Rachael scoots closer, ‘Is it gossip? Because if it is, I probably heard it. And if I didn’t hear it, it’s probably believable knowing all the wild things kids do in our school.’
Kate sees the curtain flutter from Rachael’s window. The bottom of the curtain fans out from a gentle gust of wind before gliding back down.
‘Do you know Simon?’ Kate asks.
‘Yea, I know him. That really weird kid right? I don’t want to sound conceited but he looks at me all the time. One time I even caught him trying to take my picture while my back was turned...’
The wind blows, lifting the curtain further than the last time before gliding back down.
‘…And when I tried to confront him, he just put his head down and walked away like he wasn’t doing anything wrong. He’s kind of a freak. I never seen him talk to anyone else in the school. Why? What about him? He didn’t past you some sort of note to give to me did he? Because that would be really weird.’
The wind blows, lifting the curtain further than the last time. Kate briefly sees the darkness outside of the glass. She watches as the curtain starts to glide back down. The curtain doesn’t return close to the window as before. Kate sees a spear like object draped under it.
Kate watches at the object slides down the curtain. She nervously waits as it reaches the bottom and stops.
‘Rachael, I think one of those news people is trying to sneak one of those long microphone things in your room.’
Rachael looks behind her. She turns back to Kate and crinkles her eyebrows, ‘What are you talking about? Sneak it in where?’
‘You don’t see that thing trying to poke through your curtain?’
Rachael turns to the window again, ‘What are you talking about?’
The object slides to the bottom of the curtain. What looks like a long, sharp skeleton bone hooks the bottom of the curtain and begins to raise it.
‘Rachael, I think someone is trying to get through your window.’
Rachael looks back again, ‘Kate, I’m really getting concerned about your mental health. There is nothing behind me, there is nothing coming through my window and I think you might be a bit stressed out now. We can always do this tomorrow. You need some rest.’
Kate watches as the finger slowly creeps through the window, followed by a sharp, boney hand. It’s gold cufflinks gleam brightly as it long arm shoots through the window.
‘Rachael’ Kate says calmly, ‘get out. Get out now.’ Rachael giggles, ‘Get out of where? Look I’m going to hang up now so…’
Kate stands from her chair, ‘Get out of your room. Get out of your room now!’ Rachael shakes her head, ‘You know sometimes you can be….’
The white hand begins to crawl across Rachael’s floor rapidly. Kate jumps up and down, hysterically shaking her hands, ‘Rachael run! Run!’
The hand leaps from the floor and grabs Rachael’s hair. Rachael flips backwards in her chair, screaming and kicking her feet furiously. ‘Oh my God! Oh my God! Kate!’
The hand tugs her across the floor in a hard jerking motion. Rachael grabs the leg of her bed. The hand jerks Rachael again, breaking her grasp. ‘Mom! Dad!’ Rachael screams
Kate runs over to her nightstand. She picks up her phone, ‘Rachael! Hold on!’
The hand drags Rachael to the window. It lifts her by her hair off the floor. It pulls her to the window. Rachael quickly grabs the sides of the windows. The hand continues to pulls her and she tries to push her way back inside.
Kate feverously scrolls through her contacts. ‘Rachael! Keep fighting!’ Rachael places her feet against the frame of the window and struggles to pull away.
Kate finds the Sherriff’s number. She presses the button and puts it to her ear. The phone begins to beep. Kate takes the phone and looks at the display. “Low Battery”.
She runs over to the drawer of her night stand and pulls out her charger. She searches around her room for an empty outlet. ‘The lamp.’ She says to herself
She runs to the corner of her room and yanks the lamp’s plug from the wall. The room goes dark except for the soft blue glow of the computer screen. She connects the charger to her phone. She runs her hand down the wall and tries to feel for the double slotted opening of the outlet in the darkness.
Kate glances back to look at the screen for a moment. She can hear the sound of the hand ripping the hair from Rachael’s scalp as it tries to pull her to the outside of the bedroom. She sees Rachael pushing against the frame of the window, straining to straighten out her arms and legs.
Rachael’s hair begins to slip from the hand. Inch by inch, Rachael starts to distance herself from the window. Her arms and legs shake with strain while she desperately tries to pull herself in. The hand is losing its grip.
Kate watches Rachael pulling away. She keeps feeling around in the dark for the outlet. Nervous beads of sweat run down her face.
A light shock pierces her fingertip. ‘There it is!’
She shoves the plug in the outlet and pushes the power button. The light begins to blink. ‘Dammit!’ Kate screams, ‘The phone is completely drained! It’s going to take another 30 seconds before I have enough power to even dial out!’
She runs over to the computer. ‘Rachael, you hair is slipping out. Grab your hair and pull it! Pull it out!’
Rachael leans over closer to the wall, putting all her weight on her left arm. She reaches up and clutches a handful of her hair and begins to pull. She feels the pressure from her scalp ease. She pulls harder. Her arm and both her legs get straighter and she wrenches away from the window.
