recognizes her lavender dress. Like the picture her by the Oak tree, she is only partially in the photograph. She’s standing off in the distance, only her head and right side are visible. But unlike the other picture, this isn’t an off center picture, the snapshot was intentional. However, instead of a beautiful Oak tree, Rachael is the centerpiece.

  Rachael smiles smugly into the came
ra with a grandiose pose as Jessica stands sulking behind her. She’s wearing a Grecian style dress with gold trimming. Kate begins to remember the story behind the dress she wears. She remembers hearing how the dress originally belonged to Jessica, but Rachael talked her into giving it to her because “it was a dress more fitted for a homecoming queen”. Jessica loved that dress, but gave it away in an attempt to help a friend who wouldn’t do the same for her.

  Kate begins to put the photo back when she notices an odd looking tree trunk behind Jessica. It looks as if two smaller trees connect together and form one long trunk. Kate leads her eyes up the trunk and she sees this tree only has two limbs hanging down its sides.

  ‘Those branches look so weird.’ she says.

  Kate gets up from the table and searches for a magnifying glass in the drawer under the counter. She looks at the strange branches through the magnifying glass. The crooked sticks of the branches are curled in an unusual shape. She’s never seen branches like this before, but she’s seen something very similar… hands.

  Kate looks closer, and the branches move.

  Kate jumps back. The magnifying glass falls from her hand and crashes to the floor. ‘There is no way…’ she says to herself. She snatches the magnifying glass from the floor and flips to the first picture. She looks over the picture searching for the round light. She racks her brain and tries to remember which corner she first saw it. It seems it has all but disappeared from the page.

  Kate slowly puts the picture back on the table. ‘I know what I saw.’ she thinks to herself. She taps the magnifying glass on the table, ‘I know I’m not going crazy…or am I?’

  Kate picks up the picture again to attempt to find the round light, but throws it back to the table in frustration. She puts her head on the table. ‘Maybe I am going crazy. Maybe it’s stress.’

  She gathers the pictures in the folder. As she closes the folder, she sees something written on the tab, ‘Simon’s proofs”.

  Kate gazes at the words, ‘Maybe I’ll take these back to Simon. I’m sure he has some kind of special picture magnifier.’

  The oven’s timer begins to beep. Kate gets up from the stool and opens the oven door. She takes the plate from the oven and sits it on the table. As she peels back the aluminum foil, she hears the sound of paws walking into the kitchen. She sees Nibbles happily trotting to her, carrying a leash in his mouth.

  ‘They left you here puppy?’ Kate says while tearing a piece of pot roast and popping it into her mouth. Nibbles drops the leash at Kate’s feet and starts to whimper.

  ‘Ok, ok. I’ll eat when we get back.’ She pushes her dinner away and latches the leash to Nibbles. ‘C’mon, let’s make this quick.’

  Chapter 7

  The brisk night air grips around Kate’s neck as she walks down the sidewalk. She checks the text messages on her phone as Nibbles pulls and jerks her down the sidewalk.

  ‘I wonder why Linny hasn’t messaged me back?’ she wonders. She closes her phone and looks around the street. The cars parked along the road and in the driveways steam from the coldness. Kate pulls her sleeves over her hands, ‘It got cold out here pretty quick.’

  Nibbles begins sniffing around the edge of a yard. He stops and begins to claw at the space between the sidewalk and the brown, frost burned grass.

  Kate takes a small bag from her pocket.

  ‘You gonna do your business?’

  Nibbles sticks his nose deeper into the grass. He stops and sticks his nose in the air and continues to sniff around.

  Kate opens her phone again, ‘I wonder if Linny is home. I could stop by her house. It’s still early and I doubt she’s eating dinner.’

  Nibbles pauses and perks his ears. He alertly looks down the street, poking out his chest and lets out a single sharp bark. Kate looks puzzled at Nibbles, ‘What’s wrong?’ His tail shoots up in the air, his fur starts to bristle.

  Kate lightly pulls on the leash, ‘C’mon, let’s go to Linny’s.’

  Nibbles bites the leash and begins to pull. Kate yanks the leash, ‘C’mon! It’s too cold to play around.’ Nibbles slams his paws on the sidewalk and lays down. Kate rolls her eyes and tugs on the leash, ‘What’s your problem. We’re just going up the road, it’ll take 10 minutes. Stop clowning around.’

  Nibbles lays his head on the sidewalk and looks up an Kate.

  Kate drops the leash, ‘Ok, fine! Stay here.’

  She starts to walk away slowly, looking over her shoulder occasionally. She sees Nibbles in the corner of her eye, still lying on the sidewalk.

  ‘It’s a shame Nibs, I heard Linny’s mom was making ribs. I bet she has a ton of greasy, rib bones left over.’

  Nibbles’ ears perk up. Kate talks a couple more slow steps, ‘I guess I’ll have to eat all those yummy bones by myself. Mmmhmmm, I can’t wait to get there.’

  Nibbles stands up. He cocks his head as he watches Kate take a couple more steps. Kate stops.

  And after I eat those ribs you know what I’m going to do? Have a nice cold bowl of water. Sounds good doesn’t it?’

  She turns again and pretends to walk. She hears the click clacking Nibbles’ nails tapping the sidewalk. Nibbles slowly walks beside Kate and sits at her feet. Kate picks up the leash.

  ‘Good boy. I see a bunch of treats in your future.’ Nibbles and Kate walk to the edge of the town and turn down the lane leading to Linny’s house.

  The wind blows the trees lining the edge of the road. Nibbles trots gingerly beside Kate as she opens her phone and dials Linny’s number.

  ‘Better tell her I’m coming. I don’t want her to think some weirdo is knocking on her door this late.’

  Kate dials the number and puts the phone to her ear. A single beep sounds through the speaker, followed by a click. The display flickers once and goes black.

  ‘That’s strange.’ She pushes the power button and the display comes on. She looks at her reception bars gradually disappear.

  Kate holds the phone over her head, ‘No reception? In this area? Impossible.’

  She slowly moves the phone back and forth, looking for a signal, ‘Maybe because it’s windy tonight.’

  Kate squints her eyes to see if Linny’s house is visible, ‘I’m sure she’s home this late at night. But if she’s not, I came all this way for nothing.’

  She thinks for a minute. ‘It’s just up the road, and I’m halfway there. Might as well keep going.’ She tugs on Nibbles leash, ‘C’mon lets go.’

  As Kate walks, the wind blows harder through the trees. She hears branches snapping deep in the woods as the wind howls in her ear. Nibbles stops. His ears perk up and he jumps into a defensive stance. He begins to growl at the trees swaying back and forth in the hard wind. Kate tugs on the leash, ‘It’s just wind. Take it easy boy.’

  Nibbles begins to bark and thrash. Kate grips the leash tighter, ‘Its wind. There’s nothing back there.’ Nibbles continues to thrash. He starts snarling while pulling Kate towards the trees. Kate yanks the leash harder. She can feel the burn of the rope slipping in her palms as Nibbles jump and jerks.

  ‘Nibbles stop!’ she yells. Nibbles spins around and bites the leash, ripping it out of Kate’s hand. Kate falls forward. Her phone flies out of her hand and smashes to the ground. As she gets to her feet, she sees Nibbles running into the dense woods.

  ‘Nibbles! Nibbles! Get back here!’ she shouts as she watches Nibble disappear into the woods, barking and snarling.’

  Kate runs to the edge of the woods, ‘Nibbles! Come here boy!’ She hears the sound of his paws running through the dead leaves getting farther and farther away. Kate steps shallowly into the woods. She tries to listen through the wind for any movement.