‘You’re doing it Rachael! Keep going! Keep going!’ Rachael pulls harder. She looks up and sees the locks sticking out from under the hand’s grip get shorter and shorter.
You’re almost there!’ Kate yells, ‘You’re almost there!’
Rachael straightens her legs out completely. The hand is left grasping the ends of her hair, but still it continues to pull.
‘Rachael, just a little more!’ Kate yells. She runs over to her charging phone and sees the display lit. ‘It’s enough power to call. Hang on Rachael!’
As Kate begins to dial the number, she sees another hand shoot through the window. The hand makes a fist and raises it over Rachael’s head. With a swift motion the hand comes down and pounds Rachael’s knee. Rachael screams out in pain as the crack of her knee echoes through the speakers.
The hand rises again and comes down on her knee once more. Rachael’s leg crunches. Her knee caves in. Her bone tears through her skin and shoots out the back of her leg, planting itself into the wooden floorboards of the room.
Rachael’s body goes limp. Her pupils flutter under her semi open eyes before rolling back into her head. The hands grab her and pulls her ragdoll like body out the window, her limbs clanking loudly against its frame as she disappears.
Kate stares at Rachael’s empty room, frozen with shock. She feels her heart beating in her throat. The sides of her neck begin to throb. She looks around the screen as she listens to the tranquil quietness of the room.
She hears a faint voice mumbling. She looks down at her phone and sees a connected call to the police station. She puts the phone to her ear.
‘Pinehurst police station. Hello? Hello, is anyone there? Do you have an emergency?’ The voice says through the speaker of the phone. Kate presses the end call button. She backs away from the desk and sits on the edge of her bed. ‘What…what happened?’ she whispers to herself in disbelief.
As she looks at the stillness of Rachael’s room, she sees the bony finger sliding into the window and plants its claws into the window’s wooden frame.
Kate rises from the bed and walks closer to the screen. Another sharp, white hand comes through the window and plunges its claws into the frame.
The creature’s long arms come through the window as it pulls it’s self into the room. It’s gold cufflinks gleam as it catches the light. Its long arms are barely covered by its mud smeared black suit.
‘What is that?’ Kate says to herself. She sees a white, roughly textured globe emerge from the open window. Two concaved craters where eyes should be looks directly toward the camera.
Kate reaches for the power button of the computer. She begins to switch it off when she sees the creature pull himself in the room and walk unsteadily towards her. The creature runs his fingers along the desk.
Kate takes her hand and covers the lens of her camera. The creature picks up a card. It waves the card in front of Rachael’s camera, the card with a circle and a chaotic X drawn in the middle. The creature points to the camera. The howling of the wind against the speakers almost sound like words,
‘Yooooou…tooooo’
The screen blanks to black. Complete darkness engulfs the room. Kate hands tremble violent.
She goes through her mind trying to make sense of the event that unfolded before her eyes. The trembles travel through her body. Her eyes start watering profusely. She wants to faint. She wants to run. But the only think she can do is scream.
Kate’s dad runs up the stairs. ‘Kate!’ he yells.
He reaches her door and flings it open. The light from the hallway shines on Kate’s teary face. She looks in the doorway and sees her father’s shadow holding a metal golf driver. He runs over to her and grabs her by the shoulders, ‘What’s wrong?! What happened?!’
Kate feels the safety of her father’s presence. She tried to stop her scream, but it continues. Kate’s dad starts to shake her, ‘Kate! Say something!’
She abruptly stops screaming, but the terror in her eyes remains. She sits on the side of her bed and blankly stares at the computer screen.
Kate’s dad kneels in front of her. He places the golf driver beside him and takes Kate by the hands. ‘Kate, what’s wrong. If something happened, you have to tell me.’ He says calmly.
Kate slowly turns to her dad. Her quivering lips rattle against each other, ‘Rachael is dead.’
‘What do you mean?’ her dad say confused, ‘What makes you think she’s dead?’
‘…Because….I saw her die.’
Chapter 15
The flashing blue and red lights from the police vehicles outside of Kate’s home swirl around the neighborhood.
Neighbors gather outside and speculate what is going on. ‘I don’t think the girl who lives there is in any trouble. But then again, you never know.’ says one woman wearing a pink bathrobe.
The gentleman beside her folds his arms and tries to look inside the windows for movement. ‘That girl can’t be in trouble. Maybe it has something to do with her parents. Between me and you, I always thought the wife was a little mouthy. Maybe tonight is the night the husband finally snapped.’
The woman sees a shadow moving in the window upstairs. She sees the figure looking out the window at the crowd that has gathered outside. She watches the man pull the curtains tightly together and sees his shadow sit down.
‘Well, that is her room. Maybe it does have something to do with her.’
Kate and her dad sit together on the bed as they watch a young officer in his early 20’s relentlessly pounds his fingers on her keyboard. His eyes are locked on the screen, his posture rigid and hard.
He only stops occasionally to brush his brownish red hair away from his forehead. Another officer, older but with the same brownish red hair, standing next to the bed pulls out a small spiral notepad and takes notes on the condition of the room.
Kate’s dad turns to the standing officer, ‘Exactly what is the tech guy looking for?’ he asks.
Without breaking the stride of his keystroke the young officer answers his question in a monotone voice. ‘Sometimes when you stream video, it can be captured on certain computer and stay in the data file for 12 hours. I’m just going through to see if anything can be recovered for evidence purposes.’
Kate’s dad lets out a nervous laugh, ‘I never knew that. Technology sure is something huh? I remember when I was a kid I was fascinated by a digital clock. Now they have all sorts of do-hickeys and gadgets.’
The young officer at the computer continues as if he didn’t hear the comment. Kate’s dad looks at the officer taking notes. ‘So exactly what are you looking for?’ he asks.
The officer keeps his eyes on his notepad as he casually writes, ‘I’m just taking a record of the state of the room. There may be something here that we may need to reference at a later date.’
Kate’s dad looks at the officer confused, ‘But nothing happened here. Why would you need to…?’
The older officer cuts him off, ‘It’s just standard procedure. We’re not implicating nor suggesting that your daughter had anything to do with Ms. Overton’s disappearance.’
Kate looks at her dad with concern. She nuzzles closer to him. ‘Do they think I had something to do with this?’ she says to him quietly. He puts his arm around her and pulls her closer, ‘They say it’s just standard procedure. You don’t have anything to worry about. I’m sure they are questioning everyone to get to the bottom of this.’
The officer at the computer swivels the chair and looks at the older officer. ‘There is nothing here but a log of the start of the web chat and the end.’
‘Hmmm,’ the officer says as he taps his pen on the rings of his notepad, ‘do you see any deletion after the call ended?’
Kate’s dad jumps up from the bed. He walks over to the older officer and stands close to him, chest to shoulder.
‘Are you saying my daughter is trying to cover something up?’ The older officer gives Kate’s dad a slight nudge, ‘Sir, please calm down. We have to explore all options. If you could please take a seat, we will continue with our investigation.’
Kate’s dad stands firmly against the officer. His eyes stare directly into his face unwavering. ‘Well this “investigation” seems like your implicating my daughter in this.’
The officer drops his hands to his sides. He turns to Kate’s dad and puffs out his chest. ‘Sir,’ he says in a dead tone, ‘We have to explore all options. Would you please have a seat or I’m going to have to ask you to leave the room.’
Kate reaches out and grabs her dad by the writs. ‘Dad, just sit down.’
Kate’s dad reluctantly walks away from the officer. His eyes beam with anger as he reluctantly sits down on the bed next to Kate.
The officer grabs the sleeves of his shirt and adjusts them, ‘Ok, Now Kate, I’m going to ask to a few questions. Please answer as honestly has possible, alright?’ ‘Yes officer.’ Kate says in a meek voice.
The older officer put his pen to his pad. ‘Kate, where were you between the hours of 7pm and 11pm?’
Kate looks up at the officer, ‘I was here, at home.’ The officer begins to write in his notepad, ‘And do you have anyone who can vouch for your whereabouts?’
Kate’s dad raises his hand, ‘I can tell you, with as much truth as possible, she was here.’
The officer peers over is notepad at Kate’s father. ‘Kate, do you have anyone that can vouch for your whereabouts between 7pm and 11pm?’
‘Yes,’ Kate says softly, ‘I was here, having dinner with my mother and father.’ The officer begins to write in his notepad. ‘And if you were to leave the house, would anyone have seen you besides your parents?’
Kate’s dad gets up from the bed. ‘She just told you, she was here and I can confirm she was here.’ The officer reaches for a pocket of his belt, ‘Sir, I need the statement form Kate. If you cannot comply with my request to sit down, I will have to ask you to leave.’
‘Bullshit!’ Kate’s dad yells, ‘She’s a minor, there has to be a parent present when answering questions like this. Besides you just asked her. She gave you a clear answer so what’s the fuss about?’
Kate grabs her dad by the write and tugs his arm down, ‘Dad, just sit down please! Mom is in no condition to come in here with me. She a wreck, just relax!’
Kate’s dad sits on the bed once more. He cuts his eyes at the officer, ‘Listen, you have one more ques
tion to ask her. Any other questions I wish to have an attorney present.’
‘Very well Sir,’ the officer says in a mildly aggressive voice, ‘This is your choice to have an attorney present. If you like, we can arrange transport for yourself and your daughter to the police station because legally, formal questioning must be recorded by the arresting officer. Is this an option you would like to explore?’
The Slender Man Game of Myths Page 14